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-} - -h3 { - text-align: center; - font-weight: normal; - font-size: 120%; - clear: both; -} - -.captitle { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - font-style: italic; - word-spacing: 0.25em; - margin-top: 0em; - margin-bottom: 1.0em; -} - -.csubtitle { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - margin-top: -0.5em; - margin-bottom: 1.0em; -} - -/* Section Headings: h4 used for section titles */ - -h4 { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - font-size: 100%; - font-weight: normal; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - line-height: 1.45; -} - -h5 { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - font-size: 100%; - font-weight: normal; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - line-height: 1.45; -} - -.secnsub { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - font-size: 84%; - font-weight: normal; - margin-bottom: 1.0em; -} - -/* Horizontal Rules */ - -hr { - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb { - width: 45%; - margin-left: 27.5%; - margin-right: 27.5%; -} - -hr.chap { - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -hr.matter { - width: 95%; - margin-left: 2.5%; - margin-right: 2.5%; -} - -/* Page numbers */ - -.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-style: normal; - font-variant: normal; - font-size: small; - text-align: right; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -/* Block Quotations */ - -.blockquot { - margin-top: 0.75em; - margin-bottom: 0.75em; - font-size: 87%; -} - -/* Table of Persian Monarchs */ - -table.kings { - margin-left: 15%; - margin-right: 15%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - border-spacing: 0.1em; - width: 70%; -} - - -/* New Footnotes as in Vol. I */ - -#fn { - background-color: #EEE; - border: dashed 1px; - color: #000; - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; - margin-top: 5em; - margin-bottom: 5em; - padding: 1em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: 0.5em; - font-size: 0.7em; - text-decoration: none; -} - -.fnote { - margin-top: 0em; - text-align:left; - margin-bottom: 0.7em; - text-indent: 0em; - line-height: 1.45; -} - -.fnote2 { - margin-top: -0.75em; - text-align:left; - margin-bottom: 0.75em; - text-indent:1em; - line-height: 1.45; -} - - - -/* New Poetry */ - -.poetry-container -{ - text-align: center; -} - -.poetry -{ - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; - line-height: 1.45; - font-style: italic; -} - -.poetry1 -{ - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; - line-height: 1.45; -} - - -@media handheld -{ - .poetry - { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; - } -} - -.poetry .verse -{ - text-indent: -3em; - padding-left: 3em; -} - - -.poetry .indent2 -{ - text-indent: -1em; -} - -.poetry .indent4 -{ - text-indent: 1em; -} - -.poetry .stanza -{ - margin: 1em auto; -} - -.psalm { - text-indent: 5em; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; -} - - - - - </style> -<!-- End of CSS Statements --> -</head> - -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible; The Book of the -Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2 (of 2), by George Adam Smith - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Expositor's Bible; The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2 (of 2) - -Author: George Adam Smith - -Editor: William Robertson Nicoll - -Release Date: December 23, 2015 [EBook #50747] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE; TWELVE PROPHETS, VOL. II *** - - - - -Produced by Charlene Taylor, David Tipple, Colin Bell, -Kevin Cathcart, Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern -Languages, University College Dublin and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - <div class="transnote"> -<p> - Transcriber's notes -</p> -<ul> -<li class="lspace">A small number of obvious typos have been corrected.</li> - -<li class="lspace">The spelling and punctuation of the book have not been changed.</li> - -<li class="lspace">The footnotes have been renumbered from 1 to 1,560 and placed at the end -of the text.</li> - -<li class="lspace">It is clear from the context that some Hebrew letters are missing -from Page 82 of the book. These letters, enclosed in square brackets, -have been restored.</li> - -<li> -The HTML file contains 40 external links to other volumes of <i>The -Expositor's Bible</i> on the Gutenberg site. If you are reading the -HTML file on a computer connected to the internet then you can follow -these links. These external links, however, are NOT supported in the -Epub and Mobi files even though they may appear as links in some e-book -readers. -</li> -</ul> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> - -<!-- First "Title Page" --> - -<div class="part"> -<p class="title1">THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE</p> - -<p class="small1">EDITED BY THE REV.</p> - -<p class="editor1">W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Editor of “The Expositor”</i></p> - -<p class="book1">THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS</p> - -<p class="prophets1">VOL. II.—ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, OBADIAH,<br /> -HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH I.—VIII., “MALACHI,” JOEL,<br /> -“ZECHARIAH” IX.—XIV. AND JONAH</p> - -<p class="small1">BY</p> - -<p class="author1">GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D.</p> - -<p class="place"> -NEW YORK -</p> - -<p class="author"> -A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON -</p> - -<p class="place"> -51 EAST TENTH STREET<br /> -1898 -</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<!-- End of "First Title Page --> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> - -<div id="adverts" class="part"> - - <p class="advtitle">THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE</p> - - <p class="advprice">Crown <span class="norm">8</span>vo, cloth, - price <span class="norm">$1.50</span> each vol.</p> - - <p class="advseries">F<span class="small">IRST</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1887–8.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Colossians.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By A. M<span class="small">ACLAREN</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">St. Mark.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Very Rev. the Bishop of Derry.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Genesis.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. M<span class="small">ARCUS</span> - D<span class="small">ODS</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">1 Samuel.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. G. B<span class="small">LAIKIE</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">2 Samuel.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By the same Author.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Hebrews.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Principal - T. C. E<span class="small">DWARDS</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advseries">S<span class="small">ECOND</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1888–9.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Galatians.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. G. G. F<span class="small">INDLAY</span>, B.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Pastoral Epistles.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev A. P<span class="small">LUMMER</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Isaiah I.—XXXIX.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. - G. A. S<span class="small">MITH</span>, D.D. Vol. I.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Book of Revelation.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. M<span class="small">ILLIGAN</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">1 Corinthians</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. M<span class="small">ARCUS</span> - D<span class="small">ODS</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Epistles of St. John.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh.</p> - -<p class="advseries">T<span class="small">HIRD</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1889–90.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Judges and Ruth.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By R. A. W<span class="small">ATSON</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Jeremiah.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. C. J. B<span class="small">ALL</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Isaiah XL.—LXVI.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. G. A. S<span class="small">MITH</span>, D.D. Vol. II.</p> - -<p class="advitem">St. Matthew.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. J. M<span class="small">ONRO</span> - G<span class="small">IBSON</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Exodus.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry.</p> - -<p class="advitem">St. Luke.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. H. B<span class="small">URTON</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advseries">F<span class="small">OURTH</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1890–91.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Ecclesiastes.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. S<span class="small">AMUEL</span> - C<span class="small">ox</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">St. James and St. Jude.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. A. P<span class="small">LUMMER</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Proverbs.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. R. F. H<span class="small">ORTON</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Leviticus.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Rev. S. H. K<span class="small">ELLOGG</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Gospel of St. John.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. M. D<span class="small">ODS</span>, D.D. Vol. I.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Acts of the Apostles.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. S<span class="small">TOKES</span>, D.D. Vol. I.</p> - -<p class="advseries">F<span class="small">IFTH</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1891–2.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Psalms.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By A. M<span class="small">ACLAREN</span>, D.D. Vol. I.</p> - -<p class="advitem">1 and 2 Thessalonians.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By J<span class="small">AMES</span> - D<span class="small">ENNEY</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Book of Job.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By R. A. W<span class="small">ATSON</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Ephesians.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. G. G. F<span class="small">INDLAY</span>, B.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Gospel of St. John.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. M. D<span class="small">ODS</span>, D.D. Vol. II.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Acts of the Apostles.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. S<span class="small">TOKES</span>, D.D. Vol. II.</p> - -<p class="advseries">S<span class="small">IXTH</span> - <span class="small">SERIES</span>, 1892–3.</p> - -<p class="advitem">1 Kings.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Philippians.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Principal R<span class="small">AINY</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. F. A<span class="small">DENEY</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Joshua.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. G. B<span class="small">LAIKIE</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Psalms.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By A. M<span class="small">ACLAREN</span>, D.D. Vol. II.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Epistles of St. Peter.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. R<span class="small">AWSON</span> - L<span class="small">UMBY</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advseries">S<span class="small">EVENTH</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1893–4.</p> - -<p class="advitem">2 Kings.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Romans.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By H. C. G. M<span class="small">OULE</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Books of Chronicles.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. H. B<span class="small">ENNETT</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">2 Corinthians.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By J<span class="small">AMES</span> - D<span class="small">ENNEY</span>, D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Numbers.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By R. A. W<span class="small">ATSON</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Psalms.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By A. M<span class="small">ACLAREN</span>, D.D. Vol. III.</p> - -<p class="advseries">E<span class="small">IGHTH</span> - S<span class="small">ERIES</span>, 1895–6.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Daniel.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Book of Jeremiah.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. H. B<span class="small">ENNETT</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Deuteronomy.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. A<span class="small">NDREW</span> - H<span class="small">ARPER</span>, B.D.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Song of Solomon and Lamentations.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. W. F. A<span class="small">DENEY</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">Ezekiel.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. J<span class="small">OHN</span> - S<span class="small">KINNER</span>, M.A.</p> - -<p class="advitem">The Book of the Twelve Prophets.</p> -<p class="advauthor">By Prof. G. A. S<span class="small">MITH</span>, D.D. - Two Vols</p> - </div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<!-- Main Title --> - -<div class="part"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> -<h1 class="nobreak">THE BOOK -<br /> -<small>OF</small> -<br /> -THE TWELVE PROPHETS</h1> -</div> - -<p class="subtitle"> -COMMONLY CALLED THE MINOR -</p> - -<p class="prepn"> -BY -</p> - -<p class="author"> -GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D. -</p> - -<p class="chair"> -PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS<br /> -FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW -</p> - -<p class="volumes"> -<i>IN TWO VOLUMES</i> -</p> - -<p class="prophets"> -VOL. II.—ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, OBADIAH,<br /> -HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH I.—VIII., “MALACHI,” JOEL,<br /> -“ZECHARIAH” IX.—XIV. AND JONAH -</p> - -<p class="intros"> -<i>WITH HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS</i> -</p> - -<p class="place"> -NEW YORK -</p> - -<p class="author"> -A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON -</p> - -<p class="place"> -51 EAST TENTH STREET<br /> -1898 -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="Preface">PREFACE</h3> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"> -The first volume on the Twelve Prophets dealt -with the three who belonged to the Eighth -Century: Amos, Hosea and Micah. This second -volume includes the other nine books arranged in -chronological order: Zephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk, -of the Seventh Century; Obadiah, of the Exile; -Haggai, Zechariah i.—viii., “Malachi” and Joel, of -the Persian Period, 538—331; “Zechariah” ix.—xiv. -and the Book of Jonah, of the Greek Period, which -began in 332, the date of Alexander’s Syrian campaign. -</p> - -<p> -The same plan has been followed as in Volume I. -A historical introduction is offered to each period. -To each prophet are given, first a chapter of critical -introduction, and then one or more chapters of exposition. -A complete translation has been furnished, -with critical and explanatory notes. All questions -of date and of text, and nearly all of interpretation, -have been confined to the introductions and the -notes, so that those who consult the volume only -for expository purposes will find the exposition unencumbered -by the discussion of technical points. -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p> - -<p> -The necessity of including within one volume so -many prophets, scattered over more than three -centuries, and each of them requiring a separate -introduction, has reduced the space available for the -practical application of their teaching to modern life. -But this is the less to be regretted, that the contents -of the nine books before us are not so applicable -to our own day, as we have found their greater -predecessors to be. On the other hand, however, -they form a more varied introduction to Old Testament -Criticism, while, by the long range of time which they -cover, and the many stages of religion to which they -belong, they afford a wider view of the development -of prophecy. Let us look for a little at these two -points. -</p> - -<p> -1. To Old Testament Criticism these books furnish -valuable introduction—some of them, like Obadiah, Joel -and “Zechariah” ix.—xiv., by the great variety of -opinion that has prevailed as to their dates or their -relation to other prophets with whom they have passages -in common; some, like Zechariah and “Malachi,” -by their relation to the Law, in the light of modern -theories of the origin of the latter; and some, like -Joel and Jonah, by the question whether we are to -read them as history, or as allegories of history, -or as apocalypse. That is to say, these nine books -raise, besides the usual questions of genuineness -and integrity, every other possible problem of Old -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> -Testament Criticism. It has, therefore, been necessary -to make the critical introductions full and detailed. -The enormous differences of opinion as to the dates -of some must start the suspicion of arbitrariness, unless -there be included in each case a history of the development -of criticism, so as to exhibit to the English reader -the principles and the evidence of fact upon which -that criticism is based. I am convinced that what -is chiefly required just now by the devout student of -the Bible is the opportunity to judge for himself how -far Old Testament Criticism is an adult science; with -what amount of reasonableness it has been prosecuted; -how gradually its conclusions have been reached, how -jealously they have been contested; and how far, -amid the many varieties of opinion which must -always exist with reference to facts so ancient and -questions so obscure, there has been progress towards -agreement upon the leading problems. But, besides -the accounts of past criticism given in this volume, -the reader will find in each case an independent -attempt to arrive at a conclusion. This has not always -been successful. A number of points have been left -in doubt; and even where results have been stated -with some degree of positiveness, the reader need -scarcely be warned (after what was said in the Preface -to Vol. I.) that many of these must necessarily -be provisional. But, in looking back from the close -of this work upon the discussions which it contains, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> -I am more than ever convinced of the extreme probability -of most of the conclusions. Among these -are the following: that the correct interpretation of -Habakkuk is to be found in the direction of the position -to which Budde’s ingenious proposal has been -carried on pages 123 ff. with reference to Egypt; that -the most of Obadiah is to be dated from the sixth -century; that “Malachi” is an anonymous work -from the eve of Ezra’s reforms; that Joel follows -“Malachi”; and that “Zechariah” ix.—xiv. has been -rightly assigned by Stade to the early years of the -Greek Period. I have ventured to contest Kosters’ -theory that there was no return of Jewish exiles under -Cyrus, and am the more disposed to believe his -strong argument inconclusive, not only upon a review -of the reasons I have stated in Chap. XVI., but on this -ground also, that many of its chief adherents in this -country and Germany have so modified it as virtually -to give up its main contention. I think, too, there -can be little doubt as to the substantial authenticity -of Zephaniah ii. (except the verses on Moab and -Ammon) and iii. 1–13, of Habakkuk ii. 5 ff., and of the -whole of Haggai; or as to the ungenuine character of -the lyric piece in Zechariah ii. and the intrusion of -“Malachi” ii. 11–13<i>a</i>. On these and smaller points -the reader will find full discussion at the proper places. - -[I may here add a word or two upon some of the -critical conclusions reached in Vol. I., which have -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> -been recently contested. The student will find strong -grounds offered by Canon Driver in his <i>Joel and -Amos</i><a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> for the authenticity of those passages in Amos -which, following other critics, I regarded or suspected -as not authentic. It makes one diffident in one’s -opinions when Canon Driver supports Professors -Kuenen and Robertson Smith on the other side. -But on a survey of the case I am unable to feel that -even they have removed what they admit to be -“forcible” objections to the authorship by Amos of -the passages in question. They seem to me to have -established not more than a possibility that the -passages are authentic; and on the whole I still feel -that the probability is in the other direction. If I am -right, then I think that the date of the apostrophes -to Jehovah’s creative power which occur in the -Book of Amos, and the reference to astral deities in -chap. v. 27, may be that which I have suggested on -pages 8 and 9 of this volume. Some critics have -charged me with inconsistency in denying the authenticity -of the epilogue to Amos while defending that -of the epilogue to Hosea. The two cases, as my -arguments proved, are entirely different. Nor do I -see any reason to change the conclusions of Vol. I. -upon the questions of the authenticity of various -parts of Micah.] -</p> - -<p>The text of the nine prophets treated in this volume -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> -has presented even more difficulties than that of the -three treated in Vol. I. And these difficulties must -be my apology for the delay of this volume. -</p> - -<p> -2. But the critical and textual value of our nine -books is far exceeded by the historical. Each exhibits -a development of Hebrew prophecy of the greatest -interest. From this point of view, indeed, the volume -might be entitled “The Passing of the Prophet.” -For throughout our nine books we see the spirit -and the style of the classic prophecy of Israel -gradually dissolving into other forms of religious -thought and feeling. The clear start from the facts -of the prophet’s day, the ancient truths about -Jehovah and Israel, and the direct appeal to the -conscience of the prophet’s contemporaries, are not -always given, or when given are mingled, coloured -and warped by other religious interests, both present -and future, which are even powerful enough to shake -the ethical absolutism of the older prophets. With -Nahum and Obadiah the ethical is entirely missed -in the presence of the claims—and we cannot deny -that they were natural claims—of the long-suffering -nation’s hour of revenge upon her heathen tyrants. -With Zephaniah prophecy, still austerely ethical, -passes under the shadow of apocalypse; and the -future is solved, not upon purely historical lines, but by -the intervention of “supernatural” elements. With -Habakkuk the ideals of the older prophets encounter -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> -the shock of the facts of experience: we have the -prophet as sceptic. Upon the other margin of the -Exile, Haggai and Zechariah (i.—viii.), although they -are as practical as any of their predecessors, exhibit -the influence of the exilic developments of ritual, -angelology and apocalypse. God appears further off -from Zechariah than from the prophets of the eighth -century, and in need of mediators, human and superhuman. -With Zechariah the priest has displaced -the prophet, and it is very remarkable that no place -is found for the latter beside <i>the two sons of oil</i>, the -political and priestly heads of the community, who, -according to the Fifth Vision, stand in the presence -of God and between them feed the religious life -of Israel. Nearly sixty years later “Malachi” exhibits -the working of Prophecy within the Law, and -begins to employ the didactic style of the later Rabbinism. -Joel starts, like any older prophet, from the -facts of his own day, but these hurry him at once -into apocalypse; he calls, as thoroughly as any of -his predecessors, to repentance, but under the imminence -of the Day of the Lord, with its “supernatural” -terrors, he mentions no special sin and enforces no -single virtue. The civic and personal ethics of the -earlier prophets are absent. In the Greek Period, -the oracles now numbered from the ninth to the -fourteenth chapters of the Book of Zechariah repeat -to aggravation the exulting revenge of Nahum and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> -Obadiah, without the strong style or the hold upon -history which the former exhibits, and show us -prophecy still further enwrapped in apocalypse. But -in the Book of Jonah, though it is parable and -not history, we see a great recovery and expansion -of the best elements of prophecy. God’s character -and Israel’s true mission to the world are revealed in -the spirit of Hosea and of the Seer of the Exile, with -much of the tenderness, the insight, the analysis of -character and even the humour of classic prophecy. -These qualities raise the Book of Jonah, though it -is probably the latest of our Twelve, to the highest -rank among them. No book is more worthy to stand -by the side of Isaiah xl.—lv.; none is nearer in -spirit to the New Testament. -</p> - -<p> -All this gives unity to the study of prophets so far -separate in time, and so very distinct in character, from -each other. From Zephaniah to Jonah, or over a period -of three centuries, they illustrate the dissolution of -Prophecy and its passage into other forms of religion. -</p> - -<p> -The scholars, to whom every worker in this field -is indebted, are named throughout the volume. I -regret that Nowack’s recent commentary on the Minor -Prophets (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) -reached me too late for use (except in footnotes) upon -the earlier of the nine prophets. -</p> - -<p class="signature"> -GEORGE ADAM SMITH. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<!-- Begin: Table of Contents --> - -<div class="part"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_II">CONTENTS OF VOL. II.</h3> -</div> - -<table class="toc" summary="Contents"> - <tbody> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="cname"> </td> - <td class="pg"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="cname"> - <span class="small great"><a href="#Preface">Preface</a></span></td> - <td class="pg">v</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="cname"><span class="small great"> - <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_xix"> - Chronological Tables</a></span></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn">[These Tables are in Volume I.]</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Seventh"><big><i>INTRODUCTION TO THE - PROPHETS OF<br /> THE SEVENTH CENTURY</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><span class="small">CHAP.</span></td> - <td class="cname"> </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE SEVENTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST</td> - <td class="pg">3</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#Isec1">1.</a> - R<span class="small">EACTION UNDER</span> - M<span class="small">ANASSEH AND</span> - A<span class="small">MON</span> (695?—639).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#Isec2">2.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - E<span class="small">ARLY</span> - Y<span class="small">EARS OF</span> - J<span class="small">OSIAH</span> (639—625): - J<span class="small">EREMIAH AND</span><br /> - Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#Isec3">3.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">EST OF THE</span> - C<span class="small">ENTURY</span> (625—586): - T<span class="small">HE FALL OF</span><br /> - N<span class="small">INIVEH</span>; - N<span class="small">AHUM AND</span> - H<span class="small">ABAKKUK.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Zephaniah"><big><i>ZEPHANIAH</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH</td> - <td class="pg">35</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE PROPHET AND THE REFORMERS</td> - <td class="pg">46</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span> i.—ii. 3.</td> - <td class="cno"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td> - <td class="cname">NINIVE DELENDA</td> - <td class="pg">61</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span> ii. 4–15.</td> - <td class="cno"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td> - <td class="cname">SO AS BY FIRE</td> - <td class="pg">67</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span> iii.</td> - <td class="cno"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Nahum"><big><i>NAHUM</i></big></a> - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" - id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF NAHUM</td> - <td class="pg">77</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#VIsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">OSITION OF</span> - E<span class="small">LḲÔSH.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#VIsec2">2.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - A<span class="small">UTHENTICITY OF</span> - C<span class="small">HAP.</span> i.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#VIsec3">3.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - D<span class="small">ATE OF</span> - C<span class="small">HAPS</span>. ii. - <span class="small">AND</span> iii</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE VENGEANGE OF THE LORD</td> - <td class="pg">90</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">N<span class="small">AHUM</span> i.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE SIEGE AND FALL OF NINIVEH</td> - <td class="pg">96</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">N<span class="small">AHUM</span> - ii. <span class="small">AND</span> iii.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Habakkuk"><big><i>HABAḲḲUḲ</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK</td> - <td class="pg">115</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#IXsec1">1.</a> - C<span class="small">HAP.</span> i. 2—ii. 4 - (<span class="small">OR</span> 8).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#IXsec2">2.</a> - C<span class="small">HAP.</span> ii. 5–20.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#IXsec3">3.</a> - C<span class="small">HAP.</span> iii.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC</td> - <td class="pg">129</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">H<span class="small">ABBAKKUK</span> i.—ii. 4.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td> - <td class="cname">TYRANNY IS SUICIDE</td> - <td class="pg">143</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">H<span class="small">ABBAKKUK</span> ii. 5–20.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a>.</td> - <td class="cname">“IN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS”</td> - <td class="pg">149</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">H<span class="small">ABBAKKUK</span> iii.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Obadiah"><big><i>OBADIAH</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF OBADIAH</td> - <td class="pg">163</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td> - <td class="cname">EDOM AND ISRAEL</td> - <td class="pg">177</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">O<span class="small">BADIAH</span> 1–21.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" - id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> - <a href="#Persian"><big><i>INTRODUCTION TO THE - PROPHETS OF<br /> THE PERSIAN PERIOD</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center raise" colspan="3"> - (539—331 <span class="small">B.C.</span>)</td> - </tr> - - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td> - <td class="cname">ISRAEL UNDER THE PERSIANS</td> - <td class="pg">187</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td> - <td class="cname">FROM THE RETURN FROM BABYLON TO THE - <br />BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE - (536—516 <span class="small">B.C.</span>)</td> - <td class="pg">198</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">W<span class="small">ITH A</span> - D<span class="small">ISCUSSION OF</span> - P<span class="small">ROFESSOR</span> - K<span class="small">OSTERS'</span> - T<span class="small">HEORY.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Haggai"><big><i>HAGGAI</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF HAGGAI</td> - <td class="pg">225</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">HAGGAI AND THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE</td> - <td class="pg">234</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub">H<span class="small">AGGAI.</span> i., ii.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XVIIIsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">ALL TO</span> - B<span class="small">UILD</span> - (C<span class="small">HAP.</span> i.).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XVIIIsec2">2.</a> - C<span class="small">OURAGE</span>, - Z<span class="small">ERUBBABEL!</span> - C<span class="small">OURAGE,</span> - J<span class="small">EHOSHUA</span><br /> - <span class="small">AND ALL THE</span> - P<span class="small">EOPLE!</span> - (C<span class="small">HAP.</span> ii. 1–9).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XVIIIsec3">3.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">OWER OF THE</span> - U<span class="small">NCLEAN</span> - (C<span class="small">hap.</span> ii. 10–19).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XVIIIsec4">4.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">EINVESTMENT OF</span> - I<span class="small">SRAEL'S</span> - H<span class="small">OPE</span> - (C<span class="small">HAP.</span> ii. 20–23).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Zechariah1"><big><i>ZECHARIAH</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center raise" colspan="3"><big> - <i><span class="small">(I.—VIII.)</span></i></big></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH (I.—VIII.)</td> - <td class="pg">255</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td> - <td class="cname">ZECHARIAH THE PROPHET</td> - <td class="pg">264</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> i. 1–6, - <span class="small">ETC</span>.; - E<span class="small">ZRA</span> v. 1, vi. 14.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI</a>.</td> - <td class="cname">THE VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" - id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></td> - <td class="pg">273</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> i. 7—vi.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXIsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - I<span class="small">NFLUENCES WHICH</span> - M<span class="small">OULDED THE</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXIsec2">2.</a> - G<span class="small">ENERAL</span> - F<span class="small">EATURES OF THE</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXIsec3">3.</a> - E<span class="small">XPOSITION OF THE</span> - S<span class="small">EVERAL</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS:</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis1">T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">IRST:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - A<span class="small">NGEL</span>-<span class="small">HORSEMEN</span> - (i. 7–17).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis2"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">ECOND</span>:</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">OUR</span> - H<span class="small">ORNS AND THE</span> - F<span class="small">OUR</span> - S<span class="small">MITHS</span><br /> - (i. 18–21 E<span class="small">NG.</span>).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis3"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - T<span class="small">HIRD:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">ITY OF</span> - P<span class="small">EACE</span> - (ii. 1–5 E<span class="small">NG</span>).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis4"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">OURTH:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - H<span class="small">IGH</span> - P<span class="small">RIEST AND THE</span> - S<span class="small">ATAN</span> (iii. ).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis5"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">IFTH:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE </span> - T<span class="small">EMPLE</span> - C<span class="small">ANDLESTICK AND THE</span> - T<span class="small">WO</span> - O<span class="small">LIVE-</span>T<span class="small">REES</span> - (iv. ).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis6"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">IXTH:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - W<span class="small">INGED</span> - V<span class="small">OLUME</span> (v. 1–4 ).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis7"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">EVENTH:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - W<span class="small">OMAN IN THE</span> - B<span class="small">ARREL</span> (v. 5–11).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis8"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - E<span class="small">IGHTH:</span></a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">HARIOTS OF THE</span> - F<span class="small">OUR</span> - W<span class="small">INDS</span> (vi. 1–8).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#vis9"> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">ESULT OF THE</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS</span></a> (vi. 9–15).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE ANGELS OF THE VISIONS</td> - <td class="pg">310</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> i. 7—vi. 8.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">“THE SEED OF PEACE”</td> - <td class="pg">320</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> vii., viii.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Malachi"><big><i>“MALACHI”</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF “MALACHI”</td> - <td class="pg">331</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV</a>.</td> - <td class="cname">FROM ZECHARIAH TO “MALACHI”</td> - <td class="pg">341</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td> - <td class="cname">PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW</td> - <td class="pg">348</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - “M<span class="small">ALACHI</span>” i.—iv. - (E<span class="small">NG.</span>)</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec1">1.</a> - G<span class="small">OD'S</span> - L<span class="small">OVE FOR</span> - I<span class="small">SRAEL AND</span> - H<span class="small">ATRED OF</span> - E<span class="small">DOM</span> - (i. 2–5).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec2">2.</a> - “H<span class="small">ONOUR</span> - T<span class="small">HY</span> - F<span class="small">ATHER”</span> - (i. 6–14).</td> - <td class="pg"> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" - id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec3">3.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">RIESTHOD OF</span> - K<span class="small">NOWLEDGE</span> - (ii. 1–9).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec4">4.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">RUELTY OF</span> - D<span class="small">IVORCE</span> - (ii. 10–16).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec5">5.</a> - “W<span class="small">HERE IS THE</span> - G<span class="small">OD OF</span> - J<span class="small">UDGMENT</span>?” - (ii. 17—iii. 5).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec6">6.</a> - R<span class="small">EPENTANCE BY</span> - T<span class="small">ITHES</span> - (iii. 6–12).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec7">7.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - J<span class="small">UDGMENT TO</span> - C<span class="small">OME</span> - (iii. 13—iv. 2 E<span class="small">NG.</span>).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIsec8">8.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">ETURN OF</span> - E<span class="small">LIJAH</span> - (iv. 3–5 E<span class="small">NG.</span>).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Joel"><big><i>JOEL</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF JOEL</td> - <td class="pg">375</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIIsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - D<span class="small">ATE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIIsec2">2.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - I<span class="small">NTERPRETATION OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXVIIsec3">3.</a> - S<span class="small">TATE OF THE</span> - T<span class="small">EXT AND THE</span> - S<span class="small">TYLE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span></td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD.</td> - <td class="pg">398</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">OEL</span> i.—ii. 17.</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td> - <td class="cname">PROSPERITY AND THE SPIRIT</td> - <td class="pg">418</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">OEL</span> ii. 18–32 - (E<span class="small">NG.</span>)</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXIXsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">ETURN OF</span> - P<span class="small">ROSPERITY</span> - (ii. 19–27).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXIXsec2">2.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - O<span class="small">UTPOURING OF THE</span> - S<span class="small">PIRIT</span> - (ii. 28–32).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN</td> - <td class="pg">431</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">OEL</span> - iii (E<span class="small">NG.</span>).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Grecian"><big><i>INTRODUCTION TO THE - PROPHETS OF<br />THE GRECIAN PERIOD</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center raise" colspan="3"> - (F<span class="small">ROM</span> 331 - O<span class="small">NWARDS</span>)</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td> - <td class="cname">ISRAEL AND THE GREEKS</td> - <td class="pg">439</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Zechariah2"><big><i>“ZECHARIAH”</i></big></a> - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" - id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="center raise" colspan="3"><big> - <i><span class="small">(IX.—XIV.)</span></i></big></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">“ZECHARIAH” IX.—XIV.</td> - <td class="pg">449</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE CONTENTS OF “ZECHARIAH” IX.—XIV.</td> - <td class="pg">463</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">OMING OF THE</span> - G<span class="small">REEKS</span> - (ix. 1–8).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec2">2.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">RINCE OF</span> - P<span class="small">EACE</span> - (ix. 9–12).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec3">3.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">LAUGHTER OF THE</span> - G<span class="small">REEKS</span> - (ix. 13–17).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec4">4.</a> - A<span class="small">GAINST THE</span> - T<span class="small">ERAPHIM AND</span> - S<span class="small">ORCERERS</span> - (x. 1, 2).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec5">5.</a> - A<span class="small">GAINST</span> - E<span class="small">VIL</span> - S<span class="small">HEPHERDS</span> - (x. 3–12).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec6">6.</a> - W<span class="small">AR UPON THE</span> - S<span class="small">YRIAN</span> - T<span class="small">YRANTS</span> - (xi. 1–3).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec7">7.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">EJECTION AND</span> - M<span class="small">URDER OF THE</span> - G<span class="small">OOD</span> - S<span class="small">HEPHERD</span> - (xi. 4–17, xiii. 7–9).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec8">8.</a> - J<span class="small">UDAH</span> - <span class="smallv"><i>versus</i></span> - J<span class="small">ERUSALEM</span> - (xii. 1–7).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"></td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIIIsec9">9.</a> - F<span class="small">OUR</span> - R<span class="small">ESULTS OF</span> - J<span class="small">ERUSALEM'S</span> - D<span class="small">ELIVERANCE</span> - (xii. 8—xiii. 6).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secx"><a href="#XXXIIIsec10">10.</a> - J<span class="small">UDGMENT OF THE</span> - H<span class="small">EATHEN AND</span> - S<span class="small">ANCTIFICATION<br />OF</span> - J<span class="small">ERUSALEM</span> (xiv.).</td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="center" colspan="3"> - <a href="#Jonah"><big><i>JONAH</i></big></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE BOOK OF JONAH</td> - <td class="pg">493</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIVsec1">1.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - D<span class="small">ATE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span> - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIVsec2">2.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">HARACTER OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span> - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIVsec3">3.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">URPOSE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span> - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIVsec4">4.</a> - O<span class="small">UR</span> - L<span class="small">ORD'S</span> - U<span class="small">SE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span> - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="secn"><a href="#XXXIVsec5">5.</a> - T<span class="small">HE</span> - U<span class="small">NITY OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK.</span> - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE GREAT REFUSAL</td> - <td class="pg">514 - </td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">ONAH</span> i. - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI.</a> - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" - id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span></td> - <td class="cname">THE GREAT FISH AND WHAT IT MEANS—THE PSALM</td> - <td class="pg">523</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">ONAH</span> ii. - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">THE REPENTANCE OF THE CITY</td> - <td class="pg">529</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">ONAH</span> iii. - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td> - <td class="cname">ISRAEL'S JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH</td> - <td class="pg">536</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cno"> </td> - <td class="csub"> - J<span class="small">ONAH</span> iv. - </td> - <td class="pg"> </td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cname" colspan="2"> - <a href="#INDEX">INDEX OF PROPHETS</a> - </td> - <td class="pg">543</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - </tbody> -</table> - -<!-- End: Table of Contents --> - -<hr class="matter" /> - -<div class="part"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Seventh">INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS - OF<br />THE SEVENTH CENTURY</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE SEVENTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST</p> - -<p class="noindent">The three prophets who were treated in the first -volume of this work belonged to the eighth century -before Christ: if Micah lived into the seventh his -labours were over by 675. The next group of our -twelve, also three in number, Zephaniah, Nahum and -Habakkuk, did not appear till after 630. To make our -study continuous<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> we must now sketch the course -of Israel’s history between.</p> - -<p>In another volume of this series,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> some account was -given of the religious progress of Israel from Isaiah -and the Deliverance of Jerusalem in 701 to Jeremiah -and the Fall of Jerusalem in 587. Isaiah’s strength -was bent upon establishing the inviolableness of Zion. -Zion, he said, should not be taken, and the people, -though cut to their roots, should remain planted in their -own land, the stock of a noble nation in the latter -days. But Jeremiah predicted the ruin both of City -and Temple, summoned Jerusalem’s enemies against -her in the name of Jehovah, and counselled his people -to submit to them. This reversal of the prophetic -ideal had a twofold reason. In the first place the -moral condition of Israel was worse in 600 <span class="small">B.C.</span> than it -had been in 700; another century had shown how -much the nation needed the penalty and purgation of -exile. But secondly, however the inviolableness of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> -Jerusalem had been required in the interests of pure -religion in 701, religion had now to show that it was -independent even of Zion and of Israel’s political -survival. Our three prophets of the eighth century -(as well as Isaiah himself) had indeed preached a gospel -which implied this, but it was reserved to Jeremiah to -prove that the existence of state and temple was not -indispensable to faith in God, and to explain the ruin -of Jerusalem, not merely as a well-merited penance, -but as the condition of a more spiritual intercourse -between Jehovah and His people.</p> - -<p>It is our duty to trace the course of events through -the seventh century, which led to this change of the -standpoint of prophecy, and which moulded the messages -especially of Jeremiah’s contemporaries, Zephaniah, -Nahum and Habakkuk. We may divide the century -into three periods: <i>First</i>, that of the Reaction and -Persecution under Manasseh and Amon, from 695 -or 690 to 639, during which prophecy was silent or -anonymous; <i>Second</i>, that of the Early Years of Josiah, -639 to 625, near the end of which we meet with the -young Jeremiah and Zephaniah; <i>Third</i>, the Rest of -the Century, 625 to 600, covering the Decline and Fall -of Niniveh, and the prophets Nahum and Habakkuk, -with an addition carrying on the history to the Fall of -Jerusalem in 587—6.</p> - -<h4 id="Isec1">1. R<span class="small">EACTION UNDER</span> - M<span class="small">ANASSEH AND</span> - A<span class="small">MON</span> (695?—639).</h4> - -<p>Jerusalem was delivered in 701, and the Assyrians -kept away from Palestine for twenty-three years.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> -Judah had peace, and Hezekiah was free to devote his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> -latter days to the work of purifying the worship of his -people. What he exactly achieved is uncertain. The -historian imputes to him the removal of the high places, -the destruction of all Maççeboth and Asheras, and of -the brazen serpent.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> That his measures were drastic -is probable from the opinions of Isaiah, who was their -inspiration, and proved by the reaction which they provoked -when Hezekiah died. The <i>removal</i> of the high -places and the concentration of the national worship -within the Temple would be the more easy that the -provincial sanctuaries had been devastated by the -Assyrian invasion, and that the shrine of Jehovah was -glorified by the raising of the siege of 701.</p> - -<p>While the first of Isaiah’s great postulates for the -future, the inviolableness of Zion, had been fulfilled, the -second, the reign of a righteous prince in Israel, seemed -doomed to disappointment. Hezekiah died early in -the seventh century,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> and was succeeded by his son -Manasseh, a boy of twelve, who appears to have been -captured by the party whom his father had opposed. -The few years’ peace—peace in Israel was always -dangerous to the health of the higher religion—the interests -of those who had suffered from the reforms, the -inevitable reaction which a rigorous puritanism provokes—these -swiftly reversed the religious fortunes of Israel. -Isaiah’s and Micah’s predictions of the final overthrow -of Assyria seemed falsified, when in 681 the more -vigorous Asarhaddon succeeded Sennacherib, and in -678 swept the long absent armies back upon Syria. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> -Sidon was destroyed, and twenty-two princes of -Palestine immediately yielded their tribute to the conqueror. -Manasseh was one of them, and his political -homage may have brought him, as it brought Ahaz, -within the infection of foreign idolatries.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Everything, -in short, worked for the revival of that eclectic paganism -which Hezekiah had striven to stamp out. The high -places were rebuilt; altars were erected to Baal, with -the sacred pole of Asherah, as in the time of Ahab;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> -shrines to the <i>host of heaven</i> defiled the courts of -Jehovah’s house; there was a recrudescence of soothsaying, -divination and traffic with the dead.</p> - -<p>But it was all very different from the secure and -sunny temper which Amos had encountered in Northern -Israel.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The terrible Assyrian invasions had come -between. Life could never again feel so stable. Still -more destructive had been the social poisons which -our prophets described as sapping the constitution of -Israel for nearly three generations. The rural simplicity -was corrupted by those economic changes which -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> -Micah bewails. With the ousting of the old families -from the soil, a thousand traditions, memories and -habits must have been broken, which had preserved -the people’s presence of mind in days of sudden -disaster, and had carried them, for instance, through so -long a trial as the Syrian wars. Nor could the blood -of Israel have run so pure after the luxury and -licentiousness described by Hosea and Isaiah. The -novel obligations of commerce, the greed to be rich, -the increasing distress among the poor, had strained -the joyous temper of that nation of peasants’ sons, -whom we met with Amos, and shattered the nerves -of their rulers. There is no word of fighting in -Manasseh’s days, no word of revolt against the tyrant. -Perhaps also the intervening puritanism, which had -failed to give the people a permanent faith, had -at least awakened within them a new conscience.</p> - -<p>At all events there is now no more <i>ease in Zion</i>, but -a restless fear, driving the people to excesses of -religious zeal. We do not read of the happy country -festivals of the previous century, nor of the careless -pride of that sudden wealth which built vast palaces -and loaded the altar of Jehovah with hecatombs. The -full-blooded patriotism, which at least kept ritual in -touch with clean national issues, has vanished. The -popular religion is sullen and exasperated. It takes -the form of sacrifices of frenzied cruelty and lust. -Children are passed through the fire to Moloch, and -the Temple is defiled by the orgies of those who abuse -their bodies to propitiate a foreign and a brutal god.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - -<p>But the most certain consequence of a religion whose -nerves are on edge is persecution, and this raged all -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> -the earlier years of Manasseh. The adherents of the -purer faith were slaughtered, and Jerusalem drenched<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> -with innocent blood. Her <i>own sword</i>, says Jeremiah, -<i>devoured the prophets like a destroying lion</i>.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> - -<p>It is significant that all that has come down to us -from this “killing time” is anonymous;<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> we do not -meet with our next group of public prophets till -Manasseh and his like-minded son have passed away. -Yet prophecy was not wholly stifled. Voices were -raised to predict the exile and destruction of the -nation. <i>Jehovah spake by His servants</i>;<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> while others -wove into the prophecies of an Amos, a Hosea or an -Isaiah some application of the old principles to the -new circumstances. It is probable, for instance, that -the extremely doubtful passage in the Book of Amos, -v. 26 f., which imputes to Israel as a whole the worship -of astral deities from Assyria, is to be assigned to the -reign of Manasseh. In its present position it looks -very like an intrusion: nowhere else does Amos charge -his generation with serving foreign gods; and certainly -in all the history of Israel we could not find a more -suitable period for so specific a charge than the -days when into the central sanctuary of the national -worship images were introduced of the host of heaven, -and the nation was, in consequence, threatened with -exile.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - -<p>In times of persecution the documents of the suffering -faith have ever been reverenced and guarded with -especial zeal. It is not improbable that the prophets, -driven from public life, gave themselves to the arrangement -of the national scriptures; and some critics date -from Manasseh’s reign the weaving of the two earliest -documents of the Pentateuch into one continuous book -of history.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The Book of Deuteronomy forms a problem -by itself. The legislation which composes the bulk -of it<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> appears to have been found among the Temple -archives at the end of our period, and presented to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> -Josiah as an old and forgotten work.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> There is no -reason to charge with fraud those who made the presentation -by affirming that they really invented the -book. They were priests of Jerusalem, but the book is -written by members of the prophetic party, and ostensibly -in the interests of the priests of the country. It -betrays no tremor of the awful persecutions of -Manasseh’s reign; it does not hint at the distinction, -then for the first time apparent, between a false and -a true Israel. But it does draw another distinction, -familiar to the eighth century, between the true and -the false prophets. The political and spiritual premisses -of the doctrine of the book were all present by the -end of the reign of Hezekiah, and it is extremely -improbable that his reforms, which were in the main -those of Deuteronomy, were not accompanied by some -code, or by some appeal to the fountain of all law -in Israel.</p> - -<p>But whether the Book of Deuteronomy now existed -or not, there were those in the nation who through all -the dark days between Hezekiah and Josiah laid up -its truth in their hearts and were ready to assist the -latter monarch in his public enforcement of it.</p> - -<p>While these things happened within Judah, very -great events were taking place beyond her borders. -Asarhaddon of Assyria (681—668) was a monarch -of long purposes and thorough plans. Before he -invaded Egypt, he spent a year (675) in subduing the -restless tribes of Northern Arabia, and another (674) in -conquering the peninsula of Sinai, an ancient appanage -of Egypt. Tyre upon her island baffled his assaults, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> -but the rest of Palestine remained subject to him. -He received his reward in carrying the Assyrian arms -farther into Egypt than any of his predecessors, and -about 670 took Memphis from the Ethiopian Pharaoh -Taharka. Then he died. Assurbanipal, who succeeded, -lost Egypt for a few years, but about 665, -with the help of his tributaries in Palestine, he overthrew -Taharka, took Thebes, and established along -the Nile a series of vassal states. He quelled a revolt -there in 663 and overthrew Memphis for a second -time. The fall of the Egyptian capital resounds -through the rest of the century; we shall hear its -echoes in Nahum. Tyre fell at last with Arvad in -662. But the Assyrian empire had grown too vast -for human hands to grasp, and in 652 a general revolt -took place in Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Elam, Babylon -and Asia Minor. In 649 Assurbanipal reduced Elam -and Babylon; and by two further campaigns (647 and -645) Hauran, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Nabatea and all -the northern Arabs. On his return from these he -crossed Western Palestine to the sea and punished -Usu and Akko. It is very remarkable that, while -Assurbanipal, who thus fought the neighbours of Judah, -makes no mention of her, nor numbers Manasseh among -the rebels whom he chastised, the Book of Chronicles -should contain the statement that <i>Jehovah sent upon -Manasseh the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, -who bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon</i>.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> -What grounds the Chronicler had for such a statement -are quite unknown to us. He introduces Manasseh’s -captivity as the consequence of idolatry, and asserts -that on his restoration Manasseh abolished in Judah -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> -all worship save that of Jehovah, but if this happened -(and the Book of Kings has no trace of it) it was -without result. Amon, son of Manasseh, continued -to sacrifice to all the images which his father had -introduced.</p> - -<h4 id="Isec2">2. T<span class="small">HE</span> - E<span class="small">ARLY</span> - Y<span class="small">EARS OF</span> - J<span class="small">OSIAH</span> (639—625): - J<span class="small">EREMIAH AND</span> - Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span>.</h4> - -<p>Amon had not reigned for two years when <i>his -servants conspired against him, and he was slain in his -own house</i>.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> But the <i>people of the land</i> rose against -the court, slew the conspirators, and secured the throne -for Amon’s son, Josiah, a child of eight. It is difficult -to know what we ought to understand by these movements. -Amon, who was slain, was an idolater; the -popular party, who slew his slayers, put his son on -the throne, and that son, unlike both his father and -grandfather, bore a name compounded with the name -of Jehovah. Was Amon then slain for personal -reasons? Did the people, in their rising, have a zeal -for Jehovah? Was the crisis purely political, but -usurped by some school or party of Jehovah who had -been gathering strength through the later years of -Manasseh, and waiting for some such unsettlement of -affairs as now occurred? The meagre records of the -Bible give us no help, and for suggestions towards an -answer we must turn to the wider politics of the time.</p> - -<p>Assurbanipal’s campaigns of 647 and 645 were the -last appearances of Assyria in Palestine. He had not -attempted to reconquer Egypt,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> and her king, Psamtik I., -began to push his arms northward. Progress must -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> -have been slow, for the siege of Ashdod, which Psamtik -probably began after 645, is said to have occupied him -twenty-nine years. Still, he must have made his influence -to be felt in Palestine, and in all probability -there was once more, as in the days of Isaiah, an -Egyptian party in Jerusalem. As the power of Assyria -receded over the northern horizon, the fascination of her -idolatries, which Manasseh had established in Judah, -must have waned. The priests of Jehovah’s house, -jostled by their pagan rivals, would be inclined to make -common cause with the prophets under a persecution -which both had suffered. With the loosening of the -Assyrian yoke the national spirit would revive, and it is -easy to imagine prophets, priests and people working -together in the movement which placed the child Josiah -on the throne. At his tender age, he must have been -wholly in the care of the women of the royal house; -and among these the influence of the prophets may -have found adherents more readily than among the -counsellors of an adult prince. Not only did the new -monarch carry the name of Jehovah in his own; this -was the case also with his mother’s father.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> In the -revolt, therefore, which raised this unconscious child -to the throne and in the circumstances which moulded -his character, we may infer that there already existed -the germs of the great work of reform which his -manhood achieved.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> -<p>For some time little change would be possible, but -from the first facts were working for great issues. -The Book of Kings, which places the destruction of the -idols after the discovery of the law-book in the eighteenth -year of Josiah’s reign, records a previous -cleansing and restoration of the house of Jehovah.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> -This points to the growing ascendency of the prophetic -party during the first fifteen years of Josiah’s reign. -Of the first ten years we know nothing, except that the -prestige of Assyria was waning; but this fact, along -with the preaching of the prophets, who had neither -a native tyrant nor the exigencies of a foreign alliance -to silence them, must have weaned the people from the -worship of the Assyrian idols. Unless these had been -discredited, the repair of Jehovah’s house could hardly -have been attempted; and that this progressed means -that part of Josiah’s destruction of the heathen images -took place before the discovery of the Book of the Law, -which happened in consequence of the cleansing of the -Temple.</p> - -<p>But just as under the good Hezekiah the social -condition of the people, and especially the behaviour -of the upper classes, continued to be bad, so it was -again in the early years of Josiah. There was a -<i>remnant of Baal</i><a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> in the land. The shrines of <i>the host -of heaven</i> might have been swept from the Temple, but -they were still worshipped from the housetops.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Men -swore by the Queen of Heaven, and by Moloch, the -King. Some turned back from Jehovah; some, grown -up in idolatry, had not yet sought Him. Idolatry may -have been disestablished from the national sanctuary: -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> -its practices still lingered (how intelligibly to us!) in -social and commercial life. Foreign fashions were -affected by the court and nobility; trade, as always, -was combined with the acknowledgment of foreign -gods.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Moreover, the rich were fraudulent and cruel. -The ministers of justice, and the great in the land, -ravened among the poor. Jerusalem was full of oppression. -These were the same disorders as Amos and -Hosea exposed in Northern Israel, and as Micah -exposed in Jerusalem. But one new trait of evil was -added. In the eighth century, with all their ignorance -of Jehovah’s true character, men had yet believed in -Him, gloried in His energy, and expected Him to act—were -it only in accordance with their low ideals. They -had been alive and bubbling with religion. But now -they <i>had thickened on their lees</i>. They had grown -sceptical, dull, indifferent; they said in their hearts, -<i>Jehovah will not do good, neither will He do evil!</i></p> - -<p>Now, just as in the eighth century there had risen, -contemporaneous with Israel’s social corruption, a cloud -in the north, black and pregnant with destruction, -so was it once more. But the cloud was not Assyria. -From the hidden world beyond her, from the regions -over Caucasus, vast, nameless hordes of men arose, and, -sweeping past her unchecked, poured upon Palestine. -This was the great Scythian invasion recorded by -Herodotus.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> We have almost no other report than his -few paragraphs, but we can realise the event from our -knowledge of the Mongol and Tartar invasions which -in later centuries pursued the same path southwards. -Living in the saddle, and (it would seem) with no -infantry nor chariots to delay them, these Centaurs -swept on with a speed of invasion hitherto unknown. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> -In 630 they had crossed the Caucasus, by 626 they -were on the borders of Egypt. Psamtik I. succeeded -in purchasing their retreat,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> and they swept back again -as swiftly as they came. They must have followed the -old Assyrian war-paths of the eighth century, and, without -foot-soldiers, had probably kept even more closely -to the plains. In Palestine their way would lie, like -Assyria’s, across Hauran, through the plain of Esdraelon, -and down the Philistine coast, and in fact it is only on -this line that there exists any possible trace of them.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> -But they shook the whole of Palestine into consternation. -Though Judah among her hills escaped them, as she -escaped the earlier campaigns of Assyria, they showed -her the penal resources of her offended God. Once -again the dark, sacred North was seen to be full of -the possibilities of doom.</p> - -<p>Behold, therefore, exactly the two conditions, ethical -and political, which, as we saw, called forth the sudden -prophets of the eighth century, and made them so sure -of their message of judgment: on the one side Judah, -her sins calling aloud for punishment; on the other -side the forces of punishment swiftly drawing on. It -was precisely at this juncture that prophecy again arose, -and as Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah appeared in -the end of the eighth century, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, -Nahum and Jeremiah appeared in the end of the -seventh. The coincidence is exact, and a remarkable -confirmation of the truth which we deduced from the -experience of Amos, that the assurance of the prophet -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> -in Israel arose from the coincidence of his conscience -with his political observation. The justice of Jehovah -demands His people’s chastisement, but see—the forces -of chastisement are already upon the horizon. Zephaniah -uses the same phrase as Amos: <i>the Day of -Jehovah</i>, he says, <i>is drawing near</i>.</p> - -<p>We are now in touch with Zephaniah, the first of -our prophets, but, before listening to him, it will be -well to complete our survey of those remaining years -of the century in which he and his immediate successors -laboured.</p> - -<h4 id="Isec3">3.T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">EST OF THE</span> - C<span class="small">ENTURY</span> (625—586): - <span class="small">THE</span> - F<span class="small">ALL OF</span><br /> - N<span class="small">INIVEH</span>; - N<span class="small">AHUM AND</span> - H<span class="small">ABAKKUK</span>.</h4> - -<p>Although the Scythians had vanished from the -horizon of Palestine and the Assyrians came over it -no more, the fateful North still lowered dark and -turbulent. Yet the keen eyes of the watchmen in -Palestine perceived that, for a time at least, the storm -must break where it had gathered. It is upon Niniveh, -not upon Jerusalem, that the prophetic passion of -Nahum and Habakkuk is concentrated; the new day -of the Lord is filled with the fate, not of Israel, but of -Assyria.</p> - -<p>For nearly two centuries Niniveh had been the -capital and cynosure of Western Asia; for more than -one she had set the fashions, the art, and even, to some -extent, the religion of all the Semitic nations. Of late -years, too, she had drawn to herself the world’s trade. -Great roads from Egypt, from Persia and from the -Ægean converged upon her, till like Imperial Rome -she was filled with a vast motley of peoples, and -men went forth from her to the ends of the earth. -Under Assurbanipal travel and research had increased, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> -and the city acquired renown as the centre of the -world’s wisdom. Thus her size and glory, with all -her details of rampart and tower, street, palace and -temple, grew everywhere familiar. But the peoples -gazed at her as those who had been bled to build her. -The most remote of them had seen face to face on -their own fields, trampling, stripping, burning, the -warriors who manned her walls. She had dashed -their little ones against the rocks. Their kings had -been dragged from them and hung in cages about her -gates. Their gods had lined the temples of her gods. -Year by year they sent her their heavy tribute, and the -bearers came back with fresh tales of her rapacious -insolence. So she stood, bitterly clear to all men, -in her glory and her cruelty! Their hate haunted her -every pinnacle; and at last, when about 625 the news -came that her frontier fortresses had fallen and the great -city herself was being besieged, we can understand -how her victims gloated on each possible stage of her -fall, and saw her yield to one after another of the -cruelties of battle, siege and storm, which for two -hundred years she had inflicted on themselves. To -such a vision the prophet Nahum gives voice, not on -behalf of Israel alone, but of all the nations whom -Niniveh had crushed.</p> - -<p>It was obvious that the vengeance which Western -Asia thus hailed upon Assyria must come from one -or other of two groups of peoples, standing respectively -to the north and to the south of her.</p> - -<p>To the north, or north-east, between Mesopotamia -and the Caspian, there were gathered a congeries -of restless tribes known to the Assyrians as the -Madai or Matai, the Medes. They are mentioned first -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> -by Shalmaneser II. in 840, and few of his successors -do not record campaigns against them. The earliest -notice of them in the Old Testament is in connection -with the captives of Samaria, some of whom -in 720 were settled among them.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> These Medes were -probably of Turanian stock, but by the end of the -eighth century, if we are to judge from the names of -some of their chiefs,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> their most easterly tribes had -already fallen under Aryan influence, spreading westward -from Persia.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> So led, they became united and -formidable to Assyria. Herodotus relates that their -King Phraortes, or Fravartis, actually attempted the -siege of Niniveh, probably on the death of Assurbanipal -in 625, but was slain.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> His son Kyaxares, -Kastarit or Uvakshathra, was forced by a Scythian -invasion of his own country to withdraw his troops -from Assyria; but having either bought off or assimilated -the Scythian invaders, he returned in 608, with -forces sufficient to overthrow the northern Assyrian -fortresses and to invest Niniveh herself.</p> - -<p>The other and southern group of peoples which -threatened Assyria were Semitic. At their head were -the Kasdim or Chaldeans.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> This name appears for -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> -the first time in the Assyrian annals a little earlier than -that of the Medes,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> and from the middle of the ninth -century onwards the people designated by it frequently -engage the Assyrian arms. They were, to begin with, -a few half-savage tribes to the south of Babylon, in -the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf; but they proved -their vigour by the repeated lordship of all Babylonia -and by inveterate rebellion against the monarchs of -Niniveh. Before the end of the seventh century we find -their names used by the prophets for the Babylonians -as a whole. Assurbanipal, who was a patron of -Babylonian culture, kept the country quiet during the -last years of his reign, but his son Asshur-itil-ilani, -upon his accession in 625, had to grant the viceroyalty -to Nabopolassar the Chaldean with a considerable -degree of independence. Asshur-itil-ilani was succeeded -in a few years<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> by Sinsuriskin, the Sarakos of -the Greeks, who preserved at least a nominal sovereignty -over Babylon,<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> but Nabopolassar must already -have cherished ambitions of succeeding the Assyrian -in the empire of the world. He enjoyed sufficient -freedom to organise his forces to that end.</p> - -<p>These were the two powers which from north and -south watched with impatience the decay of Assyria. -That they made no attempt upon her between 625 and -608 was probably due to several causes: their jealousy -of each other, the Medes’ trouble with the Scythians, -Nabopolassar’s genius for waiting till his forces were -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>ready, and above all the still considerable vigour of the -Assyrian himself. The Lion, though old,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was not -broken. His power may have relaxed in the distant -provinces of his empire, though, if Budde be right -about the date of Habakkuk,<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> the peoples of Syria still -groaned under the thought of it; but his own land—his -<i>lair</i>, as the prophets call it—was still terrible. It -is true that, as Nahum perceives, the capital was no -longer native and patriotic as it had been; the trade -fostered by Assurbanipal had filled Niniveh with a -vast and mercenary population, ready to break and -disperse at the first breach in her walls. Yet Assyria -proper was covered with fortresses, and the tradition -had long fastened upon the peoples that Niniveh was -impregnable. Hence the tension of those years. The -peoples of Western Asia looked eagerly for their revenge; -but the two powers which alone could accomplish this -stood waiting—afraid of each other perhaps, but more -afraid of the object of their common ambition.</p> - -<p>It is said that Kyaxares and Nabopolassar at last -came to an agreement;<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> but more probably the crisis -was hastened by the appearance of another claimant -for the coveted spoil. In 608 Pharaoh Necho <i>went up -against the king of Assyria towards the river Euphrates</i>.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> -This Egyptian advance may have forced the hand of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> -Kyaxares, who appears to have begun his investment -of Niniveh a little after Necho defeated Josiah at -Megiddo<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>. The siege is said to have lasted two years. -Whether this included the delays necessary for the -reduction of fortresses upon the great roads of approach -to the Assyrian capital we do not know; but Niniveh’s -own position, fortifications and resources may well -account for the whole of the time. Colonel Billerbeck, -a military expert, has suggested<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> that the Medes found -it possible to invest the city only upon the northern -and eastern sides. Down the west flows the Tigris, -and across this the besieged may have been able to -bring in supplies and reinforcements from the fertile -country beyond. Herodotus affirms that the Medes -effected the capture of Niniveh by themselves,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and -for this some recent evidence has been found,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> so that -another tradition that the Chaldeans were also actively -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> -engaged,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> which has nothing to support it, may be -regarded as false. Nabopolassar may still have been -in name an Assyrian viceroy; yet, as Colonel Billerbeck -points out, he had it in his power to make Kyaxares’ -victory possible by holding the southern roads to -Niniveh, detaching other viceroys of her provinces and -so shutting her up to her own resources. But among -other reasons which kept him away from the siege -may have been the necessity of guarding against -Egyptian designs on the moribund empire. Pharaoh -Necho, as we know, was making for the Euphrates as -early as 608. Now if Nabopolassar and Kyaxares had -arranged to divide Assyria between them, then it is -likely that they agreed also to share the work of -making their inheritance sure, so that while Kyaxares -overthrew Niniveh, Nabopolassar, or rather his son -Nebuchadrezzar,<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> waited for and overthrew Pharaoh by -Carchemish on the Euphrates. Consequently Assyria -was divided between the Medes and the Chaldeans; -the latter as her heirs in the south took over her -title to Syria and Palestine.</p> - -<p>The two prophets with whom we have to deal at this -time are almost entirely engrossed with the fall of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> -Assyria. Nahum exults in the destruction of Niniveh; -Habakkuk sees in the Chaldeans nothing but the -avengers of the peoples whom Assyria<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> had oppressed. -For both these events are the close of an epoch: neither -prophet looks beyond this. Nahum (not on behalf of -Israel alone) gives expression to the epoch’s long -thirst for vengeance on the tyrant; Habakkuk (if -Budde’s reading of him be right<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>) states the problems -with which its victorious cruelties had filled the pious -mind—states the problem and beholds the solution in -the Chaldeans. And, surely, the vengeance was so just -and so ample, the solution so drastic and for the time -complete, that we can well understand how two prophets -should exhaust their office in describing such things, -and feel no motive to look either deep into the moral -condition of Israel, or far out into the future which God -was preparing for His people. It might, of course, be -said that the prophets’ silence on the latter subjects -was due to their positions immediately after the great -Reform of 621, when the nation, having been roused -to an honest striving after righteousness, did not require -prophetic rebuke, and when the success of so godly a -prince as Josiah left no spiritual ambitions unsatisfied. -But this (even if the dates of the two prophets were -certain) is hardly probable; and the other explanation -is sufficient. Who can doubt this who has realised -the long epoch which then reached a crisis, or -has been thrilled by the crash of the crisis itself? -The fall of Niniveh was deafening enough to drown -for the moment, as it does in Nahum, even a Hebrew’s -clamant conscience of his country’s sin. The problems, -which the long success of Assyrian cruelty had started, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> -were old and formidable enough to demand statement -and answer before either the hopes or the responsibilities -of the future could find voice. The past also -requires its prophets. Feeling has to be satisfied, and -experience balanced, before the heart is willing to turn -the leaf and read the page of the future.</p> - -<p>Yet, through all this time of Assyria’s decline, Israel -had her own sins, fears and convictions of judgment -to come. The disappearance of the Scythians did not -leave Zephaniah’s predictions of doom without means -of fulfilment; nor did the great Reform of 621 remove -the necessity of that doom. In the deepest -hearts the assurance that Israel must be punished was -by these things only confirmed. The prophetess -Huldah, the first to speak in the name of the Lord -after the Book of the Law was discovered, emphasised -not the reforms which it enjoined but the judgments -which it predicted. Josiah’s righteousness could at -most ensure for himself a peaceful death: his people -were incorrigible and doomed.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> The reforms indeed -proceeded, there was public and widespread penitence, -idolatry was abolished. But those were only shallow -pedants who put their trust in the possession of a -revealed Law and purged Temple,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and who boasted -that therefore Israel was secure. Jeremiah repeated the -gloomy forecasts of Zephaniah and Huldah, and even -before the wickedness of Jehoiakim’s reign proved the -obduracy of Israel’s heart, he affirmed <i>the imminence of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> -the evil out of the north and the great destruction</i>.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Of -our three prophets in this period Zephaniah, though the -earliest, had therefore the last word. While Nahum -and Habakkuk were almost wholly absorbed with the -epoch that is closing, he had a vision of the future. Is -this why his book has been ranged among our Twelve -after those of his slightly later contemporaries?</p> - -<p>The precise course of events in Israel was this—and -we must follow them, for among them we have -to seek exact dates for Nahum and Habakkuk. In -621 the Book of the Law was discovered, and Josiah -applied himself with thoroughness to the reforms which -he had already begun. For thirteen years he seems -to have had peace to carry them through. The -heathen altars were thrown down, with all the high -places in Judah and even some in Samaria. Images -were abolished. The heathen priests were exterminated, -with the wizards and soothsayers. The -Levites, except the sons of Zadok, who alone were -allowed to minister in the Temple, henceforth the only -place of sacrifice, were debarred from priestly duties. -A great passover was celebrated.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> The king did -justice and was the friend of the poor;<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> it went well -with him and the people.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> He extended his influence -into Samaria; it is probable that he ventured to carry -out the injunctions of Deuteronomy with regard to the -neighbouring heathen.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> Literature flourished: though -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>critics have not combined upon the works to be -assigned to this reign, they agree that a great many -were produced in it. Wealth must have accumulated: -certainly the nation entered the troubles of the next -reign with an arrogant confidence that argues under -Josiah the rapid growth of prosperity in every direction. -Then of a sudden came the fatal year of 608. Pharaoh -Necho appeared in Palestine<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> with an army destined -for the Euphrates, and Josiah went up to meet him -at Megiddo. His tactics are plain—it is the first -strait on the land-road from Egypt to the Euphrates—but -his motives are obscure. Assyria can hardly -have been strong enough at this time to fling him as -her vassal across the path of her ancient foe. He -must have gone of himself. “His dream was probably -to bring back the scattered remains of the -northern kingdom to a pure worship, and to unite the -whole people of Israel under the sceptre of the house -of David; and he was not inclined to allow Egypt to -cross his aspirations, and rob him of the inheritance -which was falling to him from the dead hand of -Assyria.”<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> - -<p>Josiah fell, and with him not only the liberty of his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> -people, but the chief support of their faith. That -the righteous king was cut down in the midst of his -days and in defence of the Holy Land—what could -this mean? Was it, then, vain to serve the Lord? -Could He not defend His own? With some the -disaster was a cause of sore complaint, and with -others, perhaps, of open desertion from Jehovah.</p> - -<p>But the extraordinary thing is, how little effect -Josiah’s death seems to have had upon the people’s -self-confidence at large, or upon their adherence to -Jehovah. They immediately placed Josiah’s second -son on the throne; but Necho, having got him by some -means to his camp at Riblah between the Lebanons, -sent him in fetters to Egypt, where he died, and -established in his place Eliakim, his elder brother. On -his accession Eliakim changed his name to Jehoiakim, -a proof that Jehovah was still regarded as the sufficient -patron of Israel; and the same blind belief that, for -the sake of His Temple and of His Law, Jehovah -would keep His people in security, continued to persevere -in spite of Megiddo. It was a most immoral -ease, and filled with injustice. Necho subjected the -land to a fine. This was not heavy, but Jehoiakim, -instead of paying it out of the royal treasures, exacted -it from <i>the people of the land</i>,<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> and then employed the -peace which it purchased in erecting a costly palace -for himself by the forced labour of his subjects.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> -He was covetous, unjust and violently cruel. Like -prince like people: social oppression prevailed, and -there was a recrudescence of the idolatries of Manasseh’s -time,<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> especially (it may be inferred) after Necho’s -defeat at Carchemish in 605. That all this should -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>exist along with a fanatic trust in Jehovah need not -surprise us who remember the very similar state of the -public mind in North Israel under Amos and Hosea. -Jeremiah attacked it as they had done. Though -Assyria was fallen, and Egypt was promising protection, -Jeremiah predicted destruction from the north on Egypt -and Israel alike. When at last the Egyptian defeat at -Carchemish stirred some vague fears in the people’s -hearts, Jeremiah’s conviction broke out into clear flame. -For three-and-twenty years he had brought God’s word -in vain to his countrymen. Now God Himself would -act: Nebuchadrezzar was but His servant to lead -Israel into captivity.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> - -<p>The same year, 605 or 604, Jeremiah wrote all these -things in a volume;<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> and a few months later, at a -national fast, occasioned perhaps by the fear of the -Chaldeans, Baruch, his secretary, read them in the -house of the Lord, in the ears of all the people. -The king was informed, the roll was brought to him, -and as it was read, with his own hands he cut it up and -burned it, three or four columns at a time. Jeremiah -answered by calling down on Jehoiakim an ignominious -death, and repeated the doom already uttered on the -land. Another prophet, Urijah, had recently been -executed for the same truth; but Jeremiah and Baruch -escaped into hiding.</p> - -<p>This was probably in 603, and for a little time -Jehoiakim and the populace were restored to their false -security by the delay of the Chaldeans to come south. -Nebuchadrezzar was occupied in Babylon, securing -his succession to his father. At last, either in 602 or -more probably in 600, he marched into Syria, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> -Jehoiakim <i>became his servant for three years</i>.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> In such -a condition the Jewish state might have survived for at -least another generation,<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> but in 599 or 597 Jehoiakim, -with the madness of the doomed, held back his tribute. -The revolt was probably instigated by Egypt, which, -however, did not dare to support it. As in Isaiah’s -time against Assyria, so now against Babylon, Egypt -was a blusterer <i>who blustered and sat still</i>. She still -<i>helped in vain and to no purpose</i>.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Nor could Judah -count on the help of the other states of Palestine. -They had joined Hezekiah against Sennacherib, but -remembering perhaps how Manasseh had failed to help -them against Assurbanipal, and that Josiah had carried -things with a high hand towards them,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> they obeyed -Nebuchadrezzar’s command and raided Judah till he -himself should have time to arrive.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Amid these raids -the senseless Jehoiakim seems to have perished,<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> for -when Nebuchadrezzar appeared before Jerusalem in -597, his son Jehoiachin, a youth of eighteen, had -succeeded to the throne. The innocent reaped the -harvest sown by the guilty. In the attempt (it would -appear) to save his people from destruction,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> Jehoiachin -capitulated. But Nebuchadrezzar was not content with -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> -the person of the king: he deported to Babylon the -court, a large number of influential persons, <i>the mighty -men of the land</i> or what must have been nearly all the -fighting men, with the necessary military artificers and -swordsmiths. Priests also went, Ezekiel among them, -and probably representatives of other classes not -mentioned by the annalist. All these were the flower -of the nation. Over what was left Nebuchadrezzar -placed a son of Josiah on the throne who took the -name of Zedekiah. Again with a little common-sense, -the state might have survived; but it was a short -respite. The new court began intrigues with Egypt, -and Zedekiah, with the Ammonites and Tyre, ventured -a revolt in 589. Jeremiah and Ezekiel knew it was -in vain. Nebuchadrezzar marched on Jerusalem, and -though for a time he had to raise the siege in order to -defeat a force sent by Pharaoh Hophra, the Chaldean -armies closed in again upon the doomed city. Her -defence was stubborn; but famine and pestilence -sapped it, and numbers fell away to the enemy. About -the eighteenth month, the besiegers took the northern -suburb and stormed the middle gate. Zedekiah and the -army broke their lines only to be captured at Jericho. -In a few weeks more the city was taken and given -over to fire. Zedekiah was blinded, and with a large -number of his people carried to Babylon. It was the -end, for although a small community of Jews was left -at Mizpeh under a Jewish viceroy and with Jeremiah -to guide them, they were soon broken up and fled to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -Egypt. Judah had perished. Her savage neighbours, -who had gathered with glee to the day of Jerusalem’s -calamity, assisted the Chaldeans in capturing the -fugitives, and Edomites came up from the south on -the desolate land.</p> - -<p class="thb"> </p> - -<p>It has been necessary to follow so far the course of -events, because of our prophets Zephaniah is placed -in each of the three sections of Josiah’s reign, and by -some even in Jehoiakim’s; Nahum has been assigned to -different points between the eve of the first and the eve -of the second siege of Niniveh; and Habakkuk has -been placed by different critics in almost every year -from 621 to the reign of Jehoiachin; while Obadiah, -whom we shall find reasons for dating during the Exile, -describes the behaviour of Edom at the final siege of -Jerusalem. The next of the Twelve, Haggai, may have -been born before the Exile, but did not prophesy till -520. Zechariah appeared the same year, Malachi not -for half a century after. These three are prophets of -the Persian period. With the approach of the Greeks -Joel appears, then comes the prophecy which we find -in the end of Zechariah’s book, and last of all the Book -of Jonah. To all these post-exilic prophets we shall -provide later on the necessary historical introductions.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> -<h2 id="Zephaniah" class="nobreak"><i>ZEPHANIAH</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> - -<div class="ptext"> -<p class="center"> -<i>Dies Iræ, Dies Illa!</i>—Z<span class="small">EPH.</span> i. 15.<br /> -</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>“His book is the first tinging of prophecy with -apocalypse: that is the moment which it supplies in the history of -Israel’s religion.”</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -The Book of Zephaniah is one of the most difficult -in the prophetic canon. The title is very generally -accepted; the period from which chap. i. dates is -recognised by practically all critics to be the reign of -Josiah, or at least the last third of the seventh century. -But after that doubts start, and we find present nearly -every other problem of introduction.</p> - -<p>To begin with, the text is very damaged. In some -passages we may be quite sure that we have not the -true text;<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> in others we cannot be sure that we have -it,<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> and there are several glosses.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>The bulk of the -second chapter was written in the Qinah, or elegiac -measure, but as it now stands the rhythm is very -much broken. It is difficult to say whether this is due -to the dilapidation of the original text or to wilful -insertion of glosses and other later passages. The -Greek version of Zephaniah possesses the same general -features as that of other difficult prophets. Occasionally -it enables us to correct the text; but by the time -it was made the text must already have contained -the same corruptions which we encounter, and the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>translators were ignorant besides of the meaning of -some phrases which to us are plain.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> - -<p>The difficulties of textual criticism as well as of -translation are aggravated by the large number of words, -grammatical forms and phrases which either happen -very seldom in the Old Testament,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> or nowhere else -in it at all.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> Of the rare words and phrases, a very -few (as will be seen from the appended notes) are -found in earlier writings. Indeed all that are found -are from the authentic prophecies of Isaiah, with whose -style and doctrine Zephaniah’s own exhibit most -affinity. All the other rarities of vocabulary and -grammar are shared only by <i>later</i> writers; and as a -whole the language of Zephaniah exhibits symptoms -which separate it by many years from the language -of the prophets of the eighth century, and range it -with that of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Second Isaiah -and still later literature. It may be useful to the -student to collect in a note the most striking of these -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> -symptoms of the comparative lateness of Zephaniah’s -dialect.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> - -<p>We now come to the question of date, and we take, -to begin with, the First Chapter. It was said above that -critics agree as to the general period—between 639, -when Josiah began to reign, and 600. But this period -was divided into three very different sections, and each -of these has received considerable support from modern -criticism. The great majority of critics place the -chapter in the early years of Josiah, before the enforcement -of Deuteronomy and the great Reform in 621.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> -Others have argued for the later years of Josiah, -621—608, on the ground that the chapter implies that -the great Reform has already taken place, and otherwise -shows knowledge of Deuteronomy;<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> while some -prefer the days of reaction under Jehoiakim, 608 ff.,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> -and assume that the phrase in the title, <i>in the days of -Josiah</i>, is a late and erroneous inference from i. 4.</p> - -<p>The evidence for the argument consists of the title -and the condition of Judah reflected in the body of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>chapter. The latter is a definite piece of oratory. -Under the alarm of an immediate and general war, -Zephaniah proclaims a vast destruction upon the earth. -Judah must fall beneath it: the worshippers of Baal, -of the host of heaven and of Milcom, the apostates -from Jehovah, the princes and house of the king, the -imitators of foreign fashions, and the forceful and -fraudulent, shall be cut off in a great slaughter. Those -who have grown sceptical and indifferent to Jehovah -shall be unsettled by invasion and war. This shall -be the Day of Jehovah, near and immediate, a day of -battle and disaster on the whole land.</p> - -<p>The conditions reflected are thus twofold—the idolatrous -and sceptical state of the people, and an impending -invasion. But these suit, more or less exactly, each -of the three sections of our period. For Jeremiah -distinctly states that he had to attack idolatry in Judah -for twenty-three years, 627 to 604;<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> he inveighs against -the falseness and impurity of the people alike before -the great Reform, and after it while Josiah was still -alive, and still more fiercely under Jehoiakim. And, -while before 621 the great Scythian invasion was -sweeping upon Palestine from the north, after 621, -and especially after 604, the Babylonians from the same -quarter were visibly threatening the land. But when -looked at more closely, the chapter shows several -features which suit the second section of our period less -than they do the other two. The worship of the host of -heaven, probably introduced under Manasseh, was put -down by Josiah in 621; it revived under Jehoiakim,<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> -but during the latter years of Josiah it cannot -possibly have been so public as Zephaniah describes.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>Other reasons which have been given for those years -are inconclusive<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>—the chapter, for instance, makes no -indubitable reference to Deuteronomy or the Covenant -of 621—and on the whole we may leave the end of -Josiah’s reign out of account. Turning to the third -section, Jehoiakim’s reign, we find one feature of the -prophecy which suits it admirably. The temper described -in ver. 12—<i>men who are settled on their lees, -who say in their heart, Jehovah doeth neither good nor -evil</i>—is the kind of temper likely to have been produced -among the less earnest adherents of Jehovah by the -failure of the great Reform in 621 to effect either the -purity or the prosperity of the nation. But this is -more than counterbalanced by the significant exception -of the king from the condemnation which ver. 8 passes -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>on the <i>princes and the sons of the king</i>. Such an exception -could not have been made when Jehoiakim was -on the throne; it points almost conclusively to the -reign of the good Josiah. And with this agrees the -title of the chapter—<i>in the days of Josiah</i>.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> We are, -therefore, driven back to the years of Josiah before -621. In these we find no discrepancy either with the -chapter itself, or with its title. The southward march -of the Scythians,<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> between 630 and 625, accounts for -Zephaniah’s alarm of a general war, including the -invasion of Judah; the idolatrous practices which he -describes may well have been those surviving from -the days of Manasseh,<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> and not yet reached by the -drastic measures of 621; the temper of scepticism and -hopelessness condemned by ver. 12 was possible among -those adherents of Jehovah who had hoped greater -things from the overthrow of Amon than the slow and -small reforms of the first fifteen years of Josiah’s reign. -Nor is a date before 621 made at all difficult by -the genealogy of Zephaniah in the title. If, as is -probable,<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> the Hezekiah given as his great-great-grandfather -be Hezekiah the king, and if he died -about 695, and Manasseh, his successor, who was then -twelve, was his eldest son, then by 630 Zephaniah -cannot have been much more than twenty years of age, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>and not more than twenty-five by the time the Scythian -invasion had passed away.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> It is therefore by no -means impossible to suppose that he prophesied before -625; and besides, the data of the genealogy in the -title are too precarious to make them valid, as against -an inference from the contents of the chapter itself.</p> - -<p>The date, therefore, of the first chapter of Zephaniah -may be given as about 625 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, -and probably rather -before than after that year, as the tide of Scythian -invasion has apparently not yet ebbed.</p> - -<p>The other two chapters have within recent years been -almost wholly denied to Zephaniah. Kuenen doubted -chap. iii. 9–20. Stade makes all chap. iii. post-exilic, -and suspects ii. 1–3, 11. A very thorough examination -of them has led Schwally<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> to assign to exilic or post-exilic -times the whole of the little sections comprising -them, with the possible exception of chap. iii. 1–7, which -“may be” Zephaniah’s. His essay has been subjected -to a searching and generally hostile criticism by a -number of leading scholars;<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> and he has admitted the -inconclusiveness of some of his reasons.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> - -<p>Chap. ii. 1–4 is assigned by Schwally to a date later -than Zephaniah’s, principally because of the term <i>meekness</i> -(ver. 3), which is a favourite one with post-exilic -writers. He has been sufficiently answered;<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> and the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> -close connection of vv. 1–3 with chap. i. has been clearly -proved.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> Chap. ii. 4–15 is the passage in elegiac -measure but broken, an argument for the theory that -insertions have been made in it. The subject is a -series of foreign nations—Philistia (5–7), Moab and -Ammon (8–10), Egypt (11) and Assyria (13–15). The -passage has given rise to many doubts; every one must -admit the difficulty of coming to a conclusion as to its -authenticity. On the one hand, the destruction just -predicted is so universal that, as Professor Davidson -says, we should expect Zephaniah to mention other -nations than Judah.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> The concluding oracle on Niniveh -must have been published before 608, and even Schwally -admits that it may be Zephaniah’s own. But if this be -so, then we may infer that the first of the oracles on -Philistia is also Zephaniah’s, for both it and the oracle -on Assyria are in the elegiac measure, a fact which -makes it probable that the whole passage, however -broken and intruded upon, was originally a unity. Nor -is there anything in the oracle on Philistia incompatible -with Zephaniah’s date. Philistia lay on the path of -the Scythian invasion; the phrase in ver. 7, <i>shall turn -their captivity</i>, is not necessarily exilic. As Cornill, too, -points out, the expression in ver. 13, <i>He will stretch out -His hand to the north</i>, implies that the prophecy has -already looked in other directions. There remains the -passage between the oracles on Philistia and Assyria. -This is not in the elegiac measure. Its subject is Moab -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>and Ammon, who were not on the line of the Scythian -invasion, and Wellhausen further objects to it, because -the attitude to Israel of the two peoples whom it -describes is that which is attributed to them only just -before the Exile and surprises us in Josiah’s reign. -Dr. Davidson meets this objection by pointing out that, -just as in Deuteronomy, so here, Moab and Ammon -are denounced, while Edom, which in Deuteronomy is -spoken of with kindness, is here not denounced at all. -A stronger objection to the passage is that ver. 11 -predicts the conversion of the nations, while ver. 12 -makes them the prey of Jehovah’s sword, and in this -ver. 12 follows on naturally to ver. 7. On this ground -as well as on the absence of the elegiac measure the -oracle on Moab and Ammon is strongly to be suspected.