118 THE KEY OF MYSTERIES

led the children of Israel through the Red Sea and through the wilderness, and which betokened God's immediate presence. The Jewish commentator Rabbi Solomon Yarhi, known under the surname Rashi, says that 'the Lord' here is 'the God of Judgement'. The celebrated Jewish commentator, Rabbi David Qimhi, explains 'the Lord' as 'the King Messiah'. These explanations are in accordance with the New Testament, as we now proceed to show, and they clearly set forth the Deity of the Messiah.

The Lord Jesus Christ himself in the Gospel explains the first part of the verse, telling his disciples 1 that it referred to John the Baptist. The same thing is stated by St. Mark 2 in his Gospel. Now Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was filled 3 with the holy spirit and prophesied regarding his son John, saying:—

Thou, 4 child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High:
For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to make ready his way.

Here we find not only the statement that John the Baptist is the messenger spoken of by the prophet Malachi, but also the declaration that the person whose ways he is to prepare is 'the Lord' (الرّبّ). That this is true is evident from the passage of Malachi which we are considering, for the speaker


1 Matt. xi. 10; Luke vii. 27. 2 Mark i. 2.
3 Luke i. 67. 4 Luke i. 76.
PROOF OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST 119

there is 'the Lord of hosts,' and He says of John the Baptist, 'He shall prepare the way before me'. The person whose way John the Baptist did actually prepare, as we have already seen, was the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 the Word of God. The inference is obvious.

Having now considered the testimony of the law (التوراة) and the prophets, we turn to the Psalms. 2 From them we content ourselves with quoting only three passages.

The first of these is from the second Psalm, where it is written:—

I 3 will tell of the decree:
The LORD said unto me, Thou art my Son;
This day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way.

That this refers to the Lord Jesus Christ is clear from the New Testament, where in three 4 different passages the words, 'Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee', are quoted, and are said to have been used about Him, to imply His eternal ازلي) existence in the past, and to be proved by His resurrection from the dead. Rabbi Solomon Yarhi says that the older Jewish commentators used to


1 Matt. iii. 2, 11; John i. 23, 26-7, 29-37; see pp. 95-6 above.
2 Cf. Luke xxiv. 44. 3 Ps. ii. 7-8, 12.
4 Acts xiii. 33; Heb. i. 5; v. 5.