'He shall build the Temple of the Lord ... and He shall be a Priest
upon His throne.'--ZECHARIAH vi. 13.
A handful of feeble exiles had come back from their Captivity. 'The holy
and beautiful house' where their fathers praised Him was burned with
fire. There was no king among them, but they still possessed a
representative of the priesthood, the other great office of divine
appointment. Their first care was to rear some poor copy of the Temple;
and the usual difficulties that attend reconstruction of any sort, and
dog every movement that rests upon religious enthusiasm, beset them
--strong enemies, and half-hearted friends, and personal jealousies
weakening still more their weak forces. In this time of anarchy, of toil
at a great task with inadequate resources, of despondency that was
rapidly fulfilling its own forebodings, the Prophet, who was the spring
of the whole movement, receives a word in season from the Lord. He is
bidden to take from some of the returned exiles the tribute-money which
they had brought, and having made of it golden and silver crowns--the
sign of kingship--to set them on the high priest's head, thus uniting
the sacerdotal and regal offices, which had always been jealously
separated in Israel. This singular action is explained, by the words
which he is commanded to speak, as being a symbolic prophecy of Him who
is 'the Branch'--the well-known name which older prophets had used for
the Messiah--indicating that in Him were the reality which the
priesthood shadowed, and the rule which was partly delegated to Israel's
king as well as the power which should rear the true temple of God among
men.
It is in accordance with the law of prophetic development from the
beginning, that the external circumstances of the nation at the moment
should supply the mould into which the promise is run. The earliest of
all Messianic predictions embraced only the existence of evil, as
represented by the serpent, and the conquest of it by one who was known
but as a son of Eve. When the history reaches the patriarchal stage,
wherein the family is the predominant conception, the prophecy
proportionately advances to the assurance, 'In thy seed shall all the
families of the earth be blessed.' When the mission of Moses had made
the people familiar with the idea of a man who was the medium of
revelation, then a further stage was reached--'a Prophet shall the Lord
your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me.' The kingdom
of David prepared the way for the prediction of the royal dignity of the
Messiah, as the peaceful reign of Solomon for the expectation of one who
should bring peace by righteousness. The approach of national disaster
and sorrow was reflected in Isaiah's vision of the suffering Messiah,
and that prophet's announcements of exile had for their counterpoise the
proclamation of Him who should bring liberty to the captive. So, here,
the kingless band of exiles, painfully striving to rear again the
tabernacle which had fallen down, are heartened for their task by the
thought of the priest-king of the nation, the builder of an imperishable
dwelling-place for God.
To-day we need these truths not less than Zechariah's contemporaries
did. And, thank God! we can believe that, for every modern perplexity,
the blessed old words carry the same strength and consolation. If kings
seem to have perished from among men, if authorities are dying out, and
there are no names of power that can rally the world--yet there is a
Sovereign. If old institutions are crumbling, and must still further
decay ere the site for a noble structure be cleared, yet He shall build
the Temple. If priest be on some lips a name of superstitious folly, and
on others a synonym for all that is despised as effete in religion, yet
this Priest abideth for ever, the guide and the hope for the history of
humanity and for the individual spirit. Let us, then, put ourselves
under the Prophet's guidance, and consider the eternal truths which he
preaches to us too.