</p> - -<p>On the whole, then, the most probable conclusion is -that chap. ii. 4–15 was originally an authentic oracle of -Zephaniah’s in the elegiac metre, uttered at the same -date as chap. i.—ii. 3, the period of the Scythian -invasion, though from a different standpoint; and -that it has suffered considerable dilapidation (witness -especially vv. 6 and 14), and probably one great -intrusion, vv. 8–10.</p> - -<p>There remains the Third Chapter. The authenticity -has been denied by Schwally, who transfers the whole -till after the Exile. But the chapter is not a unity.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> -In the first place, it falls into two sections, vv. 1–13 and -14–20. There is no reason to take away the bulk of -the first section from Zephaniah. As Schwally admits, -the argument here is parallel to that of chap. i.—ii. 3. It -could hardly have been applied to Jerusalem during or -after the Exile, but suits her conditions before her fall. -Schwally’s linguistic objections to a pre-exilic date have -been answered by Budde.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> He holds ver. 6 to be out -of place and puts it after ver. 8, and this may be. But as -it stands it appeals to the impenitent Jews of ver. 5 with -the picture of the judgment God has already completed -upon the nations, and contrasts with ver. 7, in which -God says that He trusts Israel will repent. Vv. 9 and -10 are, we shall see, obviously an intrusion, as Budde -maintains and Davidson admits to be possible.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p> - -<p>We reach more certainty when we come to the -second section of the chapter, vv. 14–20. Since -Kuenen it has been recognised by the majority of critics -that we have here a prophecy from the end of the Exile -or after the Return. The temper has changed. Instead -of the austere and sombre outlook of chap. -i.—ii. 3 and chap. iii. 1–13, in which the sinful Israel -is to be saved indeed, but only as by fire, we have -a triumphant prophecy of her recovery from all affliction -(nothing is said of her sin) and of her glory among -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> -the nations of the world. To put it otherwise, while -the genuine prophecies of Zephaniah almost grudgingly -allow a door of escape to a few righteous and humble -Israelites from a judgment which is to fall alike on -Israel and the Gentiles, chap. iii. 14–20 predicts Israel’s -deliverance from her Gentile oppressors, her return -from captivity and the establishment of her renown -over the earth. The language, too, has many resemblances -to that of Second Isaiah.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> Obviously therefore -we have here, added to the severe prophecies of -Zephaniah, such a more hopeful, peaceful epilogue as -we saw was added, during the Exile or immediately -after it, to the despairing prophecies of Amos.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE PROPHET AND THE REFORMERS</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span> i.—ii. 3</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Towards the year 625, when King Josiah had -passed out of his minority,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> and was making -his first efforts at religious reform, prophecy, long -slumbering, awoke again in Israel.</p> - -<p>Like the king himself, its first heralds were men in -their early youth. In 627 Jeremiah calls himself but -a boy, and Zephaniah can hardly have been out of -his teens.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> For the sudden outbreak of these young -lives there must have been a large reservoir of patience -and hope gathered in the generation behind them. -So Scripture itself testifies. To Jeremiah it was said: -<i>Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before -thou camest forth out of the womb I consecrated thee.</i><a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> -In an age when names were bestowed only because of -their significance,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> both prophets bore that of Jehovah -in their own. So did Jeremiah’s father, who was of -the priests of Anathoth. Zephaniah’s “forbears” are -given for four generations, and with one exception -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> -they also are called after Jehovah: <i>The Word of -Jehovah which came to Ṣephanyah, son of Kushi, son of -Gedhalyah, son of Amaryah, son of Hizḳiyah, in the -days of Joshiyahu,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Amon’s son, king of Judah.</i> -Zephaniah’s great-great-grandfather Hezekiah was in -all probability the king.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> His father’s name Kushi, -or <i>Ethiop</i>, is curious. If we are right, that Zephaniah -was a young man towards 625, then Kushi must have -been born towards 663, about the time of the conflicts -between Assyria and Egypt, and it is possible that, as -Manasseh and the predominant party in Judah so -closely hung upon and imitated Assyria, the adherents -of Jehovah put their hope in Egypt, whereof, it may be, -this name Kushi is a token.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> The name Zephaniah -itself, meaning <i>Jehovah hath hidden</i>, suggests the -prophet’s birth in the “killing-time” of Manasseh. -There was at least one other contemporary of the -same name—a priest executed by Nebuchadrezzar.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> - -<p>Of the adherents of Jehovah, then, and probably -of royal descent, Zephaniah lived in Jerusalem. We -descry him against her, almost as clearly as we -descry Isaiah. In the glare and smoke of the conflagration -which his vision sweeps across the world, -only her features stand out definite and particular: -the flat roofs with men and women bowing in the -twilight to the host of heaven, the crowds of priests, -the nobles and their foreign fashions; the <i>Fishgate</i>, the -New or <i>Second</i> Town, where the rich lived, the <i>Heights</i> -to which building had at last spread, and between -them the hollow <i>Mortar</i>, with its markets, Phœnician -merchants and money-dealers. In the first few verses -of Zephaniah we see almost as much of Jerusalem as -in the whole book either of Isaiah or Jeremiah.</p> - -<p>For so young a man the vision of Zephaniah may seem -strangely dark and final. Yet not otherwise was Isaiah’s -inaugural vision, and as a rule it is the young and not -the old whose indignation is ardent and unsparing. -Zephaniah carries this temper to the extreme. There -is no great hope in his book, hardly any tenderness -and never a glimpse of beauty. A townsman, Zephaniah -has no eye for nature; not only is no fair prospect -described by him, he has not even a single metaphor -drawn from nature’s loveliness or peace. He is -pitilessly true to his great keynotes: <i>I will sweep, -sweep from the face of the ground; He will burn</i>, burn -up everything. No hotter book lies in all the Old -Testament. Neither dew nor grass nor tree nor any -blossom lives in it, but it is everywhere fire, smoke -and darkness, drifting chaff, ruins, nettles, saltpits, and -owls and ravens looking from the windows of desolate -palaces. Nor does Zephaniah foretell the restoration -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> -of nature in the end of the days. There is no prospect -of a redeemed and fruitful land, but only of a group -of battered and hardly saved characters: a few meek -and righteous are hidden from the fire and creep forth -when it is over. Israel is left <i>a poor and humble folk</i>. -No prophet is more true to the doctrine of the remnant, -or more resolutely refuses to modify it. Perhaps he -died young.</p> - -<p>The full truth, however, is that Zephaniah, though -he found his material in the events of his own day, tears -himself loose from history altogether. To the earlier -prophets the Day of the Lord, the crisis of the world, -is a definite point in history: full of terrible, divine -events, yet “natural” ones—battle, siege, famine, -massacre and captivity. After it history is still to flow -on, common days come back and Israel pursue their -way as a nation. But to Zephaniah the Day of the -Lord begins to assume what we call the “supernatural.” -The grim colours are still woven of war and siege, but -mixed with vague and solemn terrors from another -sphere, by which history appears to be swallowed -up, and it is only with an effort that the prophet -thinks of a rally of Israel beyond. In short, with -Zephaniah the Day of the Lord tends to become the -Last Day. His book is the first tinging of prophecy with -apocalypse: that is the moment which it supplies in -the history of Israel’s religion. And, therefore, it was -with a true instinct that the great Christian singer of -the Last Day took from Zephaniah his keynote. The -“Dies Iræ, Dies Illa” of Thomas of Celano is but the -Vulgate translation of Zephaniah’s <i>A day of wrath is -that day</i>.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> -<p>Nevertheless, though the first of apocalyptic writers, -Zephaniah does not allow himself the license of apocalypse. -As he refuses to imagine great glory for the -righteous, so he does not dwell on the terrors of the -wicked. He is sober and restrained, a matter-of-fact -man, yet with power of imagination, who, amidst the -vague horrors he summons, delights in giving a sharp -realistic impression. The Day of the Lord, he says, -what is it? <i>A strong man—there!—crying bitterly.</i><a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> - -<p>It is to the fierce ardour, and to the elemental interests -of the book, that we owe the absence of two features -of prophecy which are so constant in the prophets of -the eighth century. Firstly, Zephaniah betrays no -interest in the practical reforms which (if we are right -about the date) the young king, his contemporary, had -already started.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> There was a party of reform, the -party had a programme, the programme was drawn -from the main principles of prophecy and was designed -to put these into practice. And Zephaniah was a -prophet—and ignored them. This forms the dramatic -interest of his book. Here was a man of the same faith -which kings, priests and statesmen were striving to -realise in public life, in the assured hope—as is plain -from the temper of Deuteronomy—that the nation as -a whole would be reformed and become a very great -nation, righteous and victorious. All this he ignored, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> -and gave his own vision of the future: Israel is a -brand plucked from the burning; a very few meek -and righteous are saved from the conflagration of a -whole world. Why? Because for Zephaniah the -elements were loose, and when the elements were -loose what was the use of talking about reforms? -The Scythians were sweeping down upon Palestine, -with enough of God’s wrath in them to destroy a people -still so full of idolatry as Israel was; and if not the -Scythians, then some other power in that dark, rumbling -North which had ever been so full of doom. Let -Josiah try to reform Israel, but it was neither Josiah’s -nor Israel’s day that was falling. It was the Day of -the Lord, and when He came it was neither to reform -nor to build up Israel, but to make visitation and to -punish in His wrath for the unbelief and wickedness -of which the nation was still full.</p> - -<p>An analogy to this dramatic opposition between -prophet and reformer may be found in our own century. -At its crisis, in 1848, there were many righteous men -rich in hope and energy. The political institutions of -Europe were being rebuilt. In our own land there -were great measures for the relief of labouring children -and women, the organisation of labour and the just -distribution of wealth. But Carlyle that year held -apart from them all, and, though a personal friend of -many of the reformers, counted their work hopeless: -society was too corrupt, the rudest forces were loose, -“Niagara” was near. Carlyle was proved wrong and -the reformers right, but in the analogous situation -of Israel the reformers were wrong and the prophet -right. Josiah’s hope and daring were overthrown at -Megiddo, and, though the Scythians passed away, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>Zephaniah’s conviction of the sin and doom of Israel -was fulfilled, not forty years later, in the fall of -Jerusalem and the great Exile.</p> - -<p>Again, to the same elemental interests, as we may -call them, is due the absence from Zephaniah’s pages -of all the social and individual studies which form the -charm of other prophets. With one exception, there -is no analysis of character, no portrait, no satire. But -the exception is worth dwelling upon: it describes the -temper equally abhorred by both prophet and reformer—that -of the indifferent and stagnant man. Here we -have a subtle and memorable picture of character, which -is not without its warnings for our own time.</p> - -<p>Zephaniah heard God say: <i>And it shall be at that -time that I will search out Jerusalem with lights, and I -will make visitation upon the men who are become -stagnant upon their lees, who say in their hearts, Jehovah -doeth no good and doeth no evil.</i><a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> The metaphor is -clear. New wine was left upon its lees only long -enough to fix its colour and body.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> If not then drawn -off it grew thick and syrupy—sweeter indeed than the -strained wine, and to the taste of some more pleasant, -but feeble and ready to decay. “To settle upon one’s -lees” became a proverb for sloth, indifference and the -muddy mind. <i>Moab hath been at ease from his youth -and hath settled upon his lees, and hath not been emptied -from vessel to vessel; therefore his taste stands in him and -his scent is not changed.</i><a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> The characters stigmatised -by Zephaniah are also obvious. They were a precipitate -from the ferment of fifteen years back. Through -the cruel days of Manasseh and Amon hope had been -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>stirred and strained, emptied from vessel to vessel, and -so had sprung sparkling and keen into the new days of -Josiah. But no miracle came, only ten years of waiting -for the king’s majority and five more of small, tentative -reforms. Nothing divine happened. There were but -the ambiguous successes of a small party who had -secured the king for their principles. The court was -still full of foreign fashions, and idolatry was rank upon -the housetops. Of course disappointment ensued—disappointment -and listlessness. The new security -of life became a temptation; persecution ceased, and -religious men lived again at ease. So numbers of -eager and sparkling souls, who had been in the front -of the movement, fell away into a selfish and idle -obscurity. The prophet hears God say, <i>I must search -Jerusalem with lights</i> in order to find them. They had -“fallen from the van and the freemen”; they had “sunk -to the rear and the slaves,” where they wallowed in the -excuse that <i>Jehovah</i> Himself <i>would do nothing—neither -good</i>, therefore it is useless to attempt reform like -Josiah and his party, <i>nor evil</i>, therefore Zephaniah’s -prophecy of destruction is also vain. Exactly the -same temper was encountered by Mazzini in the second -stage of his career. Many of those, who with him had -eagerly dreamt of a free Italy, fell away when the first -revolt failed—fell away not merely into weariness and -fear, but, as he emphasises, into the very two tempers -which are described by Zephaniah, scepticism and -self-indulgence.</p> - -<p>All this starts questions for ourselves. Here is -evidently the same public temper, which at all periods -provokes alike the despair of the reformer and the -indignation of the prophet: the criminal apathy of the -well-to-do classes sunk in ease and religious indifference. -We have to-day the same mass of obscure, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> -nameless persons, who oppose their almost unconquerable -inertia to every movement of reform, and are the -drag upon all vital and progressive religion. The -great causes of God and Humanity are not defeated -by the hot assaults of the Devil but by the slow, -crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands -of indifferent nobodies. God’s causes are never destroyed -by being blown up, but by being sat upon. It -is not the violent and anarchical whom we have to fear -in the war for human progress, but the slow, the staid, -the respectable. And the danger of these does not lie -in their stupidity. Notwithstanding all their religious -profession, it lies in their real scepticism. Respectability -may be the precipitate of unbelief. Nay, it is -that, however religious its mask, wherever it is mere -comfort, decorousness and conventionality; where, -though it would abhor articulately confessing that God -does nothing, it virtually means so—<i>says</i> so (as -Zephaniah puts it) <i>in its heart</i>, by refusing to share -manifest opportunities of serving Him, and covers its -sloth and its fear by sneering that God is not with -the great crusades for freedom and purity to which -it is summoned. In these ways, Respectability is the -precipitate which unbelief naturally forms in the selfish -ease and stillness of so much of our middle-class life. -And that is what makes mere respectability so -dangerous. Like the unshaken, unstrained wine to -which the prophet compares its obscure and muddy -comfort, it tends to decay. To some extent our -respectable classes are just the dregs and lees of our -national life; like all dregs, they are subject to corruption. -A great sermon could be preached on the -putrescence of respectability—how the ignoble comfort -of our respectable classes and their indifference to holy -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -causes lead to sensuality, and poison the very institutions -of the Home and the Family, on which they pride -themselves. A large amount of the licentiousness of -the present day is not that of outlaw and disordered -lives, but is bred from the settled ease and indifference -of many of our middle-class families.</p> - -<p>It is perhaps the chief part of the sin of the obscure -units, which form these great masses of indifference, -that they think they escape notice and cover their -individual responsibility. At all times many have -sought obscurity, not because they are humble, but -because they are slothful, cowardly or indifferent. -Obviously it is this temper which is met by the words, -<i>I will search out Jerusalem with lights</i>. None of us -shall escape because we have said, “I will go with -the crowd,” or “I am a common man and have no -right to thrust myself forward.” We shall be followed -and judged, each of us for his and her personal attitude -to the great movements of our time. These things -are not too high for us: they are <i>our</i> duty; and we -cannot escape our duty by slinking into the shadow.</p> - -<p>For all this wickedness and indifference Zephaniah -sees prepared the Day of the Lord—near, hastening -and very terrible. It sweeps at first in vague desolation -and ruin of all things, but then takes the outlines -of a solemn slaughter-feast for which Jehovah -has consecrated the guests, the dim unnamed armies -from the north. Judah shall be invaded, and they -that are at ease, who say <i>Jehovah does nothing</i>, shall -be unsettled and routed. One vivid trait comes in like -a screech upon the hearts of a people unaccustomed -for years to war. <i>Hark, Jehovah’s Day!</i> cries the -prophet. <i>A strong man—there!—crying bitterly.</i> From -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> -this flash upon the concrete, he returns to a great vague -terror, in which earthly armies merge in heavenly; -battle, siege, storm and darkness are mingled, and -destruction is spread abroad upon the whole earth. -The first shades of Apocalypse are upon us.</p> - -<p>We may now take the full text of this strong and -significant prophecy. We have already given the -title. Textual emendations and other points are -explained in footnotes.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p><i>I will sweep, sweep away everything from the face of -the ground—oracle of Jehovah—sweep man and beast, -sweep the fowl of the heaven and the fish of the sea, and -I will bring to ruin<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> the wicked and cut off the men of -wickedness from the ground—oracle of Jehovah. And I -will stretch forth My hand upon Judah, and upon all the -inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place -the remnant<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> of the Baal,<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> the names<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> of the priestlings -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>with the priests, and them who upon the housetops bow -themselves to the host of heaven, and them who...<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> swear by -their Melech,<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> and them who have turned from following -Jehovah, and who do not seek Jehovah nor have inquired -of Him.</i></p> - -<p><i>Silence for the Lord Jehovah! For near is Jehovah’s -Day. Jehovah has prepared a<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> slaughter, He has -consecrated His guests.</i></p> - -<p><i>And it shall be in Jehovah’s day of slaughter that I -will make visitation upon the princes and the house<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> of -the king, and upon all who array themselves in foreign -raiment; and I will make visitation upon all who leap -over the threshold<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> on that day, who fill their lord’s house -full of violence and fraud.</i></p> - -<p><i>And on that day—oracle of Jehovah—there shall be a -noise of crying from the Fishgate, and wailing from -the Mishneh,<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> and great havoc on the Heights. Howl, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>O dwellers in the Mortar,<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> for undone are all the merchant -folk,<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> cut off are all the money-dealers.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></i></p> - -<p><i>And in that time it shall be, that I will search Jerusalem -with lanterns, and make visitation upon the men who are -become stagnant upon their lees, who in their hearts say, -Jehovah doeth no good and doeth no evil.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> Their substance -shall be for spoil, and their houses for wasting … . </i><a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> - -<p><i>Near is the great Day of Jehovah, near and very -speedy.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Hark, the Day of Jehovah! A strong man—there!—crying -bitterly!</i></p> - -<p><i>A day of wrath is that Day!<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> Day of siege and -blockade, day of stress and distress,<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> day of darkness and -murk, day of cloud and heavy mist, day of the war-horn -and battle-roar, up against the fenced cities and against -the highest turrets! And I will beleaguer men, and -they shall walk like the blind, for they have sinned -against Jehovah; and poured out shall their blood be -like dust, and the flesh of them like dung. Even their -silver, even their gold shall not avail to save them -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> -in the day of Jehovah’s wrath,<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> and in the fire of His -zeal shall all the earth be devoured, for destruction, yea,<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> -sudden collapse shall He make of all the inhabitants of -the earth.</i></p> - -<p>Upon this vision of absolute doom there follows<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> -a qualification for the few meek and righteous. They -may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s anger; but -even for them escape is only a possibility. Note the -absence of all mention of the Divine mercy as the cause -of deliverance. Zephaniah has no gospel of that kind. -The conditions of escape are sternly ethical—meekness, -the doing of justice and righteousness. So austere is -our prophet.</p> - -<p>… ,<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> <i>O people unabashed!<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> before that ye become as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>the drifting chaff, before the anger of Jehovah come upon -you,<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> before there come upon you the day of Jehovah’s -wrath;<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> seek Jehovah, all ye meek of the land who do -His ordinance,<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> seek righteousness, seek meekness, peradventure -ye may hide yourselves in the day of Jehovah’s -wrath.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">NINIVE DELENDA</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span> ii. 4–15</p> - -<p class="noindent">There now come a series of oracles on foreign -nations, connected with the previous prophecy -by the conjunction <i>for</i>, and detailing the worldwide -judgment which it had proclaimed. But though dated -from the same period as that prophecy, <i>circa</i> 626, -these oracles are best treated by themselves.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> - -<p>These oracles originally formed one passage in the -well-known Qinah or elegiac measure; but this has -suffered sadly both by dilapidation and rebuilding. -How mangled the text is may be seen especially -from vv. 6 and 14, where the Greek gives us some -help in restoring it. The verses (8–11) upon Moab -and Ammon cannot be reduced to the metre which -both precedes and follows them. Probably, therefore, -they are a later addition: nor did Moab and -Ammon lie upon the way of the Scythians, who are -presumably the invaders pictured by the prophet.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> - -<p>The poem begins with Philistia and the sea-coast, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>the very path of the Scythian raid.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> Evidently the -latter is imminent, the Philistine cities are shortly to be -taken and the whole land reduced to grass. Across -the emptied strip the long hope of Israel springs sea-ward; -but—mark!—not yet with a vision of the isles -beyond. The prophet is satisfied with reaching the -edge of the Promised Land: <i>by the sea shall they feed</i><a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> -their flocks.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For Gaza forsaken shall be,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Ashḳ’lôn a desert.</div> -<div class="verse">Ashdod—by noon shall they rout her,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">And Eḳron be torn up!<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ah! woe, dwellers of the sea-shore,<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">Folk of Kerēthim.<br /></div> -<div class="verse">The word of Jehovah against thee, Kĕna‘an,<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a><br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">Land of the Philistines!<br /></div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And I destroy thee to the last inhabitant,<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a><br /></div> -<div class="verse">And Kereth shall become shepherds’ cots,<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a><br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">And folds for flocks.<br /></div> -<div class="verse">And the coast<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> for the remnant of Judah’s house;<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">By the sea<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> shall they feed.<br /></div> -<div class="verse">In Ashḳelon’s houses at even shall they couch;<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2 spread">. . . . . .<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a><br /></div> -<div class="verse">For Jehovah their God shall visit them,<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">And turn their captivity.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a><br /></div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>There comes now an oracle upon Moab and Ammon -(vv. 8–11). As already said, it is not in the elegiac -measure which precedes and follows it, while other -features cast a doubt upon its authenticity. Like other -oracles on the same peoples, this denounces the loud-mouthed -arrogance of the sons of Moab and Ammon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>I have heard<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> the reviling of Moab and the insults of -the sons of Ammon, who have reviled My people and -vaunted themselves upon their<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> border. Wherefore as -I live, saith Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, Moab shall -become as Sodom, and Ammon’s sons as Gomorrah—the -possession<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> of nettles, and saltpits,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> and a desolation for -ever; the remnant of My people shall spoil them, and -the rest of My nation possess them. This to them for -their arrogance, because they reviled, and vaunted themselves -against, the people of<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> Jehovah of Hosts. Jehovah -showeth Himself terrible<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> against them, for He hath -made lean<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> all gods of earth, that all the coasts of the -nations may worship Him, every man from his own place.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></i></p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The next oracle is a very short one (ver. 12) upon -Egypt, which after its long subjection to Ethiopic -dynasties is called, not Miṣraim, but Kush, or Ethiopia. -The verse follows on naturally to ver. 7, but is not -reducible to the elegiac measure.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Also ye, O Kushites, are the slain of My sword.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> - -<p>The elegiac measure is now renewed<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> in an oracle -against Assyria, the climax and front of heathendom -(vv. 13–15). It must have been written before 608: -there is no reason to doubt that it is Zephaniah’s.</p> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And may He stretch out His hand against the North,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">And destroy Asshur;</div> -<div class="verse">And may He turn Niniveh to desolation,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Dry as the desert.</div> -<div class="verse">And herds shall couch in her midst.</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Every beast of .… .<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Yea, pelican and bittern<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> shall roost on the capitals;</div> -<div class="verse">The owl shall hoot in the window,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">The raven on the doorstep.</div> -</div> -<div class="verse spread">. . . . .<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a></div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Such is the City, the Jubilant,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">She that sitteth at ease,</div> -<div class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></div> -<div class="verse">She that saith in her heart, I am</div> -<div class="verse indent2">And there is none else!</div> -<div class="verse">How hath she become desolation!</div> -<div class="verse indent2">A lair of beasts.</div> -<div class="verse">Every one passing by her hisses,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Shakes his hand.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The essence of these oracles is their clear confidence -in the fall of Niniveh. From 652, when Egypt revolted -from Assyria, and, Assurbanipal notwithstanding, began -to push northward, men must have felt, throughout -all Western Asia, that the great empire upon the -Tigris was beginning to totter. This feeling was -strengthened by the Scythian invasion, and after 625 -it became a moral certainty that Niniveh would fall<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a>—which -happened in 607—6. These are the feelings, 625 -to 608, which Zephaniah’s oracles reflect. We can -hardly over-estimate what they meant. Not a man -was then alive who had ever known anything else -than the greatness and the glory of Assyria. It was -two hundred and thirty years since Israel first felt -the weight of her arms.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> It was more than a hundred -since her hosts had swept through Palestine,<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> and for -at least fifty her supremacy had been accepted by -Judah. Now the colossus began to totter. As she -had menaced, so she was menaced. The ruins with -which for nigh three centuries she had strewn Western -Asia—to these were to be reduced her own impregnable -and ancient glory. It was the close of an epoch.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">SO AS BY FIRE</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span> iii.</p> - -<p class="noindent">The third chapter of the Book of Zephaniah -consists<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> of two sections, of which only the first, -<span class="nobreak">vv. 1–13</span>, is a genuine work of the prophet; while -the second, vv. 14–20, is a later epilogue such as -we found added to the genuine prophecies of Amos. -It is written in the large hope and brilliant temper of -the Second Isaiah, saying no word of Judah’s sin or -judgment, but predicting her triumphant deliverance -out of all her afflictions.</p> - -<p>In a second address to his City (vv. 1–13) Zephaniah -strikes the same notes as he did in his first. -He spares the king, but denounces the ruling and -teaching classes. Jerusalem’s princes are lions, her -judges wolves, her prophets braggarts, her priests -pervert the law, her wicked have no shame. He -repeats the proclamation of a universal doom. But the -time is perhaps later. Judah has disregarded the many -threats. She will not accept the Lord’s discipline; -and while in chap. i.—ii. 3 Zephaniah had said that the -meek and righteous might escape the doom, he now -emphatically affirms that all proud and impenitent men -shall be removed from Jerusalem, and a humble -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>people be left to her, righteous and secure. There -is the same moral earnestness as before, the same -absence of all other elements of prophecy than the -ethical. Before we ask the reason and emphasise the -beauty of this austere gospel, let us see the exact -words of the address. There are the usual marks of -poetic diction in it—elliptic phrases, the frequent absence -of the definite article, archaic forms and an order of the -syntax different from that which obtains in prose. -But the measure is difficult to determine, and must be -printed as prose. The echo of the elegiac rhythm in -the opening is more apparent than real: it is not -sustained beyond the first verse. Verses 9 and 10 -are relegated to a footnote, as very probably an -intrusion, and disturbance of the argument.</p> - -<p><i>Woe, rebel and unclean, city of oppression!<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> She -listens to no voice, she accepts no discipline, in Jehovah -she trusts not, nor has drawn near to her God.</i></p> - -<p><i>Her princes in her midst are roaring lions; her -judges evening wolves,<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> they ...<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> not till morning; her -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>prophets are braggarts and traitors; her priests have -profaned what is holy and done violence to the Law.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> -Jehovah is righteous in the midst of her, He does no -wrong. Morning by morning He brings His judgment -to light: He does not let Himself fail<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a>—but the -wicked man knows no shame. I have cut off nations, -their turrets are ruined; I have laid waste their broad -streets, till no one passes upon them; destroyed are -their cities, without a man, without a dweller.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> I said, -Surely she will fear Me, she will accept punishment,<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> -and all that I have visited upon her<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> shall never -vanish from her eyes.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> But only the more zealously -have they corrupted all their doings.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></i></p> - -<p><i>Wherefore wait ye for Me—oracle of Jehovah—wait -for the day of My rising to testify, for ’tis My fixed -purpose<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> to sweep nations together, to collect kingdoms, -to pour upon them ...<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> all the heat of My wrath— -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>yea, with the fire of My jealousy shall the whole earth -be consumed.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></i></p> - -<p><i>In that day thou shalt not be ashamed<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> of all thy -deeds, by which thou hast rebelled against Me: for -then will I turn out of the midst of thee all who -exult with that arrogance of thine,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> and thou wilt not -again vaunt thyself upon the Mount of My Holiness. -But I will leave in thy midst a people humble and poor, -and they shall trust in the name of Jehovah. The -Remnant of Israel shall do no evil, and shall not speak -falsehood, and no fraud shall be found in their mouth, -but they shall pasture and they shall couch, with none -to make them afraid.</i></p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Such is the simple and austere gospel of Zephaniah. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>It is -not to be overlooked amid the lavish and gorgeous -promises which other prophets have poured around -it, and by ourselves, too, it is needed in our often -unscrupulous enjoyment of the riches of grace that -are in Christ Jesus. A thorough purgation, the -removal of the wicked, the sparing of the honest and -the meek; insistence only upon the rudiments of -morality and religion; faith in its simplest form of trust -in a righteous God, and character in its basal elements -of meekness and truth,—these and these alone survive -the judgment. Why does Zephaniah never talk of -the Love of God, of the Divine Patience, of the Grace -that has spared and will spare wicked hearts if only -it can touch them to penitence? Why has he no call -to repent, no appeal to the wicked to turn from -the evil of their ways? We have already seen part -of the answer. Zephaniah stands too near to judgment -and the last things. Character is fixed, the -time for pleading is past; there remains only the -separation of bad men from good. It is the same -standpoint (at least ethically) as that of Christ’s visions -of the Judgment. Perhaps also an austere gospel was -required by the fashionable temper of the day. The -generation was loud and arrogant; it gilded the future -to excess, and knew no shame.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> The true prophet -was forced to reticence; he must make his age feel -the desperate earnestness of life, and that salvation is -by fire. For the gorgeous future of its unsanctified -hopes he must give it this severe, almost mean, picture -of a poor and humble folk, hardly saved but at last at -peace.</p> - -<p>The permanent value of such a message is proved -by the thirst which we feel even to-day for the clear, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> -cold water of its simple promises. Where a glaring -optimism prevails, and the future is preached with a -loud assurance, where many find their only religious -enthusiasm in the resurrection of mediæval ritual -or the singing of stirring and gorgeous hymns of -second-hand imagery, how needful to be recalled to -the earnestness and severity of life, to the simplicity -of the conditions of salvation, and to their ethical, not -emotional, character! Where sensationalism has so -invaded religion, how good to hear the sober insistence -upon God’s daily commonplaces—<i>morning by morning -He bringeth forth His judgment to light</i>—and to know -that the acceptance of discipline is what prevails with -Him. Where national reform is vaunted and the progress -of education, how well to go back to a prophet -who ignored all the great reforms of his day that he -might impress his people with the indispensableness -of humility and faith. Where Churches have such -large ambitions for themselves, how necessary to hear -that the future is destined for <i>a poor folk</i>, the meek -and the honest. Where men boast that their religion—Bible, -Creed or Church—has undertaken to save them, -<i>vaunting themselves on the Mount of My Holiness</i>, how -needful to hear salvation placed upon character and a -very simple trust in God.</p> - -<p>But, on the other hand, is any one in despair at the -darkness and cruelty of this life, let him hear how -Zephaniah proclaims that, though all else be fraud, <i>the -Lord is righteous in the midst</i> of us, <i>He doth not let -Himself fail</i>, that the resigned heart and the humble, -the just and the pure heart, is imperishable, and in the -end there is at least peace.</p> - -<h4><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> -E<span class="small">PILOGUE</span>.</h4> - -<p class="secnsub">V<span class="small">ERSES</span> 14–20.</p> - -<p>Zephaniah’s prophecy was fulfilled. The Day of the -Lord came, and the people met their judgment. The -Remnant survived—<i>a folk poor and humble</i>. To -them, in the new estate and temper of their life, came -a new song from God—perhaps it was nearly a hundred -years after Zephaniah had spoken—and they added it -to his prophecies. It came in with wonderful fitness, for -it was the song of the redeemed, whom he had foreseen, -and it tuned his book, severe and simple, to the full -harmony of prophecy, so that his book might take -a place in the great choir of Israel—the diapason of -that full salvation which no one man, but only the -experience of centuries, could achieve.</p> - -<p><i>Sing out, O daughter of Zion! shout aloud, O Israel! -Rejoice and be jubilant with all thy<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> heart, daughter of -Jerusalem! Jehovah hath set aside thy judgments,<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> He -hath turned thy foes. King of Israel, Jehovah is in thy -midst; thou shalt not see<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> evil any more.</i></p> - -<p><i>In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not. O -Zion, let not thy hands droop! Jehovah, thy God, in the -midst of thee is mighty;<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> He will save, He will rejoice -over thee with joy, He will make new<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> His love, He will -exult over thee with singing.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>The scattered of thy congregation<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> have I gathered—thine<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> -are they, ...<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> reproach upon her. Behold, I am about -to do all for thy sake at that time,<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> and I will rescue the -lame and the outcast will I bring in,<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> and I will make them -for renown and fame whose shame is in the whole earth.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> -In that time I will bring you in,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> even in the time that -I gather you.<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> For I will set you for fame and renown -among all the peoples of the earth, when I turn again -your captivity before your eyes, saith Jehovah.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> -<h2 id="Nahum" class="nobreak"><i>NAHUM</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Woe to the City of Blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!<br /></span> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Hark the whip,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the rumbling of wheels!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Horses at the gallop,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the rattling dance of the chariot!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cavalry at the charge,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flash of sabres, and lightning of lances!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF NAHUM</p> - -<p class="noindent">The Book of Nahum consists of a double title and -three odes. The title runs <i>Oracle of Niniveh: -Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elḳôshite</i>. The three -odes, eager and passionate pieces, are all of them apparently -vibrant to the impending fall of Assyria. The -first, chap. i. with the possible inclusion of chap. ii. 2,<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> -is general and theological, affirming God’s power of -vengeance and the certainty of the overthrow of His -enemies. The second, chap. ii. with the omission of -ver. 2,<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> and the third, chap, iii., can hardly be disjoined; -they both present a vivid picture of the siege, the -storm and the spoiling of Niniveh.</p> - -<p>The introductory questions, which title and contents -start, are in the main three: 1. The position of Elḳôsh, -to which the title assigns the prophet; 2. The -authenticity of chap. i.; 3. The date of chaps, ii., iii.: -to which siege of Niniveh do they refer?</p> - -<h4 id="VIsec1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" - id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> -1. T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">OSITION OF</span> - E<span class="small">LḲÔSH</span>.</h4> - -<p>The title calls Nahum the Elḳôshite—that is, native -or citizen of Elḳôsh.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> Three positions have been -claimed for this place, which is not mentioned elsewhere -in the Bible.</p> - -<p>The first we take is the modern Al-Ḳûsh, a town -still flourishing about twenty-four miles to the north -of the site of Niniveh,<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> with “no fragments of antiquity” -about it, but possessing a “simple plaster box,” which -Jews, Christians and Mohammedans alike reverence -as the tomb of Nahum.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> There is no evidence that -Al-Ḳûsh, a name of Arabic form, is older than the -Arab period, while the tradition which locates the -tomb there is not found before the sixteenth century -of our era, but on the contrary Nahum’s grave was -pointed out to Benjamin of Tudela in 1165 at ‘Ain -Japhata, on the south of Babylon.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> The tradition that -the prophet lived and died at Al-Ḳûsh is therefore -due to the similarity of the name to that of Nahum’s -Elḳôsh, as well as to the fact that Niniveh was the -subject of his prophesying.<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> In his book there is -no trace of proof for the assertion that Nahum was -a descendant of the ten tribes exiled in 721 to the -region to the north of Al-Ḳûsh. He prophesies for -Judah alone. Nor does he show any more knowledge -of Niniveh than her ancient fame must have scattered -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> -to the limits of the world.<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a> -<a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> We might as well argue -from chap. iii. 8–10 that Nahum had visited Thebes -of Egypt.</p> - -<p>The second tradition of the position of Elḳôsh is -older. In his commentary on Nahum Jerome says -that in his day it still existed, a petty village of Galilee, -under the name of Helkesei,<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> or Elkese, and apparently -with an established reputation as the town of Nahum.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> -But the book itself bears no symptom of its author’s -connection with Galilee, and although it was quite -possible for a prophet of that period to have lived there, -it is not very probable.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> - -<p>A third tradition places Elḳôsh in the south of Judah. -A Syriac version of the accounts of the prophets, which -are ascribed to Epiphanius,<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> describes Nahum as “of -Elḳôsh beyond Bêt Gabrê, of the tribe of Simeon”;<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>it may be noted that Cyril of Alexandria says<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> that -Elkese was a village in the country of the Jews. This -tradition is superior to the first in that there is no apparent -motive for its fabrication, and to the second in so -far as Judah was at the time of Nahum a much more -probable home for a prophet than Galilee; nor does -the book give any references except such as might be -made by a Judæan.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> No modern place-name, however, -can be suggested with any certainty as the echo of -Elḳôsh. Umm Lâḳis, which has been proved not to -be Lachish, contains the same radicals, and some six -and a quarter miles east from Beit-Jibrin at the upper -end of the Wady es Sur there is an ancient well with -the name Bir el Ḳûs.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p> - - -<h4 id="VIsec2"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" - id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> -2. T<span class="small">HE</span> - A<span class="small">UTHENTICITY OF</span> - C<span class="small">HAP</span>. I.</h4> - -<p>Till recently no one doubted that the three chapters -formed a unity. “Nahum’s prophecy,” said Kuenen -in 1889, “is a whole.” In 1891<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> Cornill affirmed that -no questions of authenticity arose in regard to the -book; and in 1892 Wellhausen saw in chap. i. an -introduction leading “in no awkward way to the proper -subject of the prophecy.”</p> - -<p>Meantime, however, Bickell,<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> discovering what he -thought to be the remains of an alphabetic Psalm -in chap. i. 1–7, attempted to reconstruct throughout -chap. i.—ii. 3 twenty-two verses, each beginning with a -successive letter of the alphabet. And, following this, -Gunkel in 1893 produced a more full and plausible -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> -reconstruction of the same scheme.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> By radical emendations -of the text, by excision of what he believes to -be glosses and by altering the order of many of the -verses, Gunkel seeks to produce twenty-three distichs, -twenty of which begin with the successive letters of -the alphabet, two are wanting, while in the first three -letters of the twenty-third, [<span class="heb">שׁבי</span>], he finds very probable -the name of the author, Shobai or Shobi.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> He takes -this ode, therefore, to be an eschatological Psalm of -the later Judaism, which from its theological bearing -has been thought suitable as an introduction to -Nahum’s genuine prophecies.</p> - -<p>The text of chap. i.—ii. 4 has been badly mauled and -is clamant for reconstruction of some kind. As it -lies, there are traces of an alphabetical arrangement -as far as the beginning of ver. 9,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> and so far Gunkel’s -changes are comparatively simple. Many of his emendations -are in themselves and apart from the alphabetic -scheme desirable. They get rid of difficulties and -improve the poetry of the passage.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> His reconstruction -is always clever and as a whole forms a wonderfully -spirited poem. But to have produced good or poetical -Hebrew is not conclusive proof of having recovered -the original, and there are obvious objections to the -process. Several of the proposed changes are unnatural -in themselves and unsupported by anything except the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> -exigencies of the scheme; for example, 2<i>b</i> and 3<i>a</i> are -dismissed as a gloss only because, if they be retained, the -<i>Aleph</i> verse is two bars too long. The gloss, Gunkel -thinks, was introduced to mitigate the absoluteness of -the declaration that Jehovah is a God of wrath and -vengeance; but this is not obvious and would hardly -have been alleged apart from the needs of the alphabetic -scheme. In order to find a <i>Daleth</i>, it is quite arbitrary -to say that the first <span class="heb">אמלל</span> in 4<i>b</i> -is redundant in face -of the second, and that a word beginning with <i>Daleth</i> -originally filled its place, but was removed because it -was a rare or difficult word! The re-arrangement of -7 and 8<i>a</i> is very clever, and reads as if it were right; but -the next effort, to get a verse beginning with <i>Lamed</i>, -is of the kind by which anything might be proved. -These, however, are nothing to the difficulties which -vv. 9–14 and chap. ii. 1, 3, present to an alphabetic -scheme, or to the means which Gunkel takes to surmount -them. He has to re-arrange the order of the verses,<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> -and of the words within the verses. The distichs -beginning with <i>Nun</i> and <i>Ḳoph</i> are wanting, or at -least undecipherable. To provide one with initial <i>Resh</i> -the interjection has to be removed from the opening -of chap. ii. 1, and the verse made to begin with <span class="heb">רגלי</span> and -to run thus: <i>the feet of him that bringeth good news -on the mountains; behold him that publisheth peace</i>. -Other unlikely changes will be noticed when we come -to the translation. Here we may ask the question: if -the passage was originally alphabetic, that is, furnished -with so fixed and easily recognised a frame, why has -it so fallen to pieces? And again, if it has so fallen -to pieces, is it possible that it can be restored? The -many arbitrarinesses of Gunkel’s able essay would seem -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> -to imply that it is not. Dr. Davidson says: “Even if -it should be assumed that an alphabetical poem lurks -under chap. i., the attempt to restore it, just as in -Psalm x., can never be more than an academic exercise.”</p> - -<p>Little is to be learned from the language. Wellhausen, -who makes no objection to the genuineness of -the passage, thinks that about ver. 7 we begin to catch -the familiar dialect of the Psalms. Gunkel finds a -want of originality in the language, with many touches -that betray connection not only with the Psalms but -with late eschatological literature. But when we take -one by one the clauses of chap, i., we discover very few -parallels with the Psalms, which are not at the same -time parallels with Jeremiah’s or some earlier writings. -That the prophecy is vague, and with much of the air -of the later eschatology about it, is no reason for -removing it from an age in which we have already -seen prophecy beginning to show the same apocalyptic -temper.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> Gunkel denies any reference in ver. 9<i>b</i> to -the approaching fall of Niniveh, although that is seen -by Kuenen, Wellhausen, König and others, and he -omits ver. 11<i>a</i>, in which most read an allusion to -Sennacherib.</p> - -<p>Therefore, while it is possible that a later poem has -been prefixed to the genuine prophecies of Nahum, -and the first chapter supplies many provocations to -belief in such a theory, this has not been proved, and -the able essays of proof have much against them. The -question is open.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p> - -<h4 id="VIsec3"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" - id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> -3. T<span class="small">HE</span> - D<span class="small">ATE OF</span> - C<span class="small">HAPS</span>. II. - <span class="small">AND</span> III.</h4> - -<p>We turn now to the date of the Book apart from this -prologue. It was written after a great overthrow of -the Egyptian Thebes<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> and when the overthrow of -Niniveh was imminent. Now Thebes had been devastated -by Assurbanipal about 664 (we know of no later -overthrow), and Niniveh fell finally about 607. Nahum -flourished, then, somewhere between 664 and 607.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> -Some critics, feeling in his description of the fall of -Thebes the force of a recent impression, have placed -his prophesying immediately after that, or about 660.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> -But this is too far away from the fall of Niniveh. In 660 -the power of Assyria was unthreatened. Nor is 652, -the year of the revolt of Babylon, Egypt and the -princes of Palestine, a more likely date.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> For although -in that year Assyrian supremacy ebbed from Egypt -never to return, Assurbanipal quickly reduced Elam, -Babylon and all Syria. Nahum, on the other hand, -represents the very centre of the empire as threatened. -The land of Assyria is apparently already invaded (iii. 13, -etc.). Niniveh, if not invested, must immediately be so, -and that by forces too great for resistance. Her mixed -populace already show signs of breaking up. Within, -as without, her doom is sealed. All this implies not -only the advance of an enormous force upon Niniveh, -but the reduction of her people to the last stage of -hopelessness. Now, as we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> Assyria proper -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> -was thrice overrun. The Scythians poured across her -about 626, but there is no proof that they threatened -Niniveh.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> A little after Assurbanipal’s death in 625, -the Medes under King Phraortes invaded Assyria, but -Phraortes was slain and his son Kyaxares called away -by an invasion of his own country. Herodotus says -that this was after he had defeated the Assyrians in a -battle and had begun the siege of Niniveh,<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> but before -he had succeeded in reducing the city. After a time -he subdued or assimilated the Medes, and then investing -Niniveh once more, about 607, in two years he took -and destroyed her.</p> - -<p>To which of these two sieges by Kyaxares are we -to assign the Book of Nahum? Hitzig, Kuenen, -Cornill and others incline to the first on the ground -that Nahum speaks of the yoke of Assyria as -still heavy on Judah, though about to be lifted. -They argue that by 608, when King Josiah had -already felt himself free enough to extend his reforms -into Northern Israel, and dared to dispute Necho’s -passage across Esdraelon, the Jews must have been -conscious that they had nothing more to fear from -Assyria, and Nahum could hardly have written as he -does in i. 13, <i>I will break his yoke from off thee and -burst thy bonds in sunder</i>.<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> But this is not conclusive, -for <i>first</i>, as we have seen, it is not certain that i. 13 is -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> -from Nahum himself, and <i>second</i>, if it be from himself, -he might as well have written it about 608 as about -625, for he speaks not from the feelings of any single -year, but with the impression upon him of the whole -epoch of Assyrian servitude then drawing to a close. -The eve of the later siege as a date for the book is, as -Davidson remarks,<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> “well within the verge of possibility,” -and some critics prefer it because in their -opinion Nahum’s descriptions thereby acquire greater -reality and naturalness. But this is not convincing, for if -Kyaxares actually began the siege of Niniveh about 625, -Nahum’s sense of the imminence of her fall is perfectly -natural. Wellhausen indeed denies that earlier siege. -“Apart from Herodotus,” he says, “it would never have -occurred to anybody to doubt that Nahum’s prophecy -coincided with the fall of Niniveh.”<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> This is true, for -it is to Herodotus alone that we owe the tradition of -the earlier siege. But what if we believe Herodotus? -In that case, it is impossible to come to a decision as -between the two sieges. With our present scanty -knowledge of both, the prophecy of Nahum suits either -equally well.<a name="FNanchor_234_234" -id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p> - -<p>Fortunately it is not necessary to come to a decision. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> -Nahum, we cannot too often insist, expresses the -feelings neither of this nor of that decade in the reign -of Josiah, but the whole volume of hope, wrath and -just passion of vengeance which had been gathering for -more than a century and which at last broke into exultation -when it became certain that Niniveh was falling. -That suits the eve of either siege by Kyaxares. Till -we learn a little more about the first siege and how -far it proceeded towards a successful result, perhaps -we ought to prefer the second. And of course those -who feel that Nahum writes not in the future but -the present tense of the details of Niniveh’s overthrow, -must prefer the second.</p> - -<p class="thb"> </p> - -<p>That the form as well as the spirit of the Book of -Nahum is poetical is proved by the familiar marks of -poetic measure—the unusual syntax, the frequent -absence of the article and particles, the presence of -elliptic forms and archaic and sonorous ones. In the -two chapters on the siege of Niniveh the lines are -short and quick, in harmony with the dashing action -they echo.</p> - -<p>As we have seen, the text of chap. i. is very uncertain. -The subject of the other two chapters involves -the use of a number of technical and some foreign -terms, of the meaning of most of which we are -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> -ignorant.<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> There are apparently some glosses; here -and there the text is obviously disordered. We get -the usual help, and find the usual faults, in the -Septuagint; they will be noticed in the course of the -translation.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">N<span class="small">AHUM</span> i</p> - -<p class="noindent">The prophet Nahum, as we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> arose probably -in Judah, if not about the same time as -Zephaniah and Jeremiah, then a few years later. -Whether he prophesied before or after the great -Reform of 621 we have no means of deciding. His -book does not reflect the inner history, character or -merits of his generation. His sole interest is the fate -of Niniveh. Zephaniah had also doomed the Assyrian -capital, yet he was much more concerned with Israel’s -unworthiness of the opportunity presented to them. -The yoke of Asshur, he saw, was to be broken, but -the same cloud which was bursting from the north -upon Niniveh must overwhelm the incorrigible people -of Jehovah. For this Nahum has no thought. His -heart, for all its bigness, holds room only for the -bitter memories, the baffled hopes, the unappeased -hatreds of a hundred years. And that is why we -need not be anxious to fix his date upon one or other -of the shifting phases of Israel’s history during that -last quarter of the seventh century. For he represents -no single movement of his fickle people’s progress, but -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> -the passion of the whole epoch then drawing to a -close. Nahum’s book is one great At Last!</p> - -<p>And, therefore, while Nahum is a worse prophet -than Zephaniah, with less conscience and less insight, -he is a greater poet, pouring forth the exultation -of a people long enslaved, who see their tyrant ready -for destruction. His language is strong and brilliant; -his rhythm rumbles and rolls, leaps and flashes, like -the horsemen and chariots he describes. It is a great -pity the text is so corrupt. If the original lay before -us, and that full knowledge of the times which the -excavation of ancient Assyria may still yield to us, we -might judge Nahum to be an even greater poet than -we do.</p> - -<p>We have seen that there are some reasons for doubting -whether he wrote the first chapter of the book,<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> -but no one questions its fitness as an introduction to -the exultation over Niniveh’s fall in chapters ii. and iii. -The chapter is theological, affirming those general -principles of Divine Providence, by which the overthrow -of the tyrant is certain and God’s own people are -assured of deliverance. Let us place ourselves among -the people, who for so long a time had been thwarted, -crushed and demoralised by the most brutal empire -which was ever suffered to roll its force across the -world, and we shall sympathise with the author, who -for the moment will feel nothing about his God, save -that He is a God of vengeance. Like the grief of a -bereaved man, the vengeance of an enslaved people has -hours sacred to itself. And this people had such a -God! Jehovah must punish the tyrant, else were He -untrue. He had been patient, and patient, as a verse -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> -seems to hint,<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> just because He was omnipotent, but -in the end He must rise to judgment. He was God of -heaven and earth, and it is the old physical proofs of -His power, so often appealed to by the peoples of the -East, for they feel them as we cannot, which this hymn -calls up as Jehovah sweeps to the overthrow of the -oppressor. <i>Before such power of wrath who may -stand? What think ye of Jehovah?</i> The God who -works with such ruthless, absolute force in nature will -not relax in the fate He is preparing for Niniveh. <i>He -is one who maketh utter destruction</i>, not needing to raise -up His forces a second time, and as stubble before -fire so His foes go down before Him. No half-measures -are His, Whose are the storm, the drought -and the earthquake.</p> - -<p>Such is the sheer religion of the Proem to the Book -of Nahum—thoroughly Oriental in its sense of God’s -method and resources of destruction; very Jewish, -and very natural to that age of Jewish history, in the -bursting of its long pent hopes of revenge. We of -the West might express these hopes differently. We -should not attribute so much personal passion to the -Avenger. With our keener sense of law, we should -emphasise the slowness of the process, and select for -its illustration the forces of decay rather than those of -sudden ruin. But we must remember the crashing -times in which the Jews lived. The world was breaking -up. The elements were loose, and all that God’s -own people could hope for was the bursting of their -yoke, with a little shelter in the day of trouble. The -elements were loose, but amidst the blind crash the -little people knew that Jehovah knew them.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> -<div class="verse">A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah;</div> -<div class="verse">Jehovah is avenger and lord of wrath;</div> -<div class="verse">Vengeful is Jehovah towards His enemies,</div> -<div class="verse">And implacable He to His foes.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Jehovah is long-suffering and great in -might,<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a> -<a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Yet He will not absolve.</div> -<div class="verse">Jehovah! His way is in storm and in hurricane,</div> -<div class="verse">And clouds are the dust of His feet.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></div> -<div class="verse">He curbeth the sea, and drieth it up;</div> -<div class="verse">All the streams hath He parched.</div> -<div class="verse">Withered<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> be Bashan and Carmel;</div> -<div class="verse">The bloom of Lebānon is withered.</div> -<div class="verse">Mountains have quaked before Him,</div> -<div class="verse">And the hills have rolled down.</div> -<div class="verse">Earth heaved at His presence,</div> -<div class="verse">The world and all its inhabitants.</div> -<div class="verse">Before His rage who may stand,</div> -<div class="verse">Or who abide in the glow of His anger?</div> -<div class="verse">His wrath pours forth like fire,</div> -<div class="verse">And rocks are rent before Him.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Good is Jehovah to them that wait upon Him in the day of trouble,<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And He knoweth them that trust Him.</div> -<div class="verse">With an overwhelming flood He makes an end of His rebels,</div> -<div class="verse">And His foes He comes down on<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> with darkness.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> -<div class="verse">What think ye of Jehovah?</div> -<div class="verse">He is one that makes utter destruction;</div> -<div class="verse">Not twice need trouble arise.</div> -<div class="verse">For though they be like plaited thorns,</div> -<div class="verse">And sodden as … ,<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a></div> -<div class="verse">They shall be consumed like dry stubble.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Came there not<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> out of thee one to plan evil against Jehovah,</div> -<div class="verse">A counsellor of mischief?<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p><i>Thus saith Jehovah, … many waters,<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> yet shall they -be cut off and pass away, and I will so humble thee that -I need humble thee<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> no more;<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> -and Jehovah hath ordered concerning thee, that no more of thy seed be -sown: from the house of thy God, I will cut off graven and molten -image. I will make thy sepulchre</i> … <a -name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a -href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p> - -<p> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> -<p>Disentangled from the above verses are three which -plainly refer not to Assyria but to Judah. How they -came to be woven among the others we cannot tell. -Some of them appear applicable to the days of Josiah -after the great Reform.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And now will I break his yoke from upon thee,</div> -<div class="verse">And burst thy bonds asunder.</div> -<div class="verse">Lo, upon the mountains the feet of Him that bringeth</div> -<div class="verse indent2">good tidings,</div> -<div class="verse">That publisheth peace!</div> -<div class="verse">Keep thy feasts, O Judah,</div> -<div class="verse">Fulfil thy vows:</div> -<div class="verse">For no more shall the wicked attempt to pass through thee;</div> -<div class="verse">Cut off is the whole of him.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></div> -<div class="verse">For Jehovah hath turned the pride of Jacob,</div> -<div class="verse">Like to the pride of Isrāel:<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></div> -<div class="verse">For the plunderers plundered them,</div> -<div class="verse">And destroyed their vine branches.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE SIEGE AND FALL OF NINIVEH</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">N<span class="small">AHUM</span> ii., iii</p> - -<p class="noindent">The scene now changes from the presence and -awful arsenal of the Almighty to the historical -consummation of His vengeance. Nahum foresees the -siege of Niniveh. Probably the Medes have already -overrun Assyria.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> The <i>Old Lion</i> has withdrawn to -his inner den, and is making his last stand. The -suburbs are full of the enemy, and the great walls -which made the inner city one vast fortress are invested. -Nahum describes the details of the assault. Let us -try, before we follow him through them, to form some -picture of Assyria and her capital at this time.<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> - -<p>As we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> the Assyrian Empire began -about 625 to shrink to the limits of Assyria proper, or -Upper Mesopotamia, within the Euphrates on the south-west, -the mountain-range of Kurdistan on the north-east, -the river Chabor on the north-west and the -Lesser Zab on the south-east.<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> This is a territory of -nearly a hundred and fifty miles from north to south, -and rather more than two hundred and fifty from east -to west. To the south of it the Viceroy of Babylon, -Nabopolassar, held practically independent sway over -Lower Mesopotamia, if he did not command as well a -large part of the Upper Euphrates Valley. On the north -the Medes were urgent, holding at least the farther -ends of the passes through the Kurdish mountains, if -they had not already penetrated these to their southern -issues.</p> - -<p>The kernel of the Assyrian territory was the triangle, -two of whose sides are represented by the Tigris -and the Greater Zab, the third by the foot of the -Kurdistan mountains. It is a fertile plain, with some -low hills. To-day the level parts of it are covered by -a large number of villages and well-cultivated fields. -The more frequent mounds of ruin attest in ancient -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> -times a still greater population. At the period of which -we are treating, the plains must have been covered by -an almost continuous series of towns. At either end lay -a group of fortresses. The southern was the ancient -capital of Assyria, Kalchu, now Nimrud, about six -miles to the north of the confluence of the Greater Zab -and the Tigris. The northern, close by the present -town of Khorsabad, was the great fortress and palace -of Sargon, Dur-Sargina:<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> it covered the roads upon -Niniveh from the north, and standing upon the upper -reaches of the Choser protected Niniveh’s water supply. -But besides these there were scattered upon all the -main roads and round the frontiers of the territory a -number of other forts, towers and posts, the ruins of -many of which are still considerable, but others have -perished without leaving any visible traces. The roads -thus protected drew in upon Niniveh from all directions. -The chief of those, along which the Medes and their -allies would advance from the east and north, crossed -the Greater Zab, or came down through the Kurdistan -mountains upon the citadel of Sargon. Two of them -were distant enough from the latter to relieve the -invaders from the necessity of taking it, and Kalchu -lay far to the south of all of them. The brunt of the -first defence of the land would therefore fall upon the -smaller fortresses.</p> - -<p>Niniveh itself lay upon the Tigris between Kalchu -and Sargon’s city, just where the Tigris is met by the -Choser. Low hills descend from the north upon the -very site of the fortress, and then curve east and south, -bow-shaped, to draw west again upon the Tigris at -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> -the south end of the city. To the east of the latter -they leave a level plain, some two and a half miles by -one and a half. These hills appear to have been -covered by several forts. The city itself was four-sided, -lying lengthwise to the Tigris and cut across its breadth -by the Choser. The circumference was about seven -and a half miles, enclosing the largest fortified space -in Western Asia, and capable of holding a population -of three hundred thousand. The western wall, rather -over two and a half miles long, touched the Tigris at -either end, but between there lay a broad, bow-shaped -stretch of land, probably in ancient times, as now, free -of buildings. The north-western wall ran up from the -Tigris for a mile and a quarter to the low ridge which -entered the city at its northern corner. From this the -eastern wall, with a curve upon it, ran down in face of -the eastern plain for a little more than three miles, and -was joined to the western by the short southern wall -of not quite half a mile. The ruins of the western wall -stand from ten to twenty, those of the others from -twenty-five to sixty, feet above the natural surface, with -here and there the still higher remains of towers. -There were several gates, of which the chief were one -in the northern and two in the eastern wall. Round -all the walls except the western ran moats about a -hundred and fifty feet broad—not close up to the foot -of the walls, but at a distance of some sixty feet. -Water was supplied by the Choser to all the moats -south of it; those to the north were fed from a canal -which entered the city near its northern corner. At -these and other points one can still trace the remains -of huge dams, batardeaux and sluices; and the moats -might be emptied by opening at either end of the -western wall other dams, which kept back the waters -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> -from the bed of the Tigris. Beyond its moat, the eastern -wall was protected north of the Choser by a large -outwork covering its gate, and south of the Choser by -another outwork, in shape the segment of a circle, and -consisting of a double line of fortification more than -five hundred yards long, of which the inner wall was -almost as high as the great wall itself, but the outer -considerably lower. Again, in front of this and in face -of the eastern plain was a third line of fortification, -consisting of a low inner wall and a colossal outer wall -still rising to a height of fifty feet, with a moat one -hundred and fifty feet broad between them. On the -south this third line was closed by a large fortress.</p> - -<p>Upon the trebly fortified city the Medes drew in from east and north, -far away from Kalchu and able to avoid even Dur-Sargina. The other -fortresses on the frontier and the approaches fell into their hands, -says Nahum, like <i>ripe fruit</i>.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> He cries to Niniveh to prepare -for the siege.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> Military authorities<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> suppose that the Medes -directed their main attack upon the northern corner of the city. -Here they would be upon a level with its highest point, and would -command the waterworks by which most of the moats were fed. Their -flank, too, would be protected by the ravines of the Choser. Nahum -describes fighting in the suburbs before the assault of the walls, and -it was just here, according to some authorities,<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> that the famous -suburbs of Niniveh lay, out upon the canal and the road to Khorsabad. -All the open fighting which Nahum foresees would take place in these -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> -<i>outplaces</i> and <i>broad streets</i><a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a>—the mustering of the -<i>red</i> ranks,<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> the <i>prancing horses</i><a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> and <i>rattling -chariots</i><a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> and <i>cavalry at the charge</i>.<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> Beaten there -the Assyrians would retire to the great walls, and the waterworks -would fall into the hands of the besiegers. They would not immediately -destroy these, -but in order to bring their engines and battering-rams -against the walls they would have to lay strong dams across the moats; -the eastern moat has actually been found filled with rubbish in face of -a great breach at the north end of its wall. This breach may have been -effected not only by the rams but by directing upon the wall the waters -of the canal; or farther south the Choser itself, in its spring floods, -may have been confined by the besiegers and swept in upon the sluices -which regulate its passage through the eastern wall into the city. To -this means tradition has assigned the capture of Niniveh,<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> and -Nahum perhaps foresees the possibility of it: <i>the gates of the rivers -are opened, the palace is dissolved</i>.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p> - -<p>Now of all this probable progress of the siege Nahum, -of course, does not give us a narrative, for he is writing -upon the eve of it, and probably, as we have seen, in -Judah, with only such knowledge of the position and -strength of Niniveh as her fame had scattered across -the world. The military details, the muster, the fighting -in the open, the investment, the assault, he did not -need to go to Assyria or to wait for the fall of Niniveh -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> -to describe as he has done. Assyria herself (and -herein lies much of the pathos of the poem) had made -all Western Asia familiar with their horrors for the -last two centuries. As we learn from the prophets -and now still more from herself, Assyria was the great -Besieger of Men. It is siege, siege, siege, which Amos, -Hosea and Isaiah tell their people they shall feel: <i>siege -and blockade, and that right round the land!</i> It is siege, -irresistible and full of cruelty, which Assyria records -as her own glory. Miles of sculpture are covered -with masses of troops marching upon some Syrian or -Median fortress. Scaling ladders and enormous engines -are pushed forward to the walls under cover of a shower -of arrows. There are assaults and breaches, panic-stricken -and suppliant defenders. Streets and places -are strewn with corpses, men are impaled, women led -away weeping, children dashed against the stones. The -Jews had seen, had felt these horrors for a hundred -years, and it is out of their experience of them that -Nahum weaves his exultant predictions. The Besieger -of the world is at last besieged; every cruelty he has -inflicted upon men is now to be turned upon himself. -Again and again does Nahum return to the vivid details,—he -hears the very whips crack beneath the walls, and -the rattle of the leaping chariots; the end is slaughter, -dispersion and a dead waste.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> -<p>Two other points remain to be emphasised.</p> - -<p>There is a striking absence from both chapters of any -reference to Israel.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> Jehovah of Hosts is mentioned -twice in the same formula,<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> but otherwise the author does -not obtrude his nationality. It is not in Judah’s name -he exults, but in that of all the peoples of Western Asia. -Niniveh has sold <i>peoples</i> by her harlotries and <i>races</i> by -her witchcraft; it is <i>peoples</i> that shall gaze upon her -nakedness and <i>kingdoms</i> upon her shame. Nahum -gives voice to no national passions, but to the outraged -conscience of mankind. We see here another proof, not -only of the large, human heart of prophecy, but of that -which in the introduction to these Twelve Prophets we -ventured to assign as one of its causes. By crushing -all peoples to a common level of despair, by the universal -pity which her cruelties excited, Assyria contributed to -the development in Israel of the idea of a common -humanity.<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a></p> - -<p>The other thing to be noticed is Nahum’s feeling of -the incoherence and mercenariness of the vast population -of Niniveh. Niniveh’s command of the world had -turned her into a great trading power. Under Assurbanipal -the lines of ancient commerce had been diverted -so as to pass through her. The immediate result was -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> -an enormous increase of population, such as the world -had never before seen within the limits of one city. -But this had come out of all races and was held -together only by the greed of gain. What had once -been a firm and vigorous nation of warriors, irresistible -in their united impact upon the world, was now a loose -aggregate of many peoples, without patriotism, discipline -or sense of honour. Nahum likens it to a reservoir of -waters,<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> which as soon as it is breached must scatter, -and leave the city bare. The Second Isaiah said -the same of Babylon, to which the bulk of Niniveh’s -mercenary populace must have fled:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Thus are they grown to thee, they who did weary thee,<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">Traders of thine from thy youth up;<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent2">Each as he could escape have they fled;<br /></div> -<div class="verse indent4">None is thy helper.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a><br /></div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>The prophets saw the truth about both cities. Their -vastness and their splendour were artificial. Neither -of them, and Niniveh still less than Babylon, was a -natural centre for the world’s commerce. When their -political power fell, the great lines of trade, which had -been twisted to their feet, drew back to more natural -courses, and Niniveh in especial became deserted. This -is the explanation of the absolute collapse of that -mighty city. Nahum’s foresight, and the very metaphor -in which he expressed it, were thoroughly sound. The -population vanished like water. The site bears little -trace of any disturbance since the ruin by the Medes, -except such as has been inflicted by the weather -and the wandering tribes around. Mosul, Niniveh’s -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> -representative to-day, is not built upon it, and is but -a provincial town. The district was never meant for -anything else.</p> - -<p>The swift decay of these ancient empires from the -climax of their commercial glory is often employed as -a warning to ourselves. But the parallel, as the previous -paragraphs suggest, is very far from exact. If we -can lay aside for the moment the greatest difference -of all, in religion and morals, there remain others -almost of cardinal importance. Assyria and Babylonia -were not filled, like Great Britain, with reproductive -races, able to colonise distant lands, and carry everywhere -the spirit which had made them strong at home. -Still more, they did not continue at home to be homogeneous. -Their native forces were exhausted by long -and unceasing wars. Their populations, especially in -their capitals, were very largely alien and distraught, -with nothing to hold them together save their commercial -interests. They were bound to break up at -the first disaster. It is true that we are not without -some risks of their peril. No patriot among us can -observe without misgiving the large and growing proportion -of foreigners in that department of our life from -which the strength of our defence is largely drawn—our -merchant navy. But such a fact is very far from -bringing our empire and its chief cities into the fatal -condition of Niniveh and Babylon. Our capitals, our -commerce, our life as a whole are still British to -the core. If we only be true to our ideals of righteousness -and religion, if our patriotism continue moral -and sincere, we shall have the power to absorb the -foreign elements that throng to us in commerce, and -stamp them with our own spirit.</p> - -<p>We are now ready to follow Nahum’s two great -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> -poems delivered on the eve of the Fall of Niniveh. -Probably, as we have said, the first of them has lost -its original opening. It wants some notice at the -outset of the object to which it is addressed: this is -indicated only by the second personal pronoun. Other -needful comments will be given in footnotes.</p> - -<h4>1.</h4> - -<p class="cspread">. . . . . </p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The Hammer<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> is come up to thy face!</div> -<div class="verse">Hold the rampart!<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a>Keep watch on the way!</div> -<div class="verse">Brace the loins!<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> Pull thyself firmly together!<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The shields<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> of his heroes are red,</div> -<div class="verse">The warriors are in scarlet;<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Like<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> fire are the ...<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a>of the chariots in the day</div> -<div class="verse indent2">of his muster,</div> -<div class="verse">And the horsemen<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> are prancing.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Through the markets rage chariots,</div> -<div class="verse">They tear across the squares;<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The look of them is like torches,</div> -<div class="verse">Like lightnings they dart to and fro.<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a></div> -<div class="verse">He musters his nobles....<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a></div> -<div class="verse">They rush to the wall and the mantlet<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> is fixed!</div> -<div class="verse">The river-gates<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> burst open, the palace dissolves.<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And Huṣṣab<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> is stripped, is brought forth,</div> -<div class="verse">With her maids sobbing like doves,</div> -<div class="verse">Beating their breasts.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And Niniveh! she was like a reservoir of waters,</div> -<div class="verse">Her waters ...<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And now they flee. “Stand, stand!” but there is </div> -<div class="verse indent2">none to rally.</div> -<div class="verse">Plunder silver, plunder gold!</div> -<div class="verse">Infinite treasures, mass of all precious things!</div> -<div class="verse">Void and devoid and desolate<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> is she.</div> -<div class="verse">Melting hearts and shaking knees,</div> -<div class="verse">And anguish in all loins,</div> -<div class="verse">And nothing but faces full of black fear.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a></div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Where is the Lion’s den,</div> -<div class="verse">And the young lions’ feeding ground<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a>?</div> -<div class="verse">Whither the Lion retreated,<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The whelps of the Lion, with none to affray:</div> -<div class="verse">The Lion, who tore enough for his whelps,</div> -<div class="verse">And strangled for his lionesses.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And he filled his pits with prey,</div> -<div class="verse">And his dens with rapine.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts):</div> -<div class="verse">I will put up thy ...<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> in flames,</div> -<div class="verse">The sword shall devour thy young lions;</div> -<div class="verse">I will cut off from the earth thy rapine,</div> -<div class="verse">And the noise of thine envoys shall no more be heard.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4>2.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Woe to the City of Blood,</div> -<div class="verse">All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hark the whip,</div> -<div class="verse">And the rumbling of the wheel,</div> -<div class="verse">And horses galloping,</div> -<div class="verse">And the rattling dance of the chariot!<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Cavalry at the charge,<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> -and flash of sabres,</div> -<div class="verse">And lightning of lances,</div> -<div class="verse">Mass of slain and weight of corpses,</div> -<div class="verse">Endless dead bodies—</div> -<div class="verse">They stumble on their dead!</div> -<div class="verse">—For the manifold harlotries of the Harlot,</div> -<div class="verse">The well-favoured, mistress of charms,</div> -<div class="verse">She who sold nations with her harlotries</div> -<div class="verse">And races by her witchcrafts!</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts):</div> -<div class="verse">I will uncover thy skirts to thy face;<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Give nations to look on thy nakedness,</div> -<div class="verse">And kingdoms upon thy shame;</div> -<div class="verse">Will have thee pelted with filth, and disgrace thee,</div> -<div class="verse">And set thee for a gazingstock;</div> -<div class="verse">So that every one seeing thee shall shrink from thee</div> -<div class="verse indent2">and say,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">“Shattered is Niniveh—who will pity her?</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Whence shall I seek for comforters to thee?”</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Shalt thou be better than No-Amon,<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Which sat upon the Nile streams<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a>—waters were</div> -<div class="verse indent2">round her—</div> -<div class="verse">Whose rampart was the sea,<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> -and waters her wall?<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Kush was her strength and Miṣraim without end;</div> -<div class="verse">Phut and the Lybians were there to assist her.<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Even she was for exile, she went to captivity:</div> -<div class="verse">Even her children were dashed on every street</div> -<div class="verse indent2">corner;</div> -<div class="verse">For her nobles they cast lots,</div> -<div class="verse">And all her great men were fastened with fetters.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Thou too shalt stagger,<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> shalt grow faint;</div> -<div class="verse">Thou too shalt seek help from<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> the foe!</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> -<div class="verse">All thy fortresses are fig-trees with figs early-ripe:</div> -<div class="verse">Be they shaken they fall on the mouth of the eater.</div> -<div class="verse">Lo, thy folk are but women in thy midst:<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a></div> -<div class="verse">To thy foes the gates of thy land fly open;</div> -<div class="verse">Fire has devoured thy bars.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Draw thee water for siege, strengthen thy forts!</div> -<div class="verse">Get thee down to the mud, and tramp in the clay!</div> -<div class="verse">Grip fast the brick-mould!</div> -<div class="verse">There fire consumes thee, the sword cuts thee off.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Make thyself many as a locust swarm,</div> -<div class="verse">Many as grasshoppers,</div> -<div class="verse">Multiply thy traders more than heaven’s stars,</div> -<div class="verse">—The locusts break off<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> and fly away.</div> -<div class="verse">Thy ...<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> are as locusts and thy ... as grasshoppers,</div> -<div class="verse">That hive in the hedges in the cold of the day:<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The sun is risen, they are fled,</div> -<div class="verse">And one knows not the place where they be.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Asleep are thy shepherds, O king of Assyria,</div> -<div class="verse">Thy nobles do slumber;<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Thy people are strewn on the mountains,</div> -<div class="verse">Without any to gather.</div> -<div class="verse">There is no healing of thy wreck,</div> -<div class="verse">Fatal thy wound!</div> -<div class="verse">All who hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hand</div> -<div class="verse indent2">at thee,</div> -<div class="verse">For upon whom hath not thy cruelty passed without </div> -<div class="verse indent2">ceasing?</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> -<h2 id="Habakkuk" class="nobreak"><i>HABAKKUK</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Upon my watch-tower will I stand,</div> -<div class="verse">And take up my post on the rampart.</div> -<div class="verse">I will watch to see what He will say to me,</div> -<div class="verse">And what answer I get back to my plea.</div> -</div></div> - -<p class="cspread">. . . . .</p><br /> - -<p class="center italic">The righteous shall live by his faithfulness.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="center">“The beginning of speculation in Israel.”</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK</p> - -<p class="noindent">As it has reached us, the Book of Habakkuk, under - -the title <i>The Oracle which Habakkuk the prophet -received by vision</i>, consists of three chapters, which fall -into three sections. <i>First</i>: chap. i. 2—ii. 4 (or 8), a -piece in dramatic form; the prophet lifts his voice to -God against the wrong and violence of which his whole -horizon is full, and God sends him answer. <i>Second</i>: -chap. ii. 5 (or 9)-20, a taunt-song in a series of Woes -upon the wrong-doer. <i>Third</i>: chap. iii., part psalm, -part prayer, descriptive of a Theophany and expressive -of Israel’s faith in their God. Of these three sections -no one doubts the authenticity of the <i>first</i>; opinion is -divided about the <i>second</i>; about the <i>third</i> there is -a growing agreement that it is not a genuine work of -Habakkuk, but a poem from a period after the Exile.</p> - -<h4 id="IXsec1"> -1. C<span class="small">HAP</span>. I. 2—II. 4 -(<span class="small">OR</span> 8).</h4> - -<p>Yet it is the first piece which raises the most difficult -questions. All<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> admit that it is to be dated somewhere -along the line of Jeremiah’s long career, <i>c.</i> 627—586. -There is no doubt about the general trend of the -argument: it is a plaint to God on the sufferings of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> -the righteous under tyranny, with God’s answer. But -the order and connection of the paragraphs of the -argument are not clear. There is also difference of -opinion as to who the tyrant is—native, Assyrian or -Chaldee; and this leads to a difference, of course, -about the date, which ranges from the early years of -Josiah to the end of Jehoiakim’s reign, or from about -630 to 597.</p> - -<p>As the verses lie, their argument is this. In chap. i. -2–4 Habakkuk asks the Lord how long the wicked are -to oppress the righteous, to the paralysing of the Torah, -or Revelation of His Law, and the making futile of -judgment. For answer the Lord tells him, vv. 5–11, -to look round among the heathen: He is about to -raise up the Chaldees to do His work, a people -swift, self-reliant, irresistible. Upon which Habakkuk -resumes his question, vv. 12–17, how long will God -suffer a tyrant who sweeps up the peoples into his -net like fish? Is he to go on with this for ever? In -ii. 1 Habakkuk prepares for an answer, which comes in -ii. 2, 3, 4: let the prophet wait for the vision though -it tarries; the proud oppressor cannot last, but the -righteous shall live by his constancy, or faithfulness.</p> - -<p>The difficulties are these. Who are the wicked -oppressors in chap. i. 2–4? Are they Jews, or some -heathen nation? And what is the connection between -vv. 1–4 and vv. 5–11? Are the Chaldees, who are -described in the latter, raised up to punish the tyrant -complained against in the former? To these questions -three different sets of answers have been given.</p> - -<p><i>First</i>: the great majority of critics take the wrong -complained of in vv. 2–4 to be wrong done by unjust -and cruel Jews to their countrymen, that is, civic -disorder and violence, and believe that in vv. 5–11 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> -Jehovah is represented as raising up the Chaldees to -punish the sin of Judah—a message which is pretty much -the same as Jeremiah’s. But Habakkuk goes further: -the Chaldees themselves with their cruelties aggravate -his problem, how God can suffer wrong, and he appeals -again to God, vv. 12–17. Are the Chaldees to be allowed -to devastate for ever? The answer is given, as above, -in chap. ii. 1–4. Such is practically the view of Pusey, -Delitzsch, Kleinert, Kuenen, Sinker,<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> Driver, Orelli, -Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer and Davidson, a formidable -league, and Davidson says “this is the most natural -sense of the verses and of the words used in them.” -But these scholars differ as to the date. Pusey, -Delitzsch and Volck take the whole passage from i. 5 -as prediction, and date it from before the rise of the -Chaldee power in 625, attributing the internal wrongs -of Judah described in vv. 2–4 to Manasseh’s reign or -the early years of Josiah.<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> But the rest, on the -grounds that the prophet shows some experience of -the Chaldean methods of warfare, and that the account -of the internal disorder in Judah does not suit Josiah’s -reign, bring the passage down to the reign of Jehoiakim, -608—598, or of Jehoiachin, 597. Kleinert and Von -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> -Orelli date it before the battle of Carchemish, 506, -in which the Chaldean Nebuchadrezzar wrested from -Egypt the Empire of the Western Asia, on the ground -that after that Habakkuk could not have called a Chaldean -invasion of Judah incredible (i. 5). But Kuenen, -Driver, Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer and Davidson date it -after Carchemish. To Driver it must be immediately -after, and before Judah became alarmed at the consequences -to herself. To Davidson the description of the -Chaldeans “is scarcely conceivable before the battle,” -“hardly one would think before the deportation of the -people under Jehoiachin.”<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> This also is Kuenen’s -view, who thinks that Judah must have suffered at -least the first Chaldean raids, and he explains the use -of an undoubted future in chap. i. 5, <i>Lo, I am about to -raise up the Chaldeans</i>, as due to the prophet’s predilection -for a dramatic style. “He sets himself in the -past, and represents the already experienced chastisement -[of Judah] as having been then announced by -Jehovah. His contemporaries could not have mistaken -his meaning.”</p> - -<p><i>Second</i>: others, however, deny that chap. i. 2–4 refers -to the internal disorder of Judah, except as the effect -of foreign tyranny. The <i>righteous</i> mentioned there -are Israel as a whole, <i>the wicked</i> their heathen oppressors. -So Hitzig, Ewald, König and practically Smend. -Ewald is so clear that Habakkuk ascribes no sin to -Judah, that he says we might be led by this to assign -the prophecy to the reign of the righteous Josiah; but -he prefers, because of the vivid sense which the prophet -betrays of actual experience of the Chaldees, to date the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> -passage from the reign of Jehoiakim, and to explain -Habakkuk’s silence about his people’s sinfulness as due -to his overwhelming impression of Chaldean cruelty. -König<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> takes vv. 2–4 as a general complaint of the -violence that fills the prophet’s day, and vv. 5–11 as -a detailed description of the Chaldeans, the instruments -of this violence. Vv. 5–11, therefore, give not -the judgment upon the wrongs described in vv. 2–4, -but the explanation of them. Lebanon is already -wasted by the Chaldeans (ii. 17); therefore the whole -prophecy must be assigned to the days of Jehoiakim. -Giesebrecht<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> and Wellhausen adhere to the view that -no sins of Judah are mentioned, but that the <i>righteous</i> -and <i>wicked</i> of chap. i. 4 are the same as in ver. 13, -viz. Israel and a heathen tyrant. But this leads them -to dispute that the present order of the paragraphs of -the prophecy is the right one. In chap. i. 5 the -Chaldeans are represented as about to be raised up -for the first time, although their violence has already -been described in vv. 1–4, and in vv. 12–17 these are -already in full career. Moreover ver. 12 follows on -naturally to ver. 4. Accordingly these critics would -remove the section vv. 5–11. Giesebrecht prefixes it -to ver. 1, and dates the whole passage from the Exile. -Wellhausen calls 5–11 an older passage than the rest -of the prophecy, and removes it altogether as not -Habakkuk’s. To the latter he assigns what remains, -i. 1–4, 12–17, ii. 1–5, and dates it from the reign of -Jehoiakim.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a></p> - -<p><i>Third</i>: from each of these groups of critics Budde of -Strasburg borrows something, but so as to construct an -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> -arrangement of the verses, and to reach a date, for the -whole, from which both differ.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> With Hitzig, Ewald, -König, Smend, Giesebrecht and Wellhausen he agrees -that the violence complained of in i. 2–4 is that inflicted -by a heathen oppressor, <i>the wicked</i>, on the Jewish -nation, the <i>righteous</i>. But with Kuenen and others -he holds that the Chaldeans are raised up, according -to i. 5–11, to punish the violence complained of in i. 2–4 -and again in i. 12–17. In these verses it is the -ravages of another heathen power than the Chaldeans -which Budde descries. The Chaldeans are still to -come, and cannot be the same as the devastator whose -long continued tyranny is described in i. 12–17. They -are rather the power which is to punish him. He can -only be the Assyrian. But if that be so, the proper -place for the passage, i. 5–11, which describes the rise -of the Chaldeans must be after the description of the -Assyrian ravages in i. 12–17, and in the body of God’s -answer to the prophet which we find in ii. 2 ff. Budde, -therefore, places i. 5–11 after ii. 2–4. But if the -Chaldeans are still to come, and Budde thinks that -they are described vaguely and with a good deal of -imagination, the prophecy thus arranged must fall -somewhere between 625, when Nabopolassar the -Chaldean made himself independent of Assyria and -King of Babylon, and 607, when Assyria fell. That -the prophet calls Judah <i>righteous</i> is proof that he wrote -after the great Reform of 621; hence, too, his reference -to Torah and Mishpat (i. 4), and his complaint of the -obstacles which Assyrian supremacy presented to their -free course. As the Assyrian yoke appears not to -have been felt anywhere in Judah by 608, Budde would -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> -fix the exact date of Habakkuk’s prophecy about 615. -To these conclusions of Budde Cornill, who in 1891 -had very confidently assigned the prophecy of Habakkuk -to the reign of Jehoiakim, gave his adherence in 1896.