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but when they understand by the Israel of the heading belonging to ch. 12-14, which we find in Zec 12:1-9, only the unbelieving carnal Israel, and by that in ch. 14 the believing Israel which has been converted to Christ, and also introduce into Zec 12:1-9 an antithesis between Israel and Judah, and then understand by Jerusalem and the house of David in Zec 12:1-14 the hardened Jews, and by Judah, Christendom; and, on the other hand, by Jerusalem and Judah in ch. 14 the Christendom formed of believing Jews and believing Gentiles, - we have already shown at Zec 12:10 that these distinctions are arbitrarily forced upon the text.
Our prophecy treats in both parts - Zechariah 12:1-13:6 and ch. 13:7-14:21 - of Israel, the people of God, and indeed the people of the new covenant, which has grown out of the Israel that believed in Christ, and believers of the heathen nations incorporated into it, and refers not merely to the church of the new covenant in the last times, when all the old Israel will be liberated by the grace of God from the hardening inflicted upon it, and will be received again into the kingdom of God, and form a central point thereof (Vitringa, C. B. Mich., etc.), but to the whole development of the church of Christ from its first beginning till its completion at the second coming of the Lord, as Hengstenberg has in the main discovered and observed. As the Israel of the heading (Zec 12:1) denotes the people of God in contradistinction to the peoples of the world, the inhabitants of Jerusalem with the house of David, and Judah with its princes, as the representatives of Israel, are typical epithets applied to the representatives and members of the new covenant people, viz., the Christian church; and Jerusalem and Judah, as the inheritance of Israel, are types of the seats and territories of Christendom. The development of the new covenant nation, however, in conflict with the heathen world, and through the help of the Lord and His Spirit, until its glorious completion, is predicted in our oracle, not according to its successive historical course, but in such a manner that the first half announces how the church of the Lord victoriously defeats the attacks of the heathen world through the miraculous help of the Lord, and how in consequence of this victory it is increased by the fact that the hardened Israel comes more and more to the acknowledgment of its sin and to