March 1, 1865. From these passages we may learn (1) that Michael is the "first of the princes," or "the great prince" of the angelic host, and hence it is that he is called elsewhere "the Archangel." (Jude 9; compare 1 Thess. iv. 16.) For as the learned George Stanly Faber has observed: "Rabbinical speculatists, and very commonly Christians after them, have constituted a higher order of angels, whom they call archangels; but the former have thought fit to limit them to the mystical number of seven. But in Scripture the compound word archangel never occurs except in the singular number; whence it is plainly enough intimated that there is no more than one archangel. This Prince of the Angels, sometimes denominated Michael, or Who-is-asGod, is no created angel, but the Angel of the Covenant, or the Angel of God's presence, or the Captain of the Lord's angelic host, as He described Himself to Joshua.* He is, in short, no other than the Word or Name of Jehovah, as the second Person of the blessed Trinity is economically styled. That Michael is the archangelic title of Christ, there can, I think, be no reasonable doubt."+ But further, we may learn (2) that Michael is the special guardian of Israel. Hence, as we have seen, He is spoken of as your Prince," and "the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people." We have here a strangely interesting glimpse opened up to us into the economy of the angelical world. St. Paul, in his remarkable enumeration of the evil spiritual agencies against which the Christian is called upon to wrestle, mentions "the rulers of the darkness of this world,” or, as the original may be more faithfully rendered, "the world-lords (коσμократоL) of the darkness of this age." (Eph. vi. 12.) Such "world-lords," doubtless, were the "prince of the kingdom of Persia," and the "prince of Grecia," mentioned by Daniel, and it would seem that to these wicked spirits a certain territorial jurisdiction is assigned. We are thus led to believe that each kingdom of this world has a great satanic officer placed over it, just as Persia and Greece of old, and that Satan has thus spread out his infernal potencies in a regularly organized form, giving them a sort of ubiquity over the earth.‡ The contemplation of such an organization of the powers of evil is awe-inspiring. But though Persia and the other kingdoms of the earth may have their "world-lords," and though in divine opposition to these evil powers the angels of God may exercise a like territorial guardian * See Joshua v. 14. This narrative has an important bearing on our subject. The title assumed on that occasion by Him who in the following chapter (verse 2) is expressly called Jehovah, "the Captain of the host of the Lord," or, as the margin has it, the "Prince of the host of the Lord" (compare Dan. viii. 11, 25), implies the Ruler of the angelic host, and is clearly identical with that bestowed here in Daniel upon Michael, "the Chief of the Princes," or the "Great Prince" of the angelic host; both being simply variations of the confessedly divine title, Jehovah of hosts. Michael and the Angel of the Covenant are thus identified. "The Many Mansions ia the House of the Father," p. 109. Second edition. 2 Among the Romans as re were two kinds of Penates, domestic and public, so there were, also, besides the family Lares (both the Lares and Penates belonged to the order of demons), others to whom public service was rendered. Of this class were the Præstites, the patron spirits of the town, and the Compitales, to whom Servius Tullius ordered wooden chapels to be erected at the cross-ways intersecting the city. See Dollinger, "The Gentile and the Jew," &c,, Vol. II., page 61, Darnell's translation. March 1, 1865. ship, Israel is more highly favoured still, for Michael Himself is the "great Prince that standeth for the children of thy people." And so it is written in the 121st Psalm, "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Jehovah is thy keeper; Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Jehovah shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul. Jehovah shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." (Verses 4-8.) Realizing this divine guardianship, well might the dying Moses exclaim, "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places." (Deut. xxxiii. 26-29.) Bearing in mind, then, that Michael is the archangelic title of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that in this character He is the divine guardian and champion of His people Israel, let us proceed to consider the next passage in which this sublime name is met with. Jude's words are these: "Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee." This passage has ever held a place, and no minor one, among "Scripture difficulties." Michael," according to our previous conclusion, is the Lord Jesus Christ as the head of the angelic host, and in that character the guardian angel of Israel. "The devil," on the other hand, is the head of the dark legions of the pit, and the relentless enemy of Israel, as the whole history of the chosen nation clearly shows. But what are we to understand by "the body of Moses?" Here the difficulty of the passage hinges. Many excellent commentators hold that the words are to be taken literally. Connecting this passage with the account of the death of Moses given in Deut. xxxiv., and the circumstance there stated that the Lord "buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day" (verse 6); some of them have inferred that the divine purpose in thus hiding the remains of the great lawgiver, was to prevent their being made the object of idolatrous worship by the children of Israel; that Satan, intending to frustrate the divine purpose, endeavoured to obtain possession of the body in order to induce the Israelites to worship it, but that Michael successfully opposed him. The actual occurrence of any such conflict, however, is a mere Jewish tradition, unsupported by a particle of Scripture evidence. Whereas, as Dr. Gill observes, "the apostle produces this history as a thing well-known; nor is it reasonable to suppose that such an altercation should be between Michael and the devil on such an account; or that it was in order to draw Israel into idolatry on the one hand, and on the other hand to prevent it; since it never was the custom of the Israelites to worship their progenitors or heroes.' This latter statement of the learned doctor's is * "Exposition of the Bible," in loco. March 1, 1865. perfectly correct, and, I think, quite conclusive against this interpretation; and it is an interesting fact, that with all their blindness and all their proneness to fall into idolatry, the Jewish people never attained such a pitch of superstition as to worship dead men's bones; this was an achievement reserved for a later church. Some other commentators, however, though adhering to the literal sense of the phrase, "the body of Moses," connect the passage rather with the circumstances of our Lord's transfiguration. On that sublime occasion, we are told, Moses as well as Elijah "appeared in glory" (Luke ix. 