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light on the political history of the time as described in the strictly historical books, with
which alone we are concerned in this Volume.
But there is one subject which claims special attention. Even a superficial study must
convince that from a religious point of view, and particularly as regards Israel's future
and the great hope of the world entrusted to their keeping, we have now reached a new
period. We are not now thinking of the general religious and moral decay, nor of the
national judgment which was so soon to follow, but the other and wider aspect of it all.
God's great judgments, when viewed from another point, are always seen to be attended
with wider manifestations of mercy. It is never judgment only, but judgment and mercy -
and every movement is a movement forward, even though in making it there should be a
crushing down and a breaking down. Even here, so early in the history of the kingdom of
God, the casting away of Israel was to be the life of the world. For with this period a new
stage in prophecy begins. Hitherto the prophets had been chiefly God-sent teachers and
messengers to their contemporaries - reproving, warning, guiding, encouraging.
Henceforth the prophetic horizon enlarges.
Beyond their contemporaries who were hardened beyond hope of recovery, their outlook
is henceforth on the great hope of the Messianic kingdom. They have despaired of the
present: but their thought is of the future. They have despaired of the kingdom of Israel
and of Judah; but the Divine thought of preparation that underlay it comes increasingly
into prominence and clearer vision. The promises of old acquire a new and deeper
meaning; they assume shape and outlines which become ever more definite as the
daylight grows. It is the future, with Israel's Messiah-King to rule a people restored and
converted, and an endless, boundless kingdom of righteousness and peace which in its
wide embrace includes, reconciles, and unites a ransomed world, obedient to the LORD,
which is now the great burden of their message, and the joyous assured hope of their
thoughts. For doomed apostate Israel after the flesh, we have Israel after the spirit, and on
the ruins of the old rises the new: a Jerusalem, a temple, a kingdom, and a King fulfilling
the ideal of which the earthly had been the type. It is not meant that these prophets had
not their message for the present also: to Israel and Judah, and to their kings, as well as
regarding events either contemporary or in the near future. Had it been otherwise, they
would not have been prophets to, nor yet understood by, their fellow-countrymen.
Besides, God's dealings and discipline with Israel still continued, and would of necessity
continue - primarily to the coming of the Christ, and then beyond it to the final
fulfillment of His purposes of mercy. Hence their ministry was also of the present, though
chiefly in warning and announcement of judgment. But by the side of this despair of the
present, and because of it, the ideal destiny of Israel came into clearer minds, the meaning
of the Davidic kingdom, and its final spiritual realization in a happy future; and along
with denunciations of impending judgment came the comfort of prophetic promises of the
future.*
(^)