Isaiah's prophetic view was not confined to his nation and country; it passed beyond these boundaries to the two great states of Egypt and Assyria, which, like great cloud-masses, were soon to cast their electric flashes over Israel and Judah. Another prophet, named Zechariah, son of Berechiah, rose up against the continued perversions of the times. This prophet's oratory could not compare with the fiery and graceful eloquence of his contemporary, Isaiah. He is wanting in power and continuity; he does not let thought follow thought in logical sequence, but passes without any perspicuous connection from one subject to another. The language of Zechariah, too, is poetically tinted and not without symmetry, but it lacks the scansion and other forms of poetry. Zechariah frequently employs the metaphor of shepherd and flock, which he applies to the relation between king and people. He unrolls the picture of a glorious future, in order to lift the people up above the dispiriting present. He predicts that the neighbouring nations, who were hostile to Israel,--the Aramæans, Tyrians, and even the Philistines--would acknowledge the God of Israel, and would be accepted as His children, when they have laid aside their evil deeds and their false pride. He also prophesies that God would make peace between the house of Judah and the house of Ephraim, and that He would bring back their exiles. Even though He had dispersed them amongst the nations, they would remember Him in their banishment, and return to Him with their children. The pride of Assyria would be humbled, the Egyptian rod be stayed. This declaration closed with the prospect that of the entire nation only a third should survive; but even this remnant would have to pass through the refining crucible of trials in order to become worthy of its mission as the people of God. Zechariah made special allusions to Pekah, king of Israel, as the "false shepherd," who had treated his flock more ruthlessly than his predecessors. He relates how God appointed a shepherd over His people, and gave him two staves--one named "Mercy," and the other "Concord." But the nation had rejected God, and therefore it had been rejected by God, who broke the staff of mercy, and annulled the covenant He had made with all the tribes of Israel; and now He would break the second staff, the "staff of Concord," to annul the friendship between the tribes of Israel and Judah. God had placed over them a foolish shepherd who did not seek for the lambs that are lost--who did not heal the wounded, and who devoured the flesh of the healthy ones. The nation, it is true, deserved no better guide; nevertheless, the shepherd who had thus deserted his flock would surely incur the chastisement of God. CHAPTER XIV. THE END OF THE KINGDOM OF THE TEN TRIBES, AND THE HOUSE OF DAVID.