CHAPTER XIII.

Israel's Future. The Restoration of God's People to the Land of their Fathers.-The Ten Tribes.-Israel's Conversion connected with the Happinesss and Salvation of the Human Race.

UNIQUE as the history of the Jews is in many respects, it is also in this, that it has not only a past and a present, but also a distinctly marked future. What that future is to be to the Jews themselves and to the whole world, is clearly stated in Holy Writ: "He that scattered Israel will also gather him," and "they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced." We must also remember that "the receiving of them will be a life from the dead."

All the prophets, from Moses to Malachi, who have foretold the general dispersion, the unexampled miseries and terrible judgments that the people of Israel should endure during their long sojourn in the exile on account of their manifold sins, and above all, that one sin—the rejection of the Messiah, their King-have likewise predicted the gathering and re-establishment of them in the

country from which they have been for a season expelled, but which is theirs by right and inheritance. If the dark side of the picture has been thus realised to the letter, can it be conceived for a moment that the bright pages, on which are inscribed the blessings and the glories that are to succeed their sufferings and humiliations, are not also to be verified by the literal fulfilment of the predictions to be found therein? If faithful in His threats of vengeance, shall He be less exact in performing that which is His infinite delight,—the work of mercy? Is God changeable? Far be it from Him; He is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." In Him there is "no variableness nor shadow of turning;" yea, the very preservation of the seed of Jacob is declared to be because he changes not. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

He also has said that He loves Israel "with an everlasting love." Moses, after having poured out the cup of wrath and denunciation on rebellious Israel in the prophecies of the 28th and 29th chapters of Deuteronomy, proceeds in the same breath: "And it shall come to

pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; That then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shall possess it, and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. And thou shalt return and

obey the voice of the Lord, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. And the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers: If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul" (Deut. xxx. 1-10).

All the prophets harmonise in this with Moses. Their prophecies are inseparably connected with the threatening judgments, whose divine truth has been attested by the history of more than eighteen centuries. All the oracles of the Old and New Testament conclude with promises of the felicity of the whole earth which shall then be, of the re-adoption and re-establishment of grace, whose greatness and glory is to exceed that of the past. "For the children of Israel," says the prophet Hosea (iii. 4, 5), "shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an

ephod, and without teraphim: afterwards shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David their King; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days." And again Zechariah says (xii. 10), “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." And again (chap. xiii. 1), "In that time shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness;" in that day when, under the reign of Him who "shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse," "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid," and "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." In that day it shall come to pass that the Lord "shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth;" and "there shall be an