Jeremiah 23:5-6 Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper… If, as it seems probable, Zedekiah had already begun to reign, it is perfectly certain that he could not be the person to whom the prophet referred when he looked forward to the advent of the "righteous Branch." If he wrote shortly before the commencement of his reign it would be just possible so to interpret the prophecy. In the former case the very allusion which there might have been to the name of the reigning king would show all the more plainly that it was not in him that the promise was fulfilled; in the latter case, the want of precise correspondence between the two names would only bring out into higher relief the non-correspondence of the prophecy with the fact. As a matter of fact the name of Mattaniah was changed to Zedekiah, and not to Jehovah-Tsidkenu. Neither could it be said that in his days, when the captivity was fast hastening on, and the dark shadow of Babylon must have hung like a thundercloud over the land, Judah should be saved and Israel should dwell safely. We are constrained to infer from the known historical conditions of the writing, that the prophet must have meant to depict circumstances not immediately before his eyes when he wrote. Moreover, this conclusion is forced upon us from the fact that some eight or ten years later Jeremiah repeated this promise, in a slightly altered form, when he was shut up in prison, — "In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called," or, "this is that which men shall proclaim to her"; or, as Bishop Pearson has it, "He which calleth her is the Lord our Righteousness." Enforced as that promise was by the remarkable addition at the very lowest ebb of the national hope, "Thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before Me to offer burnt-offerings, and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice continually"; it is inconceivable that the same prophet who had declared the seventy years' captivity of the whole nation as well as the captivity of Zedekiah himself should have spoken in this way, believing that the hopes he cherished for Judah were fulfilled in Zedekiah. His words, therefore, are a standing monument of an onward-looking hope. The main point which we have to grasp firmly, is that here, if anywhere, there is a prophecy of the times of the Messiah, which is known to have been given before the Captivity, and was undeniably not fulfilled for many centuries to come after it. It is insisted, however, that the analogy of similar names in Scripture, such as Jehovah-Messiah, Jehovah-Shalom, and Jehovah-Shammah, and the like, makes it needful for us to render this name, "The Lord is our Righteousness." Let us assume, then, that we are to understand it, "The Lord is our Righteousness." If that, then, was His name, the name by which He was to be called, I see not how it can be applicable to Him unless He is Himself the Lord Jehovah. The proposition, "The Lord is our Righteousness," is to be His name, however awkward and uncouth that may; but if men are to say to Him or of Him, if they are to call Him "The Lord is our Righteousness," it is hard to escape from the conclusion that He must be the Lord. But believing, as we do most firmly, that this is the prophetic name of Christ, and of Christ alone, what is it designed to teach us? 1. It teaches us that Christ is to us the realisation of righteousness; it is no longer an unattainable conception or an abstract idea which we find it hard to grasp or to fulfil, but in Him it becomes a concrete fact on which we can lay hold, and a thing which we can appropriate and possess. He becomes first "righteousness," and then "our righteousness"; first, the visible, incarnate and reeled exhibition of righteousness, and then something of which we can claim possession, and in which we can participate. 2. If this is the obverse presentation or positive statement of the truth, it has also its reverse or negative side. If the name whereby Christ is called is "The Lord is our Righteousness," that fact is destructive to all other hopes, prospects, or sources of righteousness; it gives the lie to them, and asserts their vanity, for we can have no righteousness but what we find in the Lord. Behold in Him your righteousness; look away from and out of yourselves to Him and be righteous. The apprehension of that blessed fact will be the harbinger of peace and joy and fruition of righteousness in you. Whereas before there was nothing but continual delusive hope and abortive effort, together with painful disappointment and self-reproach, now there is the fulness and the fatness of a satisfied soul, the soundness and strength of a heart that is at peace with God, the quietness and assurance, the blessedness and calm confidence of a mind that is at rest in Christ. To know that "the Lord is our Righteousness," is to have and to know that which can alone enable us to contemplate the past with equanimity or serenity; it is to have and to know that which is alone the antidote for care and anguish and remorse, that which can alone take the sting out of sin and rob even the broken law of its just terror. But we have to face the future as well as to look back upon the past, and in that future there sits the shadow, fear of man, and we know not what besides may lurk there. It may be loss, bereavement, sickness, pain, disgrace, infamy; but if the Lord is our righteousness, and if He who is our righteousness is the Lord, the very and eternal God Himself, then, come what may, we must be safe with Him (Prof. Stanley Leathes.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. |
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