h."--As the words "Sprout of the Lord" denote
the heavenly origin of the Redeemer, so do the words [Hebrew: pri harC]
the earthly one, the soil from which the Lord causes the Saviour to
sprout up. These words are, by _Vitringa_ and others, translated: "the
fruit of the earth," but the correct translation is "the fruit of the
_land_." The passages, Num. xiii. 26: "And shewed them the fruit of the
land;" and Deut. i. 25: "And they took in their hands of the fruit of
the land, and brought it unto us, and brought us word again, and said,
good is the land which the Lord our God doth give us,"--these two
passages are, besides that under consideration, the only ones in which
the phrase [Hebrew: pri harC] occurs; and there is here, no doubt, an
allusion to them. The excellent natural fruit of ancient times is a
type of the spiritual fruit. To the same result--that [Hebrew: harC]
designates the definite land, that land which, in the preceding verses,
in the description of the prevailing conniption, and of the divine
judgments, was always spoken of,--to this result we are led by the fact
also, that everywhere in the Old Testament where the contrariety of the
divine and human origin of the Messiah is mentioned, the human origin
is more distinctly qualified and limited. This is especially the case
in those passages which, being dependent upon that before us, maybe
considered as a commentary upon it; in Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, where
the Lord raises a Sprout unto _David_, and Zech. vi. 12, where the man
whose name is _Zemach_ (Sprout) grows up out of its soil; comp. Heb.
vii. 14, where, in allusion to the Old Testament passages of the
Sprout--the verb [Greek: anatellein] is commonly used of the sprouting
forth of the plants (see _Bleek_ on this passage)--it is said: [Greek:
ex Iouda anatetalken ho Kurios hemon], _Bengel_: _ut germen justitiae_;
farther, Mic. v. 1 (2), where the eternal existence of the Messiah, [Pg
16] and His birth in Bethlehem are contrasted with one another; Is. ix.
5, (6), where the words: "Unto _us_ a child is born, unto _us_ a son is
given," are contrasted with the various designations of the Messiah,
according to His divine majesty. This qualification and limitation
which everywhere takes place, have their ground in the circumstance
that the Messiah is constantly represented to the covenant-people as
their property; and that He, indeed, was, inasmuch as salvation went
out from Jews (John iv. 22), and was dest