Zech. xiv. 7. It shall come to pass, that at evening time it
shall be light.
IN the writings of the prophets, there are, as might be expected, many things difficult to be understood. Yet, even when a passage, in respect of its full im- port, is involved in the deepest obscurity, there may be some things perfectly clear, and capable of an easy application, for the elucidating of points that are of great importance. The prophecy before us is of this kind. It is generally understood as referring, in the first instance, to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies : it then, after some circumstances, which the events alone, when they shall have occurred, will enable us satisfactorily to explain, leads us for- ward to the period fixed in the Divine counsels for the conversion of the Jews to the faith of Christ ; when " the Lord shall be king over all the earth, and when there shall be one Lord, and his name onea." The manner in which that day shall be introduced is particularly specified in the words immediately pre- ceding my text : " It shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark : but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night : but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light." By this I understand, not, as some do, that there shall be one continued day, in which there will be no darkness at all ; for it is not of the Millennium itself that the prophet is speak- ing, but of the time when the Millennium shall be intro- duced: and that will be a time " neither perfectly clear, nor altogether dark ;" " not entire day, nor en- tire night :" but a time like the evening, when, though there is some light remaining, it seems gradually drawing towards extinction. When the Church is so circumstanced, that shall be the period for God's
a ver. 9.