beauty, and their mouths were opened to announce His near approach. Thus Isaiah, at the close of the Book of Immanuel,[1] after describing the Glorious Person, and blessed reign of Him whose Name is " Wonderful," calls out, " Cry aloud and shout, thou inJiabitress of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee" (Isa. xii. 6); which again is repeated by Zephaniah, who exclaims: Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem / . . . the King, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not fear evil any more" (Zeph. iii. 14, 15).
But there is a necessity, perhaps, once again to point out that the " Lo, I come," of these passages in Isaiah, Zechariah, and Zephaniah, are not the same as the " Lo, I come," of the 4Oth Psalm; for though in Old Testament prophecy the principle of perspective is not observed, and events of the most distant future are sometimes linked on to those which are near, or nearer, the prophet's own time, yet the great fact of the two separate advents of the Messiah once in humiliation to suffer and die; and a second time in glory to dwell in the midst of Zion and to rule over the nations stand out clear and distinct enough on the pro phetic page, and to confound them is to throw the whole plan of God as revealed in the Scriptures into confusion.
The ancient Rabbis, puzzled by the two apparently contradictory series of prophecies in reference to Messiah's Person and mission those which described Him as a Babe born in Bethlehem, and as a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, who is stricken for the transgressions of His people, and in the end pours out His soul unto death; and those which depict Him descending as a full-grown " Son of Man " in the clouds of heaven, in great power and glory, to build again the tabernacle of David, and to establish His kingdom have formulated the belief in two Messiahs: a Messiah ben Joseph, who should suffer and die; and a Messiah ben David, who should come to conquer and reign. But we know that there are not two persons, but only two
- ↑ Consisting of Isa. vii. to xii.
