1. In this remarkable prophecy, dealing with national repent- ance, the state of things usually depicted in the Old Testament Scriptures is inverted ; for while we are generally shown a people undergoing misery and suffering, and then raised, as the result, to heights of prosperity, we see here a people delivered from their straits and hardships and brought forth into a large place, and thereby awakened to a sense of fault, and laid low in the dust of contrition.
The Jewish Eemnant returned from the Babylonian Captivity, and, occupied with efforts to re-establish themselves in their land and to rebuild their ruined Temple, were enduring many diffi- culties and severities, especially from the opposition of neighbour- ing tribes, whose hostility was for ever harassing and thwarting them; and into the breast of the anxious prophet, whose mission it was to cheer and animate, there steals, amid his broodings, a vision of all these pestering tribes, uniting at length in a
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tremendous assault upon the poor struggling Remnant — to be utterly routed and destroyed. He sees Jerusalem made a cup of trembling to its foes ; the Lord smiting every horse with astonish- ment and his rider with madness ; the governors of Judah — like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a flaming torch in a sheaf — devouring the assailants on the right hand and on the left ; the feeblest of Israel as irresistible as David, and the house of David as God. It was one of those visions, in dark times, of triumph and glory beyond that are never fulfilled ; and, in dreaming thus of marvellous blessing for his country, Zechariah was only follow- ing in the wake of the prophets who had preceded him. His distinction is that he dreams of this splendid victory to come as bringing with it a great national mourning and lamentation for sin. He sees the whole land, not surrendered to rejoicing, not jubilant with feast and song, but clothed from end to end in sack- cloth of repentance — a solemn silence in the streets ; every family withdrawn to weep apart. That was his idea of what should be — a people stirred by extraordinary mercies to a deep impression of their unworthiness.
2. Sorrow or disaster, whether by inducing a humbler temper and self-estimate, or by giving an impression of wrath and punishment, or by desolating the external scene and driving the heart in upon itself, is often the means of rousing men to a recognition and conviction of their sins. It was so continually with the ancient Hebrews; reverse and suffering awoke them time after time to the error of their ways, and set them repenting — with tears, perhaps, that were sincere enough, and not without some temporary purifying effect. Is it not, however, a finer thing, and the sign of a finer nature, when good fortune provokes earnest thoughts with regard to duty and our imperfect discharge of it ; when discontent with ourselves and our moral attainment, regret for past deficiencies and failings, with anxiety to be worthier than we are, are excited by signal benedictions, by some great deliverance or success ; when, the more life smiles for us and brings us of pleasantness and beautiful possession, the more we yearn to be deserving? Such was the nobler disposition which Zechariah dreamt of being manifested in his countrymen. He imagined them no longer swept to repentance merely before
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the cutting blast of affliction, but softly constrained to it by the magnitude of their mercies ; when most exalted and enriched in condition, then, most deeply penetrated with the sense of their shortcomings, and most burdened with aspiration to amend and excel. He saw the whole nation in the hour of their grand triumph moved to confess and renounce their sins at the feet of God ; not, as we have often been called to do, in a season of sharp distress or imminent peril, when harvests have failed or pestilence has stalked through the land, but when trouble has given place to the brightness of unexampled prosperity. To be moved thus was something higher than Israel had yet attained to ; and this, after all, is true gratitude to heaven beneath a shower of blessings ; to have the sweet shower touching us with unrest and pain that we were not worthier, and kindling new solicitude for self- improvement. To give true thanks for what we receive is to throb with passion, to be comelier and more perfect men.
3. It is God Himself who begins the work of grace in the heart of man. " I will pour out — the spirit of grace and supplica- tion." It is not in fallen man to renew bis own heart. Can the adamant turn itself to wax, or the granite soften itself to clay ? Only He who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth can form and reform the spirit of man within him. The power to make the rock of our nature flow with rivers of repentance is not in the rock itself. As long as the heart is untouched by the spirit of grace, it either remains in a state of utter insensibility in reference to God and sin on the one hand, or, on the other hand, it is troubled with feelings of reproach and fear, but without being persuaded and changed. In ordinary circumstances the sinner is disposed to think as seldom as possible of God and the relation in which he stands to Him. There may be times, however, when he is shaken out of his habitual self- complacency. Possibly disease has seized upon him, and death seems in hard pursuit, and hell appears not far behind. Or the conscience is awakened, he cannot tell how, from its habitual lethargy ; it speaks to him as one having authority, and summons him as it were to the bar of God's judgment, to give an account of his actions. Xow, the great body of mankind flit between these two extremes, being generally in a state of insensibility, but at