Ver. 3. "_And it shall come to pass, he that was left in Zion, and was spared in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written to life in Jerusalem._" Ver. 4. "_When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall remove the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of right and the spirit of destruction._" Ver. 5. "_And the Lord creates over the place of Mount Zion, and over her assemblies clouds by day and smoke, and the brightness of flaming fire by night, for above all glory is a covering._" Ver. 6. "_And a tabernacle shall be for a shadow by day from the heat, and, for a refuge and covert from storm and from rain._" Ver. 2. "_In that day_" _i.e._, not by any means _after_ the suffering, but _in the midst of it_, comp. chap. iii. 18; iv. 1, where, by [Pg 13] the words "in that day," contemporaneousness is likewise expressed. Parallel is chap. ix. 1 (2), where the people that walketh in darkness seeth a great light. According to Micah v. 2 (3) also, the people are given up to the dominion of the world's powers until the time that she who is bearing has brought forth. Inasmuch as the Messianic proclamation bears the same general comprehensive character as the threatening of punishment, and includes in itself beginning and end, the suffering may partly also reach into the Messianic time. It dismisses from its discipline those who are delivered up to it, gradually only, after they have become ripe for a participation in the Messianic salvation.--There cannot be any doubt that, by the "_Sprout of the Lord_" the Messiah is designated,--an explanation which we meet with so early as in the Chaldee Paraphrast (בְּעדָּנָא הַהוּא יְהֵי מְשִׁיחָא דַיָי לְחֶדְוָה וְלִיקָר), from which even _Kimchi_ did not venture to differ, which was in the Christian Church, too, the prevailing one, and which Rationalism was the first to give up. The Messiah is here quite in His proper place. The Prophet had, in chap. iii. 12-15, in a very special manner, derived the misery of the people from their bad rulers. What is now more rational, therefore, than that he should connect the salvation and prosperity likewise with the person of a Divine Ruler? comp. chap. i. 26. In the adjoining prophecies of Isaiah, especially in chaps. vii., ix., and xi., the person of the Messiah likewise forms the centre of the proclamation of salvation; so that, _a priori_, a mention of it must be expected here. To the same result we are led by the analogy of Micah; comp. Vol. i. p. 443-45, 449. _Farther_--The representation of the Messiah, under the image of a sprout or shoot, is very common in Scripture; comp. chap. xi. 1-10; liii. 2; Rev. v. 5. But of decisive weight are those passages in which precisely our word צמח occurs as a designation of the Messiah. The two passages, Jer. xxiii. 5: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I raise unto David a righteous Sprout;" and xxxiii. 15: "In those days, and at that time, shall I