Resultados para: "Battle-bow"

<p>That here begins a prophecy of the Messiah and his kingdom is plain from the literal accomplishment of the ninth verse in, and its express application to, Christ&#039;s riding in triumph into Jerusalem, Mat 21:5; Joh 12:15.
I. Here is notice given of the approach of the Messiah promised, as matter of great joy to the Old Testament church: Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. Christ is a king, invested with regal powers and prerogatives, a sovereign prince, an absolute monarch, having all power both in heaven and on earth. He is Zion&#039;s king. God has set him upon his holy hill of Zion, Psa 2:6. In Zion his glory as a king shines; thence his law went forth, even the word of the Lord. In the gospel-church his spiritual kingdom is administered; it is by him that the ordinances of the church are instituted, and its officers commissioned; and it is taken under his protection; he fights the church&#039;s battles and secures its interests, as its king. &quot;This King has been long in coming, but now, behold, he cometh; he is at the door. There are but a few ages more to run out, and he that shall come will come. He cometh unto thee; the Word will shortly be made flesh, and dwell within thy borders; he will come to his own. And therefore rejoice, rejoice greatly, and shout for joy; look upon it as good news, and be assured it is true; please thyself to think that he is coming, that he is on his way towards thee; and be ready to go forth to meet him with acclamations of joy, as one not able to conceal it, it is so great, nor ashamed to own it, it is so just; cry Hosanna to him.&quot; Christ&#039;s approaches ought to be the church&#039;s applauses.
II. Here is such a description of him as renders him very amiable in the eyes of all his loving subjects, and his coming to them very acceptable. 1. He is a righteous ruler; all his acts of government will be exactly according to the rules of equity, for he is just. 2. He is a powerful protector to all those that bear faith and true allegiance to him, for he has salvation; he has it in his power; he has it to bestow upon all his subjects. He is the God of salvation; treasures of salvation are in him. He is servatus - saving himself (so some read it), rising out of the grave by his own power and so qualifying himself to be our Saviour. (3.) He is a meek, humble, tender Father to all his subjects as his children; he is lowly; he is poor and afflicted (so the word signifies), so it denotes the meanness of his condition; having emptied himself, he was despised and rejected of men. But the evangelist translates it so as to express the temper of his spirit: he is meek, not taking state upon him, nor resenting injuries, but humbling himself from first to last, condescending to the mean, compassionate to the miserable; this was a bright and excellent character of him as a prophet (Mat 11:29, Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart), and no less so as a king. It was a proof of this that, when he made his public entry into his own city (and it was the only passage of his life that had any thing in it magnificent in the eye of the world), he chose to ride, not upon a stately horse, or in a chariot, as great men used to ride, but upon an ass, a beast of service indeed, but a poor silly and contemptible one, low and slow, and in those days ridden only by the meaner sort of people; nor was it an ass fitted for use, but an ass&#039;s colt, a little foolish unmanageable thing, that would be more likely to disgrace his rider than be any credit to him; and that not his own neither, nor helped off, as sometimes a sorry horse is, by good furniture, for he had no saddle, no housings, no trappings, no equipage, but his disciples&#039; clothes thrown upon the colt;&#039; for he made himself of no reputation when he visited us in great humility.
III. His kingdom is here set forth in the glory of it. This king has, and will have, a kingdom, not of this world, but a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom of heaven. 1. It shall not be set up and advanced by external force, by an arm of flesh or carnal weapons of warfare. No; he will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horses from Jerusalem (Zac 9:10), for he shall have no occasion for them while he himself rides upon an ass. He will, in kindness to his people, cut off their horses and chariots, that they may not cut themselves off from God by putting that confidence in them which they should put in the power of God only. He will himself undertake their protection, will himself be a wall of fire about Jerusalem and give his angels charge concerning it (those chariots of fire and horses of fire), and then the chariots and horses they had in their service shall be discarded and cut off as altogether needless. 2. It shall be propagated and established by the preaching of the gospel, the speaking of peace to the heathen; for Christ came and preached peace to those that were afar off and to those that were nigh; and so established his kingdom by proclaiming on earth peace, and good-will towards men. 3. His kingdom, as far as it prevails in the minds of men and has the ascendant over them, will make them peaceable, and slay all enmities; it will cut off the battle-bow, and beat swords into plough-shares. It will not only command the peace, but will create the fruit of the lips, peace. 4. It shall extend itself to all parts of the world, in defiance of the opposition given to it. &quot;The chariot and horse that come against Ephraim and Jerusalem, to oppose the progress of Zion&#039;s King, shall be cut off; his gospel shall be preached to the world, and be received among the heathen, so that his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth, as was foretold by David,&quot; Psa 72:8. The preachers of the gospel shall carry it from one country, one island, to another, till some of the remotest corners of the world are enlightened and reduced by it.
IV. Here is an account of the great benefit procured for mankind by the Messiah, which is redemption from extreme misery, typified by the deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity in Babylon (Zac 9:11): &quot;As for thee also (thee, O daughter of Jerusalem! or thee, O Messiah the Prince!) by the blood of thy covenant, by force and virtue of the covenant made with Abraham, sealed with the blood of circumcision, and the covenant made with Israel at Mount Sinai, sealed with the blood of sacrifices, in pursuance and performance of that covenant, I have now of late sent forth thy prisoners, thy captives out of Babylon, which was to them a most uncomfortable place, as a pit in which was no water.&quot; It was part of the covenant that, if in the land of their captivity, they sought the Lord, he would be found of them, Lev 26:42, Lev 26:44, Lev 26:45; Deu 30:4. It was by the blood of that covenant, typifying the blood of Christ, in whom all God&#039;s covenants with man are yea and amen, that they were released out of captivity; and this was but a shadow of the great salvation wrought out by thy King, O daughter of Zion! Note, A sinful state is a state of bondage; it is a spiritual prison; it is a pit, or a dungeon, in which there is no water, no comfort at all to be had. We are all by nature prisoners in this pit; the scripture has concluded us all under sin, and bound us over to the justice of God. God is pleased to deal upon new terms with these prisoners, to enter into another covenant with them; the blood of Christ is the blood of that covenant, purchased it for us and all the benefits of it; by that blood of the covenant effectual provision is made for the sending forth of these prisoners upon easy and honourable terms, and proclamation made of liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those that were bound, like Cyrus&#039;s proclamation to the Jews in Babylon, which all those whose spirits God stirs up will come and take the benefit of.</p>

