than is contained in vv. 7-15 of that Psalm. The application of it to David follows immediately in v. 16: "He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters," etc. The whole passage is too long to be inserted here; but the reader will not fail to turn to it and peruse it.

If then language of this kind relating to Jehovah is employed in the Old Testament, with reference both to nations and to individuals, we surely are authorized to apply the like representations of the New Testament to an event so important in the Divine economy as the overthrow of God's own peculiar people, and the chosen seat of their national worship.

The source of the particular form of representation in v. 30, is doubtless the seventh chapter of Daniel. There in vv. 13. 14, the prophet says: "I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed." Here then is the Messiah, coming not for the day of judgment, but to introduce his spiritual kingdom upon earth. Analogically, therefore, the like language of our Lord in the verse before us, must be understood in the same way, and not made to refer to the day of judgment.

Verse 31. Hosts of angels and the sound of the trumpet belong to the Christophania here and elsewhere, as also to the Theophania." Here too it is said: "He shall send his angels . . . and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds ;" and the same is said in the corresponding verse of Mark. This "gathering," it has been thought, can refer only to the assembling of all nations for the final judgment, as more fully depicted in Matt. 25, 31 sq. and also as implied in the explanation of the parable of the tares in Matt. 13, 40 sq. But on comparing the modes of expression in the two cases, they do not appear to be parallel. Here the angels simply "gather together the elect;" there (in 25, 32) all nations are gathered before him, and the wicked are then separated from the righteous. The representation is the same in Matt. 13, 41. 43.

Ex. 19, 16. 19. 1 Cor. 15, 52. 1 Thess. 4, 16; comp. Rev. 8, 2. etc.

The idea of such a separation before the judgment-seat, is indeed essentially connected with every representation of the day of judgment; and indeed cannot be separated from it. Why then are only the elect here said (in v. 31) to be gathered together? For judgment? Nothing of the kind is expressed or implied in the passage itself; nor is it elsewhere ever said of the elect, that they alone will be "gathered together" to the judgment of the great day.

But the idea of "gathering together" those widely dispersed, sometimes includes also the accessory notion of deliverance and protection, as the end and purpose of the act. Thus it is said of Jehovah, that "he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel ;" he will gather them out of all lands whither they are scattered, will deliver them from all dangers, and secure to them his protection. So too our Lord, in his touching lament over Jerusalem, exclaims: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Here the idea of deliverance and protection is strongly prominent. Now this idea we may apply in the verse under consideration. In the commotions and distress antecedent to our Lord's coming for the destruction of the Jewish state, he will send his angels " to gather together his elect," so that they may be delivered and protected from the dangers which threaten them. Indeed, precisely this idea is strongly expressed by Luke in the parallel verse: "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; FOR YOUR REDEMPTION DRAWETH NIGH!"

We come then to the general result, that the language of the three verses under consideration does not necessarily in itself apply to the general judgment; while the nature of the context shows that such an application is inadmissible. On the other hand, there is nothing in the language itself to hinder our referring it to the downfall of Judaism and the Jewish people; but rather both the context and the attendant circumstances require it be understood of these events.

In further illustrating the language of our Lord as thus applied, I would remark, that "his coming," as here foretold, includes as its object not only the overthrow of the Jewish nation, but also the

establishment and spread of his own spiritual kingdom upon earth. This is clearly indicated in the words of Daniel, as above cited; and also in those of Joel, as cited and applied by the apostle Peter.' The latter prophecy began to have its fulfilment in the signs and wonders attendant upon our Lord's death and resurrection, and in the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost; but it was fully accomplished only in the later catastrophe of Jerusalem and Judaism. The tenacity with which that people clave to the outward rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation, to the worship of the temple, and to their hopes of restoration and exaltation under a temporal Messiah; as also their fierce and unrelenting opposition to the claims of the lowly Jesus;-all this was the first great and prominent obstacle to the introduction and prevalence of his spiritual reign. This was at that moment the great enemy to be vanquished; and the downfall of this opposing power was to be the triumph and the establishment of the Messiah's kingdom. Both these great results, therefore, were to be accomplished by this his coming."

The destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple, although standing out as a prominent catastrophe in this great series of events, was yet not the only one, and perhaps not the most important. Through the minute and vivid description of Josephus, who was himself an actor and eye-witness in all those scenes of blood and desolation, the fall of the Holy City has been brought out before the world for all time with a distinctness and prominency, greater, perhaps, than any other like event of ancient history. Hence it has become the great central point in the later history of the Jews; and thus has overshadowed and shut out from view the slighter notices of other events, in themselves perhaps not of less moment, but which have not been recorded by the graphic pen of a native historian. In this way the overthrow of the Jewish capital and temple has come to be regarded as the final catastrophe of the nation; after which their existence and name, as a nation, were utterly blotted out. Hence the frequent application of our Lord's prediction to this event alone.

But such was not, in fact, the case.

'Dan. 7, 13. 14. Acts 2, 16 sq.

The destruction of Jerusa

2 See also Matt. 16, 27.

lem by Titus, although terrible, was nevertheless not total. The city slowly revived. The Jews in Palestine, though reduced completely to the condition of a Roman province, were not driven out from their own land. The chief men, indeed, were allured to Rome, or found employment elsewhere; but the merchant in his shop, and the husbandman at his plough, were not interrupted in their labours. Yet we cannot suppose that the national hatred towards the Roman yoke was laid aside. Under the reign of Trajan insurrections broke out among the Jews of Cyrenaica and Egypt, which soon were quelled. Fifty years after the ruin of Jerusalem, Adrian began to rebuild the city, in order to convert it into a heathen capital, and probably also with a view to render it a stronghold for keeping in check the national spirit of the Jewish people. This new attempt served as a spark to kindle the long smothered embers of hatred and discontent; and caused them to burst forth into a flame, which overran and consumed both the land and the people with terrible desolation. The leader was the celebrated Barcochba, "Son of a Star." His success at first was great; he soon obtained possession of Jerusalem, and of no less than fifty fortified places and one hundred and eighty-five important villages. Adrian at length awoke from his lethargy, and troops poured in upon Judea from the remotest quarters of the empire. The Jews were harassed and worn out by degrees; and the bloody tragedy was at length brought to a close at the unknown city of Bether, in the eighteenth year of Adrian, A. D. 135. Thousands and thousands of the captives were sold as slaves at the Terebinth near Hebron, at Gaza, and in Egypt. By a decree of Adrian the Jews were forbidden thenceforth even to approach the Holy City; and guards were stationed to prevent them from making the attempt. This severe decree probably included, or at least effected, the removal of the Jewish inhabitants from Judea. Two centuries later, we find Tertullian speaking of them as still deprived even of a stranger's right to set foot upon their paternal soil. It was not until the days of Constantine, in the fourth century, that they were first allowed again to approach the Holy City; and at length, to enter

2 Tertull. c. Judæos, c. 15. Apol. c. 21, quibus [Judæis] nec advena

rum jure terram patriam saltem vestigio salutare conceditur."

it once a year, and buy the privilege of wailing over the ruins of their former sanctuary."

Such is an outline of the great final catastrophe of the Jewish people, as it can be collected from the few scattered notices found in ancient foreign writers. These few fragments have been collected and arranged by Münter, in a treatise translated and published in the present volume. To this the reader is referred. Had there been a Josephus to give us a history of this war with equal completeness and graphic power,-who can say that the catastrophe, in its magnitude and its horrors, would seem to us in any degree to come short of that of Jerusalem?

After these illustrations I may sum up here in a few words the views suggested to my own mind in respect to the discourse of our Lord under consideration. In reply to the question of the four disciples: "When shall these things be?" Jesus first points out what was to happen after his departure,-the trials and dangers to which his followers would be exposed. Then comes the "abomination of desolation;" Jerusalem is "compassed by armies," and is" trodden down by the Gentiles ;"-all this referring to its desolation by Titus in A. D. 70. Immediately afterwards the Lord would come and establish more fully his spiritual kingdom, by crushing in terrible destruction the last remnants of the power and name of Judaism; and this within the general limit of a generation of a hundred years from the time when he was speaking. There might, therefore, literally have been some then "standing there, who did not taste of death till they saw the Son of man [thus] coming in his kingdom." Then it was, when this first great foe of the Gospel dispensation should have been thus trampled down, that Christians were to look up. "Then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh!" The chains of religious despotism and the terrors of Jewish persecution would then be at an end forever; and the disciples of Christ, thus far disenthralled and triumphant, might rejoice in the prevalence of the Gospel of peace and love, the coming of Christ's spiritual kingdom upon earth!

See Bibl. Researches in Palest. II. p. 11.

2 See above, p. 493 sq. Also Bibl. Res. in Palest. II. p. 1–11.