444 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
theless, a predictive element in Holy Scripture, and that many of the prophetic utterances concerning " the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow " were not only not fully comprehensible to the people to whom they spoke, but to the prophets themselves, 1 and could only be fully understood after, and in the light of, their fulfilment.
Secondly: Even the Jews in the prophet s own time, if they pondered on the prophet s word, must have understood, at any rate this much, that the prediction refers to " a national mourning over some one who stood in an intimate connection with Jehovah, and whose rejec tion and death was to be bitterly bewailed by the people of Israel. Such would have been the meaning conveyed by the passage to the Jews of the time of Zechariah. Assuming that the prophecy proceeded from the same author as that of the previous chapter and there are not sufficient grounds on which to deny it the rejection of the representative of Jehovah (namely, the Good Shepherd, whose rejection is there spoken of as followed by a terrible punishment), and the national mourning described as taking place for one who should be, in some mysterious manner, pierced by the nation when acting in the capacity of the representative of Jehovah, must both have been considered by the hearers of the prophet to refer to one and the same event."
But now, to be done with criticism and controversy, let us look into the heart of this great prophetic promise.
We will take the words in the order in which they stand in the Hebrew. "And I will pour" ^ssyi, v sha- phachti the word expresses the fulness and abundance of the gift of the Spirit which shall then be bestowed upon the people. The promise points back to Joel ii. 28, 29: " And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh" etc. ; or, as we read in Isaiah : " / will pour My spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring " in the same abundance and with the 1 2 Pet. i. 10-12.
