Ver. 3. The Prophet now begins to show, more in detail, in how far the Sprout of the Lord and the fruit of the land would serve for the honour and glory of the Church. The words: "He that was left in Zion and was spared in Jerusalem," take up the idea suggested by the "escaped of Israel" in ver. 2. The double designation is intended to direct attention to the thought that the remnant, and the remnant only, are called to a participation in the glory. _Zion_ and _Jerusalem_, as the centre of the covenant-people, here represent the whole; this is evident from the circumstance that at the close of ver. 2, which is here resumed, the escaped of _Israel_ were spoken of Ever since the sanctuary and the royal palace were founded at Zion, it was in a spiritual point of view, the residence of all Israel, who even personally met there at the high festivals.--Whoever is left in Zion "_shall be called holy_." The fundamental notion of holiness is that of separation. God is holy, inasmuch as He is separated from all that is created and finite, and is elevated above all that is finite; comp. my Commentary on Rev. iv. 8. _Believers_ are holy, because they are separated from the world as regards their moral existence and their destiny. Here only the latter aspect is considered. Holy in a moral sense they were already, inasmuch as it is this which forms the condition of their being spared in the divine judgments. They became holy because they are partakers of the beauty, of the exaltation, and ornament which are to be bestowed upon the escaped by the Sprout of the Lord. The circumstance that they have been installed into the dignity of the saints of God implies that, when the Spirit of the Lord has appeared, the world's power has no longer any dominion over them, but that, on the contrary, they shall judge the world. In like manner we read in Exod. xix. 6, in the description of the _reward_ for faithfulness: "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation;" comp. ver. 5: "And now if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, ye shall be a property unto me out of all people." In reference to the exalted dignity and glory, holiness occurs in Deut. vii. 6: "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself out of all the people that are upon [Pg 20] the face of the earth." When the company of Korah said: "All the congregation, they are holy" (Numb. xvi. 3), they had in view, not the moral holiness but the dignity--a circumstance which is quite obvious from words added: "And in the midst of them is the Lord." And so Moses likewise speaks of the dignity in Numb. xvi. 7: "Whom the Lord shall choose, he is the holy one." In Rom. i. 7; Heb. iii. 1, holiness is declared to consist in being loved, called, and chosen by God.--As regards the fulfilment of this promise, it has its _horas_ and _moras_. It began with the first appearance of Christ, by which the position of the true Israel to the world was substantially and fundamentally changed. It was not without meaning that, as early as in the apostolic times, the "Saints" was a kind of _nomen proprium_ of believers, comp. Acts ix. 13, 32. We are even now the sons of God, and hence even already installed into an important portion of the inheritance of holiness; but it has not yet appeared what we shall be, 1 John iii. 2. But the beginning, and the continuation pervading all ages, viz., God's dealings throughout the whole of history, whereby he ever anew lifts up His Church from the dust of lowliness, afford to us the guarantee for the completion, which is, with graphic vividness, described in the last two chapters of Revelation.--"_To be called_" is more than merely "to be;" it indicates that the _being_ is so marked as to procure for itself acknowledgment.--The words: "_Every one that is written to life in Jerusalem_" anew point out that judgment will go before, and by the side of grace. The meaning of חיים is, according to the fundamental passage in Ps. lxix. 29, "not living ones" (_Hoffmann_, _Weiss._ i. S. 208), but "life." In Revelation, too, the book of life, and not the book of the living ones, is spoken of "To be written to life" is equivalent to being ordained to life, Acts xiii. 48; comp. my Comment. on Ps. lxix. 29; Rev. iii. 5. Life is not naked life,--a miserable life is, according to the view of Scripture, not to be called a life, but is a form of death only--but life in the full enjoyment of the favour of God; comp. my Comment. on Ps. xvi. 11, xxx. 6, xxxvi. 10; xlii. 9; lxiii. 4. The Chaldean thus paraphrases it: "All they that are written to eternal life shall see the consolation of Jerusalem, _i.e._ the Messiah." Comp. Dan. xii. 1; Rev. iii. 5, xiii. 8, xx. 15, xxii. 19; Phil. iv.