386 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
also a twofold cause of their ruin is given, namely, strife among themselves, which is heightened by sufferings and oppression inflicted by the foe without. Contention within, and the enemy without, are not only mentioned in the passage just quoted from Jeremiah, but they are linked together by Zechariah himself in chap. viii. 10, as the two chief methods of punishment employed by God for the chastisement of His people. " There was no peace to him that went out or came in because of the adversary, and I set all men every one against his neighbour " " which miserable state of things existed before the Babylonian Captivity and is represented in the 1 1 th chapter as returning with still greater force on account of the base ingratitude and relapse into apostasy on the part of the people." x
The phrase, " into the hand of his king" must be under stood as referring to the king of " his," i.e., Judah s own choice. That it is of a foreign oppressor, and not of a native ruler, that the prophecy speaks, is evident, among other things, from the fact that the Jews had no king at the time of Zechariah, and that this prophet never (either in the first or second half of the book), even in his descriptions of the future, speaks of any king, with the exception of the Messiah.
When, on that fateful eve of the Passover, Pilate brought Jesus out before the Jews, and half in mockery said, " Be hold your king," they cried, " Away with him, crucify him ! " and when he again appealed, " Shall I crucify your king ? " the chief priests, who constituted themselves the leaders of the people, answered : " We have no king but Caesar ! " and, having thus deliberately made this terrible choice, they were " delivered " into Caesar s hand ; and soon after the Roman armies, under Vespasian and Titus, laid waste the land and destroyed the people. How terrible was the retribution. " If we let this man thus alone," said the chief priests and Pharisees in council, " all men will believe on him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." So they decided to carry
1 Hengstenberg.
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