Zech. iii. 1 — 5. And he shewed me Joshua the high-priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at Ms right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the Angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I ivill clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the Angel of the Lord stood by.
THE prophecies of Zechariah are by no means easy to be understood: but by attending to the general scope of his subject, we shall generally get an insight into their true meaning. It is not any one parti- cular expression that will give us the best clew to the meaning of the prophet : on the contrary, we may, by laying an undue stress on some word or form of expression, involve the whole in insurmountable difficulty. For instance ; if, because it is said, " The Lord hath chosen Jerusalem," we suppose Joshua to represent Jerusalem, and the whole people of the Jews ; or, because " Satan is said to stand at Joshua's right hand," (the place of the accuser in a court of justice,) we interpret the whole as a judicial process, we shall never acquire a just and consistent view of the prophecy: we must bear in mind the prophet's main object, and then every part of his prophecy will appear easy, natural, and clear.
It shall be my endeavour to set before you, I. Its primary and prophetical import —
The prophet was sent on purpose to encourage the Jews to rebuild their temple, and restore the whole worship of the temple as it had been prescribed by Moses. The former of these objects he had already
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