And there is yet a future, or final, culminating " affliction,"
"trouble," or " tribulation," as the same Hebrew word is elsewhere rendered, awaiting Israel after a large remnant of them are returned to their land in a condition of unbelief, when all nations will be gathered in a final siege of Jerusalem (Zech. xiii., xiv.); but even then, when the nations cry, " Come, let us destroy them from being a nation, that the name of Israel be no more held in remembrance"
(Ps. Ixxxiii. 4) one more blow, and the Jewish nation will be no more the answer of the saved remnant, who are delivered by the sudden appearance of their Messiah, will be: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of Jehovah " Yet they ttave not prevailed against me.
Israel is indestructible. The bush may burn, but it cannot be consumed, because God has said: " Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee."
But to come to the other points in this vision which need explanation. The peculiar structure of the sentence and the unusual designation of the chosen people as "Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem," in ver. 19, has given ground to many, and some of them very fanciful interpreta tions, but there can be no doubt that it is an all-inclusive term for the whole nation which for a time, as a punishment on the House of David, had been rent asunder and divided, so long as the northern kingdom continued, into "Judah" and " Israel," but which after " Jerusalem " (which was the metropolis and religious centre of those who feared Jehovah in both kingdoms, and is therefore mentioned separately) was overthrown, were together sharing the same destiny of being " scattered " by the horns of the Gentiles, even as they are included in the same common and united hope of restoration and blessing, no longer as two separate kingdoms, but as one, under the true Son of David.
