sion, that Jesus and his sufferings are here spoken of. At least, if the Jews deny this, they must produce some other individual to whose history the description may answer better.

in the pro

There are various other passages in the phets which were fulfilled in Jesus. (Zechariah ix. 9.) Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and

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upon a colt, the foal of an ass. This prediction was fulfilled in Jesus, (Matth. xxi. 6.) And the disciples went, and did as Jesus com'manded them; and brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their cloaths, and they 'set him thereon. And a very great multitude

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spread their garments in the way; others cut 'down branches from the trees, and strawed

them in the way. And the multitudes that "went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he 'that cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosan

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'na in the highest! And when he was come ' into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Ga'lilee.'

It may be remarked, that the Hebrew word

which our translators render 'lowly,' in the foregoing passage of Zechariah, signifies likewise "afflicted;'* (see Parkhurst on the word ) the clause might, therefore, without violence to the original, be rendered, Behold, thy king cometh ' unto thee, just, and having salvation; he (is) ' afflicted, and riding upon an ass, even upon a 'colt, the foal of an ass.' To show with what minute accuracy the prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus, we have only to turn to Luke's

y seems to signify any kind of distress which oppresses or depresses a man. It is translated poor in Deut. xxiv. 12, 14, 15. It is used in Exod. iii. 7, to express the oppression and affliction of Israel in the land of Egypt; perhaps it is best rendered in English by a complex term, oppressed with affliction, or poverty.

Gospel, (xix. 41.) where we are told in what manner he was afflicted when he approached

the holy city. And when he was come near,

،

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he

beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If

' thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this

thy day, the things that belong to thy peace!

but now they are hid from thine eyes: for the

days shall come upon thee that thine enemies 'shall cast a trench about thee, and compass

thee round, and keep thee in on every side; ⚫ and shall lay thee even with the ground, and

thy children within thee; and they shall not 'leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

It was foretold by the prophet Haggai, that the Messiah was to appear during the standing of the second temple. (ii. 6.) For thus saith

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the Lord, yet once, it is a little while, and I ' will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall ' come; and I will fill this house with glory, 'saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine,

' and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the 'Lord of hosts.'

If the Jews, about the time that Jesus appeared, did not understand this prophecy as foretelling the advent of the Messiah while the second temple was standing; and if they did not understand Daniel's famous prophecy of the seventy weeks as Christians now do, it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to account for the universal expectation which they then indulged, of the immediate coming of the Messiah. That such an expectation was prevalent among them is evident, not only from the evangelical history, but also from the testimony of Seuetonius and Tacitus, who agree in affirming, that there was an opinion spread through the whole East, that at that very time some person was to arise in Judea, who should obtain the empire of the world. But, if such

was the opinion of the Jews, it supports the

pretensions of Jesus: and, if that was the time appointed for the appearance of the Messiah, no other person but Jesus did appear, who could have any pretensions to that character, and the Jews look in vain for the appearance of another Messiah now; and it is only by complying with the prediction of Zechariah xii. 10-14, that they will be enabled to discover the true Messiah.

The shaking of the heavens, and earth, and sea, and dry land, mentioned by the prophet Haggai, in the above passage, seems to refer to the overthrow of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great, which took place in about two centuries from the time of this prophecy; for it is by such symbols that the prophets describe the revolutions of states and empires. By the shaking of all nations, mentioned in the seventh verse, the Spirit of God seems to intend the overthrow of the Macedonian empire, and the conquest of Syria and Judea by the Romans, and those dreadful wars and commotions which accompanied these events, and took place im