I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.-Ex. xx. 2. See also Deut. v. 6.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. Ex. xxxii. 7. See also xxxiii. 1.

What conclusion are we to draw here? The meaning is obviously that Moses was God's instrument in leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. In like manner, since God manifested Himself in Christ, it was quite natural to speak of John the Baptist as saying, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Indeed, the Jews thought of the reign of the Messiah as a coming of Jehovah, though they neither identified nor confused the two. God comes, according to the language of Scripture, when a commissioned instrument of His will appears. What is said to be done by Moses or an angel in one passage is described as done by God in another. In the Pentateuch Moses is confounded with God Himself in a very strange and almost inexplicable manner; which at least illustrates the fact how far we ought to be from insisting on the bare letter of a passage, picked out here and there, in opposition to common sense and the general tenor of a writing.*

In Deut. xi. 13-15, Moses is represented as thus addressing the Israelites: "And it shall come to pass, that if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love Jehovah, your God, and to serve Him with all

*Norton's Statement of Reasons, p. 187.

D

your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, and I will send grass in thy fields."

Again, Deut. xxix. 2, 5, 6, "And Moses called together all Israel and said unto them, . . . . I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not waxen old upon you, nor your shoes waxen old upon your feet: ye have not eaten bread, nor drunk wine nor strong drink; that ye may know that I, Jehovah, am your God."

66

Once more: Deut. xxxi. 22, 23, Moses, then, wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel. "And he gave Joshua, the son of Nun, a charge, and said: Be strong and of good courage; for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them, and I will be with thee."

(2.) The next proof brought forward is the fact that St. Peter borrows the imagery of Isaiah respecting Jehovah and the two houses of Israel, and applies it to Christ and those who rejected him.

Sanctify Jehovah of hosts Himself, and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread, and He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.-Isaiah viii. 13, 14.

Unto you, therefore, which believe He (Christ) is precious; but a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient.-1 Peter ii. 7, 8.

The figurative language is equally applicable in both instances, though the former refers to the time of the invasion of Judah by the Assyrians, while

the latter has reference to the apostolic age. I have no doubt the apostle Paul had the same passage more remotely in view when he besought the Romans to "take heed that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." λίθος προσκόμματος καὶ πέτρα σκανδάλου.—1 Pet.ii.8. πρόσκομμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἢ σκάνδαλον.—Rom. xiv. 13. Indeed, the word "stumbling-block" is frequently employed in a figurative sense.

Here let me remark that a careful examination of the passages in the New Testament, quoted from the Old, will shew that they are not all used as an application of prophecy, strictly so called, or even employed in their original meaning, but are sometimes simply adaptations of scriptural language. Dr. Pye Smith says, "The citations from the Old Testament (in the first two chapters of Matthew) are rather of the nature of classical passages, capable of a descriptive application to the events, than direct prophecies. Such applications have been always common, not only among the Jews, but with every other nation possessing any literature. So we every day apply to observable events striking sentences of our own poets."* "He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me," John xiii. 18, is from Psalm xli. 9, in which David complains of being deserted : "Yea, mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." In Matt. xiii. 35, Psalm lxviii. 2, is quoted, "I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter sayings of ancient times." The Psalm relates *Scrip. Test., vol. ii., p. 6.

to the past, and recounts the great events of Jewish history, yet the Evangelist applies the words to our Lord's use of Parables. In Matt. xxvii. 9, the prophet Jeremiah is referred to, but the words ascribed to him are to be found in Zechariah xi. 12, 13, and not in Jeremiah.—Isaiah liii. 4. “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," is applied by St. Matthew (viii. 7,) to the healing of bodily disease, whilst St. Peter applies it to bearing our sins on the cross. Both applications are, of course, perfectly suitable.*

(3.) And I (Jehovah) will pour upon the house of David, etc., and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. -Zech. xii. 10.

And again, another Scripture saith, “They shall look on him (Christ) whom they pierced.'—John xix. 37.

The reader will notice that in one of these passages we have “They shall look on me,” etc., and in the other,

* "Ye shall not break a bone thereof," was one of the directions in the law respecting the Paschal lamb, (Ex. xii. 46). The Jews in commemorating, in after ages, their hasty departure from Egypt, were not to stop at the Paschal table to break the lamb's bones, to taste the marrow. As the body of Jesus hung upon the cross, the soldiers, for a reason given, forebore to deal with it as with those of the malefactors: "That the Scripture might be fulfilled," John adds, "A bone of him shall not be broken," (John xix. 36). "Jesus came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth," records Matthew, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene'" (Matt. ii. 23); where no other text seems so likely to have been in his view, as that where it said, that Samson should be, or be called, "A Nazarite from his birth" (Judges xiii. 7). When Herod slew "all the children which were in Bethlehem, from two years old and under," "then was fulfilled," says Matthew, (ii. 17, 18), "that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, 'In Ramah was there a voice heard, Rachel weeping for her children.'" The reference is

"On him whom they have pierced." In Archbishop Newcome's work on the Minor Prophets we find Zech. xii. 10, translated, "They shall look on him," and in a note the Archbishop gives his authority for the change. Dr. Pye Smith thinks the balance of authority in favor of the Common Version; but the internal evidence is strong and the external very considerable in favor of the reading preferred by Kennicott, Newcome, and others. Hence, Hartwell Horne in his Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, says, "It is evident that the Evangelist here plainly read TM, him, instead of, me, in the Hebrew. But so also read thirty-six Hebrew manuscripts, and two ancient editions; and that this is the true reading appears by what follows, and they shall mourn for him." According to this view, it is not Jehovah who is represented as pierced. But whether the passage in Zechariah is to be interpreted so literally as in its application by St. John has been a question with the learned. "God," says Calvin, "here speaks in the manner of men, signifying that He is wounded by the wickedness of His people, and especially by the obstinate contempt of His word, as a man is mortally wounded when his heart is pierced.”*

to a passage of the prophecy of Jeremiah, where, on the occasion of the calamity of Ramah, a city of the tribe of Benjamin, Rachel, the mother of that tribe, is beautifully represented as deploring their lot (Jer. xxxi. 15). But the innocents of Bethlehem were descended from Judah, a son of Leah; and to suppose Matthew to have cited the words as a prediction of their fate, is to lose sight of all the propriety of the allusion.-Palfrey's Lowell Lectures, vol. ii., p. 240. Compare also Matt. ii. 14, 15, and Hosea xi. 1; Luke i. 17, and Malachi iv. 5, 6; John ii. 17; and Psalm lxix. 9. * Though Mr. Bickersteth gives this as a proof that Christ is Jehovah, in p. 54, he says, in p. 75, “As man, He (Jesus) is the