n it; do not turn to the right hand,
nor to the left." Accordingly, after they have put away what was evil,
ver. 22: "The Lord giveth the rain of thy seed, with which thou sowest
thy land," etc., ver. 23. The teacher is not a human teacher, but God.
_Human_ teachers had not concealed themselves; but that the Lord had
concealed Himself, is affirmed in the preceding verses. The words,
"Behind thee" (ver. 21), suggest the idea of a teacher of such a glory
that they could not look in his face (compare Rev. i. 10); and the
words, "Thine eyes see thy teacher," ver. 20, imply the idea of the
high majesty of the teacher, and suggest the idea of a revelation of
the glory of the Lord; compare Is. xl. 5, lii. 8. The Lord must first
manifest Himself as a Teacher, before He appears as a Saviour. In
Isaiah, the Lord Himself appears as the Teacher; as also in Hos. x. 12:
"It is time to seek the Lord, till He [Pg 330] come and teach you
righteousness;" while in Joel, on the contrary, it is the Lord who
giveth the Teacher. Both may be reconciled by the consideration, that
in the Teacher whom the Lord gives, the glory of the Lord becomes
manifest.

It now only remains to inquire who is to be understood by the Teacher
of righteousness. (Teacher of righteousness is equivalent to: "Teaching
them how they should fear the Lord," 2 Kings xvii. 28.) It is referred
to the Messiah, not only by almost all those Christian interpreters who
follow this explanation, with the exception of _Grotius_, who
conjectures that Isaiah or some other prophet is to be thereby
understood; but also, after the example of _Jonathan_, by several
Jewish commentators; _e.g._, _Abarbanel_, who says: "This teacher of
righteousness, however, is the King Messiah, who will show the way in
which we must walk, and the works which we must do." Even on account of
the article, it is not possible to refer it to a single human teacher;
and this argument may, at the same time, be added to those which oppose
the explanation of [Hebrew: mvrh] by "an early rain." There can be only
the choice betwixt the Messiah as the long promised Teacher [Greek:
kat' exochen], and the _ideal_ teacher,--the collective body of all
divine teachers. But the latter view requires to be somewhat raised,
before it can be allowed to enter into the competition. That we have
not here before us an ordinary collective body, is shown by the
parallel passage in Isaiah, according to which the glory of the Lord is
t