FINAL CONFLICT AND DELIVERANCE 423
chapters, and " refers to the events which took place in the period between the time of the prophet and the day of the Messiah."
The mnn Di\ yom ha hu, the " that day " which is mentioned no less than fourteen times in these last three chapters, is indeed " the day of the Messiah," but it is the day not of His first advent in humiliation, but of His manifestation in glory. It is, therefore, pre-eminently called ffihv Q\\yom la-Yehovah a day for Jehovah the day set apart and appointed by Him not only for the dis play of His majesty and vindication of the holiness and righteousness of His character and ways, but it is " the day " of the manifestation of His Divine might and glory in the destruction of Israel s enemies, and the salvation of His own people.
The main theme of the first nine verses of chap. xii. is Israel s sudden deliverance by the interposition of God and the destruction of the armies of the confederated anti- Christian world-powers in the final siege of Jerusalem. But inasmuch as this siege, or " straitness," and the solemn events of " that day " synchronise with " the time of Jacob s trouble," and covers the period of unparalleled sufferings and " tribulation " by means of which the Jewish nation is itself first purged as in a fiery furnace, the prophecy properly begins with the words V>^ ^ *] >?! *&?, massa debhar Yehovah al Israel " the burden of the word of Jehovah upon (or over ) Israel " ; the word massa, as we have seen, when dealing with the ist verse of chap, ix., being as a heading confined entirely to prophecies which contain threatenings and announce judgments.
But though it will be a time of unspeakable anguish for Israel, the climax of all their sufferings and tribulations through all the centuries since the commencement of " the times of the Gentiles," they " shall be saved out of it." Yea, in their greatest extremity, and in the time of their most dire need, God Himself in the person of their Messiah shall interpose on their behalf, and He will be "jealous for His land, and have pity on His people," or, in the words of
