Zechariah 9:1

CONTENTS

Here are more views, and very glorious ones, of Christ's love to, and rejoicing over his Church; and the Church is called upon to rejoice in her God and Saviour.

(Zechariah 9:1) The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord.

If we connect the last verse of the preceding Chapter with the first verse of this, (and certainly though we divide the prophecy in Chapter s the subject is but one), the sense will be, that the word of the Lord shall rest in Damascus, as it was there said, we will go with you. I conceive the true sense of the word burden is to this amount; not a burden, or source of sorrow, but of joy. And what follows seems to confirm it; when the eyes of man, that is, the eyes of all the redeemed in Damascus, and elsewhere, shall be as much as Israel toward the Lord. Reader! pause over this verse, for according to my view, it is most blessed. In any way, and in every way, if we read the words with an eye to the rich mercies of God in Christ, we find them so. If we consider these expressions, the eyes of man, as in the first and highest sense of the words, the eyes of the God-man Christ Jesus toward Jehovah, as the glorious Head of his body the Church, beholding Him while carrying on the purposes and work of salvation, they are most blessed. And so in like manner all the redeemed looking to Christ, in this glorious work the Father gave him to do; and the Church, in the whole mass of believers, beholding Christ with such complacency and delight, as God the Father beholds his dear Son; think, Reader! what a blessed subject is here opened also in the view of Christ in this manner?