careful, and that, even
according to his own views, he had retained a certain right to this use
of the passage, inasmuch as he considered Zerubbabel as a type of
Christ, and the birth of the latter at Bethlehem as an outward
representation of His descent from the Davidic family. It was at the
commencement of the Rationalistic period, when an easier mode of
evading the reference to Christ had not as yet been discovered, that
the reference to Zerubbabel was seized upon. It is found in _Dathe_ and
_Kuehnoel_ (_Mess. Weissagungen_, S. 88). The latter, however, changed
his opinion (compare Commentary on Matt. ii.), after such a mode had
been discovered, by referring the prophecy to the _ideal_ Christ. From
that time onwards, the reference to the _ideal_ Christ is found in
almost all the Rationalistic interpreters. The distinctness with which
the marks here given, viz., the birth in time at Bethlehem, and the
eternity of the origin, lead to the _historical_ Christ; and the
difficulty of explaining these when the prophecy is referred to the
_ideal_ Messiah, are rendered sufficiently evident by the efforts which
all these interpreters, without exception, have made to explain these
marks away. Who does not discover, in these very efforts, a confession
of their force, on the supposition that they can be, as they have
already been, demonstrated to have an actual existence? God Himself has
borne witness by facts against this explanation; for He ordered the
circumstance in such a manner that, by the birth of Christ at
Bethlehem, the prophecy was fulfilled. But how can a fulfilment be
spoken of by those who do not believe in prophecy, but see in it human
conjectures only, since the very idea of prophecy necessarily implies
divine inspiration? How should God have impressed His own seal upon
mere human conjectures, as He would have done by effecting an apparent
fulfilment? He would Himself have surely become the author of error by
so doing. _Finally_,--We shall afterwards see that, in the New
Testament, this passage has been explained in the strictest sense,
of the historical Christ; and the attempts of the Rationalistic
interpreters to divest that [Pg 501] quotation of its import, will
furnish us with a proof, that it is not truth for which they are
concerned, but the removal only, at any rate and cost, of a fact which
is irreconcilable with their system. All that has been advanced by them
(_e.g._, by _Justi_ and _Ammon_) against the r