CHAPTER XVI
AHE iith chapter stands in the same relation to the verbal prophecies which make up the second part of Zechariah, as the $th does in relation to the first part of the visions.
" All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth" . . . And again, " / will sing of mercy and of judgment : unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing" x
These words of the inspired Psalmist may, as an old writer well observes, be written over the whole Book of Zechariah.
In the first part we have first a series of five visions which in various symbols set forth " the good and comfort able words " 2 of promise concerning restoration, enlarge ment, and temporal and spiritual blessing which God has yet in store for the land and the people of Israel. But to complete the prophetic forecast of the future, and also (to borrow an expression from another writer) " to prevent an abuse of the proclamation of salvation," the obverse side of the picture, which sets forth a yet future apostasy and judgment, had to be presented. This is done in the visions of the Flying Roll and the Ephah, in the first of which we hear God s great curse pronounced against sin ; and in the second we see its banishment from His own land and presence " to the land of Shinar " the original place of rebellion and apostasy against God where it shall meet with its final doom.
In the 6th chapter, however, we emerge again from the dark valley of sin and apostasy, and we are shown in the symbolical transaction there set forth how, in spite of it all, 1 Ps. xxv. 10, ci. i. 2 Chap. i. 13.
