THE GLORIOUS CONSUMMATION 499
shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
And not only will the sorrow and mourning spread from Jerusalem to the whole land, but also to the whole earth ; for, though Jerusalem and Palestine will be the centre of these awful and solemn events, the whole world will be more or less involved in them.
When the final judgments of God are abroad in the earth, and when the anti-Christian rage and persecution will be everywhere directed not only against the confessors of Christ, but against those in Israel who are faithful to the God of their fathers, there will be weeping, and mourning, and heart-searching among the scattered tribes of Israel in all the lands of their dispersion.
And when at last, in the hour of their deepest need, their long-rejected, crucified Messiah appears for their deliverance when His blessed feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives they will almost simultaneously be made aware of it ; for, though they may not all at once behold Him with their eyes, the whole world, and nature generally, will be conscious of, and respond to, the visible appearing and presence of the Son of God.
And the spared remnant of the dispersed of Israel will, like their brethren in Jerusalem, hail Him though at first it may be from a distance whom they crucified, and turn to Him in true repentance.
But to proceed to the 6th verse.
In keeping with the awful solemn events shall be the outward natural phenomena and physical characteristics of that fateful day. It shall be a day of preternatural gloom. " There shall be no light, the " precious ones " (i.e., the stars, " the splendid heavenly bodies ") will contract themselves (or " wane "), which I believe to be the true meaning of the two last, somewhat difficult Hebrew words of the 6th verse, which have been variously rendered and interpreted by commentators. 1 This is in harmony with the plain declara-
1 The words in the Hebrew text are |it<^ n^jj;, yeqaroth ytqipatun : 15;, yaqor (" precious," " rare," " splendid ") is applied to the moon in Job xxxi. 26,
