"That day" is the glorious period described in ch. ii. 1-4, and those verses and our text should be read together, as the beginning and conclusion of one prophecy. At the beginning, the prophet fixes his gaze upon the sun-illumined peaks of holiness and blessing in the far future, and his spirit rises within him in exultant gladness (ii. 5); and then he begins to survey the spaces of time that lie between. Immediately at his feet he sees almost the whole nation given over to utter ungodliness, the men and the women vying with each other in their pride and luxuriousness, and in their contempt and oppression of the poor; and then he beholds the clouds of Divine vengeance gathering and bursting over the stout-hearted sinners; he sees the nation spoiled of the men who had constituted its strength, and the enfeebled people utterly desolated by war. All is blackness and darkness. But he lifts his eyes again, and there still shines before him the true Zion, dwelling in inviolable peace beneath the manifestations of the presence of her God. This was the vision which was granted him, and which he recorded for the instruction of men in all aftertime. Confining our attention to the closing section of it, we are instructed--+I. That underneath all God's purposes of judgment He has designs of mercy.+ In certain portions of this great prophecy God comes forth in terrible majesty, and were we to have regard to them only we should be moved to pray that He would not speak to us any more (Exod. xx. 19). But these judgments that cause us to tremble--what is their purpose? Not merely the infliction of righteous vengeance, but also and more that a way may be opened for manifestations of the Divine goodness. If into Zion He sends "the spirit of judgment and burning," it is that by the purging away of her filth and blood-guiltiness she may be made meet to be the dwelling-place of God. +II. That God resolved to carry out His purposes of mercy by a suitable agent.+ He is here designated by a twofold description, the parts of which appear to be contradictory. He is at once "the Branch of the Lord" and "the Fruit of the earth." The significance of the first of these titles becomes more plain as we trace it in prophecy (Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15; Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12). So that "the Branch of the Lord" is a man, the son of David, that son concerning whom he sang in the seventy-second Psalm, the Messiah--our Lord Jesus Christ! As soon as we arrive at this great truth, we perceive what is the explanation of the mysterious contradiction in the two parts of the title of the great Deliverer whom God was about to raise up for Zion (1 Tim. iii. 16; Rom. i. 3, 4). +III. That in the day when God's designs of mercy are fulfilled, the suitability and glory of the Agent whom God resolved to employ will be universally recognised.+ We know how He was treated when He came forth on His great mission: He was despised and rejected of men.