Gesenius, on Isaiah 14: 10, where it ought to have been observed, that upon the entrance of the king of Babylon into Hades, an address to the shades there assembled was as much implied, as in the silent obeisance, with which any one enters into a company." The meaning, "to begin the discourse," is the more unsuitable here, since a silent address and supplication of Joshua is already intimated by the immediately preceding, "he stood before the Lord." As often as the high priest appeared before the Lord. supplication for the forgiveness of sins was implied. Those, who stand before the Lord, or before his angel, are his higher servants, the angels; comp. Is. chap. 6. These, in like manner, as in the passage referred to, shall adorn his inferior servants with the sign of forgiveness, which he only can grant. The infin. wan does not stand precisely for the verbum finitum; nor is the latter to be regarded by any means as left out. The infin. designates the pure action, without the person, number, or mode; comp. Ewald, p. 558. But here every thing depended on the action; the determination of the actors belonged to the foregoing address to them. This was the more properly omitted in the address to Joshua, since it did not appertain to the substance, but to the drapery; as his attention ought to be directed solely to the author of the forgiveness, not to the instruments which he employed as its symbol.

V. 5. "And I said; Let them place on him, moreover, a clean turban; and they placed on him a clean turban, and put on him garments, and the angel of the Lord was still present." The prophet, hitherto only a silent spectator and narrator, emboldened by love towards his people, here suddenly comes forward as one of the actors. Calvin : "Consilium propheta, sacerdotem ita fuisse. ornatum splendidis vestibus, ut tamen nondum omni ex parte constaret dignitas; ideo cupit propheta adjungi etiam mundam cidarin, vel tiaram."

Several interpreters suppose, that, by the bestowing of clean garments upon the high priest, the forgiveness of his sin, so far as he was a representative of the people, was signified; by the putting on of the clean head-dress, on the contrary, the confirmation of his

"Ad

*The true interpretation was seen by Vitringa, on Zechariah 1:11; animum vocari velim, in omni casu, in quo vox vel άroxgivsoba usurpatur in exordio orationis vel narrationis absque antecedente interrogatione, semper interrogationem tacitam supponi, perinde ac in libr. sacr., ubi incipiunt a copula et, licet nihil aliud præcesserit, semper supponitur aliquid antecedens, cum quo historia vel oratio tacita cogitatione connectitur."

office. But this supposition is clearly erroneous, since the clean turban must symbolize the same as the clean garments. Moreover, it could not then be explained why the putting on of the turban precedes that of the garments, an argument which cannot be set aside by the ungrammatical explanation of Kimchi and others; "they placed on him the head-band after they had put on him his garments," in which the fut. with vav convers. is changed into precisely its opposite, a pluperfect. The true interpretation is rather as follows. The prophet designs to express the thought, that the Lord imparts to the high priest, and through him to the people, entire purity before him. This thought he thus symbolizes. The Lord gives merely the command to put clean garments upon Joshua. But, before this was accomplished, the prophet prays that the unclean part of the clothing of the high priest, of which nothing had been said in the command, might also be removed. His prayer is heard, and Joshua is now clothed anew from head to foot (hence the putting on of the turban precedes). The expression, " and the angel of the Lord stood," is well explained by Michaelis; "ritum tanquam herus imperans, probans et præsentia sua ornans." That the angel of the Lord remains present during the whole action, and does not, satisfied perhaps with the command, commit the execution solely to his servants, is a proof of his high esteem and his tender concern for his people.

V. 7. “And the angel of the Lord testified to Joshua and said. V. 8. "Thus saith the Lord; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and keep my commandments, thou shalt judge my house and guard my courts, and I will give thee guides among these my servants." The cleansing of the high priest from sin, and of the people through him, is here followed by his confirmation in his office, including also a promise for the people, since the high priest was the mediator between God and them, and since the people could not be rejected, so long as the high priest in his official character remained acceptable to God. The opposite of what is here promised had taken place in the times of the Babylonish exile; comp. Is. 43: 27, 28: "Thy first father, (the high priest, as is evident from the parallelism, and from v. 28,) has sinned, and thy mediators have transgressed; therefore I profane the princes of the sanctuary and give Jacob to the curse." The judging or ruling of the house of God, signifies supremam curam rerum sacrarum. The guarding of the courts of

the Lord, implies the obligation resting upon the high priest carefully to keep away every thing idolatrous and ungodly, first from the outward temple, comp. 2 Chron. 19: 11, 23: 18, Jer. 29: 26, then from the church of God, of which the temple was the central point. Here this appears, not as a duty, but as a reward, inasmuch as activity in promoting the kingdom of God is the highest honor and mercy which God can grant to a sinful mortal. In the words, "I give thee guides among those who stand there," the Lord promises to his inferior the aid of his higher servants. One can scarcely conceive, how this simple sentence should have been so frequently misunderstood. Dan is a Chaldee form of a participle in Hiph. Hiph. in the sense to guide, e. g. Is. 42: 16, "I lead the blind by a way which they know not." The explanation of Michaelis (Suppl. 557, 558,) “ Dabo tibi ministerium inter eos, qui hic stant, angelos mihi ministrantes," in which hap is taken as plural of the noun, is liable to the objection, that the noun never occurs in the sense munus here attributed to it; and, besides, the reception of an earthly servant of God into the heavenly choir is an idea foreign to the whole Old Testament. We may be permitted to pass over other interpretations still more untenable.

