His words will lead us to contemplate,
I. The event predicted —
The sign itself, just like the blossoming of Aaron's rod, whilst all the others retained their own proper form without any such alteration, was a convincing proof, that the prophet both spake and acted under a divine commission. The causing of two sticks, without any previous process, in an instant to become one in his hand, was a pledge to the spectators that the prediction, however improbable, should certainly
be fulfilled. Accustomed to be taught by signs, the spectators desired an explanation of that which was now before their eyes. And the prophet informed them, that it imported and prefigured,
1. The restoration of all the tribes to their own land —
[The names inscribed upon the two different sticks clearly shewed that the ten tribes which had been carried captive to Assyria, no less than the two who were then in Babylon, should at a future period be restored ; and that all of them together should form one nation, as they had done in the days of David and of Solomon : and that they should never be divided into two nations again a. This has never yet been ful- filled ; and therefore we know it shall receive its accomplishment at a period yet future. To confirm this from many passages of Scripture would be quite superfluous : for if the return of all the tribes to their own land at a future period be questioned, there is not any prediction of a future event that can be depended on. It is not necessary that the whole mass of the Jewish people should return : for there were but forty thousand that returned from Babylon ; yet was that deemed a sufficient accomplishment of the prophecies relating to that event. So, if there be only a few millions that return to their own land in the latter-day, it will amply suffice to verify the predictions respecting it. But return they shall, as surely as ever the two sticks became one in the prophet's hand. And to this effect speaks the Prophet Isaiah, whose words I record as illustrating and confirming, beyond a possibility of doubt, the declarations in my text : " It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the rem- nant of his people from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up his ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the out- casts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly, upon the shoulders of the Philistines, toward the west : they shall spoil them of the east together : they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab ; and the children of Amnion shall obey them. And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea ; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and
a ver. 22, 25.