<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a></p> - -<p>Budde’s very able and ingenious argument has been -subjected to a searching criticism by Professor Davidson, -who emphasises first the difficulty of accounting -for the transposition of chap. i. 5–11 from what Budde -alleges to have been its original place after ii. 4 to its -present position in chap. i.<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> He points out that if -chap. i. 2–4 and 12–17 and ii. 5 ff. refer to the Assyrian, -it is strange the latter is not once mentioned. Again, -by 615 we may infer (though we know little of -Assyrian history at this time) that the Assyrian’s hold -on Judah was already too relaxed for the prophet to -impute to him power to hinder the Law, especially as -Josiah had begun to carry his reforms into the northern -kingdom; and the knowledge of the Chaldeans displayed -in i. 5–11 is too fresh and detailed<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> to suit so -early a date: it was possible only after the battle of -Carchemish. And again, it is improbable that we have -two different nations, as Budde thinks, described by the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> -very similar phrases in i. 11, <i>his own power becomes -his god</i>, and in i. 16, <i>he sacrifices to his net</i>. Again, -chap. i. 5–11 would not read quite naturally after -chap. ii. 4. And in the woes pronounced on the -oppressor it is not one nation, the Chaldeans, which -are to spoil him, but all the remnant of the peoples -(ii. 7, 8).</p> - -<p>These objections are not inconsiderable. But are -they conclusive? And if not, is any of the other -theories of the prophecy less beset with difficulties?</p> - -<p>The objections are scarcely conclusive. We have no -proof that the power of Assyria was altogether removed -from Judah by 615; on the contrary, even in 608 -Assyria was still the power with which Egypt went -forth to contend for the empire of the world. Seven -years earlier her hand may well have been strong upon -Palestine. Again, by 615 the Chaldeans, a people -famous in Western Asia for a long time, had been ten -years independent: men in Palestine may have been -familiar with their methods of warfare; at least it is -impossible to say they were not.<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> There is more -weight in the objection drawn from the absence of the -name of Assyria from all of the passages which Budde -alleges describe it; nor do we get over all difficulties -of text by inserting i. 5–11 between ii. 4 and 5. Besides, -how does Budde explain i. 12<i>b</i> on the theory that it -means Assyria? Is the clause not premature at that -point? Does he propose to elide it, like Wellhausen? -And in any case an erroneous transposition of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> -original is impossible to prove and difficult to account -for.<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a></p> - -<p>But have not the other theories of the Book of -Habakkuk equally great difficulties? Surely, we cannot -say that the <i>righteous</i> and the <i>wicked</i> in i. 4 mean -something different from what they do in i. 13? But -if this is impossible the construction of the book -supported by the great majority of critics<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> falls to the -ground. Professor Davidson justly says that it has -“something artificial in it” and “puts a strain on the -natural sense.”<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> How can the Chaldeans be described -in i. 5 as <i>just about to be raised up</i>, and in 14–17 as -already for a long time the devastators of earth? -Ewald’s, Hitzig’s and König’s views<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> are equally beset -by these difficulties; König’s exposition also “strains -the natural sense.” Everything, in fact, points to i. 5–11 -being out of its proper place; it is no wonder that -Giesebrecht, Wellhausen and Budde independently -arrived at this conclusion.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> Whether Budde be right -in inserting i. 5–11 after ii. 4, there can be little doubt -of the correctness of his views that i. 12–17 describe -a heathen oppressor who is not the Chaldeans. Budde -says this oppressor is Assyria. Can he be any one -else? From 608 to 605 Judah was sorely beset by -Egypt, who had overrun all Syria up to the Euphrates. -The Egyptians killed Josiah, deposed his successor, and -put their own vassal under a very heavy tribute; <i>gold -and silver were exacted of the people of the land</i>: the -picture of distress in i. 1–4 might easily be that of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> -Judah in these three terrible years. And if we assigned -the prophecy to them, we should certainly give it a -date at which the knowledge of the Chaldeans expressed -in i. 5–11 was more probable than at Budde’s -date of 615. But then does the description in chap, -i. 14–17 suit Egypt so well as it does Assyria? We -can hardly affirm this, until we know more of what -Egypt did in those days, but it is very probable.</p> - -<p>Therefore, the theory supported by the majority -of critics being unnatural, we are, with our present -meagre knowledge of the time, flung back upon Budde’s -interpretation that the prophet in i. 2—ii. 4 appeals -from oppression by a heathen power, which is not the -Chaldean, but upon which the Chaldean shall bring -the just vengeance of God. The tyrant is either -Assyria up to about 615 or Egypt from 608 to 605, -and there is not a little to be said for the latter date.</p> - -<p>In arriving at so uncertain a conclusion about i.—ii. -4, we have but these consolations, that no other is -possible in our present knowledge, and that the uncertainty -will not hamper us much in our appreciation -of Habakkuk’s spiritual attitude and poetic gifts.<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a></p> - -<h4 id="IXsec2">2. C<span class="small">HAP</span>. II. 5–20.</h4> - -<p>The dramatic piece i. 2—ii. 4 is succeeded by a series -of fine taunt-songs, starting after an introduction from -6<i>b</i>, then 9, 11, 15 and (18) 19, and each opening with -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> -<i>Woe!</i> Their subject is, if we take Budde’s interpretation -of the dramatic piece, the Assyrian and not the -Chaldean<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> tyrant. The text, as we shall see when we -come to it, is corrupt. Some words are manifestly -wrong, and the rhythm must have suffered beyond -restoration. In all probability these fine lyric Woes, -or at least as many of them as are authentic—for there -is doubt about one or two—were of equal length. -Whether they all originally had the refrain now -attached to two is more doubtful.</p> - -<p>Hitzig suspected the authenticity of some parts of -this series of songs. Stade<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> and Kuenen have gone -further and denied the genuineness of vv. 9–20. But -this is with little reason. As Budde says, a series -of Woes was to be expected here by a prophet who -follows so much the example of Isaiah.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> In spite of -Kuenen’s objection, vv. 9–11 would not be strange -of the Chaldean, but they suit the Assyrian better. -Vv. 12–14 are doubtful: 12 recalls Micah iii. 10; -13 is a repetition of Jer. li. 58; 14 is a variant of -Isa. xi. 9. Very likely Jer. li. 58, a late passage, is -borrowed from this passage; yet the addition used -here, <i>Are not these things<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> from the Lord of Hosts?</i> -looks as if it noted a citation. Vv. 15–17 are very -suitable to the Assyrian; there is no reason to take -them from Habakkuk.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> The final song, vv. 18 and 19, -has its Woe at the beginning of its second verse, -and closely resembles the language of later prophets.<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>Moreover the refrain forms a suitable close at the end -of ver. 17. ver. 20 is a quotation from Zephaniah,<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> -perhaps another sign of the composite character of the -end of this chapter. Some take it to have been inserted -as an introduction to the theophany in chap. iii.</p> - -<p>Smend has drawn up a defence<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> of the whole passage, -ii. 9–20, which he deems not only to stand in a natural -relation to vv. 4–8, but to be indispensable to them. -That the passage quotes from other prophets, he holds -to be no proof against its authenticity. If we break off -with ver. 8, he thinks that we must impute to Habakkuk -the opinion that the wrongs of the world are chiefly -avenged by human means—a conclusion which is not -to be expected after chap. i.—ii. 1 ff.</p> - -<h4 id="IXsec3">3. C<span class="small">HAP</span>. III.</h4> - -<p>The third chapter, an Ode or Rhapsody, is ascribed to -Habakkuk by its title. This, however, does not prove -its authenticity: the title is too like those assigned to -the Psalms in the period of the Second Temple.<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> On -the contrary, the title itself, the occurrence of the -musical sign Selah in the contents, and the colophon -suggest for the chapter a liturgical origin after the -Exile.<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> That this is more probable than the alternative -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>opinion, that, being a genuine work of Habakkuk, the -chapter was afterwards arranged as a Psalm for public -worship, is confirmed by the fact that no other work of -the prophets has been treated in the same way. Nor -do the contents support the authorship by Habakkuk. -They reflect no definite historical situation like the preceding -chapters. The style and temper are different. -While in them the prophet speaks for himself, here it -is the nation or congregation of Israel that addresses -God. The language is not, as some have maintained, -late;<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> but the designation of the people as <i>Thine anointed</i>, -a term which before the Exile was applied to the king, -undoubtedly points to a post-exilic date. The figures, -the theophany itself, are not necessarily archaic, but -are more probably moulded on archaic models. There -are many affinities with Psalms of a late date.</p> - -<p>At the same time a number of critics<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> maintain the -genuineness of the chapter, and they have some grounds -for this. Habakkuk was, as we can see from chaps. i. -and ii., a real poet. There was no need why a man of -his temper should be bound down to reflecting only -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> -his own day. If so practical a prophet as Hosea, -and one who has so closely identified himself with his -times, was wont to escape from them to a retrospect of -the dealings of God with Israel from of old, why should -not the same be natural for a prophet who was much -less practical and more literary and artistic? There -are also many phrases in the Psalm which may be interpreted -as reflecting the same situation as chaps. i., ii. -All this, however, only proves possibility.</p> - -<p>The Psalm has been adapted in Psalm lxxvii. 17–20.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<h4>F<span class="small">URTHER</span> - N<span class="small">OTE ON</span> - C<span class="small">HAP</span>. I.—II. 4.</h4> - -<p>Since this chapter was in print Nowack’s <i>Die Kleinen Propheten</i> -in the “Handkommentar z. A. T.” has been published. He recognises -emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans, -chap. i. 5–11, is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and -the other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits that it follows -on, with a natural connection, to chap. ii. 4, to which Budde proposes -to attach it. Nevertheless, for other reasons, which he does -not state, he regards Budde’s proposal as untenable; and reckons the -disputed passage to be by another hand than Habakkuk’s, and intruded -into the latter’s argument. Habakkuk’s argument he assigns -to after 605; perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against would -therefore be the Chaldean.—Driver in the 6th ed. of his <i>Introduction</i> -(1897) deems Budde’s argument “too ingenious,” and holds by the -older and most numerously supported argument (above, pp. 116 ff.).—On -a review of the case in the light of these two discussions, the -present writer holds to his opinion that Budde’s rearrangement, which -he has adopted, offers the fewest difficulties.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">H<span class="small">ABAKKUK</span> i.—ii. 4</p> - -<p class="noindent">Of the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that -is personal save his name—to our ears his somewhat -odd name. It is the intensive form of a root which -means to caress or embrace. More probably it was -given to him as a child, than afterwards assumed as a -symbol of his clinging to God.<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a></p> - -<p>Tradition says that Habakkuk was a priest, the son -of Joshua, of the tribe of Levi, but this is only an -inference from the late liturgical notes to the Psalm -which has been appended to his prophecy.<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> All that -we know for certain is that he was a contemporary -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> -of Jeremiah, with a sensitiveness under wrong and -impulses to question God which remind us of Jeremiah; -but with a literary power which is quite his own. We -may emphasise the latter, even though we recognise -upon his writing the influence of Isaiah’s.</p> - -<p>Habakkuk’s originality, however, is deeper than -style. He is the earliest who is known to us of a new -school of religion in Israel. He is called <i>prophet</i>, -but at first he does not adopt the attitude which is -characteristic of the prophets. His face is set in -an opposite direction to theirs. They address the -nation Israel, on behalf of God: he rather speaks -to God on behalf of Israel. Their task was Israel’s -sin, the proclamation of God’s doom and the offer -of His grace to their penitence. Habakkuk’s task -is God Himself, the effort to find out what He -means by permitting tyranny and wrong. They -attack the sins, he is the first to state the problems, -of life. To him the prophetic revelation, the Torah, is -complete: it has been codified in Deuteronomy and -enforced by Josiah. Habakkuk’s business is not to -add to it but to ask why it does not work. Why -does God suffer wrong to triumph, so that the Torah is -paralysed, and Mishpat, the prophetic <i>justice</i> or <i>judgment</i>, -comes to nought? The prophets travailed for -Israel’s character—to get the people to love justice till -justice prevailed among them: Habakkuk feels justice -cannot prevail in Israel, because of the great disorder -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> -which God permits to fill the world. It is true that -he arrives at a prophetic attitude, and before the end -authoritatively declares God’s will; but he begins by -searching for the latter, with an appreciation of the -great obscurity cast over it by the facts of life. He -complains to God, asks questions and expostulates. -This is the beginning of speculation in Israel. It -does not go far: it is satisfied with stating questions -<i>to</i> God; it does not, directly at least, state questions -<i>against</i> Him. But Habakkuk at least feels that revelation -is baffled by experience, that the facts of life -bewilder a man who believes in the God whom the -prophets have declared to Israel. As in Zephaniah -prophecy begins to exhibit traces of apocalypse, so in -Habakkuk we find it developing the first impulses of -speculation.</p> - -<p>We have seen that the course of events which -troubles Habakkuk and renders the Torah ineffectual -is somewhat obscure. On one interpretation of these -two chapters, that which takes the present order of -their verses as the original, Habakkuk asks why God -is silent in face of the injustice which fills the whole -horizon (chap. i. 1–4), is told to look round among the -heathen and see how God is raising up the Chaldeans -(i. 5–11), presumably to punish this injustice (if it be -Israel’s own) or to overthrow it (if vv. 1–4 mean -that it is inflicted on Israel by a foreign power). But -the Chaldeans only aggravate the prophet’s problem; -they themselves are a wicked and oppressive people: -how can God suffer them? (i. 12–17). Then come the -prophet’s waiting for an answer (ii. 1) and the answer -itself (ii. 2 ff.). Another interpretation takes the -passage about the Chaldeans (i. 5–11) to be out of -place where it now lies, removes it to after chap. ii. 4 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> -as a part of God’s answer to the prophet’s problem, -and leaves the remainder of chap. i. as the description -of the Assyrian oppression of Israel, baffling the Torah -and perplexing the prophet’s faith in a Holy and Just -God.<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> Of these two views the former is, we have -seen, somewhat artificial, and though the latter is by -no means proved, the arguments for it are sufficient -to justify us in re-arranging the verses chap. i.—ii. 4 in -accordance with its proposals.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p class="center"><i>The Oracle which Habakkuk the Prophet<br /> -Received by Vision.</i><a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How long, O Jehovah, have I called and Thou</div> -<div class="verse indent2">hearest not?</div> -<div class="verse">I cry to Thee, Wrong! and Thou sendest no help.</div> -<div class="verse">Why make me look upon sorrow,</div> -<div class="verse">And fill mine eyes with trouble?</div> -<div class="verse">Violence and wrong are before me,</div> -<div class="verse">Strife comes and quarrel arises.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a></div> -<div class="verse">So the Law is benumbed, and judgment never</div> -<div class="verse indent2">gets forth:<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a></div> -<div class="verse">For the wicked beleaguers the righteous,</div> -<div class="verse">So judgment comes forth perverted.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="cspread">* * * * *<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a><br /></p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Art not Thou of old, Jehovah, my God, my Holy</div> -<div class="verse indent2">One?...<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a></div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Purer of eyes than to behold evil,</div> -<div class="verse">And that canst not gaze upon trouble!</div> -<div class="verse">Why gazest Thou upon traitors,<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Art dumb when the wicked swallows him that is</div> -<div class="verse indent2">more righteous than he?<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Thou hast let men be made<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> like fish of the sea,</div> -<div class="verse">Like worms that have no ruler!<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a></div> -<div class="verse">He lifts the whole of it with his angle;</div> -<div class="verse">Draws it in with his net, sweeps it in his drag-net:</div> -<div class="verse">So rejoices and exults.</div> -<div class="verse">So he sacrifices to his net, and offers incense</div> -<div class="verse indent2">to his drag-net;</div> -<div class="verse">For by them is his portion fat, and his food rich.</div> -<div class="verse">Shall he for ever draw his sword,<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And ceaselessly, ruthlessly massacre nations?<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a></div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Upon my watch-tower I will stand,</div> -<div class="verse">And take my post on the rampart.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a></div> -<div class="verse">I will watch to see what He will say to me,</div> -<div class="verse">And what answer I<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> get back to my plea.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And Jehovah answered me and said:</div> -<div class="verse">Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets,</div> -<div class="verse">That he may run who reads it.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> -<div class="verse">For<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> the vision is for a time yet to be fixed,</div> -<div class="verse">Yet it hurries<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> to the end, and shall not fail:</div> -<div class="verse">Though it linger, wait thou for it;</div> -<div class="verse">Coming it shall come, and shall not be behind.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Lo! swollen,<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> - not level is his<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> soul within him;</div> -<div class="verse">But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="cspread">* * * * *</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Look<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> round among the heathen, and</div> -<div class="verse indent2">look well,</div> -<div class="verse">Shudder and be shocked;<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></div> -<div class="verse">For I am<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> about to do a work in your days,</div> -<div class="verse">Ye shall not believe it when told.</div> -<div class="verse">For, lo, I am about to raise up the Kasdim,<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a></div> -<div class="verse">A people the most bitter and the most hasty,</div> -<div class="verse">That traverse the breadths of the earth,</div> -<div class="verse">To possess dwelling-places not their own.</div> -<div class="verse">Awful and terrible are they;</div> -<div class="verse">From themselves<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> start their purpose and rising.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Fleeter than leopards their steeds,</div> -<div class="verse">Swifter than night-wolves.</div> -<div class="verse">Their horsemen leap<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> from afar;</div> -<div class="verse">They swoop like the eagle a-haste to devour.</div> -<div class="verse">All for wrong do they<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> come;</div> -<div class="verse">The set of their faces is forward,<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And they sweep up captives like sand.</div> -<div class="verse">They—at kings do they scoff,</div> -<div class="verse">And princes are sport to them.</div> -<div class="verse">They—they laugh at each fortress,</div> -<div class="verse">Heap dust up and take it!</div> -<div class="verse">Then the wind shifts,<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> - and they pass!</div> -<div class="verse">But doomed are those whose own strength is</div> -<div class="verse indent2">their god!<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The difficulty of deciding between the various arrangements -of the two chapters of Habakkuk does not, -fortunately, prevent us from appreciating his argument. -What he feels throughout (this is obvious, however -you arrange his verses) is the tyranny of a great -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> -heathen power,<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> be it Assyrian, Egyptian or Chaldean. -The prophet’s horizon is filled with wrong:<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> Israel -thrown into disorder, revelation paralysed, justice perverted.<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> -But, like Nahum, Habakkuk feels not for -Israel alone. The Tyrant has outraged humanity.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> He -<i>sweeps peoples into his net</i>, and as soon as he empties -this, he fills it again <i>ceaselessly</i>, as if there were no just -God above. He exults in his vast cruelty, and has -success so unbroken that he worships the very means -of it. In itself such impiety is gross enough, but to -a heart that believes in God it is a problem of exquisite -pain. Habakkuk’s is the burden of the finest faith. -He illustrates the great commonplace of religious -doubt, that problems arise and become rigorous in -proportion to the purity and tenderness of a man’s -conception of God. It is not the coarsest but the finest -temperaments which are exposed to scepticism. Every -advance in assurance of God or in appreciation of -His character develops new perplexities in face of the -facts of experience, and faith becomes her own most -cruel troubler. Habakkuk’s questions are not due to -any cooling of the religious temper in Israel, but -are begotten of the very heat and ardour of prophecy -in its encounter with experience. His tremulousness, -for instance, is impossible without the high knowledge -of God’s purity and faithfulness, which older prophets -had achieved in Israel:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Art not Thou of old, O LORD, my God, my Holy One,</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Purer of eyes than to behold evil,</div> -<div class="verse">And incapable of looking upon wrong?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">His despair is that which comes only from eager and -persevering habits of prayer:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How long, O LORD, have I called and Thou hearest not!</div> -<div class="verse">I cry to Thee of wrong and Thou givest no help!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">His questions, too, are bold with that sense of God’s -absolute power, which flashed so bright in Israel as to -blind men’s eyes to all secondary and intermediate -causes. <i>Thou</i>, he says,—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Thou hast made men like fishes of the sea,</div> -<div class="verse">Like worms that have no ruler,</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">boldly charging the Almighty, in almost the temper of -Job himself, with being the cause of the cruelty inflicted -by the unchecked tyrant upon the nations; <i>for shall -evil happen, and Jehovah not have done it</i>?<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> Thus all -through we perceive that Habakkuk’s trouble springs -from the central founts of prophecy. This scepticism—if -we may venture to give the name to the first motions -in Israel’s mind of that temper which undoubtedly -became scepticism—this scepticism was the inevitable -heritage of prophecy: the stress and pain to which -prophecy was forced by its own strong convictions in -face of the facts of experience. Habakkuk, <i>the prophet</i>, -as he is called, stood in the direct line of his order, -but just because of that he was the father also of -Israel’s religious doubt.</p> - -<p>But a discontent springing from sources so pure -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> -was surely the preparation of its own healing. In -a verse of exquisite beauty the prophet describes the -temper in which he trusted for an answer to all his -doubts:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">On my watch-tower will I stand,</div> -<div class="verse">And take up my post on the rampart;</div> -<div class="verse">I will watch to see what He says to me,</div> -<div class="verse">And what answer I get back to my plea.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This verse is not to be passed over, as if its metaphors -were merely of literary effect. They express -rather the moral temper in which the prophet carries -his doubt, or, to use New Testament language, <i>the good -conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith -have made shipwreck</i>. Nor is this temper patience only -and a certain elevation of mind, nor only a fixed -attention and sincere willingness to be answered. -Through the chosen words there breathes a noble -sense of responsibility. The prophet feels he has a -post to hold, a rampart to guard. He knows the -heritage of truth, won by the great minds of the past; -and in a world seething with disorder, he will take his -stand upon that and see what more his God will send -him. At the very least, he will not indolently drift, -but feel that he has a standpoint, however narrow, and -bravely hold it. Such has ever been the attitude of -the greatest sceptics—not only, let us repeat, earnestness -and sincerity, but the recognition of duty towards -the truth: the conviction that even the most tossed and -troubled minds have somewhere a ποῦ στῶ appointed of -God, and upon it interests human and divine to defend. -Without such a conscience, scepticism, however intellectually -gifted, will avail nothing. Men who drift -never discover, never grasp aught. They are only -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> -dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, only fretted -and broken by experience.</p> - -<p>Taking then his stand within the patient temper, but -especially upon the conscience of his great order, the -prophet waits for his answer and the healing of his -trouble. The answer comes to him in the promise of -<i>a Vision</i>, which, though it seem to linger, will not be -later than the time fixed by God. <i>A Vision</i> is something -realised, experienced—something that will be as actual -and present to the waiting prophet as the cruelty which -now fills his sight. Obviously some series of historical -events is meant, by which, in the course of time, the -unjust oppressor of the nations shall be overthrown -and the righteous vindicated. Upon the re-arrangement -of the text proposed by Budde,<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> this series of events -is the rise of the Chaldeans, and it is an argument -in favour of his proposal that the promise of <i>a Vision</i> -requires some such historical picture to follow it as we -find in the description of the Chaldeans—chap. i. 5–11. -This, too, is explicitly introduced by terms of vision: -<i>See among the nations and look round.... Yea, behold -I am about to raise up the Kasdim.</i> But before this -Vision is given,<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> and for the uncertain interval of -waiting ere the facts come to pass, the Lord enforces -upon His watching servant the great moral principle -that arrogance and tyranny cannot, from the nature -of them, last, and that if the righteous be only patient -he will survive them:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Lo, swollen, not level, is his soul within him;</div> -<div class="verse">But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> -We have already seen<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> that the text of the first line -of this couplet is uncertain. Yet the meaning is -obvious, partly in the words themselves, and partly -by their implied contrast with the second line. The -soul of the wicked is a radically morbid thing: <i>inflated</i>, -<i>swollen</i> (unless we should read <i>perverted</i>, which more -plainly means the same thing<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a>), not <i>level</i>, not natural -and normal. In the nature of things it cannot endure. -<i>But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.</i> This -word, wrongly translated <i>faith</i> by the Greek and -other versions, is concentrated by Paul in his repeated -quotation from the Greek<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> upon that single act of -faith by which the sinner secures forgiveness and -justification. With Habakkuk it is a wider term. -<i>’Emunah</i>,<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> from a verb meaning originally to be firm, -is used in the Old Testament in the physical sense of -steadfastness. So it is applied to the arms of Moses -held up by Aaron and Hur over the battle with Amalek: -<i>they were steadiness till the going down of the sun</i>.<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> It -is also used of the faithful discharge of public office,<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> -and of fidelity as between man and wife.<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> It is -also faithful testimony,<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> equity in judgment,<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> truth in -speech,<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> and sincerity or honest dealing.<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> Of course -it has faith in God as its secret—the verb from which -it is derived is the regular Hebrew term to believe—but -it is rather the temper which faith produces of -endurance, steadfastness, integrity. Let the righteous, -however baffled his faith be by experience, hold on in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> -loyalty to God and duty, and he shall live. Though -St. Paul, as we have said, used the Greek rendering -of <i>faith</i> for the enforcement of trust in God’s mercy -through Jesus Christ as the secret of forgiveness and -life, it is rather to Habakkuk’s wider intention of -patience and fidelity that the author of the Epistle -to the Hebrews returns in his fuller quotation of the -verse: <i>For yet a little while and He that shall come -will come and will not tarry; now the just shall live by -faith, but if he draw back My soul shall have no pleasure -in him.</i><a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a></p> - -<p>Such then is the tenor of the passage. In face of -experience that baffles faith, the duty of Israel is -patience in loyalty to God. In this the nascent -scepticism of Israel received its first great commandment, -and this it never forsook. Intellectual questions -arose, of which Habakkuk’s were but the faintest -foreboding—questions concerning not only the mission -and destiny of the nation, but the very foundation of -justice and the character of God Himself. Yet did no -sceptic, however bold and however provoked, forsake -his <i>faithfulness</i>. Even Job, when most audaciously -arraigning the God of his experience, turned from Him -to God as in his heart of hearts he believed He must -be, experience notwithstanding. Even the Preacher, -amid the aimless flux and drift which he finds in the -universe, holds to the conclusion of the whole matter -in a command, which better than any other defines the -contents of the <i>faithfulness</i> enforced by Habakkuk: -<i>Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the -whole of man.</i> It has been the same with the great mass -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> -of the race. Repeatedly disappointed of their hopes, -and crushed for ages beneath an intolerable tyranny, -have they not exhibited the same heroic temper with -which their first great questioner was endowed? Endurance—this -above all others has been the quality -of Israel: <i>though He slay me, yet will I trust Him</i>. -And, therefore, as Paul’s adaptation, <i>The just shall live -by faith</i>, has become the motto of evangelical Christianity, -so we may say that Habakkuk’s original of it -has been the motto and the fame of Judaism: <i>The -righteous shall live by his faithfulness.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">TYRANNY IS SUICIDE</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">H<span class="small">ABAKKUK</span> ii. 5–20</p> - -<p class="noindent">In the style of his master Isaiah, Habakkuk follows -up his <i>Vision</i> with a series of lyrics on the same -subject: chap. ii. 5–20. They are taunt-songs, the most -of them beginning with <i>Woe unto</i>, addressed to the -heathen oppressor. Perhaps they were all at first of -equal length, and it has been suggested that the striking -refrain in which two of them close—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For men’s blood, and earth’s waste,</div> -<div class="verse">Cities and their inhabitants—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>was once attached to each of the others as well. But -the text has been too much altered, besides suffering -several interpolations,<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> to permit of its restoration, -and we can only reproduce these taunts as they now -run in the Hebrew text. There are several quotations -(not necessarily an argument against Habakkuk’s -authorship); but, as a whole, the expression is original, -and there are some lines of especial force and freshness. -Verses 5–6<i>a</i> are properly an introduction, the -first Woe commencing with 6<i>b</i>.</p> - -<p>The belief which inspires these songs is very simple. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> -Tyranny is intolerable. In the nature of things it -cannot endure, but works out its own penalties. By -oppressing so many nations, the tyrant is preparing -the instruments of his own destruction. As he treats -them, so in time shall they treat him. He is like a -debtor who increases the number of his creditors. -Some day they shall rise up and exact from him the -last penny. So that in cutting off others he is <i>but -forfeiting his own life</i>. The very violence done to -nature, the deforesting of Lebanon for instance, and -the vast hunting of wild beasts, shall recoil on him. -This line of thought is exceedingly interesting. We -have already seen in prophecy, and especially in Isaiah, -the beginnings of Hebrew Wisdom—the attempt to -uncover the moral processes of life and express a -philosophy of history. But hardly anywhere have we -found so complete an absence of all reference to the -direct interference of God Himself in the punishment -of the tyrant; for <i>the cup of Jehovah’s right hand</i> in -ver. 16 is simply the survival of an ancient metaphor. -These <i>proverbs</i> or <i>taunt-songs</i>, in conformity with the -proverbs of the later Wisdom, dwell only upon the -inherent tendency to decay of all injustice. Tyranny, -they assert, and history ever since has affirmed their -truthfulness—tyranny is suicide.</p> - -<p>The last of the taunt-songs, which treats of the -different subject of idolatry, is probably, as we have -seen, not from Habakkuk’s hand, but of a later date.<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a></p> - -<h4><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> -I<span class="small">NTRODUCTION TO THE</span> - T<span class="small">AUNT</span>-<span class="small">SONGS</span> - (ii. 5–6<i>a</i>).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For ...<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> treacherous,</div> -<div class="verse">An arrogant fellow, and is not ...<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Who opens his desire wide as Sheol;</div> -<div class="verse">He is like death, unsatisfied;</div> -<div class="verse">And hath swept to himself all the nations,</div> -<div class="verse">And gathered to him all peoples.</div> -<div class="verse">Shall not these, all of them, take up a proverb</div> -<div class="verse indent2">upon him,</div> -<div class="verse">And a taunt-song against him? and say:—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4>F<span class="small">IRST</span> - T<span class="small">AUNT</span>-<span class="small">SONG</span> - (ii. 6<i>b</i>–8).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Woe unto him who multiplies what is not his own,</div> -<div class="verse">—How long?—</div> -<div class="verse">And loads him with debts!<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Shall not thy creditors<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> rise up,</div> -<div class="verse">And thy troublers awake,</div> -<div class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And thou be for spoil<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> to them?</div> -<div class="verse">Because thou hast spoiled many nations,</div> -<div class="verse">All the rest of the peoples shall spoil thee.</div> -<div class="verse indent4">For men’s blood, and earth’s waste,</div> -<div class="verse indent4">Cities and all their inhabitants.<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4>S<span class="small">ECOND</span> - T<span class="small">AUNT</span>-<span class="small">SONG</span> - (ii. 9–11).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Woe unto him that gains evil gain for his house,<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a></div> -<div class="verse">To set high his nest, to save him from the grasp</div> -<div class="verse indent2">of calamity!</div> -<div class="verse">Thou hast planned shame for thy house;</div> -<div class="verse">Thou hast cut off<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> many people,</div> -<div class="verse">While forfeiting thine own life.<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a></div> -<div class="verse">For the stone shall cry out from the wall,</div> -<div class="verse">And the lath<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> from the timber answer it.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4>T<span class="small">HIRD</span> - T<span class="small">AUNT</span>-<span class="small">SONG</span> - (ii. 12–14).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Woe unto him that builds a city in blood,<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And stablishes a town in iniquity!<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Lo, is it not from Jehovah of hosts,</div> -<div class="verse">That the nations shall toil for smoke,<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And the peoples wear themselves out for nought?</div> -<div class="verse">But earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">glory of Jehovah,<a name="FNanchor_409_409" - id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Like the waters that cover the sea.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> -F<span class="small">OURTH</span> - T<span class="small">AUNT</span>-<span class="small">SONG</span> - (ii. 15–17).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Woe unto him that gives his neighbour to drink,</div> -<div class="verse">From the cup of his wrath<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> till he be drunken,</div> -<div class="verse">That he may gloat on his<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a> nakedness!</div> -<div class="verse">Thou art sated with shame—not with glory;</div> -<div class="verse">Drink also thou, and stagger.<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Comes round to thee the cup of Jehovah’s right hand,</div> -<div class="verse">And foul shame<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> on thy glory.</div> -<div class="verse">For the violence to Lebānon shall cover thee,</div> -<div class="verse">The destruction of the beasts shall affray thee.<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a></div> -<div class="verse indent4">For men’s blood, and earth’s waste,</div> -<div class="verse indent4">Cities and all their inhabitants.<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4>F<span class="small">IFTH</span> - T<span class="small">AUNT</span>-<span class="small">SONG</span> - (ii. 18–20).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">What boots an image, when its artist has graven it,</div> -<div class="verse">A cast-image and lie-oracle, that its moulder has</div> -<div class="verse indent2">trusted upon it,</div> -<div class="verse">Making dumb idols?</div> -<div class="verse">Woe to him that saith to a block, Awake!</div> -<div class="verse">To a dumb stone, Arise!</div> -<div class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Can it teach?</div> -<div class="verse">Lo, it ...<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> with gold and silver;</div> -<div class="verse">There is no breath at all in the heart of it.</div> -<div class="verse">But Jehovah is in His Holy Temple:</div> -<div class="verse">Silence before Him, all the earth!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">“IN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS”</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">H<span class="small">ABAKKUK</span> iii.</p> - -<p class="noindent">We have seen the impossibility of deciding the -age of the ode which is attributed to Habakkuk -in the third chapter of his book.<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> But this is only -one of the many problems raised by that brilliant -poem. Much of its text is corrupt, and the meaning -of many single words is uncertain. As in most -Hebrew poems of description, the tenses of the verbs -puzzle us; we cannot always determine whether the -poet is singing of that which is past or present or -future, and this difficulty is increased by his subject, -a revelation of God in nature for the deliverance of -Israel. Is this the deliverance from Egypt, with the -terrible tempests which accompanied it? Or have the -features of the Exodus been borrowed to describe -some other deliverance, or to sum up the constant -manifestation of Jehovah for His people’s help?</p> - -<p>The introduction, in ver. 2, is clear. The singer -has heard what is to be heard of Jehovah, and His -great deeds in the past. He prays for a revival of -these <i>in the midst of the years</i>. The times are full of -trouble and turmoil. Would that God, in the present -confusion of baffled hopes and broken issues, made -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> -Himself manifest by power and brilliance, as of old! -<i>In turmoil remember mercy!</i> To render <i>turmoil</i> by -<i>wrath</i>, as if it were God’s anger against which the -singer’s heart appealed, is not true to the original word -itself,<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> affords no parallel to <i>the midst of the years</i>, and -misses the situation. Israel cries from a state of life -in which the obscure years are huddled together and -full of turmoil. We need not wish to fix the date -more precisely than the writer himself does, but may -leave it with him <i>in the midst of the years</i>.</p> - -<p>There follows the description of the Great Theophany, -of which, in his own poor times, the singer has heard. -It is probable that he has in his memory the events -of the Exodus and Sinai. On this point his few -geographical allusions agree with his descriptions of -nature. He draws all the latter from the desert, or -Arabian, side of Israel’s history. He introduces none -of the sea-monsters, or imputations of arrogance and -rebellion to the sea itself, which the influence of -Babylonian mythology so thickly scattered through -the later sea-poetry of the Hebrews. The Theophany -takes place in a violent tempest of thunder and rain, -the only process of nature upon which the desert -poets of Arabia dwell with any detail. In harmony -with this, God appears from the southern desert, from -Teman and Paran, as in the theophanies in Deuteronomy -xxxiii. and in the Song of Deborah;<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> a few -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> -lines recall the Song of the Exodus,<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> and there are -many resemblances to the phraseology of the Sixty-Eighth -Psalm. The poet sees under trouble the tents -of Kushan and of Midian, tribes of Sinai. And though -the Theophany is with floods of rain and lightning, -and foaming of great waters, it is not with hills, rivers -or sea that God is angry, but with the <i>nations</i>, the -oppressors of His poor people, and in order that He -may deliver the latter. All this, taken with the fact -that no mention is made of Egypt, proves that, while -the singer draws chiefly upon the marvellous events -of the Exodus and Sinai for his description, he celebrates -not them alone but all the ancient triumphs -of God over the heathen oppressors of Israel. Compare -the obscure line—these be <i>His goings of old</i>.</p> - -<p>The report of it all fills the poet with trembling -(ver. 16 returns upon ver. 26), and although his -language is too obscure to permit us to follow with -certainty the course of his feeling, he appears to await -in confidence the issue of Israel’s present troubles. -His argument seems to be, that such a God may be -trusted still, in face of approaching invasion (ver. 16).</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> -The next verse, however, does not express the experience -of trouble from human foes; but figuring -the extreme affliction of drought, barrenness and -poverty, the poet speaking in the name of Israel -declares that, in spite of them, he will still rejoice in -the God of their salvation (ver. 17). So sudden is -this change from human foes to natural plagues, that -some scholars have here felt a passage to another -poem describing a different situation. But the last -lines with their confidence in the <i>God of salvation</i>, a -term always used of deliverance from enemies, and -the boast, borrowed from the Eighteenth Psalm, <i>He -maketh my feet like to hinds’ feet, and gives me to march -on my heights</i>, reflect the same circumstances as the -bulk of the Psalm, and offer no grounds to doubt the -unity of the whole.<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a></p> - -<h4>P<span class="small">SALM<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> OF</span> - H<span class="small">ABAKKUK THE</span> - P<span class="small">ROPHET.</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">LORD, I have heard the report of Thee;</div> -<div class="verse">I stand in awe!<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a></div> -<div class="verse">LORD, revive Thy work in the midst of the years,</div> -<div class="verse">In the midst of the years make Thee known;<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a></div> -<div class="verse">In turmoil<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> remember mercy!</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> -<div class="verse">God comes from Teman,<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The Holy from Mount Paran.<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a></div> -<div class="verse">He covers the heavens with His glory,</div> -<div class="verse">And filled with His praise is the earth.</div> -<div class="verse">The flash is like lightning;</div> -<div class="verse">He has rays from each hand of Him,</div> -<div class="verse">Therein<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> is the ambush of His might.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pestilence travels before Him,</div> -<div class="verse">The plague-fire breaks forth at His feet.</div> -<div class="verse">He stands and earth shakes,<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a></div> -<div class="verse">He looks and drives nations asunder;</div> -<div class="verse">And the ancient mountains are cloven,</div> -<div class="verse">The hills everlasting sink down.</div> -<div class="verse">These be <i>His ways from of old</i>.<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a></div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Under trouble I see the tents of Kûshān,<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a></div> -<div class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The curtains of Midian’s land are quivering.</div> -<div class="verse">Is it with hills<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> Jehovah is wroth?</div> -<div class="verse">Is Thine anger with rivers?</div> -<div class="verse">Or against the sea is Thy wrath,</div> -<div class="verse">That Thou ridest it with horses,</div> -<div class="verse">Thy chariots of victory?</div> -<div class="verse">Thy bow is stripped bare;<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Thou gluttest (?) Thy shafts.<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Into rivers Thou cleavest the earth;<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Mountains see Thee and writhe;</div> -<div class="verse">The rainstorm sweeps on:<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The Deep utters his voice,</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> -<div class="verse">He lifts up his roar upon high.<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Sun and moon stand still in their dwelling,</div> -<div class="verse">At the flash of Thy shafts as they speed,</div> -<div class="verse">At the sheen of the lightning, Thy lance.</div> -<div class="verse">In wrath Thou stridest the earth,</div> -<div class="verse">In anger Thou threshest the nations!</div> -<div class="verse">Thou art forth to the help of Thy people,</div> -<div class="verse">To save Thine anointed.<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Thou hast shattered the head from the house of</div> -<div class="verse indent2">the wicked,</div> -<div class="verse">Laying bare from ...<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> <i>to the neck</i>.</div> -<div class="verse">Thou hast pierced with Thy spears the head of</div> -<div class="verse indent2">his princes.<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a></div> -<div class="verse">They stormed forth to crush me;</div> -<div class="verse">Their triumph was as to devour the poor in</div> -<div class="verse indent2">secret.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Thou hast marched on the sea with Thy horses;</div> -<div class="verse">Foamed<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> the great waters.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I have heard, and my heart<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> shakes;</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> -<div class="verse">At the sound my lips tremble,<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Rottenness enters my bones,<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a></div> -<div class="verse">My steps shake under me.<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a></div> -<div class="verse">I will ...<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> for the day of trouble</div> -<div class="verse">That pours in on the people.<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a></div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Though the fig-tree do not blossom,<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And no fruit be on the vines,</div> -<div class="verse">Fail the produce of the olive,</div> -<div class="verse">And the fields yield no meat,</div> -<div class="verse">Cut off<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> be the flock from the fold,</div> -<div class="verse">And no cattle in the stalls,</div> -<div class="verse">Yet in the LORD will I exult,</div> -<div class="verse">I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.</div> -<div class="verse">Jehovah, the Lord, is my might;</div> -<div class="verse">He hath made my feet like the hinds’,</div> -<div class="verse">And on my heights He gives me to march.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This Psalm, whose musical signs prove it to have -been employed in the liturgy of the Jewish Temple, -has also largely entered into the use of the Christian -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> -Church. The vivid style, the sweep of vision, the -exultation in the extreme of adversity with which it -closes, have made it a frequent theme of preachers and -of poets. St. Augustine’s exposition of the Septuagint -version spiritualises almost every clause into a description -of the first and second advents of Christ.<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> -Calvin’s more sober and accurate learning interpreted -it of God’s guidance of Israel from the time -of the Egyptian plagues to the days of Joshua and -Gideon, and made it enforce the lesson that He who -so wonderfully delivered His people in their youth -will not forsake them in the midway of their career.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> -The closing verses have been torn from the rest to -form the essence of a large number of hymns in many -languages.</p> - -<p>For ourselves it is perhaps most useful to fasten -upon the poet’s description of his own position in the -midst of the years, and like him to take heart, amid -our very similar circumstances, from the glorious story -of God’s ancient revelation, in the faith that He is still -the same in might and in purpose of grace to His people. -We, too, live among the nameless years. We feel them -about us, undistinguished by the manifest workings of -God, slow and petty, or, at the most, full of inarticulate -turmoil. At this very moment we suffer from the -frustration of a great cause, on which believing men -had set their hearts as God’s cause; Christendom has -received from the infidel no greater reverse since the -days of the Crusades. Or, lifting our eyes to a larger -horizon, we are tempted to see about us a wide, -flat waste of years. It is nearly nineteen centuries -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> -since the great revelation of God in Christ, the redemption -of mankind, and all the wonders of the Early -Church. We are far, far away from that, and unstirred -by the expectation of any crisis in the near future. -We stand <i>in the midst of the years</i>, equally distant from -beginning and from end. It is the situation which -Jesus Himself likened to the long double watch in the -middle of the night—<i>if he come in the second watch -or in the third watch</i>—against whose dulness He -warned His disciples. How much need is there at -such a time to recall, like this poet, what God has done—how -often He has shaken the world and overturned -the nations, for the sake of His people and the Divine -causes they represent. <i>His ways are everlasting.</i> As -He then worked, so He will work now for the same -ends of redemption. Our prayer for <i>a revival of His -work</i> will be answered before it is spoken.</p> - -<p>It is probable that much of our sense of the staleness -of the years comes from their prosperity. The dull -feeling that time is mere routine is fastened upon our -hearts by nothing more firmly than by the constant -round of fruitful seasons—that fortification of comfort, -that regularity of material supplies, which modern life -assures to so many. Adversity would brace us to a -new expectation of the near and strong action of our -God. This is perhaps the meaning of the sudden -mention of natural plagues in the seventeenth verse -of our Psalm. Not in spite of the extremes of misfortune, -but just because of them, should we exult in -<i>the God of our salvation</i>; and realise that it is by -discipline He makes His Church to feel that she is not -marching over the dreary levels of nameless years, but -<i>on our high places He makes us to march</i>.</p> - -<p>“Grant, Almighty God, as the dulness and hardness -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> -of our flesh is so great that it is needful for us to be -in various ways afflicted—oh grant that we patiently -bear Thy chastisement, and under a deep feeling of -sorrow flee to Thy mercy displayed to us in Christ, so -that we depend not on the earthly blessings of this -perishable life, but relying on Thy word go forward -in the course of our calling, until at length we be -gathered to that blessed rest which is laid up for us -in heaven, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> -<h2 id="Obadiah" class="nobreak"><i>OBADIAH</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> -<p><i>And Saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, -and the kingdom shall be Jehovah’s.</i></p> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF OBADIAH</p> - -<p class="noindent">The Book of Obadiah is the smallest among the -prophets, and the smallest in all the Old Testament. -Yet there is none which better illustrates many -of the main problems of Old Testament criticism. It -raises, indeed, no doctrinal issue nor any question -of historical accuracy. All that it claims to be is -<i>The Vision of Obadiah</i>;<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> and this vague name, with no -date or dwelling-place to challenge comparison with -the contents of the book, introduces us without prejudice -to the criticism of the latter. Nor is the book -involved in the central controversy of Old Testament -scholarship, the date of the Law. It has no reference -to the Law. Nor is it made use of in the New Testament. -The more freely, therefore, may we study -the literary and historical questions started by the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> -twenty-one verses which compose the book. Their -brief course is broken by differences of style, and by -sudden changes of outlook from the past to the future. -Some of them present a close parallel to another -passage of prophecy, a feature which when present -offers a difficult problem to the critic. Hardly any -of the historical allusions are free from ambiguity, -for although the book refers throughout to a single -nation—and so vividly that even if Edom were not -named we might still discern the character and crimes -of that bitter brother of Israel—yet the conflict of -Israel and Edom was so prolonged and so monotonous -in its cruelties, that there are few of its many centuries -to which some scholar has not felt himself able to -assign, in part or whole, Obadiah’s indignant oration. -The little book has been tossed out of one century into -another by successive critics, till there exists in their -estimates of its date a difference of nearly six hundred -years.<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> Such a fact seems, at first sight, to convict -criticism either of arbitrariness or helplessness;<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a> yet a -little consideration of details is enough to lead us to -an appreciation of the reasonable methods of Old -Testament criticism, and of its indubitable progress -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> -towards certainty, in spite of our ignorance of large -stretches of the history of Israel. To the student of the -Old Testament nothing could be more profitable than -to master the historical and literary questions raised -by the Book of Obadiah, before following them out -among the more complicated problems which are -started by other prophetical books in their relation to -the Law of Israel, or to their own titles, or to claims -made for them in the New Testament.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The Book of Obadiah contains a number of verbal -parallels to another prophecy against Edom which -appears in Jeremiah xlix. 7–22. Most critics have -regarded this prophecy of Jeremiah as genuine, and -have assigned it to the year 604 <span class="small">B.C.</span> The question -is whether Obadiah or Jeremiah is the earlier. -Hitzig and Vatke<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> answered in favour of Jeremiah; -and as the Book of Obadiah also contains a description -of Edom’s conduct in the day of Jerusalem’s overthrow -by Nebuchadrezzar, in 586, they brought the -whole book down to post-exilic times. Very forcible -arguments, however, have been offered for Obadiah’s -priority.<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> Upon this priority, as well as on the -facts that Joel, whom they take to be early, quotes -from Obadiah, and that Obadiah’s book occurs among -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> -the first six—presumably the pre-exilic members—of -the Twelve, a number of scholars have assigned all -of it to an early period in Israel’s history. Some -fix upon the reign of Jehoshaphat, when Judah was -invaded by Edom and his allies Moab and Ammon, -but saved from disaster through Moab and Ammon -turning upon the Edomites and slaughtering them.<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> -To this they refer the phrase in Obadiah 9, <i>the men -of thy covenant have betrayed thee</i>. Others place the -whole book in the reign of Joram of Judah (849—842 -<span class="small">B.C.</span>), when, according to the Chronicles,<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> Judah -was invaded and Jerusalem partly sacked by Philistines -and Arabs.<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> But in the story of this invasion, there -is no mention of Edomites, and the argument which -is drawn from Joel’s quotation of Obadiah fails if Joel, -as we shall see, be of late date. With greater prudence -Pusey declines to fix a period.</p> - -<p>The supporters of a pre-exilic origin for the <i>whole</i> -Book of Obadiah have to explain vv. 11–14, which -appear to reflect Edom’s conduct at the sack of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> -Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586, and they do -so in two ways. Pusey takes the verses as predictive -of Nebuchadrezzar’s siege. Orelli and others believe -that they suit better the conquest and plunder of the -city in the time of Jehoram. But, as Calvin has -said, “they seem to be mistaken who think that -Obadiah lived before the time of Isaiah.”</p> - -<p>The question, however, very early arose, whether -it was possible to take Obadiah as a unity. Vv. 1–9 -are more vigorous and firm than vv. 10–21. In vv. 1–9 -Edom is destroyed by nations who are its allies; in -vv. 10–21 it is still to fall along with other Gentiles -in the general judgment of the Lord.<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> Vv. 10–21 -admittedly describe the conduct of the Edomites at -the overthrow of Jerusalem in 586; but vv. 1–9 probably -reflect earlier events; and it is significant that -in them alone occur the parallels to Jeremiah’s prophecy -against Edom in 604. On some of these grounds -Ewald regarded the little book as consisting of two -pieces, both of which refer to Edom, but the first of -which was written before Jeremiah, and the second -is post-exilic. As Jeremiah’s prophecy has some -features more original than Obadiah’s,<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> he traced both -prophecies to an original oracle against Edom, of which -Obadiah on the whole renders an exact version. He -fixed the date of this oracle in the earlier days of -Isaiah, when Rezin of Syria enabled Edom to assert -again its independence of Judah, and Edom won back -Elath, which Uzziah had taken.<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> Driver, Wildeboer -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> -and Cornill<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a> adopt this theory, with the exception of -the period to which Ewald refers the original oracle. -According to them, the Book of Obadiah consists -of two pieces, vv. 1–9 pre-exilic, and vv. 10–21 post-exilic -and descriptive in 11–14 of Nebuchadrezzar’s -sack of Jerusalem.</p> - -<p>This latter point need not be contested.<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> But is it -clear that 1–9 are so different from 10–21 that they -must be assigned to another period? Are they -necessarily pre-exilic? Wellhausen thinks not, and -has constructed still another theory of the origin of -the book, which, like Vatke’s, brings it all down to -the period after the Exile.</p> - -<p>There is no mention in the book either of Assyria -or of Babylonia.<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> The allies who have betrayed Edom -(ver. 7) are therefore probably those Arabian tribes -who surrounded it and were its frequent confederates.<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> -They are described as <i>sending</i> Edom <i>to the border</i> (<i>ib.</i>). -Wellhausen thinks that this can only refer to the great -northward movement of Arabs which began to press -upon the fertile lands to the south-east of Israel during -the time of the Captivity. Ezekiel<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> prophesies that -Ammon and Moab will disappear before the Arabs, and -we know that by the year 312 the latter were firmly -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> -settled in the territories of Edom.<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> Shortly before this -the Hagarenes appear in Chronicles, and Se’ir is called -by the Arabic name Gebal,<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> while as early as the fifth -century “Malachi”<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> records the desolation of Edom’s -territory by the <i>jackals of the wilderness</i>, and the -expulsion of the Edomites, who will not return. The -Edomites were pushed up into the Negeb of Israel, -and occupied the territory round, and to the south of, -Hebron till their conquest by John Hyrcanus about -130; even after that it was called Idumæa.<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> Wellhausen -would assign Obadiah 1–7 to the same stage -of this movement as is reflected in “Malachi” i. 1–5; -and, apart from certain parentheses, would therefore take -the whole of Obadiah as a unity from the end of the -fifth century before Christ. In that case Giesebrecht -argues that the parallel prophecy, Jeremiah xlix. 7–22, -must be reckoned as one of the passages of the -Book of Jeremiah in which post-exilic additions have -been inserted.<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a></p> - -<p>Our criticism of this theory may start from the -seventh verse of Obadiah: <i>To the border they have sent -thee, all the men of thy covenant have betrayed thee, they -have overpowered thee, the men of thy peace.</i> On our -present knowledge of the history of Edom it is impossible -to assign the first of these clauses to any -period before the Exile. No doubt in earlier days -Edom was more than once subjected to Arab <i>razzias</i>. -But up to the Jewish Exile the Edomites were still in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> -possession of their own land. So the Deuteronomist<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> -implies, and so Ezekiel<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> and perhaps the author of -Lamentations.<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> Wellhausen’s claim, therefore, that -the seventh verse of Obadiah refers to the expulsion -of Edomites by Arabs in the sixth or fifth century <span class="small">B.C.</span> -may be granted.<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> But does this mean that verses 1–6 -belong, as he maintains, to the same period? A -negative answer seems required by the following facts. -To begin with, the seventh verse is not found in the -parallel prophecy in Jeremiah. There is no reason -why it should not have been used there, if that -prophecy had been compiled at a time when the expulsion -of the Edomites was already an accomplished -fact. But both by this omission and by all its other -features, that prophecy suits the time of Jeremiah, -and we may leave it, therefore, where it was left till -the appearance of Wellhausen’s theory—namely, with -Jeremiah himself.<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> Moreover Jeremiah xlix. 9 seems -to have been adapted in Obadiah 5 in order to suit -verse 6. But again, Obadiah 1–6, which contains so -many parallels to Jeremiah’s prophecy, also seems to -imply that the Edomites are still in possession of their -land. <i>The nations</i> (we may understand by this the -Arab tribes) are risen against Edom, and Edom is -already despicable in face of them (vv. 1, 2); but he -has not yet fallen, any more than, to the writer of Isaiah -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> -xlv.—xlvii., who uses analogous language, Babylon is -already fallen. Edom is weak and cannot resist the -Arab <i>razzias</i>. But he still makes his eyrie on high and -says: <i>Who will bring me down?</i> To which challenge -Jehovah replies, not ‘I have brought thee down,’ but -<i>I will bring thee down</i>. The post-exilic portion of -Obadiah, then, I take to begin with verse 7; and the -author of this prophecy has begun by incorporating -in vv. 1–6 a pre-exilic prophecy against Edom, which -had been already, and with more freedom, used by -Jeremiah. Verses 8–9 form a difficulty. They return -to the future tense, as if the Edomites were still to -be cut off from Mount Esau. But verse 10, as -Wellhausen points out, follows on naturally to verse 7, -and, with its successors, clearly points to a period subsequent -to Nebuchadrezzar’s overthrow of Jerusalem. -The change from the past tense in vv. 10–11 to the -imperatives of 12–14 need cause, in spite of what Pusey -says, no difficulty, but may be accounted for by the -excited feelings of the prophet. The suggestion has -been made, and it is plausible, that Obadiah speaks as -an eye-witness of that awful time. Certainly there -is nothing in the rest of the prophecy (vv. 15–21) -to lead us to bring it further down than the years -following the destruction of Jerusalem. Everything -points to the Jews being still in exile. The verbs -which describe the inviolateness of Jerusalem (17), and -the reinstatement of Israel in their heritage (17, 19), -and their conquest of Edom (18), are all in the future. -The prophet himself appears to write in exile (20). -The captivity of Jerusalem is in Sepharad (<i>ib.</i>) and the -<i>saviours</i> have to <i>come up</i> to Mount Zion; that is to -say, they are still beyond the Holy Land (21).<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> -The one difficulty in assigning this date to the prophecy -is that nothing is said in the Hebrew of ver. 19 -about the re-occupation of the hill-country of Judæa -itself, but here the Greek may help us.<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a> Certainly -every other feature suits the early days of the -Exile.</p> - -<p>The result of our inquiry is that the Book of -Obadiah was written at that time by a prophet in exile, -who was filled by the same hatred of Edom as filled -another exile, who in Babylon wrote Psalm cxxxvii.; -and that, like so many of the exilic writers, he started -from an earlier prophecy against Edom, already used -by Jeremiah.<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> [Nowack (<i>Comm.</i>, 1897) takes vv. 1–14 -(with additions in vv. 1, 5, 6, 8f. and 12) to be from -a date not long after the Fall of Jerusalem, alluded -to in vv. 11–14; and vv. 15–21 to belong to a later -period, which it is impossible to fix exactly.]</p> - -<p>There is nothing in the language of the book to -disturb this conclusion. The Hebrew of Obadiah is -pure; unlike its neighbour, the Book of Jonah, it -contains neither Aramaisms nor other symptoms of -decadence. The text is very sound. The Septuagint -Version enables us to correct vv. 7 and 17, offers the -true division between vv. 9 and 10, but makes an -omission which leaves no sense in ver. 17.<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> It will -be best to give all the twenty-one verses together -before commenting on their spirit.</p> - -<h4><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> -T<span class="small">HE</span> - V<span class="small">ISION OF</span> - O<span class="small">BADIAH</span>.</h4> - -<p><i>Thus hath the Lord Jehovah spoken concerning Edom.</i><a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a></p> - -<p>“<i>A report have we heard from Jehovah, and a messenger -has been sent through the nations, ‘Up and let us -rise against her to battle.’ Lo, I have made thee small -among the nations, thou art very despised! The arrogance -of thy heart hath misled thee, dweller in clefts of the -Rock<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a>; the height is his dwelling, that saith in his heart -‘Who shall bring me down to earth!’ Though thou -build high as the eagle, though between the stars thou set -thy nest, thence will I bring thee down—oracle of Jehovah. -If thieves had come into thee by night (how art thou -humbled!),<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> would they not steal </i>just<i> what they wanted? -If vine-croppers had come into thee, would they not leave</i> -some <i>gleanings? (How searched out is Esau, how rifled his -treasures!)</i>” But now <i>to</i> thy very <i>border have they sent -thee, all the men of thy covenant<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> have betrayed thee, the -men of thy peace have overpowered thee<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a>; they kept setting -traps for thee—there is no understanding in him! “<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a>Shall -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> -it not be in that day—oracle of Jehovah—that I will cause -the wise men to perish from Edom, and understanding -from Mount Esau? And thy heroes, O Teman, shall be -dismayed, till<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> every man be cut off from Mount Esau.” -For the slaughter,<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a> for the outraging of thy brother Jacob, -shame doth cover thee, and thou art cut off for ever. In -the day of thy standing aloof,<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> in the day when strangers -took captive his substance, and aliens came into his gates,<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a> -and they cast lots on Jerusalem, even thou wert as one -of them!</i> Ah, <i>gloat not<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> upon the day of thy brother,<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> -the day of his misfortune<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a>; exult not over the sons of -Judah in the day of their destruction, and make not thy -mouth large<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> in the day of distress. Come not up into the -gate of My people in the day of their disaster. Gloat not -thou, yea thou, upon his ills, in the day of his disaster, -nor put forth thy hand to his substance in the day of his -disaster, nor stand at the parting<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a></i> of the ways (?) <i>to cut -off his fugitives; nor arrest his escaped ones in the day -of distress</i>.</p> - -<p><i>For near is the day of Jehovah, upon all the nations— -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> -as thou hast done, so shall it be done to thee: thy deed -shall come back on thine own head.<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a></i></p> - -<p><i>For as ye<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> have drunk on my holy mount, all the -nations shall drink continuously, drink and reel, and be -as though they had not been.<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> But on Mount Zion shall -be refuge, and it shall be inviolate, and the house of Jacob -shall inherit those who have disinherited them.<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> For the -house of Jacob shall be fire, and the house of Joseph a -flame, but the house of Esau shall become stubble, and -they shall kindle upon them and devour them, and there -shall not one escape of the house of Esau—for Jehovah -hath spoken.</i></p> - -<p><i>And the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and the -Shephelah the Philistines,<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> and the Mountain<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> shall -possess Ephraim and the field of Samaria,<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> and -Benjamin shall possess Gilead. And the exiles of this -host<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a> of the children of Israel shall possess(?) the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> -land<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> of the Canaanites unto Sarephath, and the exiles of -Jerusalem who are in Sepharad<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> shall inherit the cities -of the Negeb. And saviours shall come up on Mount -Zion to judge Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be -Jehovah’s.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">EDOM AND ISRAEL</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">O<span class="small">BADIAH</span> 1–21</p> - -<p class="noindent">If the Book of Obadiah presents us with some of -the most difficult questions of criticism, it raises -besides one of the hardest ethical problems in all the -vexed history of Israel.</p> - -<p>Israel’s fate has been to work out their calling in -the world through antipathies rather than by sympathies, -but of all the antipathies which the nation -experienced none was more bitter and more constant -than that towards Edom. The rest of Israel’s enemies -rose and fell like waves: Canaanites were succeeded -by Philistines, Philistines by Syrians, Syrians by -Greeks. Tyrant relinquished his grasp of God’s -people to tyrant: Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, -Persian; the Seleucids, the Ptolemies. But Edom -was always there, <i>and fretted his anger for ever</i>.<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> -From that far back day when their ancestors wrestled -in the womb of Rebekah to the very eve of the -Christian era, when a Jewish king<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a> dragged the -Idumeans beneath the yoke of the Law, the two -peoples scorned, hated and scourged each other, with -a relentlessness that finds no analogy, between kindred -and neighbour nations, anywhere else in history. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> -About 1030 David, about 130 the Hasmoneans, were -equally at war with Edom; and few are the prophets -between those distant dates who do not cry for -vengeance against him or exult in his overthrow. -The Book of Obadiah is singular in this, that it contains -nothing else than such feelings and such cries. -It brings no spiritual message. It speaks no word -of sin, or of righteousness, or of mercy, but only doom -upon Edom in bitter resentment at his cruelties, and -in exultation that, as he has helped to disinherit Israel, -Israel shall disinherit him. Such a book among the -prophets surprises us. It seems but a dark surge -staining the stream of revelation, as if to exhibit -through what a muddy channel these sacred waters -have been poured upon the world. Is the book only -an outbreak of Israel’s selfish patriotism? This is the -question we have to discuss in the present chapter.</p> - -<p>Reasons for the hostility of Edom and Israel are not -far to seek. The two nations were neighbours with -bitter memories and rival interests. Each of them was -possessed by a strong sense of distinction from the -rest of mankind, which goes far to justify the story -of their common descent. But while in Israel this -pride was chiefly due to the consciousness of a peculiar -destiny not yet realised—a pride painful and hungry—in -Edom it took the complacent form of satisfaction -in a territory of remarkable isolation and self-sufficiency, -in large stores of wealth, and in a reputation for worldly -wisdom—a fulness that recked little of the future, and -felt no need of the Divine.</p> - -<p>The purple mountains, into which the wild sons of -Esau clambered, run out from Syria upon the desert, -some hundred miles by twenty of porphyry and red -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> -sandstone. They are said to be the finest rock scenery -in the world. “Salvator Rosa never conceived so -savage and so suitable a haunt for banditti.”<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> From -Mount Hor, which is their summit, you look down -upon a maze of mountains, cliffs, chasms, rocky shelves -and strips of valley. On the east the range is but the -crested edge of a high, cold plateau, covered for the -most part by stones, but with stretches of corn land -and scattered woods. The western walls, on the -contrary, spring steep and bare, black and red, from -the yellow of the desert ‘Arabah. The interior is -reached by defiles, so narrow that two horsemen may -scarcely ride abreast, and the sun is shut out by -the overhanging rocks. Eagles, hawks and other -mountain birds fly screaming round the traveller. -Little else than wild-fowls’ nests are the villages; -human eyries perched on high shelves or hidden away -in caves at the ends of the deep gorges. There is -abundance of water. The gorges are filled with -tamarisks, oleanders and wild figs. Besides the wheat -lands on the eastern plateau, the wider defiles hold -fertile fields and terraces for the vine. Mount Esau is, -therefore, no mere citadel with supplies for a limited -siege, but a well-stocked, well-watered country, full of -food and lusty men, yet lifted so high, and locked so -fast by precipice and slippery mountain, that it calls -for little trouble of defence. <i>Dweller in the clefts of the -rock, the height is his habitation, that saith in his heart: -Who shall bring me down to earth?</i><a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a></p> - -<p>On this rich fortress-land the Edomites enjoyed a -civilisation far above that of the tribes who swarmed -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> -upon the surrounding deserts; and at the same time -they were cut off from the lands of those Syrian nations -who were their equals in culture and descent. When -Edom looked out of himself, he looked <i>down</i> and <i>across</i>—down -upon the Arabs, whom his position enabled -him to rule with a loose, rough hand, and across at -his brothers in Palestine, forced by their more open -territories to make alliances with and against each -other, from all of which he could afford to hold himself -free. That alone was bound to exasperate them. In -Edom himself it appears to have bred a want of -sympathy, a habit of keeping to himself and ignoring -the claims both of pity and of kinship—with which -he is charged by all the prophets. <i>He corrupted his -natural feelings, and watched his passion for ever.<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> Thou -stoodest aloof!</i><a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a></p> - -<p>This self-sufficiency was aggravated by the position -of the country among several of the main routes of -ancient trade. The masters of Mount Se’ir held the -harbours of ‘Akaba, into which the gold ships came -from Ophir. They intercepted the Arabian caravans -and cut the roads to Gaza and Damascus. Petra, in -the very heart of Edom, was in later times the capital -of the Nabatean kingdom, whose commerce rivalled that -of Phœnicia, scattering its inscriptions from Teyma in -Central Arabia up to the very gates of Rome.<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a> The -earlier Edomites were also traders, middlemen between -Arabia and the Phœnicians; and they filled their -caverns with the wealth both of East and West.<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> -There can be little doubt that it was this which first -drew the envious hand of Israel upon a land so cut -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> -off from their own and so difficult of invasion. Hear -the exultation of the ancient prophet whose words -Obadiah has borrowed: <i>How searched out is Esau, -and his hidden treasures rifled!</i><a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> But the same is clear -from the history. Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Amaziah, -Uzziah and other Jewish invaders of Edom were all -ambitious to command the Eastern trade through Elath -and Ezion-geber. For this it was necessary to subdue -Edom; and the frequent reduction of the country to a -vassal state, with the revolts in which it broke free, -were accompanied by terrible cruelties upon both -sides.<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> Every century increased the tale of bitter -memories between the brothers, and added the horrors -of a war of revenge to those of a war for gold.</p> - -<p>The deepest springs of their hate, however, bubbled -in their blood. In genius, temper and ambition, the -two peoples were of opposite extremes. It is very -singular that we never hear in the Old Testament of -the Edomite gods. Israel fell under the fascination of -every neighbouring idolatry, but does not even mention -that Edom had a religion. Such a silence cannot be -accidental, and the inference which it suggests is -confirmed by the picture drawn of Esau himself. Esau -is a <i>profane person</i><a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a>; with no conscience of a birthright, -no faith in the future, no capacity for visions; dead to -the unseen, and clamouring only for the satisfaction -of his appetites. The same was probably the character -of his descendants; who had, of course, their own -gods, like every other people in that Semitic world,<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> -but were essentially irreligious, living for food, spoil -and vengeance, with no national conscience or ideals—a -kind of people who deserved even more than the -Philistines to have their name descend to our times -as a symbol of hardness and obscurantism. It is no -contradiction to all this that the one intellectual quality -imputed to the Edomites should be that of shrewdness -and a wisdom which was obviously worldly. <i>The -wise men of Edom, the cleverness of Mount Esau</i><a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> were -notorious. It is the race which has given to history -only the Herods—clever, scheming, ruthless statesmen, -as able as they were false and bitter, as shrewd in -policy as they were destitute of ideals. <i>That fox</i>, -cried Christ, and crying stamped the race.</p> - -<p>But of such a national character Israel was in all -points, save that of cunning, essentially the reverse. -Who had such a passion for the ideal? Who such a -hunger for the future, such hopes or such visions? -Never more than in the day of their prostration, when -Jerusalem and the sanctuary fell in ruins, did they feel -and hate the hardness of the brother, who <i>stood aloof</i> -and <i>made large his mouth</i>.<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a></p> - -<p>It is, therefore, no mere passion for revenge, which -inspires these few, hot verses of Obadiah. No doubt, -bitter memories rankle in his heart. He eagerly repeats<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> -the voices of a day when Israel matched Edom -in cruelty and was cruel for the sake of gold, when -Judah’s kings coveted Esau’s treasures and were foiled. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> -No doubt there is exultation in the news he hears, that -these treasures have been rifled by others; that all -the cleverness of this proud people has not availed -against its treacherous allies; and that it has been -sent packing to its borders.<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> But beneath such savage -tempers, there beats the heart which has fought and -suffered for the highest things, and now in its martyrdom -sees them baffled and mocked by a people without -vision and without feeling. Justice, mercy and truth; -the education of humanity in the law of God, the -establishment of His will upon earth—these things, it -is true, are not mentioned in the Book of Obadiah, but -it is for the sake of some dim instinct of them that its -wrath is poured upon foes whose treachery and malice -seek to make them impossible by destroying the one -people on earth who then believed and lived for them. -Consider the situation. It was the darkest hour of -Israel’s history. City and Temple had fallen, the people -had been carried away. Up over the empty land the -waves of mocking heathen had flowed, there was none -to beat them back. A Jew who had lived through -these things, who had seen<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a> the day of Jerusalem’s -fall and passed from her ruins under the mocking of -her foes, dared to cry back into the large mouths they -made: Our day is not spent; we shall return with -the things we live for; the land shall yet be ours, and -the kingdom our God’s.</p> - -<p>Brave, hot heart! It shall be as thou sayest; it -shall be for a brief season. But in exile thy people -and thou have first to learn many more things about -the heathen than you can now feel. Mix with them -on that far-off coast, from which thou criest. Learn -what the world is, and that more beautiful and more -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> -possible than the narrow rule which thou hast promised -to Israel over her neighbours shall be that worldwide -service of man, of which, in fifty years, all the best of -thy people shall be dreaming.</p> - -<p>The Book of Obadiah at the beginning of the Exile, -and the great prophecy of the Servant at the end of -it—how true was his word who said: <i>He that goeth -forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless -come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.</i></p> - -<p class="thb"> </p> - -<p>The subsequent history of Israel and Edom may be -quickly traced. When the Jews returned from exile -they found the Edomites in possession of all the Negeb, -and of the Mountain of Judah far north of Hebron. -The old warfare was resumed, and not till 130 <span class="small">B.C.</span> -(as has been already said) did a Jewish king bring -the old enemies of his people beneath the Law of -Jehovah. The Jewish scribes transferred the name -of Edom to Rome, as if it were the perpetual symbol -of that hostility of the heathen world, against which -Israel had to work out her calling as the peculiar -people of God. Yet Israel had not done with the -Edomites themselves. Never did she encounter foes -more dangerous to her higher interests than in her -Idumean dynasty of the Herods; while the savage -relentlessness of certain Edomites in the last struggles -against Rome proved that the fire which had scorched -her borders for a thousand years, now burned a still -more fatal flame within her. More than anything -else, this Edomite fanaticism provoked the splendid -suicide of Israel, which beginning in Galilee was consummated -upon the rocks of Masada, half-way between -Jerusalem and Mount Esau.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> - -<div class="part"> -<h2 id="Persian" class="nobreak"><i>INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF - <br />THE PERSIAN PERIOD</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">(539—331 <span class="small">B.C.</span>)</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> - -<div class="ptext"> -<p>“The exiles returned from Babylon to found not a kingdom but -a church.”</p> - -<p class="right"> -K<span class="small">IRKPATRICK.</span> -</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>“Israel is no longer a kingdom, but a colony” (p. 189).</p> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">ISRAEL UNDER THE PERSIANS - <span class="norm">(539—331</span> B.C.<span class="norm">)</span></p> - -<p class="noindent">The next group of the Twelve Prophets—Haggai, -Zechariah, Malachi and perhaps Joel—fall within -the period of the Persian Empire. The Persian Empire -was founded on the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in -539 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, and it fell in the defeat of Darius III. by -Alexander the Great at the battle of Gaugamela, or -Arbela, in 331. The period is thus one of a little more -than two centuries.</p> - -<p>During all this time Israel were the subjects of the -Persian monarchs, and bound to them and their civilisation -by the closest of ties. They owed them their -liberty and revival as a separate community upon its -own land. The Jewish State—if we may give that -title to what is perhaps more truly described as a -Congregation or Commune—was part of an empire -which stretched from the Ægean to the Indus, and the -provinces of which were held in close intercourse by -the first system of roads and posts that ever brought -different races together. Jews were scattered almost -everywhere across this empire. A vast number still -remained in Babylon, and there were many at Susa -and Ecbatana, two of the royal capitals. Most of these -were subject to the full influence of Aryan manners -and religion; some were even members of the Persian -Court and had access to the Royal Presence. In the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> -Delta of Egypt there were Jewish settlements, and -Jews were found also throughout Syria and along the -coasts, at least, of Asia Minor. Here they touched -another civilisation, destined to impress them in the -future even more deeply than the Persian. It is the -period of the struggle between Asia and Europe, between -Persia and Greece: the period of Marathon and Thermopylæ, -of Salamis and Platæa, of Xenophon and the -Ten Thousand. Greek fleets occupied Cyprus and -visited the Delta. Greek armies—in the pay of Persia—trod -for the first time the soil of Syria.<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a></p> - -<p>In such a world, dominated for the first time by the -Aryan, Jews returned from exile, rebuilt their Temple -and resumed its ritual, revived Prophecy and codified -the Law: in short, restored and organised Israel as the -people of God, and developed their religion to those -ultimate forms in which it has accomplished its supreme -service to the world.</p> - -<p>In this period Prophecy does not maintain that -lofty position which it has hitherto held in the life -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> -of Israel, and the reasons for its decline are obvious. -To begin with, the national life, from which it springs, -is of a far poorer quality. Israel is no longer a kingdom, -but a colony. The state is not independent: -there is virtually no state. The community is poor -and feeble, cut off from all the habit and prestige of -their past, and beginning the rudiments of life again -in hard struggle with nature and hostile tribes. To -this level Prophecy has to descend, and occupy itself -with these rudiments. We miss the civic atmosphere, -the great spaces of public life, the large ethical issues. -Instead we have tearful questions, raised by a grudging -soil and bad seasons, with all the petty selfishness of -hunger-bitten peasants. The religious duties of the -colony are mainly ecclesiastical: the building of a -temple, the arrangement of ritual, and the ceremonial -discipline of the people in separation from their heathen -neighbours. We miss, too, the clear outlook of the -earlier prophets upon the history of the world, and -their calm, rational grasp of its forces. The world is -still seen, and even to further distances than before. -The people abate no whit of their ideal to be the -teachers of mankind. But it is all through another -medium. The lurid air of Apocalypse envelops the -future, and in their weakness to grapple either politically -or philosophically with the problems which -history offers, the prophets resort to the expectation -of physical catastrophes and of the intervention of -supernatural armies. Such an atmosphere is not -the native air of Prophecy, and Prophecy yields its -supreme office in Israel to other forms of religious -development. On one side the ecclesiastic comes to -the front—the legalist, the organiser of ritual, the -priest; on another, the teacher, the moralist, the thinker -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> -and the speculator. At the same time personal religion -is perhaps more deeply cultivated than at any other -stage of the people’s history. A large number of -lyrical pieces bear proof to the existence of a very -genuine and beautiful piety throughout the period.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Unfortunately the Jewish records for this time are -both fragmentary and confused; they touch the general -history of the world only at intervals, and give rise to -a number of difficult questions, some of which are insoluble. -The clearest and only consecutive line of -data through the period is the list of the Persian -monarchs. The Persian Empire, 539—331, was sustained -through eleven reigns and two usurpations, of -which the following is a chronological table:—</p> - -<table class="kings" summary="Persian Monarchs"> - <tbody> - <tr> - <td class="left">Cyrus (Kurush) the Great</td> - <td class="left">539—529</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Cambyses (Kambujiya)</td> - <td class="left">529—522</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="leftm">Pseudo-Smerdis, or Baradis</td> - <td class="left">522</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Darius (Darayahush) I., Hystaspis</td> - <td class="left">521—485</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Xerxes (Kshayarsha) I.</td> - <td class="left">485—464</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Artaxerxes (Artakshathra) I., - Longimanus</td> - <td class="left">464—424</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Xerxes II.</td> - <td class="left">424—423</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="leftm">Sogdianus</td> - <td class="left">423</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Darius II., Nothus</td> - <td class="left">423—404</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Artaxerxes II., Mnenon</td> - <td class="left">404—358</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Artaxerxes III., Ochus</td> - <td class="left">358—338</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Arses</td> - <td class="left">338—335</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Darius III., Codomanus</td> - <td class="left">335—331</td> - </tr> - </tbody> -</table> - -<p>Of these royal names, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes (Ahasuerus) -and Artaxerxes are given among the Biblical -data; but the fact that there are three Darius’, two -Xerxes’ and three Artaxerxes’ makes possible more -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> -than one set of identifications, and has suggested -different chronological schemes of Jewish history -during this period. The simplest and most generally -accepted identification of the Darius, Xerxes (Ahasuerus) -and Artaxerxes of the Biblical history,<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> is -that they were the first Persian monarchs of these -names; and after needful rearrangement of the somewhat -confused order of events in the narrative of the -Book of Ezra, it was held as settled that, while the -exiles returned under Cyrus about 537, Haggai and -Zechariah prophesied and the Temple was built under -Darius I. between the second and the sixth year of his -reign, or from 520 to 516; that attempts were made to -build the walls of Jerusalem under Xerxes I. (485—464), -but especially under Artaxerxes I. (464—424), under -whom first Ezra in 458 and then Nehemiah in 445 -arrived at Jerusalem, promulgated the Law and reorganised -Israel.</p> - -<p>But this has by no means satisfied all modern -critics. Some in the interests of the authenticity -and correct order of the Book of Ezra, and some for -other reasons, argue that the Darius under whom the -Temple was built was Darius II., or Nothus, 423—404, -and thus bring down the building of the Temple and -the prophets Haggai and Zechariah a whole century -later than the accepted theory;<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> and that therefore -the Artaxerxes, under whom Ezra and Nehemiah -laboured, was not the first Artaxerxes, or Longimanus -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> -(464—424), but the second, or Mnemon (404—358).<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> -This arrangement of the history finds some support -in the data, and especially in the <i>order</i> of the data, -furnished by the Book of Ezra, which describes the -building of the Temple under Darius <i>after</i> its record of -events under Xerxes I. (Ahasuerus) and Artaxerxes I.<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> -But, as we shall see in the next chapter, the Compiler -of the Book of Ezra has seen fit, for some reason, to -violate the chronological order of the data at his disposal, -and nothing reliable can be built upon his -arrangement. Unravel his somewhat confused history, -take the contemporary data supplied in Haggai and -Zechariah, add to them the historical probabilities of -the time, and you will find, as the three Dutch scholars -Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and Kosters have done,<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a> that -the rebuilding of the Temple cannot possibly be dated -so late as the reign of the second Darius (423—404), -but must be left, according to the usual acceptation, -under Darius I. (521—485). Haggai, for instance, -plainly implies that among those who saw the Temple -rising were men who had seen its predecessor -destroyed in 586,<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> and Zechariah declares that God’s -wrath on Jerusalem has just lasted seventy years.<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> -Nor (however much his confusion may give grounds -to the contrary) can the Compiler of the Book of Ezra -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> -have meant any other reign for the building of the -Temple than that of Darius I. He mentions that -nothing was done to the Temple <i>all the days of -Cyrus and up to the reign of Darius</i>:<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> by this he cannot -intend to pass over the first Darius and leap on -three more reigns, or a century, to Darius II. He -mentions Zerubbabel and Jeshua both as at the head -of the exiles who returned under Cyrus, and as presiding -at the building of the Temple under Darius.<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a> -If alive in 536, they may well have been alive in -521, but cannot have survived till 423.<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a> These data -are fully supported by the historical probabilities. It -is inconceivable that the Jews should have delayed -the building of the Temple for more than a century -from the time of Cyrus. That the Temple was built -by Zerubbabel and Jeshua in the beginning of the -reign of Darius I. may be considered as one of the -unquestionable data of our period.</p> - -<p>But if this be so, then there falls away a great part -of the argument for placing the building of the walls -of Jerusalem and the labours of Ezra and Nehemiah -under Artaxerxes II. (404—358) instead of Artaxerxes -I. It is true that some who accept the building -of the Temple under Darius I. nevertheless put -Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes II. The weakness -of their case, however, has been clearly exposed -by Kuenen,<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> who proves that Nehemiah’s mission to -Jerusalem must have fallen in the twentieth year of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> -Artaxerxes I., or 445.<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> “On this fact there can be no -further difference of opinion.”<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a></p> - -<p>These two dates then are fixed: the beginning of -the Temple in 520 by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the -arrival of Nehemiah at Jerusalem in 445. Other points -are more difficult to establish, and in particular there -rests a great obscurity on the date of the two visits of -Ezra to Jerusalem. According to the Book of Ezra,<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> -he went there first in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I., -or 458 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, thirteen years before the arrival of Nehemiah. -He found many Jews married to heathen wives, laid it -to heart, and called a general assembly of the people -to drive the latter out of the community. Then we -hear no more of him: neither in the negotiations with -Artaxerxes about the building of the walls, nor upon -the arrival of Nehemiah, nor in Nehemiah’s treatment -of the mixed marriages. He is absent from everything, -till suddenly he appears again at the dedication of the -walls by Nehemiah and at the reading of the Law.<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> -This “eclipse of Ezra,” as Kuenen well calls it, taken -with the mixed character of all the records left of him, -has moved some to deny to him and his reforms and -his promulgation of the Law any historical reality -whatever;<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> while others, with a more sober and rational -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> -criticism, have sought to solve the difficulties by another -arrangement of the events than that usually accepted. -Van Hoonacker makes Ezra’s <i>first</i> appearance in -Jerusalem to be at the dedication of the walls and -promulgation of the Law in 445, and refers his -arrival described in Ezra vii. and his attempts to -abolish the mixed marriages to a second visit to -Jerusalem in the twentieth year, not of Artaxerxes I., -but of Artaxerxes II., or 398 <span class="small">B.C.</span> Kuenen has exposed -the extreme unlikelihood, if not impossibility, of so late -a date for Ezra, and in this Kosters holds with him.<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> -But Kosters agrees with Van Hoonacker in placing -Ezra’s activity subsequent to Nehemiah’s and to the -dedication of the walls.</p> - -<p>These questions about Ezra have little bearing on -our present study of the prophets, and it is not our -duty to discuss them. But Kuenen, in answer to Van -Hoonacker, has shown very strong reasons<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a> for holding -in the main to the generally accepted theory of Ezra’s -arrival in Jerusalem in 458, the seventh year of -Artaxerxes I.; and though there are great difficulties -about the narrative which follows, and especially -about Ezra’s sudden disappearance from the scene till -after Nehemiah’s arrival, reasons may be found for -this.