The _third group_ is made up of those who witnessed after the people are allowed to return to their own land again. The writer of the second part of Isaiah probably preached to the people as the opportunity came to return to Jerusalem.[111] Haggai and Zachariah stirred up the returned people to rebuild the temple. Joel and Malachi witnessed probably a little later in the same period. The _fourth_ is the _foreign group_. Obadiah sends a message to the neighbouring nation of Edom; and Jonah and Nahum are sent with messages to Nineveh. If one will try to make a picture of these people and events by reading the historical books, and then watch and listen as the prophets talk, it will do much to make these prophetic books full of the native atmosphere in which they grew up. Now there are three things that gradually come to stand out in these prophetic books. Much of what is being said is of immediate application. It refers plainly to affairs being lived out then. Then certain things are plainly fulfilled in the coming of Christ. And again there is a great deal that clearly has never been fulfilled but is still future. It is the latter part that naturally is of intensest interest. Now in this latter part, dealing with the future, _three things_ stand out clear and sharp above the rest. There is to be judgment upon Israel for their iniquities. The changes on this are rung again and again. And this stands out as much in the preaching of the Captivity time, and of the Return, as before the Captivity. But in the midst of severest judgment there will be a _remnant spared_. The tree is cut down, but the stump is spared; and there is life in the stump. But above these there stand out these three things. _The first thing_ stands out big. It is the thing the nation never forgot. The believing Hebrew still clings to it. The wailers at the wall of Jerusalem to-day never forget it. It is this: there is to be a _future time of great glory for the nation of Israel in their own loved land_.[112] The kingdom is to be restored, but with a glory indescribably greater than ever known. This is the bright golden thread, thick and strong, running through from end to end. It will come through that spared remnant. The old stump will put out a new shoot. It will be through the coming of a great king, who will prove to be their greatest king,[113] and will reign not only over Israel, but over all nations as tributary to Israel, with Jerusalem as the capital city both of Israel and of the whole earth.[114] At its beginning there will be a gathering of Israel from among all the nations where they have been scattered.[115] To assist these scattered pilgrims to get to their own land, the tongue of the Egyptian sea on the southwest is to be destroyed; and the waters of the Euphrates on the extreme east are to be so scattered or dried up that men can walk over dry-shod.