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

And the governors of Judah shall say in their hearts, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength, in the Lord of hosts their God.

The fitness of the expression, Inhabitants of Jerusalem, to symbolize the Gentile converts, further appears in the fact, that the original inhabitants of the city, who were never expelled, were Gentiles. The governors of Judah can signify no other than the apostles and disciples of our Lord, the first teachers of Christianity, or the founders of the new City. These, when the Jews were no longer willing to hear them, turned their attention to the Gentiles, and directed all their efforts to effect their conversion. As the strength of a city lies in its inhabitants, so the hope of strengthening theirs, from that time, rested in gaining over the Gentiles: “The Governors of Judah say in their hearts, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of hosts their God.” Does not this mean in the Lord of hosts becoming their God? That is, in his becoming the God of the Gentiles by their conversion to Christianity?

The extraordinary success of the apostles and disciples, in converting the Gentiles and repeopling the city, is foreshewn in the next verse.

In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf, and they shall devour all the nations round about on the right hand and on the left, and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.

If the spiritual Jerusalem be Christianity, it was certainly the Gentiles who repeopled this city, when the Jews deserted it. But still it was not deserted by all the Jews, for the first Christians were Jews, as emphatically expressed in the next verse.

The Lord shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.

The salvation of Judah here spoken of must be salvation through Christ; but if Judah signify the first Jewish converts to Christianity, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem mean those from the gentile nations, who are the house of David, here spoken of, and classed with the [pg 143] inhabitants of Jerusalem, as receiving their salvation subsequently to that of Judah? The house of David must surely mean those of the Hebrew nations, who did not at first receive Christ along with the house of Judah, but subsequently; or, the prophecy being still prospective, those who shall hereafter embrace Christianity must be also included. To this the Jew may probably answer: How can a Christian believe that the house of David, the very house from which Christ came, still remains unredeemed? I answer, that we are nowhere assured that all of his own family believed in him; still less the whole house of David, of which they were only a branch. To the fact, whether any of that family be still left among the unredeemed of Israel, let the Jew answer. If not, then where is their expected Messiah to come from? But if there be such, then have these not yet received the salvation which is through Christ; and as far as they are concerned, the words of the prophecy yet remain to be fulfilled, however it may have received its fulfilment in regard to others. When it shall please God to remove the veil which is before their eyes, and to restore [pg 144] the spiritual strength which they have lost, then will the following words be accomplished in them also, as it was to Judah in the apostolic age.

In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he that is feeble among them, at that day shall be as David, and the house of David shall be as God, as the Angel of the Lord before them.

The esteem and veneration with which the primitive Christians, and particularly the apostles, would be regarded for their purity and holiness, and for their spiritual strength, notwithstanding that they were designedly chosen from the lowest and most illiterate class of men, is here emphatically foretold. Their consequent success in preaching the gospel is next declared; the nations being destroyed, figuratively signifies their false religion being overthrown.

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come up against Jerusalem.