REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 397
differences of opinion. Some, among them Lightfoot, thought the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes are referred to ; others have imagined that the civil, ecclesiastical, and military authorities are meant. But I agree with Hengsten- berg, that if it may be regarded as certain that the three shepherds represent the three classes of shepherds existing in the theocracy in other words, the leaders of the nation then " Zechariah could not possibly have thought of any others than the civil authorities (the rulers), the priests, and the prophets" who are frequently spoken of in the earlier scriptures as the " shepherds," or leaders of the people, and to whose misguidance is attributed the ruin of the nation. 1
" The only difficulty in connection with this view is to explain the fact that the prophetical order should be intro duced as one of the three, seeing that this had been extinct for a long time before the period of fulfilment. We reply that, in accordance with the essential character of prophecy, the prophet represents the future by means of the analogous circumstances of his own time. Just as the order of the civil shepherds continued to exist though the kings had ceased to reign, so did the order of prophets continue, so far as everything essential was concerned, even after the suspension of the gift of prophecy. The vocation of the prophet was to make known to the people the word and will of God (Jer. xviii. 1 8). Before the completion of the canon this was done by means of revelations under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and the application of the results to the peculiar circumstances of the age. The place of the prophets was occupied by the scribes, on whom, according to the Book of Ecclesiasticus (chap, xxxix.), the Lord richly bestowed the spirit of under standing, who studied the wisdom of the ancients, investi gated the prophets, delivered instruction and counsel, and who were noted for wise sayings. They stood in the same relation to the prophets of the Old Testament, as the enlightened teachers of the Christian Church to the prophets of the New. The three constituent elements of 1 Comp. Jer. ii. 8-26, xviii. 18.
