3 i8 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
or send free) " thy prisoners " (or captives : literally, " thy bound ones ") " out of the pit wherein is no water
It is the whole nation which is thus addressed, as we see from the context, where the inclusive terms " Ephraim and Judah " and " Judah and Ephraim " l are used. This is clear also from the words which follow, for the covenant which God made, whether with Abraham or with the people at the foot of Mount Sinai, included the whole people, and there was no provision or promise in it which applied to one part, or to some of the tribes and not to the others.
The primary reference of the phrase =ir i n .? E"!?, bedam berithekh " the blood of thy covenant " is most probably to Ex. xxiv., when, at the ratification of the Sinaitic cove nant, we read that Moses took the blood of the slain animals in basins, and, after sprinkling half on the altar, which represented God, and half on the people, he ex claimed, " Behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." 2
To that covenant Israel proved itself unfaithful ; and as they still persist as a nation in taking their place before God on the ground of a broken law, and strive, though vainly, to establish a righteousness of their own, they have been permitted to have a long and bitter taste of the curses which the law proclaims against disobedience to its pre cepts. But though Israel proved themselves unfaithful, and this particular covenant itself was " broken," 3 " the blood of the covenant" on which emphasis is laid in this prophecy, was a sign and pledge of the faithfulness of God (though all men prove liars), and typically set forth the provision which God has made by which eventually His disobedient and rebellious people would be brought back within the sphere of blessing.
But the covenant of Sinai was not the only one which God made with and for Israel ; there was a much earlier one the one He made with Abraham, which was in the nature, not of a contract between two parties, but of a promise to the fulfilment of which God alone was pledged.
1 Vers. 10-13. 2 Ex. xxiv. 8. 3 Jer. xxxi. 31.
