and to the house of Judah," He will not repent or prove false to His word. This passage again reminds us of Jer. xxxii. a scripture which, as we observed before, is in some respects parallel to Zech. vii. and viii., where we read (ver. 42): " Thus saith Jehovah: Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them"
But these great promises of God, to be experimentally realised, must be responded to by the faith and obedience of God's people, and, as has been well said, " God's cove nanted grace leads those truly blessed by it to holiness, not to licentiousness." Hence the exhortation to practical godliness which follows in vers. 16 and 17:
" These are the things (debharim, literally, words ) which ye shall do: Speak ye every man the truth with his neighbour; truth and judgment of peace judge ye in your gates: and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour, and love no false oath: for all these are the things that I hate, saith Jehovah "; which is an inspired repetition and application of the preaching of the former prophets, which Zechariah had already summarised in chap, vii. 9, 10, an exposition of which will be found in my notes on those verses. I would only here add that the mishpat shalom, "judgment of peace," which they are exhorted to judge " in their gates " (the place where justice and judgment were wont to be administered, Deut. xvi. 18, xxi. 19, etc.), means "judgment which issues in peace," or " such an administration of justice as tends to promote peace and establish concord between those that are at strife."[1]
The sins enumerated in the I7th verse which are contrary to "
- ↑ Keil. The remarks of the Jewish commentator, Kimchi, on this expression are as follows: " If ye judge righteousness there will be peace between the parties in the lawsuit; according as our Rabbis have said in a proverb, He that has his coat taken from him by the tribunal, let him sing and go his way in proof of which they have adduced the verse, And all this people shall also go to their place in peace (Ex. xviii. 23): ALL the people, even he that is con demned in judgment. And our Rabbis, of blessed memory, have interpreted mishpat shalom (judgment of peace) of reconciliation between the litigants, for it is said (in Sanhedrin, fol. 6b), What sort of judgment is that in which there is peace? It is that of arbitration. "
