SECT. 1, 2] THE MESSIAH TO BE COME. 285
2. The occasion of the former words must be inquired after from the story of those times in Ezra, and the whole discourse of the pro- phet in that place. The people, returning from their captivity with Zerubbabel, in the days of Cyrus, had laid the foundation of the temple: but having begun their work, great opposition was made against it, and great discouragements they met withal; as it will fall out with all men that engage in the work of God in any generation. The kings of Persia, who first encouraged them unto this work, and countenanced them in it, Ezra i. 7, 8, being possessed with false re- ports and slanders, as is usual also in such cases, at first began to with- draw their assistance, as it should seem in the days of Cyrus himself, chap. iv. 5, and at length expressly forbade their proceedings, causing the whole work to cease “by force and power,” verse 23. Besides this outward opposition, they were moreover greatly discouraged by their own poverty and disability for the carrying on their designed work in any measure, so as to answer the beauty and glory of their former house builded by Solomon. Hence the elders of the people, who had seen the former house in its glory, “wept with a loud voice” when they saw the foundation of this laid, chap. iii. 12, 13, as foreseemg how much the splendour and beauty of their worship would be eclipsed and im- paired ; for as the measures of the fabric itself, assigned unto it by Cyrus, chap. vi. 3, did no way answer Solomon’s structure, so for the ornaments of it, wherein its magnificence did principally consist, they had no means or ability to make any provision for them. Being therefore thus hindered and discouraged, the work ceased wholly from the end of Cyrus’ reign unto the second year of Darius Hys- taspes; for there is no reason to suppose that this intercision of the work continued unto, the reign of Darius Nothus. Between the first year of the whole empire of Cyrus and the second of Darius Nothus, there were no less than a hundred years, as we shall afterwards de- clare. Now, it is evident in Ezra that Zerubbabel and Joshua, who began the work in’ the reign of Cyrus, were alive and carried it on in the days of Darius; and it is scarcely credible that they, who, it may be, were none of the youngest men when they first returned unto Jerusalem, should live there a hundred years, and then return unto the work again. Outward force and opposition, then, they were de- livered from in the second year of Darius Hystaspes; but their dis-
-couragements from their poverty and disability still continued. This the prophet intimates, Hag. ii. 3, “ Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes as nothing?” There is no necessity for reading the words with a supposition, as Scaliger contends, “If there were any amongst you who had seen;” for it is much more likely that some who had seen the former house of Solomon, and wept at the laying of the foundation of this in the days of Cyrus, should now see the
286 OTHER TESTIMONIES PROVING [EXERC. XIII.
carrying of it on in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, that: is, about ten or twelve years after, than that those who began the work in the reign of Cyrus should live to perfect it in the second year of Darius Nothus, a hundred years after. However, it is evident that the old discouragement was still pressing upon them. The former house was glorious and magnificent, famous and renowned in the world, and full of comfort unto them, from the visible pledges of the presence of God that were therein. To remove this discourage- ment, and to support them under it, the Lord by his prophet makes them a promise, that whatever the straitness and poverty of the house were which they undertook to build, however short it came of the glory of that of old, yet, from what he himself would do, he would render that house far more glorious than the former,—namely, by doing that in it for which peti it and the former were instituted and eal Saith- he, peasy ASA ma nan 733 mn oi. — “The glory of this latter house shall be great above that of the fot- mer.” To clear our argument intended from these words, we must consider,—first, What was this latter house he spoke of; secondly, Wherein the glory of it did consist.
3. First, We are to inquire what house it is whereof the prophet speaks. Now this is most evident im the context. ‘This house,’ saith he, verse 3, ‘ that your eyes look upon, and which you so much despise in comparison of the former;’ and verse 7, ‘J will fill, saith the Lorp, 77 737, this house which you are now finishing with glory; and, verse 9, it is called fONNN I Man, “this latter house.” The prophet doth, as it were, point to it with his finger. ‘This house that you and I are looking upon; this house, which is so contemptible in your eyes in comparison with that of Solomon, which you have either seen or read of; this house shall be filled with glory.’ It is true, this temple was three hundred years after re-edified by Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign: which yet hindered not but that it was still the same temple; for this first structure was never destroyed, nor the materials of it at once taken down, but notwithstanding the reparation of it by Herod, it still continued the one and the same house, though much enlarged and beautified by him; and therefore the Jews, in the days of our Saviour, overlooked, as it were, the re-edification of the temple by Herod, and affirmed that that house which then stood was “forty and six years in building,” John ii, 20, as they supposed it to have been upon the first return from captivity, when the whole work and building of Herod was finished within the space of eight years) The Targum also of Jonathan, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi, and others, interpret the words of that house which was then building by Zerubbabel and Joshua, nor do any of the ancient Jews dissent.