r the destruction by the Babylonians had come
upon the people,--a third, after the visitation by the Greek tyranny
under the Maccabees. But the chief reference of the prophecy is,
throughout, to Christ, and to the vouchsafement [Pg 299] of the
blessing, and to the outpouring of the Spirit, originating in His
mediation.

The announcement of salvation for the Covenant-people is, in the third
and last part, followed by the opposite of it, viz., the announcement
of judgments upon the enemies of the Congregation of God. Their hatred
of it, proceeding from hatred to God, is employed by Him, indeed, as a
means of chastising and purifying His Church; but it does not, for that
reason, cease to be an object of His punitive justice. The fundamental
idea of this part of the book is expressed in 1 Pet. iv. 17 by the
words: "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of
God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that
obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved,
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" The description bears
here also, as in the second and first parts, a comprehensive character.
That which, in the course of history, is realized in a long series of
single acts of divine interposition against the enemies of the Church,
is here brought together in a single scene. The overthrow of Assyria,
Babylon, the Persian and Grecian monarchies, is comprehended in this
prophecy. But its final fulfilment must be sought for only in the
Messianic time. This is sufficiently evident from the relation of this
part, to the second. Having given ear to the Teacher of righteousness,
and the Spirit having been poured out upon her, the Congregation has
become an object of the loving providence of God. From this flows the
judgment upon her enemies. If, then, the promise of the Teacher of
righteousness and of the outpouring of the Spirit be, in substance,
Messianic, so, the judgment too must, in substance, bear a Messianic
character. The same appears from iv. (iii.) 18, according to which
passage, simultaneously with the judgments, there cometh forth, from
the house of the Lord, a fountain which watereth the valley of
Shittim--the waters of salvation which water the dry land of human
need. (Compare the remarks on Ezek. xlvii,; Zech. xiv. 8; and my
_Comment. on Revel._ xxii. 1.) This feature, however, clearly points to
the Messianic time.

We must here, however, avoid confounding t