ZION, A TYPE OF "THE WOMAN'S AGE"—THE CULMINATING THEME OF THE POETS OF ISRAEL—THE IDEAL PERSONIFICATION OF THE CHURCH—THE BRIDE—THE COMING EVE.
Zion the joy of the whole earth! She who cometh down from heaven, with the anointing of salvation upon her head.
The woman of the future, whom the Lord hath chosen! Her type is the church, with the divine nature of the race restored.
Zion is coming down to be the spiritual mother of the earth. She shall bruise the serpent's head, in her seed and in her ministry. Now shall woman be not only the mother of the individual Christ, but she shall also be the mother of the universal Christ.
"Saviours shall come upon Mount Zion!"
The daughters of Zion shall multiply the seed of Christ.
There was a beautiful consistency and a deep mystical meaning in the words of the old Jewish prophets when personifying Zion as the woman—the woman of the Lord's choosing, for the earth's joy.
They sang of Zion as the woman of the future: "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad."
True, Zion is sometimes spoken of as a city, but always with a mixture of personification. As the Hebrew poets rose to the height of their great subject they symbolized her as a veritable woman, with a ministry in the earth; and chiefly symbolized her as the woman of the future.
David, the great psalmist, led the theme, for Zion was his daughter; then glorious Isaiah swelled the volume of earth's epic hymn. What a culmination and personification is this: "For thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called."