Pascal's Pensées
shall be hungry; my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed; my
servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry and howl for
vexation of spirit.
"And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord
shall slay thee, and call His servants by another name, that he who
blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in God, etc., because
the former troubles are forgotten.
"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former
things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
"But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for,
behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
"And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people; and the voice of
weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
"Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I
will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall
eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain."
Is. lvi, 3: "Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for
my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.
"Blessed is the man that doeth this, that keepeth the Sabbath, and
keepeth his hand from doing any evil.
"Neither let the strangers that have joined themselves to me, say, God
will separate me from His people. For thus saith the Lord: Whoever will
keep my Sabbath, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of
my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house a place and a name
better than that of sons and of daughters: I will give them an
everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."
Is. lix, 9: "Therefore for our iniquities is justice far from us: we
wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in
darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind; we stumble at noon day
as in the night: we are in desolate places as dead men.
"We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves; we look for
judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us."
Is. lxvi, 18: "But I know their works and their thoughts; it shall come
that I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall see my glory.
"And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of
them unto the nations, to Africa, to Lydia, to Italy, to Greece, and to
the people that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory. And
they shall bring your brethren."
Jer. vii. _Reprobation of the Temple_: "Go ye unto Shiloth, where I set
my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my
people. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, I
will do unto this house, wherein my name is called upon, wherein ye
trust, and unto the place which I gave to your priests, as I have done
to Shiloth." (For I have rejected it, and made myself a temple
elsewhere.)
"And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your
brethren, even the seed of Ephraim." (Rejected for ever.) "Therefore
pray not for this people."
Jer. vii, 22: "What avails it you to add sacrifice to sacrifice? For I
spake not unto your fathers, when I brought them out of the land of
Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this thing
commanded I them, saying, Obey and be faithful to my commandments, and I
will be your God, and ye shall be my people." (It was only after they
had sacrificed to the golden calf that I gave myself sacrifices to turn
into good an evil custom.)
Jer. vii, 4: "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the
Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these."
713
The Jews witnesses for God. Is. xliii, 9; xliv, 8.
_Prophecies fulfilled._--I Kings xiii, 2.--I Kings xxiii, 16.--Joshua
vi, 26.--I Kings xvi, 34.--Deut. xxiii.
Malachi i, II. The sacrifice of the Jews rejected, and the sacrifice of
the heathen, (even out of Jerusalem,) and in all places.
Moses, before dying, foretold the calling of the Gentiles, Deut. xxxii,
21, and the reprobation of the Jews.
Moses foretold what would happen to each tribe.
_Prophecy._--"Your name shall be a curse unto mine elect, and I will
give them another name."
"Make their heart fat,"[270] and how? by flattering their lust and
making them hope to satisfy it.
714
_Prophecy._--Amos and Zechariah. They have sold the just one, and
therefore will not be recalled.--Jesus Christ betrayed.
They shall no more remember Egypt. See Is. xliii, 16, 17, 18, 19. Jer.
xxiii, 6, 7.
_Prophecy._--The Jews shall be scattered abroad. Is. xxvii, 6.--A new
law, Jerem. xxxi, 32.
Malachi. _Grotius._--The second temple glorious.--Jesus Christ will
come. Haggai ii, 7, 8, 9, 10.
The calling of the Gentiles. Joel ii, 28. Hosea ii, 24. Deut. xxxii, 21.
Malachi i, 11.
715
Hosea iii.--Is. xlii, xlviii, liv, lx, lxi, last verse. "I foretold it
long since that they might know that it is I." Jaddus to Alexander.
716
[_Prophecies._--The promise that David will always have descendants.
Jer. xiii, 13.]
717
The eternal reign of the race of David, 2 Chron., by all the prophecies,
and with an oath. And it was not temporally fulfilled. Jer. xxiii, 20.
718
We might perhaps think that, when the prophets foretold that the sceptre
should not depart from Judah until the eternal King came, they spoke to
flatter the people, and that their prophecy was proved false by Herod.
But to show that this was not their meaning, and that, on the contrary,
they knew well that this temporal kingdom should cease, they said that
they would be without a king and without a prince, and for a long time.
