"Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd,
Against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts.
Smite the Shepherd,
And the sheep shall be scattered."
We remember that these words were quoted by our Lord to his
disciples the night before his execution, when he was going forth
to meet his murderers. A hundred or so of years later, the prophet
Malachi says:--
"Behold, I send my messenger.
He shall prepare the way before me.
The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple:
Even the messenger of the covenant, in whom ye delight;
But who may abide the day of his coming?
Who shall stand when He appeareth?
For, like a refiner's fire shall He be,
And like fullers' soap.
He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.
He shall purify the sons of Levi."
How remarkably this prophecy describes the fiery vehemence and
energy of our Lord's first visit to the temple, when he drove
out the money-changers and completely cleansed the holy place of
unseemly traffic!
With this prophet the voice of prediction ceases. Let us for a
moment look back and trace its course. First, the vague promise of
a Deliverer, born of a woman; then, a designation of the race from
which he is to be born; then of the tribe; then of the family; then
the very place of his birth is predicted--Bethlehem-Ephratah being
mentioned to discriminate it from another Bethlehem. Then come a
succession of pictures of a Being concerning whom the most opposite
things are predicted. He is to be honored, adored, beloved; he is
to be despised and rejected--his nation hide their faces from him.
He is to be terrible and severe as a refiner's fire; he is to be
so gentle that a bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax
shall he not quench. He is to be seized and carried from prison to
judgment; he is surrounded by the wicked; his hands and feet are
pierced, his garments divided; they cast lots for his vesture; he
is united by his death both with the wicked and with the rich; he
is cut off from the land of the living. He is cut off, but not for
himself; his kingdom is to be an everlasting kingdom; he is to have
dominion from sea to sea, and of the increase of his government and
of peace there is to be no end.
How strange that for ages these conflicting and apparently
contradictory oracles had been accumulating, until finally came One
who fulfilled them all. Is not this indeed the Christ--the Son of
God?