416 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
to the rejection of Christ, oppressed and devoured the flock and ultimately brought about their own ruin ; others again identify him with the imperial Roman power. Thus, in the words of one of the advocates of this view, " the Jews rejected Christ, the King of Israel, and accepted the itheo Emperor of Rome. In the madness of their rage against ! Antk Jesus of Nazareth, they cried out : We have no king but sorro Caesar. They obtained their choice, and found it bitterness : ;reat in the latter end." "The description" (in ver. 16), the Ijth same writer proceeds, " is given in language suitable to the |M, character of an evil shepherd under which the Roman joarti; Empire is described. It is strikingly similar in meaning to jmi that given of the fourth, or Roman word-empire in the , Book of Daniel, as a wild beast more dreadful, terrible, and i^i strong than those beasts that were before it, furnished with L t great iron teeth and brazen claws, devouring, breaking in Ifak pieces, and stamping even the residue of its prey under its h^ feet (Dan. vii. 7, 19, 23).*
I have set forth this view at some length, because I p believe that a reference to Rome as the more immediate l^ scourge of God in the punishment of Israel after their j a ; r rejection of Christ is probably included in this prophecy, and this is in accordance with the explanation I have given of the words in the 6th verse, " I will deliver the men every one . . . into the hand of his king." But whatever partial reference to Imperial Rome there may be in this scripture, and however many evil and foolish shepherds there have already arisen since the words were uttered who have devoured the Jewish flock, the full and final fulfilment of this solemn prophecy will take place in the final phase of the development of the fourth great world-power (i.e., the Roman), when amid the ten horns, or kingdoms, there shall come up " a little horn " who shall be master of them all, and in whom all the beast-like qualities of apostate anti- Christian world-power shall be concentrated and reach their climax.
1 C. H. H. Wright.
2 See above the remarks on ver. 6.