<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> -We are therefore justified in holding, in the meantime, -to the traditional arrangement of the great events in -Israel in the fifth century before Christ. We may -divide the whole Persian period by the two points we -have found to be certain, the beginning of the Temple -under Darius I. in 520 and the mission of Nehemiah -to Jerusalem in 445, and by the other that we have -found to be probable, Ezra’s arrival in 458.</p> - -<p>On these data the Persian period may be arranged -under the following four sections, among which we place -those prophets who respectively belong to them:—</p> - -<p>1. From the Taking of Babylon by Cyrus to the -Completion of the Temple in the sixth year of Darius I., -538—516: Haggai and Zechariah in 520 ff.</p> - -<p>2. From the Completion of the Temple under -Darius I. to the arrival of Ezra in the seventh year -of Artaxerxes I., 516—458: sometimes called the -period of silence, but probably yielding the Book of -“Malachi.”</p> - -<p>3. The Work of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes -I., Longimanus, 458—425.</p> - -<p>4. The Rest of the Period, Xerxes II. to Darius III., -425—331: the prophet Joel and perhaps several other -anonymous fragments of prophecy.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Of these four sections we must now examine -the first, for it forms the necessary introduction to -our study of Haggai and Zechariah, and above all -it raises a question almost greater than any of those -we have just been discussing. The fact recorded by -the Book of Ezra, and till a few years ago accepted -without doubt by tradition and modern criticism, the -first Return of Exiles from Babylon under Cyrus, has -lately been altogether denied; and the builders of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> -Temple in 520 have been asserted to be, not returned -exiles, but the remnant of Jews left in Judah by -Nebuchadrezzar in 586. The importance of this for -our interpretation of Haggai and Zechariah, who -instigated the building of the Temple, is obvious: we -must discuss the question in detail.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">FROM THE RETURN FROM BABYLON TO THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">(536—516 <span class="small">B.C.</span>)</p> - -<p class="noindent">Cyrus the Great took Babylon and the Babylonian -Empire in 539. Upon the eve of his conquest -the Second Isaiah had hailed him as the Liberator -of the people of God and the builder of their Temple. -The Return of the Exiles and the Restoration both -of Temple and City were predicted by the Second -Isaiah for the immediate future; and a Jewish historian, -the Compiler of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, who -lived about 300 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, has taken up the story of how -these events came to pass from the very first year of -Cyrus onward. Before discussing the dates and proper -order of these events, it will be well to have this -Chronicler’s narrative before us. It lies in the first -and following chapters of our Book of Ezra.</p> - -<p>According to this, Cyrus, soon after his conquest -of Babylon, gave permission to the Jewish exiles to -return to Palestine, and between forty and fifty thousand<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> -did so return, bearing the vessels of Jehovah’s -house which the Chaldeans had taken away in 586. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> -These Cyrus delivered <i>to Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah</i><a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> -(who is further described in an Aramaic document -incorporated by the Compiler of the Book of Ezra -as “Peḥah,” or <i>provincial governor</i>,<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> and as laying the -foundation of the Temple<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a>), and there is also mentioned -in command of the people a Tirshatha, probably the -Persian Tarsâta,<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> which also means <i>provincial governor</i>. -Upon their arrival at Jerusalem, the date of which -will be immediately discussed, the people are said to -be under Jeshu’a ben Jōṣadak<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> and Zerubbabel ben -She’altî’el,<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> who had already been mentioned as the -head of the returning exiles,<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a> and who is called by -his contemporary Haggai Peḥah, or <i>governor, of -Judah</i>.<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> Are we to understand by Sheshbazzar and -Zerubbabel one and the same person? Most critics -have answered in the affirmative, believing that Sheshbazzar -is but the Babylonian or Persian name by -which the Jew Zerubbabel was known at court;<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> and -this view is supported by the facts that Zerubbabel was -of the house of David and is called Peḥah by Haggai, -and by the argument that the command given by -the Tirshatha to the Jews to abstain from <i>eating the -most holy things</i><a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> could only have been given by a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> -native Jew.<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> But others, arguing that Ezra v. 1, compared -with vv. 14 and 16, implies that Zerubbabel -and Sheshbazzar were two different persons, take -the former to have been the most prominent of the -Jews themselves, but the latter an official, Persian or -Babylonian, appointed by Cyrus to carry out such -business in connection with the Return as could only -be discharged by an imperial officer.<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a> This is, on the -whole, the more probable theory.</p> - -<p>If it is right, Sheshbazzar, who superintended the -Return, had disappeared from Jerusalem by 521, when -Haggai commenced to prophesy, and had been succeeded -as Peḥah, or governor, by Zerubbabel. But in that case -the Compiler has been in error in calling Sheshbazzar -<i>a prince of Judah</i>.<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a></p> - -<p>The next point to fix is what the Compiler considers -to have been the date of the Return. He names no -year, but he recounts that the same people, whom he -has just described as receiving the command of Cyrus -to return, did immediately leave Babylon,<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> and he says -that they arrived at Jerusalem in <i>the seventh month</i>, -but again without stating a year.<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> In any case, he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> -obviously intends to imply that the Return followed -immediately on reception of the permission to return, -and that this was given by Cyrus very soon after his -occupation of Babylon in 539—8. We may take it that -the Compiler understood the year to be that we know -as 537 <span class="small">B.C.</span> He adds that, on the arrival of the -caravans from Babylon, the Jews set up the altar on -its old site and restored the morning and evening -sacrifices; that they kept also the Feast of Tabernacles, -and thereafter all the rest of the <i>feasts of Jehovah</i>; and -further, that they engaged masons and carpenters for -building the Temple, and Phœnicians to bring them -cedar-wood from Lebanon.<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a></p> - -<p>Another section from the Compiler’s hand states that -the returned Jews set to work upon the Temple <i>in the -second month of the second year</i> of their Return, presumably -536 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, laying the foundation-stone with due -pomp, and amid the excitement of the whole people.<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> -Whereupon certain <i>adversaries</i>, by whom the Compiler -means Samaritans, demanded a share in the building of -the Temple, and when Jeshua and Zerubbabel refused -this, <i>the people of the land</i> frustrated the building of the -Temple even until the reign of Darius, 521 ff.</p> - -<p>This—the second year of Darius—is the point to -which contemporary documents, the prophecies of -Haggai and Zechariah, assign the beginning of -new measures to build the Temple. Of these the -Compiler of the Book of Ezra says in the meantime -nothing, but after barely mentioning the reign -of Darius leaps at once<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> to further Samaritan -obstructions—though not of the building of the -Temple (be it noted), but of the building of the city -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> -walls—in the reigns of Ahasuerus, that is Xerxes, -presumably Xerxes I., the successor of Darius, 485—464, -and of his successor Artaxerxes I., 464—424;<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> the -account of the latter of which he gives not in his own -language but in that of an Aramaic document, Ezra iv. 8 ff. -And this document, after recounting how Artaxerxes -empowered the Samaritans to stop the building of the -walls of Jerusalem, records<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> that the building ceased -<i>till the second year of the reign of Darius</i>, when the -prophets Haggai and Zechariah stirred up Zerubbabel -and Jeshua to rebuild, not the city walls, be it observed, -but the Temple, and with the permission of Darius -this building was at last completed in his sixth year.<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> -That is to say, this Aramaic document brings us back, -with <i>the frustrated building of the walls</i> under Xerxes I. -and Artaxerxes I. (485—424), to the same date under -their predecessor Darius I., viz. 520, to which the -Compiler had brought down <i>the frustrated building of -the Temple</i>! The most reasonable explanation of this -confusion, not only of chronology, but of two distinct -processes—the erection of the Temple and the fortification -of the city—is that the Compiler was misled by -his desire to give as strong an impression as possible -of the Samaritan obstructions by placing them all -together. Attempts to harmonise the order of his -narrative with the ascertained sequence of the Persian -reigns have failed.<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> -Such then is the character of the compilation known -to us as the Book of Ezra. If we add that in its -present form it cannot be of earlier date than 300 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, -or two hundred and thirty-six years after the Return, -and that the Aramaic document which it incorporates -is probably not earlier than 430, or one hundred years -after the Return, while the List of Exiles which it -gives (in chap. ii.) also contains elements that cannot -be earlier than 430, we shall not wonder that grave -doubts should have been raised concerning its trustworthiness -as a narrative.</p> - -<p>These doubts affect, with one exception, all the great -facts which it professes to record. The exception is -the building of the Temple between the second and -sixth years of Darius I., 520—516, which we have -already seen to be past doubt.<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> But all that the -Book of Ezra relates before this has been called in -question, and it has been successively alleged: (1) -that there was no such attempt as the book describes -to build the Temple before 520, (2) that there was -no Return of Exiles at all under Cyrus, and that -the Temple was not built by Jews who had come from -Babylon, but by Jews who had never left Judah.</p> - -<p>These conclusions, if justified, would have the most -important bearing upon our interpretation of Haggai -and Zechariah. It is therefore necessary to examine -them with care. They were reached by critics in the -order just stated, but as the second is the more -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> -sweeping and to some extent involves the other, we -may take it first.</p> - -<p>1. Is the Book of Ezra, then, right or wrong in -asserting that there was a great return of Jews, headed -by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, about the year 536, and that -it was they who in 520—516 rebuilt the Temple?</p> - -<p>The argument that in recounting these events the -Book of Ezra is unhistorical has been fully stated by -Professor Kosters of Leiden.<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> He reaches his conclusion -along three lines of evidence: the Books of Haggai -and Zechariah, the sources from which he believes the -Aramaic narrative Ezra v. 1—vi. 18 to have been -compiled, and the list of names in Ezra ii. In the -Books of Haggai and Zechariah, he points out that -the inhabitants of Jerusalem whom the prophets summon -to build the Temple are not called by any name -which implies that they are returned exiles; that nothing -in the description of them would lead us to suppose -this; that God’s anger against Israel is represented as -still unbroken; that neither prophet speaks of a Return -as past, but that Zechariah seems to look for it as still -to come.<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> The second line of evidence is an analysis -of the Aramaic document, Ezra v. 6 ff., into two -sources, neither of which implies a Return under Cyrus. -But these two lines of proof cannot avail against the -List of Returned Exiles offered us in Ezra ii. and -Nehemiah vii., if the latter be genuine. On his third -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> -line of evidence, Dr. Kosters, therefore, disputes the -genuineness of this List, and further denies that it -even gives itself out as a List of Exiles returned under -Cyrus. So he arrives at the conclusion that there was -no Return from Babylon under Cyrus, nor any before -the Temple was built in 520 ff., but that the builders -were <i>people of the land</i>, Jews who had never gone -into exile.</p> - -<p>The evidence which Dr. Kosters draws from the -Book of Ezra least concerns us. Both because of this -and because it is the weakest part of his case, we may -take it first.</p> - -<p>Dr. Kosters analyses the bulk of the Aramaic document, -Ezra v.—vi. 18, into two constituents. His arguments -for this are very precarious.<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> The first document, -which he takes to consist of chap. v. 1–5 and 10, with -perhaps vi. 6–15 (except a few phrases), relates that -Thathnai, Satrap of the West of the Euphrates, asked -Darius whether he might allow the Jews to proceed -with the building of the Temple, and received command -not only to allow but to help them, on the ground -that Cyrus had already given them permission. The -second, chap. v. 11–17, vi. 1–3, affirms that the building -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> -had actually begun under Cyrus, who had sent Sheshbazzar, -the Satrap, to see it carried out. Neither of -these documents says a word about any order from -Cyrus to the Jews to return; and the implication of the -second, that the building had gone on uninterruptedly -from the time of Cyrus’ order to the second year of -Darius,<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> is not in harmony with the evidence of the -Compiler of the Book of Ezra, who, as we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a> -states that Samaritan obstruction stayed the building -till the second year of Darius.</p> - -<p>But suppose we accept Kosters’ premisses and agree -that these two documents really exist within Ezra v.—vi. 18. -Their evidence is not irreconcilable. Both imply -that Cyrus gave command to rebuild the Temple: if they -were originally independent that would but strengthen -the tradition of such a command, and render a little -weaker Dr. Kosters’ contention that the tradition arose -merely from a desire to find a fulfilment of the Second -Isaiah’s predictions<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> that Cyrus would be the Temple’s -builder. That neither of the supposed documents mentions -the Return itself is very natural, because both -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> -are concerned with the building of the Temple. For -the Compiler of the Book of Ezra, who on Kosters’ -argument put them together, the interest of the Return -is over; he has already sufficiently dealt with it. But -more—Kosters’ second document, which ascribes the -building of the Temple to Cyrus, surely by that very -statement implies a Return of Exiles during his reign. -For is it at all probable that Cyrus would have committed -the rebuilding of the Temple to a Persian -magnate like Sheshbazzar, without sending with him -a large number of those Babylonian Jews who must -have instigated the king to give his order for rebuilding? -We may conclude then that Ezra v.—vi. 18, whatever be -its value and its date, contains no evidence, positive or -negative, against a Return of the Jews under Cyrus, -but, on the contrary, takes this for granted.</p> - -<p>We turn now to Dr. Kosters’ treatment of the so-called -List of the Returned Exiles. He holds this -List to have been, not only borrowed for its place in -Ezra ii. from Nehemiah vii.,<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> but even interpolated -in the latter. His reasons for this latter conclusion -are very improbable, as will be seen from the appended -note, and really weaken his otherwise strong case.<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> -As to the contents of the List, there are, it is true, -many elements which date from Nehemiah’s own time -and even later. But these are not sufficient to prove -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> -that the List was not originally a List of Exiles returned -under Cyrus. The verses in which this is asserted—Ezra -ii. 1, 2; Nehemiah vii. 6, 7—plainly intimate that -those Jews who came up out of the Exile were the -same who built the Temple under Darius. Dr. Kosters -endeavours to destroy the force of this statement (if -true so destructive of his theory) by pointing to the -number of the leaders which the List assigns to the -returning exiles. In fixing this number as twelve, -the author, Kosters maintains, intended to make the -leaders representative of the twelve tribes and the -body of returned exiles as equivalent to All-Israel. -But, he argues, neither Haggai nor Zechariah considers -the builders of the Temple to be equivalent -to All-Israel, nor was this conception realised in -Judah till after the arrival of Ezra with his bands. -The force of this argument is greatly weakened by -remembering how natural it would have been for men, -who felt the Return under Cyrus, however small, -to be the fulfilment of the Second Isaiah’s glorious -predictions of a restoration of All-Israel, to appoint -twelve leaders, and so make them representative of -the nation as a whole. Kosters’ argument against the -naturalness of such an appointment in 537, and therefore -against the truth of the statement of the List -about it, falls to the ground.</p> - -<p>But in the Books of Haggai and Zechariah Dr. Kosters -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> -finds much more formidable witnesses for his thesis -that there was no Return of exiles from Babylon before -the building of the Temple under Darius. These books -nowhere speak of a Return under Cyrus, nor do they call -the community who built the Temple by the names of -Gôlah or B’ne ha-Gôlah, <i>Captivity</i> or -<i>Sons of the Captivity</i>, -which are given after the Return of Ezra’s bands; but -they simply name them <i>this people</i><a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> or -<i>remnant of the -people</i>,<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> <i>people of the land</i>,<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> <i>Judah</i> -or <i>House of Judah</i>,<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> -names perfectly suitable to Jews who had never left -the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Even if we except -from this list the phrase <i>the remnant of the people</i>, as -intended by Haggai and Zechariah in the numerical -sense of <i>the rest</i> or <i>all the others</i>,<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> -we have still to deal -with the other titles, with the absence from them of any -symptom descriptive of return from exile, and with -the whole silence of our two prophets concerning such -a return. These are very striking phenomena, and -they undoubtedly afford considerable evidence for Dr. -Kosters’ thesis.<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> But it cannot escape notice that the -evidence they afford is mainly negative, and this raises -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> -two questions: (1) Can the phenomena in Haggai and -Zechariah be accounted for? and (2) whether accounted -for or not, can they be held to prevail against the -mass of positive evidence in favour of a Return under -Cyrus?</p> - -<p>An explanation of the absence of all allusion in -Haggai and Zechariah to the Return is certainly -possible.</p> - -<p>No one can fail to be struck with the spirituality of -the teaching of Haggai and Zechariah. Their one -ambition is to put courage from God into the poor hearts -before them, that these out of their own resources -may rebuild their Temple. As Zechariah puts it, -<i>Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith -Jehovah of Hosts</i>.<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a> It is obvious why men of this -temper should refrain from appealing to the Return, or to -the royal power of Persia by which it had been achieved. -We can understand why, while the annals employed -in the Book of Ezra record the appeal of the political -leaders of the Jews to Darius upon the strength of the -edict of Cyrus, the prophets, in their effort to encourage -the people to make the most of what they themselves -were and to enforce the omnipotence of God’s Spirit -apart from all human aids, should be silent about -the latter. We must also remember that Haggai and -Zechariah were addressing a people to whom (whatever -view we take of the transactions under Cyrus) -the favour of Cyrus had been one vast disillusion in -the light of the predictions of Second Isaiah.<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> The -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> -Persian magnate Sheshbazzar himself, invested with -full power, had been unable to build the Temple for -them, and had apparently disappeared from Judah, -leaving his powers as Peḥah, or governor, to Zerubbabel. -Was it not, then, as suitable to these circumstances, -as it was essential to the prophets’ own religious -temper, that Haggai and Zechariah should refrain from -alluding to any of the political advantages, to which -their countrymen had hitherto trusted in vain?<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a></p> - -<p>Another fact should be marked. If Haggai is silent -about any return from exile in the past, he is equally -silent about any in the future. If for him no return -had yet taken place, would he not have been likely to -predict it as certain to happen?<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> At least his silence -on the subject proves how absolutely he confined his -thoughts to the circumstances before him, and to the -needs of his people at the moment he addressed them. -Kosters, indeed, alleges that Zechariah describes the -Return from Exile as still future—viz. in the lyric -piece appended to his Third Vision.<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> But, as we shall -see when we come to it, this lyric piece is most probably -an intrusion among the Visions, and is not to -be assigned to Zechariah himself. Even, however, if it -were from the same date and author as the Visions, it -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> -would not prove that no return from Babylon had taken -place, but only that numbers of Jews still remained in -Babylon.</p> - -<p>But we may now take a further step. If there were -these natural reasons for the silence of Haggai and -Zechariah about a return of exiles under Cyrus, can -that silence be allowed to prevail against the mass of -testimony which we have that such a return took -place? It is true that, while the Books of Haggai and -Zechariah are contemporary with the period in question, -some of the evidence for the Return, Ezra i. and iii.—iv. 7, -is at least two centuries later, and upon the date of the -rest, the List in Ezra ii. and the Aramaic document in -Ezra iv. 8 ff., we have no certain information. But that -the List is from a date very soon after Cyrus is allowed -by a large number of the most advanced critics,<a name="FNanchor_589_589" id="FNanchor_589_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a> and even -if we ignore it, we still have the Aramaic document, -which agrees with Haggai and Zechariah in assigning the -real, effectual beginning of the Temple-building to the -second year of Darius and to the leadership of Zerubbabel -and Jeshua at the instigation of the two prophets. -May we not trust the same document in its relation -of the main facts concerning Cyrus? Again, in his -memoirs Ezra<a name="FNanchor_590_590" id="FNanchor_590_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> speaks of the transgressions of the -Gôlah or B’ne ha-Gôlah in effecting marriages with -the mixed people of the land, in a way which shows -that he means by the name, not the Jews who had -just come up with himself from Babylon, but the older -community whom he found in Judah, and who had -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> -had time, as his own bands had not, to scatter over the -land and enter into social relations with the heathen.</p> - -<p>But, as Kuenen points out,<a name="FNanchor_591_591" id="FNanchor_591_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a> we have yet further -evidence for the probability of a Return under Cyrus, -in the explicit predictions of the Second Isaiah that -Cyrus would be the builder of Jerusalem and the -Temple. “If they express the expectation, nourished -by the prophet and his contemporaries, then it is clear -from their preservation for future generations that -Cyrus did not disappoint the hope of the exiles, from -whose midst this voice pealed forth to him.” And this -leads to other considerations. Whether was it more -probable for the poverty-stricken <i>people of the land</i>, the -dregs which Nebuchadrezzar had left behind, or for -the body and flower of Israel in Babylon, to rebuild -the Temple? Surely for the latter.<a name="FNanchor_592_592" id="FNanchor_592_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a> Among them had -risen, as Cyrus drew near to Babylon, the hopes and -the motives, nay, the glorious assurance of the Return -and the Rebuilding; and with them was all the -material for the latter. Is it credible that they took no -advantage of their opportunity under Cyrus? Is it -credible that they waited nearly a century before -seeking to return to Jerusalem, and that the building -of the Temple was left to people who were half-heathen, -and, in the eyes of the exiles, despicable and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> -unholy? This would be credible only upon one -condition, that Cyrus and his immediate successors -disappointed the predictions of the Second Isaiah and -refused to allow the exiles to leave Babylon. But the -little we know of these Persian monarchs points all -the other way: nothing is more probable, for nothing is -more in harmony with Persian policy, than that Cyrus -should permit the captives of the Babylon which he -conquered to return to their own lands.<a name="FNanchor_593_593" id="FNanchor_593_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a></p> - -<p>Moreover, we have another, and to the mind of the -present writer an almost conclusive argument, that the -Jews addressed by Haggai and Zechariah were Jews -returned from Babylon. Neither prophet ever charges -his people with idolatry; neither prophet so much as -mentions idols. This is natural if the congregation -addressed was composed of such pious and ardent -adherents of Jehovah, as His word had brought back -to Judah, when His servant Cyrus opened the way. But -had Haggai and Zechariah been addressing <i>the people -of the land</i>, who had never left the land, they could not -have helped speaking of idolatry.</p> - -<p>Such considerations may very justly be used against -an argument which seeks to prove that the narratives -of a Return under Cyrus were due to the pious -invention of a Jewish writer who wished to record -that the predictions of the Second Isaiah were fulfilled -by Cyrus, their designated trustee.<a name="FNanchor_594_594" id="FNanchor_594_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> They certainly -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> -possess a far higher degree of probability than that -argument does.</p> - -<p>Finally there is this consideration. If there was no -return from Babylon under Cyrus, and the Temple, as -Dr. Kosters alleges, was built by the poor people of the -land, is it likely that the latter should have been regarded -with such contempt as they were by the exiles -who returned under Ezra and Nehemiah? Theirs -would then have been the glory of reconstituting Israel, -and their position very different from what we find it.</p> - -<p>On all these grounds, therefore, we must hold that -the attempt to discredit the tradition of an important -return of exiles under Cyrus has not been successful; -that such a return remains the more probable solution -of an obscure and difficult problem; and that therefore -the Jews who with Zerubbabel and Jeshua are represented -in Haggai and Zechariah as building the -Temple in the second year of Darius, 520, had come -up from Babylon about 537.<a name="FNanchor_595_595" id="FNanchor_595_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a> Such a conclusion, of -course, need not commit us to the various data offered -by the Chronicler in his story of the Return, such as -the Edict of Cyrus, nor to all of his details.</p> - -<p>2. Many, however, who grant the correctness of the -tradition that a large number of Jewish exiles returned -under Cyrus to Jerusalem, deny the statement of the -Compiler of the Book of Ezra that the returned exiles -immediately prepared to build the Temple and laid -the foundation-stone with solemn festival, but were -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> -hindered from proceeding with the building till the -second year of Darius.<a name="FNanchor_596_596" id="FNanchor_596_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a> They maintain that this late -narrative is contradicted by the contemporary statements -of Haggai and Zechariah, who, according to -them, imply that no foundation-stone was laid till -520 <span class="small">B.C.</span><a name="FNanchor_597_597" id="FNanchor_597_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a> For the interpretation of our prophets this -is not a question of cardinal importance. But for -clearness’ sake we do well to lay it open.</p> - -<p>We may at once concede that in Haggai and -Zechariah there is nothing which necessarily implies -that the Jews had made any beginning to build the -Temple before the start recorded by Haggai in the -year 520. The one passage, Haggai ii. 18, which is -cited to prove this<a name="FNanchor_598_598" id="FNanchor_598_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> is at the best ambiguous, and -many scholars claim it as a fixture of that date for -the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month of 520.<a name="FNanchor_599_599" id="FNanchor_599_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> At -the same time, and even granting that the latter -interpretation of Haggai ii. 18 is correct, there is -nothing in either Haggai or Zechariah to make it -impossible that a foundation-stone had been laid some -years before, but abandoned in consequence of the -Samaritan obstruction, as alleged in Ezra iii. 8–11. -If we keep in mind Haggai’s and Zechariah’s silence -about the Return from Babylon, and their very natural -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> -concentration upon their own circumstances,<a name="FNanchor_600_600" id="FNanchor_600_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a> we shall -not be able to reckon their silence about previous -attempts to build the Temple as a conclusive proof -that these attempts never took place. Moreover the -Aramaic document, which agrees with our two prophets -in assigning the only effective start of the work on -the Temple to 520,<a name="FNanchor_601_601" id="FNanchor_601_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> does not deem it inconsistent with -this to record that the Persian Satrap of the West of -the Euphrates<a name="FNanchor_602_602" id="FNanchor_602_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a> reported to Darius that, when he asked -the Jews why they were rebuilding the Temple, they -replied not only that a decree of Cyrus had granted -them permission,<a name="FNanchor_603_603" id="FNanchor_603_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> but that his legate Sheshbazzar had -actually laid the foundation-stone upon his arrival at -Jerusalem, and that the building had gone on without -interruption from that time to 520.<a name="FNanchor_604_604" id="FNanchor_604_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a> This last assertion, -which of course was false, may have been due either -to a misunderstanding of the Jewish elders by the -reporting Satrap, or else to the Jews themselves, -anxious to make their case as strong as possible. -The latter is the more probable alternative. As even -Stade admits, it was a very natural assertion for the -Jews to make, and so conceal that their effort of 520 -was due to the instigation of their own prophets. But -in any case the Aramaic document corroborates the -statement of the Compiler that there was a foundation-stone -laid in the early years of Cyrus, and does not -conceive this to be inconsistent with its own narrative -of a stone being laid in 520, and an effective start at -last made upon the Temple works. So much does -Stade feel the force of this, that he concedes not only -that Sheshbazzar may have started some preparation -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> -for building the Temple, but that he may even have -laid the stone with ceremony.<a name="FNanchor_605_605" id="FNanchor_605_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a></p> - -<p>And indeed, is it not in itself very probable that -some early attempt was made by the exiles returned -under Cyrus to rebuild the house of Jehovah? Cyrus -had been predicted by the Second Isaiah not only -as the redeemer of God’s people, but with equal explicitness -as the builder of the Temple; and all the -argument which Kuenen draws from the Second Isaiah -for the fact of the Return from Babylon<a name="FNanchor_606_606" id="FNanchor_606_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a> tells with -almost equal force for the fact of some efforts to -raise the fallen sanctuary of Israel immediately after -the Return. Among the returned were many priests, -and many no doubt of the most sanguine spirits in -Israel. They came straight from the heart of Jewry, -though that heart was in Babylon; they came with the -impetus and obligation of the great Deliverance upon -them; they were the representatives of a community -which we know to have been comparatively wealthy. -Is it credible that they should not have begun the -Temple at the earliest possible moment?</p> - -<p>Nor is the story of their frustration by the Samaritans -any less natural.<a name="FNanchor_607_607" id="FNanchor_607_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a> It is true that there were not any -adversaries likely to dispute with the colonists the -land in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem. -The Edomites had overrun the fruitful country about -Hebron, and part of the Shephelah. The Samaritans -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> -held the rich valleys of Ephraim, and probably the -plain of Ajalon. But if any peasants struggled with -the stony plateaus of Benjamin and Northern Judah, -such must have been of the remnants of the Jewish -population who were left behind by Nebuchadrezzar, and -who clung to the sacred soil from habit or from motives -of religion. Jerusalem was never a site to attract men, -either for agriculture, or, now that its shrine was -desolate and its population scattered, for the command -of trade.<a name="FNanchor_608_608" id="FNanchor_608_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a> The returned exiles must have been at first -undisturbed by the envy of their neighbours. The -tale is, therefore, probable which attributes the hostility -of the latter to purely religious causes—the refusal of -the Jews to allow the half-heathen Samaritans to -share in the construction of the Temple.<a name="FNanchor_609_609" id="FNanchor_609_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a> Now the -Samaritans could prevent the building. While stones -were to be had by the builders in profusion from the -ruins of the city and the great quarry to the north of -it, ordinary timber did not grow in their neighbourhood, -and though the story be true that a contract was already -made with Phœnicians to bring cedar to Joppa, it had -to be carried thence for thirty-six miles. Here, then, -was the opportunity of the Samaritans. They could -obstruct the carriage both of the ordinary timber and -of the cedar. To this state of affairs the present -writer found an analogy in 1891 among the Circassian -colonies settled by the Turkish Government a few years -earlier in the vicinity of Gerasa and Rabbath-Ammon. -The colonists had built their houses from the numerous -ruins of these cities, but at Rabbath-Ammon they said -their great difficulty had been about timber. And we -could well understand how the Beduin, who resented -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> -the settlement of Circassians on lands they had used -for ages, and with whom the Circassians were nearly -always at variance,<a name="FNanchor_610_610" id="FNanchor_610_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> did what they could to make the -carriage of timber impossible. Similarly with the Jews -and their Samaritan adversaries. The site might be -cleared and the stone of the Temple laid, but if the -timber was stopped there was little use in raising -the walls, and the Jews, further discouraged by the -failure of their impetuous hopes of what the Return -would bring them, found cause for desisting from their -efforts. Bad seasons followed, the labours for their -own sustenance exhausted their strength, and in the -sordid toil their hearts grew hard to higher interests. -Cyrus died in 529, and his legate Sheshbazzar, having -done nothing but lay the stone, appears to have left -Judæa.<a name="FNanchor_611_611" id="FNanchor_611_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a> Cambyses marched more than once through -Palestine, and his army garrisoned Gaza, but he was -not a monarch to have any consideration for Jewish -ambitions. Therefore—although Samaritan opposition -ceased on the stoppage of the Temple works and -the Jews procured timber enough for their private -dwellings<a name="FNanchor_612_612" id="FNanchor_612_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a>—is it wonderful that the site of the Temple -should be neglected and the stone laid by Sheshbazzar -forgotten, or that the disappointed Jews should seek -to explain the disillusions of the Return, by arguing -that God’s time for the restoration of His house had -not yet come?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> -The death of a cruel monarch is always in the East -an occasion for the revival of shattered hopes, and the -events which accompanied the suicide of Cambyses in -522 were particularly fraught with the possibilities of -political change. Cambyses’ throne had been usurped -by one Gaumata, who pretended to be Smerdis or -Barada, a son of Cyrus. In a few months Gaumata -was slain by a conspiracy of seven Persian nobles, of -whom Darius, the son of Hystaspes, both by virtue of -his royal descent and by his own great ability, was -raised to the throne in 521. The empire had been -too profoundly shocked by the revolt of Gaumata to -settle at once under the new king, and Darius found -himself engaged by insurrections in all his provinces -except Syria and Asia Minor.<a name="FNanchor_613_613" id="FNanchor_613_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a> The colonists in Jerusalem, -like all their Syrian neighbours, remained loyal -to the new king; so loyal that their Peḥah or Satrap -was allowed to be one of themselves—Zerubbabel, son -of She’altî’el,<a name="FNanchor_614_614" id="FNanchor_614_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> a son of their royal house. Yet though -they were quiet, the nations were rising against each -other and the world was shaken. It was just such -a crisis as had often before in Israel rewakened -prophecy. Nor did it fail now; and when prophecy -was roused what duty lay more clamant for its inspiration -than the duty of building the Temple?</p> - - - -<p>We are in touch with the first of our post-exilic -prophets, Haggai and Zechariah.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> -<h2 id="Haggai" class="nobreak"><i>HAGGAI</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> - <p class="italic"> - Go up into the mountain, and fetch wood, and build the House. - </p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF HAGGAI</p> - -<p class="noindent">The Book of Haggai contains thirty-eight verses, -which have been divided between two chapters.<a name="FNanchor_615_615" id="FNanchor_615_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> -The text is, for the prophets, a comparatively sound -one. The Greek version affords a number of corrections, -but has also the usual amount of misunderstandings, -and, as in the case of other prophets, a few -additions to the Hebrew text.<a name="FNanchor_616_616" id="FNanchor_616_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> These and the variations -in the other ancient versions will be noted in the -translation below.<a name="FNanchor_617_617" id="FNanchor_617_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a></p> - -<p>The book consists of four sections, each recounting -a message from Jehovah to the Jews in Jerusalem in -520 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, <i>the second year of Darius</i> (Hystaspis), -<i>by the hand of the prophet Haggai</i>.</p> - -<p>The <i>first</i>, chap. i., dated the first day of the sixth -month, during our September, reproves the Jews for -building their own <i>cieled houses</i>, while they say that -<i>the time for building Jehovah’s house has not yet come</i>; -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> -affirms that this is the reason of their poverty and -of a great drought which has afflicted them. A piece -of narrative is added recounting how Zerubbabel and -Jeshua, the heads of the community, were stirred by -this word to lead the people to begin work on the -Temple, on the twenty-fourth day of the same month.</p> - -<p>The <i>second</i> section, chap. ii. 1–9, contains a message, -dated the twenty-first day of the seventh month, during -our October, in which the builders are encouraged for -their work. Jehovah is about to shake all nations, -these shall contribute of their wealth, and the latter -glory of the Temple be greater than the former.</p> - -<p>The <i>third</i> section, chap. ii. 10–19, contains a word -of Jehovah which came to Haggai on the twenty-fourth -day of the ninth month, during our December. It is -in the form of a parable based on certain ceremonial -laws, according to which the touch of a holy thing does -not sanctify so much as the touch of an unholy pollutes. -Thus is the people polluted, and thus every work of -their hands. Their sacrifices avail nought, and adversity -has persisted: small increase of fruits, blasting, -mildew and hail. But from this day God will bless.</p> - -<p>The <i>fourth</i> section, chap. ii. 20–23, is a second word -from the Lord to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of -the ninth month. It is for Zerubbabel, and declares -that God will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and -destroy the forces of many of the Gentiles by war. -In that day Zerubbabel, the Lord’s elect servant, shall -be as a signet to the Lord.</p> - -<p>The authenticity of all these four sections was -doubted by no one,<a name="FNanchor_618_618" id="FNanchor_618_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a> till ten years ago W. Böhme, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> -besides pointing out some useless repetitions of single -words and phrases, cast suspicion on chap. i. 13, and questioned -the whole of the <i>fourth</i> section, chap. ii. 20–23.<a name="FNanchor_619_619" id="FNanchor_619_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> -With regard to chap. i. 13, it is indeed curious that -Haggai should be described as <i>the messenger of Jehovah</i>; -while the message itself, <i>I am with you</i>, seems superfluous -here, and if the verse be omitted, ver. 14 runs -on naturally to ver. 12.<a name="FNanchor_620_620" id="FNanchor_620_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a> Böhme’s reasons for disputing -the authenticity of chap. ii. 20–23 are much less -sufficient. He thinks he sees the hand of an editor -in the phrase <i>for a second time</i> in ver. 20; notes the -omission of the title “prophet”<a name="FNanchor_621_621" id="FNanchor_621_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a> after Haggai’s name, -and the difference of the formula <i>the word came to -Haggai</i> from that employed in the previous sections, <i>by -the hand of Haggai</i>, and the repetition of ver. 6<i>b</i> in -ver. 21; and otherwise concludes that the section is an -insertion from a later hand. But the formula <i>the word -came to Haggai</i> occurs also in ii. 10:<a name="FNanchor_622_622" id="FNanchor_622_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a> the other points -are trivial, and while it was most natural for Haggai -the contemporary of Zerubbabel to entertain of the -latter such hopes as the passage expresses, it is inconceivable -that a later writer, who knew how they -had not been fulfilled in Zerubbabel, should have -invented them.<a name="FNanchor_623_623" id="FNanchor_623_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a></p> - -<p>Recently M. Tony Andrée, <i>privat-docent</i> in the University -of Geneva, has issued a large work on Haggai,<a name="FNanchor_624_624" id="FNanchor_624_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a> in -which he has sought to prove that the <i>third</i> section of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> -the book, chap. ii. (10) 11–19, is from the hand of -another writer than the rest. He admits<a name="FNanchor_625_625" id="FNanchor_625_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> that in -neither form, nor style, nor language is there anything -to prove this distinction, and that the ideas of all the -sections suit perfectly the condition of the Jews in the -time soon after the Return. But he considers that -chap. ii. (10) 11–19 interrupts the connection between -the sections upon either side of it; that the author -is a legalist or casuist, while the author of the other -sections is a man whose only ecclesiastical interest is -the rebuilding of the Temple; that there are obvious -contradictions between chap. ii. (10) 11–19 and the rest -of the book; and that there is a difference of vocabulary. -Let us consider each of these reasons.</p> - -<p>The first, that chap. ii. (10) 11–19 interrupts the connection -between the sections on either side of it, is true -only in so far as it has a different subject from that -which the latter have more or less in common. But -the second of the latter, chap. ii. 20–23, treats only of -a corollary of the first, chap. ii. 1–9, and that corollary -may well have formed the subject of a separate oracle. -Besides, as we shall see, chap. ii. 10–19 is a natural -development of chap. i.<a name="FNanchor_626_626" id="FNanchor_626_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a> The contradictions alleged by -M. Andrée are two. He points out that while chap. i. -speaks only of a <i>drought</i>,<a name="FNanchor_627_627" id="FNanchor_627_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a> chap. ii. (10) 11–19 mentions<a name="FNanchor_628_628" id="FNanchor_628_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a> -as the plagues on the crops shiddāphôn and yērākôn, -generally rendered <i>blasting</i> and <i>mildew</i> in our English -Bible, and bārād, or <i>hail</i>; and these he reckons to be -plagues due not to drought but to excessive moisture. -But shiddāphôn and yērākôn, which are always connected -in the Old Testament and are words of doubtful meaning, -are not referred to damp in any of the passages in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> -which they occur, but, on the contrary, appear to be -the consequences of drought.<a name="FNanchor_629_629" id="FNanchor_629_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a> The other contradiction -alleged refers to the ambiguous verse ii. 18, on which we -have already seen it difficult to base any conclusion, and -which will be treated when we come to it in the course -of translation.<a name="FNanchor_630_630" id="FNanchor_630_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> Finally, the differences in language -which M. Andrée cites are largely imaginary, and it -is hard to understand how a responsible critic has -come to cite, far more to emphasise them, as he has -done. We may relegate the discussion of them to a -note,<a name="FNanchor_631_631" id="FNanchor_631_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a> and need here only remark that there is among -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> -them but one of any significance: while the rest of the -book calls the Temple <i>the House</i> or <i>the House of -Jehovah</i> (or <i>of Jehovah of Hosts</i>), chap. ii. (10) 11–19 -styles it <i>palace</i>, or temple, of Jehovah.<a name="FNanchor_632_632" id="FNanchor_632_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a> On such a -difference between two comparatively brief passages -it would be unreasonable to decide for a distinction of -authorship.</p> - -<p>There is, therefore, no reason to disagree with the -consensus of all other critics in the integrity of the -Book of Haggai. The four sections are either from -himself or from a contemporary of his. They probably -represent,<a name="FNanchor_633_633" id="FNanchor_633_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> not the full addresses given by him on the -occasions stated, but abstracts or summaries of these. -“It is never an easy task to persuade a whole population -to make pecuniary sacrifices, or to postpone private -to public interests; and the probability is, that in -these brief remains of the prophet Haggai we have -but one or two specimens of a ceaseless diligence and -persistent determination, which upheld and animated -the whole people till the work was accomplished.”<a name="FNanchor_634_634" id="FNanchor_634_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> -At the same time it must be noticed that the style -of the book is not wholly of the bare, jejune prose -which it is sometimes described to be. The passages -of Haggai’s own exhortation are in the well-known -parallel rhythm of prophetic discourse: see especially -chap. i., ver. <a href="#Page_239">6</a>.</p> - -<p>The only other matter of Introduction to the prophet -Haggai is his name. The precise form<a name="FNanchor_635_635" id="FNanchor_635_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a> is not elsewhere -found in the Old Testament; but one of the -clans of the tribe of Gad is called Haggi,<a name="FNanchor_636_636" id="FNanchor_636_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> and the -letters H G I occur as the consonants of a name on -a Phœnician inscription.<a name="FNanchor_637_637" id="FNanchor_637_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> Some<a name="FNanchor_638_638" id="FNanchor_638_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> have taken Haggai to -be a contraction of Haggiyah, the name of a Levitical -family,<a name="FNanchor_639_639" id="FNanchor_639_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a> but although the final <i>yod</i> of some proper -names stands for Jehovah, we cannot certainly conclude -that it is so in this case. Others<a name="FNanchor_640_640" id="FNanchor_640_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> see in Haggai -a probable contraction for Hagariah,<a name="FNanchor_641_641" id="FNanchor_641_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a> as Zaccai, the -original of Zacchæus, is a contraction of Zechariah.<a name="FNanchor_642_642" id="FNanchor_642_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_642_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a> -A more general opinion<a name="FNanchor_643_643" id="FNanchor_643_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_643_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a> takes the termination as -adjectival,<a name="FNanchor_644_644" id="FNanchor_644_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_644_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a> and the root to be “hag,” <i>feast</i> or <i>festival</i>.<a name="FNanchor_645_645" id="FNanchor_645_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_645_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a> -In that case Haggai would mean <i>festal</i>, and it has been -supposed that the name would be given to him from -his birth on the day of some feast. It is impossible -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> -to decide with certainty among these alternatives. -M. Andrée,<a name="FNanchor_646_646" id="FNanchor_646_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_646_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> who accepts the meaning <i>festal</i>, ventures -the hypothesis that, like “Malachi,” Haggai is a symbolic -title given by a later hand to the anonymous writer -of the book, because of the coincidence of his various -prophecies with solemn festivals.<a name="FNanchor_647_647" id="FNanchor_647_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_647_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a> But the name is -too often and too naturally introduced into the book -to present any analogy to that of “Malachi”; and -the hypothesis may be dismissed as improbable and -unnatural.</p> - -<p>Nothing more is known of Haggai than his name -and the facts given in his book. But as with the -other prophets whom we have treated, so with this -one, Jewish and Christian legends have been very -busy. Other functions have been ascribed to him; -a sketch of his biography has been invented. According -to the Rabbis he was one of the men of the Great -Synagogue, and with Zechariah and “Malachi” transmitted -to that mythical body the tradition of the older -prophets.<a name="FNanchor_648_648" id="FNanchor_648_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_648_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a> He was the author of several ceremonial -regulations, and with Zechariah and “Malachi” introduced -into the alphabet the terminal forms of the five -elongated letters.<a name="FNanchor_649_649" id="FNanchor_649_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_649_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a> The Christian Fathers narrate that -he was of the tribe of Levi,<a name="FNanchor_650_650" id="FNanchor_650_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_650_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a> that with Zechariah he -prophesied in exile of the Return,<a name="FNanchor_651_651" id="FNanchor_651_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_651_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a> and was still young -when he arrived in Jerusalem,<a name="FNanchor_652_652" id="FNanchor_652_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_652_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a> where he died and was -buried. A strange legend, founded on the doubtful -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> -verse which styles him <i>the messenger of Jehovah</i>, -gave out that Haggai, as well as for similar reasons -“Malachi” and John the Baptist, were not men, but -angels in human shape.<a name="FNanchor_653_653" id="FNanchor_653_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_653_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a> With Zechariah Haggai -appears on the titles of Psalms cxxxvii., cxlv.-cxlviii. -in the Septuagint; cxi., cxlv., cxlvi. in the Vulgate; and -cxxv., cxxvi. and cxlv.-cxlviii. in the Peshitto.<a name="FNanchor_654_654" id="FNanchor_654_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_654_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a> “In -the Temple at Jerusalem he was the first who chanted -the Hallelujah, ... wherefore we say: Hallelujah, -which is the hymn of Haggai and Zechariah.”<a name="FNanchor_655_655" id="FNanchor_655_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_655_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a> All -these testimonies are, of course, devoid of value.</p> - -<p>Finally, the modern inference from chap. ii. 3, that -Haggai in his youth had seen the former Temple, had -gone into exile, and was now returned a very old -man,<a name="FNanchor_656_656" id="FNanchor_656_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_656_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> may be probable, but is not certain. We are -quite ignorant of his age at the time the word of -Jehovah came to him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">HAGGAI AND THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">H<span class="small">AGGAI</span> i., ii.</p> - -<p class="noindent">We have seen that the most probable solution of -the problems presented to us by the inadequate -and confused records of the time is that a considerable -number of Jewish exiles returned from Jerusalem -to Babylon about 537, upon the permission of Cyrus, -and that the Satrap whom he sent with them not only -allowed them to raise the altar on its ancient site, -but himself laid for them the foundation-stone of the -Temple.<a name="FNanchor_657_657" id="FNanchor_657_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_657_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a></p> - -<p>We have seen, too, why this attempt led to nothing, -and we have followed the Samaritan obstructions, the -failure of the Persian patronage, the drought and -bad harvests, and all the disillusion of the fifteen -years which succeeded the Return.<a name="FNanchor_658_658" id="FNanchor_658_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_658_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a> The hostility of -the Samaritans was entirely due to the refusal of the -Jews to give them a share in the construction of the -Temple, and its virulence, probably shown by preventing -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> -the Jews from procuring timber, seems to have ceased -when the Temple works were stopped. At least we -find no mention of it in our prophets; and the Jews -are furnished with enough of timber to panel and ciel -their own houses.<a name="FNanchor_659_659" id="FNanchor_659_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_659_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a> But the Jews must have feared -a renewal of Samaritan attacks if they resumed work -on the Temple, and for the rest they were too sodden -with adversity, and too weighted with the care of their -own sustenance, to spring at higher interests. What -immediately precedes our prophets is a miserable story -of barren seasons and little income, money leaking fast -away, and every man’s sordid heart engrossed with his -own household. Little wonder that critics have been -led to deny the great Return of sixteen years back, -with its grand ambitions for the Temple and glorious -future of Israel. But the like collapse has often been -experienced in history when bands of religious men, -going forth, as they thought, to freedom and the -immediate erection of a holy commonwealth, have found -their unity wrecked and their enthusiasm dissipated by -a few inclement seasons on a barren and a hostile -shore. Nature and their barbarous fellow-men have -frustrated what God had promised. Themselves, -accustomed from a high stage of civilisation to plan -still higher social structures, are suddenly reduced to -the primitive necessities of tillage and defence against -a savage foe. Statesmen, poets and idealists of sorts -have to hoe the ground, quarry stones and stay up of -nights to watch as sentinels. Destitute of the comforts -and resources with which they have grown up, they live -in constant battle with their bare and unsympathetic -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> -environs. It is a familiar tale in history, and we read -it with ease in the case of Israel. The Jews enjoyed -this advantage, that they came not to a strange land, -but to one crowded with inspiring memories, and they -had behind them the most glorious impetus of prophecy -which ever sent a people forward to the future. Yet -the very ardours of this hurried them past a due -appreciation of the difficulties they would have to -encounter, and when they found themselves on the -stony soil of Judah, which they had been idealising -for fifty years, and were further afflicted by barren -seasons, their hearts must have suffered an even more -bitter disillusion than has so frequently fallen to the -lot of religious emigrants to an absolutely new coast.</p> - -<h4 id="XVIIIsec1">1. -T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">ALL TO</span> - B<span class="small">UILD</span> (Chap. i.).</h4> - -<p>It was to this situation, upon an autumn day, when -the colonists felt another year of beggarly effort behind -them and their wretched harvest had been brought -home, that the prophet Haggai addressed himself. -With rare sense he confined his efforts to the practical -needs of the moment. The sneers of modern writers -have not been spared upon a style that is crabbed and -jejune, and they have esteemed this to be a collapse -of the prophetic spirit, in which Haggai ignored -all the achievements of prophecy and interpreted the -word of God as only a call to hew wood and lay -stone upon stone. But the man felt what the moment -needed, and that is the supreme mark of the prophet. -Set a prophet there, and what else could a prophet -have done? It would have been futile to rewaken -those most splendid voices of the past, which had in -part been the reason of the people’s disappointment, -and equally futile to interpret the mission of the great -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> -world powers towards God’s people. What God’s -people themselves could do for themselves—that was -what needed telling at the moment; and if Haggai -told it with a meagre and starved style, this also was -in harmony with the occasion. One does not expect -it otherwise when hungry men speak to each other -of their duty.</p> - -<p>Nor does Haggai deserve blame that he interpreted -the duty as the material building of the Temple. -This was no mere ecclesiastical function. Without -the Temple the continuity of Israel’s religion could -not be maintained. An independent state, with the -full courses of civic life, was then impossible. The -ethical spirit, the regard for each other and God, could -prevail over their material interests in no other way -than by common devotion to the worship of the God -of their fathers. In urging them to build the Temple -from their own unaided resources, in abstaining from -all hopes of imperial patronage, in making the business -one, not of sentiment nor of comfortable assurance -derived from the past promises of God, but of plain -and hard duty—Haggai illustrated at once the sanity -and the spiritual essence of prophecy in Israel.</p> - -<p>Professor Robertson Smith has contrasted the central -importance which Haggai attached to the Temple with -the attitude of Isaiah and Jeremiah, to whom “the -religion of Israel and the holiness of Jerusalem have -little to do with the edifice of the Temple. The city -is holy because it is the seat of Jehovah’s sovereignty -on earth, exerted in His dealings with and for the state -of Judah and the kingdom of David.”<a name="FNanchor_660_660" id="FNanchor_660_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_660_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a> At the same -time it ought to be pointed out that even to Isaiah the -Temple was the dwelling-place of Jehovah, and if it -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> -had been lying in ruins at his feet, as it was at Haggai’s, -there is little doubt he would have been as earnest as -Haggai in urging its reconstruction. Nor did the -Second Isaiah, who has as lofty an idea of the spiritual -destiny of the people as any other prophet, lay less -emphasis upon the cardinal importance of the Temple -to their life, and upon the certainty of its future glory.</p> - -<p><i>In the second year of Darius<a name="FNanchor_661_661" id="FNanchor_661_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_661_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a> the king, in the sixth -month and the first day of the month</i>—that is, on the -feast of the new moon—<i>the word of Jehovah came -by<a name="FNanchor_662_662" id="FNanchor_662_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_662_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el,<a name="FNanchor_663_663" id="FNanchor_663_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_663_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a> -Satrap of Judah, and to Jehoshua‛, son of Jehoṣadaḳ,<a name="FNanchor_664_664" id="FNanchor_664_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_664_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a> the -high priest</i>—the civil and religious heads of the community—<i>as -follows</i><a name="FNanchor_665_665" id="FNanchor_665_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_665_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a>:—</p> - -<p><i>Thus hath Jehovah of Hosts spoken, saying: This -people have said, Not yet<a name="FNanchor_666_666" id="FNanchor_666_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_666_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a> is come the time for the building -of Jehovah’s House. Therefore Jehovah’s word is come -by Haggai the prophet, saying: Is it a time for you—you<a name="FNanchor_667_667" id="FNanchor_667_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_667_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a>—to -be dwelling in houses cieled with planks,<a name="FNanchor_668_668" id="FNanchor_668_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_668_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> while -this House is waste? And now thus saith Jehovah of -Hosts: Lay to heart how things have gone with you.<a name="FNanchor_669_669" id="FNanchor_669_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_669_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a> Ye -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> -sowed much but had little income, ate and were not -satisfied, drank and were not full, put on clothing and -there was no warmth, while he that earned wages has -earned them into a bag with holes.</i></p> - -<p><i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts:<a name="FNanchor_670_670" id="FNanchor_670_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_670_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a> Go up into the -mountain</i>—the hill-country of Judah—<i>and bring in -timber, and build the House, that I may take pleasure -in it, and show My glory, saith Jehovah. Ye looked for -much and it has turned out little,<a name="FNanchor_671_671" id="FNanchor_671_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_671_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> and what ye brought -home I puffed at. On account of what?—oracle of -Jehovah of Hosts—on account of My House which -is waste, while ye are hurrying every man after his -own house. Therefore<a name="FNanchor_672_672" id="FNanchor_672_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_672_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> hath heaven shut off the dew,<a name="FNanchor_673_673" id="FNanchor_673_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_673_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a> -and earth shut off her increase. And I have called -drought upon the earth, both upon the mountains,<a name="FNanchor_674_674" id="FNanchor_674_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_674_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a> and -upon the corn, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and -upon what the ground brings forth, and upon man, -and upon beast, and upon all the labour of the hands.</i></p> - -<p>For ourselves, Haggai’s appeal to the barren seasons -and poverty of the people as proof of God’s anger with -their selfishness must raise questions. But we have -already seen, not only that natural calamities were by -the ancient world interpreted as the penal instruments -of the Deity, but that all through history they have -had a wonderful influence on the spirits of men, forcing -them to search their own hearts and to believe that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> -Providence is conducted for other ends than those of -our physical prosperity. “Have not those who have -believed as Amos believed ever been the strong spirits -of our race, making the very disasters which crushed -them to the earth the tokens that God has great views -about them?”<a name="FNanchor_675_675" id="FNanchor_675_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_675_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a> Haggai, therefore, takes no sordid -view of Providence when he interprets the seasons, -from which his countrymen had suffered, as God’s -anger upon their selfishness and delay in building His -House.</p> - -<p>The straight appeal to the conscience of the Jews -had an immediate effect. Within three weeks they -began work on the Temple.</p> - -<p><i>And Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el, and Jehoshua’, son -of Jehoṣadaḳ, the high priest, and all the rest of the people, -hearkened to the voice of Jehovah their God, and to the -words of Haggai the prophet, as Jehovah their God had -sent him; and the people feared before the face of Jehovah. -[And Haggai, the messenger of Jehovah, in Jehovah’s -mission to the people, spake, saying, I am with you—oracle -of Jehovah.]<a name="FNanchor_676_676" id="FNanchor_676_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_676_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> And Jehovah stirred the spirit of -Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el, Satrap of Judah, and the -spirit of Jehoshua’, son of Jehoṣadaḳ, the high priest, and -the spirit of all the rest of the people; and they went and -did work in the House of Jehovah of Hosts, their God, on -the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second -year of Darius the king.</i><a name="FNanchor_677_677" id="FNanchor_677_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_677_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a></p> - -<p>Note how the narrative emphasises that the new -energy was, as it could not but be from Haggai’s -unflattering words, a purely spiritual result. It was -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> -the <i>spirit</i> of Zerubbabel, and the <i>spirit</i> of Jehoshua, -and the <i>spirit</i> of all the rest of the people, which was -stirred—their conscience and radical force of character. -Not in vain had the people suffered their great disillusion -under Cyrus, if now their history was to start -again from sources so inward and so pure.</p> - - -<h4 id="XVIIIsec2">2. -C<span class="small">OURAGE</span>, - Z<span class="small">ERUBBABEL</span>! - C<span class="small">OURAGE</span>, - J<span class="small">EHOSHUA AND <br />ALL THE</span> - P<span class="small">EOPLE</span>! (Chap. ii. 1–9).</h4> - -<p>The second occasion on which Haggai spoke to the -people was another feast the same autumn, the seventh -day of the Feast of Tabernacles,<a name="FNanchor_678_678" id="FNanchor_678_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_678_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a> the twenty-first of -the seventh month. For nearly four weeks the work -on the Temple had proceeded. Some progress must -have been made, for comparisons became possible -between the old Temple and the state of this one. -Probably the outline and size of the building were -visible. In any case it was enough to discourage the -builders with their efforts and the means at their disposal. -Haggai’s new word is a very simple one of -encouragement. The people’s conscience had been -stirred by his first; they needed now some hope. Consequently -he appeals to what he had ignored before, -the political possibilities which the present state of -the world afforded—always a source of prophetic -promise. But again he makes his former call upon -their own courage and resources. The Hebrew text -contains a reference to the Exodus which would be -appropriate to a discourse delivered during the Feast -of Tabernacles, but it is not found in the Septuagint, -and is so impossible to construe that it has been justly -suspected as a gloss, inserted by some later hand, only -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> -because the passage had to do with the Feast of -Tabernacles.</p> - -<p><i>In the seventh</i> month, <i>on the twenty-first day of the -month, the word of Jehovah came by<a name="FNanchor_679_679" id="FNanchor_679_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_679_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a> Haggai the prophet, -saying</i>:—</p> - -<p><i>Speak now to Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el, Satrap -of Judah, and to Jehoshua’, son of Jehoṣadaḳ, the high -priest, and to the rest of the people, saying: Who among -you is left that saw this House in its former glory, and -how do ye see it now? Is it not as nothing in your -eyes?<a name="FNanchor_680_680" id="FNanchor_680_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_680_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> And now courage,<a name="FNanchor_681_681" id="FNanchor_681_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_681_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a> O Zerubbabel—oracle of -Jehovah—and courage, Jehoshua‛, son of Jehoṣadaḳ, O -high priest;<a name="FNanchor_682_682" id="FNanchor_682_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_682_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> and courage, all people of the land!—oracle -of Jehovah; and get to work, for I am with you—oracle -of Jehovah of Hosts<a name="FNanchor_683_683" id="FNanchor_683_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_683_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a>—and My Spirit is standing in your -midst. Fear not! For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: -It is but a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and -the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will -shake all nations, and the costly things<a name="FNanchor_684_684" id="FNanchor_684_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_684_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> of all nations shall -come in, and I will fill this House with glory, saith -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> -Jehovah of Hosts. Mine is the silver and Mine the gold—oracle -of Jehovah of Hosts. Greater shall the latter -glory of this House be than the former, saith Jehovah -of Hosts, and in this place will I give peace<a name="FNanchor_685_685" id="FNanchor_685_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_685_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a>—oracle -of Jehovah of Hosts.</i></p> - -<p>From the earliest times this passage, by the -majority of the Christian Church, has been interpreted -of the coming of Christ. The Vulgate renders -ver. 7<i>b</i>, <i>Et veniet Desideratus cunctis gentibus</i>, and so -a large number of the Latin Fathers, who are followed -by Luther, <i>Der Trost aller Heiden</i>, and by our own -Authorised Version, <i>And the Desire of all nations shall -come</i>. This was not contrary to Jewish tradition, for -Rabbi Akiba had defined the clause of the Messiah, -and Jerome received the interpretation from his Jewish -instructors. In itself the noun, as pointed in the -Massoretic text, means <i>longing</i> or <i>object of longing</i>.<a name="FNanchor_686_686" id="FNanchor_686_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_686_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a> -But the verb which goes with it is in the plural, and -by a change of points the noun itself may be read as -a plural.<a name="FNanchor_687_687" id="FNanchor_687_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_687_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a> That this was the original reading is made -extremely probable by the fact that it lay before the -translators of the Septuagint, who render: <i>the picked</i>, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> -or <i>chosen, things of the nations</i>.<a name="FNanchor_688_688" id="FNanchor_688_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_688_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a> So the old Italic -version: <i>Et venient omnia electa gentium</i>.<a name="FNanchor_689_689" id="FNanchor_689_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_689_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a> Moreover -this meaning suits the context, as the other does -not. The next verse mentions silver and gold. “We -may understand what he says,” writes Calvin, “of -Christ; we indeed know that Christ was the expectation -of the whole world; ... but as it immediately -follows, <i>Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold</i>, the -more simple meaning is that which I first stated: that -the nations would come, bringing with them all their -riches, that they might offer themselves and all their -possessions a sacrifice to God.”<a name="FNanchor_690_690" id="FNanchor_690_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_690_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a></p> - -<h4 id="XVIIIsec3">3. T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">OWER OF THE</span> - U<span class="small">NCLEAN</span> (Chap. ii. 10–19).</h4> - -<p>Haggai’s third address to the people is based on a -deliverance which he seeks from the priests. The -Book of Deuteronomy had provided that, in all difficult -cases not settled by its own code, the people shall -seek a <i>deliverance</i> or <i>Torah</i> from the priests, <i>and shall -observe to do according to the deliverance which the priests -deliver to thee</i>.<a name="FNanchor_691_691" id="FNanchor_691_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_691_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> Both noun and verb, which may be -thus literally translated, are also used for the completed -and canonical Law in Israel, and they signify -that in the time of the composition of the Book of -Deuteronomy that Law was still regarded as in process -of growth. So it is also in the time of Haggai: he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> -does not consult a code of laws, nor asks the priests -what the canon says, as, for instance, our Lord does -with the question, <i>how readest thou</i>? But he begs them -to give him <i>a</i> Torah or <i>deliverance</i>,<a name="FNanchor_692_692" id="FNanchor_692_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_692_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a> based of course -upon existing custom, but not yet committed to writing.<a name="FNanchor_693_693" id="FNanchor_693_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_693_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a> -For the history of the Law in Israel this is, therefore, -a passage of great interest.</p> - -<p><i>On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second -year of Darius, the word of Jehovah came to<a name="FNanchor_694_694" id="FNanchor_694_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_694_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> Haggai -the prophet, saying: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Ask, -I pray, of the priests a deliverance,<a name="FNanchor_695_695" id="FNanchor_695_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_695_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a> saying:—</i></p> - -<p><i>If a man be carrying flesh that is holy in the skirt of -his robe, and with his skirt touch bread or pottage or wine -or oil or any food, shall </i>the latter<i> become holy? And -the priests gave answer and said, No! And Haggai -said, If one unclean by a corpse<a name="FNanchor_696_696" id="FNanchor_696_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_696_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a> touch any of these, shall -</i>the latter<i> become unclean? And the priests gave answer -and said, It shall.</i> That is to say, holiness which -passed from the source to an object immediately in -touch with the latter did not spread further; but -pollution infected not only the person who came into -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> -contact with it, but whatever he touched.<a name="FNanchor_697_697" id="FNanchor_697_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_697_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a> “The flesh -of the sacrifice hallowed whatever it should touch, but -not further;<a name="FNanchor_698_698" id="FNanchor_698_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_698_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a> but the human being who was defiled by -touching a dead body, defiled all he might touch.”<a name="FNanchor_699_699" id="FNanchor_699_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_699_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a> -<i>And Haggai answered and said: So is this people, and -so is this nation before Me—oracle of Jehovah—and so -is all the work of their hands, and what they offer there</i>—at -the altar erected on its old site—<i>is unclean</i>.<a name="FNanchor_700_700" id="FNanchor_700_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_700_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a> That -is to say, while the Jews had expected their restored -ritual to make them holy to the Lord, this had not -been effective, while, on the contrary, their contact -with sources of pollution had thoroughly polluted both -themselves and their labour and their sacrifices. What -these sources of pollution are is not explicitly stated, -but Haggai, from his other messages, can only mean, -either the people’s want of energy in building the -Temple, or the unbuilt Temple itself. Andrée goes so -far as to compare the latter with the corpse, whose -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> -touch, according to the priests, spreads infection through -more than one degree. In any case Haggai means -to illustrate and enforce the building of the Temple -without delay; and meantime he takes one instance of -the effect he has already spoken of, <i>the work of their -hands</i>, and shows how it has been spoilt by their -neglect and delay. <i>And now, I pray, set your hearts -backward from to-day,<a name="FNanchor_701_701" id="FNanchor_701_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_701_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a> before stone was laid upon stone -in the Temple of Jehovah: ...<a name="FNanchor_702_702" id="FNanchor_702_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_702_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a> when one came to a -heap of grain of twenty measures, and it had become -ten, or went to the winevat to draw fifty measures,<a name="FNanchor_703_703" id="FNanchor_703_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_703_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a> and -it had become twenty. I smote you with blasting and with -withering,<a name="FNanchor_704_704" id="FNanchor_704_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_704_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a> and with hail all the work of your hands, -and ...<a name="FNanchor_705_705" id="FNanchor_705_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_705_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a>—oracle of Jehovah. Lay now your hearts -</i>on the time<i> before to-day<a name="FNanchor_706_706" id="FNanchor_706_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_706_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a> (the twenty-fourth day of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> -ninth month<a name="FNanchor_707_707" id="FNanchor_707_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_707_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a>), before the day of the foundation of the -Temple of Jehovah<a name="FNanchor_708_708" id="FNanchor_708_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_708_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a>—lay your hearts</i> to that time! <i>Is -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> -there yet</i> any <i>seed in the barn<a name="FNanchor_709_709" id="FNanchor_709_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_709_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a>? And as yet<a name="FNanchor_710_710" id="FNanchor_710_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_710_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a> the -vine, the fig-tree, the pomegranate and the olive have not -borne</i> fruit. <i>From this day I will bless thee.</i></p> - -<p>This then is the substance of the whole message. On -the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, somewhere -in our December, the Jews had been discouraged -that their attempts to build the Temple, begun three -months before,<a name="FNanchor_711_711" id="FNanchor_711_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_711_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a> had not turned the tide of their -misfortunes and produced prosperity in their agriculture. -Haggai tells them, there is not yet time for the -change to work. If contact with a holy thing has -only a slight effect, but contact with an unclean thing -has a much greater effect (verses 11–13), then their -attempts to build the Temple must have less good -influence upon their condition than the bad influence of -all their past devotion to themselves and their secular -labours. That is why adversity still continues, but -courage! from this day on God will bless. The whole -message is, therefore, opportune to the date at which -it was delivered, and comes naturally on the back of -Haggai’s previous oracles. Andrée’s reason for assigning -it to another writer, on the ground of its breaking -the connection, does not exist.<a name="FNanchor_712_712" id="FNanchor_712_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_712_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a></p> - -<p>These poor colonists, in their hope deferred, were -learning the old lesson, which humanity finds so hard -to understand, that repentance and new-born zeal do -not immediately work a change upon our material -condition; but the natural consequences of sin often -outweigh the influence of conversion, and though -devoted to God and very industrious we may still -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> -be punished for a sinful past. Evil has an infectious -power greater than that of holiness. Its effects are -more extensive and lasting.<a name="FNanchor_713_713" id="FNanchor_713_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_713_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a> It was no bit of casuistry -which Haggai sought to illustrate by his appeal to the -priests on the ceremonial law, but an ethical truth -deeply embedded in human experience.</p> - -<h4 id="XVIIIsec4">4.T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">EINVESTMENT OF</span> - I<span class="small">SRAEL’S</span> - H<span class="small">OPE</span> (Chap. ii. 20–23).</h4> - -<p>On the same day Haggai published another oracle, -in which he put the climax to his own message by re-investing -in Zerubbabel the ancient hopes of his people. -When the monarchy fell the Messianic hopes were -naturally no longer concentrated in the person of a king; -and the great evangelist of the Exile found the elect and -anointed Servant of Jehovah in the people as a whole, -or in at least the pious part of them, with functions -not of political government but of moral influence and -instruction towards all the peoples of the earth. Yet -in the Exile Ezekiel still predicted an individual -Messiah, a son of the house of David; only it is significant -that, in his latest prophecies delivered after the -overthrow of Jerusalem, Ezekiel calls him not <i>king</i><a name="FNanchor_714_714" id="FNanchor_714_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_714_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a> -any more, but <i>prince</i>.<a name="FNanchor_715_715" id="FNanchor_715_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_715_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> -After the return of Sheshbazzar to Babylon this -position was virtually filled by Zerubbabel, a grandson -of Jehoiakin, the second last king of Judah, and -appointed by the Persian king Peḥah or Satrap of -Judah. Him Haggai now formally names the elect -servant of Jehovah. In that overturning of the kingdoms -of the world which Haggai had predicted two -months before, and which he now explains as their -mutual destruction by war, Jehovah of Hosts will -make Zerubbabel His signet-ring, inseparable from -Himself and the symbol of His authority.</p> - -<p><i>And the word of Jehovah came a second time to<a name="FNanchor_716_716" id="FNanchor_716_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_716_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a> -Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the</i> ninth <i>month, -saying: Speak to Zerubbabel, Satrap of Judah, saying: -I am about to shake the heavens and the earth,<a name="FNanchor_717_717" id="FNanchor_717_717"></a><a href="#Footnote_717_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a> and I -will overturn the thrones<a name="FNanchor_718_718" id="FNanchor_718_718"></a><a href="#Footnote_718_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a> of kingdoms, and will shatter -the power of the kingdoms of the Gentiles, and will overturn -chariots<a name="FNanchor_719_719" id="FNanchor_719_719"></a><a href="#Footnote_719_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a> and their riders, and horses and their -riders will come down, every man by the sword of his -brother. In that day—oracle of Jehovah of Hosts—I -will take Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el, My servant—oracle -of Jehovah—and will make him like a signet-ring; -for thee have I chosen—oracle of Jehovah of Hosts.</i></p> - -<p>The wars and mutual destruction of the Gentiles, of -which Haggai speaks, are doubtless those revolts of -races and provinces, which threatened to disrupt the -Persian Empire upon the accession of Darius in 521. -Persians, Babylonians, Medes, Armenians, the Sacæ -and others rose together or in succession. In four -years Darius quelled them all, and reorganised his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> -empire before the Jews finished their Temple. Like -all the Syrian governors, Zerubbabel remained his poor -lieutenant and submissive tributary. History rolled -westward into Europe. Greek and Persian began their -struggle for the control of its future, and the Jews fell -into an obscurity and oblivion unbroken for centuries. -The <i>signet-ring of Jehovah</i> was not acknowledged by -the world—does not seem even to have challenged its -briefest attention. But Haggai had at least succeeded in -asserting the Messianic hope of Israel, always baffled, -never quenched, in this re-opening of her life. He had -delivered the ancient heritage of Israel to the care of -the new Judaism.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Haggai’s place in the succession of prophecy ought -now to be clear to us. The meagreness of his words -and their crabbed style, his occupation with the construction -of the Temple, his unfulfilled hope in Zerubbabel, -his silence on the great inheritance of truth -delivered by his predecessors, and the absence from -his prophesying of all visions of God’s character and -all emphasis upon the ethical elements of religion—these -have moved some to depress his value as a -prophet almost to the vanishing point. Nothing could -be more unjust. In his opening message Haggai -evinced the first indispensable power of the prophet: -to speak to the situation of the moment, and to succeed -in getting men to take up the duty at their feet; -in another message he announced a great ethical -principle; in his last he conserved the Messianic traditions -of his religion, and though not less disappointed -than Isaiah in the personality to whom he looked for -their fulfilment, he succeeded in passing on their hope -undiminished to future ages.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> -<h2 id="Zechariah1" class="nobreak">ZECHARIAH<br /> - <small>(I.—VIII.)</small></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> - -<p class="italic">Not by might, and not by force, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of -Hosts.</p> - -<p class="italic">Be not afraid, strengthen your hands! Speak truth, every man to his -neighbour; truth and wholesome judgment judge ye in your gates, and -in your hearts plan no evil for each other, nor take pleasure in false -swearing, for all these things do I hate—oracle of Jehovah.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH (I.—VIII.)</p> - - -<p class="noindent">The Book of Zechariah, consisting of fourteen -chapters, falls clearly into two divisions: <i>First</i>, -chaps. i.—viii., ascribed to Zechariah himself and -full of evidence for their authenticity; <i>Second</i>, -chaps. ix.—xiv., which are not ascribed to Zechariah, -and deal with conditions different from those upon -which he worked. The full discussion of the date and -character of this second section we shall reserve till we -reach the period at which we believe it to have been -written. Here an introduction is necessary only to -chaps. i.—viii.</p> - -<p>These chapters may be divided into five sections.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>I. Chap. i. 1–6.—A Word of Jehovah which came to Zechariah in the -eighth month of the second year of Darius, that is in November 520 -<span class="small">B.C.</span>, or between the second and the third oracles of Haggai.<a name="FNanchor_720_720" id="FNanchor_720_720"></a><a href="#Footnote_720_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a> In this -the prophet’s place is affirmed in the succession of the prophets of -Israel. The ancient prophets are gone, but their predictions have -been fulfilled in the calamities of the Exile, and God’s Word abides -for ever.</p> - -<p>II. Chap. i. 7—vi. 9.—A Word of Jehovah which came to Zechariah -on the twenty-fourth of the eleventh month of the same year, that -is January or February 519, and which he reproduces in the form of -eight Visions by night. (1) The Vision of the Four Horsemen: God’s -new mercies to Jerusalem (chap. i. 7–17). (2) The Vision of the Four -Horns, or Powers of the World, and the Four Smiths, who smite -them down (ii. 1–4 Heb., but in the Septuagint and in the English -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> -Version i. 18–21). (3) The Vision of the Man with the Measuring -Rope: Jerusalem shall be rebuilt, no longer as a narrow fortress, but -spread abroad for the multitude of her population (chap. ii. 5–9 Heb., -ii. 1–5 LXX. and Eng.). To this Vision is appended a lyric piece -of probably older date calling upon the Jews in Babylon to return, -and celebrating the joining of many peoples to Jehovah, now that -He takes up again His habitation in Jerusalem (chap. ii. 10–17 Heb., -ii. 6–13 LXX. and Eng.). (4) The Vision of Joshua, the High Priest, -and the Satan or Accuser: the Satan is rebuked, and Joshua is -cleansed from his foul garments and clothed with a new turban and -festal apparel; the land is purged and secure (chap. iii.). (5) The -Vision of the Seven-Branched Lamp and the Two Olive-Trees -(chap. iv. 1–6<i>a</i>, 10<i>b</i>-14): into the centre of this has been inserted -a Word of Jehovah to Zerubbabel (vv. 6<i>b</i>-10<i>a</i>), which interrupts -the Vision and ought probably to come at the close of it. (6) The -Vision of the Flying Book: it is the curse of the land, which is being -removed, but after destroying the houses of the wicked (chap. v. 1–4). -(7) The Vision of the Bushel and the Woman: that is the guilt of -the land and its wickedness; they are carried off and planted in the -land of Shinar (v. 5–11). (8) The Vision of the Four Chariots: they -go forth from the Lord of all the earth, to traverse the earth and -bring His Spirit, or anger, to bear on the North country (chap. vi. 1–8).</p> - -<p>III. Chap. vi. 9–15.—A Word of Jehovah, undated (unless it is to -be taken as of the same date as the Visions to which it is attached), -giving directions as to the gifts sent to the community at Jerusalem -from the Babylonian Jews. A crown is to be made from the silver -and gold, and, according to the text, placed upon the head of Joshua. -But, as we shall see,<a name="FNanchor_721_721" id="FNanchor_721_721"></a><a href="#Footnote_721_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a> the text gives evident signs of having been -altered in the interest of the High Priest; and probably the crown -was meant for Zerubbabel, at whose right hand the priest is to stand, -and there shall be a counsel of peace between the two of them. The -far-away shall come and assist at the building of the Temple. This -section breaks off in the middle of a sentence.</p> - -<p>IV. Chap. vii.—The Word of Jehovah which came to Zechariah on -the fourth of the ninth month of the fourth year of Darius, that is -nearly two years after the date of the Visions. The Temple was -approaching completion; and an inquiry was addressed to the priests -who were in it and to the prophets concerning the Fasts, which -had been maintained during the Exile, while the Temple lay desolate -(chap. vii. 1–3). This inquiry drew from Zechariah a historical -explanation of how the Fasts arose (chap. vii. 4–14).</p> - -<p>V. Chap. viii.—Ten short undated oracles, each introduced by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> -the same formula, <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts</i>, and summarising all -Zechariah’s teaching since before the Temple began up to the question -of the cessation of the Fasts upon its completion—with promises -for the future. (1) A Word affirming Jehovah’s new zeal for -Jerusalem and His Return to her (vv. 1, 2). (2) Another of the -same (ver. 3). (3) A Word promising fulness of old folk and -children in her streets (vv. 4, 5). (4) A Word affirming that -nothing is too wonderful for Jehovah (ver. 6). (5) A Word promising -the return of the people from east and west (vv. 7, 8). -(6 and 7) Two Words contrasting, in terms similar to Haggai i., the -poverty of the people before the foundation of the Temple with their -new prosperity: from a curse Israel shall become a blessing. This -is due to God’s anger having changed into a purpose of grace to -Jerusalem. But the people themselves must do truth and justice, -ceasing from perjury and thoughts of evil against each other -(vv. 9–17). (8) A Word which recurs to the question of Fasting, -and commands that the four great Fasts, instituted to commemorate -the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem, and the murder of Gedaliah, -be changed to joy and gladness (vv. 18, 19). (9) A Word predicting -the coming of the Gentiles to the worship of Jehovah at -Jerusalem (vv. 20–22). (10) Another of the same (ver. 23).</p></div> - -<p>There can be little doubt that, apart from the few -interpolations noted, these eight chapters are genuine -prophecies of Zechariah, who is mentioned in the Book -of Ezra as the colleague of Haggai, and contemporary -of Zerubbabel and Joshua at the time of the rebuilding -of the Temple.<a name="FNanchor_722_722" id="FNanchor_722_722"></a><a href="#Footnote_722_722" class="fnanchor">[722]</a> Like the oracles of Haggai, these -prophecies are dated according to the years of Darius -the king, from his second year to his fourth. Although -they may contain some of the exhortations to -build the Temple, which the Book of Ezra informs us -that Zechariah made along with Haggai, the most of -them presuppose progress in the work, and seek -to assist it by historical retrospect and by glowing -hopes of the Messianic effects of its completion. Their -allusions suit exactly the years to which they are -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> -assigned. Darius is king. The Exile has lasted about -seventy years.<a name="FNanchor_723_723" id="FNanchor_723_723"></a><a href="#Footnote_723_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a> Numbers of Jews remain in Babylon,<a name="FNanchor_724_724" id="FNanchor_724_724"></a><a href="#Footnote_724_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a> -and are scattered over the rest of the world.<a name="FNanchor_725_725" id="FNanchor_725_725"></a><a href="#Footnote_725_725" class="fnanchor">[725]</a> The -community at Jerusalem is small and weak: it is the -mere colony of young men and men in middle life who -came to it from Babylon; there are few children and -old folk.<a name="FNanchor_726_726" id="FNanchor_726_726"></a><a href="#Footnote_726_726" class="fnanchor">[726]</a> Joshua and Zerubbabel are the heads of -the community, and the pledges for its future.<a name="FNanchor_727_727" id="FNanchor_727_727"></a><a href="#Footnote_727_727" class="fnanchor">[727]</a> The -exact conditions are recalled as recent which Haggai -spoke of a few years before.<a name="FNanchor_728_728" id="FNanchor_728_728"></a><a href="#Footnote_728_728" class="fnanchor">[728]</a> Moreover, there is a -steady and orderly progress throughout the prophecies, -in harmony with the successive dates at which they -were delivered. In November 520 they begin with a -cry to repentance and lessons drawn from the past of -prophecy.<a name="FNanchor_729_729" id="FNanchor_729_729"></a><a href="#Footnote_729_729" class="fnanchor">[729]</a> In January 519 Temple and City are still -to be built.<a name="FNanchor_730_730" id="FNanchor_730_730"></a><a href="#Footnote_730_730" class="fnanchor">[730]</a> Zerubbabel has laid the foundation; the -completion is yet future.<a name="FNanchor_731_731" id="FNanchor_731_731"></a><a href="#Footnote_731_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a> The prophet’s duty is to -quiet the people’s apprehensions about the state of the -world,<a name="FNanchor_732_732" id="FNanchor_732_732"></a><a href="#Footnote_732_732" class="fnanchor">[732]</a> to provoke their zeal,<a name="FNanchor_733_733" id="FNanchor_733_733"></a><a href="#Footnote_733_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a> give them confidence -in their great men,<a name="FNanchor_734_734" id="FNanchor_734_734"></a><a href="#Footnote_734_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a> and, above all, assure them that -God is returned to them<a name="FNanchor_735_735" id="FNanchor_735_735"></a><a href="#Footnote_735_735" class="fnanchor">[735]</a> and their sin pardoned.<a name="FNanchor_736_736" id="FNanchor_736_736"></a><a href="#Footnote_736_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a> -But in December 518 the Temple is so far built -that the priests are said to belong to it;<a name="FNanchor_737_737" id="FNanchor_737_737"></a><a href="#Footnote_737_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a> there is no -occasion for continuing the fasts of the Exile,<a name="FNanchor_738_738" id="FNanchor_738_738"></a><a href="#Footnote_738_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a> the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> -future has opened and the horizon is bright with -the Messianic hopes.<a name="FNanchor_739_739" id="FNanchor_739_739"></a><a href="#Footnote_739_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a> Most of all, it is felt that -the hard struggle with the forces of nature is over, -and the people are exhorted to the virtues of the -civic life.<a name="FNanchor_740_740" id="FNanchor_740_740"></a><a href="#Footnote_740_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a> They have time to lift their eyes from -their work and see the nations coming from afar to -Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_741_741" id="FNanchor_741_741"></a><a href="#Footnote_741_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a></p> - -<p>These features leave no room for doubt that the -great bulk of the first eight chapters of the Book -of Zechariah are by the prophet himself, and from the -years to which he assigns them, November 520 to -December 518. The point requires no argument.</p> - -<p>There are, however, three passages which provoke -further examination—two of them because of the signs -they bear of an earlier date, and one because of the -alteration it has suffered in the interests of a later day -in Israel’s history.</p> - -<p>The lyric passage which is appended to the Second -Vision (chap. ii 10–17 Heb., 6–13 LXX. and Eng.) -suggests questions by its singularity: there is no other -such among the Visions. But in addition to this it -speaks not only of the Return from Babylon as still -future<a name="FNanchor_742_742" id="FNanchor_742_742"></a><a href="#Footnote_742_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a>—this might still be said after the First Return -of the exiles in 536<a name="FNanchor_743_743" id="FNanchor_743_743"></a><a href="#Footnote_743_743" class="fnanchor">[743]</a>—but it differs from the language -of all the Visions proper in describing the return of -Jehovah Himself to Zion as still future. The whole, -too, has the ring of the great odes in Isaiah xl.—lv., -and seems to reflect the same situation, upon the eve -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> -of Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon. There can be little -doubt that we have here inserted in Zechariah’s Visions -a song of twenty years earlier, but we must confess -inability to decide whether it was adopted by Zechariah -himself or added by a later hand.<a name="FNanchor_744_744" id="FNanchor_744_744"></a><a href="#Footnote_744_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a></p> - -<p>Again, there are the two passages called the Word -of Jehovah to Zerubbabel, chap. iv. 6<i>b</i>-10<i>a</i>; and the -Word of Jehovah concerning the gifts which came to -Jerusalem from the Jews in Babylon, chap. vi. 9–15. -The first, as Wellhausen has shown,<a name="FNanchor_745_745" id="FNanchor_745_745"></a><a href="#Footnote_745_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a> is clearly out of -place; it disturbs the narrative of the Vision, and is to -be put at the end of the latter. The second is undated, -and separate from the Visions. The second plainly -affirms that the building of the Temple is still future. -The man whose name is Branch or Shoot is designated: -<i>and he shall build the Temple of Jehovah</i>. The first is -in the same temper as the first two oracles of Haggai. -It is possible then that these two passages are not, -like the Visions with which they are taken, to be -dated from 519, but represent that still earlier prophesying -of Zechariah with which we are told he -assisted Haggai in instigating the people to begin to -build the Temple.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The style of the prophet Zechariah betrays special -features almost only in the narrative of the Visions. -Outside these his language is simple, direct and pure, -as it could not but be, considering how much of it is -drawn from, or modelled upon, the older prophets,<a name="FNanchor_746_746" id="FNanchor_746_746"></a><a href="#Footnote_746_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a> -and chiefly Hosea and Jeremiah. Only one or two -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> -lapses into a careless and degenerate dialect show us -how the prophet might have written, had he not been -sustained by the music of the classical periods of the -language.<a name="FNanchor_747_747" id="FNanchor_747_747"></a><a href="#Footnote_747_747" class="fnanchor">[747]</a></p> - -<p>This directness and pith is not shared by the -language in which the Visions are narrated.