nature that we cannot hope to remove it. In the prophets’ delineations of the future there are many points on which the light of revelation had not been fully cast; for they, like the Christian apostle, “knew in part and prophesied in part.” And the question of the way in which the Messiah’s office is to be prolonged is precisely one of those which did not greatly occupy the mind of the prophets. There is no perspective in Messianic prophecy: the future kingdom of God is seen, as it were, in one plane, and how it is to be transmitted from one age to another is never thought of. Thus it may become difficult to say whether a particular prophet, in speaking of the Messiah, has a single individual in view or whether he is thinking of a dynasty or a succession. To Ezekiel the Messiah was a divinely revealed ideal, which was to be fulfilled in a person; whether the prophet himself distinctly understood this is a matter of inferior importance. The second question is one that perhaps would not readily occur to a plain man. It relates to the meaning of the word “prince” as applied to the Messiah. It has been thought by some critics that Ezekiel had a special reason for avoiding the title “king”; and from this supposed reason a somewhat sweeping conclusion has been deduced. We are asked to believe that Ezekiel had in principle abandoned the Messianic hope of his earlier prophecies—_i.e._, the hope of a restoration of the Davidic kingdom in its ancient splendour. What he really contemplates is the abolition of the Hebrew monarchy, and the institution of a new political system entirely different from anything that had existed in the past. Although the Davidic prince will hold the first place in the restored community, his dignity will be less than royal; he will only be a titular monarch, his power being overshadowed by the presence of Jehovah, the true king of Israel. Now so far as this view is suggested by the use of the word “prince” (literally “leader” or “president”) in preference to “king,”(144) it is sufficiently answered by pointing to the Messianic passage in ch. xxxvii., where the name “king” is used three times and in a peculiarly emphatic manner of the Messianic prince.(145) There is no reason to suppose that Ezekiel drew a distinction between “princely” and “kingly” rank, and deliberately withheld the higher dignity from the Messiah. Whatever may be the exact relation of the Messiah to Jehovah, there is no doubt that he is conceived as a king in the full sense of the term, possessed of all regal qualities, and shepherding his people with the authority which belonged to a true son of David.