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PROPHECY.

"And Saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's."Chap. i. 21.

FULFILMENT.

"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine: continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." -1 Tim. iv. 16.

Also: "And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."-Luke i. 33. See also Rev. xi. 13. and xix. 6.

The primary allusion of this prophecy was doubtless to the saviours or leaders of the Jews who should lead them to victory, and to the punishment of Edom. The deliverance and holiness predicted to be about to come on Mount Zion (v. 17,) show, that this paragraph belongs to our subject; in which as it is not unusual with the prophets, the temporal and spiritual destinies of the people are combined.

The second allusion was to the salvation and redemption of Christ, of whom the deliverers or judges of Israel were in different degrees typical; and it will be simply required to examine other predictions

1 See Judges iii. 9. Isa. xix. 20.

to certify ourselves, that "the kingdom shall be the Lord's," is an expression in prophetic language commonly applied to the Christian Church.

JONAH.

THIS prophet is allowed to be the most ancient of all the prophets. The sacred writers, and our Saviour Himself, acknowledged him a prophet. He it was, who was in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights, thereby typifying the Saviour's burial, who was for three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth.

PROPHECY.

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."-Chap. i.

21.

FULFILMENT.

"For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."-Matt. xii. 40.

Although we cannot enumerate the verse, which we have selected from this book, among the prophecies; yet its typical reference to Christ, and its appropriation to Him in the New Testament, demand that it be not omitted in this place. We will not enter into the many speculations, which have been

proposed respecting the species of fish, which could have been capable of this act of deglutition, nor animadvert on the various interpretations and conjectures which have been made. It will be quite enough for our purpose to state, that naturalists have decided on the capability of the cachalot to have performed the part mentioned in the history, and that other species of the grampus have been instanced as equally adequate to the deed. Thus, therefore, whether we consider the narrative as recording a miracle or a natural event, the sacred book is justified;-the idea of danger accruing from a wicked person on board of a ship was indeed very common 1.

This occurrence had, however, an object beyond the punishment of the prophet; it had a typical analogy to the resurrection of our Saviour; and from the identity of time which Jonah's durance and our Saviour's interment continued, could not, after Christ had risen from the dead, but have been accepted as a prophetic type of this display of Almighty power, by all who remembered his words,

1

Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum

Vulgârit arcanæ, sub iisdem

Sit trabibus, fragilemque mecum
Solvat phaselum.

HOR. Od. iii. 2. 26.

and by every Christian who read the ancient Scrip

tures.

MICAH.

MICAH flourished 750 B. c. under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; but we cannot classify the prophecies, which he uttered under each particular reign. Some have incorrectly confounded him with Micaiah, who prophesied before Ahab; for which no better reason, than a similarity of name, and of diction in "hear, all ye people," has been assigned. Some points of accordance between him and Isaiah have already been noticed, which may be explained by the fact of their being contemporaries. One of the prophet's predictions is remarkable for having saved the life of Jeremiah, who would have been put to death for prophesying the destruction of the Temple, had not Micah done so before him. This prophecy was in chap. iii. 12. and the historical account is in Jeremiah xxvi. 18, 19. where exists a complete demonstration, that Micah lived in the days of Hezekiah, as the superscription of his book asserts. Our Saviour Himself spoke in the language of this prophet.

PROPHECY.

"Thou Bethlehem Ephra

FULFILMENT.

"And they said unto him,

tah, though thou be little In Bethlehem of Judea, for

PROPHECY.

among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be the ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."-Chap.

v. 2.

FULFILMENT.

thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, art not the least among the princes of Juda; for out of thee shall come a governor, that shall rule my people Israel."-Matt. ii. 5, 6.

In chap. ii. 12. sqq. there is an antitypical reference to the deliverance from Egypt, in which, according to the term there employed, Moses was "the leader," the breaker in the thirteenth verse being Israel's King and God-the Messiah, as several Jewish expositors allow'. Throughout the third chapter, the prophet resumes his denunciation of judgments, but in the fourth prominently brings forward the Messiah in words, which have already been considered in our remarks upon Isaiah. The third chapter must perhaps be deemed parenthetical, and the end of the second and beginning of the fourth must be united in sense. The fifth chapter commences in a manner, that has been interpreted of the invasion of the Romans; and the second

1 Luther comments on the passage, "Nunc transitione utitur propheta): transfert enim sermonem à præsenti periculo et corporali regno ad regnum Christi spirituale. Hic enim prophetarum mos est. Postquam impios securè peccantes castigârunt ac prædixerunt futuram vastitatem, tandem etiam de regno Christi æterno concionantur."

P

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