family of David sunk in lowliness, is not specially pointed at thereby, although it is necessarily implied in it. The same thought is further carried out in Ezek. xvii. 22-24. As the descendant of the family of David sank in lowliness, the Messiah appears in that passage as a small tender twig which is taken by the Lord from a high cedar, and, being planted upon a high mountain, growls up into a lofty tree, under which all the fowls dwell. In Jeremiah and Zechariah, the Messiah, with reference to the image of a cut-off tree used by Isaiah, is called the Sprout of David, or simply the Sprout; [Pg 111] compare remarks on Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12. All that is here required is certainly only to place beside one another, on the one hand, prophecy, and, on the other, history, in order clearly and evidently to point out the fulfilment of the former in the latter. It was not at Jerusalem, where there was the seat of His royal ancestor, where there were the thrones of His house (comp. Ps. cxxii.), that the Messiah took up his residence; but it was in the most despised place of the most despised province that, by divine Providence, He received His residence, after the predictions of the prophets had been fulfilled by His having been born at Bethlehem. The name of that place by which His lowliness was designated was the same as that by which Isaiah had designated the lowliness of the Messiah at His appearing. We have hitherto considered prophecy and fulfilment independently of the quotation by St. Matthew. Let us now add a few remarks upon the latter.