also include repentance over such sins. Then Messiah’s death will be of benefit to the one lamenting and he will receive the “spirit of favor and entreaties.”

33. (a) How did this rule apply also to a person even though he was of “the house of Levi,” or the “family of the Shimeites”? (b) Or, if one was of the “family of the house of Nathan,” as Jesus’ mother Mary was?

³³ This would apply also to a person who, according to the flesh, was of the “house of Levi.” Although as a Levite he served at the earthly temple in Jerusalem, with its altar of animal sacrifices, he still needed the perfect human sacrifice of the One pierced through. The “house of Levi” also included the “family of the Shimeites.” (Exodus 6:16, 17; Numbers 3:17-21) So these also needed a sacrifice able to ransom sinful human creatures. The “family of the house of Nathan” belonged to the royal family of David. (2 Samuel 5:13, 14) Mary the earthly mother of Jesus Christ was born into the line of descent of this Nathan the son of David. (Luke 3:23-31) Despite their royal connections according to the flesh, those of this family needed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and that he was “pierced through” in order to fulfill divine prophecy and to prove worthy of the heavenly kingdom.

34. (a) From what standpoint must everyone, regardless of family, house, or sex, wail and lament over the pierced one? (b) How must we today do so in order to receive the “spirit of favor and entreaties”?

³⁴ Everybody, no matter of what family or house, needed to wail and lament in repentant grief over the need for the Messiah to die as a ransom sacrifice for sins. Woman as well as man needed to do so. That is why the prophecy repeatedly says that there must be wailing on the part of “their women by themselves.” (Zechariah 12:12-14) Likewise each one of us today must look with repentance and in faith to Messiah Jesus, the One whom the enemies of Jehovah’s Messianic kingdom were permitted to ‘pierce through.’ If we do so, we shall receive the “spirit of favor and entreaties.”

35. When are our tears of wailing and lamentation over the ‘piercing through’ of the Messiah wiped away?

³⁵ Our tears of wailing and lamentation are wiped away when we discern, also, that the Messiah Jesus was “pierced through” for the vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. His finally being “pierced through” proved that he had maintained his perfect integrity to the Sovereign Lord Jehovah to the death. As a reward he was honored with being enthroned as Messianic King in heaven.

Chapter 20

A “Third Part” Preserved in a Purged Land

1. Has Christendom failed in producing the kind of land that honest-hearted people want, and upon whose promise to produce the desired Paradise must we depend today?

WHAT decent, honest-hearted, righteously disposed people want today is a land in which the inhabitants live clean lives and there is no religious hypocrisy or fraud and deception. Christendom, after trying out her hundreds of varieties of so-called Christian religions, has failed to produce such a land. All hope has now been lost that she will ever be able to do so. Not one land can she set forth as her showpiece to prove that she can purge out wickedness and religious uncleanness. She has nowhere brought about a spiritual paradise among her hundreds of millions of church members. If the Creator of heaven and earth were to depend upon her to bring about a purged earth with pure, undefiled religion, it would never come about. But the Almighty God will yet bring this about, in his way, by means of his own theocratic organization. His promise to do so still stands sure, for all right-minded people to trust in today.

2. After telling of the wailing over the one “pierced through,” what does Jehovah tell of being opened up for sin and for an abhorrent thing?

² It is most interesting to examine how God illustrates his purpose to do this remarkable thing. In his “pronouncement” he has just finished speaking about the