<p>Gracious things and glorious ones, very glorious and very gracious, were promised to this poor afflicted people in the foregoing chapter; now here God intimates to them that he will for these things be enquired of by them, and that he expects they should acknowledge him in all their ways and in all his ways towards them - and not idols that were rivals with him for their respects.
I. The prophet directs them to apply to God by prayer for rain in the season thereof. He had promised, in the close of the foregoing chapter, that there should be great plenty of corn and wine, whereas for several years, by reason of unseasonable weather, there had been great scarcity of both; but the earth will not yield its fruits unless the heavens water it, and therefore they must look up to God for the dew of heaven, in order to the fatness and fruitfulness of the earth (Zac 10:1): &quot;Ask you of the Lord rain. Do not pray to the clouds, nor to the stars, for rain, but to the Lord; for he it is that hears the heavens, when they hear the earth,&quot; Hos 2:21. Seasonable rain is a great mercy, which we must ask of God, rain in the time of the latter rain, when there is most need of it. The former rain fell at the seed-time, in autumn, the latter fell in the spring, between March and May, which brought the corn to an ear and filled it. If either of these rains failed, it was very bad with that land; for from the end of May to September they never had any rain at all. Jerome, who lived in Judea, says that he never saw any rain there in June or July. They are directed to ask for it in the time when it used to come. Note, We must, in our prayers, dutifully attend the course of Providence; we must ask for mercies in their proper time, and not expect that God should go out of his usual way and method for us. But, since sometimes God denied rain in the usual time as a token of his displeasure, they must pray for it then as a token of his favour, and they shall not pray in vain. Ask and it shall be given you. So the Lord shall make bright clouds (which, though they are without rain themselves, are yet presages of rain) - lightnings (so the margin reads it), for he maketh lightnings for the rain. He will give them showers of rain in great abundance, and so give to every one grass in the field; for God is universally good, and makes his rain to fall upon the just and the unjust.
II. He shows them the folly of making their addresses to idols as their fathers had done (Zac 10:2): The idols have spoken vanity; the teraphim, which they courted and consulted in their distress, were so far from being able to command rain for them that they could not so much as tell them when they should have rain. They pretended to promise them rain at such a time, but it did not come. The diviners, who were the prophets of those idols, have seen a lie (their visions were all a cheat and a sham); and they have told false dreams, such as the event did not answer, which proved that they were not from God. Thus they comforted in vain those that consulted the lying oracles; all the vanities of the heathen put together could not give rain, Jer 14:22. Yet this was not the worst of it; they not only got nothing by the false gods, but they lost the favour of the true God, for therefore they went their way into captivity as a flock driven into the fold, and they were troubled with one vexation after another, as scattered sheep are, because there was no shepherd, no prince to rule them, no priest to intercede for them, none to take care of them and keep them together. Those that wandered after strange gods were made to wander, into strange nations.
III. He shows them the hand of God in all the events that concerned them, both those that made against them and those that made for them, Zac 10:3. Let them consider, 1. When every thing went cross it was God that walked contrary to them (Zac 10:3): &quot;My anger was kindled against the shepherds that should have fed the flock, but neglected it, and starved it. I was displeased at the wicked magistrates and ministers, the idol-shepherds.&quot; The captivity in Babylon was a token of God&#039;s anger against them; in it likewise he punished the goats, those of the flock that were filthy and mischievous; they were set on the left hand, to go away into punishment. Though the body of the nation suffered in the captivity, yet it was only the goats and the shepherds that God was angry with, and that he punished; the same affliction to others came from the love of God, and was but a fatherly chastisement, which to them came from his wrath, and was a judicial punishment. 2. When things began to change for the better it was God that gave them the happy turn. &quot;He has now visited his flock with favour, to enquire after them, and provides what he finds proper for them, and he has made them as his goodly horse in the battle, has beautified them, taken care of them, managed and made use of them, as a man does the horse he rides on, has made them valuable in themselves and formidable to those about them, as his goodly horse.&quot; It is God that makes us what we are, and it is with us as he appoints.
IV. He shows them that every creature is to them what God makes it to be (Zac 10:4): Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nails. 1. All the power that was engaged against them was from God. Out of him came all the combined force of their enemies; every oppressor together (and the oppressors of Israel were not a few) did but what his hand and his counsel determined before to be done; nor could they have had such power against them unless it had been given them from above. 2. All the power likewise that was engaged for them was derived from him and depended on him. Out of him came forth the corner-stone of the building, the power of magistrates, which keeps the several parts of the state together. Princes are often called the corners of the people, as Sa1 14:38, marg. Out of him came forth the nail that fixed the state, the nail in the sure place (Isa 22:23), the nail in his holy place, Ezr 9:8. Out of him came forth the battle-bow, the military power, and out of him every oppressor, or exactor, that had the civil power in his hand; and therefore to God, the fountain of power, we must always have an eye, and see every man&#039;s judgment proceeding from him.</p>

