whom the Lord shall make to sprout forth from Israel. The Sprout of the Lord, the fruit of the land is to become to the escaped of Israel for _beauty_ and _glory_, for _exaltation_ and _ornament_. The passages to be compared are 2 Sam. i. 19, where Saul and Jonathan are called צבי ישראל; _farther_, Is. xxviii. 5: "In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of beauty, and for a diadem of ornament unto the residue of His people," where the words צבי and תפארת are likewise used; _finally_, chap. xxiv. 16, where, in reference to the Messianic time, it is said: "From the uttermost part of the earth do we hear songs of praise: beauty (צבי) to the righteous." By the appearance of Christ, the covenant-people, hitherto despised, were placed in the centre of the world's history; by it the Lord took away the rebuke of His people from off all the earth, chap. xxv. 8. There is evidently in these words a reference to the preceding threatening of punishment, especially to chap. iii. 18: "In that day the Lord will take away the ornament," &c.: But _Drechsler_ is wrong in fixing and expressing this reference thus: "Instead of farther running after strange things, Israel will find its glory and ornament in Him who is the long promised seed of Abrahamitic descent." For it is not the position which Israel takes that is spoken of, but that which is granted to them. The antithesis is between the false glory which God takes away, and the true glory which He gives. The Lord cannot, by any possibility, for any length of time, appear merely _taking away_; He takes those seeming blessings, only in order to be able to give the true ones. Every taking away is a prophecy of giving.--"_To the escaped of Israel_," who, according to the idea of a people of God, and according to [Pg 17] the promise of the Law (comp. Deut. xxx. 1, ff.) can never be wanting, as little as it is possible that the salvation should be partaken of by the whole _mass_ of the people; sifting judgments must necessarily go before and along with it. True prophetism everywhere knows of salvation for a remnant only. On פליטה, which does not mean "deliverance," so that the abstract would thus here stand for the concrete, but "that which has escaped," comp. remarks on Joel iii. 5, Vol. 1, p. 338.