31); in other words, in the resurrection state; the transfiguration being just the sample and earnest of the coming resurrection kingdom, to be ushered in by Michael's "standing up for God's ancient people." (Dan. xii. 1.) For this purpose, it is supposed, the body of Moses had to be raised, and this resurrection, it is further supposed, Satan resisted, either on the ground of Moses' error at Meribah, or else on the ground that Jesus had not as yet "overcome him that bad the power of death," i.e., Satan himself. But though certainly more plausible, this interpretation, like the former, is utterly destitute of evidence. There is no proof whatever that any such controversy ever took place at all; and we are certainly not warranted in falling back upon a vague tradition, while there seems to be any reasonable ground for supposing that the reference is to a revealed fact. Now there happens to be one passage in Holy Scripture, and only one, in which we find the very words here quoted, "The Lord rebuke thee," used by the same divine person, and against the same great adversary of God and man. In Zechariah iii. 1, 2, we read, "And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan (Sept. Aiaßóλos) standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ?" It seems to me impossible to avoid the conclusion that the reference of Jude is to this passage, and to the circumstances therein described. For if we suppose that the apostle does not refer to them, but to some other circumstances which are not revealed, then we seem to be driven to this strange conclusion, that the same words were twice uttered by Him who bears alike the name of "Michael" and "the angel of the Lord," against the same infernal opponent, and that while one of these occasions had been recorded and the other not, the apostle has yet chosen, for no conceivable reason (the one occasion affording, for his purpose, just as good an illustration as the other), to refer to the unrevealed case, rather than to that which is revealed. The only discrepancy between the passages is, that in one the matter in controversy is "the body of Moses," while in the other it is "Joshua the high priest." But even this discrepancy is, I apprehend, more apparent than real. In Joshua the high priest we undoubtedly have a type of Jerusalem (see verse 2), or the elect people, put upon its trial, and "plucked," as it were, "as a brand out of the fire." And taking "the body of Moses" as a figurative expression, may we not understand it also as descriptive of the Jewish Church, as hereafter existing in the remnant of the Jewish people, and called here "the body of Moses," in contradistinction to the Christian Church, which is else where called "the body of Christ ?" The probability of this being the true interpretation is, I think, very much increased by the consideration that, by adopting it, Jude's reference to Michael is brought into exact parallelism with Daniel's; since we then have in each case not only the same great contending parties (Michael and Satan), but also the same subject of contention, i.e., the Jewish nation. 66 : And this parallelism, moreover, may be still further extended, so as to include the only other passage of Scripture in which the name of Michael occurs. "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child." (Rev. xii. 7-9, 13.) This woman" is introduced at the commencement of the chapter. "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." And in the fifth verse we read, " And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne." Here again, then, we have on the one hand, Michael in his proper character of prince and leader of the angelic host, and on the other hand, the "great dragon," who is expressly identified with "the Devil" (mentioned by Jude), and with Satan (spoken of by Zechariah). And, to complete the parallelism, we may recognize in the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars," the Jewish church as coextensive with the Jewish nation. Not only because ages before we find it described by the same emblems in the prophetic dream of Joseph, wherein "the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to him. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow ourselves to thee to the earth ?" (Gen. xxxvii. 9, 10)-in which passage" the sun and the moon and the eleven stars" (or twelve, including Joseph himself) are certainly emblematic of the Jewish nation; but also because the "MAN CHILD" whom the woman brought forth, and who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, who verily at His glorious ascension" was caught up unto God, and to His throne," was, as St. Paul testifies, "made of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Rom. i. 3.) It is Zion, then, that is here personified-Zion, of whom it is written, "Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pain came she was delivered of a MAN CHILD." (Isa. lxvi. 7.) And it is the last great crisis in Zion's history, the time of Jacob's trouble (the proximate cause of which will be the breaking out of this war between Michael and the dragon), which is described in the remainder of the 12th and the whole of the 13th chapter of the Revelation. The Lord has come into the air; His waiting saints and His sleeping saints have been caught up to meet Him; Satan is then cast down to the earth, and thus the pro-. March 1, 1865. phetic vision of the Saviour shall be finally realized: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Luke x. 18.) THEN shall the great voice be heard rolling in melodious thunders through all the regions of the purified aërial heavens: "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them" (the risen and translated saints). But, "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child." (Verses 10-13.) Satan being cast down as the accuser of the Church in heaven, becomes at once the persecutor of Israel on earth. Hence, Michael's glorious warfare is not finally accomplished by this casting down of Satan; but, having come to the salvation of His Church in the first instance, He will afterwards come with His saints to the deliverance of His people Israel. Then it is that the great promise made to Daniel shall be fulfilled: "At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." (Dan. xii. 1.) Then, too, shall its Divine Guardian contend successfully with the devil, for the possession of the perishing remnant -the almost lifeless "body"-of God's chosen nation; and then shall Jerusalem be "plucked" finally and for ever as a brand out of the fire." : 66 Thus we perceive that all the Scripture references to Michael the Archangel converge in the last great conflict; that alike by Daniel, Jude, and John, He is represented as the angelic keeper of Israel; and lastly, that so viewed, all the passages exhibit a remarkable parallelism, which tends mutually to confirm and illustrate each other. "THE MORE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY." PROPHECY, or the foretelling of future events, was vouchsafed by With this view, evidently, God gave the ve deliverer. (Gen. iii. 15). That promise proved |