tells them that the event so full of hope to him is to them a cause of terror: for that He who comes for the deliverance of His suffering people comes also in judgment on their oppressors-(ver. 28, 29):

"But ye should say, why PERSECUTE we him?

Seeing the root of the matter is found in me.

Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword;

That ye may know there is A JUDGMENT."

From which remarkable context, even if the terms of the prophecy itself were less explicit, as well the Discourse to which it is a reply, as the verses next preceding and following, twice pointedly indicating it to be the utterance of a soul under the pressure of persecution, the sense in which we are to understand the title "REDEEMER," here first given to the Saviour, is plainly to be inferred: that He is even the same that had been promised from the beginningOne who should be revealed as the Avenger of His people's wrongs upon their adversaries: upon “Satan" primarily, "the Adversary;" and, with him, on the ungodly and persecuting of the earth, who are his agents.

2. But this is placed beyond doubt on referring to the original, where we find the term employed is one which in itself conveys this: a term which we cannot perhaps better render here than by the word "Redeemer," but applicable to redemption only in a special sense, and literally denoting an "Avenger:" of which the clearest illustration is that afforded by the typical ordinance of the Jewish Law

which enacted that the nearest kinsman of a murdered person should avenge his blood by slaying the murderer, which kinsman is called by this name. As, for example, in Numbers, ch. xxxv., and Joshua, xx., where this ordinance is recorded, and where the term employed in the frequently repeated expression "The Revenger," or "Avenger of blood," is the same here used by Job-Heb. 7, the “GOEL;" to whom also belonged the right to " redeem" or ransom a possession sold on account of poverty, or a slave who had sold himself for the same reason: (compare Lev. xxv. 24, 25, and 47-49, with Ruth, iii., iv., where for “Goel” we read "kinsman”). In addition to which, we find that when the Lord speaks of redeeming his people by power (as in Exod. vi. 6,-" I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments," in reference to Israel's deliverance from the Egyptian bondage; and again, of their redemption from Babylon, Jer. 1. 34, "Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of Hosts is His name; He shall throughly plead their cause," &c.), the word for "redeem" is that from which "Goel" is formed; though, when redemption by sacrifice or atonement is spoken of, a different term is invariably employed (77): as in Exod. xiii. 13, "All the first-born of man among thy children shalt thou redeem," i. e. by the substituted sacrifice there prescribed. A very im portant distinction, serving to explain many passages of Scripture besides that before us :-the two terms and two modes of redemption, combined, setting forth in its fulness "the redemption that is in Christ

F

Jesus" in its corresponding twofold character,-the redemption by His blood or by price, and the redemption by His power; by which He is at once the Ransom and the Avenger of His people, foreshadowed of old by these two types, the Sacrifice and the Goel; and for both which He qualified by taking their nature, and so becoming their "kinsman." On which, however, we cannot at present further dwell except to say, that what they to whom these types were given did not know, is now made known to us, viz., that these two modes of redemption were to be the objects respectively of two advents of the Redeemer; and that, as at His first coming He was revealed as "the ransom" of His people, "putting away their sin by the sacrifice of Himself;" so now those who know Him in this character who "know the GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ," are described as awaiting the revelation of His GLORY" looking for Him to appear the second time without sin," but yet "unto salvation," that is, their complete redemption by His power from all its consequences (Heb. ix. 28).

And this, then, is the "Redeemer" of Job's expectation:-" I know that my AVENGER liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:" who in that day, as "the righteous Judge," should vindicate him from the unjust judgment of his persecutors, which assigned him his portion with the hypocrites; and also avenge him of that which is the great power of the spiritual Adversary-Death, with its forerunner, disease, and its follower, the grave :

"And though after my skin (worms) destroy this (body)," Heb. " they destroy this,"-alluding to the words of Bildad in the preceding chapter, ver. 13, "It (destruction) shall devour the strength of his skin: even the first-born of death" (that is, the most malignant of diseases, or, as some think, the worm) "shall devour his strength:"-" yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.” A remarkable declaration of this hope, which baffles the ingenuity of criticism to explain away, and is an unanswerable argument in refutation of the assertion of those who say that the Resurrection was not revealed under the Old Testament. Not that even here it was for the first time revealed. For -besides that redemption, in the simplest conception of it, is deliverance from the sentence and curse denounced against sin, which was death; and deliverance from death could only be by resurrection-the very first promise, in giving to man the hope of complete emancipation from the Enemy's power by his destruction, would obviously imply deliverance from this which is his stronghold: as the Apostle argues, assigning the reason of Christ's taking part of flesh and blood (Heb. ii. 14, 15)," that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil, and (as the natural consequence of this, and the very end for which it is done) deliver them who * See Gesenius, on-literally "the parts of his skin," i. e. "the members of his body."

through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." And Enoch's prophecy, likewise, of the Lord's coming "with ten thousands of His saints," as it was an explicit promise of a future life, so would be naturally understood of life,-as man only knew life, in the body; especially as connected with its ratification following, in the prophet's own translation in the body from earth to heaven.

But each prophecy-while they are one in scope, and all three point to the great event which is the crisis of the redemption-presents it in a varied aspect, so as to throw upon it additional light. The first announcing it in general terms as the triumph of the Redeemer over the Evil One; the second, Enoch's, more definitely, as the day of judgment on the Antichristian and the reward of the saints, in accordance with the character of his times; and this of Job, more particularly still, in reference to the resurrection of the body, as in this aspect meeting the peculiar form of suffering and persecution at the hand of the enemy of which he is the type, and its anticipated issue in death and the corruption of the body in the grave. In which manifestation also, especially, it should be observed,—as “the Resurrection and the Life," the Redeemer is "the Goel" (as he is here designated), the antetype of "the Avenger of blood;" avenging the death of His saints upon their murderer: as He Himself saith, speaking by the prophet Hosea in the triumphant language of ch. xiii. 14,-"I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O