<a name="FNanchor_748_748" id="FNanchor_748_748"></a><a href="#Footnote_748_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a> Here the -style is involved and redundant. The syntax is loose; -there is a frequent omission of the copula, and of other -means by which, in better Hebrew, connection and -conciseness are sustained. The formulas, <i>thus saith</i> -and <i>saying</i>, are repeated to weariness. At the same -time it is fair to ask, how much of this redundancy -was due to Zechariah himself? Take the Septuagint -version. The Hebrew text, which it followed, not only -included a number of repetitions of the formulas, and -of the designations of the personages introduced into -the Visions, which do not occur in the Massoretic text,<a name="FNanchor_749_749" id="FNanchor_749_749"></a><a href="#Footnote_749_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> -but omitted some which are found in the Massoretic -text.<a name="FNanchor_750_750" id="FNanchor_750_750"></a><a href="#Footnote_750_750" class="fnanchor">[750]</a> These two sets of phenomena prove that from -an early date the copiers of the original text of Zechariah -must have been busy in increasing its redundancies. -Further, there are still earlier intrusions and expansions, -for these are shared by both the Hebrew and -the Greek texts: some of them very natural efforts to -clear up the personages and conversations recorded in -the dreams,<a name="FNanchor_751_751" id="FNanchor_751_751"></a><a href="#Footnote_751_751" class="fnanchor">[751]</a> some of them stupid mistakes in understanding -the drift of the argument.<a name="FNanchor_752_752" id="FNanchor_752_752"></a><a href="#Footnote_752_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a> There must of -course have been a certain amount of redundancy in -the original to provoke such aggravations of it, and of -obscurity or tortuousness of style to cause them to be -deemed necessary. But it would be very unjust to -charge all the faults of our present text to Zechariah -himself, especially when we find such force and simplicity -in the passages outside the Visions. Of course -the involved and misty subjects of the latter naturally -forced upon the description of them a laboriousness -of art, to which there was no provocation in directly -exhorting the people to a pure life, or in straightforward -predictions of the Messianic era.</p> - -<p>Beyond the corruptions due to these causes, the text -of Zechariah i.—viii. has not suffered more than that -of our other prophets. There are one or two clerical -errors;<a name="FNanchor_753_753" id="FNanchor_753_753"></a><a href="#Footnote_753_753" class="fnanchor">[753]</a> an occasional preposition or person of a verb -needs to be amended. Here and there the text has -been disarranged;<a name="FNanchor_754_754" id="FNanchor_754_754"></a><a href="#Footnote_754_754" class="fnanchor">[754]</a> and as already noticed, there has -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> -been one serious alteration of the original.<a name="FNanchor_755_755" id="FNanchor_755_755"></a><a href="#Footnote_755_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a></p> - -<p>From the foregoing paragraphs it must be apparent -what help and hindrance in the reconstruction of the -text is furnished by the Septuagint. A list of its variant -readings and of its mistranslations is appended.<a name="FNanchor_756_756" id="FNanchor_756_756"></a><a href="#Footnote_756_756" class="fnanchor">[756]</a></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">ZECHARIAH THE PROPHET</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> i. 1–6, etc.; - E<span class="small">ZRA</span> v. 1, vi. 14</p> - -<p class="noindent">Zechariah is one of the prophets whose personality -as distinguished from their message exerts -some degree of fascination on the student. This is not -due, however, as in the case of Hosea or Jeremiah, -to the facts of his life, for of these we know extremely -little; but to certain conflicting symptoms of character -which appear through his prophecies.</p> - -<p>His name was a very common one in Israel, Zekher-Yah, -<i>Jehovah remembers</i>.<a name="FNanchor_757_757" id="FNanchor_757_757"></a><a href="#Footnote_757_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a> In his own book he is -described as <i>the son of Berekh-Yah, the son of Iddo</i>,<a name="FNanchor_758_758" id="FNanchor_758_758"></a><a href="#Footnote_758_758" class="fnanchor">[758]</a> and -in the Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra as <i>the -son of Iddo</i>.<a name="FNanchor_759_759" id="FNanchor_759_759"></a><a href="#Footnote_759_759" class="fnanchor">[759]</a> Some have explained this difference by -supposing that Berekhyah was the actual father of the -prophet, but that either he died early, leaving Zechariah -to the care of the grandfather, or else that he was a -man of no note, and Iddo was more naturally mentioned -as the head of the family. There are several instances -in the Old Testament of men being called the sons of -their grandfathers:<a name="FNanchor_760_760" id="FNanchor_760_760"></a><a href="#Footnote_760_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a> as in these cases the grandfather -was the reputed founder of the house, so in that of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> -Zechariah Iddo was the head of his family when it -came out of Babylon and was anew planted in Jerusalem. -Others, however, have contested the genuineness -of the words <i>son of Berekh-Yah</i>, and have traced their -insertion to a confusion of the prophet with Zechariah -son of Yĕbherekh-Yahu, the contemporary of Isaiah.<a name="FNanchor_761_761" id="FNanchor_761_761"></a><a href="#Footnote_761_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a> -This is precarious, while the other hypothesis is a -very natural one.<a name="FNanchor_762_762" id="FNanchor_762_762"></a><a href="#Footnote_762_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a> Whichever be correct, the prophet -Zechariah was a member of the priestly family of Iddo, -that came up to Jerusalem from Babylon under Cyrus.<a name="FNanchor_763_763" id="FNanchor_763_763"></a><a href="#Footnote_763_763" class="fnanchor">[763]</a> -The Book of Nehemiah adds that in the high-priesthood -of Yoyakim, the son of Joshua, the head of the house -of Iddo was a Zechariah.<a name="FNanchor_764_764" id="FNanchor_764_764"></a><a href="#Footnote_764_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a> If this be our prophet, then -he was probably a young man in 520,<a name="FNanchor_765_765" id="FNanchor_765_765"></a><a href="#Footnote_765_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a> and had come -up as a child in the caravans from Babylon. The -Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra<a name="FNanchor_766_766" id="FNanchor_766_766"></a><a href="#Footnote_766_766" class="fnanchor">[766]</a> assigns to -Zechariah a share with Haggai in the work of instigating -Zerubbabel and Jeshua to begin the Temple. None -of his oracles is dated previous to the beginning of the -work in August 520, but we have seen<a name="FNanchor_767_767" id="FNanchor_767_767"></a><a href="#Footnote_767_767" class="fnanchor">[767]</a> that among -those undated there are one or two which by referring -to the building of the Temple as still future may -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> -contain some relics of that first stage of his ministry. -From November 520 we have the first of his dated -oracles; his Visions followed in January 519, and his -last recorded prophesying in December 518.<a name="FNanchor_768_768" id="FNanchor_768_768"></a><a href="#Footnote_768_768" class="fnanchor">[768]</a></p> - -<p>These are all the certain events of Zechariah’s -history. But in the well-attested prophecies he has -left we discover, besides some obvious traits of character, -certain problems of style and expression which -suggest a personality of more than usual interest. -Loyalty to the great voices of old, the temper which -appeals to the experience, rather than to the dogmas, -of the past, the gift of plain speech to his own times, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> -a wistful anxiety about his reception as a prophet<a name="FNanchor_769_769" id="FNanchor_769_769"></a><a href="#Footnote_769_769" class="fnanchor">[769]</a> -combined with the absence of all ambition to be -original or anything but the clear voice of the lessons -of the past and of the conscience of to-day—these are -the qualities which characterise Zechariah’s orations -to the people. But how to reconcile them with the -strained art and obscure truths of the Visions—it is -this which invests with interest the study of his -personality. We have proved that the obscurity and -redundancy of the Visions cannot all have been due -to himself. Later hands have exaggerated the repetitions -and ravelled the processes of the original. But -these gradual blemishes have not grown from nothing: -the original style must have been sufficiently involved -to provoke the interpolations of the scribes, and it -certainly contained all the weird and shifting apparitions -which we find so hard to make clear to ourselves. -The problem, therefore, remains—how one who had -gift of speech, so straight and clear, came to torture -and tangle his style; how one who presented with all -plainness the main issues of his people’s history found -it laid upon him to invent, for the further expression -of these, symbols so laboured and intricate.</p> - -<p>We begin with the oracle, which opens his book and -illustrates those simple characteristics of the man that -contrast so sharply with the temper of his Visions.</p> - -<p><i>In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the -word of Jehovah came to the prophet Zechariah, son of -Berekhyah, son of Iddo,<a name="FNanchor_770_770" id="FNanchor_770_770"></a><a href="#Footnote_770_770" class="fnanchor">[770]</a> saying: Jehovah was very -wroth<a name="FNanchor_771_771" id="FNanchor_771_771"></a><a href="#Footnote_771_771" class="fnanchor">[771]</a> with your fathers. And thou shalt say unto them: -Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Turn ye to Me—oracle of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> -Jehovah of Hosts—that I may turn to you, saith Jehovah -of Hosts! Be not like your fathers, to whom the former -prophets preached, saying: “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, -Turn now from your evil ways and from<a name="FNanchor_772_772" id="FNanchor_772_772"></a><a href="#Footnote_772_772" class="fnanchor">[772]</a> your evil -deeds,” but they hearkened not, and paid no attention to -Me—oracle of Jehovah. Your fathers, where are they? -And the prophets, do they live for ever? But<a name="FNanchor_773_773" id="FNanchor_773_773"></a><a href="#Footnote_773_773" class="fnanchor">[773]</a> My words -and My statutes, with which I charged My servants the -prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? till these -turned and said, As Jehovah of Hosts did purpose to do -unto us, according to our deeds and according to our -ways, so hath He dealt with us.</i></p> - -<p>It is a sign of the new age which we have reached, -that its prophet should appeal to the older prophets -with as much solemnity as they did to Moses himself. -The history which led to the Exile has become to Israel -as classic and sacred as her great days of deliverance -from Egypt and of conquest in Canaan. But still -more significant is what Zechariah seeks from that -past; this we must carefully discover, if we would -appreciate with exactness his rank as a prophet.</p> - -<p>The development of religion may be said to consist -of a struggle between two tempers, both of which -indeed appeal to the past, but from very opposite -motives. The one proves its devotion to the older -prophets by adopting the exact formulas of their doctrine, -counts these sacred to the letter, and would enforce -them in detail upon the minds and circumstances -of the new generation. It conceives that truth has -been promulgated once for all in forms as enduring -as the principles they contain. It fences ancient rites, -cherishes old customs and institutions, and when these -are questioned it becomes alarmed and even savage. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> -The other temper is no whit behind this one in its -devotion to the past, but it seeks the ancient prophets -not so much for what they have said as for what they -have been, not for what they enforced but for what -they encountered, suffered and confessed. It asks not -for dogmas but for experience and testimony. He -who can thus read the past and interpret it to his own -day—he is the prophet. In his reading he finds nothing -so clear, nothing so tragic, nothing so convincing as -the working of the Word of God. He beholds how -this came to men, haunted them and was entreated by -them. He sees that it was their great opportunity, -which being rejected became their judgment. He finds -abused justice vindicated, proud wrong punished, and -all God’s neglected commonplaces achieving in time -their triumph. He reads how men came to see this, and -to confess their guilt. He is haunted by the remorse -of generations who know how they might have obeyed -the Divine call, but wilfully did not. And though they -have perished, and the prophets have died and their -formulas are no more applicable, the victorious Word -itself still lives and cries to men with the terrible -emphasis of their fathers’ experience. All this is the -vision of the true prophet, and it was the vision of -Zechariah.</p> - -<p>His generation was one whose chief temptation was -to adopt towards the past the other attitude we have -described. In their feebleness what could the poor -remnant of Israel do but cling servilely to the former -greatness? The vindication of the Exile had stamped -the Divine authority of the earlier prophets. The -habits, which the life in Babylon had perfected, of -arranging and codifying the literature of the past, and -of employing it, in place of altar and ritual, in the -stated service of God, had canonised Scripture and -provoked men to the worship of its very letter. Had -the real prophet not again been raised, these habits -might have too early produced the belief that the -Word of God was exhausted, and must have fastened -upon the feeble life of Israel that mass of stiff and -stark dogmas, the literal application of which Christ -afterwards found crushing the liberty and the force of -religion. Zechariah prevented this—for a time. He -himself was mighty in the Scriptures of the past: no -man in Israel makes larger use of them. But he -employs them as witnesses, not as dogmas; he finds -in them not authority, but experience.<a name="FNanchor_774_774" id="FNanchor_774_774"></a><a href="#Footnote_774_774" class="fnanchor">[774]</a> He reads their -testimony to the ever-living presence of God’s Word -with men. And seeing that, though the old forms and -figures have perished with the hearts which shaped -them, the Word itself in its bare truth has vindicated -its life by fulfilment in history, he knows that it lives -still, and hurls it upon his people, not in the forms -published by this or that prophet of long ago, but in -its essence and direct from God Himself, as His Word -for to-day and now. <i>The fathers, where are they? -And the prophets, do they live for ever? But My words -and My statutes, with which I charged My servants the -prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? Thus -saith Jehovah of Hosts, Be ye not like your fathers, but -turn ye to Me that I may turn to you.</i></p> - -<p>The argument of this oracle might very naturally -have been narrowed into a credential for the prophet -himself as sent from God. About his reception as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> -Jehovah’s messenger Zechariah shows a repeated -anxiety. Four times he concludes a prediction with -the words, <i>And ye shall know that Jehovah hath sent -me</i>,<a name="FNanchor_775_775" id="FNanchor_775_775"></a><a href="#Footnote_775_775" class="fnanchor">[775]</a> as if after his first utterances he had encountered -that suspicion and unbelief which a prophet never -failed to suffer from his contemporaries. But in this -oracle there is no trace of such personal anxiety. -The oracle is pervaded only with the desire to prove -the ancient Word of God as still alive, and to drive -it home in its own sheer force. Like the greatest of -his order, Zechariah appears with the call to repent: -<i>Turn ye to Me—oracle of Jehovah of Hosts—that I may -turn to you</i>. This is the pivot on which history has -turned, the one condition on which God has been able -to help men. Wherever it is read as the conclusion -of all the past, wherever it is proclaimed as the conscience -of the present, there the true prophet is found -and the Word of God has been spoken.</p> - -<p>The same possession by the ethical spirit reappears, -as we shall see, in Zechariah’s orations to the people -after the anxieties of building are over and the completion -of the Temple is in sight. In these he affirms -again that the whole essence of God’s Word by the -older prophets has been moral—to judge true judgment, -to practise mercy, to defend the widow and orphan, the -stranger and poor, and to think no evil of one another. -For the sad fasts of the Exile Zechariah enjoins gladness, -with the duty of truth and the hope of peace. Again -and again he enforces sincerity and the love without -dissimulation. His ideals for Jerusalem are very high, -including the conversion of the nations to her God. -But warlike ambitions have vanished from them, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> -his pictures of her future condition are homely and -practical. Jerusalem shall be no more a fortress, but -spread village-wise without walls.<a name="FNanchor_776_776" id="FNanchor_776_776"></a><a href="#Footnote_776_776" class="fnanchor">[776]</a> Full families, unlike -the present colony with its few children and its men -worn out in middle life by harassing warfare with -enemies and a sullen nature; streets rife with children -playing and old folk sitting in the sun; the return of -the exiles; happy harvests and springtimes of peace; -solid gain of labour for every man, with no raiding -neighbours to harass, nor the mutual envies of peasants -in their selfish struggle with famine.</p> - -<p>It is a simple, hearty, practical man whom such -prophesying reveals, the spirit of him bent on justice -and love, and yearning for the unharassed labour of -the field and for happy homes. No prophet has more -beautiful sympathies, a more direct word of righteousness, -or a braver heart. <i>Fast not, but love truth and -peace. Truth and wholesome justice set ye up in your -gates. Be not afraid; strengthen your hands! Old -men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, -each with staff in hand for the fulness of their years; the -city’s streets shall be rife with boys and girls at play.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> i. 7—vi.</p> - -<p class="noindent">The Visions of Zechariah do not lack those large -and simple views of religion which we have -just seen to be the charm of his other prophecies. -Indeed it is among the Visions that we find the most -spiritual of all his utterances:<a name="FNanchor_777_777" id="FNanchor_777_777"></a><a href="#Footnote_777_777" class="fnanchor">[777]</a> <i>Not by might, and not -by force, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of Hosts</i>. The -Visions express the need of the Divine forgiveness, -emphasise the reality of sin, as a principle deeper than -the civic crimes in which it is manifested, and declare -the power of God to banish it from His people. The -Visions also contain the remarkable prospect of Jerusalem -as the City of Peace, her only wall the Lord Himself.<a name="FNanchor_778_778" id="FNanchor_778_778"></a><a href="#Footnote_778_778" class="fnanchor">[778]</a> -The overthrow of the heathen empires is predicted -by the Lord’s own hand, and from all the Visions there -are absent both the turmoil and the glory of war.</p> - -<p>We must also be struck by the absence of another -element, which is a cause of complexity in the writings -of many prophets—the polemic against idolatry. -Zechariah nowhere mentions the idols. We have -already seen what proof this silence bears for the fact -that the community to which he spoke was not that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> -half-heathen remnant of Israel which had remained in -the land, but was composed of worshippers of Jehovah -who at His word had returned from Babylon.<a name="FNanchor_779_779" id="FNanchor_779_779"></a><a href="#Footnote_779_779" class="fnanchor">[779]</a> Here -we have only to do with the bearing of the fact upon -Zechariah’s style. That bewildering confusion of the -heathen pantheon and its rites, which forms so much -of our difficulty in interpreting some of the prophecies -of Ezekiel and the closing chapters of the Book of -Isaiah, is not to blame for any of the complexity of -Zechariah’s Visions.</p> - -<p>Nor can we attribute the latter to the fact that the -Visions are dreams, and therefore bound to be more -involved and obscure than the words of Jehovah which -came to Zechariah in the open daylight of his people’s -public life. In chaps. i. 7—vi. we have not the narrative -of actual dreams, but a series of conscious and -artistic allegories—the deliberate translation into a -carefully constructed symbolism of the Divine truths -with which the prophet was entrusted by his God. -Yet this only increases our problem—why a man with -such gifts of direct speech, and such clear views of -his people’s character and history, should choose to -express the latter by an imagery so artificial and -involved? In his orations Zechariah is very like the -prophets whom we have known before the Exile, -thoroughly ethical and intent upon the public conscience -of his time. He appreciates what they were, feels -himself standing in their succession, and is endowed -both with their spirit and their style. But none of -them constructs the elaborate allegories which he does, -or insists upon the religious symbolism which he enforces -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> -as indispensable to the standing of Israel with God. -Not only are their visions few and simple, but they -look down upon the visionary temper as a rude stage -of prophecy and inferior to their own, in which the -Word of God is received by personal communion with -Himself, and conveyed to His people by straight and -plain words. Some of the earlier prophets even condemn -all priesthood and ritual; none of them regards -these as indispensable to Israel’s right relations with -Jehovah; and none employs those superhuman -mediators of the Divine truth, by whom Zechariah -is instructed in his Visions.</p> - -<h4 id="XXIsec1">1.T<span class="small">HE</span> - I<span class="small">NFLUENCES WHICH</span> - M<span class="small">OULDED THE</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS</span>.</h4> - -<p>The explanation of this change that has come over -prophecy must be sought for in certain habits which -the people formed in exile. During the Exile several -causes conspired to develop among Hebrew writers -the tempers both of symbolism and apocalypse. The -chief of these was their separation from the realities of -civic life, with the opportunity their political leisure -afforded them of brooding and dreaming. Facts and -Divine promises, which had previously to be dealt with -by the conscience of the moment, were left to be worked -out by the imagination. The exiles were not responsible -citizens or statesmen, but dreamers. They were -inspired by mighty hopes for the future, and not -fettered by the practical necessities of a definite -historical situation upon which these hopes had to be -immediately realised. They had a far-off horizon to -build upon, and they occupied the whole breadth of it. -They had a long time to build, and they elaborated the -minutest details of their architecture. Consequently -their construction of the future of Israel, and their -description of the processes by which it was to be -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> -reached, became colossal, ornate and lavishly symbolic. -Nor could the exiles fail to receive stimulus for all this -from the rich imagery of Babylonian art by which they -were surrounded.</p> - -<p>Under these influences there were three strong -developments in Israel. One was that development of -Apocalypse the first beginnings of which we traced in -Zephaniah—the representation of God’s providence of -the world and of His people, not by the ordinary -political and military processes of history, but by awful -convulsions and catastrophes, both in nature and in -politics, in which God Himself appeared, either alone -in sudden glory or by the mediation of heavenly -armies. The second—and it was but a part of the -first—was the development of a belief in Angels: -superhuman beings who had not only a part to play -in the apocalyptic wars and revolutions; but, in the -growing sense, which characterises the period, of God’s -distance and awfulness, were believed to act as His -agents in the communication of His Word to men. -And, thirdly, there was the development of the Ritual. -To some minds this may appear the strangest of all -the effects of the Exile. The fall of the Temple, its -hierarchy and sacrifices, might be supposed to enforce -more spiritual conceptions of God and of His communion -with His people. And no doubt it did. The impossibility -of the legal sacrifices in exile opened the mind -of Israel to the belief that God was satisfied with the -sacrifices of the broken heart, and drew near, without -mediation, to all who were humble and pure of heart. -But no one in Israel therefore understood that these -sacrifices were for ever abolished. Their interruption -was regarded as merely temporary even by the most -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> -spiritual of Jewish writers. The Fifty-First Psalm, for -instance, which declares that <i>the sacrifices of God are -a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, -Thou wilt not despise</i>, immediately follows this declaration -by the assurance that <i>when God builds again the -walls of Jerusalem</i>, He will once more take delight in -<i>the legal sacrifices: burnt offering and whole burnt -offering, the oblation of bullocks upon Thine altar</i>.<a name="FNanchor_780_780" id="FNanchor_780_780"></a><a href="#Footnote_780_780" class="fnanchor">[780]</a> For -men of such views the ruin of the Temple was not its -abolition with the whole dispensation which it represented, -but rather the occasion for its reconstruction -upon wider lines and a more detailed system, for the -planning of which the nation’s exile afforded the leisure -and the carefulness of art described above. The ancient -liturgy, too, was insufficient for the stronger convictions -of guilt and need of purgation, which sore -punishment had impressed upon the people. Then, -scattered among the heathen as they were, they learned -to require stricter laws and more drastic ceremonies -to restore and preserve their holiness. Their ritual, -therefore, had to be expanded and detailed to a degree -far beyond what we find in Israel’s earlier systems of -worship. With the fall of the monarchy and the -absence of civic life the importance of the priesthood -was proportionately enhanced; and the growing sense -of God’s aloofness from the world, already alluded to, -made the more indispensable human, as well as superhuman, -mediators between Himself and His people. -Consider these things, and it will be clear why prophecy, -which with Amos had begun a war against all ritual, -and with Jeremiah had achieved a religion absolutely -independent of priesthood and Temple, should reappear -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> -after the Exile, insistent upon the building of the -Temple, enforcing the need both of priesthood and -sacrifice, and while it proclaimed the Messianic King -and the High Priest as the great feeders of the national -life and worship, finding no place beside them for the -Prophet himself.<a name="FNanchor_781_781" id="FNanchor_781_781"></a><a href="#Footnote_781_781" class="fnanchor">[781]</a></p> - -<p>The force of these developments of Apocalypse, -Angelology and the Ritual appears both in Ezekiel -and in the exilic codification of the ritual which forms -so large a part of the Pentateuch. Ezekiel carries -Apocalypse far beyond the beginnings started by -Zephaniah. He introduces, though not under the -name of angels, superhuman mediators between himself -and God. The Priestly Code does not mention angels, -and has no Apocalypse; but like Ezekiel it develops, -to an extraordinary degree, the ritual of Israel. Both -its author and Ezekiel base on the older forms, but -build as men who are not confined by the lines of an -actually existing system. The changes they make, -the innovations they introduce, are too numerous to -mention here. To illustrate their influence upon -Zechariah, it is enough to emphasise the large place -they give in the ritual to the processes of propitiation -and cleansing from sin, and the increased authority -with which they invest the priesthood. In Ezekiel -Israel has still a Prince, though he is not called King. -He arranges the cultus,<a name="FNanchor_782_782" id="FNanchor_782_782"></a><a href="#Footnote_782_782" class="fnanchor">[782]</a> and sacrifices are offered for -him and the people,<a name="FNanchor_783_783" id="FNanchor_783_783"></a><a href="#Footnote_783_783" class="fnanchor">[783]</a> but the priests teach and judge -the people.<a name="FNanchor_784_784" id="FNanchor_784_784"></a><a href="#Footnote_784_784" class="fnanchor">[784]</a> In the Priestly Code<a name="FNanchor_785_785" id="FNanchor_785_785"></a><a href="#Footnote_785_785" class="fnanchor">[785]</a> the priesthood is -more rigorously fenced than by Ezekiel from the laity, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> -and more regularly graded. At its head appears a -High Priest (as he does not in Ezekiel), and by his -side the civil rulers are portrayed in lesser dignity and -power. Sacrifices are made, no longer as with Ezekiel -for Prince and People, but for Aaron and the Congregation; -and throughout the narrative of ancient -history, into the form of which this Code projects its -legislation, the High Priest stands above the captain of -the host, even when the latter is Joshua himself. God’s -enemies are defeated not so much by the wisdom and -valour of the secular powers, as by the miracles of -Jehovah Himself, mediated through the priesthood. -Ezekiel and the Priestly Code both elaborate the -sacrifices of atonement and sanctification beyond all -the earlier uses.</p> - -<h4 id="XXIsec2">2. G<span class="small">ENERAL</span> - F<span class="small">EATURES OF THE</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS</span>.</h4> - -<p>It was beneath these influences that Zechariah grew -up, and to them we may trace, not only numerous -details of his Visions, but the whole of their involved -symbolism. He was himself a priest and the son of -a priest, born and bred in the very order to which we -owe the codification of the ritual, and the development -of those ideas of guilt and uncleanness that -led to its expansion and specialisation. The Visions -in which he deals with these are the Third to the -Seventh. As with Haggai there is a High Priest, in -advance upon Ezekiel and in agreement with the Priestly -Code. As in the latter the High Priest represents the -people, and carries their guilt before God.<a name="FNanchor_786_786" id="FNanchor_786_786"></a><a href="#Footnote_786_786" class="fnanchor">[786]</a> He and -his colleagues are pledges and portents of the coming -Messiah. But the civil power is not yet diminished -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> -before the sacerdotal, as in the Priestly Code. We -shall find indeed that a remarkable attempt has been -made to alter the original text of a prophecy appended -to the Visions,<a name="FNanchor_787_787" id="FNanchor_787_787"></a><a href="#Footnote_787_787" class="fnanchor">[787]</a> in order to divert to the High Priest -the coronation and Messianic rank there described. -But any one who reads the passage carefully can see -for himself that the crown (a single crown, as the -verb which it governs proves<a name="FNanchor_788_788" id="FNanchor_788_788"></a><a href="#Footnote_788_788" class="fnanchor">[788]</a>) which Zechariah was -ordered to make was designed for Another than the -priest, that the priest was but to stand at this Other’s -right hand, and that there was to be concord between -the two of them. This Other can only have been the -Messianic King, Zerubbabel, as was already proclaimed -by Haggai.<a name="FNanchor_789_789" id="FNanchor_789_789"></a><a href="#Footnote_789_789" class="fnanchor">[789]</a> The altered text is due to a later period, -when the High Priest became the civil as well as the -religious head of the community. To Zechariah he -was still only the right hand of the monarch in government; -but, as we have seen, the religious life of the -people was already gathered up and concentrated in -him. It is the priests, too, who by their perpetual -service and holy life bring on the Messianic era.<a name="FNanchor_790_790" id="FNanchor_790_790"></a><a href="#Footnote_790_790" class="fnanchor">[790]</a> -Men come to the Temple to propitiate Jehovah, for -which Zechariah uses the anthropomorphic expression -<i>to make smooth</i> or <i>placid His face</i>.<a name="FNanchor_791_791" id="FNanchor_791_791"></a><a href="#Footnote_791_791" class="fnanchor">[791]</a> No more than this -is made of the sacrificial system, which was not in full -course when the Visions were announced. But the -symbolism of the Fourth Vision is drawn from the -furniture of the Temple. It is interesting that the great -candelabrum seen by the prophet should be like, not -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> -the ten lights of the old Temple of Solomon, but the -seven-branched candlestick described in the Priestly -Code. In the Sixth and Seventh Visions, the strong -convictions of guilt and uncleanness, which were engendered -in Israel by the Exile, are not removed by the -sacrificial means enforced in the Priestly Code, but by -symbolic processes in the style of the visions of Ezekiel.</p> - -<p>The Visions in which Zechariah treats of the outer -history of the world are the first two and the last, and -in these we notice the influence of the Apocalypse -developed during the Exile. In Zechariah’s day Israel -had no stage for their history save the site of Jerusalem -and its immediate neighbourhood. So long as he keeps -to this Zechariah is as practical and matter-of-fact as -any of the prophets, but when he has to go beyond it -to describe the general overthrow of the heathen, he is -unable to project that, as Amos or Isaiah did, in terms -of historic battle, and has to call in the apocalyptic. A -people such as that poor colony of exiles, with no issue -upon history, is forced to take refuge in Apocalypse, -and carries with it even those of its prophets whose -conscience, like Zechariah’s, is most strongly bent upon -the practical present. Consequently these three historical -Visions are the most vague of the eight. They -reveal the whole earth under the care of Jehovah and -the patrol of His angels. They definitely predict the -overthrow of the heathen empires. But, unlike Amos -or Isaiah, the prophet does not see by what political -movements this is to be effected. The world <i>is</i> still -<i>quiet and at peace</i>.<a name="FNanchor_792_792" id="FNanchor_792_792"></a><a href="#Footnote_792_792" class="fnanchor">[792]</a> The time is hidden in the Divine -counsels; the means, though clearly symbolised in <i>four -smiths</i> who come forward to smite the horns of the -heathen,<a name="FNanchor_793_793" id="FNanchor_793_793"></a><a href="#Footnote_793_793" class="fnanchor">[793]</a> and in a chariot which carries God’s wrath -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> -to the North,<a name="FNanchor_794_794" id="FNanchor_794_794"></a><a href="#Footnote_794_794" class="fnanchor">[794]</a> are obscure. The prophet appears to -have intended, not any definite individuals or political -movements of the immediate future, but God’s own -supernatural forces. In other words, the Smiths and -Chariots are not an allegory of history, but powers -apocalyptic. The forms of the symbols were derived -by Zechariah from different sources. Perhaps that of -the <i>smiths</i> who destroy the horns in the Second Vision -was suggested by the <i>smiths of destruction</i> threatened -upon Ammon by Ezekiel.<a name="FNanchor_795_795" id="FNanchor_795_795"></a><a href="#Footnote_795_795" class="fnanchor">[795]</a> In the horsemen of the -First Vision and the chariots of the Eighth, Ewald -sees a reflection of the couriers and posts which Darius -organised throughout the empire; they are more probably, -as we shall see, a reflection of the military -bands and patrols of the Persians. But from whatever -quarter Zechariah derived the exact aspect of these -Divine messengers, he found many precedents for them -in the native beliefs of Israel. They are, in short, -angels, incarnate as Hebrew angels always were, and -in fashion like men. But this brings up the whole -subject of the angels, whom he also sees employed -as the mediators of God’s Word to him; and that -is large enough to be left to a chapter by itself.<a name="FNanchor_796_796" id="FNanchor_796_796"></a><a href="#Footnote_796_796" class="fnanchor">[796]</a></p> - -<p>We have now before us all the influences which led -Zechariah to the main form and chief features of his -Visions.</p> - -<h4 id="XXIsec3">3. E<span class="small">XPOSITION OF THE</span> - S<span class="small">EVERAL</span> - V<span class="small">ISIONS</span>.</h4> - -<p>For all the Visions there is one date, <i>in the twenty-fourth -day of the eleventh month, the month Shebat, in the second -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> -year of Darius</i>, that is January or February 519; and -one Divine impulse, <i>the Word of Jehovah came to the -prophet Zekharyah, son of Berekhyahu, son of Iddo, as -follows</i>.</p> - -<h4 id="vis1">T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">IRST</span> V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> - A<span class="small">NGEL</span>-H<span class="small">ORSEMEN</span> - (i. 7–17).</h4> - -<p>The seventy years which Jeremiah had fixed for the -duration of the Babylonian servitude were drawing -to a close. Four months had elapsed since Haggai -promised that in a little while God would shake all -nations.<a name="FNanchor_797_797" id="FNanchor_797_797"></a><a href="#Footnote_797_797" class="fnanchor">[797]</a> But the world was not shaken: there was -no political movement which promised to restore her -glory to Jerusalem. A very natural disappointment -must have been the result among the Jews. In this -situation of affairs the Word came to Zechariah, and -both situation and Word he expressed by his First -Vision.</p> - -<p>It was one of the myrtle-covered glens in the neighbourhood -of Jerusalem:<a name="FNanchor_798_798" id="FNanchor_798_798"></a><a href="#Footnote_798_798" class="fnanchor">[798]</a> Zechariah calls it <i>the</i> Glen -or Valley-Bottom, either because it was known under -that name to the Jews, or because he was himself wont -to frequent it for prayer. He discovers in it what -seems to be a rendezvous of Persian cavalry-scouts,<a name="FNanchor_799_799" id="FNanchor_799_799"></a><a href="#Footnote_799_799" class="fnanchor">[799]</a> -the leader of the troop in front, and the rest behind -him, having just come in with their reports. Soon, -however, he is made aware that they are angels, and -with that quick, dissolving change both of function -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> -and figure, which marks all angelic apparitions,<a name="FNanchor_800_800" id="FNanchor_800_800"></a><a href="#Footnote_800_800" class="fnanchor">[800]</a> they -explain to him their mission. Now it is an angel-interpreter -at his side who speaks, and now the angel -on the front horse. They are scouts of God come in -from their survey of the whole earth. The world lies -quiet. Whereupon <i>the angel of Jehovah</i> asks Him how -long His anger must rest on Jerusalem and nothing -be done to restore her; and the prophet hears a kind -and comforting answer. The nations have done more -evil to Israel than God empowered them to do. Their -aggravations have changed His wrath against her to -pity, and in pity He is come back to her. She shall -soon be rebuilt and overflow with prosperity.</p> - -<p>The only perplexity in all this is the angels’ report -that the whole earth lies quiet. How this could have -been in 519 is difficult to understand. The great -revolts against Darius were then in active progress, the -result was uncertain and he took at least three more -years to put them all down. They were confined, it -is true, to the east and north-east of the empire, but -some of them threatened Babylon, and we can hardly -ascribe the report of the angels to such a limitation of -the Jews’ horizon at this time as shut out Mesopotamia -or the lands to the north of her. There remain two -alternatives. Either these far-away revolts made only -more impressive the stagnancy of the tribes of the rest -of the empire, and the helplessness of the Jews and -their Syrian neighbours was convincingly shown by -their inability to take advantage even of the desperate -straits to which Darius was reduced; or else in that -month of vision Darius had quelled one of the rebellions -against him, and for the moment there was quiet in -the world.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> -<i>By night I had a vision, and behold! a man riding a -brown horse,<a name="FNanchor_801_801" id="FNanchor_801_801"></a><a href="#Footnote_801_801" class="fnanchor">[801]</a> and he was standing between the myrtles -that are in the Glen;<a name="FNanchor_802_802" id="FNanchor_802_802"></a><a href="#Footnote_802_802" class="fnanchor">[802]</a> and behind him horses brown, -bay<a name="FNanchor_803_803" id="FNanchor_803_803"></a><a href="#Footnote_803_803" class="fnanchor">[803]</a> and white. And I said, What are these, my lord? -And the angel who talked with me said, I will show you -what these are. And the man who was standing among -the myrtles answered and said, These are they whom -Jehovah hath sent to go to and fro through the earth. -And they answered the angel of Jehovah who stood -among the myrtles,<a name="FNanchor_804_804" id="FNanchor_804_804"></a><a href="#Footnote_804_804" class="fnanchor">[804]</a> and said, We have gone up and -down through the earth, and lo! the whole earth is still -and at peace.<a name="FNanchor_805_805" id="FNanchor_805_805"></a><a href="#Footnote_805_805" class="fnanchor">[805]</a> And the angel of Jehovah answered and -said, Jehovah of Hosts, how long hast Thou no pity for -Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which<a name="FNanchor_806_806" id="FNanchor_806_806"></a><a href="#Footnote_806_806" class="fnanchor">[806]</a> Thou hast -been wroth these seventy years? And Jehovah answered -the angel who talked with me,<a name="FNanchor_807_807" id="FNanchor_807_807"></a><a href="#Footnote_807_807" class="fnanchor">[807]</a> kind words and comforting. -And the angel who talked with me said to me, Proclaim -now as follows: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, I am -zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion, with a great zeal; -but with great wrath am I wroth against the arrogant -Gentiles. For I was but a little angry</i> with Israel, <i>but -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> -they aggravated the evil.<a name="FNanchor_808_808" id="FNanchor_808_808"></a><a href="#Footnote_808_808" class="fnanchor">[808]</a> Therefore thus saith Jehovah, -I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My house -shall be built in her—oracle of Jehovah of Hosts—and the -measuring line shall be drawn over Jerusalem. Proclaim -yet again, saying: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, My -cities shall yet overflow with prosperity, and Jehovah shall -again comfort Zion, and again make choice of Jerusalem.</i></p> - -<p>Two things are to be noted in this oracle. No -political movement is indicated as the means of Jerusalem’s -restoration: this is to be the effect of God’s free -grace in returning to dwell in Jerusalem, which is the -reward of the building of the Temple. And there is -an interesting explanation of the motive for God’s new -grace: in executing His sentence upon Israel, the -heathen had far exceeded their commission, and now -themselves deserved punishment. That is to say, the -restoration of Jerusalem and the resumption of the -worship are not enough for the future of Israel. The -heathen must be chastised. But Zechariah does not -predict any overthrow of the world’s power, either by -earthly or by heavenly forces. This is entirely in -harmony with the insistence upon peace which distinguishes -him from other prophets.</p> - -<h4 id="vis2">T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">ECOND</span> V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> F<span class="small">OUR</span> - H<span class="small">ORNS AND THE</span><br /> - F<span class="small">OUR</span> S<span class="small">MITHS</span> - (ii. 1–4 Heb., i. 18–21 Eng.).</h4> - -<p>The Second Vision supplies what is lacking in the -First, the destruction of the tyrants who have oppressed -Israel. The prophet sees four horns, which, he is told -by his interpreting angel, are the powers that have -scattered Judah. The many attempts to identify these -with four heathen nations are ingenious but futile.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> -“<i>Four</i> horns were seen as representing the totality of -Israel’s enemies—her enemies from all quarters.”<a name="FNanchor_809_809" id="FNanchor_809_809"></a><a href="#Footnote_809_809" class="fnanchor">[809]</a> And -to destroy these horns four smiths appear. Because in -the Vision the horns are of iron, in Israel an old symbol -of power, the first verb used of the action can hardly -be, as in the Hebrew text, to terrify. The Greek reads -<i>sharpen</i>, and probably some verb meaning <i>to cut</i> or -<i>chisel</i> stood in the original.<a name="FNanchor_810_810" id="FNanchor_810_810"></a><a href="#Footnote_810_810" class="fnanchor">[810]</a></p> - -<p><i>And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! four -horns. And I said to the angel who spoke with me, -What are these? And he said to me, These are the -horns which have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_811_811" id="FNanchor_811_811"></a><a href="#Footnote_811_811" class="fnanchor">[811]</a> -And Jehovah showed me four smiths. And I said, What -are these coming to do? And He spake, saying, These -are the horns which scattered Judah, so that none lifted up -his head;<a name="FNanchor_812_812" id="FNanchor_812_812"></a><a href="#Footnote_812_812" class="fnanchor">[812]</a> and these are come to ...<a name="FNanchor_813_813" id="FNanchor_813_813"></a><a href="#Footnote_813_813" class="fnanchor">[813]</a> them, to strike down -the horns of the nations, that lifted the horn against the -land of Judah to scatter it.</i></p> - -<h4 id="vis3">T<span class="small">HE</span> T<span class="small">HIRD</span> - V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> C<span class="small">ITY OF</span> - P<span class="small">EACE</span><br /> - (ii. 5–9 Heb., ii. 1–5 Eng.).</h4> - -<p>Like the Second Vision, the Third follows from the -First, another, but a still more significant, supplement. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> -The First had promised the rebuilding of Jerusalem, -and now the prophet beholds <i>a young man</i>—by this -term he probably means <i>a servant</i> or <i>apprentice</i>—who -is attempting to define the limits of the new city. -In the light of what this attempt encounters, there can -be little doubt that the prophet means to symbolise by -it the intention of building the walls upon the old lines, -so as to make Jerusalem again the mountain fortress -she had previously been. Some have considered that -the young man goes forth only to see, or to show, -the extent of the city in the approaching future. But -if this had been his motive, there would have been no -reason in interrupting him with other orders. The -point is, that he has narrow ideas of what the city -should be, and is prepared to define it upon its old -lines of a fortress. For the interpreting angel who -<i>comes forward</i><a name="FNanchor_814_814" id="FNanchor_814_814"></a><a href="#Footnote_814_814" class="fnanchor">[814]</a> is told by another angel to run and -tell the young man that in the future Jerusalem shall be -a large unwalled town, and this, not only because of -the multitude of its population, for even then it might -still have been fortified like Niniveh, but because -Jehovah Himself shall be its wall. The young man -is prevented, not merely from making it small, but -from making it a citadel. And this is in conformity -with all the singular absence of war from Zechariah’s -Visions, both of the future deliverance of Jehovah’s -people and of their future duties before Him. It is -indeed remarkable how Zechariah not only develops -none of the warlike elements of earlier Messianic prophecies, -but tells us here of how God Himself actually -prevented their repetition, and insists again and again -only on those elements of ancient prediction which had -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> -filled the future of Israel with peace.</p> - -<p><i>And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! a man -with a measuring rope in his hand. So I said, Whither -art thou going? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem: -to see how much its breadth and how much its -length should be. And lo! the angel who talked with -me came forward,<a name="FNanchor_815_815" id="FNanchor_815_815"></a><a href="#Footnote_815_815" class="fnanchor">[815]</a> and another angel came forward to -meet him. And he said to him, Run and speak to yonder -young man thus:</i> Like <i>a number of open villages shall -Jerusalem remain, because of the multitude of men and -cattle in the midst of her. And I Myself will be to her—oracle -of Jehovah—a wall of fire round about, and for -glory will I be in her midst.</i></p> - -<p>In this Vision Zechariah gives us, with his prophecy, -a lesson in the interpretation of prophecy. His -contemporaries believed God’s promise to rebuild Jerusalem, -but they defined its limits by the conditions of -an older and a narrower day. They brought forth their -measuring rods, to measure the future by the sacred -attainments of the past. Such literal fulfilment of His -Word God prevented by that ministry of angels which -Zechariah beheld. He would not be bound by those -forms which His Word had assumed in suitableness to -the needs of ruder generations. The ideal of many of -the returned exiles must have been that frowning citadel, -those gates of everlastingness,<a name="FNanchor_816_816" id="FNanchor_816_816"></a><a href="#Footnote_816_816" class="fnanchor">[816]</a> which some of them celebrated -in Psalms, and from which the hosts of Sennacherib -had been broken and swept back as the angry -sea is swept from the fixed line of Canaan’s coast.<a name="FNanchor_817_817" id="FNanchor_817_817"></a><a href="#Footnote_817_817" class="fnanchor">[817]</a> -What had been enough for David and Isaiah was -enough for them, especially as so many prophets of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> -Lord had foretold a Messianic Jerusalem that should -be a counterpart of the historical. But God breaks the -letter of His Word to give its spirit a more glorious -fulfilment. Jerusalem shall not <i>be builded as a city that -is compact together</i>,<a name="FNanchor_818_818" id="FNanchor_818_818"></a><a href="#Footnote_818_818" class="fnanchor">[818]</a> but open and spread abroad village-wise -upon her high mountains, and God Himself her -only wall.</p> - -<p>The interest of this Vision is therefore not only -historical. For ourselves it has an abiding doctrinal -value. It is a lesson in the method of applying -prophecy to the future. How much it is needed we -must feel as we remember the readiness of men among -ourselves to construct the Church of God upon the -lines His own hand drew for our fathers, and to raise -again the bulwarks behind which they sufficiently -sheltered His shrine. Whether these ancient and -sacred defences be dogmas or institutions, we have no -right, God tells us, to cramp behind them His powers -for the future. And the great men whom He raises -to remind us of this, and to prevent by their ministry -the timid measurements of the zealous but servile -spirits who would confine everything to the exact letter -of ancient Scripture—are they any less His angels to -us than those ministering spirits whom Zechariah -beheld preventing the narrow measures of the poor -apprentice of his dream?</p> - -<p>To the Third Vision there has been appended the -only lyrical piece which breaks the prose narrative of -the Visions. We have already seen that it is a piece -of earlier date. Israel is addressed as still scattered to -the four winds of heaven, and still inhabiting Babylon. -While in Zechariah’s own oracles and visions Jehovah -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> -has returned to Jerusalem, His return according to this -piece is still future. There is nothing about the -Temple: God’s holy dwelling from which He has -roused Himself is Heaven. The piece was probably -inserted by Zechariah himself: its lines are broken -by what seems to be a piece of prose, in which the -prophet asserts his mission, in words he twice uses -elsewhere. But this is uncertain.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ho, ho! Flee from the Land of the North</div> -<div class="verse indent2">(oracle of Jehovah);</div> -<div class="verse">For as the four winds have I spread you abroad<a name="FNanchor_819_819" id="FNanchor_819_819"></a><a href="#Footnote_819_819" - class="fnanchor">[819]</a></div> -<div class="verse indent2">(oracle of Jehovah).</div> -<div class="verse">Ho! to Zion escape, thou inhabitress of Babel.<a name="FNanchor_820_820" id="FNanchor_820_820"></a><a href="#Footnote_820_820" class="fnanchor">[820]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><i>For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts<a name="FNanchor_821_821" id="FNanchor_821_821"></a><a href="#Footnote_821_821" class="fnanchor">[821]</a> to the nations that -plunder you (for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple -of His eye), that, lo! I am about to wave My hand over -them, and they shall be plunder to their own servants, and -ye shall know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me.</i></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Sing out and rejoice, O daughter of Zion;</div> -<div class="verse">For, lo! I come, and will dwell in thy midst</div> -<div class="verse indent2">(oracle of Jehovah).</div> -<div class="verse">And many nations shall join themselves to Jehovah</div> -<div class="verse indent2">in that day,</div> -<div class="verse">And shall be to Him<a name="FNanchor_822_822" id="FNanchor_822_822"></a><a href="#Footnote_822_822" class="fnanchor">[822]</a> a people.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And I will dwell in thy midst</div> -<div class="verse">(And thou shalt know that Jehovah of Hosts hath</div> -<div class="verse indent2">sent me to thee).</div> -<div class="verse">And Jehovah will make Judah His heritage,</div> -<div class="verse">His portion shall be upon holy soil,</div> -<div class="verse">And make choice once more of Jerusalem.</div> -<div class="verse">Silence, all flesh, before Jehovah;<a name="FNanchor_823_823" id="FNanchor_823_823"></a><a href="#Footnote_823_823" class="fnanchor">[823]</a></div> -<div class="verse">For He hath roused Himself up from His holy</div> -<div class="verse indent2">dwelling.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4 id="vis4">T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">OURTH</span> V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> H<span class="small">IGH</span> - P<span class="small">RIEST AND THE</span><br /> - S<span class="small">ATAN</span> - (Chap. iii.).</h4> - -<p>The next Visions deal with the moral condition of -Israel and their standing before God. The Fourth is -a judgment scene. The Angel of Jehovah, who is not -to be distinguished from Jehovah Himself,<a name="FNanchor_824_824" id="FNanchor_824_824"></a><a href="#Footnote_824_824" class="fnanchor">[824]</a> stands for -judgment, and there appear before him Joshua the -High Priest and the Satan or Adversary who has -come to accuse him. Now those who are accused by -the Satan—see next chapter of this volume upon the -Angels of the Visions—are, according to Jewish belief, -those who have been overtaken by misfortune. The -people who are standing at God’s bar in the person -of their High Priest still suffer from the adversity -in which Haggai found them, and the continuance of -which so disheartened them after the Temple had -begun. The evil seasons and poor harvests tormented -their hearts with the thought that the Satan still -slandered them in the court of God. But Zechariah -comforts them with the vision of the Satan rebuked. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> -Israel has indeed been sorely beset by calamity, a -brand much burned, but now of God’s grace plucked -from the fire. The Satan’s role is closed, and he -disappears from the Vision.<a name="FNanchor_825_825" id="FNanchor_825_825"></a><a href="#Footnote_825_825" class="fnanchor">[825]</a> Yet something remains: -Israel is rescued, but not sanctified. The nation’s -troubles are over: their uncleanness has still to be -removed. Zechariah sees that the High Priest is -clothed in filthy garments, while he stands before the -Angel of Judgment. The Angel orders his servants, -those <i>that stand before him</i>,<a name="FNanchor_826_826" id="FNanchor_826_826"></a><a href="#Footnote_826_826" class="fnanchor">[826]</a> to give him clean festal -robes. And the prophet, breaking out in sympathy -with what he sees, for the first time takes part in the -Visions. <i>Then I said, Let them also put a clean turban -on his head</i>—the turban being the headdress, in Ezekiel -of the Prince of Israel, and in the Priestly Code of the -High Priest.<a name="FNanchor_827_827" id="FNanchor_827_827"></a><a href="#Footnote_827_827" class="fnanchor">[827]</a> This is done, and the national effect -of his cleansing is explained to the High Priest. -If he remains loyal to the law of Jehovah, he, the -representative of Israel, shall have right of entry to -Jehovah’s presence among the angels who stand there. -But more, he and his colleagues the priests are a -portent of the coming of the Messiah—<i>the Servant of -Jehovah, the Branch</i>, as he has been called by many -prophets.<a name="FNanchor_828_828" id="FNanchor_828_828"></a><a href="#Footnote_828_828" class="fnanchor">[828]</a> A stone has already been set before Joshua, -with seven eyes upon it. God will engrave it with -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> -inscriptions, and on the same day take away the guilt -of the land. Then shall be the peace upon which -Zechariah loves to dwell.</p> - -<p><i>And he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing -before the Angel of Jehovah, and the Satan<a name="FNanchor_829_829" id="FNanchor_829_829"></a><a href="#Footnote_829_829" class="fnanchor">[829]</a> standing -at his right hand to accuse him.<a name="FNanchor_830_830" id="FNanchor_830_830"></a><a href="#Footnote_830_830" class="fnanchor">[830]</a> And Jehovah<a name="FNanchor_831_831" id="FNanchor_831_831"></a><a href="#Footnote_831_831" class="fnanchor">[831]</a> said -to the Satan: Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan! Jehovah -who makes choice of Jerusalem rebuke thee! Is not -this a brand saved from the fire? But Joshua was -clothed in foul garments while he stood before the Angel. -And he</i>—the Angel—<i>answered and said to those who -stood in his presence, Take the foul garments from off him -(and he said to him, See, I have made thy guilt to pass -away from thee),<a name="FNanchor_832_832" id="FNanchor_832_832"></a><a href="#Footnote_832_832" class="fnanchor">[832]</a> and clothe him<a name="FNanchor_833_833" id="FNanchor_833_833"></a><a href="#Footnote_833_833" class="fnanchor">[833]</a> in fresh clothing. -And I said,<a name="FNanchor_834_834" id="FNanchor_834_834"></a><a href="#Footnote_834_834" class="fnanchor">[834]</a> Let them put a clean turban<a name="FNanchor_835_835" id="FNanchor_835_835"></a><a href="#Footnote_835_835" class="fnanchor">[835]</a> on his head. -And they put the clean turban upon his head, and clothed -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> -him with garments, the Angel of Jehovah standing up</i> -the while.<a name="FNanchor_836_836" id="FNanchor_836_836"></a><a href="#Footnote_836_836" class="fnanchor">[836]</a> <i>And the Angel of Jehovah certified unto -Joshua, saying: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, If in My -ways thou walkest, and if My charges thou keepest in -charge, then thou also shall judge My house, and have -charge of My courts, and I will give thee entry<a name="FNanchor_837_837" id="FNanchor_837_837"></a><a href="#Footnote_837_837" class="fnanchor">[837]</a> among -these who stand in My presence. Hearken now, O -Joshua, high priest, thou and thy fellows who sit before -thee are men of omen, that, lo! I am about to bring -My servant, Branch. For see the stone which I have -set before Joshua, one stone with seven eyes.<a name="FNanchor_838_838" id="FNanchor_838_838"></a><a href="#Footnote_838_838" class="fnanchor">[838]</a> Lo, I will -etch the engraving upon it (oracle of Jehovah), and I -will wash away the guilt of that land in one day. In -that day (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts) ye will invite one -another in under vine and under fig-tree.</i></p> - -<p>The theological significance of the Vision is as clear -as its consequences in the subsequent theology and -symbolism of Judaism. The uncleanness of Israel -which infests their representative before God is not -defined. Some<a name="FNanchor_839_839" id="FNanchor_839_839"></a><a href="#Footnote_839_839" class="fnanchor">[839]</a> hold that it includes the guilt of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> -Israel’s idolatry. But they have to go back to Ezekiel -for this, and we have seen that Zechariah nowhere -mentions or feels the presence of idols among his -people. The Vision itself supplies a better explanation. -Joshua’s filthy garments are replaced by festal and -official robes. He is warned to walk in the whole law -of the Lord, ruling the Temple and guarding Jehovah’s -court. The uncleanness was the opposite of all this. -It was not ethical failure: covetousness, greed, immorality. -It was, as Haggai protested, the neglect of the -Temple, and of the whole worship of Jehovah. If this -be now removed, in all fidelity to the law, the High -Priest shall have access to God, and the Messiah will -come. The High Priest himself shall not be the Messiah—this -dogma is left to a later age to frame. But -before God he will be as one of the angels, and himself -and his faithful priesthood omens of the Messiah. We -need not linger on the significance of this for the -place of the priesthood in later Judaism. Note how -the High Priest is already the religious representative -of his people: their uncleanness is his; when he is -pardoned and cleansed, <i>the uncleanness of the land</i> -is purged away. In such a High Priest Christian -theology has seen the prototype of Christ.</p> - -<p>The stone is very difficult to explain. Some have -thought of it as the foundation-stone of the Temple, -which had already been employed as a symbol of the -Messiah and which played so important a part in later -Jewish symbolism.<a name="FNanchor_840_840" id="FNanchor_840_840"></a><a href="#Footnote_840_840" class="fnanchor">[840]</a> Others prefer the top-stone of -the Temple, mentioned in chap. iv. 7,<a name="FNanchor_841_841" id="FNanchor_841_841"></a><a href="#Footnote_841_841" class="fnanchor">[841]</a> and others an -altar or substitute for the ark.<a name="FNanchor_842_842" id="FNanchor_842_842"></a><a href="#Footnote_842_842" class="fnanchor">[842]</a> Again, some take it -to be a jewel, either on the breastplate of the High -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> -Priest,<a name="FNanchor_843_843" id="FNanchor_843_843"></a><a href="#Footnote_843_843" class="fnanchor">[843]</a> or upon the crown afterwards prepared for -Zerubbabel.<a name="FNanchor_844_844" id="FNanchor_844_844"></a><a href="#Footnote_844_844" class="fnanchor">[844]</a> To all of these there are objections. -It is difficult to connect with the foundation-stone -an engraving still to be made; neither the top-stone -of the Temple, nor a jewel on the breastplate of the -priest, nor a jewel on the king’s crown, could properly -be said to be set <i>before</i> the High Priest. We must -rather suppose that the stone is symbolic of the finished -Temple.<a name="FNanchor_845_845" id="FNanchor_845_845"></a><a href="#Footnote_845_845" class="fnanchor">[845]</a> The Temple is the full expression of God’s -providence and care—His <i>seven eyes</i>. Upon it shall -His will be engraved, and by its sacrifices the uncleanness -of the land shall be taken away.</p> - -<h4 id="vis5">T<span class="small">HE</span> - F<span class="small">IFTH</span> Vision: - T<span class="small">HE</span> T<span class="small">EMPLE</span> - C<span class="small">ANDLESTICK AND<br /> THE</span> - T<span class="small">WO</span> - O<span class="small">LIVE</span>-T<span class="small">REES</span> - (Chap. iv.).</h4> - -<p>As the Fourth Vision unfolded the dignity and -significance of the High Priest, so in the Fifth we find -discovered the joint glory of himself and Zerubbabel, the -civil head of Israel. And to this is appended a Word -for Zerubbabel himself. In our present text this Word -has become inserted in the middle of the Vision, -vv. 6<i>b</i>-10<i>a</i>; in the translation which follows it has -been removed to the end of the Vision, and the reasons -for this will be found in the notes.</p> - -<p>The Vision is of the great golden lamp which stood -in the Temple. In the former Temple, light was -supplied by ten several candlesticks.<a name="FNanchor_846_846" id="FNanchor_846_846"></a><a href="#Footnote_846_846" class="fnanchor">[846]</a> But the Levitical -Code ordained one seven-branched lamp, and such -appears to have stood in the Temple built while -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> -Zechariah was prophesying.<a name="FNanchor_847_847" id="FNanchor_847_847"></a><a href="#Footnote_847_847" class="fnanchor">[847]</a> The lamp Zechariah -sees has also seven branches, but differs in other -respects, and especially in some curious fantastic details -only possible in dream and symbol. Its seven lights -were fed by seven pipes from a bowl or reservoir of -oil which stood higher than themselves, and this was -fed, either directly from two olive-trees which stood to -the right and left of it, or, if ver. 12 be genuine, -by two tubes which brought the oil from the trees. -The seven lights are the seven eyes of Jehovah—if, -as we ought, we run the second half of ver. 10 on to -the first half of ver. 6. The pipes and reservoir are -given no symbolic force; but the olive-trees which -feed them are called <i>the two sons of oil which stand -before the Lord of all the earth</i>. These can only be the -two anointed heads of the community—Zerubbabel, -the civil head, and Joshua, the religious head. Theirs -was the equal and co-ordinate duty of sustaining the -Temple, figured by the whole candelabrum, and ensuring -the brightness of the sevenfold revelation. The Temple, -that is to say, is nothing without the monarchy and -the priesthood behind it; and these stand in the immediate -presence of God. Therefore this Vision, which to -the superficial eye might seem to be a glorification of -the mere machinery of the Temple and its ritual, is -rather to prove that the latter derive all their power from -the national institutions which are behind them, from the -two representatives of the people who in their turn stand -before God Himself. The Temple so near completion -will not of itself reveal God: let not the Jews put their -trust in it, but in the life behind it. And for ourselves -the lesson of the Vision is that which Christian theology -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> -has been so slow to learn, that God’s revelation under -the old covenant shone not directly through the -material framework, but was mediated by the national -life, whose chief men stood and grew fruitful in His -presence.</p> - -<p>One thing is very remarkable. The two sources of -revelation are the King and the Priest. The Prophet -is not mentioned beside them. Nothing could prove -more emphatically the sense in Israel that prophecy -was exhausted.</p> - -<p>The appointment of so responsible a position for -Zerubbabel demanded for him a special promise of -grace. And therefore, as Joshua had his promise in -the Fourth Vision, we find Zerubbabel’s appended to -the Fifth. It is one of the great sayings of the Old -Testament: there is none more spiritual and more -comforting. Zerubbabel shall complete the Temple, -and those who scoffed at its small beginnings in the -day of small things shall frankly rejoice when they -see him set the top-stone by plummet in its place. -As the moral obstacles to the future were removed -in the Fourth Vision by the vindication of Joshua -and by his cleansing, so the political obstacles, all the -hindrances described by the Book of Ezra in the -building of the Temple, shall disappear. <i>Before Zerubbabel -the great mountain shall become a plain.</i> And -this, because he shall not work by his own strength, -but the Spirit of Jehovah of Hosts shall do everything. -Again we find that absence of expectation in human -means, and that full trust in God’s own direct action, -which characterise all the prophesying of Zechariah.</p> - -<p><i>Then the angel who talked with me returned and roused -me like a man roused out of his sleep. And he said to -me, What seest thou? And I said, I see, and lo! a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> -candlestick all of gold, and its bowl upon the top of it, -and its seven lamps on it, and seven<a name="FNanchor_848_848" id="FNanchor_848_848"></a><a href="#Footnote_848_848" class="fnanchor">[848]</a> pipes to the lamps -which are upon it. And two olive-trees stood over against -it, one on the right of the bowl,<a name="FNanchor_849_849" id="FNanchor_849_849"></a><a href="#Footnote_849_849" class="fnanchor">[849]</a> and one on the left. -And I began<a name="FNanchor_850_850" id="FNanchor_850_850"></a><a href="#Footnote_850_850" class="fnanchor">[850]</a> and said to the angel who talked with me,<a name="FNanchor_851_851" id="FNanchor_851_851"></a><a href="#Footnote_851_851" class="fnanchor">[851]</a> -What be these, my lord? And the angel who talked -with me answered and said, Knowest thou not what -these be? And I said, No, my lord! And he answered -and said to me,<a name="FNanchor_852_852" id="FNanchor_852_852"></a><a href="#Footnote_852_852" class="fnanchor">[852]</a> These seven are the eyes of Jehovah, -which sweep through the whole earth. And I asked and -said to him, What are these two olive-trees on the right -of the candlestick and on its left? And again I asked -and said to him, What are the two olive-branches which -are beside the two golden tubes that pour forth the oil<a name="FNanchor_853_853" id="FNanchor_853_853"></a><a href="#Footnote_853_853" class="fnanchor">[853]</a> -from them?<a name="FNanchor_854_854" id="FNanchor_854_854"></a><a href="#Footnote_854_854" class="fnanchor">[854]</a> And he said to me, Knowest thou not what -these be? And I said, No, my lord! And he said, -These are the two sons of oil which stand before the Lord -of all the earth.</i></p> - -<p><i>This is Jehovah’s Word to Zerubbabel, and it says:<a name="FNanchor_855_855" id="FNanchor_855_855"></a><a href="#Footnote_855_855" class="fnanchor">[855]</a> -Not by might, and not by force, but by My Spirit, saith -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> -Jehovah of Hosts. What art thou, O great mountain? -Before Zerubbabel be thou level! And he<a name="FNanchor_856_856" id="FNanchor_856_856"></a><a href="#Footnote_856_856" class="fnanchor">[856]</a> shall bring -forth the top-stone with shoutings, Grace, grace to it!<a name="FNanchor_857_857" id="FNanchor_857_857"></a><a href="#Footnote_857_857" class="fnanchor">[857]</a> -And the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying, The hands -of Zerubbabel have founded this house, and his hands -shall complete it, and thou shall know that Jehovah of -Hosts hath sent me to you. For whoever hath despised -the day of small things, they shall rejoice when they see -the plummet<a name="FNanchor_858_858" id="FNanchor_858_858"></a><a href="#Footnote_858_858" class="fnanchor">[858]</a> in the hand of Zerubbabel.</i></p> - -<h4 id="vis6">T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">IXTH</span> V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> W<span class="small">INGED</span> - V<span class="small">OLUME</span><br /> (Chap. v. 1–4).</h4> - -<p>The religious and political obstacles being now -removed from the future of Israel, Zechariah in the -next two Visions beholds the land purged of its crime -and wickedness. These Visions are very simple, if -somewhat after the ponderous fashion of Ezekiel.</p> - -<p>The first of them is the Vision of the removal of the -curse brought upon the land by its civic criminals, -especially thieves and perjurers—the two forms which -crime takes in a poor and rude community like the -colony of the returned exiles. The prophet tells us -he beheld a roll flying. He uses the ordinary Hebrew -name for the rolls of skin or parchment upon which -writing was set down. But the proportions of its -colossal size—twenty cubits by ten—prove that it was -not a cylindrical but an oblong shape which he saw. -It consisted, therefore, of sheets laid on each other like -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> -our books, and as our word “volume,” which originally -meant, like his own term, a roll, means now an oblong -article, we may use this in our translation. The volume -is the record of the crime of the land, and Zechariah -sees it flying from the land. But it is also the curse -upon this crime, and so again he beholds it entering -every thief’s and perjurer’s house and destroying it. -Smend gives a possible explanation of this: “It -appears that in ancient times curses were written on -pieces of paper and sent down the wind into the -houses”<a name="FNanchor_859_859" id="FNanchor_859_859"></a><a href="#Footnote_859_859" class="fnanchor">[859]</a> of those against whom they were directed. -But the figure seems rather to be of birds of prey.</p> - -<p><i>And I turned and lifted my eyes and looked, and lo! -a volume<a name="FNanchor_860_860" id="FNanchor_860_860"></a><a href="#Footnote_860_860" class="fnanchor">[860]</a> flying. And he said unto me, What dost thou -see? And I said, I see a volume flying, its length -twenty cubits and its breadth ten. And he said unto -me, This is the curse that is going out upon the face -of all the land. For every thief is hereby purged away -from hence,<a name="FNanchor_861_861" id="FNanchor_861_861"></a><a href="#Footnote_861_861" class="fnanchor">[861]</a> and every perjurer is hereby purged away -from hence. I have sent it forth—oracle of Jehovah of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> -Hosts—and it shall enter the thief’s house, and the -house of him that hath sworn falsely by My name, and -it shall roost<a name="FNanchor_862_862" id="FNanchor_862_862"></a><a href="#Footnote_862_862" class="fnanchor">[862]</a> in the midst of his house and consume it, -with its beams and its stones.</i><a name="FNanchor_863_863" id="FNanchor_863_863"></a><a href="#Footnote_863_863" class="fnanchor">[863]</a></p> - -<h4 id="vis7">T<span class="small">HE</span> S<span class="small">EVENTH</span> - V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> - W<span class="small">OMAN IN THE</span> - B<span class="small">ARREL</span><br /> (Chap. v. 5–11).</h4> - -<p>It is not enough that the curse fly from the land -after destroying every criminal. The living principle -of sin, the power of temptation, must be covered up -and removed. This is the subject of the Seventh -Vision.</p> - -<p>The prophet sees an ephah, the largest vessel in use -among the Jews, of more than seven gallons capacity, -and round<a name="FNanchor_864_864" id="FNanchor_864_864"></a><a href="#Footnote_864_864" class="fnanchor">[864]</a> like a barrel. Presently the leaden top is -lifted, and the prophet sees a woman inside. This is -Wickedness, feminine because she figures the power -of temptation. She is thrust back into the barrel, -the leaden lid is pushed down, and the whole carried -off by two other female figures, winged like the strong, -far-flying stork, into the land of Shin‛ar, “which at -that time had the general significance of the counterpart -of the Holy Land,”<a name="FNanchor_865_865" id="FNanchor_865_865"></a><a href="#Footnote_865_865" class="fnanchor">[865]</a> and was the proper home -of all that was evil.</p> - -<p><i>And the angel of Jehovah who spake with me came -forward<a name="FNanchor_866_866" id="FNanchor_866_866"></a><a href="#Footnote_866_866" class="fnanchor">[866]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> -and said to me, Lift now thine eyes and see -what this is that comes forth. And I said, What is it? -And he said, This is a bushel coming forth. And he said, -This is their transgression<a name="FNanchor_867_867" id="FNanchor_867_867"></a><a href="#Footnote_867_867" class="fnanchor">[867]</a> in all the land.<a name="FNanchor_868_868" id="FNanchor_868_868"></a><a href="#Footnote_868_868" class="fnanchor">[868]</a> And behold! -the round leaden </i>top<i> was lifted up, and lo!<a name="FNanchor_869_869" id="FNanchor_869_869"></a><a href="#Footnote_869_869" class="fnanchor">[869]</a> a woman -sitting inside the bushel. And he said, This is the -Wickedness, and he thrust her back into the bushel, and -thrust the leaden disc upon the mouth of it. And I lifted -mine eyes and looked, and lo! two women came forth with -the wind in their wings, for they had wings like storks’ -wings, and they bore the bushel betwixt earth and heaven. -And I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do -they carry the bushel? And he said to me, To build it -a house in the land of Shin‛ar, that it may be fixed and -brought to rest there on a place of its own.</i><a name="FNanchor_870_870" id="FNanchor_870_870"></a><a href="#Footnote_870_870" class="fnanchor">[870]</a></p> - -<p>We must not allow this curious imagery to hide -from us its very spiritual teaching. If Zechariah is -weighted in these Visions by the ponderous fashion -of Ezekiel, he has also that prophet’s truly moral spirit. -He is not contented with the ritual atonement for sin, -nor with the legal punishment of crime. The living -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> -power of sin must be banished from Israel; and this -cannot be done by any efforts of men themselves, but -by God’s action only, which is thorough and effectual. -If the figures by which this is illustrated appear to us -grotesque and heavy, let us remember how they would -suit the imagination of the prophet’s own day. Let us -lay to heart their eternally valid doctrine, that sin is -not a formal curse, nor only expressed in certain social -crimes, nor exhausted by the punishment of these, but, -as a power of attraction and temptation to all men, it -must be banished from the heart, and can be banished -only by God.</p> - -<h4 id="vis8">T<span class="small">HE</span> - E<span class="small">IGHTH</span> V<span class="small">ISION</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">HARIOTS OF THE</span> - F<span class="small">OUR</span><br /> - W<span class="small">INDS</span> (Chap. vi. 1–8).</h4> - -<p>As the series of Visions opened with one of the universal -providence of God, so they close with another of -the same. The First Vision had postponed God’s overthrow -of the nations till His own time, and this the -Last Vision now describes as begun, the religious and -moral needs of Israel having meanwhile been met by -the Visions which come between, and every obstacle to -God’s action for the deliverance of His people being -removed.</p> - -<p>The prophet sees four chariots, with horses of different -colour in each, coming out from between two -mountains of brass. The horsemen of the First -Vision were bringing in reports: these chariots are -coming forth with their commissions from the presence -of the Lord of all the earth. They are the four winds -of heaven, servants of Him who maketh the winds His -angels. They are destined for different quarters of -the world. The prophet has not been admitted to -the Presence, and does not know what exactly they -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> -have been commissioned to do; that is to say, -Zechariah is ignorant of the actual political processes -by which the nations are to be overthrown and Israel -glorified before them. But his Angel-interpreter tells -him that the black horses go north, the white west, -and the dappled south, while the horses of the fourth -chariot, impatient because no direction is assigned to -them, are ordered to roam up and down through the -earth. It is striking that none are sent eastward.<a name="FNanchor_871_871" id="FNanchor_871_871"></a><a href="#Footnote_871_871" class="fnanchor">[871]</a> -This appears to mean that, in Zechariah’s day, no -power oppressed or threatened Israel from that direction; -but in the north there was the centre of the -Persian Empire, to the south Egypt, still a possible -master of the world, and to the west the new forces -of Europe that in less than a generation were to prove -themselves a match for Persia. The horses of the -fourth chariot are therefore given the charge to exercise -supervision upon the whole earth—unless in ver. 7 we -should translate, not <i>earth</i>, but <i>land</i>, and understand -a commission to patrol the land of Israel. The centre -of the world’s power is in the north, and therefore the -black horses, which are dispatched in that direction, -are explicitly described as charged to bring God’s -spirit, that is His anger or His power, to bear on that -quarter of the world.</p> - -<p><i>And once more<a name="FNanchor_872_872" id="FNanchor_872_872"></a><a href="#Footnote_872_872" class="fnanchor">[872]</a> I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! -four chariots coming forward from between two mountains, -and the mountains were mountains of brass. In -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> -the first chariot were brown horses, and in the second -chariot black horses, and in the third chariot white -horses, and in the fourth chariot dappled ...<a name="FNanchor_873_873" id="FNanchor_873_873"></a><a href="#Footnote_873_873" class="fnanchor">[873]</a> horses. -And I broke in and said to the angel who talked with -me, What are these, my lord? And the angel answered -and said to me, These be the four winds of heaven that -come forth from presenting themselves before the Lord of -all the earth.</i><a name="FNanchor_874_874" id="FNanchor_874_874"></a><a href="#Footnote_874_874" class="fnanchor">[874]</a> That <i>with the black horses goes forth to -the land of the north, while the white go out west</i><a name="FNanchor_875_875" id="FNanchor_875_875"></a><a href="#Footnote_875_875" class="fnanchor">[875]</a> (?), <i>and -the dappled go to the land of the south. And the ...<a name="FNanchor_876_876" id="FNanchor_876_876"></a><a href="#Footnote_876_876" class="fnanchor">[876]</a> -go forth and seek to go, to march up and down on the -earth. And he said, Go, march up and down on the -earth; and they marched up and down on the earth. -And he called me and spake to me, saying, See they that -go forth to the land of the north have brought my spirit -to bear<a name="FNanchor_877_877" id="FNanchor_877_877"></a><a href="#Footnote_877_877" class="fnanchor">[877]</a> on the land of the north.</i></p> - -<h4 id="vis9">T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">ESULT OF THE</span> V<span class="small">ISIONS</span>: - T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">ROWNING OF THE</span><br /> - K<span class="small">ING OF</span> - I<span class="small">SRAEL</span> (Chap. vi. 9–15).</h4> - -<p>The heathen being overthrown, Israel is free, and -may have her king again. Therefore Zechariah is -ordered—it would appear on the same day as that on -which he received the Visions—to visit a certain -deputation from the captivity in Babylon, Heldai, -Tobiyah and Yedayah, at the house of Josiah the son -of Zephaniah, where they have just arrived; and to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> -select from the gifts they have brought enough silver -and gold to make circlets for a crown. The present -text assigns this crown to Joshua, the high priest, but -as we have already remarked, and will presently prove -in the notes to the translation, the original text assigned -it to Zerubbabel, the civil head of the community, and -gave Joshua, the priest, a place at his right hand—the -two to act in perfect concord with each other. The -text has suffered some other injuries, which it is easy -to amend; and the end of it has been broken off in -the middle of a sentence.</p> - -<p><i>And the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying: Take -from the Gôlah,<a name="FNanchor_878_878" id="FNanchor_878_878"></a><a href="#Footnote_878_878" class="fnanchor">[878]</a> from Heldai<a name="FNanchor_879_879" id="FNanchor_879_879"></a><a href="#Footnote_879_879" class="fnanchor">[879]</a> and from Tobiyah and -from Yeda‛yah; and do thou go on the same day, yea, go -thou to the house of Yosiyahu, son of Ṣephanyah, whither -they have arrived from Babylon.<a name="FNanchor_880_880" id="FNanchor_880_880"></a><a href="#Footnote_880_880" class="fnanchor">[880]</a> And thou shall take -silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head -of....<a name="FNanchor_881_881" id="FNanchor_881_881"></a><a href="#Footnote_881_881" class="fnanchor">[881]</a> And say to him: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, -Lo! a man called Branch; from his roots shall a branch -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>come, and he shall build the Temple of Jehovah. Yea, he -shall build Jehovah’s Temple,<a name="FNanchor_882_882" id="FNanchor_882_882"></a><a href="#Footnote_882_882" class="fnanchor">[882]</a> and he shall wear the royal -majesty and sit and rule upon his throne, and Joshua<a name="FNanchor_883_883" id="FNanchor_883_883"></a><a href="#Footnote_883_883" class="fnanchor">[883]</a> -shall be priest on his right hand,<a name="FNanchor_884_884" id="FNanchor_884_884"></a><a href="#Footnote_884_884" class="fnanchor">[884]</a> and there will be a counsel -of peace between the two of them.<a name="FNanchor_885_885" id="FNanchor_885_885"></a><a href="#Footnote_885_885" class="fnanchor">[885]</a> And the crown shall -be for Heldai<a name="FNanchor_886_886" id="FNanchor_886_886"></a><a href="#Footnote_886_886" class="fnanchor">[886]</a> and Tobiyah and Yeda‛yah, and for the -courtesy<a name="FNanchor_887_887" id="FNanchor_887_887"></a><a href="#Footnote_887_887" class="fnanchor">[887]</a> of the son of Ṣephanyah, for a memorial in -the Temple of Jehovah. And the far-away shall come -and build at the Temple of Jehovah, and ye shall know -that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me to you; and it shall -be if ye hearken lo the voice of Jehovah your -God …</i><a name="FNanchor_888_888" id="FNanchor_888_888"></a><a href="#Footnote_888_888" class="fnanchor">[888]</a></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE ANGELS OF THE VISIONS</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> i. 7—vi. 8</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Among the influences of the Exile which contributed -the material of Zechariah’s Visions we included -a considerable development of Israel’s belief in Angels. -The general subject is in itself so large, and the Angels -play so many parts in the Visions, that it is necessary -to devote to them a separate chapter.</p> - -<p>From the earliest times the Hebrews had conceived -their Divine King to be surrounded by a court of -ministers, who besides celebrating His glory went forth -from His presence to execute His will upon earth. In -this latter capacity they were called Messengers, -Male’akim, which the Greeks translated Angeloi, and -so gave us our Angels. The origin of this conception is -wrapt in obscurity. It may have been partly due to -a belief, shared by all early peoples, in the existence -of superhuman beings inferior to the gods,<a name="FNanchor_889_889" id="FNanchor_889_889"></a><a href="#Footnote_889_889" class="fnanchor">[889]</a> but even -without this it must have sprung up in the natural -tendency to provide the royal deity of a people with a -court, an army and servants. In the pious minds of -early Israel there must have been a kind of necessity -to believe and develop this—a necessity imposed <i>firstly</i> -by the belief in Jehovah’s residence as confined to one -spot, Sinai or Jerusalem, from which He Himself went -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> -forth only upon great occasions to the deliverance of -His people as a whole; and <i>secondly</i> by the unwillingness -to conceive of His personal appearance in missions -of a menial nature, or to represent Him in the human -form in which, according to primitive ideas, He could -alone hold converse with men.</p> - -<p>It can easily be understood how a religion, which was -above all a religion of revelation, should accept such -popular conceptions in its constant record of the appearance -of God and His Word in human life. Accordingly, -in the earliest documents of the Hebrews, we find angels -who bring to Israel the blessings, curses and commands of -Jehovah.<a name="FNanchor_890_890" id="FNanchor_890_890"></a><a href="#Footnote_890_890" class="fnanchor">[890]</a> Apart from this duty and their human appearance, -these beings are not conceived to be endowed -either with character or, if we may judge by their namelessness,<a name="FNanchor_891_891" id="FNanchor_891_891"></a><a href="#Footnote_891_891" class="fnanchor">[891]</a> -with individuality. They are the Word of -God personified. Acting as God’s mouthpiece, they are -merged in Him, and so completely that they often speak -of themselves by the Divine <i>I</i>.<a name="FNanchor_892_892" id="FNanchor_892_892"></a><a href="#Footnote_892_892" class="fnanchor">[892]</a> “The <i>function</i> of an -Angel so overshadows his <i>personality</i> that the Old Testament -does not ask who or what this Angel is, but what he -does. And the answer to the last question is, that he -represents God to man so directly and fully that when -he speaks or acts God Himself is felt to speak or act.”<a name="FNanchor_893_893" id="FNanchor_893_893"></a><a href="#Footnote_893_893" class="fnanchor">[893]</a> -Besides the carriage of the Divine Word, angels bring -back to their Lord report of all that happens: kings are -said, in popular language, to be <i>as wise as the wisdom of -an angel of God, to know all the things that are in the earth</i>.<a name="FNanchor_894_894" id="FNanchor_894_894"></a><a href="#Footnote_894_894" class="fnanchor">[894]</a> -They are also employed in the deliverance and discipline -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> -of His people.<a name="FNanchor_895_895" id="FNanchor_895_895"></a><a href="#Footnote_895_895" class="fnanchor">[895]</a> By them come the pestilence,<a name="FNanchor_896_896" id="FNanchor_896_896"></a><a href="#Footnote_896_896" class="fnanchor">[896]</a> and the -restraint of those who set themselves against God’s -will.<a name="FNanchor_897_897" id="FNanchor_897_897"></a><a href="#Footnote_897_897" class="fnanchor">[897]</a></p> - -<p>Now the prophets before the Exile had so spiritual -a conception of God, worked so immediately from His -presence, and above all were so convinced of His -personal and practical interest in the affairs of His -people, that they felt no room for Angels between Him -and their hearts, and they do not employ Angels, except -when Isaiah in his inaugural vision penetrates to the -heavenly palace and court of the Most High.<a name="FNanchor_898_898" id="FNanchor_898_898"></a><a href="#Footnote_898_898" class="fnanchor">[898]</a> Even -when Amos sees a plummet laid to the walls of Jerusalem, -it is by the hands of Jehovah Himself,<a name="FNanchor_899_899" id="FNanchor_899_899"></a><a href="#Footnote_899_899" class="fnanchor">[899]</a> and we have -not encountered an Angel in the mediation of the Word -to any of the prophets whom we have already studied. -But Angels reappear, though not under the name, in the -visions of Ezekiel, the first prophet of the Exile. They -are in human form, and he calls them <i>Men</i>. Some execute -God’s wrath upon Jerusalem,<a name="FNanchor_900_900" id="FNanchor_900_900"></a><a href="#Footnote_900_900" class="fnanchor">[900]</a> and one, whose appearance -is as the appearance of brass, acts as the interpreter -of God’s will to the prophet, and instructs him in the -details of the building of City and Temple.<a name="FNanchor_901_901" id="FNanchor_901_901"></a><a href="#Footnote_901_901" class="fnanchor">[901]</a> When the -glory of Jehovah appears and Jehovah Himself speaks -to the prophet out of the Temple, this <i>Man</i> stands by -the prophet,<a name="FNanchor_902_902" id="FNanchor_902_902"></a><a href="#Footnote_902_902" class="fnanchor">[902]</a> distinct from the Deity, and afterwards -continues his work of explanation. “Therefore,” as -Dr. Davidson remarks, “it is not the sense of distance -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> -to which God is removed that causes Ezekiel to create -these intermediaries.” The necessity for them rather -arises from the same natural feeling, which we have -suggested as giving rise to the earliest conceptions -of Angels: the unwillingness, namely, to engage the -Person of God Himself in the subordinate task of -explaining the details of the Temple. Note, too, how -the Divine Voice, which speaks to Ezekiel out of the -Temple, blends and becomes one with the <i>Man</i> standing -at his side. Ezekiel’s Angel-interpreter is simply one -function of the Word of God.</p> - -<p>Many of the features of Ezekiel’s Angels appear in -those of Zechariah. <i>The four smiths</i> or smiters of the -four horns recall the six executioners of the wicked in -Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_903_903" id="FNanchor_903_903"></a><a href="#Footnote_903_903" class="fnanchor">[903]</a> Like Ezekiel’s Interpreter, they are called -<i>Men</i>,<a name="FNanchor_904_904" id="FNanchor_904_904"></a><a href="#Footnote_904_904" class="fnanchor">[904]</a> and like him one appears as Zechariah’s instructor -and guide: <i>he who talked with me</i>.<a name="FNanchor_905_905" id="FNanchor_905_905"></a><a href="#Footnote_905_905" class="fnanchor">[905]</a> But while Zechariah -calls these beings Men, he also gives them the ancient -name, which Ezekiel had not used, of Male’akim, <i>messengers</i>, -<i>angels</i>. The Instructor is <i>the Angel who talked -with me</i>. In the First Vision, <i>the Man riding the brown -horse, the Man that stood among the myrtles</i>, is <i>the Angel -of Jehovah that stood among the myrtles</i>.<a name="FNanchor_906_906" id="FNanchor_906_906"></a><a href="#Footnote_906_906" class="fnanchor">[906]</a> The Interpreter -is also called <i>the Angel of Jehovah</i>, and if our text -of the First Vision be correct, the two of them are -curiously mingled, as if both were functions of the same -Word of God, and in personality not to be distinguished -from each other. The Reporting Angel among -the myrtles takes up the duty of the Interpreting -Angel and explains the Vision to the prophet. In the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> -Fourth Vision this dissolving view is carried further, -and the Angel of Jehovah is interchangeable with -Jehovah Himself;<a name="FNanchor_907_907" id="FNanchor_907_907"></a><a href="#Footnote_907_907" class="fnanchor">[907]</a> just as in the Vision of Ezekiel the -Divine Voice from the Glory and the Man standing -beside the prophet are curiously mingled. Again in -the Fourth Vision we hear of those <i>who stand in the -presence of Jehovah</i>,<a name="FNanchor_908_908" id="FNanchor_908_908"></a><a href="#Footnote_908_908" class="fnanchor">[908]</a> and in the Eighth of executant -angels coming out from His presence with commissions -upon the whole earth.<a name="FNanchor_909_909" id="FNanchor_909_909"></a><a href="#Footnote_909_909" class="fnanchor">[909]</a></p> - -<p>In the Visions of Zechariah, then, as in the earlier -books, we see the Lord of all the earth, surrounded by -a court of angels, whom He sends forth in human form -to interpret His Word and execute His will, and in -their doing of this there is the same indistinctness of -individuality, the same predominance of function over -personality. As with Ezekiel, one stands out more -clearly than the rest, to be the prophet’s interpreter, -whom, as in the earlier visions of angels, Zechariah -calls <i>my lord</i>,<a name="FNanchor_910_910" id="FNanchor_910_910"></a><a href="#Footnote_910_910" class="fnanchor">[910]</a> but even he melts into the figures of -the rest. These are the old and borrowed elements in -Zechariah’s doctrine of Angels. But he has added to -them in several important particulars, which make his -Visions an intermediate stage between the Book of -Ezekiel and the very intricate angelology of later -Judaism.</p> - -<p>In the first place, Zechariah is the earliest prophet -who introduces orders and ranks among the angels. -In his Fourth Vision the Angel of Jehovah is the Divine -Judge <i>before whom</i><a name="FNanchor_911_911" id="FNanchor_911_911"></a><a href="#Footnote_911_911" class="fnanchor">[911]</a> Joshua appears with the Adversary. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> -He also has others standing <i>before him</i><a name="FNanchor_912_912" id="FNanchor_912_912"></a><a href="#Footnote_912_912" class="fnanchor">[912]</a> to execute his -sentences. In the Third Vision, again, the Interpreting -Angel does not communicate directly with Jehovah, but -receives his words from another Angel who has come -forth.<a name="FNanchor_913_913" id="FNanchor_913_913"></a><a href="#Footnote_913_913" class="fnanchor">[913]</a> All these are symptoms, that even with a -prophet, who so keenly felt as Zechariah did the ethical -directness of God’s word and its pervasiveness through -public life, there had yet begun to increase those -feelings of God’s sublimity and awfulness, which in -the later thought of Israel lifted Him to so far a -distance from men, and created so complex a host of -intermediaries, human and superhuman, between the -worshipping heart and the Throne of Grace. We can -best estimate the difference in this respect between -Zechariah and the earlier prophets whom we have -studied by remarking that his characteristic phrase -<i>talked with me</i>, literally <i>spake in</i> or <i>by me</i>, which he uses -of the Interpreting Angel, is used by Habakkuk of God -Himself.<a name="FNanchor_914_914" id="FNanchor_914_914"></a><a href="#Footnote_914_914" class="fnanchor">[914]</a> To the same awful impressions of the Godhead -is perhaps due the first appearance of the Angel -as intercessor. Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah themselves -directly interceded with God for the people; but with -Zechariah it is the Interpreting Angel who intercedes, -and who in return receives the Divine comfort.<a name="FNanchor_915_915" id="FNanchor_915_915"></a><a href="#Footnote_915_915" class="fnanchor">[915]</a> In this -angelic function, the first of its kind in Scripture, we -see the small and explicable beginnings of a belief -destined to assume enormous dimensions in the -development of the Church’s worship. The supplication -of Angels, the faith in their intercession and in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> -the prevailing prayers of the righteous dead, which -has been so egregiously multiplied in certain sections -of Christendom, may be traced to the same increasing -sense of the distance and awfulness of God, but is -to be corrected by the faith Christ has taught us of -the nearness of our Father in Heaven, and of His -immediate care of His every human child.</p> - -<p>The intercession of the Angel in the First Vision is -also a step towards that identification of special Angels -with different peoples which we find in the Book of -Daniel. This tells us of heavenly princes not only -for Israel—<i>Michael, your prince, the great prince which -standeth up for the children of thy people</i><a name="FNanchor_916_916" id="FNanchor_916_916"></a><a href="#Footnote_916_916" class="fnanchor">[916]</a>—but for the -heathen nations, a conception the first beginnings -of which we see in a prophecy that was perhaps -not far from being contemporaneous with Zechariah.<a name="FNanchor_917_917" id="FNanchor_917_917"></a><a href="#Footnote_917_917" class="fnanchor">[917]</a> -Zechariah’s Vision of a hierarchy among the angels was -also destined to further development. The head of the -patrol among the myrtles, and the Judge-Angel before -whom Joshua appears, are the first Archangels. We -know how these were further specialised, and had even -personalities and names given them by both Jewish and -Christian writers.<a name="FNanchor_918_918" id="FNanchor_918_918"></a><a href="#Footnote_918_918" class="fnanchor">[918]</a></p> - -<p>Among the Angels described in the Old Testament, -we have seen some charged with powers of hindrance -and destruction—<i>a troop of angels of evil</i>.<a name="FNanchor_919_919" id="FNanchor_919_919"></a><a href="#Footnote_919_919" class="fnanchor">[919]</a> They too -are the servants of God, who is the author of all evil -as well as good,<a name="FNanchor_920_920" id="FNanchor_920_920"></a><a href="#Footnote_920_920" class="fnanchor">[920]</a> and the instruments of His wrath. -Providence. Where wilful souls have to be misled, -But the temptation of men is also part of His -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> -the <i>spirit</i> who does so, as in Ahab’s case, comes from -Jehovah’s presence.<a name="FNanchor_921_921" id="FNanchor_921_921"></a><a href="#Footnote_921_921" class="fnanchor">[921]</a> All these spirits are just as -devoid of character and personality as the rest of the -angelic host. They work evil as mere instruments: -neither malice nor falseness is attributed to themselves. -They are not rebel nor fallen angels, but obedient to -Jehovah. Nay, like Ezekiel’s and Zechariah’s Angels -of the Word, the Angel who tempts David to number -the people is interchangeable with God Himself.<a name="FNanchor_922_922" id="FNanchor_922_922"></a><a href="#Footnote_922_922" class="fnanchor">[922]</a> -Kindred to the duty of tempting men is that of discipline, -in its forms both of restraining or accusing -the guilty, and of vexing the righteous in order to test -them. For both of these the same verb is used, “to -satan,”<a name="FNanchor_923_923" id="FNanchor_923_923"></a><a href="#Footnote_923_923" class="fnanchor">[923]</a> in the general sense of <i>withstanding</i>, or antagonising. -The Angel of Jehovah stood in Balaam’s -way <i>to satan him</i>.<a name="FNanchor_924_924" id="FNanchor_924_924"></a><a href="#Footnote_924_924" class="fnanchor">[924]</a> The noun, <i>the Satan</i>, is used -repeatedly of a human foe.<a name="FNanchor_925_925" id="FNanchor_925_925"></a><a href="#Footnote_925_925" class="fnanchor">[925]</a> But in two passages, -of which Zechariah’s Fourth Vision is one, and the -other the Prologue to Job,<a name="FNanchor_926_926" id="FNanchor_926_926"></a><a href="#Footnote_926_926" class="fnanchor">[926]</a> the name is given to an -Angel, one of <i>the sons of Elohim</i>, or Divine powers -who receive their commission from Jehovah. The -noun is not yet, what it afterwards became,<a name="FNanchor_927_927" id="FNanchor_927_927"></a><a href="#Footnote_927_927" class="fnanchor">[927]</a> a proper -name; but has the definite article, <i>the Adversary</i> or -<i>Accuser</i>—that is, the Angel to whom that function -was assigned. With Zechariah his business is the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> -official one of prosecutor in the supreme court of -Jehovah, and when his work is done he disappears. -Yet, before he does so, we see for the first time in -connection with any angel a gleam of character. This -is revealed by the Lord’s rebuke of him. There -is something blameworthy in the accusation of -Joshua: not indeed false witness, for Israel’s guilt -is patent in the foul garments of their High Priest, -but hardness or malice, that would seek to prevent -the Divine grace. In the Book of Job <i>the Satan</i> is -also a function, even here not a fallen or rebel -angel, but one of God’s court,<a name="FNanchor_928_928" id="FNanchor_928_928"></a><a href="#Footnote_928_928" class="fnanchor">[928]</a> the instrument of -discipline or chastisement. Yet, in that he himself -suggests his cruelties and is represented as forward -and officious in their infliction, a character is imputed -to him even more clearly than in Zechariah’s Vision. -But the Satan still shares that identification with his -function which we have seen to characterise all the -angels of the Old Testament, and therefore he disappears -from the drama so soon as his place in its -high argument is over.<a name="FNanchor_929_929" id="FNanchor_929_929"></a><a href="#Footnote_929_929" class="fnanchor">[929]</a></p> - -<p>In this description of the development of Israel’s -doctrine of Angels, and of Zechariah’s contributions -to it, we have not touched upon the question whether -the development was assisted by Israel’s contact with -the Persian religion and with the system of Angels which -the latter contains. For several reasons the question -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> -is a difficult one. But so far as present evidence goes, -it makes for a negative answer. Scholars, who are in -no way prejudiced against the theory of a large Persian -influence upon Israel, declare that the religion of -Persia affected the Jewish doctrine of Angels “only in -secondary points,” such as their “number and personality, -and the existence of demons and evil spirits.”<a name="FNanchor_930_930" id="FNanchor_930_930"></a><a href="#Footnote_930_930" class="fnanchor">[930]</a> -Our own discussion has shown us that Zechariah’s -Angels, in spite of the new features they introduce, -are in substance one with the Angels of pre-exilic -Israel. Even the Satan is primarily a function, and -one of the servants of God. If he has developed an -immoral character, this cannot be attributed to the -influence of Persian belief in a Spirit of evil opposed -to the Spirit of good in the universe, but may be -explained by the native, or selfish, resentment of Israel -against their prosecutor before the bar of Jehovah. -Nor can we fail to remark that this character of evil -appears in the Satan, not, as in the Persian religion, in -general opposition to goodness, but as thwarting that -saving grace which was so peculiarly Jehovah’s own. -And Jehovah said to the Satan, <i>Jehovah rebuke thee, -O Satan, yea, Jehovah who hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke -thee! Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">“ THE SEED OF PEACE”</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> vii., viii.</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -The Visions have revealed the removal of the guilt -of the land, the restoration of Israel to their -standing before God, the revival of the great national -institutions, and God’s will to destroy the heathen forces -of the world. With the Temple built, Israel should -be again in the position which she enjoyed before the -Exile. Zechariah, therefore, proceeds to exhort his -people to put away the fasts which the Exile had -made necessary, and address themselves, as of old, to -the virtues and duties of the civic life. And he introduces -his orations to this end by a natural appeal to -the experience of the former days.</p> - -<p>The occasion came to him when the Temple had -been building for two years, and when some of its -services were probably resumed.<a name="FNanchor_931_931" id="FNanchor_931_931"></a><a href="#Footnote_931_931" class="fnanchor">[931]</a> A deputation of Jews -appeared in Jerusalem and raised the question of the -continuance of the great Fasts of the Exile. Who the -deputation were is not certain: probably we ought to -delete <i>Bethel</i> from the second verse, and read either -<i>El-sar’eser sent Regem-Melekh and his men to the house -of Jehovah to propitiate Jehovah</i>, or else <i>the house of -El-sar’eser sent Regem-Melekh and his men to propitiate -Jehovah</i>. It has been thought that they came from -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> -the Jews in Babylon: this would agree with their arrival -in the ninth month to inquire about a fast in the fifth -month. But Zechariah’s answer is addressed to Jews -in Judæa. The deputation limited their inquiry to -the fast of the fifth month, which commemorated the -burning of the Temple and the City, now practically -restored. But with a breadth of view which reveals -the prophet rather than the priest, Zechariah replies, -in the following chapter, upon all the fasts by which -Israel for seventy years had bewailed her ruin and -exile. He instances two, that of the fifth month, -and that of the seventh month, the date of the murder -of Gedaliah, when the last poor remnant of a Jewish -state was swept away.