<p>As for thee also--that is, the daughter of Zion,&quot; or &quot;Jerusalem&quot; (Zac 9:9): the theocracy. The &quot;thee also,&quot; in contradistinction to Messiah spoken of in Zac 9:10, implies that besides cutting off the battle-bow and extending MESSIAH&#039;S &quot;dominion to the ends of the earth,&quot; God would also deliver for her her exiled people from their foreign captivity.

by the blood of thy covenant--that is, according to the covenant vouchsafed to thee on Sinai, and ratified by the blood of sacrifices (Exo 24:8; Heb 9:18-20).

pit wherein . . . no water--Dungeons were often pits without water, miry at the bottom, such as Jeremiah sank in when confined (Gen 37:24; Jer 38:6). An image of the misery of the Jewish exiles in Egypt, Greece, &amp;c., under the successors of Alexander, especially under Antiochus Epiphanes, who robbed and profaned the temple, slew thousands, and enslaved more. God delivered them by the Maccabees. A type of the future deliverance from their last great persecutor hereafter (Isa 51:14; Isa 60:1).</p>

<p>Out of him--Judah is to be no more subject to foreigners, but from itself shall come its rulers.

the corner--stone, Messiah (Isa 28:16). &quot;Corners&quot; simply express governors (Sa1 14:38, Margin; Isa 19:13, Margin). The Maccabees, Judah&#039;s governors and deliverers from Antiochus the oppressor, are primarily meant; but Messiah is the Antitype. Messiah supports and binds together the Church, Jews and Gentiles.

the nail-- (Jdg 4:21; Isa 22:23). The large peg inside an Oriental tent, on which is hung most of its valuable furniture. On Messiah hang all the glory and hope of His people.

bow-- (Zac 9:13). Judah shall not need foreign soldiery. Messiah shall be her battle-bow (Psa 45:4-5; Rev 6:2).

every oppressor--rather, in a good sense, ruler, as the kindred Ethiopic term means. So &quot;exactor,&quot; in Isa 60:17, namely, one who exacts the tribute from the nations made tributary to Judah [LUDOVICUS DE DIEU].</p>