An Amicable Controversy with a Jewish Rabbi, on The Messiah's Coming / With an Entirely New Exposition of Zechariah, on the Messiah's Kingdom

by John Ranicar Park

But I will feed the flock of the slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock.

The food here promised to those who are willing to receive it, cannot be any other than spiritual food; that is, the knowledge to discern truth from falsehood, and the grace to make a proper election between right and wrong. To the poor, this was given, of whom Christ declared that “Theirs was the kingdom of Heaven:” to the rich it was not given, of whom he declared, “That it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle,” than for them to enter his kingdom.

We now come to the events to which this introductory matter is intended to lead us; and to render the prophetic annunciation the more impressive, it is typically represented by actions, as well as expressed by words. This is the most important part of the prophecy; that on which it may be said that the whole interpretation hinges. And yet it is here that the Christian is at fault, and that the Jew expects a certain triumph: nor without reason, [pg 108] when our ablest commentators disagree, or even acknowledge the difficulties to be insurmountable. Whether they are removed by the proposed exposition, the reader must decide; and to enable him to do so, we shall state them as briefly as possible.

The events alluded to will, with the Christian, scarcely admit of doubt, for the passage before us is cited in the Gospel of Matthew, though by some error, it is there ascribed to Jeremiah instead of Zechariah. But were the citation in question even supposed to be a marginal note, which had found its way into the text in transcribing, still the purport of the prophecy would be not the less manifest, for the connection of this with the context, and the unity of the whole, sufficiently declare the subject.

The events foreshewn, are the death of Christ; the dissolution of the old, and the founding of the new covenant; the rejection of this latter by the great body of the Jewish nation, and their immediate forfeiture of the benefits it affords; with other circumstances attending these events, such as the betrayal of Christ for thirty pieces of silver; the [pg 109] employment of this money in the purchase of the potter's field; the separation of the Jews, who rejected Christ, from those who received him; and the evils entailed upon those who, having rejected the true, followed after false Messiahs. These are the circumstances shadowed forth in the prophecy; but to give a consistent explanation of every part of it, and to shew the exact adaptation of the events to the prediction, constitute the difficulty.

The typical actions of the prophet, consist in his taking two staves, or crooks; first affixing to each of them a significant denomination, and then breaking them in succession; accompanying this action with explanations, declaratory of the purport of his doing so. Yet is the whole highly mystical, and in parts so obscure, that Dr. Blayney acknowledges he cannot solve these difficulties; an avowal that would have been rendered unnecessary, had his predecessor Lowth been more successful. Their failure seems chiefly to have arisen from their misconceiving, in the first place, whom the prophet here personates in the character of the shepherd; and, in the next, what the staves are intended to represent; [pg 110] for the general purport of the whole, is rightly understood by both to be an allusion to the death of Christ, and the completion of his mission. Accordingly, Lowth supposes the shepherd to personate the Messiah, as the shepherd of his flock. But the Messiah is throughout the person spoken of, rather than the speaker, as will presently appear. Blayney also considers the prophet as a type of the Messiah; but supposes him sometimes to speak in his own name, as being himself the shepherd. Not to dwell on the want of consistency in this change of character, its avowed inadequacy to furnish the solution required, is alone a sufficient refutation of it.

That the prophet is the actual speaker is clear, but he speaks in the name of the Almighty, as is distinctly declared three times at least in the present chapter. The great Shepherd is then no other than God himself; and all mankind are his flock. Who are the staves, or crooks, we have next to inquire.

The staff, or crook, is the shepherd's implement, with which he tends his flock, protecting them on the one hand, or correcting them on the other. Hence the two names [pg 111] adapted to the two-fold office, which might be rendered Pleasure and Pain, instead of Beauty and Bands; but there is no occasion to alter the translation, which is equally literal, and equally appropriate as it stands. It is, perhaps, worthy of note, that two staves were once in use for these different purposes. What are these staves then intended to represent? In a word, God being the Shepherd, and all mankind his flock, the staves appear to be typical of Christ and Israel; these being the agents employed, the great instruments in the hands of God, in accomplishing the work of man's redemption, from the darkness of idolatry to the light of true religion. One staff being Israel, with whom was founded the Old Covenant, the express object of which was the abolition of idolatry; a covenant which is continually called the “bondage of the law;” and the other staff, Christ, the founder of the New Covenant, called “the beauty of holiness” who declared that his yoke was easy, or pleasant; thus the name will be equally appropriate, whichever translation is adopted.

And I took unto me two staves, the one I called [pg 112] Beauty, and the other I called Bands, and I fed the flock.

The parallelism between these two staves strikingly appears in the circumstance that the most remarkable prophecies, as the liiid. chapter of Isaiah, which the Christian conceives to be exactly fulfilled in the person and character of Christ, the Jew imagines to accord as perfectly with the circumstances and condition of the house of Israel. May we not suppose them to be designedly applicable to both? instrumental alike to the same great purpose, man's redemption from idolatry.