that one scripture confirms and explains another. The last verses of Micah's prophecy, return again to the important subject of the expected Messiah, and are a clear reference to the promise, which God had made of Him to the Patriarchs. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us ? he will subdue our iniquities: and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our Fathers from the days of old. That is to say, that though God was about to punish his people for their transgressions, yet he would restore them again; he would fulfil the promise which he had made to Abraham and his posterity, and would surely send that Redeemer, who was to take away the sins of the world*. The next prophet, in the order in which they stand in the Bible, is Nahum ; but as * However Wells in his paraphrase, does not consider this passage as relating to Christ, and some other commentators are of the same opinion. If it relates to the Jews only, it is not yet fulfilled. his subject relates only to the destruction of Nineveh, and has no reference to the coming of Christ, any farther account of his writings, would be foreign to the present purpose. He was succeeded by Habakkuk, whọ is supposed to have written about 600 years before Christ; and is thought by the Jews in general, and by most Christians *, to have prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, in the beginning of his second chapter. And the Lord answered me, and said, write the vision, and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie: though it tarry wait for it, because it will surely come it will not tarry. Now were there no other passages that related to Christ, and were the belief of his coming not then general, no great stress could be laid on these words; but as this was far from being the * See the opinion of the Jews, quoted in Chandler's "Defence," P. 165, &c. And in Sanhedrim xi. 30. But neither Newcome nor Wells refer this passage to Christ. case, case, it appears evident to me, that they were meant to warn the Jews against supposing, that because the hope of Israel did not come so soon as they expected, therefore he would not come at all. In the Septuagint, and in the Vulgate*, the reference in the latter part of the quotation, is not to it, the vision, but to a person, and so the Hebrew also, in Bishop Chandler's opinion, may be rendered. We actually find accordingly, that these words were used in speaking of the expected Redee, mer, at the very time when Christ came; for when John the Baptist sent to Jesus, to ask if he was the Christ, Matt. xi. 3 ; the enquiry was not "art thou the Christ," but 66 σv εl o εpxoμevos, art thou he that should come, "art thou he whom we expect, foretold "by the prophets under the name of He "that cometh, or He that is to come?" And this is confirmed by several other passages, * Υπομεινον αυτον, οτι ερχομενος ηξει, Lxx. Expecta illum, quia veniens veniet. Vulg. + As in Jacob's prophecy under the name of Shiloh ; in John xi. 27, and iv. 35, and Heb. x. 37, where these words are quoted. both both of the Prophets and New Testament. And this vision was to take place at an appointed time, and to speak at the end; which last expression, does not mean the end of all things, but the end of the Jewish polity; and is similar to the last or latter days, the ends of the world, and other such phrases, which signify the destruction of Jerusalem, and the conclusion of the Jewish goverment, before which time Christ was to appear. So that the sense of the whole passage seems to be, that though the expected Redeemer might delay his coming, it should yet be waited for with patience, because he would surely come, and not tarry beyond the appointed time; that is, at the end of the government of Judah, but according to Jacob's prophecy, before the sceptre should be entirely departed from his tribe. About the same time as Habakkuk, or, as Blair supposes, a few years before him, Zephaniah prophesied; but no part of his writings seems to have any reference, at least directly, to Christ. He was the last of the minor prophets, who wrote before the |