like Rll ox which refuses to have the yoke and I would not hear; rather, so they ,hall put on his neck, or dro.ws back when it cry, and I will not hear. God will be deaf feels the weight (N eh. ix. 29; Hos. iv. 16). to their cry, and will g;ive them up to their Stopped their ears. Mo.de their ears heavy. own ways (Jer. ii. 28). In the protasis T!l ,ha alrrwv 1{3d.pvvav (Septuagint); Isa. Jehovah is spoken of in the third person, vi. 10; !ix. J. Threo degrees of obtluracy in the e.podosis he speaks in the first. a1·e named in this verse: they refused to Ver. 14.-I scattered them; J will scatter listen; they resisted the warners; they ex- them. What had happened in the past is a hibited open contempt for them. The full sign of what shall befall them in the future olimax is given in the next verse. in punishment of like obduracy. The form Ver. 12.-They made their hearts as an of the sentence denotes that God is recount- adamant stone. They made their hearts as ing what he had said to the peop!e in past hard as a stone which could receive no time; hence it is best to translate the verbs cutting or engraving; no message from God in the future tense. Scattered them with a could find entrance; and this from their whirlwind; Septuagint, b,8al\cii a/Yroos, " I wilful obstinacy. The word rendered "ada- will cast them out; " Vulgate, disper,i eo, mant," shamir, probably means "diamontl," (comp. Job xxvii. 21; Amos i. 14). Nations e. stone so hard, says Jerome, as to break all whom they knew not. This is the usual metals to pieces, but to be itself broken by phrase for people of strange tongue (Dent. none; hence it is co.lied adamas, "uncon- xxviii. 33; Jer. xvi. 13). Thus the land querable." Ezekiel (iii. 9) notes that it was desolate. Thie was the result of God's is harder than flint (comp. Jer. xvii. 1). threateninge. Some make the words of J e- The LXX., paraphrasing, gives, T¾w 1<ap8ia11 hovah continue to "nor returned," but the abT<iv fra~av cbrn9ij, "They set their heart punctuation is against them. After them; disobedient." The Le.w. The ve.rions en- i.e. after they were carried away in cap- actments of the Mosaic system. In his tivity. No man paased through nor re- Spirit; rather, by his Spirit. The teaching turned. No one went to and fro-a picture which the Spirit of God inspired the pro- of extreme desolation (comp. Isa. x=iii. 8; phets to deliver (comp. Neh. ix. 30; 2 Kings Jer. ix. 12; and for the phrase, see eh. ix. 8 ; xvii. 13 ; Micah iii. 8). And for the succes- Ezek. xxxv. 7). For they laid the pleasant sion of prophets from Solomon to the Cap- land desolate. The pronoun refers to the tivity, see note on Amos ii. 11; e.nd to those disobedient J ewe, their sin being the cause there enumerated, add Iddo, Shemaiah, of the desolation; or the verb may be taken Hanani, Mice.ie.h, Huldah. impersonally, "So the pleasant land was Ver. 13.-As he oried. As the Lord made desolate." "The pleasant land" is co.lied to them by the prophets. Just retri- literally, "the land of desire." SeptuagiD.t, bution fell upon them (Prov. i. 24, eto.; -yijv '""•",,.~" (Ps. cvi. 2-l:; Jer. iii. 19). Isa. !xv. 12, 13; !xvi. 4). So thay cried,
HOMILETICS. Vars. 1-7.-Hypor:risy unmasked. "And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariab," etc. In the latter half of the last chapter we were told of an embassy to Jerusalew, which met with acceptance and honour. In the present passage we read of another, which meets with just the opposite treatment. The question asked by these messengers is not answered at all in this chapter. Not only so, those who ask it are indirectly rebuked for so doing. Why this remarkable difference of behaviour? Not in the surface, but in the sub-surface, view of affairs. So we will now try to point out- I. THE BURFA0E VIEW, At first sight what can appear more thoroughly deserving of approval than the inquiry here mentioned? This so, whether we consider: 1. Its object. What the men desire, apparently, is simply to know God's will-a desire which we find, in so many other cases, so very warmly approved (Acts ii. 37; ix. 6; xvi. 30; Luke iii. 10, etc.). 2. Or its subject. They would learn God's will as to "fasting," i.e. e.s to one department of the proper worship of God. What, apparently, more proper and right (comp. Ps. cxvi. 12; Micah vi. 6, 7; and contrast Numb. :xv. 30; 1 Kinc:s xii. 3::l; Col. ii. 18, 23)? 3. Or its method,; viz. that of going to God's "house" (vcrs. 2, 3), and consulting his regular teachers, the "priests" (Lev. :x. 11; 2 Chron. xv. 3; Hag. ii. 11 ; Mai. ii. 7), and his occasional and extraordinary teachern, the "prophets" (Jcr. vii. 25; xxv._ 4, etc.). 4. Or i~s special occasion. Seven_ty years, as predicted (Jer, xxv. 11), havrng uow elapsed (viz. trorn B.o. 588 to 518) since Lh11.t 70 THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH. [OH, VII, 1-14,