<a name="FNanchor_932_932" id="FNanchor_932_932"></a><a href="#Footnote_932_932" class="fnanchor">[932]</a> With a boldness which -recalls Amos to the very letter, Zechariah asks his -people whether in those fasts they fasted at all to -their God. Jehovah had not charged them, and in -fasting they had fasted for themselves, just as in -eating and drinking they had eaten and drunken to -themselves. They should rather hearken to the words -He really sent them. In a passage, the meaning of -which has been perverted by the intrusion of the eighth -verse, that therefore ought to be deleted, Zechariah -recalls what those words of Jehovah had been in the -former times when the land was inhabited and the -national life in full course. They were not ceremonial; -they were ethical: they commanded justice, kindness, -and the care of the helpless and the poor. And it -was in consequence of the people’s disobedience to -those words that all the ruin came upon them for -which they now annually mourned. The moral is -obvious if unexpressed. Let them drop their fasts, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> -and practise the virtues the neglect of which had made -their fasts a necessity. It is a sane and practical -word, and makes us feel how much Zechariah has -inherited of the temper of Amos and Isaiah. He rests, -as before, upon the letter of the ancient oracles, but -only so as to bring out their spirit. With such an -example of the use of ancient Scripture, it is deplorable -that so many men, both among the Jews and the -Christians, should have devoted themselves to the -letter at the expense of the spirit.</p> - -<p><i>And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius the -king, that the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah on the -fourth of the ninth month, Kislev. For there sent to -</i>the<i> house </i>of Jehovah,<i> El-sar’eser and Regem-Melekh -and his men,<a name="FNanchor_933_933" id="FNanchor_933_933"></a><a href="#Footnote_933_933" class="fnanchor">[933]</a> to propitiate<a name="FNanchor_934_934" id="FNanchor_934_934"></a><a href="#Footnote_934_934" class="fnanchor">[934]</a> -Jehovah, to ask of the priests -which were in the house of Jehovah of Hosts and of the -prophets as follows: Shall I weep in the fifth month -with fasting as I have now done so many years? And -the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came to me: Speak now -to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: -When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the -seventh month,<a name="FNanchor_935_935" id="FNanchor_935_935"></a><a href="#Footnote_935_935" class="fnanchor">[935]</a> and this for seventy years, did ye fast at -all to Me? And when ye eat and when ye drink, are not -ye the eaters and ye the drinkers? Are not these<a name="FNanchor_936_936" id="FNanchor_936_936"></a><a href="#Footnote_936_936" class="fnanchor">[936]</a> the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> -words which Jehovah proclaimed by the hand of the former -prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at peace, -with her cities round about her, and the Negeb and the -Shephelah were inhabited?</i></p> - -<p><a name="FNanchor_937_937" id="FNanchor_937_937"></a><a href="#Footnote_937_937" class="fnanchor">[937]</a><i>Thus spake Jehovah of Hosts: Judge true judgment, -and practise towards each other kindness and mercy; -oppress neither widow nor orphan, stranger nor poor, and -think not evil in your hearts towards one another. But -they refused to hearken, and turned a rebellious shoulder,<a name="FNanchor_938_938" id="FNanchor_938_938"></a><a href="#Footnote_938_938" class="fnanchor">[938]</a> -and their ears they dulled from listening. And their -heart they made adamant, so as not to hear the Torah -and the words which Jehovah of Hosts sent through His -Spirit by the hand of the former prophets; and there -was great wrath from Jehovah of Hosts. And it came -to pass that, as He had called and they heard not, so -they shall call and I will not hear, said Jehovah of -Hosts, but I will whirl<a name="FNanchor_939_939" id="FNanchor_939_939"></a><a href="#Footnote_939_939" class="fnanchor">[939]</a> them away among nations -whom they know not. And the land was laid waste -behind them, without any to pass to and fro, and they -made the pleasant land desolate.</i></p> - -<p>There follow upon this deliverance ten other short -oracles: chap. viii. Whether all of this decalogue are -to be dated from the same time as the answer to the -deputation about the fasts is uncertain. Some of them -appear rather to belong to an earlier date, for they -reflect the situation, and even the words, of Haggai’s -oracles, and represent the advent of Jehovah to -Jerusalem as still future. But they return to the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> -question of the fasts, treating it still more comprehensively -than before, and they close with a promise, -fitly spoken as the Temple grew to completion, of the -coming of the heathen to worship at Jerusalem.</p> - -<p>We have already noticed the tender charm and -strong simplicity of these prophecies,<a name="FNanchor_940_940" id="FNanchor_940_940"></a><a href="#Footnote_940_940" class="fnanchor">[940]</a> and there is little -now to add except the translation of them. As with -the older prophets, and especially the great Evangelist -of the Exile, they start from the glowing love of -Jehovah for His people, to which nothing is impossible;<a name="FNanchor_941_941" id="FNanchor_941_941"></a><a href="#Footnote_941_941" class="fnanchor">[941]</a> -they promise a complete return of the -scattered Jews to their land, and are not content -except with the assurance of a world converted to -the faith of their God. With Haggai Zechariah -promises the speedy end of the poverty of the little -colony; and he adds his own characteristic notes of -a reign of peace to be used for hearty labour, bringing -forth a great prosperity. Only let men be true -and just and kind, thinking no evil of each other, -as in those hard days when hunger and the fierce -rivalry for sustenance made every one’s neighbour -his enemy, and the petty life, devoid of large interests -for the commonweal, filled their hearts with envy and -malice. For ourselves the chief profit of these beautiful -oracles is their lesson that the remedy for the -sordid tempers and cruel hatreds, engendered by the -fierce struggle for existence, is found in civic and -religious hopes, in a noble ideal for the national -life, and in the assurance that God’s Love is at the -back of all, with nothing impossible to it. Amid -these glories, however, the heart will probably thank -Zechariah most for his immortal picture of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> -streets of the new Jerusalem: old men and women -sitting in the sun, boys and girls playing in all the -open places. The motive of it, as we have seen, -was found in the circumstances of his own day. -Like many another emigration, for religion’s sake, from -the heart of civilisation to a barren coast, the poor -colony of Jerusalem consisted chiefly of men, young -and in middle life. The barren years gave no encouragement -to marriage. The constant warfare with -neighbouring tribes allowed few to reach grey hairs. -It was a rough and a hard society, unblessed by the -two great benedictions of life, childhood and old age. -But this should all be changed, and Jerusalem filled -with placid old men and women, and with joyous boys -and girls. The oracle, we say, had its motive in -Zechariah’s day. But what an oracle for these times -of ours! Whether in the large cities of the old world, -where so few of the workers may hope for a quiet old -age, sitting in the sun, and the children’s days of play -are shortened by premature toil and knowledge of evil; -or in the newest fringes of the new world, where men’s -hardness and coarseness are, in the struggle for gold, -unawed by reverence for age and unsoftened by the -fellowship of childhood,—Zechariah’s great promise -is equally needed. Even there shall it be fulfilled -if men will remember his conditions—that the first -regard of a community, however straitened in means, -be the provision of religion, that truth and whole-hearted -justice abound in the gates, with love and -loyalty in every heart towards every other.</p> - - - -<p><i>And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came, saying:—</i></p> - -<p>1. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: I am jealous for -Zion with a great jealousy, and with great anger am I -jealous for her.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> -2. <i>Thus saith Jehovah: I am returned to Zion, and -I dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall -be called the City of Troth,<a name="FNanchor_942_942" id="FNanchor_942_942"></a><a href="#Footnote_942_942" class="fnanchor">[942]</a> and the mountain of Jehovah -of Hosts the Holy Mountain.</i></p> - -<p>3. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Old men and old -women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with -staff in hand, for fulness of days; and the streets of -the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in her -streets.</i></p> - -<p>4. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Because it seems too -wonderful to the remnant of this people in those days, -shall it also seem too wonderful to Me?—oracle of Jehovah -of Hosts.</i></p> - -<p>5. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Lo! I am about to -save My people out of the land of the rising and out of -the land of the setting of the sun; and I will bring them -home, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and -they shall be to Me for a people,<a name="FNanchor_943_943" id="FNanchor_943_943"></a><a href="#Footnote_943_943" class="fnanchor">[943]</a> and I will be to them -for God, in troth and in righteousness.</i></p> - -<p>6. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Strengthen your -hands, O ye who have heard in such days such words -from the mouth of the prophets, since<a name="FNanchor_944_944" id="FNanchor_944_944"></a><a href="#Footnote_944_944" class="fnanchor">[944]</a> the day when the -House of Jehovah of Hosts was founded: the sanctuary -was to be built! For before those days there was -no gain for man,<a name="FNanchor_945_945" id="FNanchor_945_945"></a><a href="#Footnote_945_945" class="fnanchor">[945]</a> and none to be made by cattle; and -neither for him that went out nor for him that came in was -there any peace from the adversary, and I set every man’s -hand against his neighbour. But not now as in the past -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> -days am I towards the remnant of this people—oracle of -Jehovah of Hosts. For I am sowing the seed of peace.<a name="FNanchor_946_946" id="FNanchor_946_946"></a><a href="#Footnote_946_946" class="fnanchor">[946]</a> -The vine shall yield her fruit, and the land yield her -increase, and the heavens yield their dew, and I will -give them all for a heritage to the remnant of this people. -And it shall come to pass, that as ye have been a curse -among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, -so will I save you and ye shall be a blessing! Be not -afraid, strengthen your hands!</i></p> - -<p>7. <i>For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: As I have planned -to do evil to you, for the provocation your fathers gave -Me, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and did not relent, so have I -turned and planned in these days to do good to Jerusalem -and the house of Judah. Be not afraid! These are the -things which ye shall do: Speak truth to one another; -truth and wholesome judgment decree ye in your gates; -and plan no evil to each other in your hearts, nor take -pleasure in false swearing: for it is all these that I hate—oracle -of Jehovah.</i></p> - -<p><i>And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came to me, -saying:—</i></p> - -<p>8. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: The fast of the -fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of -the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall become to the -house of Judah joy and gladness and happy feasts.<a name="FNanchor_947_947" id="FNanchor_947_947"></a><a href="#Footnote_947_947" class="fnanchor">[947]</a> But -love ye truth and peace.</i></p> - -<p>9. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: There shall yet come -peoples and citizens of great cities; and the citizens of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> -one city<a name="FNanchor_948_948" id="FNanchor_948_948"></a><a href="#Footnote_948_948" class="fnanchor">[948]</a> will go to another city, saying: “Let us go to -propitiate Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of Hosts!” -“I will go too!” And many peoples and strong nations -shall come to seek Jehovah of Hosts in Jerusalem and -to propitiate Jehovah.</i></p> - -<p>10. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: In those days ten -men, of all languages of the nations, shall take hold of -the skirt of a Jew and say, We will go with you, for we -have heard that God is with you.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> -<h2 id="Malachi" class="nobreak">“MALACHI”</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> -<p class="italic">Have we not all One Father? Why then are we unfaithful to each -other?</p> - -<p class="italic">The lips of a Priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from -his mouth, for he is the Angel of Jehovah of Hosts.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF “ MALACHI”</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -This book, the last in the arrangement of the -prophetic canon, bears the title: <i>Burden</i> or -<i>Oracle of the Word of Jehovah to Israel by the hand of -malĕ’akhi</i>. Since at least the second century of our -era the word has been understood as a proper name, -Malachi or Malachias. But there are strong objections -to this, as well as to the genuineness of the whole title, -and critics now almost universally agree that the book -was originally anonymous.</p> - -<p>It is true that neither in form nor in meaning is -there any insuperable obstacle to our understanding -“malĕ’akhi” as the name of a person. If so, however, -it cannot have been, as some have suggested, an abbreviation -of Malĕ’akhiyah, for, according to the analogy -of other names of such formation, this could only -express the impossible meaning <i>Jehovah is Angel</i>.<a name="FNanchor_949_949" id="FNanchor_949_949"></a><a href="#Footnote_949_949" class="fnanchor">[949]</a> -But, as it stands, it might have meant <i>My Angel</i> -or <i>Messenger</i>, or it may be taken as an adjective, -<i>Angelicus</i><a name="FNanchor_950_950" id="FNanchor_950_950"></a><a href="#Footnote_950_950" class="fnanchor">[950]</a>. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> -Either of these meanings would form a -natural name for a Jewish child, and a very suitable -one for a prophet. There is evidence, however, that -some of the earliest Jewish interpreters did not think -of the title as containing the name of a person. -The Septuagint read <i>by the hand of His messenger</i>,<a name="FNanchor_951_951" id="FNanchor_951_951"></a><a href="#Footnote_951_951" class="fnanchor">[951]</a> -“malĕ’akho”; and the Targum of Jonathan, while retaining -“malĕ’akhi,” rendered it <i>My messenger</i>, adding -that it was Ezra the Scribe who was thus designated.<a name="FNanchor_952_952" id="FNanchor_952_952"></a><a href="#Footnote_952_952" class="fnanchor">[952]</a> -This opinion was adopted by Calvin.</p> - -<p>Recent criticism has shown that, whether the word -was originally intended as a personal name or not, it -was a purely artificial one borrowed from chap. iii. 1, -<i>Behold, I send My messenger</i>, “malĕ’akhi,” for the title, -which itself has been added by the editor of the Twelve -Prophets in the form in which we now have them. -The peculiar words of the title, <i>Burden</i> or <i>Oracle of the -Word of Jehovah</i>, occur nowhere else than in the titles -of the two prophecies which have been appended to -the Book of Zechariah, chap. ix. 1 and chap. xii. 1, and -immediately precede this Book of “Malachi.” In chap. -ix. 1 <i>the Word of Jehovah</i> belongs to the text; <i>Burden</i> -or <i>Oracle</i> has been inserted before it as a title; then the -whole phrase has been inserted as a title in chap. xii. 1. -These two pieces are anonymous, and nothing is more -likely than that another anonymous prophecy should -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> -have received, when attached to them, the same heading.<a name="FNanchor_953_953" id="FNanchor_953_953"></a><a href="#Footnote_953_953" class="fnanchor">[953]</a> -The argument is not final, but it is the most probable -explanation of the data, and agrees with the other facts. -The cumulative force of all that we have stated—the -improbability of malĕ’akhi being a personal name, the -fact that the earliest versions do not treat it as such, -the obvious suggestion for its invention in the malĕ’akhi -of chap. iii. 1, the absence of a father’s name and place -of residence, and the character of the whole title—is -enough for the opinion rapidly spreading among critics -that our book was, like so much more in the Old -Testament, originally anonymous.<a name="FNanchor_954_954" id="FNanchor_954_954"></a><a href="#Footnote_954_954" class="fnanchor">[954]</a> The author attacks -the religious authorities of his day; he belongs to a -pious remnant of his people, who are overborne and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> -perhaps oppressed by the majority.<a name="FNanchor_955_955" id="FNanchor_955_955"></a><a href="#Footnote_955_955" class="fnanchor">[955]</a> In these facts, -which are all we know of his personality, he found -sufficient reason for not attaching his name to his -prophecy.</p> - -<p>The book is also undated, but it reflects its period -almost as clearly as do the dated Books of Haggai and -Zechariah. The conquest of Edom by the Nabateans, -which took place during the Exile,<a name="FNanchor_956_956" id="FNanchor_956_956"></a><a href="#Footnote_956_956" class="fnanchor">[956]</a> is already past.<a name="FNanchor_957_957" id="FNanchor_957_957"></a><a href="#Footnote_957_957" class="fnanchor">[957]</a> -The Jews are under a Persian viceroy.<a name="FNanchor_958_958" id="FNanchor_958_958"></a><a href="#Footnote_958_958" class="fnanchor">[958]</a> They are in -touch with a heathen power, which does not tyrannise -over them, for this book is the first to predict no -judgment upon the heathen, and the first, moreover, to -acknowledge that among the heathen the true God is -worshipped <i>from the rising to the setting of the sun</i>.<a name="FNanchor_959_959" id="FNanchor_959_959"></a><a href="#Footnote_959_959" class="fnanchor">[959]</a> -The only judgment predicted is one upon the false -and disobedient portion of Israel, whose arrogance and -success have cast true Israelites into despair.<a name="FNanchor_960_960" id="FNanchor_960_960"></a><a href="#Footnote_960_960" class="fnanchor">[960]</a> All -this reveals a time when the Jews were favourably -treated by their Persian lords. The reign must be -that of Artaxerxes Longhand, 464—424.</p> - -<p>The Temple has been finished,<a name="FNanchor_961_961" id="FNanchor_961_961"></a><a href="#Footnote_961_961" class="fnanchor">[961]</a> and years enough -have elapsed to disappoint those fervid hopes with -which about 518 Zechariah expected its completion. -The congregation has grown worldly and careless. In -particular the priests are corrupt and partial in the -administration of the Law.<a name="FNanchor_962_962" id="FNanchor_962_962"></a><a href="#Footnote_962_962" class="fnanchor">[962]</a> There have been many -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> -marriages with the heathen women of the land;<a name="FNanchor_963_963" id="FNanchor_963_963"></a><a href="#Footnote_963_963" class="fnanchor">[963]</a> and -the laity have failed to pay the tithes and other dues -to the Temple.<a name="FNanchor_964_964" id="FNanchor_964_964"></a><a href="#Footnote_964_964" class="fnanchor">[964]</a> These are the evils against which we -find strenuous measures directed by Ezra, who returned -from Babylon in 458,<a name="FNanchor_965_965" id="FNanchor_965_965"></a><a href="#Footnote_965_965" class="fnanchor">[965]</a> and by Nehemiah, who visited -Jerusalem as its governor for the first time in 445 and -for the second time in 433. Besides, “the religious -spirit of the book is that of the prayers of Ezra and -Nehemiah. A strong sense of the unique privileges of -the children of Jacob, the objects of electing love,<a name="FNanchor_966_966" id="FNanchor_966_966"></a><a href="#Footnote_966_966" class="fnanchor">[966]</a> the -children of the Divine Father,<a name="FNanchor_967_967" id="FNanchor_967_967"></a><a href="#Footnote_967_967" class="fnanchor">[967]</a> is combined with an -equally strong assurance of Jehovah’s righteousness -amidst the many miseries that pressed on the unhappy -inhabitants of Judæa.... Obedience to the Law is -the sure path to blessedness.”<a name="FNanchor_968_968" id="FNanchor_968_968"></a><a href="#Footnote_968_968" class="fnanchor">[968]</a> But the question still -remains whether the Book of “Malachi” prepared -for, assisted or followed up the reforms of Ezra and -Nehemiah. An ancient tradition already alluded to<a name="FNanchor_969_969" id="FNanchor_969_969"></a><a href="#Footnote_969_969" class="fnanchor">[969]</a> -assigned the authorship to Ezra himself.</p> - -<p>Recent criticism has been divided among the years -immediately before Ezra’s arrival in 458, those immediately -before Nehemiah’s first visit in 445, those -between his first government and his second, and -those after Nehemiah’s disappearance from Jerusalem. -But the years in which Nehemiah held office may be -excluded, because the Jews are represented as bringing -gifts to the governor, which Nehemiah tells us he did -not allow to be brought to him.<a name="FNanchor_970_970" id="FNanchor_970_970"></a><a href="#Footnote_970_970" class="fnanchor">[970]</a> The whole question -depends upon what Law was in practice in Israel when -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> -the book was written. In 445 Ezra and Nehemiah, by -solemn covenant between the people and Jehovah, instituted -the code which we now know as the Priestly Code -of the Pentateuch. Before that year the ritual and -social life of the Jews appear to have been directed by -the Deuteronomic Code. Now the Book of “Malachi” -enforces a practice with regard to the tithes, which -agrees more closely with the Priestly Code than it -does with Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy commands -that every third year the whole tithe is to be given to -the Levites and the poor who reside <i>within the gates</i> of -the giver, and is there to be eaten by them. “Malachi” -commands that the whole tithe be brought into the -storehouse of the Temple for the Levites in service -there; and so does the Priestly Code.<a name="FNanchor_971_971" id="FNanchor_971_971"></a><a href="#Footnote_971_971" class="fnanchor">[971]</a> On this -ground many date the Book of “Malachi” after 445.<a name="FNanchor_972_972" id="FNanchor_972_972"></a><a href="#Footnote_972_972" class="fnanchor">[972]</a> -But “Malachi’s” divergence from Deuteronomy on this -point may be explained by the fact that in his time -there were practically no Levites outside Jerusalem; -and it is to be noticed that he joins the tithe with the -tĕrûmah or heave-offering exactly as Deuteronomy -does.<a name="FNanchor_973_973" id="FNanchor_973_973"></a><a href="#Footnote_973_973" class="fnanchor">[973]</a> On other points of the Law he agrees rather -with Deuteronomy than with the Priestly Code. He -follows Deuteronomy in calling the priests <i>sons of -Levi</i>,<a name="FNanchor_974_974" id="FNanchor_974_974"></a><a href="#Footnote_974_974" class="fnanchor">[974]</a> while the Priestly Code limits the priesthood to -the sons of Aaron. He seems to quote Deuteronomy -when forbidding the oblation of blind, lame and sick -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> -beasts;<a name="FNanchor_975_975" id="FNanchor_975_975"></a><a href="#Footnote_975_975" class="fnanchor">[975]</a> appears to differ from the Priestly Code -which allows the sacrificial beast to be male or female, -when he assumes that it is a male;<a name="FNanchor_976_976" id="FNanchor_976_976"></a><a href="#Footnote_976_976" class="fnanchor">[976]</a> follows the expressions -of Deuteronomy and not those of the Priestly -Code in detailing the sins of the people;<a name="FNanchor_977_977" id="FNanchor_977_977"></a><a href="#Footnote_977_977" class="fnanchor">[977]</a> and uses the -Deuteronomic phrases <i>the Law of Moses</i>, <i>My servant -Moses</i>, <i>statutes and judgments</i>, and <i>Horeb</i> for the Mount of -the Law.<a name="FNanchor_978_978" id="FNanchor_978_978"></a><a href="#Footnote_978_978" class="fnanchor">[978]</a> For the rest, he echoes or implies only Ezekiel -and that part of the Priestly Code<a name="FNanchor_979_979" id="FNanchor_979_979"></a><a href="#Footnote_979_979" class="fnanchor">[979]</a> which is regarded -as earlier than the rest, and probably from the first -years of exile. Moreover he describes the Torah as -not yet fully codified.<a name="FNanchor_980_980" id="FNanchor_980_980"></a><a href="#Footnote_980_980" class="fnanchor">[980]</a> The priests still deliver it in a -way improbable after 445. The trouble of the heathen -marriages with which he deals (if indeed the verses on -this subject be authentic and not a later intrusion<a name="FNanchor_981_981" id="FNanchor_981_981"></a><a href="#Footnote_981_981" class="fnanchor">[981]</a>) -was that which engaged Ezra’s attention on his arrival -in 458, but Ezra found that it had already for some -time been vexing the heads of the community. While, -therefore, we are obliged to date the Book of “Malachi” -before 445 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, it is uncertain whether it preceded or -followed Ezra’s attempts at reform in 458. Most -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> -critics now think that it preceded them.<a name="FNanchor_982_982" id="FNanchor_982_982"></a><a href="#Footnote_982_982" class="fnanchor">[982]</a></p> - -<p>The Book of “Malachi” is an argument with the -prophet’s contemporaries, not only with the wicked -among them, who in forgetfulness of what Jehovah is -corrupt the ritual, fail to give the Temple its dues, -abuse justice, marry foreign wives,<a name="FNanchor_983_983" id="FNanchor_983_983"></a><a href="#Footnote_983_983" class="fnanchor">[983]</a> divorce their own, -and commit various other sins; but also with the -pious, who, equally forgetful of God’s character, are -driven by the arrogance of the wicked to ask, whether -He loves Israel, whether He is a God of justice, and -to murmur that it is vain to serve Him. To these two -classes of his contemporaries the prophet has the -following answers. God does love Israel. He is worshipped -everywhere among the heathen. He is the -Father of all Israel. He will bless His people when -they put away all abuses from their midst and pay -their religious dues; and His Day of Judgment is -coming, when the good shall be separated from the -wicked. But before it come, Elijah the prophet will -be sent to attempt the conversion of the wicked, or at -least to call the nation to decide for Jehovah. This -argument is pursued in seven or perhaps eight paragraphs, -which do not show much consecutiveness, but -are addressed, some to the wicked, and some to the -despairing adherents of Jehovah.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>1. Chap. i. 2–5.—To those who ask how God loves Israel, the proof -of Jehovah’s election of Israel is shown in the fall of the Edomites.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> -2. Chap. i. 6–14.—Charge against the people of dishonouring their -God, whom even the heathen reverence.</p> - -<p>3. Chap. ii. 1–9.—Charge against the priests, who have broken the -covenant God made of old with Levi, and debased their high office by -not reverencing Jehovah, by misleading the people and by perverting -justice. A curse is therefore fallen on them—they are contemptible -in the people’s eyes.</p> - -<p>4. Chap. ii. 10–16.—A charge against the people for their treachery -to each other; instanced in the heathen marriages, if the two verses, -11 and 12, upon this be authentic, and in their divorce of their wives.</p> - -<p>5. Chap. ii. 17—iii. 5 or 6.—Against those who in the midst of such -evils grow sceptical about Jehovah. His Angel, or Himself, will -come <i>first</i> to purge the priesthood and ritual that there may be pure -sacrifices, and <i>second</i> to rid the land of its criminals and sinners.</p> - -<p>6. Chap. iii. 6 or 7–12.—A charge against the people of neglecting -tithes. Let these be paid, disasters shall cease and the land be blessed.</p> - -<p>7. Chap. iii. 13–21 Heb., Chap. iii. 13—iv. 2 LXX. and Eng.—Another -charge against the pious for saying it is vain to serve God. -God will rise to action and separate between the good and bad in -the terrible Day of His coming.</p> - -<p>8. To this, Chap. iii. 22–24 Heb., Chap. iv. 3–5 Eng., adds a call -to keep the Law, and a promise that Elijah will be sent to see whether -he may not convert the people before the Day of the Lord comes -upon them with its curse.</p></div> - -<p>The authenticity of no part of the book has been -till now in serious question. Böhme,<a name="FNanchor_984_984" id="FNanchor_984_984"></a><a href="#Footnote_984_984" class="fnanchor">[984]</a> indeed, took -the last three verses for a later addition, on account -of their Deuteronomic character, but, as Kuenen points -out, this is in agreement with other parts of the book. -Sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the question -of the integrity of the text. The Septuagint offers a -few emendations.<a name="FNanchor_985_985" id="FNanchor_985_985"></a><a href="#Footnote_985_985" class="fnanchor">[985]</a> There are other passages obviously -or probably corrupt.<a name="FNanchor_986_986" id="FNanchor_986_986"></a><a href="#Footnote_986_986" class="fnanchor">[986]</a> The text of the title, as we -have seen, is uncertain, and probably a later addition. -Professor Robertson Smith has called attention to -chap. ii. 16, where the Massoretic punctuation seems -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> -to have been determined with the desire to support -the rendering of the Targum “if thou hatest her put -her away,” and so pervert into a permission to divorce -a passage which forbids divorce almost as clearly as -Christ Himself did. But in truth the whole of this -passage, chap. ii. 10–16, is in such a curious state -that we can hardly believe in its integrity. It opens -with the statement that God is the Father of all us -Israelites, and with the challenge, why then are we -faithless to each other?—ver. 10. But vv. 11 and 12 do -not give an instance of this: they describe the marriages -with the heathen women of the land, which is not a -proof of faithlessness between Israelites. Such a proof -is furnished only by vv. 13–16, with their condemnation -of those who divorce the wives of their youth. The -verses, therefore, cannot lie in their proper order, and -vv. 13–16 ought to follow immediately upon ver. 10. -This raises the question of the authenticity of vv. 11 -and 12, against the heathen marriages. If they bear -such plain marks of having been intruded into their -position, we can understand the possibility of such an -intrusion in subsequent days, when the question of -the heathen marriages came to the front with Ezra -and Nehemiah. Besides, these verses 11 and 12 lack -the characteristic mark of all the other oracles of the -book: they do not state a general charge against -the people, and then introduce the people’s question -as to the particulars of the charge. On the whole, -therefore, these verses are suspicious. If not a later -intrusion, they are at least out of place where they -now lie. The peculiar remark in ver. 13, <i>and this -secondly ye do</i>, must have been added by the editor to -whom we owe the present arrangement.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">FROM ZECHARIAH TO “ MALACHI”</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Between the completion of the Temple in 516 -and the arrival of Ezra in 458, we have almost -no record of the little colony round Mount Zion. The -Jewish chronicles devote to the period but a few verses -of unsupported tradition.<a name="FNanchor_987_987" id="FNanchor_987_987"></a><a href="#Footnote_987_987" class="fnanchor">[987]</a> After 517 we have nothing -from Zechariah himself; and if any other prophet -appeared during the next half-century, his words have -not survived. We are left to infer what was the true -condition of affairs, not less from this ominous silence -than from the hints which are given to us in the -writings of “Malachi,” Ezra and Nehemiah after the -period was over. Beyond a partial attempt to rebuild -the walls of the city in the reign of Artaxerxes I.,<a name="FNanchor_988_988" id="FNanchor_988_988"></a><a href="#Footnote_988_988" class="fnanchor">[988]</a> there -seems to have been nothing to record. It was a -period of disillusion, disheartening and decay. The -completion of the Temple did not bring in the Messianic -era. Zerubbabel, whom Haggai and Zechariah had -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> -crowned as the promised King of Israel, died without -reaching higher rank than a minor satrapy in the -Persian Empire, and even in that he appears to have -been succeeded by a Persian official.<a name="FNanchor_989_989" id="FNanchor_989_989"></a><a href="#Footnote_989_989" class="fnanchor">[989]</a> The re-migrations -from Babylon and elsewhere, which Zechariah predicted, -did not take place. The small population of Jerusalem -were still harassed by the hostility, and their morale -sapped by the insidiousness, of their Samaritan neighbours: -they were denied the stimulus, the purgation, -the glory of a great persecution. Their Persian tyrants -for the most part left them alone. The world left -them alone. Nothing stirred in Palestine except the -Samaritan intrigues. History rolled away westward, -and destiny seemed to be settling on the Greeks. In -490 Miltiades defeated the Persians at Marathon. In -480 Thermopylæ was fought and the Persian fleet -broken at Salamis. In 479 a Persian army was -destroyed at Platæa, and Xerxes lost Europe and -most of the Ionian coast. In 460 Athens sent an -expedition to Egypt to assist the Egyptian revolt -against Persia, and in 457 “her slain fell in Cyprus, -in Egypt, in Phœnicia, at Haliæ, in Ægina, and in -Megara in the same year.”</p> - -<p>Thus severely left to themselves and to the petty -hostilities of their neighbours, the Jews appear to have -sunk into a careless and sordid manner of life. They -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> -entered the period, it is true, with some sense of their -distinction.<a name="FNanchor_990_990" id="FNanchor_990_990"></a><a href="#Footnote_990_990" class="fnanchor">[990]</a> In exile they had suffered God’s anger,<a name="FNanchor_991_991" id="FNanchor_991_991"></a><a href="#Footnote_991_991" class="fnanchor">[991]</a> -and had been purged by it. But out of discipline often -springs pride, and there is no subtler temptation of -the human heart. The returned Israel felt this to the -quick, and it sorely unfitted them for encountering the -disappointment and hardship which followed upon -the completion of the Temple. The tide of hope, -which rose to flood with that consummation, ebbed -rapidly away, and left God’s people struggling, like -any ordinary tribe of peasants, with bad seasons and -the cruelty of their envious neighbours. Their pride -was set on edge, and they fell, not as at other periods -of disappointment into despair, but into a bitter carelessness -and a contempt of their duty to God. This -was a curious temper, and, so far as we know, -new in Israel. It led them to despise both His love -and His holiness.<a name="FNanchor_992_992" id="FNanchor_992_992"></a><a href="#Footnote_992_992" class="fnanchor">[992]</a> They neglected their Temple dues, -and impudently presented to their God polluted bread -and blemished beasts which they would not have dared -to offer to their Persian governor.<a name="FNanchor_993_993" id="FNanchor_993_993"></a><a href="#Footnote_993_993" class="fnanchor">[993]</a> Like people like -priest: the priesthood lost not reverence only, but -decency and all conscience of their office.<a name="FNanchor_994_994" id="FNanchor_994_994"></a><a href="#Footnote_994_994" class="fnanchor">[994]</a> They -<i>despised the Table of the Lord</i>, ceased to instruct the -people and grew partial in judgment. As a consequence -they became contemptible in the eyes of the community. -Immorality prevailed among all classes: <i>every man -dealt treacherously with his brother</i>.<a name="FNanchor_995_995" id="FNanchor_995_995"></a><a href="#Footnote_995_995" class="fnanchor">[995]</a> Adultery, perjury, -fraud and the oppression of the poor were very rife.</p> - -<p>One particular fashion, in which the people’s wounded -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> -pride spited itself, was the custom of marriage which -even the best families contracted with the half-heathen -<i>people of the land</i>. Across Judah there were scattered -the descendants of those Jews whom Nebuchadrezzar -had not deemed worth removing to Babylon. Whether -regarded from a social or a religious point of view, -their fathers had been the dregs of the old community. -Their own religion, cut off as they were from the -main body of Israel and scattered among the old -heathen shrines of the land, must have deteriorated -still further; but in all probability they had secured -for themselves the best portions of the vacant soil, -and now enjoyed a comfort and a stability of welfare -far beyond that which was yet attainable by the majority -of the returned exiles. More numerous than these -dregs of ancient Jewry were the very mixed race of -the Samaritans. They possessed a rich land, which -they had cultivated long enough for many of their -families to be settled in comparative wealth. With -all these half-pagan Jews and Samaritans, the families -of the true Israel, as they regarded themselves, did -not hesitate to form alliances, for in the precarious -position of the colony, such alliances were the surest -way both to wealth and to political influence. How -much the Jews were mastered by their desire for -them is seen from the fact that, when the relatives of -their half-heathen brides made it a condition of the -marriages that they should first put away their old -wives, they readily did so. Divorce became very -frequent, and great suffering was inflicted on the native -Jewish women.<a name="FNanchor_996_996" id="FNanchor_996_996"></a><a href="#Footnote_996_996" class="fnanchor">[996]</a></p> - -<p>So the religious condition of Israel declined for nearly -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> -two generations, and then about 460 the Word of -God, after long silence, broke once more through a -prophet’s lips.</p> - -<p>We call this prophet “Malachi,” following the error -of an editor of his book, who, finding it nameless, -inferred or invented that name from its description of -the priest as the “Malĕ’ach,” or <i>messenger, of the Lord -of Hosts</i>.<a name="FNanchor_997_997" id="FNanchor_997_997"></a><a href="#Footnote_997_997" class="fnanchor">[997]</a> But the prophet gave himself no name. -Writing from the midst of a poor and persecuted group -of the people, and attacking the authorities both of -church and state, he preferred to publish his charge -anonymously. His name was in <i>the Lord’s own book of -remembrance</i>.<a name="FNanchor_998_998" id="FNanchor_998_998"></a><a href="#Footnote_998_998" class="fnanchor">[998]</a></p> - -<p>The unknown prophet addressed himself both to the -sinners of his people, and to those querulous adherents -of Jehovah whom the success of the sinners had -tempted to despair in their service of God. His style -shares the practical directness of his predecessors -among the returned exiles. He takes up one point -after another, and drives them home in a series of -strong, plain paragraphs of prose. But it is sixty -years since Haggai and Zechariah, and in the circumstances -we have described, a prophet could no longer -come forward as a public inspirer of his nation. -Prophecy seems to have been driven from public life, -from the sudden enforcement of truth in the face of the -people to the more deliberate and ordered argument -which marks the teacher who works in private. In the -Book of “Malachi” there are many of the principles -and much of the enthusiasm of the ancient Hebrew -seer. But the discourse is broken up into formal -paragraphs, each upon the same academic model. First -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> -a truth is pronounced, or a charge made against the -people; then with the words <i>but ye will say</i> the prophet -states some possible objection of his hearers, proceeds -to answer it by detailed evidence, and only then drives -home his truth, or his charge, in genuine prophetic -fashion. To the student of prophecy this peculiarity -of the book is of the greatest interest, for it is no -merely personal idiosyncrasy. We rather feel that -prophecy is now assuming the temper of the teacher. -The method is the commencement of that which later -on becomes the prevailing habit in Jewish literature. -Just as with Zephaniah we saw prophecy passing into -Apocalypse, and with Habakkuk into the speculation -of the schools of Wisdom, so now in “Malachi” we -perceive its transformation into the scholasticism of -the Rabbis.</p> - -<p>But the interest of this change of style must not -prevent us from appreciating the genuine prophetic -spirit of our book. Far more fully than, for instance, -that of Haggai, to the style of which its practical simplicity -is so akin, it enumerates the prophetic principles: -the everlasting Love of Jehovah for Israel, the Fatherhood -of Jehovah and His Holiness, His ancient Ideals -for Priesthood and People, the need of a Repentance -proved by deeds, the consequent Promise of Prosperity, -the Day of the Lord, and Judgment between the evil -and the righteous. Upon the last of these the book -affords a striking proof of the delinquency of the people -during the last half-century, and in connection with -it the prophet introduces certain novel features. To -Haggai and Zechariah the great Tribulation had closed -with the Exile and the rebuilding of the Temple: -Israel stood on the margin of the Messianic age. But -the Book of “Malachi” proclaims the need of another -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> -judgment as emphatically as the older prophets had -predicted the Babylonian doom. “Malachi” repeats -their name for it, <i>the great and terrible Day of Jehovah</i>. -But he does not foresee it, as they did, in the shape -of a historical process. His description of it is pure -Apocalypse—<i>the fire of the smelter and the fuller’s acid: -the day that burns like a furnace</i>, when all wickedness -is as stubble, and all evil men are devoured, but to -the righteous <i>the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with -healing in His wings</i>, and they shall tread the wicked -under foot.<a name="FNanchor_999_999" id="FNanchor_999_999"></a><a href="#Footnote_999_999" class="fnanchor">[999]</a> To this the prophet adds a novel promise. -God is so much the God of love,<a name="FNanchor_1000_1000" id="FNanchor_1000_1000"></a><a href="#Footnote_1000_1000" class="fnanchor">[1000]</a> that before the Day -comes He will give His people an opportunity of conversion. -He will send them Elijah the prophet to -change their hearts, that He may be prevented from -striking the land with His Ban.</p> - -<p>In one other point the book is original, and that -is in its attitude towards the heathen. Among the -heathen, it boldly says, Jehovah is held in higher -reverence than among His own people.<a name="FNanchor_1001_1001" id="FNanchor_1001_1001"></a><a href="#Footnote_1001_1001" class="fnanchor">[1001]</a> In such -a statement we can hardly fail to feel the influence -upon Israel of their contact, often close and personal, -with their wise and mild tyrants the Persians. We -may emphasise the verse as the first note of that -recognition of the real religiousness of the heathen, -which we shall find swelling to such fulness and -tenderness in the Book of Jonah.</p> - -<p>Such are in brief the style and the principles of the -Book of “Malachi,” whose separate prophecies we may -now proceed to take up in detail.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">“M<span class="small">ALACHI</span>” i.—iv.</p> - -<p>Beneath this title we may gather all the eight -sections of the Book of “Malachi.” They contain -many things of perennial interest and validity: -their truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to -ourselves. But their chief significance is historical. -They illustrate the development of prophecy <i>within</i> the -Law. Not <i>under</i> the Law, be it observed. For if one -thing be more clear than another about “Malachi’s” -teaching, it is that the spirit of prophecy is not yet -crushed by the legalism which finally killed it within -Israel. “Malachi” observes and enforces the demands -of the Deuteronomic law under which his people had -lived since the Return from Exile. But he traces -each of these to some spiritual principle, to some -essential of religion in the character of Israel’s God, -which is either doubted or neglected by his contemporaries -in their lax performance of the Law. That -is why we may entitle his book Prophecy within the -Law.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The essential principles of the religion of Israel which -had been shaken or obscured by the delinquency of the -people during the half-century after the rebuilding of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> -the Temple were three—the distinctive Love of Jehovah -for His people, His Holiness, and His Righteousness. -The Book of “Malachi” takes up each of these in turn, -and proves or enforces it according as the people have -formally doubted it or in their carelessness done it -despite.</p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec1">1. G<span class="small">OD’S</span> - L<span class="small">OVE FOR</span> - I<span class="small">SRAEL AND</span> - H<span class="small">ATRED OF</span> - E<span class="small">DOM</span><br />(Chap. i. 2–5).</h4> - -<p>He begins with God’s Love, and in answer to the -disappointed<a name="FNanchor_1002_1002" id="FNanchor_1002_1002"></a><a href="#Footnote_1002_1002" class="fnanchor">[1002]</a> people’s cry, <i>Wherein hast Thou loved us?</i> -he does not, as the older prophets did, sweep the whole -history of Israel, and gather proofs of Jehovah’s grace -and unfailing guidance in all the great events from the -deliverance from Egypt to the deliverance from Babylon. -But he confines himself to a comparison of Israel with -the Gentile nation, which was most akin to Israel -according to the flesh, their own brother Edom. It is -possible, of course, to see in this a proof of our prophet’s -narrowness, as contrasted with Amos or Hosea or the -great Evangelist of the Exile. But we must remember -that out of all the history of Israel “Malachi” could not -have chosen an instance which would more strongly -appeal to the heart of his contemporaries. We have -seen from the Book of Obadiah how ever since the -beginning of the Exile Edom had come to be regarded -by Israel as their great antithesis.<a name="FNanchor_1003_1003" id="FNanchor_1003_1003"></a><a href="#Footnote_1003_1003" class="fnanchor">[1003]</a> If we needed -further proof of this we should find it in many Psalms -of the Exile, which like the Book of Obadiah remember -with bitterness the hostile part that Edom played in -the day of Israel’s calamity. The two nations were -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> -utterly opposed in genius and character. Edom was -a people of as unspiritual and self-sufficient a temper -as ever cursed any of God’s human creatures. Like -their ancestor they were <i>profane</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1004_1004" id="FNanchor_1004_1004"></a><a href="#Footnote_1004_1004" class="fnanchor">[1004]</a> without repentance, -humility or ideals, and almost without religion. Apart, -therefore, from the long history of war between the -two peoples, it was a true instinct which led Israel to -regard their brother as representative of that heathendom -against which they had to realise their destiny in the -world as God’s own nation. In choosing the contrast -of Edom’s fate to illustrate Jehovah’s love for Israel, -“Malachi” was not only choosing what would appeal -to the passions of his contemporaries, but what is -the most striking and constant antithesis in the whole -history of Israel: the absolutely diverse genius and -destiny of these two Semitic nations who were nearest -neighbours and, according to their traditions, twin-brethren -after the flesh. If we keep this in mind we -shall understand Paul’s use of the antithesis in the -passage in which he clenches it by a quotation from -“Malachi”: <i>as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau -have I hated</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1005_1005" id="FNanchor_1005_1005"></a><a href="#Footnote_1005_1005" class="fnanchor">[1005]</a> In these words the doctrine of the Divine -election of individuals appears to be expressed as -absolutely as possible. But it would be unfair to read -the passage except in the light of Israel’s history. In -the Old Testament it is a matter of fact that the -doctrine of the Divine preference of Israel to Esau -appeared only after the respective characters of the -nations were manifested in history, and that it grew -more defined and absolute only as history discovered -more of the fundamental contrast between the two in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> -genius and destiny.<a name="FNanchor_1006_1006" id="FNanchor_1006_1006"></a><a href="#Footnote_1006_1006" class="fnanchor">[1006]</a> In the Old Testament, therefore, -the doctrine is the result, not of an arbitrary belief in -God’s bare fiat, but of historical experience; although, -of course, the distinction which experience proves is -traced back, with everything else of good or evil that -happens, to the sovereign will and purpose of God. -Nor let us forget that the Old Testament doctrine of -election is of election to service only. That is to say, -the Divine intention in electing covers not the elect -individual or nation only, but the whole world and its -needs of God and His truth.</p> - -<p>The event to which “Malachi” appeals as evidence -for God’s rejection of Edom is <i>the desolation</i> of the -latter’s ancient <i>heritage</i>, <i>and</i> the abandonment of it -to the <i>jackals of the desert</i>. Scholars used to think -that these vague phrases referred to some act of the -Persian kings: some removal of the Edomites from -the lands of the Jews in order to make room for the -returned exiles.<a name="FNanchor_1007_1007" id="FNanchor_1007_1007"></a><a href="#Footnote_1007_1007" class="fnanchor">[1007]</a> But “Malachi” says expressly that -it was Edom’s own <i>heritage</i> which was laid desolate. -This can only be Mount Esau or Se’ir, and the statement -that it was delivered <i>to the jackals of the desert</i> -proves that the reference is to that same expulsion of -Edom from their territory by the Nabatean Arabs -which we have already seen the Book of Obadiah -relate about the beginning of the Exile.<a name="FNanchor_1008_1008" id="FNanchor_1008_1008"></a><a href="#Footnote_1008_1008" class="fnanchor">[1008]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> -But it is now time to give in full the opening -passage of “Malachi,” in which he appeals to this -important event as proof of God’s distinctive love for -Israel, and, “Malachi” adds, of His power beyond -Israel’s border (“Mal.” chap. i. 2–5).</p> - -<p><i>I have loved you, saith Jehovah. But ye say, -“Wherein hast Thou loved us?” Is not Esau brother -to Jacob?—oracle of Jehovah—and I have loved Jacob and -Esau have I hated. I have made his mountains desolate, -and given his heritage to the jackals of the desert. Should -</i>the people of<i> Edom say,<a name="FNanchor_1009_1009" id="FNanchor_1009_1009"></a><a href="#Footnote_1009_1009" class="fnanchor">[1009]</a> “We are destroyed, but we -will rebuild the waste places,” thus saith Jehovah of -Hosts, They may build, but I will pull down: men shall -call them “The Border of Wickedness” and “The People -with whom Jehovah is wroth for ever.” And your eyes -shall see it, and yourselves shall say, “Great is Jehovah -beyond Israel’s border.”</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec2">2. “H<span class="small">ONOUR</span> - T<span class="small">HY</span> F<span class="small">ATHER</span>” - (Chap. i. 6–14).</h4> - -<p>From God’s Love, which Israel have doubted, the -prophet passes to His Majesty or Holiness, which they -have wronged. Now it is very remarkable that the -relation of God to the Jews in which the prophet -should see His Majesty illustrated is not only His -lordship over them but His Fatherhood: <i>A son honours -a father, and a servant his lord; but if I be Father, -where is My honour? and if I be Lord, where is there -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> -reverence for Me? saith Jehovah of Hosts</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1010_1010" id="FNanchor_1010_1010"></a><a href="#Footnote_1010_1010" class="fnanchor">[1010]</a> We are -so accustomed to associate with the Divine Fatherhood -only ideas of love and pity that the use of the relation -to illustrate not love but Majesty, and the setting of it in -parallel to the Divine Kingship, may seem to us strange. -Yet this was very natural to Israel. In the old Semitic -world, even to the human parent, honour was due before -love. <i>Honour thy father and thy mother</i>, said the Fifth -Commandment; and when, after long shyness to do -so, Israel at last ventured to claim Jehovah as the -Father of His people, it was at first rather with the -view of increasing their sense of His authority and -their duty of reverencing Him, than with the view of -bringing Him near to their hearts and assuring them -of His tenderness. The latter elements, it is true, -were not absent from the conception. But even in -the Psalter, in which we find the most intimate and -tender fellowship of the believer with God, there is -only one passage in which His love for His own is -compared to the love of a human father.<a name="FNanchor_1011_1011" id="FNanchor_1011_1011"></a><a href="#Footnote_1011_1011" class="fnanchor">[1011]</a> And in -the other very few passages of the Old Testament -where He is revealed or appealed to as the Father -of the nation, it is, with two exceptions,<a name="FNanchor_1012_1012" id="FNanchor_1012_1012"></a><a href="#Footnote_1012_1012" class="fnanchor">[1012]</a> in order -either to emphasise His creation of Israel or His discipline. -So in Jeremiah,<a name="FNanchor_1013_1013" id="FNanchor_1013_1013"></a><a href="#Footnote_1013_1013" class="fnanchor">[1013]</a> and in an anonymous prophet -of the same period perhaps as “Malachi.”<a name="FNanchor_1014_1014" id="FNanchor_1014_1014"></a><a href="#Footnote_1014_1014" class="fnanchor">[1014]</a> This -hesitation to ascribe to God the name of Father, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> -this severe conception of what Fatherhood meant, was -perhaps needful for Israel in face of the sensuous -ideas of the Divine Fatherhood cherished by their -heathen neighbours.<a name="FNanchor_1015_1015" id="FNanchor_1015_1015"></a><a href="#Footnote_1015_1015" class="fnanchor">[1015]</a> But, however this may be, the -infrequency and austerity of Israel’s conception of -God’s Fatherhood, in contrast with that of Christianity, -enables us to understand why “Malachi” should -employ the relation as proof, not of the Love, but of -the Majesty and Holiness of Jehovah.</p> - -<p>This Majesty and this Holiness have been wronged, -he says, by low thoughts of God’s altar, and by offering -upon it, with untroubled conscience, cheap and blemished -sacrifices. The people would have been ashamed -to present such to their Persian governor: how can -God be pleased with them? Better that sacrifice -should cease than that such offerings should be -presented in such a spirit! <i>Is there no one</i>, cries the -prophet, <i>to close the doors</i> of the Temple altogether, so -that <i>the altar</i> smoke not <i>in vain</i>?</p> - -<p>The passage shows us what a change has passed -over the spirit of Israel since prophecy first attacked -the sacrificial ritual. We remember how Amos would -have swept it all away as an abomination to God.<a name="FNanchor_1016_1016" id="FNanchor_1016_1016"></a><a href="#Footnote_1016_1016" class="fnanchor">[1016]</a> -So, too, Isaiah and Jeremiah. But their reason for -this was very different from “Malachi’s.” Their -contemporaries were assiduous and lavish in sacrificing, -and were devoted to the Temple and the ritual with -a fanaticism which made them forget that Jehovah’s -demands upon His people were righteousness and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> -the service of the weak. But “Malachi” condemns -his generation for depreciating the Temple, and -for being stingy and fraudulent in their offerings. -Certainly the post-exilic prophet assumes a different -attitude to the ritual from that of his predecessors in -ancient Israel. They wished it all abolished, and -placed the chief duties of Israel towards God in civic -justice and mercy. But he emphasises it as the first -duty of the people towards God, and sees in their -neglect the reason of their misfortunes and the cause -of their coming doom. In this change which has -come over prophecy we must admit the growing -influence of the Law. From Ezekiel onwards the -prophets become more ecclesiastical and legal. And -though at first they do not become less ethical, yet -the influence which was at work upon them was of -such a character as was bound in time to engross -their interest, and lead them to remit the ethical -elements of their religion to a place secondary to -the ceremonial. We see symptoms of this even in -“Malachi,” we shall find more in Joel, and we know -how aggravated these symptoms afterwards became -in all the leaders of Jewish religion. At the same -time we ought to remember that this change of -emphasis, which many will think to be for the worse, -was largely rendered necessary by the change of -temper in the people to whom the prophets ministered. -“Malachi” found among his contemporaries a habit of -religious performance which was not only slovenly and -indecent, but mean and fraudulent, and it became his -first practical duty to attack this. Moreover the neglect -of the Temple was not due to those spiritual conceptions -of Jehovah and those moral duties He demanded, -in the interests of which the older prophets had -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> -condemned the ritual. At bottom the neglect of the -Temple was due to the very same reasons as the -superstitious zeal and fanaticism in sacrificing which -the older prophets had attacked—false ideas, namely, -of God Himself, and of what was due to Him from -His people. And on these grounds, therefore, we may -say that “Malachi” was performing for his generation -as needful and as Divine a work as Amos and Isaiah -had performed for theirs. Only, be it admitted, the -direction of “Malachi’s” emphasis was more dangerous -for religion than that of the emphasis of Amos or -Isaiah. How liable the practice he inculcated was to -exaggeration and abuse is sadly proved in the later -history of his people: it was against that exaggeration, -grown great and obdurate through three centuries, that -Jesus delivered His most unsparing words.</p> - -<p><i>A son honours a father, and a servant his lord. But -if I am Father, where is My honour? and if I am Lord, -where is reverence for Me? saith Jehovah of Hosts to you, -O priests, who despise My Name. Ye say, “How then -have we despised Thy Name?” Ye are bringing -polluted food to Mine Altar. Ye say, “How have we -polluted Thee?”<a name="FNanchor_1017_1017" id="FNanchor_1017_1017"></a><a href="#Footnote_1017_1017" class="fnanchor">[1017]</a> By saying,<a name="FNanchor_1018_1018" id="FNanchor_1018_1018"></a><a href="#Footnote_1018_1018" class="fnanchor">[1018]</a> “The Table of Jehovah -may be despised”; and when ye bring a blind </i>beast<i> to -sacrifice, “No harm!” or when ye bring a lame or -sick one, “No harm!”<a name="FNanchor_1019_1019" id="FNanchor_1019_1019"></a><a href="#Footnote_1019_1019" class="fnanchor">[1019]</a> Pray, take it to thy Satrap: -will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> -Jehovah of Hosts. But now, propitiate<a name="FNanchor_1020_1020" id="FNanchor_1020_1020"></a><a href="#Footnote_1020_1020" class="fnanchor">[1020]</a> God, that He -may be gracious to us. When </i>things<i> like this come from -your hands, can He accept your persons? saith Jehovah -of Hosts. Who is there among you to close the doors</i> -of the Temple altogether, <i>that ye kindle not Mine Altar -in vain? I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of -Hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands. -For from the rising of the sun and to its setting My -Name is glorified<a name="FNanchor_1021_1021" id="FNanchor_1021_1021"></a><a href="#Footnote_1021_1021" class="fnanchor">[1021]</a> among the nations; and in every -sacred place<a name="FNanchor_1022_1022" id="FNanchor_1022_1022"></a><a href="#Footnote_1022_1022" class="fnanchor">[1022]</a> incense is offered to My Name, and a pure -offering:<a name="FNanchor_1023_1023" id="FNanchor_1023_1023"></a><a href="#Footnote_1023_1023" class="fnanchor">[1023]</a> for great is My Name among the nations, -saith Jehovah of Hosts. But ye are profaning it, in that -ye think<a name="FNanchor_1024_1024" id="FNanchor_1024_1024"></a><a href="#Footnote_1024_1024" class="fnanchor">[1024]</a> that the Table of the Lord is polluted, and<a name="FNanchor_1025_1025" id="FNanchor_1025_1025"></a><a href="#Footnote_1025_1025" class="fnanchor">[1025]</a> its -food contemptible. And ye say, What a weariness! and -ye sniff at it,<a name="FNanchor_1026_1026" id="FNanchor_1026_1026"></a><a href="#Footnote_1026_1026" class="fnanchor">[1026]</a> saith Jehovah of Hosts. </i>When<i> ye bring -what has been plundered,<a name="FNanchor_1027_1027" id="FNanchor_1027_1027"></a><a href="#Footnote_1027_1027" class="fnanchor">[1027]</a> and the lame and the diseased, -yea,</i> when <i>ye</i> so <i>bring an offering, can I accept it with -grace from your hands? saith Jehovah. Cursed be the -cheat in whose flock is a male</i> beast <i>and he vows it,<a name="FNanchor_1028_1028" id="FNanchor_1028_1028"></a><a href="#Footnote_1028_1028" class="fnanchor">[1028]</a> and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> -slays for the Lord a miserable beast.<a name="FNanchor_1029_1029" id="FNanchor_1029_1029"></a><a href="#Footnote_1029_1029" class="fnanchor">[1029]</a> For a great King -am I, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and My Name is reverenced -among the nations.</i></p> - -<p>Before we pass from this passage we must notice in it -one very remarkable feature—perhaps the most original -contribution which the Book of “Malachi” makes -to the development of prophecy. In contrast to the -irreverence of Israel and the wrong they do to -Jehovah’s Holiness, He Himself asserts that not only -is <i>His Name great and glorified among the heathen, from -the rising to the setting of the sun</i>, but that <i>in every -sacred place incense and a pure offering are offered to -His Name</i>. This is so novel a statement, and, we may -truly say, so startling, that it is not wonderful that -the attempt should have been made to interpret it, not -of the prophet’s own day, but of the Messianic age -and the kingdom of Christ. So, many of the Christian -Fathers, from Justin and Irenæus to Theodoret and -Augustine;<a name="FNanchor_1030_1030" id="FNanchor_1030_1030"></a><a href="#Footnote_1030_1030" class="fnanchor">[1030]</a> so, our own Authorised Version, which -boldly throws the verbs into the future; and so, many -modern interpreters like Pusey, who declares that the -style is “a vivid present such as is often used to -describe the future; but the things spoken of show it -to be future.” All these take the passage to be an -anticipation of Christ’s parables declaring the rejection -of the Jews and ingathering of the Gentiles to the -kingdom of heaven, and of the argument of the Epistle -to the Hebrews, that the bleeding and defective offerings -of the Jews were abrogated by the sacrifice of the -Cross. But such an exegesis is only possible by -perverting the text and misreading the whole argument -of the prophet. Not only are the verbs of the original -in the present tense—so also in the early versions—but -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> -the prophet is obviously contrasting the contempt -of God’s own people for Himself and His institutions -with the reverence paid to His Name among the -heathen. It is not the mere question of there being -righteous people in every nation, well-pleasing to -Jehovah because of their lives. The very sacrifices of -the heathen are pure and acceptable to Him. Never -have we had in prophecy, even the most far-seeing and -evangelical, a statement so generous and so catholic as -this. Why it should appear only now in the history -of prophecy is a question we are unable to answer with -certainty. Many have seen in it the result of Israel’s -intercourse with their tolerant and religious masters -the Persians. None of the Persian kings had up to -this time persecuted the Jews, and numbers of pious -and large-minded Israelites must have had opportunity -of acquaintance with the very pure doctrines of the -Persian religion, among which it is said that there -was already numbered the recognition of true piety in -men of all religions.<a name="FNanchor_1031_1031" id="FNanchor_1031_1031"></a><a href="#Footnote_1031_1031" class="fnanchor">[1031]</a> If Paul derived from his Hellenic -culture the knowledge which made it possible for him -to speak as he did in Athens of the religiousness of -the Gentiles, it was just as probable that Jews who had -come within the experience of a still purer Aryan -faith should utter an even more emphatic acknowledgment -that the One True God had those who -served Him in spirit and in truth all over the world. -But, whatever foreign influences may have ripened -such a faith in Israel, we must not forget that its -roots were struck deep in the native soil of their -religion. From the first they had known their God as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> -a God of a grace so infinite that it was impossible it -should be exhausted on themselves. If His righteousness, -as Amos showed, was over all the Syrian states, -and His pity and His power to convert, as Isaiah -showed, covered even the cities of Phœnicia, the great -Evangelist of the Exile could declare that He quenched -not the smoking wicks of the dim heathen faiths.</p> - -<p>As interesting, however, as the origin of “Malachi’s” -attitude to the heathen, are two other points about it. -In the first place, it is remarkable that it should -occur, especially in the form of emphasising the purity -of heathen sacrifices, in a book which lays such -heavy stress upon the Jewish Temple and ritual. This -is a warning to us not to judge harshly the so-called -legal age of Jewish religion, nor to despise the -prophets who have come under the influence of the -Law. And in the second place, we perceive in this -statement a step towards the fuller acknowledgment -of Gentile religiousness which we find in the Book -of Jonah. It is strange that none of the post-exilic -Psalms strike the same note. They often predict the -conversion of the heathen; but they do not recognise -their native reverence and piety. Perhaps the reason -is that in a body of song, collected for the national -service, such a feature would be out of place.</p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec3">3. T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">RIESTHOOD OF</span> - K<span class="small">NOWLEDGE</span> - (Chap. ii. 1–9).</h4> - -<p>In the third section of his book “Malachi” addresses -himself to the priests. He charges them not only -with irreverence and slovenliness in their discharge -of the Temple service—for this he appears to intend -by the phrase <i>filth of your feasts</i>—but with the neglect -of their intellectual duties to the people. <i>The lips of -a priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from -his mouth, for he is the Angel</i>—the revealing Angel—<i>of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> -Jehovah of Hosts</i>. Once more, what a remarkable -saying to come from the legal age of Israel’s religion, -and from a writer who so emphasises the ceremonial -law! In all the range of prophecy there is not any -more in harmony with the prophetic ideal. How -needed it is in our own age!—needed against those two -extremes of religion from which we suffer, the limitation -of the ideal of priesthood to the communication of a -magic grace, and its evaporation in a vague religiosity -from which the intellect is excluded as if it were perilous, -worldly and devilish.<a name="FNanchor_1032_1032" id="FNanchor_1032_1032"></a><a href="#Footnote_1032_1032" class="fnanchor">[1032]</a> “Surrender of the intellect” -indeed! This is the burial of the talent in the napkin, -and, as in the parable of Christ, it is still in our day -preached and practised by the men of one talent. -Religion needs all the brains we poor mortals can put -into it. There is a priesthood of knowledge, a priesthood -of the intellect, says “Malachi,” and he makes this -a large part of God’s covenant with Levi. Every priest -of God is a priest of truth; and it is very largely -by the Christian ministry’s neglect of their intellectual -duties that so much irreligion prevails. As in -“Malachi’s” day, so now, “the laity take hurt and -hindrance by our negligence.”<a name="FNanchor_1033_1033" id="FNanchor_1033_1033"></a><a href="#Footnote_1033_1033" class="fnanchor">[1033]</a> And just as he points -out, so with ourselves, the consequence is the growing -indifference with which large bodies of the Christian -ministry are regarded by the thoughtful portions both -of our labouring and professional classes. Were the -ministers of all the Churches to awake to their ideal -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> -in this matter, there would surely come a very great -revival of religion among us.</p> - -<p><i>And now this Charge for you, O priests: If ye hear -not, and lay not to heart to give glory to My Name, saith -Jehovah of Hosts, I will send upon you the curse, and -will curse your blessings—yea, I have cursed them<a name="FNanchor_1034_1034" id="FNanchor_1034_1034"></a><a href="#Footnote_1034_1034" class="fnanchor">[1034]</a>—for -none of you layeth it to heart. Behold, I ... you ...<a name="FNanchor_1035_1035" id="FNanchor_1035_1035"></a><a href="#Footnote_1035_1035" class="fnanchor">[1035]</a> -and I will scatter filth in your faces, the filth of your -feasts....<a name="FNanchor_1036_1036" id="FNanchor_1036_1036"></a><a href="#Footnote_1036_1036" class="fnanchor">[1036]</a> And ye shall know that I have sent to you -this Charge, to be My covenant with Levi,<a name="FNanchor_1037_1037" id="FNanchor_1037_1037"></a><a href="#Footnote_1037_1037" class="fnanchor">[1037]</a> saith Jehovah -of Hosts. My covenant was with him life and peace,<a name="FNanchor_1038_1038" id="FNanchor_1038_1038"></a><a href="#Footnote_1038_1038" class="fnanchor">[1038]</a> -and I gave them to him, fear and he feared Me, and -humbled himself before My Name.<a name="FNanchor_1039_1039" id="FNanchor_1039_1039"></a><a href="#Footnote_1039_1039" class="fnanchor">[1039]</a> The revelation of -truth was in his mouth, and wickedness was not found -upon his lips. In whole-heartedness<a name="FNanchor_1040_1040" id="FNanchor_1040_1040"></a><a href="#Footnote_1040_1040" class="fnanchor">[1040]</a> and integrity he -walked with Me, and turned many from iniquity. For -the lips of a priest guard knowledge, and men seek -instruction<a name="FNanchor_1041_1041" id="FNanchor_1041_1041"></a><a href="#Footnote_1041_1041" class="fnanchor">[1041]</a> from his mouth, for he is the Angel of -Jehovah of Hosts. But ye have turned from the way, ye -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> -have tripped up many by the Torah, ye have spoiled the -covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of Hosts. And I on My -part<a name="FNanchor_1042_1042" id="FNanchor_1042_1042"></a><a href="#Footnote_1042_1042" class="fnanchor">[1042]</a> have made you contemptible to all the people, and -abased in proportion as ye kept not My ways and had -respect of persons in</i> delivering your <i>Torah</i>.</p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec4">4. T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">RUELTY OF</span> - D<span class="small">IVORCE</span> (Chap. ii. 10–17).</h4> - -<p>In his fourth section, upon his countrymen’s frequent -divorce of their native wives in order to marry into the -influential families of their half-heathen neighbours,<a name="FNanchor_1043_1043" id="FNanchor_1043_1043"></a><a href="#Footnote_1043_1043" class="fnanchor">[1043]</a> -“Malachi” makes another of those wide and spiritual -utterances which so distinguish his prophecy and -redeem his age from the charge of legalism that is so -often brought against it. To him the Fatherhood of -God is not merely a relation of power and authority, -requiring reverence from the nation. It constitutes -the members of the nation one close brotherhood, and -against this divorce is a crime and unnatural cruelty. -Jehovah makes the <i>wife of a man’s youth his mate</i> for -life <i>and his wife by covenant</i>. He <i>hates divorce</i>, and -His altar is so wetted by the tears of the wronged -women of Israel that the gifts upon it are no more -acceptable in His sight. No higher word on marriage -was spoken except by Christ Himself. It breathes -the spirit of our Lord’s utterance: if we were sure of -the text of ver. 15, we might almost say that it anticipated -the letter. Certain verses, 11–13<i>a</i>, which disturb -the argument by bringing in the marriages with heathen -wives are omitted in the following translation, and will -be given separately.</p> - -<p><i>Have we not all One Father? Hath not One God -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> -created us? Why then are we unfaithful to one another, -profaning the covenant of our fathers?...<a name="FNanchor_1044_1044" id="FNanchor_1044_1044"></a><a href="#Footnote_1044_1044" class="fnanchor">[1044]</a> Ye cover with -tears the altar of Jehovah, with weeping and with groaning, -because respect is no longer had to the offering, and -acceptable gifts are not taken from your hands. And -ye say, “Why?” Because Jehovah has been witness -between thee and the wife of thy youth, with whom thou -hast broken faith, though she is thy mate<a name="FNanchor_1045_1045" id="FNanchor_1045_1045"></a><a href="#Footnote_1045_1045" class="fnanchor">[1045]</a> and thy wife -by covenant. And ...<a name="FNanchor_1046_1046" id="FNanchor_1046_1046"></a><a href="#Footnote_1046_1046" class="fnanchor">[1046]</a> And what is the one seeking? -A Divine Seed. Take heed, then, to your spirit, and be -not unfaithful to the wife of thy youth.<a name="FNanchor_1047_1047" id="FNanchor_1047_1047"></a><a href="#Footnote_1047_1047" class="fnanchor">[1047]</a> For I hate -divorce, saith Jehovah, God of Israel, and that a man -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> -cover his clothing<a name="FNanchor_1048_1048" id="FNanchor_1048_1048"></a><a href="#Footnote_1048_1048" class="fnanchor">[1048]</a> with cruelty, saith Jehovah of Hosts. -So take heed to your spirit, and deal not faithlessly.</i></p> - -<p>The verses omitted in the above translation treat -of the foreign marriages, which led to this frequent -divorce by the Jews of their native wives. So far, of -course, they are relevant to the subject of the passage. -But they obviously disturb its argument, as already -pointed out.<a name="FNanchor_1049_1049" id="FNanchor_1049_1049"></a><a href="#Footnote_1049_1049" class="fnanchor">[1049]</a> They have nothing to do with the -principle from which it starts that Jehovah is the Father -of the whole of Israel. Remove them and the awkward -clause in ver. 13<i>a</i>, by which some editor has tried to -connect them with the rest of the paragraph, and -the latter runs smoothly. The motive of their later -addition is apparent, if not justifiable. Here they are -by themselves:—</p> - -<p><i>Judah was faithless, and abomination was practised -in Israel<a name="FNanchor_1050_1050" id="FNanchor_1050_1050"></a><a href="#Footnote_1050_1050" class="fnanchor">[1050]</a>, and in Jerusalem, for Judah hath defiled the -sanctuary of Jehovah, which was dear to Him, and hath -married the daughter of a strange god. May Jehovah -cut off from the man, who doeth this, witness and -champion<a name="FNanchor_1051_1051" id="FNanchor_1051_1051"></a><a href="#Footnote_1051_1051" class="fnanchor">[1051]</a> from the tents of Jacob, and offerer of sacrifices -to Jehovah of Hosts.</i><a name="FNanchor_1052_1052" id="FNanchor_1052_1052"></a><a href="#Footnote_1052_1052" class="fnanchor">[1052]</a></p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec5">5.“W<span class="small">HERE IS THE</span> - G<span class="small">OD OF</span> - J<span class="small">UDGMENT</span>?”<br /> - (Chap. ii. 17—iii. 5).</h4> - -<p>In this section “Malachi” turns from the sinners -of his people to those who weary Jehovah with the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> -complaint that sin is successful, or, as they put it, -<i>Every one that does evil is good in the eyes of Jehovah, -and He delighteth in them</i>; and again, <i>Where is the -God of Judgment?</i> The answer is, The Lord Himself -shall come. His Angel shall prepare His way before -Him, and suddenly shall the Lord come to His Temple. -His coming shall be for judgment, terrible and -searching. Its first object (note the order) shall be -the cleansing of the priesthood, that proper sacrifices -may be established, and its second the purging of the -immorality of the people. Mark that although the -coming of the Angel is said to precede that of Jehovah -Himself, there is the same blending of the two as -we have seen in previous accounts of angels.<a name="FNanchor_1053_1053" id="FNanchor_1053_1053"></a><a href="#Footnote_1053_1053" class="fnanchor">[1053]</a> It is -uncertain whether this section closes with ver. 5 or 6: -the latter goes equally well with it and with the -following section.</p> - -<p><i>Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words; and ye -say, “In what have we wearied</i> Him <i>?” In that ye say, -“Every one that does evil is good in the eyes of Jehovah, -and He delighteth in them”; or else, “Where is the God -of Judgment?” Behold, I will send My Angel, to -prepare the way before Me, and suddenly shall come to -His Temple the Lord whom ye seek and the Angel of -the Covenant whom ye desire. Behold, He comes! saith -Jehovah of Hosts. But who may bear the day of His -coming, and who stand when He appears? For He is -like the fire of the smelter and the acid of the fullers. He -takes His seat to smelt and to purge;<a name="FNanchor_1054_1054" id="FNanchor_1054_1054"></a><a href="#Footnote_1054_1054" class="fnanchor">[1054]</a> and He will purge -the sons of Levi, and wash them out like gold or silver, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> -and they shall be to Jehovah bringers of an offering in -righteousness. And the offering of Judah and Jerusalem -shall be pleasing to Jehovah, as in the days of old and -as in long past years. And I will come near you to -judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the -sorcerers and the adulterers and the perjurers, and -against those who wrong the hireling in his wage, and -the widow and the orphan, and oppress the stranger, -and fear not Me, saith Jehovah of Hosts.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec6">6. R<span class="small">EPENTANCE BY</span> - T<span class="small">ITHES</span> (Chap. iii. 6–12).</h4> - -<p>This section ought perhaps to follow on to the -preceding. Those whom it blames for not paying -the Temple tithes may be the sceptics addressed in -the previous section, who have stopped their dues -to Jehovah out of sheer disappointment that He does -nothing. And ver. 6, which goes well with either -section, may be the joint between the two. However -this be, the new section enforces the need of the -people’s repentance and return to God, if He is to -return to them. And when they ask, how are they -to return, “Malachi” plainly answers, By the payment -of the tithes they have not paid. In withholding -these they robbed God, and to this, their crime, -are due the locusts and bad seasons which have -afflicted them. In our temptation to see in this a -purely legal spirit, let us remember that the neglect -to pay the tithes was due to a religious cause, unbelief -in Jehovah, and that the return to belief in Him could -not therefore be shown in a more practical way than -by the payment of tithes. This is not prophecy subject -to the Law, but prophecy employing the means and -vehicles of grace with which the Law at that time -provided the people.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> -<i>For I Jehovah have not changed, but ye sons of Jacob -have not done with (?).<a name="FNanchor_1055_1055" id="FNanchor_1055_1055"></a><a href="#Footnote_1055_1055" class="fnanchor">[1055]</a> In the days of your fathers ye -turned from My statutes and did not keep them. Return -to Me, and I will return to you, saith Jehovah of Hosts. -But you say, “How then shall we return?” Can a -man rob<a name="FNanchor_1056_1056" id="FNanchor_1056_1056"></a><a href="#Footnote_1056_1056" class="fnanchor">[1056]</a> God? yet ye are robbing Me. But ye say, -“In what have we robbed Thee?” In the tithe and the -tribute.<a name="FNanchor_1057_1057" id="FNanchor_1057_1057"></a><a href="#Footnote_1057_1057" class="fnanchor">[1057]</a> With the curse are ye cursed, and yet Me ye are -robbing, the whole people of you. Bring in the whole tithe -to the storehouse, that there may be provision<a name="FNanchor_1058_1058" id="FNanchor_1058_1058"></a><a href="#Footnote_1058_1058" class="fnanchor">[1058]</a> in My -House, and pray, prove Me in this, saith Jehovah of -Hosts—whether I will not open to you the windows of -heaven, and pour blessing upon you till there is no more -need. And I will check for you the devourer,<a name="FNanchor_1059_1059" id="FNanchor_1059_1059"></a><a href="#Footnote_1059_1059" class="fnanchor">[1059]</a> and he -shall not destroy for you the fruit of the ground, nor the -vine in the field miscarry, saith Jehovah of Hosts. And -all nations shall call you happy, for ye shall be a land -of delight, saith Jehovah of Hosts.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec7"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" - id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> - 7. T<span class="small">HE</span> - J<span class="small">UDGMENT TO</span> - C<span class="small">OME</span><br /> -(Chap. iii. 13–21 Heb., iii. 13—iv. 2 Eng.).</h4> - -<p>This is another charge to the doubters among the -pious remnant of Israel, who, seeing the success of -the wicked, said it is vain to serve God. Deuteronomy -was their Canon, and Deuteronomy said that if men -sinned they decayed, if they were righteous they prospered. -How different were the facts of experience! -The evil men succeeded: the good won no gain by -their goodness, nor did their mourning for the sins of -their people work any effect. Bitterest of all, they -had to congratulate wickedness in high places, and -Jehovah Himself suffered it to go unpunished. <i>Such -things</i>, says “Malachi,” <i>spake they that feared God to -each other</i>—tempted thereto by the dogmatic form of -their religion, and forgetful of all that Jeremiah and -the Evangelist of the Exile had taught them of the -value of righteous sufferings. Nor does “Malachi” -remind them of this. His message is that the Lord -remembers them, has their names written before Him, -and when the day of His action comes they shall be -separated from the wicked and spared. This is simply -to transfer the fulfilment of the promise of Deuteronomy -to the future and to another dispensation. Prophecy -still works within the Law.</p> - -<p>The Apocalypse of this last judgment is one of the -grandest in all Scripture. To the wicked it shall be -a terrible fire, root and branch shall they be burned -out, but to the righteous a fair morning of God, as -when dawn comes to those who have been sick and -sleepless through the black night, and its beams bring -healing, even as to the popular belief of Israel it was -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> -the rays of the morning sun which distilled the dew.<a name="FNanchor_1060_1060" id="FNanchor_1060_1060"></a><a href="#Footnote_1060_1060" class="fnanchor">[1060]</a> -They break into life and energy, like young calves -leaping from the dark pen into the early sunshine. -To this morning landscape a grim figure is added. -They shall tread down the wicked and the arrogant -like ashes beneath their feet.</p> - -<p><i>Your words are hard upon Me, saith Jehovah. Ye -say, “What have we said against Thee?” Ye have said, -“It is vain to serve God,” and “What gain is it to us to -have kept His charge, or to have walked in funeral garb -before Jehovah of Hosts? Even now we have got to -congratulate the arrogant; yea, the workers of wickedness -are fortified; yea, they tempt God and escape!” Such -things<a name="FNanchor_1061_1061" id="FNanchor_1061_1061"></a><a href="#Footnote_1061_1061" class="fnanchor">[1061]</a> spake they that fear Jehovah to each other. But -Jehovah gave ear and heard, and a book of remembrance<a name="FNanchor_1062_1062" id="FNanchor_1062_1062"></a><a href="#Footnote_1062_1062" class="fnanchor">[1062]</a> -was written before Him about those who fear Jehovah, -and those who keep in mind<a name="FNanchor_1063_1063" id="FNanchor_1063_1063"></a><a href="#Footnote_1063_1063" class="fnanchor">[1063]</a> His Name. And they shall -be Mine own property, saith Jehovah of Hosts, in the day -when I rise to action,<a name="FNanchor_1064_1064" id="FNanchor_1064_1064"></a><a href="#Footnote_1064_1064" class="fnanchor">[1064]</a> and I will spare them even as a -man spares his son that serves him. And ye shall once -more see</i> the difference <i>between righteous and wicked, -between him that serves God and him that does not serve -Him.</i></p> - -<p><i>For, lo! the day is coming that shall burn like a -furnace, and all the overweening and every one that -works wickedness shall be as stubble, and the day that -is coming shall devour them, saith Jehovah of Hosts, so -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> -that there be left them neither root nor branch. But to -you that fear My Name the Sun of Righteousness shall -rise with healing in His wings, and ye shall go forth and -leap<a name="FNanchor_1065_1065" id="FNanchor_1065_1065"></a><a href="#Footnote_1065_1065" class="fnanchor">[1065]</a> like calves of the stall.<a name="FNanchor_1066_1066" id="FNanchor_1066_1066"></a><a href="#Footnote_1066_1066" class="fnanchor">[1066]</a> And ye shall tread down -the wicked, for they shall be as ashes<a name="FNanchor_1067_1067" id="FNanchor_1067_1067"></a><a href="#Footnote_1067_1067" class="fnanchor">[1067]</a> beneath the soles -of your feet, in the day that I begin to do, saith Jehovah -of Hosts.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXVIsec8">8. T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">ETURN OF</span> - E<span class="small">LIJAH</span> - (Chap. iii. 22–24 Heb., iv. 3–5 Eng.).</h4> - -<p>With his last word the prophet significantly calls -upon the people to remember the Law. This is their -one hope before the coming of the great and terrible -day of the Lord. But, in order that the Law may have -full effect, Prophecy will be sent to bring it home to -the hearts of the people—Prophecy in the person of -her founder and most drastic representative. Nothing -could better gather up than this conjunction does -that mingling of Law and of Prophecy which we have -seen to be so characteristic of the work of “Malachi.” -Only we must not overlook the fact that “Malachi” -expects this prophecy, which with the Law is to work -the conversion of the people, not in the continuance of -the prophetic succession by the appearance of original -personalities, developing further the great principles -of their order, but in the return of the first prophet -Elijah. This is surely the confession of Prophecy that -the number of her servants is exhausted and her message -to Israel fulfilled. She can now do no more for the -people than she has done. But she will summon up -her old energy and fire in the return of her most -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> -powerful personality, and make one grand effort to -convert the nation before the Lord come and strike -it with judgment.</p> - -<p><i>Remember the Torah of Moses, My servant, with -which I charged him in Horeb for all Israel: statutes -and judgments. Lo! I am sending to you Elijah the -prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day -of Jehovah. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers -to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, ere -I come and strike the land with the Ban.</i></p> - -<p class="thb"> </p> - -<p>“Malachi” makes this promise of the Law in the -dialect of Deuteronomy: <i>statutes and judgments with -which Jehovah charged Moses for Israel</i>. But the Law -he enforces is not that which God delivered to Moses -on the plains of Shittim, but that which He gave him -in Mount Horeb. And so it came to pass. In a -very few years after “Malachi” prophesied Ezra the -Scribe brought from Babylon the great Levitical Code, -which appears to have been arranged there, while the -colony in Jerusalem were still organising their life under -the Deuteronomic legislation. In 444 <span class="small">B.C.</span> this Levitical -Code, along with Deuteronomy, became by covenant -between the people and their God their Canon and -Law. And in the next of our prophets, Joel, we shall -find its full influence at work.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> -<h2 id="Joel" class="nobreak">JOEL</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> -<p class= "italic"> - The Day of Jehovah is great and very awful, and who may abide it? -</p> - -<p class= "italic"> -But now the oracle of Jehovah—Turn ye to Me with all your heart, -and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. And rend -your hearts and not your garments, and turn to Jehovah your God, -for gracious and merciful is He, long-suffering and abounding in -love.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF JOEL</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -In the criticism of the Book of Joel there exist -differences of opinion—upon its date, the exact -reference of its statements and its relation to parallel -passages in other prophets—as wide as even those by -which the Book of Obadiah has been assigned to every -century between the tenth and the fourth before Christ.<a name="FNanchor_1068_1068" id="FNanchor_1068_1068"></a><a href="#Footnote_1068_1068" class="fnanchor">[1068]</a> -As in the case of Obadiah, the problem is not entangled -with any doctrinal issue or question of accuracy; but -while we saw that Obadiah was not involved in the -central controversy of the Old Testament, the date of -the Law, not a little in Joel turns upon the latter. -And, besides, certain descriptions raise the large question -between a literal and an allegorical interpretation. -Thus the Book of Joel carries the student further into -the problems of Old Testament Criticism, and forms -an even more excellent introduction to the latter, than -does the Book of Obadiah.</p> - -<h4 id="XXVIIsec1">1. T<span class="small">HE</span> - D<span class="small">ATE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>In the history of prophecy the Book of Joel must -be either very early or very late, and with few exceptions -the leading critics place it either before 800 <span class="small">B.C.</span> -or after 500. So great a difference is due to most -substantial reasons. Unlike every other prophet, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> -except Haggai, “Malachi” and “Zechariah” ix.—xiv., -Joel mentions neither Assyria, which emerged upon -the prophetic horizon about 760,<a name="FNanchor_1069_1069" id="FNanchor_1069_1069"></a><a href="#Footnote_1069_1069" class="fnanchor">[1069]</a> nor the Babylonian -Empire, which had fallen by 537. The presumption -is that he wrote before 760 or after 537. Unlike -all the prophets, too,<a name="FNanchor_1070_1070" id="FNanchor_1070_1070"></a><a href="#Footnote_1070_1070" class="fnanchor">[1070]</a> Joel does not charge his -people with civic or national sins; nor does his book -bear any trace of the struggle between the righteous -and unrighteous in Israel, nor of that between the -spiritual worshippers of Jehovah and the idolaters. -The book addresses an undivided nation, who know no -God but Jehovah; and again the presumption is that -Joel wrote before Amos and his successors had started -the spiritual antagonisms which rent Israel in twain, -or after the Law had been accepted by the whole people -under Nehemiah.<a name="FNanchor_1071_1071" id="FNanchor_1071_1071"></a><a href="#Footnote_1071_1071" class="fnanchor">[1071]</a> The same wide alternative is suggested -by the style and phraseology. Joel’s Hebrew -is simple and direct. Either he is an early writer, or -imitates early writers. His book contains a number of -phrases and verses identical, or nearly identical, with -those of prophets from Amos to “Malachi.” Either they -all borrowed from Joel, or he borrowed from them.<a name="FNanchor_1072_1072" id="FNanchor_1072_1072"></a><a href="#Footnote_1072_1072" class="fnanchor">[1072]</a></p> - -<p>Of this alternative modern criticism at first preferred -the earlier solution, and dated Joel before Amos. So -Credner in his Commentary in 1831, and following -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> -him Hitzig, Bleek, Ewald, Delitzsch, Keil, Kuenen -(up to 1864),<a name="FNanchor_1073_1073" id="FNanchor_1073_1073"></a><a href="#Footnote_1073_1073" class="fnanchor">[1073]</a> Pusey and others. So, too, at first -some living critics of the first rank, who, like Kuenen, -have since changed their opinion. And so, even still, -Kirkpatrick (on the whole), Von Orelli, Robertson,<a name="FNanchor_1074_1074" id="FNanchor_1074_1074"></a><a href="#Footnote_1074_1074" class="fnanchor">[1074]</a> -Stanley Leathes and Sinker.<a name="FNanchor_1075_1075" id="FNanchor_1075_1075"></a><a href="#Footnote_1075_1075" class="fnanchor">[1075]</a> The reasons which -these scholars have given for the early date of Joel -are roughly as follows.<a name="FNanchor_1076_1076" id="FNanchor_1076_1076"></a><a href="#Footnote_1076_1076" class="fnanchor">[1076]</a> His book occurs among the -earliest of the Twelve: while it is recognised that the -order of these is not strictly chronological, it is alleged -that there is a division between the pre-exilic and post-exilic -prophets, and that Joel is found among the former. -The vagueness of his representations in general, and -of his pictures of the Day of Jehovah in particular, is -attributed to the simplicity of the earlier religion of -Israel, and to the want of that analysis of its leading -conceptions which was the work of later prophets.<a name="FNanchor_1077_1077" id="FNanchor_1077_1077"></a><a href="#Footnote_1077_1077" class="fnanchor">[1077]</a> -His horror of the interruption of the daily offerings -in the Temple, caused by the plague of locusts,<a name="FNanchor_1078_1078" id="FNanchor_1078_1078"></a><a href="#Footnote_1078_1078" class="fnanchor">[1078]</a> -is ascribed to a fear which pervaded the primitive -ages of all peoples.<a name="FNanchor_1079_1079" id="FNanchor_1079_1079"></a><a href="#Footnote_1079_1079" class="fnanchor">[1079]</a> In Joel’s attitude towards other -nations, whom he condemns to judgment, Ewald saw -“the old unsubdued warlike spirit of the times of -Deborah and David.” The prophet’s absorption in the -ravages of the locusts is held to reflect the feeling of -a purely agricultural community, such as Israel was -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> -before the eighth century. The absence of the name -of Assyria from the book is assigned to the same unwillingness -to give the name as we see in Amos and the -earlier prophecies of Isaiah, and it is thought by some -that, though not named, the Assyrians are symbolised -by the locusts. The absence of all mention of the Law -is also held by some to prove an early date: though -other critics, who believe that the Levitical legislation -was extant in Israel from the earliest times, find proof -of this in Joel’s insistence upon the daily offering. The -absence of all mention of a king and the prominence -given to the priests are explained by assigning the -prophecy to the minority of King Joash of Judah, when -Jehoyada the priest was regent;<a name="FNanchor_1080_1080" id="FNanchor_1080_1080"></a><a href="#Footnote_1080_1080" class="fnanchor">[1080]</a> the charge against -Egypt and Edom of spilling innocent blood by Shishak’s -invasion of Judah,<a name="FNanchor_1081_1081" id="FNanchor_1081_1081"></a><a href="#Footnote_1081_1081" class="fnanchor">[1081]</a> and by the revolt of the Edomites -under Jehoram;<a name="FNanchor_1082_1082" id="FNanchor_1082_1082"></a><a href="#Footnote_1082_1082" class="fnanchor">[1082]</a> the charge against the Philistines and -Phœnicians by the Chronicler’s account of Philistine -raids<a name="FNanchor_1083_1083" id="FNanchor_1083_1083"></a><a href="#Footnote_1083_1083" class="fnanchor">[1083]</a> in the reign of Jehoram of Judah, and by the -oracles of Amos against both nations;<a name="FNanchor_1084_1084" id="FNanchor_1084_1084"></a><a href="#Footnote_1084_1084" class="fnanchor">[1084]</a> and the mention -of the Vale of Jehoshaphat by that king’s defeat of -Moab, Ammon and Edom in the Vale of Berakhah.<a name="FNanchor_1085_1085" id="FNanchor_1085_1085"></a><a href="#Footnote_1085_1085" class="fnanchor">[1085]</a> -These allusions being recognised, it was deduced from -them that the parallels between Joel and Amos were -due to Amos having quoted from Joel.<a name="FNanchor_1086_1086" id="FNanchor_1086_1086"></a><a href="#Footnote_1086_1086" class="fnanchor">[1086]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> -These reasons are not all equally cogent,<a name="FNanchor_1087_1087" id="FNanchor_1087_1087"></a><a href="#Footnote_1087_1087" class="fnanchor">[1087]</a> and even -the strongest of them do not prove more than the -possibility of an early date for Joel.<a name="FNanchor_1088_1088" id="FNanchor_1088_1088"></a><a href="#Footnote_1088_1088" class="fnanchor">[1088]</a> Nor do they -meet every historical difficulty. The minority of Joash, -upon which they converge, fell at a time when Aram -was not only prominent to the thoughts of Israel, but -had already been felt to be an enemy as powerful -as the Philistines or Edomites. But the Book of Joel -does not mention Aram. It mentions the Greeks,<a name="FNanchor_1089_1089" id="FNanchor_1089_1089"></a><a href="#Footnote_1089_1089" class="fnanchor">[1089]</a> and, -although we have no right to say that such a notice -was impossible in Israel in the ninth century, it was -not only improbable, but no other Hebrew document -from before the Exile speaks of Greece, and in particular -Amos does not when describing the Phœnicians as -slave-traders.<a name="FNanchor_1090_1090" id="FNanchor_1090_1090"></a><a href="#Footnote_1090_1090" class="fnanchor">[1090]</a> The argument that the Book of Joel -must be early because it was placed among the first six of -the Twelve Prophets by the arrangers of the Prophetic -Canon, who could not have forgotten Joel’s date had he -lived after 450, loses all force from the fact that in the -same group of pre-exilic prophets we find the exilic -Obadiah and the post-exilic Jonah, both of them in -precedence to Micah.</p> - -<p>The argument for the early date of Joel is, therefore, -not conclusive. But there are besides serious objections -to it, which make for the other solution of the alternative -we started from, and lead us to place Joel after -the establishment of the Law by Ezra and Nehemiah -in 444 <span class="small">B.C.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> -A post-exilic date was first proposed by Vatke,<a name="FNanchor_1091_1091" id="FNanchor_1091_1091"></a><a href="#Footnote_1091_1091" class="fnanchor">[1091]</a> and -then defended by Hilgenfeld,<a name="FNanchor_1092_1092" id="FNanchor_1092_1092"></a><a href="#Footnote_1092_1092" class="fnanchor">[1092]</a> and by Duhm in 1875.<a name="FNanchor_1093_1093" id="FNanchor_1093_1093"></a><a href="#Footnote_1093_1093" class="fnanchor">[1093]</a> -From this time the theory made rapid way, winning -over many who had previously held the early date of -Joel, like Oort,<a name="FNanchor_1094_1094" id="FNanchor_1094_1094"></a><a href="#Footnote_1094_1094" class="fnanchor">[1094]</a> Kuenen,<a name="FNanchor_1095_1095" id="FNanchor_1095_1095"></a><a href="#Footnote_1095_1095" class="fnanchor">[1095]</a> A. B. Davidson,<a name="FNanchor_1096_1096" id="FNanchor_1096_1096"></a><a href="#Footnote_1096_1096" class="fnanchor">[1096]</a> Driver and -Cheyne,<a name="FNanchor_1097_1097" id="FNanchor_1097_1097"></a><a href="#Footnote_1097_1097" class="fnanchor">[1097]</a> perhaps also Wellhausen,<a name="FNanchor_1098_1098" id="FNanchor_1098_1098"></a><a href="#Footnote_1098_1098" class="fnanchor">[1098]</a> and finding acceptance -and new proofs from a gradually increasing -majority of younger critics, Merx,<a name="FNanchor_1099_1099" id="FNanchor_1099_1099"></a><a href="#Footnote_1099_1099" class="fnanchor">[1099]</a> Robertson Smith,<a name="FNanchor_1100_1100" id="FNanchor_1100_1100"></a><a href="#Footnote_1100_1100" class="fnanchor">[1100]</a> -Stade,<a name="FNanchor_1101_1101" id="FNanchor_1101_1101"></a><a href="#Footnote_1101_1101" class="fnanchor">[1101]</a> Matthes and Scholz,<a name="FNanchor_1102_1102" id="FNanchor_1102_1102"></a><a href="#Footnote_1102_1102" class="fnanchor">[1102]</a> Holzinger,<a name="FNanchor_1103_1103" id="FNanchor_1103_1103"></a><a href="#Footnote_1103_1103" class="fnanchor">[1103]</a> Farrar,<a name="FNanchor_1104_1104" id="FNanchor_1104_1104"></a><a href="#Footnote_1104_1104" class="fnanchor">[1104]</a> -Kautzsch,<a name="FNanchor_1105_1105" id="FNanchor_1105_1105"></a><a href="#Footnote_1105_1105" class="fnanchor">[1105]</a> Cornill,<a name="FNanchor_1106_1106" id="FNanchor_1106_1106"></a><a href="#Footnote_1106_1106" class="fnanchor">[1106]</a> Wildeboer,<a name="FNanchor_1107_1107" id="FNanchor_1107_1107"></a><a href="#Footnote_1107_1107" class="fnanchor">[1107]</a> G. B. Gray<a name="FNanchor_1108_1108" id="FNanchor_1108_1108"></a><a href="#Footnote_1108_1108" class="fnanchor">[1108]</a> and -Nowack.<a name="FNanchor_1109_1109" id="FNanchor_1109_1109"></a><a href="#Footnote_1109_1109" class="fnanchor">[1109]</a> The reasons which have led to this formidable -change of opinion in favour of the late date of the -Book of Joel are as follows.</p> - -<p>In the first place, the Exile of Judah appears in it -as already past. This is proved, not by the ambiguous -phrase, <i>when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> -and Jerusalem</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1110_1110" id="FNanchor_1110_1110"></a><a href="#Footnote_1110_1110" class="fnanchor">[1110]</a> but by the plain statement that <i>the -heathen have scattered Israel among the nations and divided -their land</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1111_1111" id="FNanchor_1111_1111"></a><a href="#Footnote_1111_1111" class="fnanchor">[1111]</a> The plunder of the Temple seems also to -be implied.<a name="FNanchor_1112_1112" id="FNanchor_1112_1112"></a><a href="#Footnote_1112_1112" class="fnanchor">[1112]</a> Moreover, no great world-power is pictured -as either threatening or actually persecuting God’s -people; but Israel’s active enemies and enslavers are -represented as her own neighbours, Edomites, Philistines -and Phœnicians, and the last are represented as -selling Jewish captives to the Greeks. All this suits, -if it does not absolutely prove, the Persian age, before -the reign of Artaxerxes Ochus, who was the first Persian -king to treat the Jews with cruelty.<a name="FNanchor_1113_1113" id="FNanchor_1113_1113"></a><a href="#Footnote_1113_1113" class="fnanchor">[1113]</a> The Greeks, -Javan, do not appear in any Hebrew writer before the -Exile;<a name="FNanchor_1114_1114" id="FNanchor_1114_1114"></a><a href="#Footnote_1114_1114" class="fnanchor">[1114]</a> the form in which their name is given by Joel, -B’ne ha-Jevanim, has admittedly a late sound about it,<a name="FNanchor_1115_1115" id="FNanchor_1115_1115"></a><a href="#Footnote_1115_1115" class="fnanchor">[1115]</a> -and we know from other sources that it was in the -fifth and fourth centuries that Syrian slaves were in -demand in Greece.<a name="FNanchor_1116_1116" id="FNanchor_1116_1116"></a><a href="#Footnote_1116_1116" class="fnanchor">[1116]</a> Similarly with the internal condition -of the Jews as reflected in Joel. No king is -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> -mentioned; but the priests are prominent, and the elders -are introduced at least once.<a name="FNanchor_1117_1117" id="FNanchor_1117_1117"></a><a href="#Footnote_1117_1117" class="fnanchor">[1117]</a> It is an agricultural -calamity, and that alone, unmixed with any political -alarm, which is the omen of the coming Day of the -Lord. All this suits the state of Jerusalem under the -Persians. Take again the religious temper and emphasis -of the book. The latter is laid, as we have seen, very -remarkably upon the horror of the interruption by the -plague of locusts of the daily meal and drink offerings, -and in the later history of Israel the proofs are many -of the exceeding importance with which the regularity -of this was regarded.<a name="FNanchor_1118_1118" id="FNanchor_1118_1118"></a><a href="#Footnote_1118_1118" class="fnanchor">[1118]</a> This, says Professor A. B. -Davidson, “is very unlike the way in which all other -prophets down to Jeremiah speak of the sacrificial -service.” The priests, too, are called to take the initiative; -and the summons to a solemn and formal fast, -without any notice of the particular sins of the people -or exhortations to distinct virtues, contrasts with the -attitude to fasts of the earlier prophets, and with their -insistence upon a change of life as the only acceptable -form of penitence.<a name="FNanchor_1119_1119" id="FNanchor_1119_1119"></a><a href="#Footnote_1119_1119" class="fnanchor">[1119]</a> And another contrast with the -earliest prophets is seen in the general apocalyptic -atmosphere and colouring of the Book of Joel, as well -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> -as in some of the particular figures in which this is -expressed, and which are derived from later prophets -like Zephaniah and Ezekiel.<a name="FNanchor_1120_1120" id="FNanchor_1120_1120"></a><a href="#Footnote_1120_1120" class="fnanchor">[1120]</a></p> - -<p>These evidences for a late date are supported, on -the whole, by the language of the book. Of this Merx -furnishes many details, and by a careful examination, -which makes due allowance for the poetic form of the -book and for possible glosses, Holzinger has shown -that there are symptoms in vocabulary, grammar and -syntax which at least are more reconcilable with a late -than with an early date.<a name="FNanchor_1121_1121" id="FNanchor_1121_1121"></a><a href="#Footnote_1121_1121" class="fnanchor">[1121]</a> There are a number of -Aramaic words, of Hebrew words used in the sense -in which they are used by Aramaic, but by no other -Hebrew, writers, and several terms and constructions -which appear only in the later books of the Old -Testament or very seldom in the early ones.<a name="FNanchor_1122_1122" id="FNanchor_1122_1122"></a><a href="#Footnote_1122_1122" class="fnanchor">[1122]</a> It is -true that these do not stand in a large proportion to -the rest of Joel’s vocabulary and grammar, which is -classic and suitable to an early period of the literature; -but this may be accounted for by the large use which -the prophet makes of the very words of earlier writers. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> -Take this large use into account, and the unmistakable -Aramaisms of the book become even more emphatic -in their proof of a late date.