The old man continued his walk in the court of the Priests, and left Helon standing in the greatest astonishment at the new and profound views which had been opened to him. He saw him not again till after the evening-sacrifice on the second day after the sabbath, when the family of the course of Malchia, to which Helon belonged, had been called to take its turn in ministering at the altar. He found the old man engaged in prayer, and was invited by him to place himself beside him on the carpet. After a short silence he began; “I trust that from our previous conversations you have clearly perceived, that the earth with all its inhabitants is unholy, and every individual a sinner! Is Jeremiah still the favourite prophet of your house?” Helon replied that he was. “Do you understand a passage in his prophecies, in which the same thought is twice repeated, ‘Behold the days are coming, saith Jehovah, that I will raise up unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and act wisely, and shall execute justice and judgment in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell in security; and this is the name by which he shall be called, Jehovah who is our Righteousness’.’[76] What means this?” “Instruct me,” replied Helon. “This is the Messiah: on the earth which lies under the curse, man, himself sinful, cannot exhibit that righteousness which is acceptable to God. Therefore Jehovah himself will be our righteousness in the Messiah. He is the great object of prophecy, from its commencement in the days of our first parents to the present day, a period of near four thousand years, till the appearance of him for whom we wait, the Consolation of Israel. But on account of the dulness of the people’s heart this intimation is given in a twofold way, audibly by the words of holy writ, and visibly in the sacrifices. The sacrifices are visible prophecies of the Lord who is our righteousness. How often does Jehovah declare, that he has no pleasure in sacrifices and burnt-offerings, i. e. when they are not presented with a reference to the Messiah. Taken in this connection, they have a reconciling virtue. Every sacrifice, therefore, has a double import. The sacrificer lays his hand upon the victim’s head, and thus transfers his own sin to it, and so far sacrifice is a memorial of the offerer’s guilt: but on the other hand, when Jehovah accepts the sacrifice and permits the blood to be sprinkled and the flesh to be burnt upon his altar, he confirms the promise which Moses made at the establishment of the covenant in the wilderness. ‘Behold, this is the blood of the covenant which Jehovah maketh with you concerning all these laws.’[77] The Messiah will be the true offering. As Isaiah prophesies that God will ‘Lay our sins upon him and inflict chastisement upon him that we may have peace,’[78] so by this means he will become our righteousness, and the promise of God is confirmed and fulfilled in him.