6. At about the year 570 before Christ, we meet with the following prophecy of Ezekiel : Howl ye, wo worth the day! for the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near; a cloudy day it shall be the time of the heathen.'4

The next words describe the event alluded to: 'The sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down. Ethiopia, and Lybia, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword. Thus saith the Lord, they also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down. From the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God.....I also will wake the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land; and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain,' &c. This prophecy was speedily fulfilled; for within four or five years afterwards, Nebuchadrezzar, or Nebuchadnezzar the Great, made himself master of all Egypt, and carried many of the inhabitants captive to the territory beyond the Euphrates. He pushed his success, laid waste nearly the whole of the Mediterranean coast of Africa, to the Straits of Gibraltar, and then crossed over into Spain. Such was the day of the Lord here threatened on Egypt.

4 Ezek. xxx. 2, 3.

1 xxx. 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 20-26. 2 Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth, Sect. xlvi. pp. 143, 144.

7. We descend now to the latest of the Old Testament prophets, and the last in the order of the canon. Malachi is supposed to have flourished about 420 or 430 years before Christ. 'Behold, the day cometh,' says he, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.....Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers unto the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.'3

The only specific reference here given to fix the period alluded to, is the assurance that it should follow the coming of Elijah the prophet; so that by ascertaining when this latter event occurred, we shall determine the time immediately preceding the day of the Lord here mentioned. Now, the coming of Elijah, it is well known, took place in the appearance and ministry of John the Baptist; of whom, the angel who announced his birth to his father, declared, in the very words of Malachi, that he should go before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' &c.4 and of whom our Saviour positively asserted, this is Elias

which was for to come.' 5

This great and dreadful day of the Lord,'

3 Malachi iv. 1, 5, 6.

5 Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 10-13.

4 Luke i. 17.

Mark ix. 11-13.

then, was some public and extraordinary judgment that was to rage, like a burning tempest on the proud and wicked, soon after the time of John the Baptist. And we scarcely need remark, that about forty years after his ministry and death, a scene of tribulation, such as had not been since the foundation of the world, and such as never should be again, came upon the haughty, rebellious Jews, levelled their city with the dust, exterminated the larger part of the nation, and scattered the remnant like ashes to the four winds of heaven.

Before we take leave of this prophecy, with which we close our quotations from the Old Testament, we would beg the reader to mark the magnificence of the figure with which this day of the Lord is here represented burning as an oven, and consuming all the proud and wicked, so as to leave them neither root nor branch!

II. In the New Testament, the phrase under consideration occurs, in its simple form, but three times; though the expression, the day of the Lord Jesus, is found in one or two additional passages. These, however, we shall pass without notice; but take up the others in their order.

1

1. The first is that well known prophecy of Joel which St. Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost, and applied, at least the former part of it, to that occasion: This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to

I 1. Cor. v. 5. 2 Cor i. 14..

pass in the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out, in those days, of my spirit, and they shall prophecy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come.' 2

It is probable that St. Peter intended to apply no more of this prediction to the extraordinary scene exhibited on the day of Pentecost, than that which related to the effusion of the holy spirit and the gift of prophecy; for the latter part of the passage evidently refers to the approaching visitation on the Jews, and to the signs that should precede that great and notable day of the Lord.' This address was delivered by St. Peter at Jerusalem, thirty-seven years before the destruction of that city; or A. D. 33.

2. The first Epistle to the Thessalonians is thought to have been written about A. D. 52, or 54, soon after St. Paul, in company with Silas, first preached the gospel in their city, and gathered a multitude of converts. These converts, we are told in the book of Acts,1 were from the devout Greeks: a term which Dr. Clarke asserts, was used to signify proselytes to Judaism, and

2 Acts ii. 16, 20.

1 Acts xvii, 4.

2 Commentary on the N. Test. Preface to 1 Thess.

the descendants of Jewish parents. Addressing them, the apostle says, 'Of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you; for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.' 3

To what period did the apostle here allude? The very next words show that he expected this day would overtake the Thessalonians; not indeed as a thief, because they were not in darkness as to its preceding signs, and would watch and be sober: But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober.' 4 Since it is evident that he was speaking of some great and general tribulation then near at hand, it is probable that he alluded to the impending destruction of the Jews, which deeply involved that people even in the remote provinces where they had been dispersed. For, in addition to the vast multitude of visitors from all parts of the world, who perished in the siege and capture of the city, those who remained in foreign lands, says Dr. Jahn, must have felt severely the hard fate of their native country. A people who had always been disliked on account of their supposed unreasonable religion, and who had now lost their

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