</p> - -<p>The literary parallels between Joel and other writers -are unusually many for so small a book. They number -at least twenty in seventy-two verses. The other -books of the Old Testament in which they occur are -about twelve. Where one writer has parallels with -many, we do not necessarily conclude that he is the -borrower, unless we find that some of the phrases -common to both are characteristic of the other writers, -or that, in his text of them, there are differences from -theirs which may reasonably be reckoned to be of -a later origin. But that both of these conditions are -found in the parallels between Joel and other prophets -has been shown by Prof. Driver and Mr. G. B. Gray. -“Several of the parallels—either in their entirety or -by virtue of certain words which they contain—have -their affinities solely or chiefly in the later writings. -But the significance [of this] is increased when the -very difference between a passage in Joel and its -parallel in another book consists in a word or phrase -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> -characteristic of the later centuries. That a passage -in a writer of the ninth century should differ from its -parallel in a subsequent writer by the presence of a -word elsewhere confined to the later literature would -be strange; a single instance would not, indeed, be -inexplicable in view of the scantiness of extant writings; -but every additional instance—though itself not very -convincing—renders the strangeness greater.” And -again, “the variations in some of the parallels as found -in Joel have other common peculiarities. This also -finds its natural explanation in the fact that Joel quotes: -for that the <i>same</i> author even when quoting from -different sources should quote with variations of the -same character is natural, but that <i>different</i> authors -quoting from a common source should follow the same -method of quotation is improbable.”<a name="FNanchor_1123_1123" id="FNanchor_1123_1123"></a><a href="#Footnote_1123_1123" class="fnanchor">[1123]</a> “While in some -of the parallels a comparison discloses indications that -the phrase in Joel is probably the later, in other cases, -even though the expression may in itself be met with -earlier, it becomes frequent only in a later age, and the -use of it by Joel increases the presumption that he -stands by the side of the later writers.”<a name="FNanchor_1124_1124" id="FNanchor_1124_1124"></a><a href="#Footnote_1124_1124" class="fnanchor">[1124]</a></p> - -<p>In face of so many converging lines of evidence, we -shall not wonder that there should have come about -so great a change in the opinion of the majority of -critics on the date of Joel, and that it should now be -assigned by them to a post-exilic date. Some place -it in the sixth century before Christ,<a name="FNanchor_1125_1125" id="FNanchor_1125_1125"></a><a href="#Footnote_1125_1125" class="fnanchor">[1125]</a> some in the first -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>half of the fifth before “Malachi” and Nehemiah,<a name="FNanchor_1126_1126" id="FNanchor_1126_1126"></a><a href="#Footnote_1126_1126" class="fnanchor">[1126]</a> but -the most after the full establishment of the Law by -Ezra and Nehemiah in 444 <span class="small">B.C.</span><a name="FNanchor_1127_1127" id="FNanchor_1127_1127"></a><a href="#Footnote_1127_1127" class="fnanchor">[1127]</a> It is difficult, perhaps -impossible, to decide. Nothing certain can be deduced -from the mention of the <i>city wall</i> in chap. ii. 9, from -which Robertson Smith and Cornill infer that Nehemiah’s -walls were already built. Nor can we be sure that -Joel quotes the phrase, <i>before the great and terrible day -of Jehovah come</i>, from “Malachi,”<a name="FNanchor_1128_1128" id="FNanchor_1128_1128"></a><a href="#Footnote_1128_1128" class="fnanchor">[1128]</a> although this is rendered -probable by the character of Joel’s other parallels. -But the absence of all reference to the prophets as -a class, the promise of the rigorous exclusion of -foreigners from Jerusalem,<a name="FNanchor_1129_1129" id="FNanchor_1129_1129"></a><a href="#Footnote_1129_1129" class="fnanchor">[1129]</a> the condemnation to judgment -of all the heathen, and the strong apocalyptic -character of the book, would incline us to place it after -Ezra rather than before. How far after, it is impossible -to say, but the absence of feeling against Persia requires -a date before the cruelties inflicted by Artaxerxes -about 360.<a name="FNanchor_1130_1130" id="FNanchor_1130_1130"></a><a href="#Footnote_1130_1130" class="fnanchor">[1130]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> -One solution, which has lately been offered for the -problems of date presented by the Book of Joel, deserves -some notice. In his German translation of Driver’s -<i>Introduction to the Old Testament</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1131_1131" id="FNanchor_1131_1131"></a><a href="#Footnote_1131_1131" class="fnanchor">[1131]</a> Rothstein questions -the integrity of the prophecy, and alleges reasons for -dividing it into two sections. Chaps. i. and ii. (Heb.; -i.—ii. 27 Eng.) he assigns to an early author, writing -in the minority of King Joash, but chaps. iii. and iv. -(Heb.; ii. 28—iii. Eng.) to a date after the Exile, while -ii. 20, which, it will be remembered, Robertson Smith -takes as a gloss, he attributes to the editor who has -joined the two sections together. His reasons are -that chaps. i. and ii. are entirely taken up with the -physical plague of locusts, and no troubles from heathen -are mentioned; while chaps. iii. and iv. say nothing -of a physical plague, but the evils they deplore for -Israel are entirely political, the assaults of enemies. -Now it is quite within the bounds of possibility that -chaps. iii. and iv. are from another hand than chaps. i. -and ii.: we have nothing to disprove that. But, on the -other hand, there is nothing to prove it. On the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> -contrary, the possibility of all four chapters being from -the same hand is very obvious. Joel mentions no -heathen in the first chapter, because he is engrossed -with the plague of locusts. But when this has passed, -it is quite natural that he should take up the standing -problem of Israel’s history—their relation to heathen -peoples. There is no discrepancy between the two -different subjects, nor between the styles in which they -are respectively treated. Rothstein’s arguments for an -early date for chaps. i. and ii. have been already -answered, and when we come to the exposition of them -we shall find still stronger reasons for assigning them -to the end of the fifth century before Christ. The -assault on the integrity of the prophecy may therefore -be said to have failed, though no one who remembers -the composite character of the prophetical books can -deny that the question is still open.<a name="FNanchor_1132_1132" id="FNanchor_1132_1132"></a><a href="#Footnote_1132_1132" class="fnanchor">[1132]</a></p> - -<h4 id="XXVIIsec2">2. T<span class="small">HE</span> - I<span class="small">NTERPRETATION OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK:<br /> IS IT</span> - D<span class="small">ESCRIPTION</span>, - A<span class="small">LLEGORY OR</span><br /> - A<span class="small">POCALYPSE</span>?</h4> - -<p>Another question to which we must address ourselves -before we can pass to the exposition of Joel’s -prophecies is of the attitude and intention of the -prophet. Does he describe or predict? Does he -give history or allegory?</p> - -<p>Joel starts from a great plague of locusts, which he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> -describes not only in the ravages they commit upon -the land, but in their ominous foreshadowing of the -Day of the Lord. They are the heralds of God’s near -judgment upon the nation. Let the latter repent -instantly with a day of fasting and prayer. Peradventure -Jehovah will relent, and spare His people. -So far chap. i. 2—ii. 17. Then comes a break. An -uncertain interval appears to elapse; and in chap. -ii. 18 we are told that Jehovah’s zeal for Israel has -been stirred, and He has had pity on His folk. Promises -follow, <i>first</i>, of deliverance from the plague and -of restoration of the harvests it has consumed, and -<i>second</i>, of the outpouring of the Spirit on all classes -of the community: chap. ii. 17–32 (Eng.; ii. 17—iii. -Heb.). Chap. iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) gives another picture -of the Day of Jehovah, this time described as a -judgment upon the heathen enemies of Israel. They -shall be brought together, condemned judicially by -Him, and slain by His hosts, His “supernatural” hosts. -Jerusalem shall be freed from the feet of strangers, and -the fertility of the land restored.</p> - -<p>These are the contents of the book. Do they -describe an actual plague of locusts, already experienced -by the people? Or do they predict this as still -to come? And again, are the locusts which they -describe real locusts, or a symbol and allegory of the -human foes of Israel? To these two questions, which -in a measure cross and involve each other, three -kinds of answer have been given.</p> - -<p>A large and growing majority of critics of all -schools<a name="FNanchor_1133_1133" id="FNanchor_1133_1133"></a><a href="#Footnote_1133_1133" class="fnanchor">[1133]</a> hold that Joel starts, like other prophets, from -the facts of experience. His locusts, though described -with poetic hyperbole—for are they not the vanguard -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> -of the awful Day of God’s judgment?—are real locusts; -their plague has just been felt by his contemporaries, -whom he summons to repent, and to whom, when they -have repented, he brings promises of the restoration -of their ruined harvests, the outpouring of the Spirit, -and judgment upon their foes. Prediction is therefore -found only in the second half of the book (ii. 18 -onwards): it rests upon a basis of narrative and exhortation -which fills the first half.</p> - -<p>But a number of other critics have argued (and -with great force) that the prophet’s language about the -locusts is too aggravated and too ominous to be limited -to the natural plague which these insects periodically -inflicted upon Palestine. Joel (they reason) would -hardly have connected so common an adversity with -so singular and ultimate a crisis as the Day of the -Lord. Under the figure of locusts he must be -describing some more fateful agency of God’s wrath -upon Israel. More than one trait of his description -appears to imply a human army. It can only be one -or other, or all, of those heathen powers whom at -different periods God raised up to chastise His -delinquent people; and this opinion is held to be supported -by the facts that chap. ii. 20 speaks of them -as the Northern and chap. iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) deals -with the heathen. The locusts of chaps. i. and ii. -are the same as the heathen of chap. iii. In chaps. -i. and ii. they are described as threatening Israel, -but on condition of Israel repenting (chap. ii. 18 ff.) -the Day of the Lord which they herald shall be their -destruction and not Israel’s (chap. iii.).<a name="FNanchor_1134_1134" id="FNanchor_1134_1134"></a><a href="#Footnote_1134_1134" class="fnanchor">[1134]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> -The supporters of this allegorical interpretation of -Joel are, however, divided among themselves as to -whether the heathen powers symbolised by the locusts -are described as having already afflicted Israel or are -predicted as still to come. Hilgenfeld,<a name="FNanchor_1135_1135" id="FNanchor_1135_1135"></a><a href="#Footnote_1135_1135" class="fnanchor">[1135]</a> for instance, -says that the prophet in chaps. i. and ii. speaks of -their ravages as already past. To him their fourfold -plague described in chap. i. 4 symbolises four Persian -assaults upon Palestine, after the last of which in -358 the prophecy must therefore have been written.<a name="FNanchor_1136_1136" id="FNanchor_1136_1136"></a><a href="#Footnote_1136_1136" class="fnanchor">[1136]</a> -Others read them as still to come. In our own -country Pusey has been the strongest supporter of -this theory.<a name="FNanchor_1137_1137" id="FNanchor_1137_1137"></a><a href="#Footnote_1137_1137" class="fnanchor">[1137]</a> To him the whole book, written before -Amos, is prediction. “It extends from the prophet’s -own day to the end of time.” Joel calls the scourge -the Northern: he directs the priests to pray for its -removal, that <i>the heathen may not rule over God’s -heritage</i>;<a name="FNanchor_1138_1138" id="FNanchor_1138_1138"></a><a href="#Footnote_1138_1138" class="fnanchor">[1138]</a> he describes the agent as a responsible -one;<a name="FNanchor_1139_1139" id="FNanchor_1139_1139"></a><a href="#Footnote_1139_1139" class="fnanchor">[1139]</a> his imagery goes far beyond the effects of -locusts, and threatens drought, fire and plague,<a name="FNanchor_1140_1140" id="FNanchor_1140_1140"></a><a href="#Footnote_1140_1140" class="fnanchor">[1140]</a> the -assault of cities and the terrifying of peoples.<a name="FNanchor_1141_1141" id="FNanchor_1141_1141"></a><a href="#Footnote_1141_1141" class="fnanchor">[1141]</a> The -scourge is to be destroyed in a way physically inapplicable -to locusts;<a name="FNanchor_1142_1142" id="FNanchor_1142_1142"></a><a href="#Footnote_1142_1142" class="fnanchor">[1142]</a> and the promises of its removal -include the remedy of ravages which mere locusts -could not inflict: the captivity of Judah is to be -turned, and the land recovered from foreigners who -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> -are to be banished from it.<a name="FNanchor_1143_1143" id="FNanchor_1143_1143"></a><a href="#Footnote_1143_1143" class="fnanchor">[1143]</a> Pusey thus reckons as -future the relenting of God, consequent upon the -people’s penitence: chap. ii. 18 ff. The past tenses in -which it is related, he takes as instances of the well-known -prophetic perfect, according to which the -prophets express their assurance of things to come -by describing them as if they had already happened.</p> - -<p>This is undoubtedly a strong case for the predictive -and allegorical character of the Book of Joel; but a -little consideration will show us that the facts on which -it is grounded are capable of a different explanation -than that which it assumes, and that Pusey has overlooked -a number of other facts which force us to a -literal interpretation of the locusts as a plague already -past, even though we feel they are described in the -language of poetical hyperbole.</p> - -<p>For, in the first place, Pusey’s theory implies that -the prophecy is addressed to a future generation, who -shall be alive when the predicted invasions of heathen -come upon the land. Whereas Joel obviously addresses -his own contemporaries. The prophet and -his hearers are one. <i>Before our eyes</i>, he says, <i>the food -has been cut off</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1144_1144" id="FNanchor_1144_1144"></a><a href="#Footnote_1144_1144" class="fnanchor">[1144]</a> As obviously, he speaks of the plague -of locusts as of something that has just happened. -His hearers can compare its effects with past disasters, -which it has far exceeded;<a name="FNanchor_1145_1145" id="FNanchor_1145_1145"></a><a href="#Footnote_1145_1145" class="fnanchor">[1145]</a> and it is their duty to hand -down the story of it to future generations.<a name="FNanchor_1146_1146" id="FNanchor_1146_1146"></a><a href="#Footnote_1146_1146" class="fnanchor">[1146]</a> Again, his -description is that of a physical, not of a political, plague. -Fields and gardens, vines and figs, are devastated by -being stripped and gnawed. Drought accompanies the -locusts, the seed shrivels beneath the clods, the trees -languish, the cattle pant for want of water.<a name="FNanchor_1147_1147" id="FNanchor_1147_1147"></a><a href="#Footnote_1147_1147" class="fnanchor">[1147]</a> These are -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> -not the trail which an invading army leave behind them. -In support of his theory that human hosts are meant, -Pusey points to the verses which bid the people pray -<i>that the heathen rule not over them</i>, and which describe -the invaders as attacking cities.<a name="FNanchor_1148_1148" id="FNanchor_1148_1148"></a><a href="#Footnote_1148_1148" class="fnanchor">[1148]</a> But the former -phrase may be rendered with equal propriety, <i>that the -heathen make not satirical songs about them</i>;<a name="FNanchor_1149_1149" id="FNanchor_1149_1149"></a><a href="#Footnote_1149_1149" class="fnanchor">[1149]</a> and as -to the latter, not only do locusts invade towns exactly -as Joel describes, but his words that the invader steals -into houses like <i>a thief</i> are far more applicable to the -insidious entrance of locusts than to the bold and noisy -assault of a storming party. Moreover Pusey and the -other allegorical interpreters of the book overlook the -fact that Joel never so much as hints at the invariable -effects of a human invasion, massacre and plunder. -He describes no slaying and no looting; but when he -comes to the promise that Jehovah will restore the -losses which have been sustained by His people, he -defines them as the years which His army has <i>eaten</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1150_1150" id="FNanchor_1150_1150"></a><a href="#Footnote_1150_1150" class="fnanchor">[1150]</a> -But all this proof is clenched by the fact that Joel compares -the locusts to actual soldiers.<a name="FNanchor_1151_1151" id="FNanchor_1151_1151"></a><a href="#Footnote_1151_1151" class="fnanchor">[1151]</a> They are <i>like</i> -horsemen, the sound of them is <i>like</i> chariots, they run -<i>like</i> horses, and <i>like</i> men of war they leap upon the -wall. Joel could never have compared a real army to -itself!</p> - -<p>The allegorical interpretation is therefore untenable. -But some critics, while admitting this, are yet not disposed -to take the first part of the book for narrative. They -admit that the prophet means a plague of locusts, but -they deny that he is speaking of a plague already past, -and hold that his locusts are still to come, that they are -as much a part of the future as the pouring out of the -Spirit<a name="FNanchor_1152_1152" id="FNanchor_1152_1152"></a><a href="#Footnote_1152_1152" class="fnanchor">[1152]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> -and the judgment of the heathen in the Valley -of Jehoshaphat.<a name="FNanchor_1153_1153" id="FNanchor_1153_1153"></a><a href="#Footnote_1153_1153" class="fnanchor">[1153]</a> All alike, they are signs or accompaniments -of the Day of Jehovah, and that Day has -still to break. The prophet’s scenery is apocalyptic; -the locusts are “eschatological locusts,” not historical -ones. This interpretation of Joel has been elaborated -by Dr. Adalbert Merx, and the following is a summary -of his opinions.<a name="FNanchor_1154_1154" id="FNanchor_1154_1154"></a><a href="#Footnote_1154_1154" class="fnanchor">[1154]</a></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>After examining the book along all the lines of exposition which -have been proposed, Merx finds himself unable to trace any plan or -even sign of a plan; and his only escape from perplexity is the belief -that no plan can ever have been meant by the author. Joel weaves -in one past, present and future, paints situations only to blot them -out and put others in their place, starts many processes but develops -none. His book shows no insight into God’s plan with Israel, but is -purely external; the bearing and the end of it is the material -prosperity of the little land of Judah. From this Merx concludes -that the book is not an original work, but a mere summary of -passages from previous prophets, that with a few reflections of the life -of the Jews after the Return lead us to assign it to that period of -literary culture which Nehemiah inaugurated by the collection of -national writings and which was favoured by the cessation of all political -disturbance. Joel gathered up the pictures of the Messianic age -in the older prophets, and welded them together in one long prayer -by the fervid belief that that age was near. But while the older -prophets spoke upon the ground of actual fact and rose from this to a -majestic picture of the last punishment, the still life of Joel’s time had -nothing such to offer him and he had to seek another basis for his -prophetic flight. It is probable that he sought this in the relation of -Type and Antitype. The Antitype he found in the liberation from -Egypt, the darkness and the locusts of which he transferred to his -canvas from Exodus x. 4–6. The locusts, therefore, are neither -real nor symbolic, but ideal. This is the method of the Midrash and -Haggada in Jewish literature, which constantly placed over against -each other the deliverance from Egypt and the last judgment. It is -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> -a method that is already found in such portions of the Old Testament -as Ezekiel xxxvii. and Psalm lxxviii. Joel’s locusts are borrowed from -the Egyptian plagues, but are presented as the signs of the Last Day. -They will bring it near to Israel by famine, drought and the interruption -of worship described in chap. i. Chap. ii., which Merx -keeps distinct from chap. i., is based on a study of Ezekiel, from -whom Joel has borrowed, among other things, the expressions <i>the -garden of Eden</i> and <i>the Northerner</i>. The two verses generally held to -be historic, 18 and 19, Merx takes to be the continuation of the -prayer of the priests, pointing the verbs so as to turn them from -perfects into futures.<a name="FNanchor_1155_1155" id="FNanchor_1155_1155"></a><a href="#Footnote_1155_1155" class="fnanchor">[1155]</a> -The rest of the book, Merx strives to show, is -pieced together from many prophets, chiefly Isaiah and Ezekiel, but -without the tender spiritual feeling of the one, or the colossal -magnificence of the other. Special nations are mentioned, but in -this portion of the work we have to do not with events already past, -but with general views, and these not original, but conditioned by the -expressions of earlier writers. There is no history in the book: it is -all ideal, mystical, apocalyptic. That is to say, according to Merx, -there is no real prophet or prophetic fire, only an old man warming -his feeble hands over a few embers that he has scraped together from -the ashes of ancient fires, now nearly wholly dead.</p> - -<p>Merx has traced Joel’s relations to other prophets, and reflection -of a late date in Israel’s history, with care and ingenuity; but his -treatment of the text and exegesis of the prophet’s meaning are -alike forced and fanciful. In face of the support which the Massoretic -reading of the hinge of the book, chap. ii. 18 ff., receives from the -ancient versions, and of its inherent probability and harmony with -the context, Merx’s textual emendation is unnecessary, besides being -in itself unnatural.<a name="FNanchor_1156_1156" id="FNanchor_1156_1156"></a><a href="#Footnote_1156_1156" class="fnanchor">[1156]</a> While the very same objections which we have -already found valid against the allegorical interpretation equally -dispose of this mystical one. Merx outrages the evident features of -the book almost as much as Hengstenberg and Pusey have done. -He has lifted out of time altogether that which plainly purports to -be historical. His literary criticism is as unsound as his textual. It -is only by ignoring the beautiful poetry of chap. i. that he transplants -it to the future. Joel’s figures are too vivid, too actual, to be -predictive or mystical. And the whole interpretation wrecks itself in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> -the same verse as the allegorical, the verse, viz., in which Joel plainly -speaks of himself as having suffered with his hearers the plague he -describes.<a name="FNanchor_1157_1157" id="FNanchor_1157_1157"></a><a href="#Footnote_1157_1157" class="fnanchor">[1157]</a></p> -</div> - -<p>We may, therefore, with confidence conclude that -the allegorical and mystical interpretations of Joel are -impossible; and that the only reasonable view of our -prophet is that which regards him as calling, in chap. -i. 2—ii. 17, upon his contemporaries to repent in face -of a plague of locusts, so unusually severe that he has -felt it to be ominous of even the Day of the Lord; and -in the rest of his book, as promising material, political -and spiritual triumphs to Israel in consequence of their -repentance, either already consummated, or anticipated -by the prophet as certain.</p> - -<p>It is true that the account of the locusts appears to -bear features which conflict with the literal interpretation. -Some of these, however, vanish upon a fuller -knowledge of the awful degree which such a plague -has been testified to reach by competent observers -within our own era.<a name="FNanchor_1158_1158" id="FNanchor_1158_1158"></a><a href="#Footnote_1158_1158" class="fnanchor">[1158]</a> Those that remain may be -attributed partly to the poetic hyperbole of Joel’s style, -and partly to the fact that he sees in the plague far -more than itself. The locusts are signs of the Day of -Jehovah. Joel treats them as we found Zephaniah -treating the Scythian hordes of his day. They are as -real as the latter, but on them as on the latter the -lurid glare of Apocalypse has fallen, magnifying them -and investing them with that air of ominousness which -is the sole justification of the allegorical and mystic -interpretation of their appearance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> -To the same sense of their office as heralds of the -last day, we owe the description of the locusts as <i>the -Northerner</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1159_1159" id="FNanchor_1159_1159"></a><a href="#Footnote_1159_1159" class="fnanchor">[1159]</a> -The North is not the quarter from which -locusts usually reach Palestine, nor is there any reason -to suppose that by naming the North Joel meant only -to emphasise the unusual character of these swarms. -Rather he takes a name employed in Israel since -Jeremiah’s time to express the instruments of Jehovah’s -wrath in the day of His judgment of Israel. The name -is typical of Doom, and therefore Joel applies it to his -fateful locusts.</p> - -<h4 id="XXVIIsec3">3. S<span class="small">TATE OF THE</span> - T<span class="small">EXT AND THE</span> - S<span class="small">TYLE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>Joel’s style is fluent and clear, both when he is -describing the locusts, in which part of his book he -is most original, and when he is predicting, in apocalyptic -language largely borrowed from earlier prophets, -the Day of Jehovah. To the ease of understanding -him we may attribute the sound state of the text -and its freedom from glosses. In this, like most of -the books of the post-exilic prophets, especially the -Books of Haggai, “Malachi” and Jonah, Joel’s book -contrasts very favourably with those of the older -prophets; and that also, to some degree, is proof of -the lateness of his date. The Greek translators have, -on the whole, understood Joel easily and with little error. -In their version there are the usual differences of -grammatical construction, especially in the pronominal -suffixes and verbs, and of punctuation; but very few -bits of expansion and no real additions. These are all -noted in the translation below.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">OEL</span> i.—ii. 17</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Joel, as we have seen, found the motive of his -prophecy in a recent plague of locusts, the appearance -of which and the havoc they worked are -described by him in full detail. Writing not only as -a poet but as a seer, who reads in the locusts signs of -the great Day of the Lord, Joel has necessarily put -into his picture several features which carry the -imagination beyond the limits of experience. And yet, -if we ourselves had lived through such a plague, we -should be able to recognise how little license the poet -has taken, and that the seer, so far from unduly mixing -with his facts the colours of Apocalypse, must have -experienced in the terrible plague itself enough to provoke -all the religious and monitory use which he makes -of it.</p> - -<p>The present writer has seen but one swarm of locusts, -in which, though it was small and soon swept away by -the wind, he felt not only many of the features that -Joel describes, but even some degree of that singular -helplessness before a calamity of portent far beyond -itself, something of that supernatural edge and accent, -which, by the confession of so many observers, characterise -the locust-plague and the earthquake above -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> -all other physical disasters. One summer afternoon, -upon the plain of Hauran, a long bank of mist grew -rapidly from the western horizon. The day was dull, -and as the mist rose athwart the sunbeams, struggling -through clouds, it gleamed cold and white, like the -front of a distant snow-storm. When it came near, -it seemed to be more than a mile broad, and was dense -enough to turn the atmosphere raw and dirty, with a -chill as of a summer sea-fog, only that this was not -due to any fall in the temperature. Nor was there -the silence of a mist. We were enveloped by a noise, -less like the whirring of wings than the rattle of hail or -the crackling of bush on fire. Myriads upon myriads -of locusts were about us, covering the ground, and -shutting out the view in all directions. Though they -drifted before the wind, there was no confusion in their -ranks. They sailed in unbroken lines, sometimes -straight, sometimes wavy; and when they passed -pushing through our caravan, they left almost no -stragglers, except from the last battalion, and only the -few dead which we had caught in our hands. After -several minutes they were again but a lustre on the air, -and so melted away into some heavy clouds in the east.</p> - -<p>Modern travellers furnish us with terrible impressions -of the innumerable multitudes of a locust-plague, the -succession of their swarms through days and weeks, -and the utter desolation they leave behind them. -Mr. Doughty writes:<a name="FNanchor_1160_1160" id="FNanchor_1160_1160"></a><a href="#Footnote_1160_1160" class="fnanchor">[1160]</a> “There hopped before our feet -a minute brood of second locusts, of a leaden colour, -with budding wings like the spring leaves, and born of -those gay swarms which a few weeks before had passed -over and despoiled the desert. After forty days these -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> -also would fly as a pestilence, yet more hungry than -the former, and fill the atmosphere.” And later: “The -clouds of the second locust brood which the Arabs call -‘Am’dan, <i>pillars</i>, flew over us for some days, invaded -the booths and for blind hunger even bit our shins.”<a name="FNanchor_1161_1161" id="FNanchor_1161_1161"></a><a href="#Footnote_1161_1161" class="fnanchor">[1161]</a> -It was “a storm of rustling wings.”<a name="FNanchor_1162_1162" id="FNanchor_1162_1162"></a><a href="#Footnote_1162_1162" class="fnanchor">[1162]</a> “This year was -remembered for the locust swarms and great summer -heat.”<a name="FNanchor_1163_1163" id="FNanchor_1163_1163"></a><a href="#Footnote_1163_1163" class="fnanchor">[1163]</a> A traveller in South Africa<a name="FNanchor_1164_1164" id="FNanchor_1164_1164"></a><a href="#Footnote_1164_1164" class="fnanchor">[1164]</a> says: “For the -space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river -and eighty or ninety miles in length, an area of sixteen -or eighteen hundred square miles, the whole surface -might literally be said to be covered with them.” In -his recently published book on South Africa, Mr. Bryce -writes:—<a name="FNanchor_1165_1165" id="FNanchor_1165_1165"></a><a href="#Footnote_1165_1165" class="fnanchor">[1165]</a></p> - -<p>“It is a strange sight, beautiful if you can forget -the destruction it brings with it. The whole air, to -twelve or even eighteen feet above the ground, is filled -with the insects, reddish brown in body, with bright, -gauzy wings. When the sun’s rays catch them it is -like the sea sparkling with light. When you see them -against a cloud they are like the dense flakes of a -driving snow-storm. You feel as if you had never -before realised immensity in number. Vast crowds of -men gathered at a festival, countless tree-tops rising -along the slope of a forest ridge, the chimneys of -London houses from the top of St. Paul’s—all are as -nothing to the myriads of insects that blot out the sun -above and cover the ground beneath and fill the air -whichever way one looks. The breeze carries them -swiftly past, but they come on in fresh clouds, a host -of which there is no end, each of them a harmless -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> -creature which you can catch and crush in your hand, -but appalling in their power of collective devastation.”</p> - -<p>And take three testimonies from Syria: “The quantity -of these insects is a thing incredible to any one who -has not seen it himself; the ground is covered by them -for several leagues.”<a name="FNanchor_1166_1166" id="FNanchor_1166_1166"></a><a href="#Footnote_1166_1166" class="fnanchor">[1166]</a> “The whole face of the mountain<a name="FNanchor_1167_1167" id="FNanchor_1167_1167"></a><a href="#Footnote_1167_1167" class="fnanchor">[1167]</a> -was black with them. On they came like a living -deluge. We dug trenches and kindled fires, and -beat and burnt to death heaps upon heaps, but -the effort was utterly useless. They rolled up the -mountain-side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches -and hedges, those behind covering up and passing over -the masses already killed. For some days they continued -to pass. The noise made by them in marching -and foraging was like that of a heavy shower falling -upon a distant forest.”<a name="FNanchor_1168_1168" id="FNanchor_1168_1168"></a><a href="#Footnote_1168_1168" class="fnanchor">[1168]</a> “The roads were covered with -them, all marching and in regular lines, like armies of -soldiers, with their leaders in front; and all the opposition -of man to resist their progress was in vain.” -Having consumed the plantations in the country, they -entered the towns and villages. “When they approached -our garden all the farm servants were employed -to keep them off, but to no avail; though our -men broke their ranks for a moment, no sooner had -they passed the men, than they closed again, and -marched forward through hedges and ditches as before. -Our garden finished, they continued their march toward -the town, devastating one garden after another. They -have also penetrated into most of our rooms: whatever -one is doing one hears their noise from without, like -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> -the noise of armed hosts, or the running of many -waters. When in an erect position their appearance -at a little distance is like that of a well-armed -horseman.”<a name="FNanchor_1169_1169" id="FNanchor_1169_1169"></a><a href="#Footnote_1169_1169" class="fnanchor">[1169]</a></p> - -<p>Locusts are notoriously adapted for a plague, “since -to strength incredible for so small a creature, they add -saw-like teeth, admirably calculated to eat up all the -herbs in the land.”<a name="FNanchor_1170_1170" id="FNanchor_1170_1170"></a><a href="#Footnote_1170_1170" class="fnanchor">[1170]</a> They are the incarnation of -hunger. No voracity is like theirs, the voracity of -little creatures, whose million separate appetites nothing -is too minute to escape. They devour first grass and -leaves, fruit and foliage, everything that is green and -juicy. Then they attack the young branches of trees, -and then the hard bark of the trunks.<a name="FNanchor_1171_1171" id="FNanchor_1171_1171"></a><a href="#Footnote_1171_1171" class="fnanchor">[1171]</a> “After eating -up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the -willows, and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great -bitterness.”<a name="FNanchor_1172_1172" id="FNanchor_1172_1172"></a><a href="#Footnote_1172_1172" class="fnanchor">[1172]</a> “The bark of figs, pomegranates and -oranges, bitter, hard and corrosive, escaped not their -voracity.”<a name="FNanchor_1173_1173" id="FNanchor_1173_1173"></a><a href="#Footnote_1173_1173" class="fnanchor">[1173]</a> “They are particularly injurious to the palm-trees; -these they strip of every leaf and green particle, -the trees remaining like skeletons with bare branches.”<a name="FNanchor_1174_1174" id="FNanchor_1174_1174"></a><a href="#Footnote_1174_1174" class="fnanchor">[1174]</a> -“For eighty or ninety miles they devoured every green -herb and every blade of grass.”<a name="FNanchor_1175_1175" id="FNanchor_1175_1175"></a><a href="#Footnote_1175_1175" class="fnanchor">[1175]</a> “The gardens outside -Jaffa are now completely stripped, even the bark -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> -of the young trees having been devoured, and look like -a birch-tree forest in winter.”<a name="FNanchor_1176_1176" id="FNanchor_1176_1176"></a><a href="#Footnote_1176_1176" class="fnanchor">[1176]</a> “The bushes were -eaten quite bare, though the animals could not have -been long on the spot. They sat by hundreds on a -bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibres.”<a name="FNanchor_1177_1177" id="FNanchor_1177_1177"></a><a href="#Footnote_1177_1177" class="fnanchor">[1177]</a> -“Bamboo groves have been stripped of their leaves and -left standing like saplings after a rapid bush fire, and -grass has been devoured so that the bare ground appeared -as if burned.”<a name="FNanchor_1178_1178" id="FNanchor_1178_1178"></a><a href="#Footnote_1178_1178" class="fnanchor">[1178]</a> “The country did not seem to be burnt, -but to be much covered with snow through the whiteness -of the trees and the dryness of the herbs.”<a name="FNanchor_1179_1179" id="FNanchor_1179_1179"></a><a href="#Footnote_1179_1179" class="fnanchor">[1179]</a> The -fields finished, they invade towns and houses, in search -of stores. Victual of all kinds, hay, straw, and even -linen and woollen clothes and leather bottles, they -consume or tear in pieces.<a name="FNanchor_1180_1180" id="FNanchor_1180_1180"></a><a href="#Footnote_1180_1180" class="fnanchor">[1180]</a> They flood through the -open, unglazed windows and lattices: nothing can -keep them out.</p> - -<p>These extracts prove to us what little need Joel had -of hyperbole in order to read his locusts as signs of the -Day of Jehovah; especially if we keep in mind that -locusts are worst in very hot summers, and often -accompany an absolute drought along with its consequence -of prairie and forest fires. Some have thought -that, in introducing the effects of fire, Joel only means -to paint the burnt look of a land after locusts have -ravaged it. But locusts do not drink up the streams, -nor cause the seed to shrivel in the earth.<a name="FNanchor_1181_1181" id="FNanchor_1181_1181"></a><a href="#Footnote_1181_1181" class="fnanchor">[1181]</a> By these -the prophet must mean drought, and by <i>the flame that -has burned all the trees of the field</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1182_1182" id="FNanchor_1182_1182"></a><a href="#Footnote_1182_1182" class="fnanchor">[1182]</a> -the forest fire, finding -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> -an easy prey in the trees which have been reduced to -firewood by the locusts’ teeth.</p> - -<p>Even in the great passage in which he passes from -history to Apocalypse, from the gloom and terror of -the locusts to the lurid dawn of Jehovah’s Day, Joel -keeps within the actual facts of experience:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Day of darkness and murk,</div> -<div class="verse">Day of cloud and heavy mist,</div> -<div class="verse">Like dawn scattered on the mountains,</div> -<div class="verse">A people many and powerful.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>No one who has seen a cloud of locusts can question -the realism even of this picture: the heavy gloom of -the immeasurable mass of them, shot by gleams of -light where a few of the sun’s imprisoned beams have -broken through or across the storm of lustrous wings. -This is like dawn beaten down upon the hilltops, and -crushed by rolling masses of cloud, in conspiracy to -prolong the night. No: the only point at which Joel -leaves absolute fact for the wilder combinations of -Apocalypse is at the very close of his description, -chap. ii. 10 and 11, and just before his call to repentance. -Here we find, mixed with the locusts, earthquake -and thunderstorm; and Joel has borrowed these -from the classic pictures of the Day of the Lord, using -some of the very phrases of the latter:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Earth trembles before them,</div> -<div class="verse">Heaven quakes,</div> -<div class="verse">Sun and moon become black,</div> -<div class="verse">The stars withdraw their shining,</div> -<div class="verse">And Jehovah utters His voice before His army.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Joel, then, describes, and does not unduly enhance, -the terrors of an actual plague. At first his whole -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> -strength is so bent to make his people feel these, -that, though about to call to repentance, he does not -detail the national sins which require it. In his opening -verses he summons the drunkards,<a name="FNanchor_1183_1183" id="FNanchor_1183_1183"></a><a href="#Footnote_1183_1183" class="fnanchor">[1183]</a> but that -is merely to lend vividness to his picture of facts, -because men of such habits will be the first to feel a -plague of this kind. Nor does Joel yet ask his hearers -what the calamity portends. At first he only demands -that they shall feel it, in its uniqueness and its own -sheer force.</p> - -<p>Hence the peculiar style of the passage. Letter for -letter, this is one of the heaviest passages in prophecy. -The proportion in Hebrew of liquids to the other letters -is not large; but here it is smaller than ever. The -explosives and dentals are very numerous. There are -several keywords, with hard consonants and long vowels, -used again and again: Shuddadh, ‘ābhlah, ‘umlal, hôbhîsh. -The longer lines into which Hebrew parallelism -tends to run are replaced by a rapid series of short, -heavy phrases, falling like blows. Critics have called -it rhetoric. But it is rhetoric of a very high order -and perfectly suited to the prophet’s purpose. Look at -chap. i. 10: Shuddadh sadheh, ‘ābhlah ‘adhamah, shuddadh -daghan, hôbhîsh tîrôsh, ‘umlal yiṣḥar.<a name="FNanchor_1184_1184" id="FNanchor_1184_1184"></a><a href="#Footnote_1184_1184" class="fnanchor">[1184]</a> Joel loads -his clauses with the most leaden letters he can find, and -drops them in quick succession, repeating the same -heavy word again and again, as if he would stun the -careless people into some sense of the bare, brutal -weight of the calamity which has befallen them.</p> - -<p>Now Joel does this because he believes that, if his -people feel the plague in its proper violence, they must -be convinced that it comes from Jehovah. The keynote -of this part of the prophecy is found in chap. i. 15: -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> -“Keshôdh mishshaddhai,” <i>like violence from the All-violent -doth it come</i>. “If you feel this as it is, you -will feel Jehovah Himself in it. By these very -blows, He and His Day are near. We had been -forgetting how near.” Joel mentions no crime, nor -enforces any virtue: how could he have done so in -so strong a sense that “the Judge was at the door”? -To make men feel that they had forgotten they were -in reach of that Almighty Hand, which could strike so -suddenly and so hard—Joel had time only to make -men feel that, and to call them to repentance. In -this we probably see some reflection of the age: an -age when men’s thoughts were thrusting the Deity -further and further from their life; when they put His -Law and Temple between Him and themselves; and -when their religion, devoid of the sense of His Presence, -had become a set of formal observances, the rending of -garments and not of hearts. But He, whom His own -ordinances had hidden from His people, has burst -forth through nature and in sheer force of calamity. -He has revealed Himself, El-Shaddhai, <i>God All-violent</i>, -as He was known to their fathers, who had no elaborate -law or ritual to put between their fearful hearts and -His terrible strength, but cowered before Him, helpless -on the stripped soil, and naked beneath His thunder. -By just these means did Elijah and Amos bring God -home to the hearts of ancient Israel. In Joel we see -the revival of the old nature-religion, and the revenge -that it was bound to take upon the elaborate systems -which had displaced it, but which by their formalism and -their artificial completeness had made men forget that -near presence and direct action of the Almighty which -it is nature’s own office to enforce upon the heart.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> -The thing is true, and permanently valid. Only the -great natural processes can break up the systems of -dogma and ritual in which we make ourselves comfortable -and formal, and drive us out into God’s open -air of reality. In the crash of nature’s forces even -our particular sins are forgotten, and we feel, as in the -immediate presence of God, our whole, deep need of -repentance. So far from blaming the absence of special -ethics in Joel’s sermon, we accept it as natural and -proper to the occasion.</p> - -<p>Such, then, appears to be the explanation of the first -part of the prophecy, and its development towards the -call to repentance, which follows it. If we are correct, -the assertion<a name="FNanchor_1185_1185" id="FNanchor_1185_1185"></a><a href="#Footnote_1185_1185" class="fnanchor">[1185]</a> is false that no plan was meant by the -prophet. For not only is there a plan, but the plan -is most suitable to the requirements of Israel, after -their adoption of the whole Law in 445, and forms one -of the most necessary and interesting developments -of all religion: the revival, in an artificial period, of -those primitive forces of religion which nature alone -supplies, and which are needed to correct formalism -and the forgetfulness of the near presence of the -Almighty. We see in this, too, the reason of Joel’s -archaic style, both of conception and expression: that -likeness of his to early prophets which has led so many -to place him between Elijah and Amos.<a name="FNanchor_1186_1186" id="FNanchor_1186_1186"></a><a href="#Footnote_1186_1186" class="fnanchor">[1186]</a> They are -wrong. Joel’s simplicity is that not of early prophecy, -but of the austere forces of this revived and applied to -the artificiality of a later age.</p> - -<p>One other proof of Joel’s conviction of the religious -meaning of the plague might also have been pled by -the earlier prophets, but certainly not in the terms in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> -which Joel expresses it. Amos and Hosea had both -described the destruction of the country’s fertility in -their day as God’s displeasure on His people and (as -Hosea puts it) His divorce of His Bride from Himself.<a name="FNanchor_1187_1187" id="FNanchor_1187_1187"></a><a href="#Footnote_1187_1187" class="fnanchor">[1187]</a> -But by them the physical calamities were not threatened -alone: banishment from the land and from enjoyment -of its fruits was to follow upon drought, locusts -and famine. In threatening no captivity Joel differs -entirely from the early prophets. It is a mark of -his late date. And he also describes the divorce -between Jehovah and Israel, through the interruption -of the ritual by the plague, in terms and with an accent -which could hardly have been employed in Israel before -the Exile. After the rebuilding of the Temple and -restoration of the daily sacrifices morning and evening, -the regular performance of the latter was regarded by -the Jews with a most superstitious sense of its indispensableness -to the national life. Before the Exile, -Jeremiah, for instance, attaches no importance to it, in -circumstances in which it would have been not unnatural -for him, priest as he was, to do so.<a name="FNanchor_1188_1188" id="FNanchor_1188_1188"></a><a href="#Footnote_1188_1188" class="fnanchor">[1188]</a> But after -the Exile, the greater scrupulousness of the religious -life, and its absorption in ritual, laid extraordinary -emphasis upon the daily offering, which increased to -a most painful degree of anxiety as the centuries went -on.<a name="FNanchor_1189_1189" id="FNanchor_1189_1189"></a><a href="#Footnote_1189_1189" class="fnanchor">[1189]</a> The New Testament speaks of <i>the Twelve Tribes -constantly serving God day and night</i>;<a name="FNanchor_1190_1190" id="FNanchor_1190_1190"></a><a href="#Footnote_1190_1190" class="fnanchor">[1190]</a> and Josephus, -while declaring that in no siege of Jerusalem before -the last did the interruption ever take place in spite -of the stress of famine and war combined, records the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> -awful impression made alike on Jew and heathen by -the giving up of the daily sacrifice on the 17th of July, -<span class="small">A.D.</span> 70, during the investment of the city by Titus.<a name="FNanchor_1191_1191" id="FNanchor_1191_1191"></a><a href="#Footnote_1191_1191" class="fnanchor">[1191]</a> -This disaster, which Judaism so painfully feared at every -crisis in its history, actually happened, Joel tells us, -during the famine caused by the locusts. <i>Cut off are -the meal and the drink offerings from the house of -Jehovah.<a name="FNanchor_1192_1192" id="FNanchor_1192_1192"></a><a href="#Footnote_1192_1192" class="fnanchor">[1192]</a> Is not food cut off from our eyes, joy and -gladness from the house of our God?<a name="FNanchor_1193_1193" id="FNanchor_1193_1193"></a><a href="#Footnote_1193_1193" class="fnanchor">[1193]</a> Perhaps He will -turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, meal -and drink offering for Jehovah our God.</i><a name="FNanchor_1194_1194" id="FNanchor_1194_1194"></a><a href="#Footnote_1194_1194" class="fnanchor">[1194]</a> The break -“of the continual symbol of gracious intercourse between -Jehovah and His people, and the main office of -religion,” means divorce between Jehovah and Israel. -<i>Wail like a bride girt in sackcloth for the husband of her -youth! Wail, O ministers of the altar, O ministers of -God!</i><a name="FNanchor_1195_1195" id="FNanchor_1195_1195"></a><a href="#Footnote_1195_1195" class="fnanchor">[1195]</a> This then was another reason for reading in -the plague of locusts more than a physical meaning. -This was another proof, only too intelligible to scrupulous -Jews, that the great and terrible Day of the -Lord was at hand.</p> - -<p>Thus Joel reaches the climax of his argument. -Jehovah is near, His Day is about to break. From -this it is impossible to escape on the narrow path of -disaster by which the prophet has led up to it. But -beneath that path the prophet passes the ground of a -broad truth, and on that truth, while judgment remains -still as real, there is room for the people to turn from -it. If experience has shown that God is in the present, -near and inevitable, faith remembers that He is there -not willingly for judgment, but with all His ancient -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> -feeling for Israel and His zeal to save her. If the -people choose to turn, Jehovah, as their God and as -one who works for their sake, will save them. Of this -God assures them by His own word. For the first time -in the prophecy He speaks for Himself. Hitherto the -prophet has been describing the plague and summoning -to penitence. <i>But now oracle of Jehovah of Hosts.</i><a name="FNanchor_1196_1196" id="FNanchor_1196_1196"></a><a href="#Footnote_1196_1196" class="fnanchor">[1196]</a> -The great covenant name, <i>Jehovah your God</i>, is solemnly -repeated as if symbolic of the historic origin and age-long -endurance of Jehovah’s relation to Israel; and the -very words of blessing are repeated which were given -when Israel was called at Sinai and the covenant -ratified:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For He is gracious and merciful,</div> -<div class="verse">Long-suffering and plenteous in leal love,</div> -<div class="verse">And relents Him of the evil</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He has threatened upon you. Once more the nation -is summoned to try Him by prayer: the solemn prayer -of all Israel, pleading that He should not give His people -to reproach.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent4">The Word of Jehovah</div> -<div class="verse">which came to Jo’el the son of Pethû’el.<a name="FNanchor_1197_1197" id="FNanchor_1197_1197"></a><a href="#Footnote_1197_1197" class="fnanchor">[1197]</a></div> - -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hear this, ye old men,</div> -<div class="verse">And give ear, all inhabitants of the land!</div> -<div class="verse">Has the like been in your days,</div> -<div class="verse">Or in the days of your fathers?</div> -<div class="verse">Tell it to your children,</div> -<div class="verse">And your children to their children,</div> -<div class="verse">And their children to the generation that follows.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> -<div class="verse">That which the Shearer left the Swarmer hath</div> -<div class="verse indent2">eaten,</div> -<div class="verse">And that which the Swarmer left the Lapper hath</div> -<div class="verse indent2">eaten.</div> -<div class="verse">And that which the Lapper left the Devourer hath</div> -<div class="verse indent2">eaten.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>These are four different names for locusts, which it -is best to translate by their literal meaning. Some think -that they represent one swarm of locusts in four stages -of development, but this cannot be, because the same -swarm never returns upon its path, to complete the work -of destruction which it had begun in an earlier stage of -its growth. Nor can the first-named be the adult brood -from whose eggs the others spring, as Doughty has -described,<a name="FNanchor_1198_1198" id="FNanchor_1198_1198"></a><a href="#Footnote_1198_1198" class="fnanchor">[1198]</a> for that would account only for two of the -four names. Joel rather describes successive swarms -of the insect, without reference to the stages of its -growth, and he does so as a poet, using, in order to -bring out the full force of its devastation, several of the -Hebrew names, that were given to the locust as epithets -of various aspects of its destructive power. The names, -it is true, cannot be said to rise in climax, but at least -the most sinister is reserved to the last.<a name="FNanchor_1199_1199" id="FNanchor_1199_1199"></a><a href="#Footnote_1199_1199" class="fnanchor">[1199]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Rouse ye, drunkards, and weep,</div> -<div class="verse">And wail, all ye bibbers of wine!</div> -<div class="verse">The new wine is cut off from your mouth!</div> -<div class="verse">For a nation is come up on My land,</div> -<div class="verse">Powerful and numberless;</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> -<div class="verse">His teeth are the teeth of the lion,</div> -<div class="verse">And the fangs<a name="FNanchor_1200_1200" id="FNanchor_1200_1200"></a><a href="#Footnote_1200_1200" class="fnanchor">[1200]</a> of the lioness his.</div> -<div class="verse">My vine he has turned to waste,</div> -<div class="verse">And My fig-tree to splinters;</div> -<div class="verse">He hath peeled it and strawed it,</div> -<div class="verse">Bleached are its branches!</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Wail as a bride girt in sackcloth for the spouse of</div> -<div class="verse indent2">her youth.</div> -<div class="verse">Cut off are the meal and drink offerings from the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">house of Jehovah!</div> -<div class="verse">In grief are the priests, the ministers of Jehovah.</div> -<div class="verse">The fields are blasted, the ground is in grief,</div> -<div class="verse">Blasted is the corn, abashed is the new wine, the oil</div> -<div class="verse indent2">pines away.</div> -<div class="verse">Be ye abashed, O ploughmen!</div> -<div class="verse">Wail, O vine-dressers,</div> -<div class="verse">For the wheat and the barley;</div> -<div class="verse">The harvest is lost from the field!</div> -<div class="verse">The vine is abashed, and the fig-tree is drooping;</div> -<div class="verse">Pomegranate, palm too and apple,</div> -<div class="verse">All trees of the field are dried up:</div> -<div class="verse">Yea, joy is abashed <span class="norm">and </span>away - from the children of</div> -<div class="verse indent2">men.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In this passage the same feeling is attributed to -men and to the fruits of the land: <i>In grief are the -priests, the ground is in grief</i>. And it is repeatedly -said that all alike are <i>abashed</i>. By this heavy word -we have sought to render the effect of the similarly -sounding “hôbhîsha,” that our English version renders -<i>ashamed</i>. It signifies to be frustrated, and so -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> -<i>disheartened</i>, <i>put out</i>: <i>soured</i> -would be an equivalent, applicable to the vine -and to joy and to men’s hearts.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Put on <span class="norm">mourning</span>, -O priests, beat the breast;</div> -<div class="verse">Wail, ye ministers of the altar;</div> -<div class="verse">Come, lie down in sackcloth, O ministers of my God:</div> -<div class="verse">For meal-offering and drink-offering are cut off</div> -<div class="verse indent2">from the house of your God.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hallow a fast, summon an assembly,</div> -<div class="verse">Gather<a name="FNanchor_1201_1201" id="FNanchor_1201_1201"></a><a href="#Footnote_1201_1201" class="fnanchor">[1201]</a> -all the inhabitants of the land to the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">house of your God;</div> -<div class="verse">And cry to Jehovah:</div> -<div class="verse">“Alas for the Day! At hand is the Day of</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Jehovah!</div> -<div class="verse">And as vehemence from the Vehement<a name="FNanchor_1202_1202" id="FNanchor_1202_1202"></a><a href="#Footnote_1202_1202" class="fnanchor">[1202]</a> doth it come.”</div> -<div class="verse">Is not food cut off from before us,</div> -<div class="verse">Gladness and joy from the house of our God?</div> -<div class="verse">The grains shrivel under their hoes,<a name="FNanchor_1203_1203" id="FNanchor_1203_1203"></a><a href="#Footnote_1203_1203" class="fnanchor">[1203]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The garners are desolate, the barns broken down,</div> -<div class="verse">For the corn is withered—what shall we put in</div> -<div class="verse indent2">them?<a name="FNanchor_1204_1204" id="FNanchor_1204_1204"></a><a href="#Footnote_1204_1204" class="fnanchor">[1204]</a></div> -<div class="verse">The herds of cattle huddle together,<a name="FNanchor_1205_1205" id="FNanchor_1205_1205"></a><a href="#Footnote_1205_1205" class="fnanchor">[1205]</a> -for they have -<div class="verse indent2"></div>no pasture;</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Yea, the flocks of sheep are forlorn.<a name="FNanchor_1206_1206" id="FNanchor_1206_1206"></a><a href="#Footnote_1206_1206" class="fnanchor">[1206]</a></div> -<div class="verse">To Thee, Jehovah, do I cry:</div> -<div class="verse">For fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes,<a name="FNanchor_1207_1207" id="FNanchor_1207_1207"></a><a href="#Footnote_1207_1207" class="fnanchor">[1207]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And the flame hath scorched all the trees of the field.</div> -<div class="verse">The wild beasts pant up to Thee:</div> -<div class="verse">For the watercourses are dry,</div> -<div class="verse">And fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Here, with the close of chap. i., Joel’s discourse -takes pause, and in chap. ii. he begins a second with -another call to repentance in face of the same plague. -But the plague has progressed. The locusts are described -now in their invasion not of the country but -of the towns, to which they pass after the country is -stripped. For illustration of the latter see above, p. <a href="#Page_401">401</a>. -The <i>horn</i> which is to be blown, ver. 1, is an <i>alarm -horn</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1208_1208" id="FNanchor_1208_1208"></a><a href="#Footnote_1208_1208" class="fnanchor">[1208]</a> to warn the people of the approach of the Day -of the Lord, and not the Shophar which called the -people to a general assembly, as in ver. 15.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Blow a horn in Zion,</div> -<div class="verse">Sound the alarm in My holy mountain!</div> -<div class="verse">Let all inhabitants of the land tremble,</div> -<div class="verse">For the Day of Jehovah comes—it is near!</div> -<div class="verse">Day of darkness and murk, day of cloud and</div> -<div class="verse indent2">heavy mist.<a name="FNanchor_1209_1209" id="FNanchor_1209_1209"></a><a href="#Footnote_1209_1209" class="fnanchor">[1209]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Like dawn scattered<a name="FNanchor_1210_1210" id="FNanchor_1210_1210"></a><a href="#Footnote_1210_1210" class="fnanchor">[1210]</a> on the mountains,</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> -<div class="verse">A people many and powerful;</div> -<div class="verse">Its like has not been from of old,</div> -<div class="verse">And shall not again be for years of generation upon</div> -<div class="verse indent2">generation.</div> -<div class="verse">Before it the fire devours,<a name="FNanchor_1211_1211" id="FNanchor_1211_1211"></a><a href="#Footnote_1211_1211" class="fnanchor">[1211]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And behind the flame consumes.</div> -<div class="verse">Like the garden of Eden<a name="FNanchor_1212_1212" id="FNanchor_1212_1212"></a><a href="#Footnote_1212_1212" class="fnanchor">[1212]</a> is the land in front,</div> -<div class="verse">And behind it a desolate desert;</div> -<div class="verse">Yea, it lets nothing escape.</div> -<div class="verse">Their visage is the visage of horses,</div> -<div class="verse">And like horsemen they run.</div> -<div class="verse">They rattle like chariots over the tops of the hills,</div> -<div class="verse">Like the crackle of flames devouring stubble,</div> -<div class="verse">Like a powerful people prepared for battle.</div> -<div class="verse">Peoples are writhing before them,</div> -<div class="verse">Every face gathers blackness.</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Like warriors they run,</div> -<div class="verse">Like fighting-men they come up the wall;</div> -<div class="verse">They march every man by himself,<a name="FNanchor_1213_1213" id="FNanchor_1213_1213"></a><a href="#Footnote_1213_1213" class="fnanchor">[1213]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And they ravel<a name="FNanchor_1214_1214" id="FNanchor_1214_1214"></a><a href="#Footnote_1214_1214" class="fnanchor">[1214]</a> not their paths.</div> -<div class="verse">None jostles his comrade,</div> -<div class="verse">They march every man on his track,<a name="FNanchor_1215_1215" id="FNanchor_1215_1215"></a><a href="#Footnote_1215_1215" class="fnanchor">[1215]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And plunge through the missiles unbroken.<a name="FNanchor_1216_1216" id="FNanchor_1216_1216"></a><a href="#Footnote_1216_1216" class="fnanchor">[1216]</a></div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> -<div class="verse">They scour the city, run upon the walls,</div> -<div class="verse">Climb into the houses, and enter the windows like a</div> -<div class="verse indent2">thief.</div> -<div class="verse">Earth trembles before them,</div> -<div class="verse">Heaven quakes,</div> -<div class="verse">Sun and moon become black,</div> -<div class="verse">The stars withdraw their shining.</div> -<div class="verse">And Jehovah utters His voice before His army:</div> -<div class="verse">For very great is His host;</div> -<div class="verse">Yea, powerful is He that performeth His word.</div> -<div class="verse">Great is the Day of Jehovah, and very awful:</div> -<div class="verse">Who may abide it?<a name="FNanchor_1217_1217" id="FNanchor_1217_1217"></a><a href="#Footnote_1217_1217" class="fnanchor">[1217]</a></div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But now <span class="norm">hear </span>the -oracle of Jehovah:</div> -<div class="verse">Turn ye to Me with all your heart,</div> -<div class="verse">And with fasting and weeping and mourning.</div> -<div class="verse">Rend ye your hearts and not your garments,</div> -<div class="verse">And turn to Jehovah your God:</div> -<div class="verse">For He is gracious and merciful,</div> -<div class="verse">Long-suffering and plenteous in love,</div> -<div class="verse">And relents of the evil.</div> -<div class="verse">Who knows but He will turn and relent,</div> -<div class="verse">And leave behind Him a blessing,</div> -<div class="verse">Meal-offering and drink-offering to Jehovah your</div> -<div class="verse indent2">God?</div> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Blow a horn in Zion,</div> -<div class="verse">Hallow a fast, summon the assembly!</div> -<div class="verse">Gather the people, hallow the congregation,</div> -<div class="verse">Assemble the old men,<a name="FNanchor_1218_1218" id="FNanchor_1218_1218"></a><a href="#Footnote_1218_1218" class="fnanchor">[1218]</a> -gather the children, and</div> -<div class="verse indent2">infants at the breast;</div> -<div class="verse">Let the bridegroom come forth from his chamber,</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And the bride from her bower.<a name="FNanchor_1219_1219" id="FNanchor_1219_1219"></a><a href="#Footnote_1219_1219" class="fnanchor">[1219]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep</div> -<div class="verse indent2">between porch and altar;</div> -<div class="verse">Let them say, Spare, O Jehovah, Thy people,</div> -<div class="verse">And give not Thine heritage to dishonour, for the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">heathen to mock them:<a name="FNanchor_1220_1220" id="FNanchor_1220_1220"></a><a href="#Footnote_1220_1220" class="fnanchor">[1220]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Why should it be said among the nations, Where is</div> -<div class="verse indent2">their God?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">PROSPERITY AND THE SPIRIT</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">OEL</span> -ii. 18–32 (Eng.; ii. 18—iii. Heb.)</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<i>Then did Jehovah become jealous for His land, and -took pity upon His people</i>—with these words Joel -opens the second half of his book. Our Authorised -Version renders them in the future tense, as the continuation -of the prophet’s discourse, which had threatened -the Day of the Lord, urged the people to penitence, -and now promises that their penitence shall be followed -by the Lord’s mercy. But such a rendering forces the -grammar;<a name="FNanchor_1221_1221" id="FNanchor_1221_1221"></a><a href="#Footnote_1221_1221" class="fnanchor">[1221]</a> and the Revised English Version is right -in taking the verbs, as the vast majority of critics do, -in the past. Joel’s call to repentance has closed, and -has been successful. The fast has been hallowed, the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> -prayers are heard. Probably an interval has elapsed between -vv. 17 and 18, but in any case, the people having -repented, nothing more is said of their need of doing -so, and instead we have from God Himself a series of -promises, vv. 19–27, in answer to their cry for mercy. -These promises relate to the physical calamity which -has been suffered. God will destroy the locusts, still -impending on the land, and restore the years which -His great army has eaten. There follows in vv. 28–32 -(Eng.; Heb. chap, iii.) the promise of a great outpouring -of the Spirit on all Israel, amid terrible -manifestations in heaven and earth.</p> - -<h4 id="XXIXsec1">1. T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">ETURN OF</span> - P<span class="small">ROSPERITY</span> (ii. 19–27).</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And Jehovah answered and said to His people:</div> -<div class="verse">Lo, I will send you corn and wine and oil,</div> -<div class="verse">And your fill shall ye have of them;</div> -<div class="verse">And I will not again make you a reproach among</div> -<div class="verse indent2">the heathen.</div> -<div class="verse">And the Northern <span class="norm">Foe</span><a name="FNanchor_1222_1222" id="FNanchor_1222_1222"></a><a href="#Footnote_1222_1222" class="fnanchor">[1222]</a> -will I remove far</div> -<div class="verse indent2">from you;</div> -<div class="verse">And I will push him into a land barren and waste,</div> -<div class="verse">His van to the eastern sea and his rear to the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">western,<a name="FNanchor_1223_1223" id="FNanchor_1223_1223"></a><a href="#Footnote_1223_1223" class="fnanchor">[1223]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Till the stench of him rises,<a name="FNanchor_1224_1224" id="FNanchor_1224_1224"></a><a href="#Footnote_1224_1224" class="fnanchor">[1224]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Because he hath done greatly.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> -Locusts disappear with the same suddenness as -they arrive. A wind springs up and they are gone.<a name="FNanchor_1225_1225" id="FNanchor_1225_1225"></a><a href="#Footnote_1225_1225" class="fnanchor">[1225]</a> -Dead Sea and Mediterranean are at the extremes of -the compass, but there is no reason to suppose that the -prophet has abandoned the realism which has hitherto -distinguished his treatment of the locusts. The plague -covered the whole land, on whose high watershed the -winds suddenly veer and change. The dispersion of -the locusts upon the deserts and the opposite seas was -therefore possible at one and the same time. Jerome -vouches for an instance in his own day. The other -detail is also true to life. Jerome says that the beaches -of the two seas were strewn with putrifying locusts, -and Augustine<a name="FNanchor_1226_1226" id="FNanchor_1226_1226"></a><a href="#Footnote_1226_1226" class="fnanchor">[1226]</a> quotes heathen writers in evidence of -large masses of locusts, driven from Africa upon the -sea, and then cast up on the shore, which gave rise to a -pestilence. “The south and east winds,” says Volney -of Syria, “drive the clouds of locusts with violence into -the Mediterranean, and drown them in such quantities, -that when their dead are cast on the shore they infect -the air to a great distance.”<a name="FNanchor_1227_1227" id="FNanchor_1227_1227"></a><a href="#Footnote_1227_1227" class="fnanchor">[1227]</a> The prophet continues, -celebrating this destruction of the locusts as if it were -already realised—<i>the Lord hath done greatly</i>, ver. 21. -That among the blessings he mentions a full supply -of rain proves that we were right in interpreting him -to have spoken of drought as accompanying the -locusts.<a name="FNanchor_1228_1228" id="FNanchor_1228_1228"></a><a href="#Footnote_1228_1228" class="fnanchor">[1228]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Fear not, O Land! Rejoice and be glad,</div> -<div class="verse">For Jehovah hath done greatly.<a name="FNanchor_1229_1229" id="FNanchor_1229_1229"></a><a href="#Footnote_1229_1229" class="fnanchor">[1229]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Fear not, O beasts of the field!</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> -<div class="verse">For the pastures of the steppes are springing with</div> -<div class="verse indent2">new grass,</div> -<div class="verse">The trees bear their fruit,</div> -<div class="verse">Fig-tree and vine yield their substance.</div> -<div class="verse">O sons of Zion, be glad,</div> -<div class="verse">And rejoice in Jehovah your God:</div> -<div class="verse">For He hath given you the early rain in</div> -<div class="verse indent2">normal measure,<a name="FNanchor_1230_1230" id="FNanchor_1230_1230"></a><a href="#Footnote_1230_1230" class="fnanchor">[1230]</a></div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And poured<a name="FNanchor_1231_1231" id="FNanchor_1231_1231"></a><a href="#Footnote_1231_1231" class="fnanchor">[1231]</a> on you winter rain<a name="FNanchor_1232_1232" id="FNanchor_1232_1232"></a><a href="#Footnote_1232_1232" class="fnanchor">[1232]</a> and latter</div> -<div class="verse indent2">rain as before<a name="FNanchor_1233_1233" id="FNanchor_1233_1233"></a><a href="#Footnote_1233_1233" class="fnanchor">[1233]</a>. -</div> -<div class="verse">And the threshing-floors shall be full of wheat,</div> -<div class="verse">And the vats stream over with new wine and oil.</div> -<div class="verse">And I will restore to you the years which the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Swarmer has eaten,</div> -<div class="verse">The Lapper, the Devourer and the Shearer,</div> -<div class="verse">My great army whom I sent among you.</div> -<div class="verse">And ye shall eat your food and be full,</div> -<div class="verse">And praise the Name of Jehovah your God,</div> -<div class="verse">Who hath dealt so wondrously with you;</div> -<div class="verse">And My people shall be abashed nevermore.</div> -<div class="verse">Ye shall know I am in the midst of Israel,</div> -<div class="verse">That I am Jehovah your God and none else;</div> -<div class="verse">And nevermore shall My people be abashed.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h4 id="XXIXsec2">2. T<span class="small">HE</span> - O<span class="small">UTPOURING OF THE</span> - S<span class="small">PIRIT</span><br /> - (ii. 28–32 Eng.; iii. Heb.).</h4> - -<p>Upon these promises of physical blessing there -follows another of the pouring forth of the Spirit: the -prophecy by which Joel became the Prophet of Pentecost, -and through which his book is best known among -Christians.</p> - -<p>When fertility has been restored to the land, the -seasons again run their normal courses, and the people -eat their food and be full—<i>It shall come to pass after -these things, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh</i>. -The order of events makes us pause to question: does -Joel mean to imply that physical prosperity must -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> -precede spiritual fulness? It would be unfair to assert -that he does, without remembering what he understands -by the physical blessings. To Joel these are -the token that God has returned to His people. The -drought and the famine produced by the locusts -were signs of His anger and of His divorce of the -land. The proofs that He has relented, and taken -Israel back into a spiritual relation to Himself, can, -therefore, from Joel’s point of view, only be given -by the healing of the people’s wounds. In plenteous -rains and full harvests God sets His seal to man’s -penitence. Rain and harvest are not merely physical -benefits, but religious sacraments: signs that God has -returned to His people, and that His zeal is again -stirred on their behalf.<a name="FNanchor_1234_1234" id="FNanchor_1234_1234"></a><a href="#Footnote_1234_1234" class="fnanchor">[1234]</a> This has to be made clear -before there can be talk of any higher blessing. -God has to return to His people and to show His -love for them before He pours forth His Spirit upon -them. That is what Joel intends by the order he pursues, -and not that a certain stage of physical comfort -is indispensable to a high degree of spiritual feeling -and experience. The early and latter rains, the fulness -of corn, wine and oil, are as purely religious to Joel, -though not so highly religious, as the phenomena of -the Spirit in men.</p> - -<p>But though that be an adequate answer to our -question so far as Joel himself is concerned, it does -not exhaust the question with regard to history in -general. From Joel’s own standpoint physical blessings -may have been as religious as spiritual; but we -must go further, and assert that for Joel’s anticipation -of the baptism of the Spirit by a return of prosperity -there is an ethical reason and one which is permanently -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> -valid in history. A certain degree of prosperity, and -even of comfort, is an indispensable condition of that -universal and lavish exercise of the religious faculties, -which Joel pictures under the pouring forth of God’s -Spirit.</p> - -<p>The history of prophecy itself furnishes us with -proofs of this. When did prophecy most flourish in -Israel? When had the Spirit of God most freedom -in developing the intellectual and moral nature of -Israel? Not when the nation was struggling with -the conquest and settlement of the land, not when -it was engaged with the embarrassments and privations -of the Syrian wars; but an Amos, a Hosea, an -Isaiah came forth at the end of the long, peaceful and -prosperous reigns of Jeroboam II. and Uzziah. The -intellectual strength and liberty of the great Prophet -of the Exile, his deep insight into God’s purposes and -his large view of the future, had not been possible -without the security and comparative prosperity of -the Jews in Babylon, from among whom he wrote. In -Haggai and Zechariah, on the other hand, who worked -in the hunger-bitten colony of returned exiles, there -was no such fulness of the Spirit. Prophecy, we saw,<a name="FNanchor_1235_1235" id="FNanchor_1235_1235"></a><a href="#Footnote_1235_1235" class="fnanchor">[1235]</a> -was then starved by the poverty and meanness of the -national life from which it rose. All this is very -explicable. When men are stunned by such a calamity -as Joel describes, or when they are engrossed by the -daily struggle with bitter enemies and a succession of -bad seasons, they may feel the need of penitence and -be able to speak with decision upon the practical duty -of the moment, to a degree not attainable in better -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> -days, but they lack the leisure, the freedom and the -resources amid which their various faculties of mind -and soul can alone respond to the Spirit’s influence.</p> -<p>Has it been otherwise in the history of Christianity? -Our Lord Himself found His first disciples, not in a -hungry and ragged community, but amid the prosperity -and opulence of Galilee. They left all to follow Him -and achieved their ministry in poverty and persecution, -but they brought to that ministry the force of minds -and bodies trained in a very fertile land and by a -prosperous commerce.<a name="FNanchor_1236_1236" id="FNanchor_1236_1236"></a><a href="#Footnote_1236_1236" class="fnanchor">[1236]</a> Paul, in his apostolate, sustained -himself by the labour of his hands, but he was -the child of a rich civilisation and the citizen of a -great empire. The Reformation was preceded by the -Renaissance, and on the Continent of Europe drew its -forces, not from the enslaved and impoverished populations -of Italy and Southern Austria, but from the -large civic and commercial centres of Germany. An -acute historian, in his recent lectures on the <i>Economic -Interpretation of History</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1237_1237" id="FNanchor_1237_1237"></a><a href="#Footnote_1237_1237" class="fnanchor">[1237]</a> observes that every religious -revival in England has happened upon a basis of comparative -prosperity. He has proved “the opulence -of Norfolk during the epoch of Lollardy,” and pointed -out that “the Puritan movement was essentially and -originally one of the middle classes, of the traders in -towns and of the farmers in the country”; that the -religious state of the Church of England was never so -low as among the servile and beggarly clergy of the -seventeenth and part of the eighteenth centuries; that -the Nonconformist bodies who kept religion alive -during this period were closely identified with the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> -leading movements of trade and finance;<a name="FNanchor_1238_1238" id="FNanchor_1238_1238"></a><a href="#Footnote_1238_1238" class="fnanchor">[1238]</a> and that even -Wesley’s great revival of religion among the labouring -classes of England took place at a time when prices -were far lower than in the previous century, wages -had slightly risen and “most labourers were small -occupiers; there was therefore in the comparative -plenty of the time an opening for a religious movement -among the poor, and Wesley was equal to the occasion.” -He might have added that the great missionary movement -of the nineteenth century is contemporaneous -with the enormous advance of our commerce and our -empire.</p> - -<p>On the whole, then, the witness of history is uniform. -Poverty and persecution, <i>famine</i>, <i>nakedness</i>, <i>peril and -sword</i>, put a keenness upon the spirit of religion, while -luxury rots its very fibres; but a stable basis of prosperity -is indispensable to every social and religious -reform, and God’s Spirit finds fullest course in communities -of a certain degree of civilisation and of -freedom from sordidness.</p> - -<p>We may draw from this an impressive lesson for -our own day. Joel predicts that, upon the new prosperity -of his land, the lowest classes of society shall -be permeated by the spirit of prophecy. Is it not part -of the secret of the failure of Christianity to enlist -large portions of our population, that the basis of their -life is so sordid and insecure? Have we not yet -to learn from the Hebrew prophets, that some amount -of freedom in a people and some amount of health are -indispensable to a revival of religion? Lives which -are strained and starved, lives which are passed in rank -discomfort and under grinding poverty, without the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> -possibility of the independence of the individual or of -the sacredness of the home, cannot be religious except -in the most rudimentary sense of the word. For the -revival of energetic religion among such lives we must -wait for a better distribution, not of wealth, but of the -bare means of comfort, leisure and security. When, to -our penitence and our striving, God restores the years -which the locust has eaten, when the social plagues -of rich men’s selfishness and the poverty of the very -poor are lifted from us, then may we look for the -fulfilment of Joel’s prediction—<i>even upon all the slaves -and upon the handmaidens will I pour out My Spirit in -those days</i>.</p> - -<p>The economic problem, therefore, has also its place -in the warfare for the kingdom of God.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And it shall be that after such things, I will pour out </div> -<div class="verse indent2">My Spirit on all flesh;</div> -<div class="verse">And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,</div> -<div class="verse">Your old men shall dream dreams,</div> -<div class="verse">Your young men shall see visions:</div> -<div class="verse">And even upon all the slaves and the handmaidens</div> -<div class="verse indent2">in those days will I pour out My Spirit.</div> -<div class="verse">And I will set signs in heaven and on earth,</div> -<div class="verse">Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.</div> -<div class="verse">The sun shall be turned to darkness,</div> -<div class="verse">And the moon to blood,</div> -<div class="verse">Before the coming of the Day of Jehovah, the great</div> -<div class="verse indent2">and the awful.</div> -<div class="verse">And it shall be that every one who calls on the name</div> -<div class="verse">of Jehovah shall be saved:</div> -<div class="verse">For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be a</div> -<div class="verse indent2">remnant, as Jehovah hath spoken,</div> -<div class="verse">And among the fugitives <span class="norm">those</span> whom Jehovah calleth.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> -This prophecy divides into two parts—the outpouring -of the Spirit, and the appearance of the terrible Day -of the Lord.</p> - -<p>The Spirit of God is to be poured <i>on all flesh</i>, says -the prophet. By this term, which is sometimes applied -to all things that breathe, and sometimes to mankind -as a whole,<a name="FNanchor_1239_1239" id="FNanchor_1239_1239"></a><a href="#Footnote_1239_1239" class="fnanchor">[1239]</a> Joel means Israel only: the heathen are -to be destroyed.<a name="FNanchor_1240_1240" id="FNanchor_1240_1240"></a><a href="#Footnote_1240_1240" class="fnanchor">[1240]</a> Nor did Peter, when he quoted the -passage at the Day of Pentecost, mean anything more. -He spoke to Jews and proselytes: <i>for the promise is to -you and your children, and to them that are afar off</i>: -it was not till afterwards that he discovered that the -Holy Ghost was granted to the Gentiles, and then -he was unready for the revelation and surprised by -it.<a name="FNanchor_1241_1241" id="FNanchor_1241_1241"></a><a href="#Footnote_1241_1241" class="fnanchor">[1241]</a> But within Joel’s Israel the operation of the Spirit -was to be at once thorough and universal. All classes -would be affected, and affected so that the simplest -and rudest would become prophets.</p> - -<p>The limitation was therefore not without its advantages. -In the earlier stages of all religions, it is impossible -to be both extensive and intensive. With a few -exceptions, the Israel of Joel’s time was a narrow and -exclusive body, hating and hated by other peoples. -Behind the Law it kept itself strictly aloof. But without -doing so, Israel could hardly have survived or prepared -itself at that time for its influence on the world. -Heathenism threatened it from all sides with the -most insidious of infections; and there awaited it -in the near future a still more subtle and powerful -means of disintegration. In the wake of Alexander’s -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> -expeditions, Hellenism poured across all the East. -There was not a community nor a religion, save Israel’s, -which was not Hellenised. That Israel remained Israel, -in spite of Greek arms and the Greek mind, was due -to the legalism of Ezra and Nehemiah, and to what -we call the narrow enthusiasm of Joel. The hearts -which kept their passion so confined felt all the deeper -for its limits. They would be satisfied with nothing -less than the inspiration of every Israelite, the fulfilment -of the prayer of Moses: <i>Would to God that all -Jehovah’s people were prophets!</i> And of itself this carries -Joel’s prediction to a wider fulfilment. A nation of -prophets is meant for the world. But even the best of -men do not see the full force of the truth God gives -to them, nor follow it even to its immediate consequences. -Few of the prophets did so, and at first none -of the apostles. Joel does not hesitate to say that -the heathen shall be destroyed. He does not think -of Israel’s mission as foretold by the Second Isaiah; -nor of “Malachi’s” vision of the heathen waiting upon -Jehovah. But in the near future of Israel there was -waiting another prophet to carry Joel’s doctrine to -its full effect upon the world, to rescue the gospel of -God’s grace from the narrowness of legalism and the -awful pressure of Apocalypse, and by the parable of -Jonah, the type of the prophet nation, to show to -Israel that God had granted to the Gentiles also repentance -unto life.</p> - -<p>That it was the lurid clouds of Apocalypse, which -thus hemmed in our prophet’s view, is clear from -the next verses. They bring the terrible manifestations -of God’s wrath in nature very closely upon the -lavish outpouring of the Spirit: <i>the sun turned to darkness -and the moon to blood, the great and terrible Day -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> -of the Lord</i>. Apocalypse must always paralyse the -missionary energies of religion. Who can think of -converting the world, when the world is about to be -convulsed? There is only time for a remnant to be -saved.</p> - -<p>But when we get rid of Apocalypse, as the Book -of Jonah does, then we have time and space opened -up again, and the essential forces of such a prophecy -of the Spirit as Joel has given us burst their national -and temporary confines, and are seen to be applicable -to all mankind.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">OEL</span> iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.)</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Hitherto Joel has spoken no syllable of the -heathen, except to pray that God by His plagues -will not give Israel to be mocked by them. But in -the last chapter of the Book we have Israel’s captivity -to the heathen taken for granted, a promise made that -it will be removed and their land set free from the -foreigner. Certain nations are singled out for judgment, -which is described in the terms of Apocalypse; -and the Book closes with the vision, already familiar in -prophecy, of a supernatural fertility for the land.</p> - -<p>It is quite another horizon and far different interests -from those of the preceding chapter. Here for the -first time we may suspect the unity of the Book, and -listen to suggestions of another authorship than Joel’s. -But these can scarcely be regarded as conclusive. -Every prophet, however national his interests, feels -it his duty to express himself upon the subject of -foreign peoples, and Joel may well have done so. -Only, in that case, his last chapter was delivered by -him at another time and in different circumstances from -the rest of his prophecies. Chaps. i.—ii. (Eng.; i.—iii. -Heb.) are complete in themselves. Chap. iii. (Eng.; -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> -iv. Heb.) opens without any connection of time or -subject with those that precede it.<a name="FNanchor_1242_1242" id="FNanchor_1242_1242"></a><a href="#Footnote_1242_1242" class="fnanchor">[1242]</a></p> - -<p>The time of the prophecy is a time when Israel’s -fortunes are at low ebb,<a name="FNanchor_1243_1243" id="FNanchor_1243_1243"></a><a href="#Footnote_1243_1243" class="fnanchor">[1243]</a> her sons scattered among the -heathen, her land, in part at least, held by foreigners. -But it would appear (though this is not expressly said, -and must rather be inferred from the general proofs -of a post-exilic date) that Jerusalem is inhabited. -Nothing is said to imply that the city needs to be -restored.<a name="FNanchor_1244_1244" id="FNanchor_1244_1244"></a><a href="#Footnote_1244_1244" class="fnanchor">[1244]</a></p> - -<p>All the heathen nations are to be brought together -for judgment into a certain valley, which the prophet -calls first the Vale of Jehoshaphat and then the Vale -of Decision. The second name leads us to infer that -the first, which means <i>Jehovah-judges</i>, is also symbolic. -That is to say, the prophet does not single out a -definite valley already called Jehoshaphat. In all -probability, however, he has in his mind’s eye some -vale in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, for since -Ezekiel<a name="FNanchor_1245_1245" id="FNanchor_1245_1245"></a><a href="#Footnote_1245_1245" class="fnanchor">[1245]</a> the judgment of the heathen in face of Jerusalem -has been a standing feature in Israel’s vision of -the last things; and as no valley about that city lends -itself to the picture of judgment so well as the valley -of the Kedron with the slopes of Olivet, the name -Jehoshaphat has naturally been applied to it.<a name="FNanchor_1246_1246" id="FNanchor_1246_1246"></a><a href="#Footnote_1246_1246" class="fnanchor">[1246]</a> Certain -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> -nations are singled out by name. These are not -Assyria and Babylon, which had long ago perished, nor -the Samaritans, Moab and Ammon, which harassed the -Jews in the early days of the Return from Babylon, -but Tyre, Sidon, Philistia, Edom and Egypt. The -crime of the first three is the robbery of Jewish -treasures, not necessarily those of the Temple, and -the selling into slavery of many Jews. The crime of -Edom and Egypt is that they have shed the innocent -blood of Jews. To what precise events these charges -refer we have no means of knowing in our present -ignorance of Syrian history after Nehemiah. That -the chapter has no explicit reference to the cruelties -of Artaxerxes Ochus in 360 would seem to imply for it -a date earlier than that year. But it is possible that -ver. 17 refers to that, the prophet refraining from -accusing the Persians for the very good reason that -Israel was still under their rule.</p> - -<p>Another feature worthy of notice is that the -Phœnicians are accused of selling Jews to the sons of -the Jevanîm, Ionians or Greeks.<a name="FNanchor_1247_1247" id="FNanchor_1247_1247"></a><a href="#Footnote_1247_1247" class="fnanchor">[1247]</a> The latter lie on the -far horizon of the prophet,<a name="FNanchor_1248_1248" id="FNanchor_1248_1248"></a><a href="#Footnote_1248_1248" class="fnanchor">[1248]</a> and we know from classical -writers that from the fifth century onwards numbers of -Syrian slaves were brought to Greece. The other -features of the chapter are borrowed from earlier -prophets.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For, behold, in those days and in that time,</div> -<div class="verse">When I bring again the captivity<a name="FNanchor_1249_1249" id="FNanchor_1249_1249"></a><a href="#Footnote_1249_1249" class="fnanchor">[1249]</a> -of Judah and </div> -<div class="verse indent2">Jerusalem,</div> -<div class="verse">I will also gather all the nations,</div> -<div class="verse">And bring them down to the Vale of Jehoshaphat;<a name="FNanchor_1250_1250" id="FNanchor_1250_1250"></a><a href="#Footnote_1250_1250" class="fnanchor">[1250]</a></div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And I will enter into judgment with them there,</div> -<div class="verse">For My people and for My heritage Israel,</div> -<div class="verse">Whom they have scattered among the heathen,</div> -<div class="verse">And My land have they divided.</div> -<div class="verse">And they have cast lots for My people:<a name="FNanchor_1251_1251" id="FNanchor_1251_1251"></a><a href="#Footnote_1251_1251" class="fnanchor">[1251]</a></div> -<div class="verse">They have given a boy for a harlot,<a name="FNanchor_1252_1252" id="FNanchor_1252_1252"></a><a href="#Footnote_1252_1252" class="fnanchor">[1252]</a></div> -<div class="verse">And a girl have they sold for wine and drunk it.</div> -<div class="verse">And again, what are ye to Me, Tyre and Sidon and</div> -<div class="verse indent2">all circuits of Philistia?<a name="FNanchor_1253_1253" id="FNanchor_1253_1253"></a><a href="#Footnote_1253_1253" class="fnanchor">[1253]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Is it any deed of Mine ye are repaying?</div> -<div class="verse">Or are ye doing anything to Me?<a name="FNanchor_1254_1254" id="FNanchor_1254_1254"></a><a href="#Footnote_1254_1254" class="fnanchor">[1254]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Swiftly, speedily will I return your deed on your</div> -<div class="verse indent2">head,</div> -<div class="verse">Who have taken My silver and My gold,</div> -<div class="verse">And My goodly jewels ye have brought into your</div> -<div class="verse indent2">palaces.</div> -<div class="verse">The sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem have</div> -<div class="verse indent2">ye sold to the sons of the Greeks,</div> -<div class="verse">In order that ye might set - them as far <span class="norm">as possible</span></div> -<div class="verse indent2">from their own border.</div> -<div class="verse">Lo! I will stir them up from the place to which ye</div> -<div class="verse indent2">have sold them,</div> -<div class="verse">And I will return your deed upon your head.</div> -<div class="verse">I will sell your sons and your daughters into the</div> -<div class="verse indent2">hands of the sons of Judah,</div> -<div class="verse">And they shall sell them to the Shebans,<a name="FNanchor_1255_1255" id="FNanchor_1255_1255"></a><a href="#Footnote_1255_1255" class="fnanchor">[1255]</a></div> -<div class="verse">To a nation far off; for Jehovah hath spoken.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Proclaim this among the heathen, hallow a war.</div> -<div class="verse">Wake up the warriors, let all the fighting-men</div> -<div class="verse indent2">muster and go up.<a name="FNanchor_1256_1256" id="FNanchor_1256_1256"></a><a href="#Footnote_1256_1256" class="fnanchor">[1256]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Beat your ploughshares into swords,</div> -<div class="verse">And your pruning-hooks into lances.</div> -<div class="verse">Let the weakling say, I am strong.</div> -<div class="verse">...<a name="FNanchor_1257_1257" id="FNanchor_1257_1257"></a><a href="#Footnote_1257_1257" class="fnanchor">[1257]</a> -and come, all ye nations round about,</div> -<div class="verse">And gather yourselves together.</div> -<div class="verse">Thither bring down Thy warriors, Jehovah.</div> -<div class="verse">Let the heathen be roused,</div> -<div class="verse">And come up to the Vale of Jehoshaphat,</div> -<div class="verse">For there will I sit to judge all the nations round</div> -<div class="verse indent2">about.</div> -<div class="verse">Put in the sickle,<a name="FNanchor_1258_1258" id="FNanchor_1258_1258"></a><a href="#Footnote_1258_1258" class="fnanchor">[1258]</a> for ripe is the harvest.</div> -<div class="verse">Come, get you down; for the press is full,</div> -<div class="verse">The vats overflow, great is their wickedness.</div> -<div class="verse">Multitudes, multitudes in the Vale of Decision!</div> -<div class="verse">For near is Jehovah’s day in the Vale of Decision.</div> -<div class="verse">Sun and moon have turned black,</div> -<div class="verse">And the stars withdrawn their shining.</div> -<div class="verse">Jehovah thunders from Zion,</div> -<div class="verse">And from Jerusalem gives<a name="FNanchor_1259_1259" id="FNanchor_1259_1259"></a><a href="#Footnote_1259_1259" class="fnanchor">[1259]</a> forth His voice:</div> -<div class="verse">Heaven and earth do quake.</div> -<div class="verse">But Jehovah is a refuge to His people,</div> -<div class="verse">And for a fortress to the sons of Israel.</div> -<div class="verse">And ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God,</div> -<div class="verse">Who dwell in Zion, the mount of My holiness;</div> -<div class="verse">And Jerusalem shall be holy,</div> -<div class="verse">Strangers shall not pass through her again.</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And it shall be on that day</div> -<div class="verse">The mountains shall drop sweet wine,</div> -<div class="verse">And the hills be liquid with milk,</div> -<div class="verse">And all the channels of Judah flow with water;</div> -<div class="verse">A fountain shall spring from the house of Jehovah,</div> -<div class="verse">And shall water the Wady of Shittim.<a name="FNanchor_1260_1260" id="FNanchor_1260_1260"></a><a href="#Footnote_1260_1260" class="fnanchor">[1260]</a></div> -<div class="verse">Egypt shall be desolation,</div> -<div class="verse">And Edom desert-land,</div> -<div class="verse">For the outrage done to the children of Judah,</div> -<div class="verse">Because they shed innocent blood in their land.</div> -<div class="verse">Judah shall abide peopled for ever,</div> -<div class="verse">And Jerusalem for generation upon generation.</div> -<div class="verse">And I will declare innocent their blood,<a name="FNanchor_1261_1261" id="FNanchor_1261_1261"></a><a href="#Footnote_1261_1261" class="fnanchor">[1261]</a></div> -<div class="verse indent2">which I have not declared innocent,</div> -<div class="verse">By<a name="FNanchor_1262_1262" id="FNanchor_1262_1262"></a><a href="#Footnote_1262_1262" class="fnanchor">[1262]</a> Jehovah who dwelleth in Zion.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> -<h2 id="Grecian" class="nobreak">INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF -<br />THE GRECIAN PERIOD<br /> -(331— <span class="small">B.C.</span>)</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">ISRAEL AND THE GREEKS</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Apart from the author of the tenth chapter of -Genesis, who defines Javan or Greece as the -father of Elishah and Tarshish, of Kittim or Cyprus -and Rodanim or Rhodes,<a name="FNanchor_1263_1263" id="FNanchor_1263_1263"></a><a href="#Footnote_1263_1263" class="fnanchor">[1263]</a> the first Hebrew writer -who mentions the Greeks is Ezekiel,<a name="FNanchor_1264_1264" id="FNanchor_1264_1264"></a><a href="#Footnote_1264_1264" class="fnanchor">[1264]</a> <i>c.</i> 580 <span class="small">B.C.</span> He -describes them as engaged in commerce with the -Phœnicians, who bought slaves from them. Even -while Ezekiel wrote in Babylonia, the Babylonians -were in touch with the Ionian Greeks through the -Lydians.<a name="FNanchor_1265_1265" id="FNanchor_1265_1265"></a><a href="#Footnote_1265_1265" class="fnanchor">[1265]</a> The latter were overthrown by Cyrus about -545, and by the beginning of the next century the -Persian lords of Israel were in close struggle with the -Greeks for the supremacy of the world, and had virtually -been defeated so far as concerned Europe, the -west of Asia Minor, and the sovereignty of the Mediterranean -and Black Seas. In 460 Athens sent an -expedition to Egypt to assist a revolt against Persia, -and even before that Greek fleets had scoured the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> -Levant and Greek soldiers, though in the pay of -Persia, had trodden the soil of Syria. Still Joel, -writing towards 400 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, mentions Greece<a name="FNanchor_1266_1266" id="FNanchor_1266_1266"></a><a href="#Footnote_1266_1266" -class="fnanchor">[1266]</a> only as -a market to which the Phœnicians carried Jewish -slaves; and in a prophecy which some take to be -contemporary with Joel, Isaiah lxvi., the coasts of -Greece are among the most distant of Gentile lands.<a name="FNanchor_1267_1267" id="FNanchor_1267_1267"></a><a href="#Footnote_1267_1267" class="fnanchor">[1267]</a> -In 401 the younger Cyrus brought to the Euphrates -to fight against Artaxerxes Mnemon the ten thousand -Greeks whom, after the battle of Cunaxa, Xenophon -led north to the Black Sea. For nearly seventy years -thereafter Athenian trade slowly spread eastward, but -nothing was yet done by Greece to advertise her to -the peoples of Asia as a claimant for the world’s throne. -Then suddenly in 334 Alexander of Macedon crossed -the Hellespont, spent a year in the conquest of Asia -Minor, defeated Darius at Issus in 332, took Damascus, -Tyre and Gaza, overran the Delta and founded Alexandria. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> -In 331 he marched back over Syria, crossed -the Euphrates, overthrew the Persian Empire on the -field of Arbela, and for the next seven years till his -death in 324 extended his conquests to the Oxus and -the Indus. The story, that on his second passage -of Syria Alexander visited Jerusalem,<a name="FNanchor_1268_1268" id="FNanchor_1268_1268"></a><a href="#Footnote_1268_1268" class="fnanchor">[1268]</a> is probably -false. But he must have encamped repeatedly within -forty miles of it, and he visited Samaria.<a name="FNanchor_1269_1269" id="FNanchor_1269_1269"></a><a href="#Footnote_1269_1269" class="fnanchor">[1269]</a> It is impossible -that he received no embassy from a people -who had not known political independence for centuries -and must have been only too ready to come to terms -with the new lord of the world. Alexander left behind -him colonies of his veterans, both to the east and -west of the Jordan, and in his wake there poured into -all the cities of the Syrian seaboard a considerable -volume of Greek immigration.<a name="FNanchor_1270_1270" id="FNanchor_1270_1270"></a><a href="#Footnote_1270_1270" class="fnanchor">[1270]</a> It is from this time -onward that we find in Greek writers the earliest -mention of the Jews by name. Theophrastus and -Clearchus of Soli, disciples of Aristotle, both speak -of them; but while the former gives evidence of some -knowledge of their habits, the latter reports that in -the perspective of his great master they had been so -distant and vague as to be confounded with the -Brahmins of India, a confusion which long survived -among the Greeks.<a name="FNanchor_1271_1271" id="FNanchor_1271_1271"></a><a href="#Footnote_1271_1271" class="fnanchor">[1271]</a></p> - -<p>Alexander’s death delivered his empire to the -ambitions of his generals, of whom four contested for -the mastery of Asia and Egypt—Antigonus, Ptolemy, -Lysimachus and Seleucus. Of these Ptolemy and -Seleucus emerged victorious, the one in possession of -Egypt, the other of Northern Syria and the rest of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> -Asia. Palestine lay between them, and both in the -wars which led to the establishment of the two -kingdoms and in those which for centuries followed, -Palestine became the battle-field of the Greeks.</p> - -<p>Ptolemy gained Egypt within two years of Alexander’s -death, and from its definite and strongly entrenched -territory he had by 320 conquered Syria and -Cyprus. In 315 or 314 Syria was taken from him by -Antigonus, who also expelled Seleucus from Babylon. -Seleucus fled to Egypt and stirred up Ptolemy to -the reconquest of Syria. In 312 Ptolemy defeated -Demetrius, the general of Antigonus, at Gaza, but the -next year was driven back into Egypt by Antigonus -himself. Meanwhile Seleucus regained Babylon.<a name="FNanchor_1272_1272" id="FNanchor_1272_1272"></a><a href="#Footnote_1272_1272" class="fnanchor">[1272]</a> In -311 the three made peace with each other, but -Antigonus retained Syria. In 306 they assumed the -title of kings, and in the same year renewed their -quarrel. After a naval battle Antigonus wrested Cyprus -from Ptolemy, but in 301 he was defeated and slain -by Seleucus and Lysimachus at the battle of Ipsus in -Phrygia. His son Demetrius retained Cyprus and -part of the Phœnician coast till 287, when he was -forced to yield them to Seleucus, who had moved the -centre of his power from Babylon to the new Antioch -on the Orontes, with a seaport at Seleucia. Meanwhile -in 301 Ptolemy had regained what the Greeks then -knew as Cœle-Syria, that is all Syria to the south of -Lebanon except the Phœnician coast.<a name="FNanchor_1273_1273" id="FNanchor_1273_1273"></a><a href="#Footnote_1273_1273" class="fnanchor">[1273]</a> Damascus -belonged to Seleucus. But Ptolemy was not allowed -to retain Palestine in peace, for in 297 Demetrius -appears to have invaded it, and Seleucus, especially -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> -after his marriage with Stratonike, the daughter of -Demetrius, never wholly resigned his claims to it.<a name="FNanchor_1274_1274" id="FNanchor_1274_1274"></a><a href="#Footnote_1274_1274" class="fnanchor">[1274]</a> -Ptolemy, however, established a hold upon the land, -which continued practically unbroken for a century, -and yet during all that time had to be maintained by -frequent wars, in the course of which the land itself -must have severely suffered (264—248).</p> - -<p>Therefore, as in the days of their earliest prophets, -the people of Israel once more lay between two rival -empires. And as Hosea and Isaiah pictured them in -the eighth century, the possible prey either of Egypt -or Assyria, so now in these last years of the fourth -they were tossed between Ptolemy and Antigonus, -and in the opening years of the third were equally -wooed by Ptolemy and Seleucus. Upon this new -alternative of tyranny the Jews appear to have bestowed -the actual names of their old oppressors. Ptolemy was -Egypt to them; Seleucus, with one of his capitals -at Babylon, was still Assyria, from which came in -time the abbreviated Greek form of Syria.<a name="FNanchor_1275_1275" id="FNanchor_1275_1275"></a><a href="#Footnote_1275_1275" class="fnanchor">[1275]</a> But, -unlike the ancient empires, these new rival lords -were of one race. Whether the tyranny came from -Asia or Africa, its quality was Greek; and in the -sons of Javan the Jews saw the successors of those -world-powers of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> -which had been concentrated against themselves the -whole force of the heathen world. Our records of -the times are fragmentary, but though Alexander -spared the Jews it appears that they had not long -to wait before feeling the force of Greek arms. -Josephus quotes<a name="FNanchor_1276_1276" id="FNanchor_1276_1276"></a><a href="#Footnote_1276_1276" class="fnanchor">[1276]</a> from Agatharchides of Cnidos -(180—145 <span class="small">B.C.</span>) to the effect that Ptolemy I. surprised -Jerusalem on a Sabbath day and easily took it; and -he adds that at the same time he took a great many -captives from the hill-country of Judæa, from Jerusalem -and from Samaria, and led them into Egypt. Whether -this was in 320 or 312 or 301<a name="FNanchor_1277_1277" id="FNanchor_1277_1277"></a><a href="#Footnote_1277_1277" class="fnanchor">[1277]</a> we cannot tell. It -is possible that the Jews suffered in each of these -Egyptian invasions of Syria, as well as during the -southward marches of Demetrius and Antigonus. The -later policy, both of the Ptolemies, who were their -lords, and of the Seleucids, was for a long time exceedingly -friendly to Israel. Their sufferings from -the Greeks were therefore probably over by 280, -although they cannot have remained unscathed by -the wars between 264 and 248.