like. Otherwise the twelfth chapter is a tracing of the details of the source, principles, and actings of them, as in God’s mind, and that from their nature, object, and outset.
But to return to the details of the eleventh chapter: what we find is this;—all who had the priestly character, and what concerned them, preserved—even their worship, and the altar, which is the ground of first approach, and the point and medium of communication between the priest and those without. But the outward profession—the holy city—is all given up to be entirely desecrated for the prophetic period of forty-two months. But it is not only the priestly associations which are preserved here, but the witnessing or prophetic character: i.e. efficacy was given to their testimony, “given to the prayers of the saints,” or given to “my two witnesses,” and signifies efficacy to the subject of the gift.[1]
- ↑ Power was given them that they should prophesy in sackcloth for the period of the treading down of the outside holy place while the inner was preserved. It is given in days here, I apprehend, to shew the continuity and constancy of their testimony, not merely the term. The next point in the testimony was this; that it was without the attainment of order in the ministration of Christ’s great offices on earth when he shall come; but it was a witness to them. If we compare Zech. iv. we shall find, in the restoration of the Jewish economy on earth, the strictest
