church of Zion, to thee is the kingdom about to come, and the first dominion shall come to the kingdom of the church of Jerusalem." The words "tower of the flock" are in the original "tower of Edar," as is to be seen in the margin of our Bible, which prefers to keep the word a proper name. Now, from a very remarkable passage in the book of Genesis (xxxv. 21), we learn that this tower of Edar was in the close vicinity of Bethlehem and of Ephrath, where Rachel had hard labour and was delivered of the last born of the patriarchs, whom she would have called Ben-oni, "son son of my sorrow," but whom his father named Ben-jamin," son of the right hand." The passage casts such a remarkable light upon the prophecy before us, that I will transcribe it: "And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day. And Israel journeyed and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar." Now the only other place in all the Scriptures where the tower of Edar is mentioned is the passage before us; and it comes attended with the very same circumstances, the hard labour and child-birth of the daughter of Zion (iv. 9, 10, v. 3), the birth of Him who is the Son of his Father's right hand (chap. v. 2), and "Bethlehem-Ephratah" is the place of his birth. This gives a reason for suspecting some connexion between that passage of the patriarchal history and the prophecy before us; being similar to several other allusions which we have already noticed in our former interpretations, and especially to that one, which we have pointed out in the xlix th chapter of Isaiah, where Christ's labour for his church is written out in terms of Jacob's labour for his wife Rachel; and the very name Israel is given to him, as in another place (Ps. xxiv.) is the name Jacob. And so here, we think, the travail of the church to bring forth the "Ruler in Israel," the "Man of God's right hand" (Ps. lxxx.), is written in terms of Rachel's travail in bringing forth her last-born son, who to his mother is Benoni, a son of sorrow, but to his father is Benjamin, the son of the right hand. At the least, these allusions to Rachel's death in child-birth are not to be slightly passed over by a careful interpreter: how much they will serve our purpose may better appear in the sequel.

In the interpretation of the words "O tower of the flock," I am, however, inclined to differ from the Jewish interpreters, and to understand it, not of Messiah himself, but of mount Zion, which is in many places of Scripture called "the strong-hold," as in 2 Sam. v. 7, Isai. x. 32; and in a passage of Zechariah, altogether parallel with this before us, it is said to the daughter of Zion, "As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn ye to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope" (Zech. ix.

11, 12). Now, in the text the same object is addressed, both by the name "tower of the flock," and "strong-hold of the daughter of Zion;" and both in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions these two epithets are blended together into one; and if the latter be proper to Mount Zion, then so also must the former be. In the sublime opening of the chapter, it had been prophesied that in the latter days Zion should be exalted on high above all the mountains, and shine afar as a tower, unto which the people should flow: and in the preceding verse, the gathering of the people being viewed under the figure of a dispersed flock, Mount Zion is represented as the tower of the flock, to which they assemble themselves from all parts of the earth, and in which they find safety from their persecutors. While thus I prefer to interpret the figure of the strong-hold of Mount Zion, I feel that there are good reasons for the other view taken of it, as referring to Messiah, seeing God is in many parts of Scripture called our "high tower" (Psa. xviii. 2, cxliv. 2); and doubtless it is from Messiah's personal presence therein that Mount Zion hath this glory and strength. But, if I err not, the afflicted one, in the sixth verse, mentioned along with her that halted and her that was cast far off, is Jerusalem, or Mount Zion, who hath always a chief place both in the calamities and the blessings written in the Prophets, and which is generally taken in as a third party, with the dispersed of Judah and the outcasts of Israel. Of this a very beautiful example occurs in Isai. xlix. 14, where she is represented as the mother of the tribes; and this figure the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, hath transferred to the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all. And in the liv th chapter of Isaiah, ver. 11, she is addressed in that same style of the afflicted one: "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy foundations with sapphires." And in our prophet (chap. iii. 12), it is written of her, "Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest." Perceiving, therefore, that the fate of Jerusalem is as much an integrant part of the prophetic burdens as that of the twofold dispersion, and that her destiny hath a principal place in this Prophet; and that she stands in the immediate context as a party in the affliction; I prefer to understand the verse before us, and those which follow, of her, and the mother church in her, rather than of Messiah, whose mother she is. That the city and the church should both be represented by the same symbol, and mutually interchanged in the language, is the manner of the Prophets; as is to be seen in the passages Isaiah referred to above, in the saying of the Apostle Paul, and in the last chapters of the Apocalypse. Thus understanding

