will of God He caused Him to be wounded by the nails of the cross and the soldier's lance." " For what even in the body of the Lord can be lovelier or more lightful," says a Catholic writer, " than those five wounds, which He willed to retain in His immortal Being, lest the blessed work should be deprived of that splendour surpassing far the light of sun and stars "; to which I would add the words of yet another, namely: " Beautiful were the gifts and graces which Christ received as man; but beautiful beyond all beauty must be those glorious scars with which He allowed His whole body to be riven, that throughout the whole frame His love might be engraven."
The last sentence of this Qth verse, "And I will remove the iniquity of this land in one day" may in a sense be regarded as the key to the whole vision, for it demon strates (i) the fact we have so frequently emphasised in the course of the exposition, namely, that it is to Israel as a nation that the vision primarily refers, and that what the prophet beheld as happening to Joshua was meant typically to set forth the experience of the whole people, which, in his official capacity as high priest, he represented; and (2) that the removal of Israel's iniquity, and their acceptance and reinstatement as Jehovah's priestly nation, are yet to take place in the future.
For which is this yom echad " one day " of which the prophet speaks? The Jewish answer is expressed in the words of their most popular commentator,[1] who says, " One day; I know not what that day is." Christian com mentators all substantially agree in saying, "It is the day of Golgotha," which is true, but yet does not express the whole truth.
What is here predicted will assuredly be fulfilled only on the ground and as a blessed consequence of " the day of Golgotha," when Christ through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot unto God, and thus once and for all put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; but the " one day " on which the iniquity of this land and people
- ↑ Rashi.
