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The distinction here between "this time" and the Age to Come is entirely Jewish, and shows that in the previous paragraph the Kingdom of God and eternal life were associated in the mind of Jesus with the Age to Come. But, it may be said, did not Jesus identify himself with the Davidic Messiah?
The same impatience of any word in their favor was shown then, as we find it now in the far West, where their treachery and barbarity is still a part of the story of to-day, and Johnson, in his "Wonder- Working Providence," gives one or two almost incredible details of warfare against them with a Davidic exultation over the downfall of so pestilent an enemy, that is more Gothic than Christian.
The meaning of the prophecy is that the offspring of David, who should come when the Davidic house was in the lowest depths of obscurity, like a tree of which only the stump is left, should not appear in royal pomp, or in a lofty condition, but as insignificant, feeble, and of no account.
The vision before Zacharias is that of a victor king of Davidic race, long foretold by prophets, who will set Israel free from its foreign oppressors, whether Roman or Idumean, and in whom God Himself 'visits and redeems His people. There are two kinds of divine visitations one for mercy and one for judgment.
There was to be no human, visible king, as with the surrounding nations. He was to be their king. They were to be peculiar in this. But to Samuel's sorrow and yet more to God's, they insisted upon a king. And so God gave them a king. And David the great shepherd-psalmist-king was a man after God's own heart, and the world's Saviour came of the Davidic line.
How strange it is that men will put out their hands to grasp their sins, even though they have to stretch across the smoke of the pit for them! The separation of the kingdom is deferred, and one tribe is left to the Davidic house; probably Judah is meant, and Benjamin is omitted as being small.
The explanation that we have here simply the ideal of the collective Davidic monarchy is a lame attempt to escape from the recognition of prophecy properly so called. It is the work of poetry to paint ideals, of prophecy to foretell, with God's authority, their realisation.
Does this not contain a strong hint of the explanation of that other etching plainly traceable in the epistles which reveals Paul's own marvellous prayer-life? Matthew, immersed in the Hebrew Scriptures, writes to the Jews of their promised Davidic King; Mark, with rapid pen, relates the ceaseless activity of this wonderful servant of the Father.
Patience antediluvian, patience postdiluvian, patience in times Adamic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, Pauline, Lutheran, Whitefieldian. Patience with men and nations. Patience with barbarisms and civilizations. Six thousand years of patience! Overtopping attribute of God, all of whose attributes are immeasurable. Why do the wicked live?
Not merely to 'muzzle' them, as the word in verse 34, rendered 'put to silence, literally means, but to bring to light the inadequate conceptions of the Messiah and of the nature of His kingdom, to which exclusive recognition of his Davidic descent necessarily led.
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