A number of like passages would occur to any well taught reader of the

Old Testament such as the apostles were, and until the reader is in

possession of at least some of these passages, he cannot be competent to

judge the matter of the rightness of the question in Acts 1:6.  Coupled with

this let us remember that He Who opened up the Scriptures during those forty

days, at the same time 'opened their understanding'.  In the face of such a

comprehensive statement is it possible to maintain that prejudice and

ignorance prompted the question of Acts 1:6?

Isaiah's prophecy divides into two great sections: the first, chapters

1 to 39, deals mainly with Israel's rejection; the second, chapters 40 to 66,

deals with Israel's restoration.  This second section opens with the words:

'Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.  Speak ye

comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is

accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned' (Isa. 40:1,2).

This prophecy of restoration makes immediate reference to 'the voice of

him that crieth in the wilderness'.  The apostles would know the close

connection between John the Baptist and this prophecy, hence their pertinent

question in Acts 1:6.  Isaiah 43 contains the promise:

'I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I

will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring

My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth' (Isa.

Jeremiah, too, is a prophet of rejection and restoration.

First the

Lord declares that He will:

'watch over His word to perform it' (1:12 author's translation) (which

word, here, was a word of judgment and wrath).

In Jeremiah 31:28 the Lord says:

'And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to

pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to

afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the

These words refer to Israel as a nation, and not to 'a church' as

verses 35 and 36 bear testimony:

' ... If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then

the seed of Israel also shall cease from being A Nation before Me for

ever' (Jer. 31:36).

'Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good

thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house

of Judah ... David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the

house of Israel ... if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven

and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My

servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the

seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to

return, and have mercy on them' (Jer. 33:14-26).