Instead of "Seal the vision and the prophet,'' Aquila gives, I think, a more suitable rendering, viz. "And for fulfilling vision and prophet." For our Lord Jesus Christ did not come as it were to seal up the visions of the prophets, for He rather opened and explained those that were of old obscure and sealed, tearing away so to say the seals impressed on them, and taught His disciples the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Hence He says, "Behold, (d) the lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed, and he has opened the seals that were set on the book," in John's Apocalypse. What are these seals but the obscurities of the prophets? Isaiah knew them well and definitely says too: "And these words shall be as the words of the sealed book." The Christ of God did not come then to shut up the vision and the prophet, but rather to open them and bring them to the light. Hence I prefer Aquila's rendering, (387) "For fulfilling the vision and the prophet." And it agrees also with our Saviour's words, "I have not come to destroy the law or the prophets, I have not come to destroy but to fulfil." "For the end of the law is Christ," and all the prophecies concerning Him we know remained unfulfilled and uncompleted, until He came and brought fulfilment to the prophecies about Himself. It is possible, too, for the version of the Septuagint, "To seal up the vision and the prophet," to bear this meaning: "For the Law and the prophets continued until John," and from his day the ancient inspiration of the Jewish race has ceased, and its predictions of the Christ, and they who in the Holy (b) Scriptures saw genuine visions have come to an end, as if divine grace were shut up and bound with seals: and so it is the case that from that day there has been no activity of prophet or seer among them; this has altogether ceased from the time named till our own day.