THE GLORIOUS CONSUMMATION 515
of the new or heavenly Jerusalem, which shall come down from God out of heaven, is filled in by the inspired utterances of the "former" prophets (on which the pro phecies of Zechariah are more or less based), but particularly in the last chapters of Isaiah : " For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth : and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which 1 create : for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jeru salem, and joy in My people : and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days : for the child shall die an hundred years old, and the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. . . . They shall not labour in vain, nor bring fort] i for calamity : for tJiey are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking- 1 vvill hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox : and dust shall be the serpent s meat. They shall not fmrt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saitJi the Lord" l
1 Isa. Ixv. 17-20, 23-25. Some have professed to find a contradiction between the words of Zechariah, " There shall be no curse," and this statement of Isaiah that " the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." But first the passage in Isaiah instances what are probably two hypothetical cases illus trative of the general longevity and the very rare occurrence of sin in renewed Jerusalem. He that should happen to die "a hundred years old" will be regarded but as a mere "child," compared with the average length of days to hich man shall then attain ; and "the sinner" who is visited with God s curse and overwhelmed with the punishment, will not be swept away before the hundredth year of his life. Secondly, the words in the original are not the same. There will be rare, or isolated, instances of sin in the Millennium, and God s curse, nhh$, qelalah (Isa. Ixv. 20 literally, "a reviling" "a thing lightly esteemed "), will descend on individuals ; but there shall be no more cnn, herem (Zech. xiv. u), i.e., a ban, or a devoting to utter destruction of the city and people, which shall then in the aggregate be cleansed and holy. Isa. xxv. 8 carries us on to the glorious consummation. Before millennial dawn finally merges into the Eternal Day, every vestige of sin and death shall be swept away. " He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the reproach of His people shall He take away from off all the earth : for Jehovah hath spoken it."
