Harmony and Explanation.
Ver. 5. In the days of Herod.
THE Scepter shall not depart from Judah, or the Lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, Gen. 49. 10.
The words are to be read discretively, Or rather then And, shewing that when the Scepter ceased, the Law-giver succeeded, and when both were gone, then Messias should appear.
The Scepter continued in the hand of Judah, till the captivity into Babylon, and then it departed, and being once fallen, it was never recovered, till he came to whom it belonged. This Jeremy told expresly even at the very time, when it was in failing, Jer. 22. 30. Write Coniah childless, for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the Throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah. And so did Ezekiel even just then, when Nebucadnezzar was setting himself to fetch it away, Ezek. 22. 21. &c. Remove the Di∣adem, and take off the Crown, &c. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him.
After their return out of that captivity; the Law-giver, or the high Court of the Seventy Elders, sate at the Helm and ruled the State, till the usurpation of the As∣monean or Maccabean family distempered all. Their Ambition brought in a Crown, and that, Civil wars, and those the Romans, who subdued the Nation, and set Herod King over them. He was the Son of Antipater, of the race of Edom, or of the seed of Esau, a generation that had been an enemy to the Jews continually, but never ruled over them till now, so that now were fulfilled the words of Isaac to his Son Esau. Thou shalt serve thy brother Jacob, but it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck. Gen. 27. 40.
Herod was bloody, like the root of which he came, which persecuted his Brother, even in the womb, and among other his cruelties, which were very horrible and very many, he slew the Sanhedrin, or the bench of the LXX Judges. And then was the Law∣giver departed from between Judahs feet, as the Scepter was out his hand long before: And then might the Jews cry out, as it is recorded they did, though upon another occasion. Woe unto us, for the Scepter is departed from Judah, and the Law-giver from between his feet, and yet is not the Son of David come.
§ There was a certain Priest named Zacharias.
Of this name, there had been a famous Priest, and a famous Prophet in old time before. Zacharias the Son of Jehojada, before the captivity, 2 Chron. 24. And Za∣charias the Son of Barachias after, Zach. 1. 1. And consonant it was, that he in whom Priesthood, and Prophecy should be struck dumb, and even at their period, because the great Priest and Prophet was so near at hand, should bear the same name with them, in whom Priesthood and Prophecy had in some manner ceased before.