Zechariah 10:9 And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children… At the end of the seventy years' captivity the people of God's ancient choice were distributed through Parthia, Media, Persia, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya and Rome, Crete and Arabia. Everywhere, throughout the great Roman Empire, they fell into the ground to die. So far as their natural life was concerned, they seemed on the point of being obliterated among the nations of the world; but you might as well talk of the obliteration of the seed which the husbandman casts into the autumn furrows. They built their synagogues, throve in the quarters assigned to them in the great cities, and disseminated new conceptions of God, high ethical standards, a fresh religious speech, destined to be of incalculable service to the early preachers of Christ's Evangel. It was thus with the first believers. By the rough hand of the persecutor, the rich wheat of Pentecost, which had lain too long in the bin of the mother Church, was scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria. "They therefore that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word." "They therefore that were scattered abroad, upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch." These spring sewings yielded a marvellous return. How many illustrations have existed, throughout the entire history of the Church, of the effect of God's sowings! "My Father is the Husbandman," said our Lord. With both hands He has prosecuted His work of sowing. There was a grand quality in the corn of the Waldensian Valleys, in the , the , the , which was sown by the Master in the dungeons of the Inquisition, in mockings and scourgings, in bonds and imprisonment, in the fires of martyrdom, and in the current of swiftly flowing rivers. But what harvests it all yielded! There was, for instance, the harvest of the Reformation in Germany, of the in France, and of the Puritans in England. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again. |
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