Hosea iii, 4.
719
_Non habemus regem nisi Cæsarem._[271] Therefore Jesus Christ was the
Messiah, since they had no longer any king but a stranger, and would
have no other.
720
We have no king but Cæsar.
721
Daniel ii: "All thy soothsayers and wise men cannot shew unto thee the
secret which thou hast demanded. But there is a God in heaven who can do
so, and that hath revealed to thee in thy dream what shall be in the
latter days," (This dream must have caused him much misgiving.)
"And it is not by my own wisdom that I have knowledge of this secret,
but by the revelation of this same God, that hath revealed it to me, to
make it manifest in thy presence.
"Thy dream was then of this kind. Thou sawest a great image, high and
terrible, which stood before thee. His head was of gold, his breast and
arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his
feet part of iron and part of clay. Thus thou sawest till that a stone
was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet, that
were of iron and of clay, and brake them to pieces.
"Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken
to pieces together, and the wind carried them away; but this stone that
smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
This is the dream, and now I will give thee the interpretation thereof.
"Thou who art the greatest of kings, and to whom God hath given a power
so vast that thou art renowned among all peoples, art the head of gold
which thou hast seen. But after thee shall arise another kingdom
inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear
rule over all the earth.
"But the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, and even as iron
breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, so shall this empire break
in pieces and bruise all.
"And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of clay and part of
iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the
strength of iron and of the weakness of clay.
"But as iron cannot be firmly mixed with clay, so they who are
represented by the iron and by the clay, shall not cleave one to another
though united by marriage.
"Now in the days of these kings shall God set up a kingdom, which shall
never be destroyed, nor ever be delivered up to other people. It shall
break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for
ever, according as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the
mountain without hands, and that it fell from the mountain, and brake in
pieces the iron, the clay, the silver, and the gold. God hath made known
to thee what shall come to pass hereafter. This dream is certain, and
the interpretation thereof sure.
"Then Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face towards the earth," etc.
Daniel viii, 8. "Daniel having seen the combat of the ram and of the
he-goat, who vanquished him and ruled over the earth, whereof the
principal horn being broken four others came up toward the four winds of
heaven, and out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed
exceedingly great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the
land of Israel, and it waxed great even to the host of heaven; and it
cast down some of the stars, and stamped upon them, and at last
overthrew the prince, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and
the place of his sanctuary was cast down.
"This is what Daniel saw. He sought the meaning of it, and a voice cried
in this manner, 'Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision,' And
Gabriel said:
"The ram which thou sawest is the king of the Medes and Persians, and
the he-goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn that is between
his eyes is the first king of this monarchy.
"Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms
shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.
"And in the latter time of their kingdom, when iniquities are come to
the full, there shall arise a king, insolent and strong, but not by his
own power, to whom all things shall succeed after his own will; and he
shall destroy the holy people, and through his policy also he shall
cause craft to prosper in his hand, and he shall destroy many. He shall
also stand up against the Prince of princes, but he shall perish
miserably, and nevertheless by a violent hand."
Daniel ix, 20. "Whilst I was praying with all my heart, and confessing
my sin and the sin of all my people, and prostrating myself before my
God, even Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, came
to me and touched me about the time of the evening oblation, and he
informed me and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee the
knowledge of things. At the beginning of thy supplications I came to
shew that which thou didst desire, for thou are greatly beloved:
therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. Seventy weeks
are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to abolish iniquity, and
to bring in everlasting righteousness; to accomplish the vision and the
prophecies, and to anoint the Most Holy. (After which this people shall
be no more thy people, nor this city the holy city. The times of wrath
shall be passed, and the years of grace shall come for ever.)
"Know therefore, and understand, that, from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the
Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks." (The
Hebrews were accustomed to divide numbers, and to place the small first.
Thus, 7 and 62 make 69. Of this 70 there will then remain the 70th, that
is to say, the 7 last years of which he will speak next.)
"The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after three score and two weeks," (which have followed the first
seven. Christ will then be killed after the sixty-nine weeks, that is to
say, in the last week), "the Christ shall be cut off, and a people of
the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and