of

the expressions" tower of the flock," and "strong-hold of the daughter of Zion," of Jerusalem, and also of the church, which had there her local habitation, and could have it no where else, we have it prophesied that " to her it shall come, even the first dominion:" that the dominion spiritual and temporal over the tribes of Israel, and of all nations subjected to them, should come to Jerusalem, as it was at the first, when Mount Zion was taken by king David, and the temple built by king Solomon, and the land and the nations round about poured in thither, to express their homage and to behold her beauty and her greatness: "I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, The faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness" (Isai. i. 26, 27). That the first dominion of the daughter of Zion hath reference to the days of David and Solomon, is not only decided by the fact that till that time Zion and the upper city of Jerusalem was in the hands of the Jebusites, and was by David taken, as is particularly recorded in the Second Book of Samuel, chap. v. ; but also from the language used in the fourth verse of this chapter, "They shall sit every man under his own vine and under his own fig-tree," which is a quotation from the First Book of Kings, iv. 25, where the happy state of Israel is by these very words described. It is a most important prophecy, inasmuch as it assures us, that a dominion of the like kind, with that which heretofore existed, shall be re-established in Jerusalem not temporal merely, but also spiritual—that though the time be now that no place hath any preference or preeminence over another as a place of worship, the time is to be, when Jerusalem and Mount Zion shall be restored to that preeminence which they once enjoyed; when there shall be a temple there, to which the kings of the earth shall come and offer gifts, and whence Christ shall send forth his law and his word unto the ends of the earth. Of which temple, it is the continual prophecy, that Messiah shall be the builder-and Ezekiel contains the details of the structure. In right of his possessing this, at once the palace and the temple of Mount Zion, Messiah shall hold the dominion of all the earth; and the nation that shall not come up and worship him there, shall be cut off.

The same truth is expressed next under the personal figure, "The kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem,' for the reason that under the figure of a woman in sore travail this same place or polity, which had such high destinies written upon her, is about to be represented by the Prophet. Being about to treat the subject both under the figure of place and of person, he introduceth the notice of both from the beginning. It is very wonderful to me, that in all the Pro

phets, not excepting the Apostle John, or indeed any of the Apostles (who scatter hints and notices of the same throughout their Epistles), should connect the last condition of the church so much with place, as that the very substance of the prophecy is as much involved with place as with person. And so it ought to be; for man is as much made for occupying space and exercising power over the visible world, as he is for holding spiritual communion with the invisible God and Christ himself, the Head of the church, is not God only, but the fulness of the Godhead in a body; and a body he took, in order that through it, he might possess all things, visible as well as invisible. That body implies a place of habitation and a condition of visibility. Its present invisibility is not natural to it, but unnatural; is not its common and ordinary condition, but extraordinary and miraculous. His body is hidden, and therefore place is hidden also from his church; but when he shall appear, the place of his abode shall be the high place of the earth; and not of the earth only, but of the whole world. There shall be the tabernacle of the Most High, and the dwelling-place of all the saints of the Most High. These give sacredness to the place: because it is the "camp of the saints," it is holy; because it is the "beloved city," it is sacred and impregnable. Mount Zion was chosen by God, not for a day, but for ever, to be this place; as it is written: "For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation; and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine Anointed. His enemies will I clothe with shame; but upon himself shall his crown flourish" (Ps. cxxxii. 13-18). This chosen place was about to be cast into the furnace of affliction the armies of every nation were about to gather around Mount Zion, like dark thunder-clouds, and raging beating tempests, for almost three thousand years. The first blow was now preparing by Sennacherib the Assyrian; and, as the manner of the Lord is, he begins before it happens, and while all eyes are turned towards the event, to shew forth the destinies which hung over the mountain of his holiness, and the horrible storms out of which it should emerge into everlasting glory. It was in the days of Hezekiah, and on the eve of Zion's first siege, that I suppose this prophecy of Zion's many troubles to have been delivered; it was on the eve of Zion's wonderful deliverance that I suppose this prophecy of Zion's eternal salvation to have been delivered. To lay down beforehand such a body of promises as should defy contradiction; fairly to commit himself for that Rock of ages, as well as for that

people of eternal generations, was the reason why God, before they passed into the surgy waves of desolation and conquest, raised up Joel, Hosea, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and others, to tell beforehand to men what his purposes were, that they might take hold upon the hope set before them; or if they would not, that they might be broken against the bosses of his buckler. I cannot doubt, therefore, that this verse hath reference to that Mount Zion which in the 6th verse is denominated "her that I have afflicted," and in the 7th verse by her own proper name of "Mount Zion, where Jehovah reigns," and now "tower of the flock, strong-hold of the daughter of Zion;" and to her is made sure such a dominion, temporal and spiritual, as in the days of David and Solomon she possessed. This interpretation will justify itself the more as we proceed with the verses in their order.

Vers. 9, 10:"Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now shalt thou go forth," &c.-This presents us with the calamities of Jerusalem and Mount Zion already begun; which are likened here and elsewhere to the pangs of a woman in travail, both because of their exceeding violence, and of their fulness of hope as well as sorrow; and thus ending in joy for the Man-child that is born into the world (John xvi. 21). The Child of whom the virgin daughter of Jerusalem had the promise, was that Seed of the woman, Seed of Abraham, Son of David, Emmanuel, Son of the virgin, whom God had appointed to be Redeemer of, and Ruler over, his people Israel; of whose birth-place, and various sufferings and glory, this prophecy doth treat. These pangs of giving birth to Messiah, these sufferings of Jerusalem, the mother of Christ and of us all, began, as we have said, from the days of Hezekiah, when she was first beleagured; and shall not end until Messiah shall come in his glory and majesty-not as the Benoni, son of his mother's sorrow, in which character he hath already come; but as the Benjamin, son of his Father's right hand, in which he is yet to appear. For it is written in this very prophecy (v. 3): "Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel." What time is here signified is determined, both by the event which precedes, and that which follows the mention of it- the one, their being given up till that time; the other, the return of their remnant at that time;-of which events neither the one nor the other is yet in existence; and therefore we surely conclude that the time of sore travail of mother Jerusalem is still in continuance. This same truth is taught us, both