מוליכים instead of the usual

V. 8. "Yet hear, O Joshua, high priest, thou and thy companions, who sit before thee; for ye are types; for behold! I bring my servant Branch." The connexion with the foregoing is thus aptly given by Kimchi; "Dicit, quamvis adducam nunc vobis hanc salutem, adhuc adducam vobis salutem majorem, quam hanc, tempore, quo adducam servum meum Zemach." We here, in the first place, institute an inquiry respecting the word no. It is commonly supposed, that the original meaning of this word is demonstratio, ostensio; we, on the contrary, affirm it to be that of astonishment and wonder, and, indeed, for the following reasons. 1. It is favored by the Arabic, no, first, every thing that excites wonder,, then specially a calamity, which by its greatness awakens wonder and astonishment, (comp. Is. 52: 14,) & (Schultens on Job, p. 423); neither of these senses can be derived, if demonstratio is assumed as the ground meaning. The assertion of Gesenius (Thes. s. V. DN) that in is not radical, is erroneous. He grounds

ever in common.

The word of itself, no more signifies calamity, than ngin. Ps. 71: 7. If this had been assumed as the original meaning, how could that of wonder flow from it? 2. Even the Hebrew usage requires the original meaning of astonishment and wonder. Since it is only from this, that all the senses of the word can be derived, particularly those in Ps. 71: 7. The frequent combination of ngin with nis, far from proving, that both words are entirely synonymous, rather proves the contrary; it shows, that both must be designations of the same thing from different points of view, and here, as is also shown by the comparison of other languages (régas, and onuɛiov, prodigium and signum) scarcely any other reference is possible, than the double one, partly to the subjective perception, partly to the objective import of a thing. While the one narrator rendered prominent this, the other that relation, it could happen, that the miracle performed in favor of Hezekiah might be called in the book of Kings л, in Chronicles ; from which it has been erroneously concluded, that both words must be entirely synonymous. But is used especially of a thing or a person, which attracts to itself surprise and attention, because it typifies and predicts one that is future. This special meaning is found in four passages besides this. Is. 8:18, calls his sons, on account of the names prophetic of salvation, which the Lord had given to them, and thereby appointed them as types of the coming deliverance, signs and wonders (ninis and o'npin) in Israel. According to Is. 20: 3, the prophet, as a type of the Egyptian people, goes naked three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt. Ez. 12: 6, the Lord says to the prophet, after he has commissioned him to typify by his actions the future destinies of Israel, "For I have set thee as a wonder for the house of Israel; comp. v. 11, "Say, I am your wonder, as I have done, so shall ye do; ye shall go into captivity." Ez. 24, the prophet's wife dies; in obedience to the command of the Lord, he durst not utter lamentations over her; the attention of the people is thereby excited to the highest pitch, they suspect that there is a deeper reason for the conduct of the prophet. They receive from the Lord the answer, "Ezekiel shall be to you for a wonder; as all that he has done, ye shall do," (v. 24, comp. v. 27.) In all these passages I corresponds to túnos Tov μɛllóvrov, with this difference only, that the latter exhibits merely the objective meaning of the thing, without regard to the

subjective sensation produced by it. This was seen by Cocceius: "Viri portenti sunt illi, in quibus mirum aliquid, vel insolitum fit, quo excitentur homines ad cogitandum de promissionibus meis."

We now proceed to the illustration of particulars. By the companions of Joshua, who, with him, are summoned to attend, are to be understood his colleagues, the priests of an inferior rank. This appears, 1. from the object of the whole prophecy. Joshua is spoken of throughout, not as a private person, but as a high priest. He appears as occupied with the functions of his office; he is addressed even in this verse emphatically as a high priest. When, therefore, his companions are here spoken of, they cannot be such as were connected with him in any other relation, but only his colleagues in the priestly office. 2. The addition, "who sit before thee," leads to the same conclusion. This designates, not, as Michaelis erroneously supposes, the relation of the teacher to his pupils, but rather that of a president in a college to his associates, and, generally, that of a person of higher rank to his inferiors; comp. Ezek. 8:1, Num. 3:4, 1 Sam. 3:1. The verb is the terminus technicus, for designating the sessions of public officers, comp. e. g. Exod. 18: 13. Such sessions of the priests, when the high priest presided, were not unfrequent, comp. Lightfoot, on Mat. 26: 3. Lond. p. 517. The expression taken from these sessions was then in a general way transferred to the relation of the high priest to the priests as his subordinates. As here the priests are designated as companions of the high priest, so are they, Ez. 3:2, as his brethren; "then stood up Joshua and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel and his brethren." 2, which has been variously misunderstood, gives the reason why Joshua and his companions are summoned to attend. They must hear the promise of the Messiah with peculiar attention, because as his types they stand to him in a more intimate relation, because their order will be glorified through him, since he perfectly realizes the idea of it. Much difficulty has been occasioned to the interpreters by, inasmuch as it appears to refer exclusively to the companions of Joshua, while he himself, as the head, most completely typified the Messiah. This difficulty is removed by the remark, that the prophet makes a sudden transition from the second person to the third, as if he had said, "Joshua and his companions should hear; for they are," &c. This is evident from v. 9, where the discourse is concerning Joshua in the third person. Examples of a similar transition are very frequent, comp.