</p> - -<p>The Greek invasion, however, was not like the -Assyrian and Babylonian, of arms alone; but of a -force of intellect and culture far surpassing even the -influences which the Persians had impressed upon the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> -religion and mental attitude of Israel. The ancient -empires had transplanted the nations of Palestine to -Assyria and Babylonia. The Greeks did not need -to remove them to Greece; for they brought Greece -to Palestine. “The Orient,” says Wellhausen, “became -their America.” They poured into Syria, infecting, -exploiting, assimilating its peoples. With dismay the -Jews must have seen themselves surrounded by new -Greek colonies, and still more by the old Palestinian cities -Hellenised in polity and religion. The Greek translator -of Isaiah ix. 12 renders Philistines by Hellenes. Israel -were compassed and penetrated by influences as subtle -as the atmosphere: not as of old uprooted from their -fatherland, but with their fatherland itself infected and -altered beyond all powers of resistance. The full -alarm of this, however, was not felt for many years -to come. It was at first the policy both of the -Seleucids and the Ptolemies to flatter and foster the -Jews. They encouraged them to feel that their religion -had its own place beside the forces of Greece, and was -worth interpreting to the world. Seleucus I. gave to -Jews the rights of citizenship in Asia Minor and -Northern Syria; and Ptolemy I. atoned for his previous -violence by granting them the same in Alexandria. -In the matter of the consequent tribute Seleucus -respected their religious scruples; and it was under -Ptolemy Philadelphus (283—247), if not at his instigation, -that the Law was first translated into Greek.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>To prophecy, before it finally expired, there was -granted the opportunity to assert itself, upon at least -the threshold of this new era of Israel’s history.</p> - -<p>We have from the first half-century of the era -perhaps three or four, but certainly two, prophetic -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> -pieces. By many critics Isaiah xxiv.—xxvii. are -assigned to the years immediately following Alexander’s -campaigns. Others assign Isaiah xix. 16–25 to the last -years of Ptolemy I.<a name="FNanchor_1278_1278" id="FNanchor_1278_1278"></a><a href="#Footnote_1278_1278" class="fnanchor">[1278]</a> And of our Book of the Twelve -Prophets, the chapters attached to the genuine prophecies -of Zechariah, or chaps, ix.—xiv. of his book, -most probably fall to be dated from the contests of -Syria and Egypt for the possession of Palestine; -while somewhere about 300 is the most likely date -for the Book of Jonah.</p> - -<p>In “Zech.” ix.—xiv. we see prophecy perhaps at -its lowest ebb. The clash with the new foes produces -a really terrible thirst for the blood of the heathen: -there are schisms and intrigues within Israel which -in our ignorance of her history during this time it is -not possible for us to follow: the brighter gleams, -which contrast so forcibly with the rest, may be more -ancient oracles that the writer has incorporated with -his own stern and dark Apocalypse.</p> - -<p>In the Book of Jonah, on the other hand, we find -a spirit and a style in which prophecy may not -unjustly be said to have given its highest utterance. -And this alone suffices, in our uncertainty as to the -exact date of the book, to take it last of all our -Twelve. For “in this book,” as Cornill has finely -said, “the prophecy of Israel quits the scene of battle -as victor, and as victor in its severest struggle—that -against self.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> -<h2 id="Zechariah2" class="nobreak">“ZECHARIAH”<br /> - <small>(IX.—XIV.)</small></h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> -<p class="italic">Lo, thy King cometh to thee, vindicated and victorious, meek and -riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass.</p> - -<p class="italic">Up, Sword, against My Shepherd!... Smite the Shepherd, that the -sheep may be scattered!</p> - -<p class="italic">And I will pour upon the house of David and upon all the inhabitants -of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication, and they shall look -to Him whom they have pierced; and they shall lament for Him, as with -lamentation for an only son, and bitterly grieve for Him, as with grief -for a first-born.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">CHAPTERS IX.—XIV. OF “ZECHARIAH”</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -We saw that the first eight chapters of the Book -of Zechariah were, with the exception of a -few verses, from the prophet himself. No one has -ever doubted this. No one could doubt it: they are -obviously from the years of the building of the Temple, -520—516 <span class="small">B.C.</span> They hang together with a consistency -exhibited by few other groups of chapters in the Old -Testament.</p> - -<p>But when we pass into chap. ix. we find ourselves -in circumstances and an atmosphere altogether different. -Israel is upon a new situation of history, and the words -addressed to her breathe another spirit. There is not -the faintest allusion to the building of the Temple—the -subject from which all the first eight chapters -depend. There is not a single certain reflection of -the Persian period, under the shadow of which the -first eight chapters were all evidently written. We -have names of heathen powers mentioned, which not -only do not occur in the first eight chapters, but of -which it is not possible to think that they had any -interest whatever for Israel between 520 and 516: -Damascus, Hadrach, Hamath, Assyria, Egypt and -Greece. The peace, and the love of peace, in which -Zechariah wrote, has disappeared.<a name="FNanchor_1279_1279" id="FNanchor_1279_1279"></a><a href="#Footnote_1279_1279" class="fnanchor">[1279]</a> Nearly everything -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> -breathes of war actual or imminent. The heathen are -spoken of with a ferocity which finds few parallels -in the Old Testament. There is a revelling in their -blood, of which the student of the authentic prophecies -of Zechariah will at once perceive that gentle lover of -peace could not have been capable. And one passage -figures the imminence of a thorough judgment upon -Jerusalem, very different from Zechariah’s outlook -upon his people’s future from the eve of the completion -of the Temple. It is not surprising, therefore, that -one of the earliest efforts of Old Testament criticism -should have been to prove another author than Zechariah -for chaps. ix.—xiv. of the book called by his name.</p> - -<p>The very first attempt of this kind was made so -far back as 1632 by the Cambridge theologian Joseph -Mede,<a name="FNanchor_1280_1280" id="FNanchor_1280_1280"></a><a href="#Footnote_1280_1280" class="fnanchor">[1280]</a> who was moved thereto by the desire to -vindicate the correctness of St. Matthew’s ascription<a name="FNanchor_1281_1281" id="FNanchor_1281_1281"></a><a href="#Footnote_1281_1281" class="fnanchor">[1281]</a> -of “Zech.” xi. 13 to the prophet Jeremiah. Mede’s -effort was developed by other English exegetes. -Hammond assigned chaps. x.—xii., Bishop Kidder<a name="FNanchor_1282_1282" id="FNanchor_1282_1282"></a><a href="#Footnote_1282_1282" class="fnanchor">[1282]</a> -and William Whiston, the translator of Josephus, chaps. -ix.—xiv., to Jeremiah. Archbishop Newcome<a name="FNanchor_1283_1283" id="FNanchor_1283_1283"></a><a href="#Footnote_1283_1283" class="fnanchor">[1283]</a> divided -them, and sought to prove that while chaps. ix.—xi. -must have been written before 721, or a century earlier -than Jeremiah, because of the heathen powers they -name, and the divisions between Judah and Israel, -chaps. xii.—xiv. reflect the imminence of the Fall of -Jerusalem. In 1784 Flügge<a name="FNanchor_1284_1284" id="FNanchor_1284_1284"></a><a href="#Footnote_1284_1284" class="fnanchor">[1284]</a> offered independent proof -that chaps. ix.—xiv. were by Jeremiah; and in 1814 -Bertholdt<a name="FNanchor_1285_1285" id="FNanchor_1285_1285"></a><a href="#Footnote_1285_1285" class="fnanchor">[1285]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> -suggested that chaps. ix.—xi. might be by -Zechariah the contemporary of Isaiah,<a name="FNanchor_1286_1286" id="FNanchor_1286_1286"></a><a href="#Footnote_1286_1286" class="fnanchor">[1286]</a> and on that -account attached to the prophecies of his younger -namesake. These opinions gave the trend to the -main volume of criticism, which, till fifteen years ago, -deemed “Zech.” ix.—xiv. to be pre-exilic. So Hitzig, -who at first took the whole to be from one hand, but -afterwards placed xii.—xiv. by a different author under -Manasseh. So Ewald, Bleek, Kuenen (at first), Samuel -Davidson, Schrader, Duhm (in 1875), and more recently -König and Orelli, who assign chaps. ix.—xi. to the -reign of Ahaz, but xii.—xiv. to the eve of the Fall of -Jerusalem, or even a little later.</p> - -<p>Some critics, however, remained unmoved by the -evidence offered for a pre-exilic date. They pointed -out in particular that the geographical references were -equally suitable to the centuries after the Exile. -Damascus, Hadrach and Hamath,<a name="FNanchor_1287_1287" id="FNanchor_1287_1287"></a><a href="#Footnote_1287_1287" class="fnanchor">[1287]</a> though politically -obsolete by 720, entered history again with the campaigns -of Alexander the Great in 332—331, and the -establishment of the Seleucid kingdom in Northern -Syria.<a name="FNanchor_1288_1288" id="FNanchor_1288_1288"></a><a href="#Footnote_1288_1288" class="fnanchor">[1288]</a> Egypt and Assyria<a name="FNanchor_1289_1289" id="FNanchor_1289_1289"></a><a href="#Footnote_1289_1289" class="fnanchor">[1289]</a> were names used after -the Exile for the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and for -those powers which still threatened Israel from the -north, or Assyrian quarter. Judah and Joseph or -Ephraim<a name="FNanchor_1290_1290" id="FNanchor_1290_1290"></a><a href="#Footnote_1290_1290" class="fnanchor">[1290]</a> were names still used after the Exile to -express the whole of God’s Israel; and in chaps. -ix.—xiv. they are presented, not divided as before 721, -but united. None of the chapters give a hint of any -king in Jerusalem; and all of them, while representing -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>the great Exile of Judah as already begun, show a -certain dependence in style and even in language upon -Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah xl.—lxvi. Moreover the -language is post-exilic, sprinkled with Aramaisms and -with other words and phrases used only, or mainly, -by Hebrew writers from Jeremiah onwards.</p> - -<p>But though many critics judged these grounds to be -sufficient to prove the post-exilic origin of “Zech.” -ix.—xiv., they differed as to the author and exact date -of these chapters. Conservatives like Hengstenberg,<a name="FNanchor_1291_1291" id="FNanchor_1291_1291"></a><a href="#Footnote_1291_1291" class="fnanchor">[1291]</a> -Delitzsch, Keil, Köhler and Pusey used the evidence -to prove the authorship of Zechariah himself after 516, -and interpreted the references to the Greek period as -pure prediction. Pusey says<a name="FNanchor_1292_1292" id="FNanchor_1292_1292"></a><a href="#Footnote_1292_1292" class="fnanchor">[1292]</a> that chaps. ix.—xi. -extend from the completion of the Temple and its -deliverance during the invasion of Alexander, and -from the victories of the Maccabees, to the rejection of -the true shepherd and the curse upon the false; and -chaps. xi.—xii. “from a future repentance for the death -of Christ to the final conversion of the Jews and -Gentiles.”<a name="FNanchor_1293_1293" id="FNanchor_1293_1293"></a><a href="#Footnote_1293_1293" class="fnanchor">[1293]</a></p> - -<p>But on the same grounds Eichhorn<a name="FNanchor_1294_1294" id="FNanchor_1294_1294"></a><a href="#Footnote_1294_1294" class="fnanchor">[1294]</a> saw in the -chapters not a prediction but a reflection of the Greek -period. He assigned chaps. ix. and x. to an author in -the time of Alexander the Great; xi.—xiii. 6 he placed -a little later, and brought down xiii. 7—xiv. to the -Maccabean period. Böttcher<a name="FNanchor_1295_1295" id="FNanchor_1295_1295"></a><a href="#Footnote_1295_1295" class="fnanchor">[1295]</a> placed the whole in -the wars of Ptolemy and Seleucus after Alexander’s -death; and Vatke, who had at first selected a date in -the reign of Artaxerxes Longhand, 464—425, finally -decided for the Maccabean period, 170 ff.<a name="FNanchor_1296_1296" id="FNanchor_1296_1296"></a><a href="#Footnote_1296_1296" class="fnanchor">[1296]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> -In recent times the most thorough examination of -the chapters has been that by Stade,<a name="FNanchor_1297_1297" id="FNanchor_1297_1297"></a><a href="#Footnote_1297_1297" class="fnanchor">[1297]</a> and the conclusion -he comes to is that chaps. ix.—xiv. are all from -one author, who must have written during the early -wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids about 280 -<span class="small">B.C.</span>, but employed, especially in chaps. ix., x., an -earlier prophecy. A criticism and modification of -Stade’s theory is given by Kuenen. He allows that -the present form of chaps. ix.—xiv. must be of post-exilic -origin: this is obvious from the mention of the -Greeks as a world-power; the description of a siege -of Jerusalem by <i>all</i> the heathen; the way in which -(chaps. ix. 11 f., but especially x. 6–9) the captivity is -presupposed, if not of all Israel, yet of Ephraim; the -fact that the House of David are not represented -as governing; and the thoroughly priestly character -of all the chapters. But Kuenen holds that an ancient -prophecy of the eighth century underlies chaps. ix.—xi., -xiii. 7–9, in which several actual phrases of it survive;<a name="FNanchor_1298_1298" id="FNanchor_1298_1298"></a><a href="#Footnote_1298_1298" class="fnanchor">[1298]</a> -and that in their present form xii.—xiv. are older -than ix.—xi., and probably by a contemporary of Joel, -about 400 <span class="small">B.C.</span></p> - -<p>In the main Cheyne,<a name="FNanchor_1299_1299" id="FNanchor_1299_1299"></a><a href="#Footnote_1299_1299" class="fnanchor">[1299]</a> Cornill,<a name="FNanchor_1300_1300" id="FNanchor_1300_1300"></a><a href="#Footnote_1300_1300" class="fnanchor">[1300]</a> Wildeboer<a name="FNanchor_1301_1301" id="FNanchor_1301_1301"></a><a href="#Footnote_1301_1301" class="fnanchor">[1301]</a> and -Staerk<a name="FNanchor_1302_1302" id="FNanchor_1302_1302"></a><a href="#Footnote_1302_1302" class="fnanchor">[1302]</a> adhere to Stade’s conclusions. Cheyne proves -the unity of the six chapters and their date <i>before</i> the -Maccabean period. Staerk brings down xi. 4–17 and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> -xiii. 7–9 to 171 <span class="small">B.C.</span> Wellhausen argues for the unity, -and assigns it to the Maccabean times. Driver judges -ix.—xi., with its natural continuation xiii. 7–9, as not -earlier than 333; and the rest of xii.—xiv. as certainly -post-exilic, and probably from 432—300. Rubinkam<a name="FNanchor_1303_1303" id="FNanchor_1303_1303"></a><a href="#Footnote_1303_1303" class="fnanchor">[1303]</a> -places ix. 1–10 in Alexander’s time, the rest in that of -the Maccabees, but Zeydner<a name="FNanchor_1304_1304" id="FNanchor_1304_1304"></a><a href="#Footnote_1304_1304" class="fnanchor">[1304]</a> all of it to the latter. -Kirkpatrick,<a name="FNanchor_1305_1305" id="FNanchor_1305_1305"></a><a href="#Footnote_1305_1305" class="fnanchor">[1305]</a> after showing the post-exilic character of -all the chapters, favours assigning ix.—xi. to a different -author from xii.—xiv. Asserting that to the question of -the exact date it is impossible to give a definite answer, -he thinks that the whole may be with considerable -probability assigned to the first sixty or seventy years -of the Exile, and is therefore in its proper place -between Zechariah and “Malachi.” The reference to -the sons of Javan he takes to be a gloss, probably -added in Maccabean times.<a name="FNanchor_1306_1306" id="FNanchor_1306_1306"></a><a href="#Footnote_1306_1306" class="fnanchor">[1306]</a></p> - -<p>It will be seen from this catalogue of conclusions -that the prevailing trend of recent criticism has been to -assign “Zech.” ix.—xiv. to post-exilic times, and to a -different author from chaps. i.—viii.; and that while -a few critics maintain a date soon after the Return, the -bulk are divided between the years following Alexander’s -campaigns and the time of the Maccabean struggles.<a name="FNanchor_1307_1307" id="FNanchor_1307_1307"></a><a href="#Footnote_1307_1307" class="fnanchor">[1307]</a></p> - -<p>There are, in fact, in recent years only two attempts -to support the conservative position of Pusey and -Hengstenberg that the whole book is a genuine work -of Zechariah the son of Iddo. One of these is by -C. H. H. Wright in his Bampton Lectures. The -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> -other is by George L. Robinson, now Professor -at Toronto, in a reprint (1896) from the <i>American -Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures</i>, which -offers a valuable history of the discussion of the whole -question from the days of Mede, with a careful argument -of all the evidence on both sides. The very original -conclusion is reached that the chapters reflect the -history of the years 518—516 <span class="small">B.C.</span></p> - -<p>In discussing the question, for which our treatment -of other prophets has left us too little space, we need -not open that part of it which lies between a pre-exilic -and a post-exilic date. Recent criticism of all -schools and at both extremes has tended to establish -the latter upon reasons which we have already -stated,<a name="FNanchor_1308_1308" id="FNanchor_1308_1308"></a><a href="#Footnote_1308_1308" class="fnanchor">[1308]</a> and for further details of which the student -may be referred to Stade’s and Eckardt’s investigations -in the <i>Zeitschrift für A. T. Wissenschaft</i> and to -Kirkpatrick’s impartial summary. There remain the -questions of the unity of chaps. ix.—xiv.; their exact -date or dates after the Exile, and as a consequence -of this their relation to the authentic prophecies of -Zechariah in chaps. i.—viii.</p> - -<p>On the question of unity we take first chaps. ix.—xi., -to which must be added (as by most critics since -Ewald) xiii. 7–9, which has got out of its place as the -natural continuation and conclusion of chap. xi.</p> - -<p>Chap. ix. 1–8 predicts the overthrow of heathen -neighbours of Israel, their possession by Jehovah -and His safeguard of Jerusalem. Vv. 9–12 follow -with a prediction of the Messianic King as the Prince -of Peace; but then come vv. 13–17, with no mention of -the King, but Jehovah appears alone as the hero of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> -His people against the Greeks, and there is indeed -sufficiency of war and blood. Chap. x. makes a new -start: the people are warned to seek their blessings -from Jehovah, and not from Teraphim and diviners, -whom their false shepherds follow. Jehovah, visiting -His flock, shall punish these, give proper rulers, make -the people strong and gather in their exiles to fill -Gilead and Lebanon. Chap. xi. opens with a burst -of war on Lebanon and Bashan and the overthrow -of the heathen (vv. 1–3), and follows with an allegory, -in which the prophet first takes charge from Jehovah -of the people as their shepherd, but is contemptuously -treated by them (4–14), and then taking the guise -of an evil shepherd represents what they must suffer -from their next ruler (15–17). This tyrant, however, -shall receive punishment, two-thirds of the nation shall -be scattered, but the rest, further purified, shall be -God’s own people (xiii. 7–9).</p> - -<p>In the course of this prophesying there is no conclusive -proof of a double authorship. The only passage -which offers strong evidence for this is chap. ix. -The verses predicting the peaceful coming of Messiah -(9–12) do not accord in spirit with those which follow -predicting the appearance of Jehovah with war and -great shedding of blood. Nor is the difference -altogether explained, as Stade thinks, by the similar -order of events in chap. x., where Judah and Joseph -are first represented as saved and brought back in -ver. 6, and then we have the process of their redemption -and return described in vv. 7 ff. Why did the -same writer give statements of such very different -temper as chap. ix. 9–12 and 13–17? Or, if these -be from different hands, why were they ever put -together? Otherwise there is no reason for breaking -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> -up chaps. ix.—xi., xiii. 7–9. Rubinkam, who separates -ix. 1–10 by a hundred and fifty years from the rest; -Bleek, who divides ix. from x.; and Staerk, who -separates ix.—xi. 3 from the rest, have been answered -by Robinson and others.<a name="FNanchor_1309_1309" id="FNanchor_1309_1309"></a><a href="#Footnote_1309_1309" class="fnanchor">[1309]</a> On the ground of language, -grammar and syntax, Eckardt has fully proved that -ix.—xi. are from the same author of a late date, who, -however, may have occasionally followed earlier models -and even introduced their very phrases.<a name="FNanchor_1310_1310" id="FNanchor_1310_1310"></a><a href="#Footnote_1310_1310" class="fnanchor">[1310]</a></p> - -<p>More supporters have been found for a division of -authorship between chaps. ix.—xi., xiii. 7–9, and chaps. -xii.—xiv. (less xiii. 7–9). Chap. xii. opens with a title -of its own. A strange element is introduced into the -historical relation. Jerusalem is assaulted not by the -heathen only, but by Judah, who, however, turns on -finding that Jehovah fights for Jerusalem, and is saved -by Jehovah before Jerusalem in order that the latter -may not boast over it (xii. 1–9). A spirit of grace and -supplication is poured upon the guilty city, a fountain -opened for uncleanness, idols abolished, and the -prophets, who are put on a level with them, abolished -too, where they do not disown their profession (xii. 10—xiii. -6). Another assault of the heathen on Jerusalem -is described, half of the people being taken captive. -Jehovah appears, and by a great earthquake saves the -rest. The land is transformed. And then the prophet -goes back to the defeat of the heathen assault on the -city, in which Judah is again described as taking part; -and the surviving heathen are converted, or, if they -refuse to be, punished by the withholding of rain. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> -Jerusalem is holy to the Lord (xiv.). In all this there is -more that differs from chaps. ix.—xi., xiii. 7–9, than the -strange opposition of Judah and Jerusalem. Ephraim, -or Joseph, is not mentioned, nor any return of exiles, -nor punishment of the shepherds, nor coming of the -Messiah,<a name="FNanchor_1311_1311" id="FNanchor_1311_1311"></a><a href="#Footnote_1311_1311" class="fnanchor">[1311]</a> the latter’s place being taken by Jehovah. -But in answer to this we may remember that the -Messiah, after being described in ix. 9–12, is immediately -lost behind the warlike coming of Jehovah. Both -sections speak of idolatry, and of the heathen, their -punishment and conversion, and do so in the same -apocalyptic style. Nor does the language of the two -differ in any decisive fashion. On the contrary, as -Eckardt<a name="FNanchor_1312_1312" id="FNanchor_1312_1312"></a><a href="#Footnote_1312_1312" class="fnanchor">[1312]</a> and Kuiper have shown, the language is -on the whole an argument for unity of authorship.<a name="FNanchor_1313_1313" id="FNanchor_1313_1313"></a><a href="#Footnote_1313_1313" class="fnanchor">[1313]</a> -There is, then, nothing conclusive against the position, -which Stade so clearly laid down and strongly fortified, -that chaps. ix.—xiv. are from the same hand, although, -as he admits, this cannot be proved with absolute -certainty. So also Cheyne: “With perhaps one or two -exceptions, chaps. ix.—xi. and xii.—xiv. are so closely -welded together that even analysis is impossible.”<a name="FNanchor_1314_1314" id="FNanchor_1314_1314"></a><a href="#Footnote_1314_1314" class="fnanchor">[1314]</a></p> - -<p>The next questions we have to decide are whether -chaps. ix.—xiv. offer any evidence of being by Zechariah, -the author of chaps. i.—viii., and if not to what other -post-exilic date they may be assigned.</p> - -<p>It must be admitted that in language and in style -the two parts of the Book of Zechariah have features -in common. But that these have been exaggerated by -defenders of the unity there can be no doubt. We -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> -cannot infer anything from the fact<a name="FNanchor_1315_1315" id="FNanchor_1315_1315"></a><a href="#Footnote_1315_1315" class="fnanchor">[1315]</a> that both parts -contain specimens of clumsy diction, of the repetition -of the same word, of phrases (not the same phrases) -unused by other writers;<a name="FNanchor_1316_1316" id="FNanchor_1316_1316"></a><a href="#Footnote_1316_1316" class="fnanchor">[1316]</a> or that each is lavish in -vocatives; or that each is variable in his spelling. -Resemblances of that kind they share with other books: -some of them are due to the fact that both sections are -post-exilic. On the other hand, as Eckardt has clearly -shown, there exists a still greater number of differences -between the two sections, both in language and -in style.<a name="FNanchor_1317_1317" id="FNanchor_1317_1317"></a><a href="#Footnote_1317_1317" class="fnanchor">[1317]</a> Not only do characteristic words occur in -each which are not found in the other, not only do -chaps. ix.—xiv. contain many more Aramaisms than -chaps. i.—viii., and therefore symptoms of a later date; -but both parts use the same words with more or less -different meanings, and apply different terms to the -same objects. There are also differences of grammar, -of favourite formulas, and of other features of the -phraseology, which, if there be any need, complete -the proof of a distinction of dialect so great as to -require to account for it distinction of authorship.</p> - -<p>The same impression is sustained by the contrast of -the historical circumstances reflected in each of the two -sections. Zech. i.—viii. were written during the building -of the Temple. There is no echo of the latter in -“Zech.” ix.—xiv. Zech. i.—viii. picture the whole earth -as at peace, which was true at least of all Syria: they -portend no danger to Jerusalem from the heathen, but -describe her peace and fruitful expansion in terms -most suitable to the circumstances imposed upon her -by the solid and clement policy of the earlier Persian -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> -kings. This is all changed in “Zech.” ix.—xiv. The -nations are restless; a siege of Jerusalem is imminent, -and her salvation is to be assured only by much war -and a terrible shedding of blood. We know exactly -how Israel fared and felt in the early sections of the -Persian period: her interests in the politics of the -world, her feelings towards her governors and her -whole attitude to the heathen were not at that time -those which are reflected in “Zech.” ix.—xiv.</p> - -<p>Nor is there any such resemblance between the -religious principles of the two sections of the Book of -Zechariah as could prove identity of origin. That -both are spiritual, or that they have a similar expectation -of the ultimate position of Israel in the -history of the world, proves only that both were late -offshoots from the same religious development, and -worked upon the same ancient models. Within these -outlines, there are not a few divergences. Zech. i.—viii. -were written before Ezra and Nehemiah had imposed -the Levitical legislation upon Israel; but Eckardt has -shown the dependence on the latter of “Zech.” ix.—xiv.</p> - -<p>We may, therefore, adhere to Canon Driver’s assertion, -that Zechariah in chaps. i.—viii. “uses a different -phraseology, evinces different interests and moves in -a different circle of ideas from those which prevail in -chaps. ix.—xiv.”<a name="FNanchor_1318_1318" id="FNanchor_1318_1318"></a><a href="#Footnote_1318_1318" class="fnanchor">[1318]</a> Criticism has indeed been justified -in separating, by the vast and growing majority of its -opinions, the two sections from each other. This was -one of the earliest results which modern criticism -achieved, and the latest researches have but established -it on a firmer basis.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> -If, then, chaps. ix.—xiv. be not Zechariah’s, to what -date may we assign them? We have already seen that -they bear evidence of being upon the whole later than -Zechariah, though they appear to contain fragments -from an earlier period. Perhaps this is all we can -with certainty affirm. Yet something more definite is -at least probable. The mention of the Greeks, not -as Joel mentions them about 400, the most distant -nation to which Jewish slaves could be carried, but as -the chief of the heathen powers, and a foe with whom -the Jews are in touch and must soon cross swords,<a name="FNanchor_1319_1319" id="FNanchor_1319_1319"></a><a href="#Footnote_1319_1319" class="fnanchor">[1319]</a> -appears to imply that the Syrian campaign of Alexander -is happening or has happened, or even that the Greek -kingdoms of Syria and Egypt are already contending -for the possession of Palestine. With this agrees the -mention of Damascus, Hadrach and Hamath, the -localities where the Seleucids had their chief seats.<a name="FNanchor_1320_1320" id="FNanchor_1320_1320"></a><a href="#Footnote_1320_1320" class="fnanchor">[1320]</a> In -that case Asshur would signify the Seleucids and Egypt -the Ptolemies:<a name="FNanchor_1321_1321" id="FNanchor_1321_1321"></a><a href="#Footnote_1321_1321" class="fnanchor">[1321]</a> it is these, and not Greece itself, from -whom the Jewish exiles have still to be redeemed. All -this makes probable the date which Stade has proposed -for the chapters, between 300 and 280 <span class="small">B.C.</span> To bring -them further down, to the time of the Maccabees, as -some have tried to do, would not be impossible so far -as the historical allusions are concerned; but had they -been of so late a date as that, viz. 170 or 160, we may -assert that they could not have found a place in the -prophetic canon, which was closed by 200, but must -have fallen along with Daniel into the Hagiographa.</p> - -<p>The appearance of these prophecies at the close of -the Book of Zechariah has been explained, not quite -satisfactorily, as follows. With the Book of “Malachi” -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> -they formed originally three anonymous pieces,<a name="FNanchor_1322_1322" id="FNanchor_1322_1322"></a><a href="#Footnote_1322_1322" class="fnanchor">[1322]</a> which -because of their anonymity were set at the end of the -Book of the Twelve. The first of them begins with -the very peculiar construction “Massa’ Dĕbar Jehovah,” -<i>oracle of the word of Jehovah</i>, which, though partly belonging -to the text, the editor read as a title, and attached -as a title to each of the others. It occurs nowhere else. -The Book of “Malachi” was too distinct in character -to be attached to another book, and soon came to -have the supposed name of its author added to its -title.<a name="FNanchor_1323_1323" id="FNanchor_1323_1323"></a><a href="#Footnote_1323_1323" class="fnanchor">[1323]</a> But the other two pieces fell, like all anonymous -works, to the nearest writing with an author’s name. -Perhaps the attachment was hastened by the desire to -make the round number of Twelve Prophets.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<h4>A<span class="small">DDENDA</span></h4> - -<p>Whiston’s work (p. 450) is <i>An Essay towards restoring the True Text -of the O. T. and for vindicating the Citations made thence in the N. T.</i>, -1722, pp. 93 ff. (not seen). Besides those mentioned on p. 452 -(see n. <a href="#Footnote_1293_1293">1293</a>) -as supporting the unity of Zechariah there ought to be named -De Wette, Umbreit, von Hoffmann, Ebrard, etc. Kuiper’s work -(p. 458) is <i>Zacharia</i> 9–14, Utrecht, 1894 (not seen). Nowack’s conclusions -are: ix.—xi. 3 date from the Greek period (we cannot date -them more exactly, unless ix. 8 refers to Ptolemy’s capture of Jerusalem -in 320); xi., xiii. 7–9, are post-exilic; xii.—xiii. 6 long after Exile; -xiv. long after Exile, later than “Malachi.”</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE CONTENTS OF “ ZECHARIAH” IX.—XIV.</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -From the number of conflicting opinions which -prevail upon the subject, we have seen how -impossible it is to decide upon a scheme of division -for “Zech.” ix.—xiv. These chapters consist of a -number of separate oracles, which their language and -general conceptions lead us on the whole to believe -were put together by one hand, and which, with the -possible exception of some older fragments, reflect the -troubled times in Palestine that followed on the invasion -of Alexander the Great. But though the most of them -are probably due to one date and possibly come from -the same author, these oracles do not always exhibit -a connection, and indeed sometimes show no relevance -to each other. It will therefore be simplest to take -them piece by piece, and, before giving the translation -of each, to explain the difficulties in it and indicate the -ruling ideas.</p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec1">1. T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">OMING OF THE</span> - G<span class="small">REEKS</span> (ix. 1–8).</h4> - -<p>This passage runs exactly in the style of the early -prophets. It figures the progress of war from the -north of Syria southwards by the valley of the Orontes -to Damascus, and then along the coasts of Phœnicia -and the Philistines. All these shall be devastated, -but Jehovah will camp about His own House and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> -it shall be inviolate. This is exactly how Amos or -Isaiah might have pictured an Assyrian campaign, or -Zephaniah a Scythian. It is not surprising, therefore, -that even some of those who take the bulk of -“Zech.” ix.—xiv. as post-exilic should regard ix. 1–5 -as earlier even than Amos, with post-exilic additions -only in vv. 6–8.<a name="FNanchor_1324_1324" id="FNanchor_1324_1324"></a><a href="#Footnote_1324_1324" class="fnanchor">[1324]</a> This is possible. Vv. 6–8 are -certainly post-exilic, because of their mention of the -half-breeds, and their intimation that Jehovah will -take unclean food out of the mouth of the heathen; -but the allusions in vv. 1–5 suit an early date. They -equally suit, however, a date in the Greek period. The -progress of war from the Orontes valley by Damascus -and thence down the coast of Palestine follows the line -of Alexander’s campaign in 332, which must also have -been the line of Demetrius in 315 and of Antigonus in -311. The evidence of language is mostly in favour -of a late date.<a name="FNanchor_1325_1325" id="FNanchor_1325_1325"></a><a href="#Footnote_1325_1325" class="fnanchor">[1325]</a> If Ptolemy I. took Jerusalem in 320,<a name="FNanchor_1326_1326" id="FNanchor_1326_1326"></a><a href="#Footnote_1326_1326" class="fnanchor">[1326]</a> -then the promise, no assailant shall return (ver. 8), is -probably later than that.</p> - -<p>In face then of Alexander’s invasion of Palestine, -or of another campaign on the same line, this oracle -repeats the ancient confidence of Isaiah. God rules: -His providence is awake alike for the heathen and -for Israel. <i>Jehovah hath an eye for mankind, and all -the tribes of Israel.</i><a name="FNanchor_1327_1327" id="FNanchor_1327_1327"></a><a href="#Footnote_1327_1327" class="fnanchor">[1327]</a> The heathen shall be destroyed, -but Jerusalem rest secure; and the remnant of the -heathen be converted, according to the Levitical notion, -by having unclean foods taken out of their mouths.</p> - -<h5><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" - id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span><i>Oracle</i></h5> - -<p><i>The Word of Jehovah is on the land of Hadrach, and -Damascus is its goal<a name="FNanchor_1328_1328" id="FNanchor_1328_1328"></a><a href="#Footnote_1328_1328" class="fnanchor">[1328]</a>—for Jehovah hath an eye </i>upon<i> the -heathen,<a name="FNanchor_1329_1329" id="FNanchor_1329_1329"></a><a href="#Footnote_1329_1329" class="fnanchor">[1329]</a> and all the tribes of Israel—and on<a name="FNanchor_1330_1330" id="FNanchor_1330_1330"></a><a href="#Footnote_1330_1330" class="fnanchor">[1330]</a> Hamath, -</i>which<i> borders upon it, Tyre and Sidon, for they were -very wise.<a name="FNanchor_1331_1331" id="FNanchor_1331_1331"></a><a href="#Footnote_1331_1331" class="fnanchor">[1331]</a> And Tyre built her a fortress, and heaped -up silver like dust, and gold like the dirt of the streets. -Lo, the Lord will dispossess her, and strike her rampart<a name="FNanchor_1332_1332" id="FNanchor_1332_1332"></a><a href="#Footnote_1332_1332" class="fnanchor">[1332]</a> -into the sea, and she shall be consumed in fire. Ashḳlon -shall see and shall fear, and Gaza writhe in anguish, -and Ekron, for her confidence<a name="FNanchor_1333_1333" id="FNanchor_1333_1333"></a><a href="#Footnote_1333_1333" class="fnanchor">[1333]</a> is abashed, and the king -shall perish from Gaza and Ashḳlon lie uninhabited. -Half-breeds<a name="FNanchor_1334_1334" id="FNanchor_1334_1334"></a><a href="#Footnote_1334_1334" class="fnanchor">[1334]</a> shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut down -the pride of the Philistines. And I will take their blood -from their mouth and their abominations from between -their teeth,<a name="FNanchor_1335_1335" id="FNanchor_1335_1335"></a><a href="#Footnote_1335_1335" class="fnanchor">[1335]</a> and even they shall be left for our God, and -shall become like a clan in Judah, and Ekron shall be -as the Jebusite. And I shall encamp for a guard<a name="FNanchor_1336_1336" id="FNanchor_1336_1336"></a><a href="#Footnote_1336_1336" class="fnanchor">[1336]</a> to -My House, so that none pass by or return, and no -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> -assailant again pass upon them, for now do I regard it -with Mine eyes.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec2">2. T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">RINCE OF</span> - P<span class="small">EACE</span> (ix. 9–12).</h4> - -<p>This beautiful picture, applied by the Evangelist with -such fitness to our Lord upon His entry to Jerusalem, -must also be of post-exilic date. It contrasts with the -warlike portraits of the Messiah drawn in pre-exilic -times, for it clothes Him with humility and with peace. -The coming King of Israel has the attributes already -imputed to the Servant of Jehovah by the prophet of -the Babylonian captivity. The next verses also imply -the Exile as already a fact. On the whole, too, the -language is of a late rather than of an early date.<a name="FNanchor_1337_1337" id="FNanchor_1337_1337"></a><a href="#Footnote_1337_1337" class="fnanchor">[1337]</a> -Nothing in the passage betrays the exact point of -its origin after the Exile.</p> - -<p>The epithets applied to the Messiah are of very great -interest. He does not bring victory or salvation, but -is the passive recipient of it.<a name="FNanchor_1338_1338" id="FNanchor_1338_1338"></a><a href="#Footnote_1338_1338" class="fnanchor">[1338]</a> This determines the -meaning of the preceding adjective, <i>righteous</i>, which -has not the moral sense of <i>justice</i>, but rather that of -<i>vindication</i>, in which <i>righteousness</i> and <i>righteous</i> are so -frequently used in Isa. xl.—lv.<a name="FNanchor_1339_1339" id="FNanchor_1339_1339"></a><a href="#Footnote_1339_1339" class="fnanchor">[1339]</a> He is <i>lowly</i>, like the -Servant of Jehovah; and comes riding not the horse, -an animal for war, because the next verse says that -horses and chariots are to be removed from Israel,<a name="FNanchor_1340_1340" id="FNanchor_1340_1340"></a><a href="#Footnote_1340_1340" class="fnanchor">[1340]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> -but the ass, the animal not of lowliness, as some -have interpreted, but of peace. To this day in the -East asses are used, as they are represented in the -Song of Deborah, by great officials, but only when -these are upon civil, and not upon military, duty.</p> - -<p>It is possible that this oracle closes with ver. 10, -and that we should take vv. 11 and 12, on the -deliverance from exile, with the next.</p> - -<p><i>Rejoice mightily, daughter of Zion! shout aloud, -daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, thy King cometh to thee, -vindicated and victorious,<a name="FNanchor_1341_1341" id="FNanchor_1341_1341"></a><a href="#Footnote_1341_1341" class="fnanchor">[1341]</a> meek and riding on an ass,<a name="FNanchor_1342_1342" id="FNanchor_1342_1342"></a><a href="#Footnote_1342_1342" class="fnanchor">[1342]</a> -and on a colt the she-ass’ foal.<a name="FNanchor_1343_1343" id="FNanchor_1343_1343"></a><a href="#Footnote_1343_1343" class="fnanchor">[1343]</a> And I<a name="FNanchor_1344_1344" id="FNanchor_1344_1344"></a><a href="#Footnote_1344_1344" class="fnanchor">[1344]</a> will cut off the -chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and -the war-bow shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace to -the nations, and His rule shall be from sea to sea and -from the river even to the ends of the earth. Thou, -too,—by thy covenant-blood,<a name="FNanchor_1345_1345" id="FNanchor_1345_1345"></a><a href="#Footnote_1345_1345" class="fnanchor">[1345]</a> I have set free thy prisoners -from the pit.<a name="FNanchor_1346_1346" id="FNanchor_1346_1346"></a><a href="#Footnote_1346_1346" class="fnanchor">[1346]</a> Return to the fortress, ye prisoners of -hope; even to-day do I proclaim: Double will I return -to thee.</i><a name="FNanchor_1347_1347" id="FNanchor_1347_1347"></a><a href="#Footnote_1347_1347" class="fnanchor">[1347]</a></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec3">3. T<span class="small">HE</span> - S<span class="small">LAUGHTER OF THE</span> - G<span class="small">REEKS</span> (ix. 13–17).</h4> - -<p>The next oracle seems singularly out of keeping -with the spirit of the last, which declared the arrival -of the Messianic peace, while this represents Jehovah -as using Israel for His weapons in the slaughter of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> -the Greeks and heathens, in whose blood they shall -revel. But Stade has pointed out how often in chaps. -ix.—xiv. a result is first stated and then the oracle -goes on to describe the process by which it is achieved. -Accordingly we have no ground for affirming ix. 13–17 -to be by another hand than ix. 9–12. The apocalyptic -character of the means by which the heathen are to -be overthrown, and the exultation displayed in their -slaughter, as in a great sacrifice (ver. 15), betray -Israel in a state of absolute political weakness, and -therefore suit a date after Alexander’s campaigns, -which is also made sure by the reference to the <i>sons -of Javan</i>, as if Israel were now in immediate contact -with them. Kirkpatrick’s note should be read, in -which he seeks to prove <i>the sons of Javan</i> a late -gloss;<a name="FNanchor_1348_1348" id="FNanchor_1348_1348"></a><a href="#Footnote_1348_1348" class="fnanchor">[1348]</a> but his reasons do not appear conclusive. -The language bears several traces of lateness.<a name="FNanchor_1349_1349" id="FNanchor_1349_1349"></a><a href="#Footnote_1349_1349" class="fnanchor">[1349]</a></p> - -<p><i>For I have drawn Judah for My bow, I have charged</i> -it <i>with Ephraim; and I will urge thy sons, O Zion, -against the sons of<a name="FNanchor_1350_1350" id="FNanchor_1350_1350"></a><a href="#Footnote_1350_1350" class="fnanchor">[1350]</a> Javan, and make thee like the sword -of a hero. Then will Jehovah appear above them, and -His shaft shall go forth like lightning; and the Lord -Jehovah shall blow a blast on the trumpet, and travel in -the storms of the south.<a name="FNanchor_1351_1351" id="FNanchor_1351_1351"></a><a href="#Footnote_1351_1351" class="fnanchor">[1351]</a> Jehovah will protect them, and -they shall devour </i>(?)<i><a name="FNanchor_1352_1352" id="FNanchor_1352_1352"></a><a href="#Footnote_1352_1352" class="fnanchor">[1352]</a> and trample ...;<a name="FNanchor_1353_1353" id="FNanchor_1353_1353"></a><a href="#Footnote_1353_1353" class="fnanchor">[1353]</a> and they -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> -shall drink their blood<a name="FNanchor_1354_1354" id="FNanchor_1354_1354"></a><a href="#Footnote_1354_1354" class="fnanchor">[1354]</a> like wine, and be drenched with -it, like a bowl and like the corners of the altar. And -Jehovah their God will give them victory in that day....<a name="FNanchor_1355_1355" id="FNanchor_1355_1355"></a><a href="#Footnote_1355_1355" class="fnanchor">[1355]</a> -How good it<a name="FNanchor_1356_1356" id="FNanchor_1356_1356"></a><a href="#Footnote_1356_1356" class="fnanchor">[1356]</a> is, and how beautiful! Corn shall make -the young men flourish and new wine the maidens.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec4">4. A<span class="small">GAINST THE</span> - T<span class="small">ERAPHIM AND</span> - S<span class="small">ORCERERS</span> (x. 1, 2).</h4> - -<p>This little piece is connected with the previous one -only through the latter’s conclusion upon the fertility -of the land, while this opens with rain, the requisite of -fertility. It is connected with the piece that follows only -by its mention of the shepherdless state of the people, -the piece that follows being against the false shepherds. -These connections are extremely slight. Perhaps the -piece is an independent one. The subject of it gives -no clue to the date. Sorcerers are condemned both -by the earlier prophets, and by the later.<a name="FNanchor_1357_1357" id="FNanchor_1357_1357"></a><a href="#Footnote_1357_1357" class="fnanchor">[1357]</a> Stade -points out that this is the only passage of the Old -Testament in which the Teraphim are said to speak.<a name="FNanchor_1358_1358" id="FNanchor_1358_1358"></a><a href="#Footnote_1358_1358" class="fnanchor">[1358]</a> -The language has one symptom of a late period.<a name="FNanchor_1359_1359" id="FNanchor_1359_1359"></a><a href="#Footnote_1359_1359" class="fnanchor">[1359]</a></p> - -<p>After emphasising the futility of images, enchantments -and dreams, this little oracle says, therefore the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> -people wander like sheep: they have no shepherd. -Shepherd in this connection cannot mean civil ruler, -but must be religious director.</p> - -<p><i>Ask from Jehovah rain in the time of the latter rain.<a name="FNanchor_1360_1360" id="FNanchor_1360_1360"></a><a href="#Footnote_1360_1360" class="fnanchor">[1360]</a> -Jehovah is the maker of the lightning-flashes, and the -winter rain He gives to them—to every man herbage in -the field. But the Teraphim speak nothingness, and the -sorcerers see lies, and dreams discourse vanity, and they -comfort in vain. Wherefore they wander (?)<a name="FNanchor_1361_1361" id="FNanchor_1361_1361"></a><a href="#Footnote_1361_1361" class="fnanchor">[1361]</a> like a -flock of sheep, and flee about,<a name="FNanchor_1362_1362" id="FNanchor_1362_1362"></a><a href="#Footnote_1362_1362" class="fnanchor">[1362]</a> for there is no shepherd.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec5">5. A<span class="small">GAINST</span> - E<span class="small">VIL</span> - S<span class="small">HEPHERDS</span> (x. 3–12).</h4> - -<p>The unity of this section is more apparent than its -connection with the preceding, which had spoken of -the want of a shepherd, or religious director, of Israel, -while this is directed against their shepherds and -leaders, meaning their foreign tyrants.<a name="FNanchor_1363_1363" id="FNanchor_1363_1363"></a><a href="#Footnote_1363_1363" class="fnanchor">[1363]</a> The figure is -taken from Jeremiah xxiii. 1 ff., where, besides, <i>to visit -upon</i><a name="FNanchor_1364_1364" id="FNanchor_1364_1364"></a><a href="#Footnote_1364_1364" class="fnanchor">[1364]</a> is used in a sense of punishment, but the simple -<i>visit</i><a name="FNanchor_1365_1365" id="FNanchor_1365_1365"></a><a href="#Footnote_1365_1365" class="fnanchor">[1365]</a> in the sense of to look after, just as within -ver. 3 of this tenth chapter. Who these foreign -tyrants are is not explicitly stated, but the reference -to Egypt and Assyria as lands whence the Jewish -captives shall be brought home, while at the same time -there is a Jewish nation in Judah, suits only the Greek -period, after Ptolemy had taken so many Jews to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> -Egypt,<a name="FNanchor_1366_1366" id="FNanchor_1366_1366"></a><a href="#Footnote_1366_1366" class="fnanchor">[1366]</a> and there were numbers still scattered throughout -the other great empire in the north, to which, -as we have already seen, the Jews applied the name -of Assyria. The reference can hardly suit the years -after Seleucus and Ptolemy granted to the Jews in -their territories the rights of citizens. The captive -Jews are to be brought back to Gilead and Lebanon. -Why exactly these are mentioned, and neither Samaria -nor Galilee, forms a difficulty, to whatever age we -assign the chapter. The language of x. 3–12 has -several late features.<a name="FNanchor_1367_1367" id="FNanchor_1367_1367"></a><a href="#Footnote_1367_1367" class="fnanchor">[1367]</a> Joseph or Ephraim, here and -elsewhere in these chapters, is used of the portion of -Israel still in captivity, in contrast to Judah, the returned -community.</p> - -<p>The passage predicts that Jehovah will change His -poor leaderless sheep, the Jews, into war-horses, and -give them strong chiefs and weapons of war. They -shall overthrow the heathen, and Jehovah will bring -back His exiles. The passage is therefore one with -chap. ix.</p> - -<p><i>My wrath is hot against the shepherds, and I will -make visitation on the he-goats:<a name="FNanchor_1368_1368" id="FNanchor_1368_1368"></a><a href="#Footnote_1368_1368" class="fnanchor">[1368]</a> yea, Jehovah of Hosts -will<a name="FNanchor_1369_1369" id="FNanchor_1369_1369"></a><a href="#Footnote_1369_1369" class="fnanchor">[1369]</a> visit His flock, the house of Judah, and will make -them like His splendid war-horses. From Him the -corner-stone, from Him the stay,<a name="FNanchor_1370_1370" id="FNanchor_1370_1370"></a><a href="#Footnote_1370_1370" class="fnanchor">[1370]</a> from Him the war-bow, -from Him the oppressor—shall go forth together. -And in battle shall they trample on heroes as on the dirt -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> -of the streets,<a name="FNanchor_1371_1371" id="FNanchor_1371_1371"></a><a href="#Footnote_1371_1371" class="fnanchor">[1371]</a> and fight, for Jehovah is with them, and -the riders on horses shall be abashed. And the house -of Judah will I make strong and work salvation for the -house of Joseph, and bring them back,<a name="FNanchor_1372_1372" id="FNanchor_1372_1372"></a><a href="#Footnote_1372_1372" class="fnanchor">[1372]</a> for I have pity -for them,<a name="FNanchor_1373_1373" id="FNanchor_1373_1373"></a><a href="#Footnote_1373_1373" class="fnanchor">[1373]</a> and they shall be as though I had not put them -away,<a name="FNanchor_1373_1373a" id="FNanchor_1373_1373a"></a><a href="#Footnote_1373_1373" class="fnanchor">[1373]</a> for I am Jehovah their God<a name="FNanchor_1373_1373b" id="FNanchor_1373_1373b"></a><a href="#Footnote_1373_1373" class="fnanchor">[1373]</a> -and I will hold converse with them.<a name="FNanchor_1373_1373c" id="FNanchor_1373_1373c"></a><a href="#Footnote_1373_1373" class="fnanchor">[1373]</a> And Ephraim shall be as heroes,<a name="FNanchor_1374_1374" id="FNanchor_1374_1374"></a><a href="#Footnote_1374_1374" class="fnanchor">[1374]</a> -and their heart shall be glad as with wine, and their -children shall behold and be glad: their heart shall -rejoice in Jehovah. I will whistle for them and gather -them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be -as many as they once were. I scattered them<a name="FNanchor_1375_1375" id="FNanchor_1375_1375"></a><a href="#Footnote_1375_1375" class="fnanchor">[1375]</a> among -the nations, but among the far-away they think of Me, -and they will bring up<a name="FNanchor_1376_1376" id="FNanchor_1376_1376"></a><a href="#Footnote_1376_1376" class="fnanchor">[1376]</a> their children, and come back. -And I will fetch them home from the land of Miṣraim, -and from Asshur<a name="FNanchor_1377_1377" id="FNanchor_1377_1377"></a><a href="#Footnote_1377_1377" class="fnanchor">[1377]</a> will I gather them, and to the land -of Gilead and Lebānon will I bring them in, though</i> -these <i>be not found</i> sufficient <i>for them. And they<a name="FNanchor_1378_1378" id="FNanchor_1378_1378"></a><a href="#Footnote_1378_1378" class="fnanchor">[1378]</a> shall -pass through the sea of Egypt,<a name="FNanchor_1379_1379" id="FNanchor_1379_1379"></a><a href="#Footnote_1379_1379" class="fnanchor">[1379]</a> and He shall smite the -sea of breakers, and all the deeps of the Nile shall be -dried, and the pride of Assyria brought down, and the -sceptre of Egypt swept aside. And their strength<a name="FNanchor_1380_1380" id="FNanchor_1380_1380"></a><a href="#Footnote_1380_1380" class="fnanchor">[1380]</a> shall -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> -be in Jehovah, and in His Name shall they boast themselves<a name="FNanchor_1381_1381" id="FNanchor_1381_1381"></a><a href="#Footnote_1381_1381" class="fnanchor">[1381]</a>—oracle -of Jehovah.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec6">6. W<span class="small">AR UPON THE</span> - S<span class="small">YRIAN</span> T<span class="small">YRANTS</span> - (xi. 1–3).</h4> - -<p>This is taken by some with the previous chapter, by -others with the passage following. Either connection -seems precarious. No conclusion as to date can be -drawn from the language. But the localities threatened -were on the southward front of the Seleucid kingdom. -<i>Open, Lebānon, thy doors</i> suits the Egyptian invasions -of that kingdom. To which of these the passage -refers cannot of course be determined. The shepherds -are the rulers.</p> - -<p><i>Open, Lebānon, thy doors, that the fire may devour in -thy cedars. Wail, O pine-tree, for the cedar is fallen;<a name="FNanchor_1382_1382" id="FNanchor_1382_1382"></a><a href="#Footnote_1382_1382" class="fnanchor">[1382]</a> -wail, O oaks of Bashan, for fallen is the impenetrable<a name="FNanchor_1383_1383" id="FNanchor_1383_1383"></a><a href="#Footnote_1383_1383" class="fnanchor">[1383]</a> -wood. Hark to the wailing of the shepherds! for their -glory is destroyed. Hark how the lions roar! for blasted -is the pride<a name="FNanchor_1384_1384" id="FNanchor_1384_1384"></a><a href="#Footnote_1384_1384" class="fnanchor">[1384]</a> of Jordan.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec7">7. T<span class="small">HE</span> - R<span class="small">EJECTION AND</span> - M<span class="small">URDER OF THE</span> - G<span class="small">OOD</span><br /> - S<span class="small">HEPHERD</span> (xi. 4–17, xiii. 7–9).</h4> - -<p>There follows now, in the rest of chap. xi., a longer -oracle, to which Ewald and most critics after him have -suitably attached chap. xiii. 7–9.</p> - -<p>This passage appears to rise from circumstances -similar to those of the preceding and from the same -circle of ideas. Jehovah’s people are His flock and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> -have suffered. Their rulers are their shepherds; and -the rulers of other peoples are their shepherds. A -true shepherd is sought for Israel in place of the evil -ones which have distressed them. The language shows -traces of a late date.<a name="FNanchor_1385_1385" id="FNanchor_1385_1385"></a><a href="#Footnote_1385_1385" class="fnanchor">[1385]</a> No historical allusion is obvious -in the passage. The <i>buyers</i> and <i>sellers</i> of God’s sheep -might reflect the Seleucids and Ptolemies between whom -Israel were exchanged for many years, but probably -mean their native leaders. The <i>three shepherds cut off -in a month</i> were interpreted by the supporters of the -pre-exilic date of the chapters as Zechariah and Shallum -(2 Kings xv. 8–13), and another whom these critics -assume to have followed them to death, but of him the -history has no trace. The supporters of a Maccabean -date for the prophecy recall the quick succession of -high priests before the Maccabean rising. The <i>one -month</i> probably means nothing more than a very short -time.</p> - -<p>The allegory which our passage unfolds is given, -like so many more in Hebrew prophecy, to the prophet -himself to enact. It recalls the pictures in Jeremiah -and Ezekiel of the overthrow of the false shepherds -of Israel, and the appointment of a true shepherd.<a name="FNanchor_1386_1386" id="FNanchor_1386_1386"></a><a href="#Footnote_1386_1386" class="fnanchor">[1386]</a> -Jehovah commissions the prophet to become shepherd -to His sheep that have been so cruelly abused by their -guides and rulers. Like the shepherds of Palestine, -the prophet took two staves to herd his flock. He -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> -called one <i>Grace</i>, the other <i>Union</i>. In a month he -cut off three shepherds—both <i>month</i> and <i>three</i> are -probably formal terms. But he did not get on well -with his charge. They were wilful and quarrelsome. -So he broke his staff Grace, in token that his -engagement was dissolved. The dealers of the sheep -saw that he acted for God. He asked for his wage, -if they cared to give it. They gave him thirty pieces -of silver, the price of an injured slave,<a name="FNanchor_1387_1387" id="FNanchor_1387_1387"></a><a href="#Footnote_1387_1387" class="fnanchor">[1387]</a> which by -God’s command he cast into the treasury of the Temple, -as if in token that it was God Himself whom they -paid with so wretched a sum. And then he broke -his other staff, to signify that the brotherhood between -Judah and Israel was broken. Then, to show the -people that by their rejection of the good shepherd -they must fall a prey to an evil one, the prophet -assumed the character of the latter. But another judgment -follows. In chap. xiii. 7–9 the good shepherd is -smitten and the flock dispersed.</p> - -<p>The spiritual principles which underlie this allegory -are obvious. God’s own sheep, persecuted and helpless -though they be, are yet obstinate, and their obstinacy -not only renders God’s good-will to them futile, but -causes the death of the one man who could have done -them good. The guilty sacrifice the innocent, but in -this execute their own doom. That is a summary of -the history of Israel. But had the writer of this allegory -any special part of that history in view? Who were -the <i>dealers of the flock</i>?</p> - -<p><i>Thus saith Jehovah my God:<a name="FNanchor_1388_1388" id="FNanchor_1388_1388"></a><a href="#Footnote_1388_1388" class="fnanchor">[1388]</a> Shepherd the flock of -slaughter, whose purchasers slaughter them impenitently, -and whose sellers say,<a name="FNanchor_1389_1389" id="FNanchor_1389_1389"></a><a href="#Footnote_1389_1389" class="fnanchor">[1389]</a> Blessed be Jehovah, for I am -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> -rich!—and their shepherds do not spare them. [For -I will no more spare the inhabitants of the land—oracle -of Jehovah; but lo! I am about to give mankind<a name="FNanchor_1390_1390" id="FNanchor_1390_1390"></a><a href="#Footnote_1390_1390" class="fnanchor">[1390]</a> -over, each into the hand of his shepherd,<a name="FNanchor_1391_1391" id="FNanchor_1391_1391"></a><a href="#Footnote_1391_1391" class="fnanchor">[1391]</a> and -into the hand of his king; and they shall destroy the -land, and I will not secure it from their hands.<a name="FNanchor_1392_1392" id="FNanchor_1392_1392"></a><a href="#Footnote_1392_1392" class="fnanchor">[1392]</a>] -And I shepherded the flock of slaughter for the sheep -merchants,<a name="FNanchor_1393_1393" id="FNanchor_1393_1393"></a><a href="#Footnote_1393_1393" class="fnanchor">[1393]</a> and I took to me two staves—the one I -called Grace, and the other I called Union<a name="FNanchor_1394_1394" id="FNanchor_1394_1394"></a><a href="#Footnote_1394_1394" class="fnanchor">[1394]</a>—and so I -shepherded the sheep. And I destroyed the three shepherds -in one month. Then was my soul vexed with them, -and they on their part were displeased with me. And -I said: I will not shepherd you: what is dead, let it die; -and what is destroyed, let it be destroyed; and those that -survive, let them devour one another’s flesh! And I took -my staff Grace, and I brake it so as to annul my covenant -which I made with all the peoples.<a name="FNanchor_1395_1395" id="FNanchor_1395_1395"></a><a href="#Footnote_1395_1395" class="fnanchor">[1395]</a> And in that -day it was annulled, and the dealers of the sheep,<a name="FNanchor_1396_1396" id="FNanchor_1396_1396"></a><a href="#Footnote_1396_1396" class="fnanchor">[1396]</a> who -watched me, knew that it was Jehovah’s word. And I -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> -said to them, If it be good in your sight, give me my -wage, and if it be not good, let it go! And they weighed -out my wage, thirty pieces of silver. Then said Jehovah -to me, Throw it into the treasury<a name="FNanchor_1397_1397" id="FNanchor_1397_1397"></a><a href="#Footnote_1397_1397" class="fnanchor">[1397]</a> (the precious wage -at which I<a name="FNanchor_1398_1398" id="FNanchor_1398_1398"></a><a href="#Footnote_1398_1398" class="fnanchor">[1398]</a> had been valued of them). So I took the -thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the House of Jehovah, -to the treasury.<a name="FNanchor_1399_1399" id="FNanchor_1399_1399"></a><a href="#Footnote_1399_1399" class="fnanchor">[1399]</a> And I brake my second staff, Union, so -as to dissolve the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.<a name="FNanchor_1400_1400" id="FNanchor_1400_1400"></a><a href="#Footnote_1400_1400" class="fnanchor">[1400]</a> -And Jehovah said to me: Take again to thee the implements -of a worthless shepherd: for lo! I am about to -appoint a shepherd over the land; the destroyed he will -not visit, the ...<a name="FNanchor_1401_1401" id="FNanchor_1401_1401"></a><a href="#Footnote_1401_1401" class="fnanchor">[1401]</a> he will not seek out, the wounded he -will not heal, the ...;<a name="FNanchor_1402_1402" id="FNanchor_1402_1402"></a><a href="#Footnote_1402_1402" class="fnanchor">[1402]</a> he will not cherish, but he will -devour the flesh of the fat and....<a name="FNanchor_1403_1403" id="FNanchor_1403_1403"></a><a href="#Footnote_1403_1403" class="fnanchor">[1403]</a></i></p> - -<p><i>Woe to My worthless<a name="FNanchor_1404_1404" id="FNanchor_1404_1404"></a><a href="#Footnote_1404_1404" class="fnanchor">[1404]</a> shepherd, that deserts the flock! -The sword be upon his arm and his right eye! May -his arm wither, and his right eye be blinded.</i></p> - -<p>Upon this follows the section xiii. 7–9, which develops -the tragedy of the nation to its climax in the -murder of the good shepherd.</p> - -<p><i>Up, Sword, against My shepherd and the man My -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> -compatriot<a name="FNanchor_1405_1405" id="FNanchor_1405_1405"></a><a href="#Footnote_1405_1405" class="fnanchor">[1405]</a>—oracle of Jehovah of Hosts. Smite<a name="FNanchor_1406_1406" id="FNanchor_1406_1406"></a><a href="#Footnote_1406_1406" class="fnanchor">[1406]</a> the -shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered; and I will turn -My hand against the little ones.<a name="FNanchor_1407_1407" id="FNanchor_1407_1407"></a><a href="#Footnote_1407_1407" class="fnanchor">[1407]</a> And it shall come to -pass in all the land—oracle of Jehovah—that two-thirds -shall be cut off in it, and perish, but a third shall be left in -it. And I shall bring the third into the fire, and smelt it -as </i>men<i> smelt silver and try it as </i>men<i> try gold. It shall -call upon My Name, and I will answer it. And I will<a name="FNanchor_1408_1408" id="FNanchor_1408_1408"></a><a href="#Footnote_1408_1408" class="fnanchor">[1408]</a> -say, It is My people, and it will say, Jehovah my God!</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec8">8. J<span class="small">UDAH</span> <i>versus</i> - J<span class="small">ERUSALEM</span> (xii. 1–7).</h4> - -<p>A title, though probably of later date than the text,<a name="FNanchor_1409_1409" id="FNanchor_1409_1409"></a><a href="#Footnote_1409_1409" class="fnanchor">[1409]</a> -introduces with the beginning of chap. xii. an oracle -plainly from circumstances different from those of the -preceding chapters. The nations, not particularised as -they have been, gather to the siege of Jerusalem, and, -very singularly, Judah is gathered with them against -her own capital. But God makes the city like one of -those great boulders, deeply embedded, which husbandmen -try to pull up from their fields, but it tears and -wounds the hands of those who would remove it. -Moreover God strikes with panic all the besiegers, save -only Judah, who, her eyes being opened, perceives -that God is with Jerusalem and turns to her help. -Jerusalem remains in her place; but the glory of the -victory is first Judah’s, so that the house of David may -not have too much fame nor boast over the country -districts. The writer doubtless alludes to some temporary -schism between the capital and country caused -by the arrogance of the former. But we have no -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> -means of knowing when this took place. It must often -have been imminent in the days both before and -especially after the Exile, when Jerusalem had absorbed -all the religious privilege and influence of the nation. -The language is undoubtedly late.<a name="FNanchor_1410_1410" id="FNanchor_1410_1410"></a><a href="#Footnote_1410_1410" class="fnanchor">[1410]</a></p> - -<p>The figure of Jerusalem as a boulder, deeply bedded -in the soil, which tears the hands that seek to remove -it, is a most true and expressive summary of the history -of heathen assaults upon her. Till she herself was -rent by internal dissensions, and the Romans at last -succeeded in tearing her loose, she remained planted -on her own site.<a name="FNanchor_1411_1411" id="FNanchor_1411_1411"></a><a href="#Footnote_1411_1411" class="fnanchor">[1411]</a> This was very true of all the Greek -period. Seleucids and Ptolemies alike wounded themselves -upon her. But at what period did either of -them induce Judah to take part against her? Not in -the Maccabean.</p> - -<h5><i>Oracle of the Word of Jehovah upon Israel.</i></h5> - -<p><i>Oracle of Jehovah, who stretched out the heavens and -founded the earth, and formed the spirit of man within -him: Lo, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of reeling -for all the surrounding peoples, and even Judah<a name="FNanchor_1412_1412" id="FNanchor_1412_1412"></a><a href="#Footnote_1412_1412" class="fnanchor">[1412]</a> shall -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> -be at the siege of Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass -in that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone to be -lifted<a name="FNanchor_1413_1413" id="FNanchor_1413_1413"></a><a href="#Footnote_1413_1413" class="fnanchor">[1413]</a> by all the peoples—all who lift it do indeed wound<a name="FNanchor_1414_1414" id="FNanchor_1414_1414"></a><a href="#Footnote_1414_1414" class="fnanchor">[1414]</a> -themselves—and there are gathered against it all nations -of the earth. In that day—oracle of Jehovah—I will -smite every horse with panic, and their riders with madness; -but as for the house of Judah, I will open its<a name="FNanchor_1415_1415" id="FNanchor_1415_1415"></a><a href="#Footnote_1415_1415" class="fnanchor">[1415]</a> -eyes, though every horse of the peoples I smite with -blindness. Then shall the chiefs<a name="FNanchor_1416_1416" id="FNanchor_1416_1416"></a><a href="#Footnote_1416_1416" class="fnanchor">[1416]</a> of Judah say in their -hearts, ...<a name="FNanchor_1417_1417" id="FNanchor_1417_1417"></a><a href="#Footnote_1417_1417" class="fnanchor">[1417]</a> the inhabitants of Jerusalem through Jehovah -of Hosts their God. In that day will I make the districts -of Judah like a pan of fire among timber and like a torch -among sheaves, so that they devour right and left all the -peoples round about, but Jerusalem shall still abide on its -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> -own site.<a name="FNanchor_1418_1418" id="FNanchor_1418_1418"></a><a href="#Footnote_1418_1418" class="fnanchor">[1418]</a> And Jehovah shall first give victory to the -tents<a name="FNanchor_1419_1419" id="FNanchor_1419_1419"></a><a href="#Footnote_1419_1419" class="fnanchor">[1419]</a> of Judah, so that the fame of the house of David -and the fame of the inhabitants of Jerusalem be not too -great in contrast to Judah.</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec9">9. F<span class="small">OUR</span> - R<span class="small">ESULTS OF</span> - J<span class="small">ERUSALEM’S</span> - D<span class="small">ELIVERANCE</span><br /> - (xii. 8—xiii. 6)</h4> - -<p>Upon the deliverance of Jerusalem, by the help of -the converted Judah, there follow four results, each -introduced by the words that it happened <i>in that day</i> -(xii. 8, 9, xiii. 1, 2). First, the people of Jerusalem -shall themselves be strengthened. Second, the hostile -heathen shall be destroyed, but on the house of David -and all Jerusalem the spirit of penitence shall be poured, -and they will lament for the good shepherd whom -they slew. Third, a fountain for sin and uncleanness -shall be opened. Fourth, the idols, the unclean spirit, -and prophecy, now so degraded, shall all be abolished. -The connection of these oracles with the preceding -is obvious, as well as with the oracle describing the -murder of the good shepherd (xiii. 7–9). When we -see how this is presupposed by xii. 9 ff., we feel more -than ever that its right place is between chaps. xi. and -xii. There are no historical allusions. But again the -language gives evidence of a late date.<a name="FNanchor_1420_1420" id="FNanchor_1420_1420"></a><a href="#Footnote_1420_1420" class="fnanchor">[1420]</a> And throughout -the passage there is a repetition of formal phrases -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> -which recalls the Priestly Code and the general style of -the post-exilic age.<a name="FNanchor_1421_1421" id="FNanchor_1421_1421"></a><a href="#Footnote_1421_1421" class="fnanchor">[1421]</a> Notice that no king is mentioned, -although there are several points at which, had he -existed, he must have been introduced.</p> - -<p>1. The first of the four effects of Jerusalem’s deliverance -from the heathen is the promotion of her weaklings -to the strength of her heroes, and of her heroes to -divine rank (xii. 8). <i>In that day Jehovah will protect -the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the lame among -them shall in that day be like David</i> himself <i>, and the -house of David like God, like the Angel of Jehovah -before them</i>.</p> - -<p>2. The second paragraph of this series very remarkably -emphasises that upon her deliverance Jerusalem -shall not give way to rejoicing, but to penitent lamentation -for the murder of him whom she has pierced—the -good shepherd whom her people have rejected and -slain. This is one of the few ethical strains which run -through these apocalyptic chapters. It forms their -highest interest for us. Jerusalem’s mourning is compared -to that for <i>Hadad-Rimmon in the valley</i> or <i>plain -of Megiddo</i>. This is the classic battle-field of the land, -and the theatre upon which Apocalypse has placed the -last contest between the hosts of God and the hosts -of evil.<a name="FNanchor_1422_1422" id="FNanchor_1422_1422"></a><a href="#Footnote_1422_1422" class="fnanchor">[1422]</a> In Israel’s history it had been the ground -not only of triumph but of tears. The greatest tragedy -of that history, the defeat and death of the righteous -Josiah, took place there;<a name="FNanchor_1423_1423" id="FNanchor_1423_1423"></a><a href="#Footnote_1423_1423" class="fnanchor">[1423]</a> and since the earliest Jewish -interpreters the <i>mourning of Hadad-Rimmon in the -valley of Megiddo</i> has been referred to the mourning -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> -for Josiah.<a name="FNanchor_1424_1424" id="FNanchor_1424_1424"></a><a href="#Footnote_1424_1424" class="fnanchor">[1424]</a> Jerome identifies Hadad-Rimmon with -Rummâni,<a name="FNanchor_1425_1425" id="FNanchor_1425_1425"></a><a href="#Footnote_1425_1425" class="fnanchor">[1425]</a> a village on the plain still extant, close to -Megiddo. But the lamentation for Josiah was at -Jerusalem; and it cannot be proved that Hadad-Rimmon -is a place-name. It may rather be the name of the -object of the mourning, and as Hadad was a divine -name among Phœnicians and Arameans, and Rimmôn -the pomegranate was a sacred tree, a number of critics -have supposed this to be a title of Adonis, and the -mourning like that excessive grief which Ezekiel tells -us was yearly celebrated for Tammuz.<a name="FNanchor_1426_1426" id="FNanchor_1426_1426"></a><a href="#Footnote_1426_1426" class="fnanchor">[1426]</a> This, however, -is not fully proved.<a name="FNanchor_1427_1427" id="FNanchor_1427_1427"></a><a href="#Footnote_1427_1427" class="fnanchor">[1427]</a> Observe, further, that while -the reading Hadad-Rimmon is by no means past doubt, -the sanguine blossoms and fruit of the pomegranate, -“red-ripe at the heart,” would naturally lead to its -association with the slaughtered Adonis.</p> - -<p><i>And it shall come to pass in that day that I will -seek to destroy all the nations who have come in upon -Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David -and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of -grace and of supplication, and they shall look to him<a name="FNanchor_1428_1428" id="FNanchor_1428_1428"></a><a href="#Footnote_1428_1428" class="fnanchor">[1428]</a> -whom they have pierced; and they shall lament for him, -as with lamentation for an only son, and bitterly grieve -for him, as with grief for a first-born. In that day -lamentation shall be as great in Jerusalem as the lamentation -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> -for Hadad-Rimmon<a name="FNanchor_1429_1429" id="FNanchor_1429_1429"></a><a href="#Footnote_1429_1429" class="fnanchor">[1429]</a> in the valley of Megiddo. -And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the -family of the house of David by itself, and their wives -by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by -itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the -house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; -the family of Shime’i<a name="FNanchor_1430_1430" id="FNanchor_1430_1430"></a><a href="#Footnote_1430_1430" class="fnanchor">[1430]</a> by itself, and their wives by themselves; -all the families who are left, every family by -itself, and their wives by themselves.</i></p> - -<p>3. The third result of Jerusalem’s deliverance from -the heathen shall be the opening of a fountain of -cleansing. This purging of her sin follows fitly upon -her penitence just described. <i>In that day a fountain -shall be opened for the house of David, and for the -inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.</i><a name="FNanchor_1431_1431" id="FNanchor_1431_1431"></a><a href="#Footnote_1431_1431" class="fnanchor">[1431]</a></p> - -<p>4. The fourth consequence is the removal of idolatry, -of the unclean spirit and of the degraded prophets from -her midst. The last is especially remarkable: for -it is not merely false prophets, as distinguished from -true, who shall be removed; but prophecy in general. -It is singular that in almost its latest passage the prophecy -of Israel should return to the line of its earliest -representative, Amos, who refused to call himself -prophet. As in his day, the prophets had become -mere professional and mercenary oracle-mongers, -abjured to the point of death by their own ashamed -and wearied relatives.</p> - -<p><i>And it shall be in that day—oracle of Jehovah of -Hosts—I will cut off the names of the idols from the -land, and they shall not be remembered any more. And -also the prophets and the unclean spirit will I expel -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> -from the land. And it shall come to pass, if any man -prophesy again, then shall his father and mother who -begat him say to him, Thou shall not live, for thou -speakest falsehood in the name of Jehovah; and his -father and mother who begat him shall stab him for his -prophesying. And it shall be in that day that the -prophets shall be ashamed of their visions when they -prophesy, and shall not wear the leather cloak in order -to lie. And he will say, No prophet am I! A tiller -of the ground I am, for the ground is my possession<a name="FNanchor_1432_1432" id="FNanchor_1432_1432"></a><a href="#Footnote_1432_1432" class="fnanchor">[1432]</a> -from my youth up. And they shall say to him, What -are these wounds in<a name="FNanchor_1433_1433" id="FNanchor_1433_1433"></a><a href="#Footnote_1433_1433" class="fnanchor">[1433]</a> thy hands? and he shall say, -What I was wounded with in the house of my lovers!</i></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIIIsec10">10. J<span class="small">UDGMENT OF THE</span> - H<span class="small">EATHEN AND</span> - S<span class="small">ANCTIFICATION OF</span><br /> - J<span class="small">ERUSALEM</span> (xiv.).</h4> - -<p>In another apocalyptic vision the prophet beholds -Jerusalem again beset by the heathen. But Jehovah -Himself intervenes, appearing in person, and an -earthquake breaks out at His feet. The heathen are -smitten, as they stand, into mouldering corpses. The -remnant of them shall be converted to Jehovah and -take part in the annual Feast of Booths. If any refuse -they shall be punished with drought. But Jerusalem -shall abide in security and holiness: every detail of her -equipment shall be consecrate. The passage has many -resemblances to the preceding oracles.<a name="FNanchor_1434_1434" id="FNanchor_1434_1434"></a><a href="#Footnote_1434_1434" class="fnanchor">[1434]</a> The language -is undoubtedly late, and the figures are borrowed from -other prophets, chiefly Ezekiel. It is a characteristic -specimen of the Jewish Apocalypse. The destruction -of the heathen is described in verses of terrible grimness: -there is no tenderness nor hope exhibited for -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> -them. And even in the picture of Jerusalem’s holiness -we have no really ethical elements, but the details -are purely ceremonial.</p> - -<p><i>Lo! a day is coming for Jehovah,<a name="FNanchor_1435_1435" id="FNanchor_1435_1435"></a><a href="#Footnote_1435_1435" class="fnanchor">[1435]</a> when thy spoil will -be divided in thy midst. And I will gather all the nations -to besiege Jerusalem, and the city will be taken and the -houses plundered and the women ravished, and the half -of the city shall go into captivity, but the rest of the people -shall not be cut off from the city. And Jehovah shall -go forth and do battle with those nations, as in the day -when He fought in the day of contest. And His feet shall -stand in that day on the Mount of Olives which is over -against Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives -shall be split into halves from east to west by a very great -ravine, and half of the Mount will slide northwards and -half southwards. ...,<a name="FNanchor_1436_1436" id="FNanchor_1436_1436"></a><a href="#Footnote_1436_1436" class="fnanchor">[1436]</a> for the ravine of mountains<a name="FNanchor_1437_1437" id="FNanchor_1437_1437"></a><a href="#Footnote_1437_1437" class="fnanchor">[1437]</a> shall -extend to ‘Aṣal,<a name="FNanchor_1438_1438" id="FNanchor_1438_1438"></a><a href="#Footnote_1438_1438" class="fnanchor">[1438]</a> and ye shall flee as ye fled from before -the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah,<a name="FNanchor_1439_1439" id="FNanchor_1439_1439"></a><a href="#Footnote_1439_1439" class="fnanchor">[1439]</a> -and Jehovah my God will come and<a name="FNanchor_1440_1440" id="FNanchor_1440_1440"></a><a href="#Footnote_1440_1440" class="fnanchor">[1440]</a> all the holy ones -with Him.<a name="FNanchor_1441_1441" id="FNanchor_1441_1441"></a><a href="#Footnote_1441_1441" class="fnanchor">[1441]</a> And in that day there shall not be light, ... -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> -congeal.<a name="FNanchor_1442_1442" id="FNanchor_1442_1442"></a><a href="#Footnote_1442_1442" class="fnanchor">[1442]</a> And it shall be one<a name="FNanchor_1443_1443" id="FNanchor_1443_1443"></a><a href="#Footnote_1443_1443" class="fnanchor">[1443]</a> day—it is known to -Jehovah<a name="FNanchor_1444_1444" id="FNanchor_1444_1444"></a><a href="#Footnote_1444_1444" class="fnanchor">[1444]</a>—neither day nor night; and it shall come to -pass that at evening time there shall be light.</i></p> - -<p><i>And it shall be in that day that living waters shall flow -forth from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and -half of them to the western sea:</i> both <i>in summer and -in winter shall it be. And Jehovah shall be King over -all the earth: in that day Jehovah will be One and His -Name One. All the land shall be changed to plain,<a name="FNanchor_1445_1445" id="FNanchor_1445_1445"></a><a href="#Footnote_1445_1445" class="fnanchor">[1445]</a> from -Geba to Rimmon,<a name="FNanchor_1446_1446" id="FNanchor_1446_1446"></a><a href="#Footnote_1446_1446" class="fnanchor">[1446]</a> south of Jerusalem; but she shall be -high and abide in her place<a name="FNanchor_1447_1447" id="FNanchor_1447_1447"></a><a href="#Footnote_1447_1447" class="fnanchor">[1447]</a> from the Gate of Benjamin -up to the place of the First Gate, up to the Corner Gate, -and from the Tower of Hanan’el as far as the King’s -Winepresses. And they shall dwell in it, and there -shall be no more Ban,<a name="FNanchor_1448_1448" id="FNanchor_1448_1448"></a><a href="#Footnote_1448_1448" class="fnanchor">[1448]</a> and Jerusalem shall abide in -security. And this shall be the stroke with which Jehovah -will smite all the peoples who have warred against -Jerusalem: He will make their flesh moulder while they -still stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall moulder -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> -in their sockets, and their tongue shall moulder in their -mouth.</i></p> - -<p>[<i>And it shall come to pass in that day, there shall be -a great confusion from Jehovah among them, and they -shall grasp every man the hand of his neighbour, and his -hand shall be lifted against the hand of his neighbour.<a name="FNanchor_1449_1449" id="FNanchor_1449_1449"></a><a href="#Footnote_1449_1449" class="fnanchor">[1449]</a> -And even Judah shall fight against Jerusalem, and the -wealth of all the nations round about shall be swept up, -gold and silver and garments, in a very great mass.</i> -These two verses, 13 and 14, obviously disturb the -connection, which ver. 15 as obviously resumes with -ver. 12. They are, therefore, generally regarded as an -intrusion.<a name="FNanchor_1450_1450" id="FNanchor_1450_1450"></a><a href="#Footnote_1450_1450" class="fnanchor">[1450]</a> But why they have been inserted is not -clear. ver. 14 is a curious echo of the strife between -Judah and Jerusalem described in chap. xii. They -may be not a mere intrusion, but simply out of their -proper place: yet, if so, where this proper place lies in -these oracles is impossible to determine.]</p> - -<p><i>And even so shall be the plague upon the horses, mules, -camels and asses, and all the beasts which are in those -camps—just like this plague. And it shall come to pass -that all that survive of all the nations who have come up -against Jerusalem, shall come up from year to year to do -obeisance to King Jehovah of Hosts, and to keep the Feast -of Booths. And it shall come to pass that whosoever of -all the races of the earth will not come up to Jerusalem -to do obeisance to King Jehovah of Hosts, upon them -there shall be no rain. And if the race of Egypt go not -up nor come in, upon them also shall<a name="FNanchor_1451_1451" id="FNanchor_1451_1451"></a><a href="#Footnote_1451_1451" class="fnanchor">[1451]</a> come the plague, -with which Jehovah shall strike the nations that go not -up to keep the Feast of Booths. Such shall be the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> -punishment<a name="FNanchor_1452_1452" id="FNanchor_1452_1452"></a><a href="#Footnote_1452_1452" class="fnanchor">[1452]</a> of Egypt, and the punishment<a name="FNanchor_1452_1452a" id="FNanchor_1452_1452a"></a><a href="#Footnote_1452_1452" class="fnanchor">[1452]</a> -of all nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Booths.</i></p> - -<p>The Feast of Booths was specially one of thanksgiving -for the harvest; that is why the neglect of it is -punished by the withholding of the rain which brings -the harvest. But such a punishment for such a neglect -shows how completely prophecy has become subject -to the Law. One is tempted to think what Amos -or Jeremiah or even “Malachi” would have thought of -this. Verily all the writers of the prophetical books -do not stand upon the same level of religion. The -writer remembers that the curse of no rain cannot -affect the Egyptians, the fertility of whose rainless land -is secured by the annual floods of her river. So he -has to insert a special verse for Egypt. She also will -be plagued by Jehovah, yet he does not tell us in what -fashion her plague will come.</p> - -<p>The book closes with a little oracle of the most -ceremonial description, connected not only in temper -but even by subject with what has gone before. The -very horses, which hitherto have been regarded as -too foreign,<a name="FNanchor_1453_1453" id="FNanchor_1453_1453"></a><a href="#Footnote_1453_1453" class="fnanchor">[1453]</a> or—as even in this group of oracles<a name="FNanchor_1454_1454" id="FNanchor_1454_1454"></a><a href="#Footnote_1454_1454" class="fnanchor">[1454]</a>—as -too warlike, to exist in Jerusalem, shall be consecrated -to Jehovah. And so vast shall be the multitudes -who throng from all the earth to the annual feasts and -sacrifices at the Temple, that the pots of the latter -shall be as large as the great altar-bowls,<a name="FNanchor_1455_1455" id="FNanchor_1455_1455"></a><a href="#Footnote_1455_1455" class="fnanchor">[1455]</a> and -every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be consecrated -for use in the ritual. This hallowing of the horses -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> -raises the question, whether the passage can be from -the same hand as wrote the prediction of the disappearance -of all horses from Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_1456_1456" id="FNanchor_1456_1456"></a><a href="#Footnote_1456_1456" class="fnanchor">[1456]</a></p> - -<p><i>In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, -Holiness unto Jehovah. And the</i> very <i>pots in the House -of Jehovah shall be as the bowls before the altar. Yea, -every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holy to -Jehovah of Hosts, and all who sacrifice shall come and -take of them and cook in them. And there shall be no -more any pedlar<a name="FNanchor_1457_1457" id="FNanchor_1457_1457"></a><a href="#Footnote_1457_1457" class="fnanchor">[1457]</a> in the House of Jehovah of Hosts in -that day.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="part"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> -<h2 id="Jonah" class="nobreak">JONAH</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="ptext"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> -<p>“And this is the tragedy of the Book of Jonah, that a Book which -is made the means of one of the most sublime revelations of truth -in the Old Testament should be known to most only for its connection -with a whale.”</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE BOOK OF JONAH</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -The book of Jonah is cast throughout in the form -of narrative—the only one of our Twelve which is -so. This fact, combined with the extraordinary events -which the narrative relates, starts questions not raised by -any of the rest. Besides treating, therefore, of the book’s -origin, unity, division and other commonplaces of introduction, -we must further seek in this chapter reasons -for the appearance of such a narrative among a collection -of prophetic discourses. We have to ask whether the -narrative be intended as one of fact; and if not, why -the author was directed to the choice of such a form to -enforce the truth committed to him.</p> - -<p>The appearance of a narrative among the Twelve -Prophets is not, in itself, so exceptional as it seems to -be. Parts of the Books of Amos and Hosea treat of the -personal experience of their authors. The same is true -of the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in which -the prophet’s call and his attitude to it are regarded as -elements of his message to men. No: the peculiarity -of the Book of Jonah is not the presence of narrative, -but the apparent absence of all prophetic discourse.<a name="FNanchor_1458_1458" id="FNanchor_1458_1458"></a><a href="#Footnote_1458_1458" class="fnanchor">[1458]</a></p> - -<p>Yet even this might be explained by reference to the -first part of the prophetic canon—Joshua to Second -Kings.<a name="FNanchor_1459_1459" id="FNanchor_1459_1459"></a><a href="#Footnote_1459_1459" class="fnanchor">[1459]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> -These Former Prophets, as they are called, are -wholly narrative—narrative in the prophetic spirit and -written to enforce a moral. Many of them begin as the -Book of Jonah does:<a name="FNanchor_1460_1460" id="FNanchor_1460_1460"></a><a href="#Footnote_1460_1460" class="fnanchor">[1460]</a> they contain stories, for instance, -of Elijah and Elisha, who flourished immediately before -Jonah and like him were sent with commissions to -foreign lands. It might therefore be argued that the -Book of Jonah, though narrative, is as much a prophetic -book as they are, and that the only reason why it has -found a place, not with these histories, but among the -Later Prophets, is the exceedingly late date of its -composition.<a name="FNanchor_1461_1461" id="FNanchor_1461_1461"></a><a href="#Footnote_1461_1461" class="fnanchor">[1461]</a></p> - -<p>This is a plausible, but not the real, answer to our -question. Suppose we were to find the latter by -discovering that the Book of Jonah, though in narrative -form, is not real history at all, nor pretends to be; -but, from beginning to end, is as much a prophetic -sermon as any of the other Twelve Books, yet cast -in the form of parable or allegory? This would -certainly explain the adoption of the book among the -Twelve; nor would its allegorical character appear -without precedent to those (and they are among the -most conservative of critics) who maintain (as the -present writer does not) the allegorical character of -the story of Hosea’s wife.<a name="FNanchor_1462_1462" id="FNanchor_1462_1462"></a><a href="#Footnote_1462_1462" class="fnanchor">[1462]</a></p> - -<p>It is, however, when we pass from the form to the -substance of the book that we perceive the full justification -of its reception among the prophets. The truth -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> -which we find in the Book of Jonah is as full and -fresh a revelation of God’s will as prophecy anywhere -achieves. That God has <i>granted to the Gentiles also -repentance unto life</i><a name="FNanchor_1463_1463" id="FNanchor_1463_1463"></a><a href="#Footnote_1463_1463" class="fnanchor">[1463]</a> is nowhere else in the Old Testament -so vividly illustrated. It lifts the teaching of the -Book of Jonah to equal rank with the second part of -Isaiah, and nearest of all our Twelve to the New Testament. -The very form in which this truth is insinuated -into the prophet’s reluctant mind, by contrasting God’s -pity for the dim population of Niniveh with Jonah’s own -pity for his perished gourd, suggests the methods of our -Lord’s teaching, and invests the book with the morning -air of that high day which shines upon the most -evangelic of His parables.</p> - -<p>One other remark is necessary. In our effort to -appreciate this lofty gospel we labour under a disadvantage. -That is our sense of humour—our modern -sense of humour. Some of the figures in which -our author conveys his truth cannot but appear to -us grotesque. How many have missed the sublime -spirit of the book in amusement or offence at its -curious details! Even in circles in which the acceptance -of its literal interpretation has been demanded -as a condition of belief in its inspiration, the story has -too often served as a subject for humorous remarks. -This is almost inevitable if we take it as history. But -we shall find that one advantage of the theory, which -treats the book as parable, is that the features, which -appear so grotesque to many, are traced to the -popular poetry of the writer’s own time and shown -to be natural. When we prove this, we shall be able -to treat the scenery of the book as we do that of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> -some early Christian fresco, in which, however rude -it be or untrue to nature, we discover an earnestness -and a success in expressing the moral essence of a -situation that are not always present in works of art -more skilful or more correct.</p> - -<h4 id="XXXIVsec1">1.T<span class="small">HE</span> - D<span class="small">ATE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>Jonah ben-Amittai, from Gath-hepher<a name="FNanchor_1464_1464" id="FNanchor_1464_1464"></a><a href="#Footnote_1464_1464" class="fnanchor">[1464]</a> in Galilee, -came forward in the beginning of the reign of -Jeroboam II. to announce that the king would regain -the lost territories of Israel from the Pass of Hamath -to the Dead Sea.<a name="FNanchor_1465_1465" id="FNanchor_1465_1465"></a><a href="#Footnote_1465_1465" class="fnanchor">[1465]</a> He flourished, therefore, about -780, and had this book been by himself we should -have had to place it first of all the Twelve, and nearly -a generation before that of Amos. But the book -neither claims to be by Jonah, nor gives any proof of -coming from an eye-witness of the adventures which -it describes,<a name="FNanchor_1466_1466" id="FNanchor_1466_1466"></a><a href="#Footnote_1466_1466" class="fnanchor">[1466]</a> nor even from a contemporary of the -prophet. On the contrary, one verse implies that when -it was written Niniveh had ceased to be a great city.<a name="FNanchor_1467_1467" id="FNanchor_1467_1467"></a><a href="#Footnote_1467_1467" class="fnanchor">[1467]</a> -Now Niniveh fell, and was practically destroyed, in -606 <span class="small">B.C.</span><a name="FNanchor_1468_1468" id="FNanchor_1468_1468"></a><a href="#Footnote_1468_1468" class="fnanchor">[1468]</a> In all ancient history there was no collapse -of an imperial city more sudden or so complete.<a name="FNanchor_1469_1469" id="FNanchor_1469_1469"></a><a href="#Footnote_1469_1469" class="fnanchor">[1469]</a> We -must therefore date the Book of Jonah some time after -606, when Niniveh’s greatness had become what it -was to the Greek writers, a matter of tradition.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> -A late date is also proved by the language of -the book. This not only contains Aramaic elements -which have been cited to support the argument for a -northern origin in the time of Jonah himself,<a name="FNanchor_1470_1470" id="FNanchor_1470_1470"></a><a href="#Footnote_1470_1470" class="fnanchor">[1470]</a> but a -number of words and grammatical constructions which -we find in the Old Testament, some of them in the -later and some only in the very latest writings.<a name="FNanchor_1471_1471" id="FNanchor_1471_1471"></a><a href="#Footnote_1471_1471" class="fnanchor">[1471]</a> -Scarcely less decisive are a number of apparent quotations -and echoes of passages in the Old Testament, -mostly later than the date of the historical Jonah, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> -some of them even later than the Exile.<a name="FNanchor_1472_1472" id="FNanchor_1472_1472"></a><a href="#Footnote_1472_1472" class="fnanchor">[1472]</a> If it could -be proved that the Book of Jonah quotes from Joel, -that would indeed set it down to a very late date—probably -about 300 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, the period of the composition -of Ezra-Nehemiah, with the language of which its -own shows most affinity.<a name="FNanchor_1473_1473" id="FNanchor_1473_1473"></a><a href="#Footnote_1473_1473" class="fnanchor">[1473]</a> This would leave time for -its reception into the Canon of the Prophets, which -was closed by 200 <span class="small">B.C.</span><a name="FNanchor_1474_1474" id="FNanchor_1474_1474"></a><a href="#Footnote_1474_1474" class="fnanchor">[1474]</a> Had the book been later it -would undoubtedly have fallen, like Daniel, within the -Hagiographa.</p> - -<h4 id="XXXIVsec2">2. T<span class="small">HE</span> - C<span class="small">HARACTER OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>Nor does this book, written so many centuries after -Jonah had passed away, claim to be real history. On -the contrary, it offers to us all the marks of the parable -or allegory. We have, first of all, the residence of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> -Jonah for the conventional period of three days and -three nights in the belly of the great fish, a story not -only very extraordinary in itself and sufficient to provoke -the suspicion of allegory (we need not stop to -argue this), but apparently woven, as we shall see,<a name="FNanchor_1475_1475" id="FNanchor_1475_1475"></a><a href="#Footnote_1475_1475" class="fnanchor">[1475]</a> -from the materials of a myth well known to the Hebrews. -We have also the very general account of Niniveh’s -conversion, in which there is not even the attempt to -describe any precise event. The absence of precise -data is indeed conspicuous throughout the book. “The -author neglects a multitude of things, which he would -have been obliged to mention had history been his -principal aim. He says nothing of the sins of which -Niniveh was guilty,<a name="FNanchor_1476_1476" id="FNanchor_1476_1476"></a><a href="#Footnote_1476_1476" class="fnanchor">[1476]</a> nor of the journey of the prophet -to Niniveh, nor does he mention the place where he -was cast out upon the land, nor the name of the -Assyrian king. In any case, if the narrative were -intended to be historical, it would be incomplete by -the frequent fact, that circumstances which are necessary -for the connection of events are mentioned later -than they happened, and only where attention has to -be directed to them as having already happened.”<a name="FNanchor_1477_1477" id="FNanchor_1477_1477"></a><a href="#Footnote_1477_1477" class="fnanchor">[1477]</a> -We find, too, a number of trifling discrepancies, from -which some critics<a name="FNanchor_1478_1478" id="FNanchor_1478_1478"></a><a href="#Footnote_1478_1478" class="fnanchor">[1478]</a> have attempted to prove the presence -of more than one story in the composition of the -book, but which are simply due to the license a writer -allows himself when he is telling a tale and not writing -a history. Above all, there is the abrupt close to the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> -story at the very moment at which its moral is obvious.<a name="FNanchor_1479_1479" id="FNanchor_1479_1479"></a><a href="#Footnote_1479_1479" class="fnanchor">[1479]</a> -All these things are symptoms of the parable—so -obvious and so natural, that we really sin against the -intention of the author, and the purpose of the Spirit -which inspired him, when we wilfully interpret the -book as real history.<a name="FNanchor_1480_1480" id="FNanchor_1480_1480"></a><a href="#Footnote_1480_1480" class="fnanchor">[1480]</a></p> - -<h4 id="XXXIVsec3">3. T<span class="small">HE</span> - P<span class="small">URPOSE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>The general purpose of this parable is very clear. -It is not, as some have maintained,<a name="FNanchor_1481_1481" id="FNanchor_1481_1481"></a><a href="#Footnote_1481_1481" class="fnanchor">[1481]</a> to explain why -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> -the judgments of God and the predictions of His -prophets were not always fulfilled—though this also -becomes clear by the way. The purpose of the parable, -and it is patent from first to last, is to illustrate the -mission of prophecy to the Gentiles, God’s care for them, -and their susceptibility to His word. More correctly, -it is to enforce all this truth upon a prejudiced and -thrice-reluctant mind.<a name="FNanchor_1482_1482" id="FNanchor_1482_1482"></a><a href="#Footnote_1482_1482" class="fnanchor">[1482]</a></p> - -<p>Whose was this reluctant mind? In Israel after the -Exile there were many different feelings with regard -to the future and the great obstacle which heathendom -interposed between Israel and the future. There was -the feeling of outraged justice, with the intense conviction -that Jehovah’s kingdom could not be established -save by the overthrow of the cruel kingdoms of this -world. We have seen that conviction expressed in -the Book of Obadiah. But the nation, which read and -cherished the visions of the Great Seer of the Exile,<a name="FNanchor_1483_1483" id="FNanchor_1483_1483"></a><a href="#Footnote_1483_1483" class="fnanchor">[1483]</a> -could not help producing among her sons men with -hopes about the heathen of a very different kind—men -who felt that Israel’s mission to the world was not one -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> -of war, but of service in those high truths of God and -of His Grace which had been committed to herself. -Between the two parties it is certain there was much -polemic, and we find this still bitter in the time of our -Lord. And some critics think that while Esther, -Obadiah and other writings of the centuries after the -Return represent the one side of this polemic, which -demanded the overthrow of the heathen, the Book of -Jonah represents the other side, and in the vexed and -reluctant prophet pictures such Jews as were willing -to proclaim the destruction of the enemies of Israel, -and yet like Jonah were not without the lurking fear -that God would disappoint their predictions and in His -patience leave the heathen room for repentance.<a name="FNanchor_1484_1484" id="FNanchor_1484_1484"></a><a href="#Footnote_1484_1484" class="fnanchor">[1484]</a> Their -dogmatism could not resist the impression of how long -God had actually spared the oppressors of His people, -and the author of the Book of Jonah cunningly sought -these joints in their armour to insinuate the points of -his doctrine of God’s real will for nations beyond the -covenant. This is ingenious and plausible. But in -spite of the cleverness with which it has been argued -that the details of the story of Jonah are adapted to -the temper of the Jewish party who desired only -vengeance on the heathen, it is not at all necessary -to suppose that the book was the produce of mere -polemic. The book is too simple and too grand for -that. And therefore those appear more right who conceive -that the writer had in view, not a Jewish party, -but Israel as a whole in their national reluctance to -fulfil their Divine mission to the world.<a name="FNanchor_1485_1485" id="FNanchor_1485_1485"></a><a href="#Footnote_1485_1485" class="fnanchor">[1485]</a> Of them God -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> -had already said: <i>Who is blind but My servant, or deaf -as My messenger whom I have sent?... Who gave -Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? Did not -Jehovah, He against whom we have sinned?—for they -would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient to -His law.</i><a name="FNanchor_1486_1486" id="FNanchor_1486_1486"></a><a href="#Footnote_1486_1486" class="fnanchor">[1486]</a> Of such a people Jonah is the type. Like -them he flees from the duty God has laid upon him. -Like them he is, beyond his own land, cast for a set -period into a living death, and like them rescued again -only to exhibit once more upon his return an ill-will -to believe that God had any fate for the heathen -except destruction. According to this theory, then, -Jonah’s disappearance in the sea and the great fish, -and his subsequent ejection upon dry land, symbolise -the Exile of Israel and their restoration to Palestine.</p> - -<p>In proof of this view it has been pointed out that, while -the prophets frequently represent the heathen tyrants -of Israel as the sea or the sea-monster, one of them has -actually described the nation’s exile as its swallowing -by a monster, whom God forces at last to disgorge his -living prey<a name="FNanchor_1487_1487" id="FNanchor_1487_1487"></a><a href="#Footnote_1487_1487" class="fnanchor">[1487]</a>. The full illustration of this will be given -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> -in Chapter XXXVI. on “The Great Fish and What it -Means.” Here it is only necessary to mention that the -metaphor was borrowed, not, as has been alleged by -many, from some Greek, or other foreign, myth, which, -like that of Perseus and Andromeda, had its scene -in the neighbourhood of Joppa, but from a Semitic -mythology which was well known to the Hebrews, and -the materials of which were employed very frequently -by other prophets and poets of the Old Testament.<a name="FNanchor_1488_1488" id="FNanchor_1488_1488"></a><a href="#Footnote_1488_1488" class="fnanchor">[1488]</a></p> - -<p>Why, of all prophets, Jonah should have been selected -as the type of Israel, is a question hard but perhaps -not impossible to answer. In history Jonah appears -only as concerned with Israel’s reconquest of her lands -from the heathen. Did the author of the book say: -I will take such a man, one to whom tradition attributes -no outlook beyond Israel’s own territories, for -none could be so typical of Israel, narrow, selfish and -with no love for the world beyond herself? Or did -the author know some story about a journey of Jonah -to Niniveh, or at least some discourse by Jonah against -the great city? Elijah went to Sarepta, Elisha took -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> -God’s word to Damascus: may there not have been, -though we are ignorant of it, some connection between -Niniveh and the labours of Elisha’s successor? Thirty -years after Jonah appeared, Amos proclaimed the -judgment of Jehovah upon foreign nations, with the -destruction of their capitals; about the year 755 he -clearly enforced, as equal with Israel’s own, the moral -responsibility of the heathen to the God of righteousness. -May not Jonah, almost the contemporary of -Amos, have denounced Niniveh in the same way? -Would not some tradition of this serve as the nucleus -of history, round which our author built his allegory? -It is possible that Jonah proclaimed doom upon -Niniveh; yet those who are familiar with the prophesying -of Amos, Hosea, and, in his younger days, Isaiah, -will deem it hardly probable. For why do all these -prophets exhibit such reserve in even naming Assyria, -if Israel had already through Jonah entered into such -articulate relations with Niniveh? We must, therefore, -admit our ignorance of the reasons which led our author -to choose Jonah as a type of Israel. We can only -conjecture that it may have been because Jonah was -a prophet, whom history identified only with Israel’s -narrower interests. If, during subsequent centuries, -a tradition had risen of Jonah’s journey to Niniveh or -of his discourse against her, such a tradition has -probability against it.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>A more definite origin for the book than any yet -given has been suggested by Professor Budde.<a name="FNanchor_1489_1489" id="FNanchor_1489_1489"></a><a href="#Footnote_1489_1489" class="fnanchor">[1489]</a> The -Second Book of Chronicles refers to a <i>Midrash of the -Book of the Kings</i><a name="FNanchor_1490_1490" id="FNanchor_1490_1490"></a><a href="#Footnote_1490_1490" class="fnanchor">[1490]</a> for further particulars concerning -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> -King Joash. A <i>Midrash</i><a name="FNanchor_1491_1491" id="FNanchor_1491_1491"></a><a href="#Footnote_1491_1491" class="fnanchor">[1491]</a> was the expansion, for -doctrinal or homiletic purposes, of a passage of -Scripture, and very frequently took the form, so dear -to Orientals, of parable or invented story about the -subject of the text. We have examples of Midrashim -among the Apocrypha, in the Books of Tobit and -Susannah and in the Prayer of Manasseh, the same as -is probably referred to by the Chronicler.<a name="FNanchor_1492_1492" id="FNanchor_1492_1492"></a><a href="#Footnote_1492_1492" class="fnanchor">[1492]</a> That the -Chronicler himself used the <i>Midrash of the Book of the -Kings</i> as material for his own book is obvious from the -form of the latter and its adaptation of the historical -narratives of the Book of Kings.<a name="FNanchor_1493_1493" id="FNanchor_1493_1493"></a><a href="#Footnote_1493_1493" class="fnanchor">[1493]</a> The Book of Daniel -may also be reckoned among the Midrashim, and -Budde now proposes to add to their number the Book -of Jonah. It may be doubted whether this distinguished -critic is right in supposing that the book formed the -Midrash to 2 Kings xiv. 25 ff. (the author being -desirous to add to the expression there of Jehovah’s -pity upon Israel some expression of His pity upon the -heathen), or that it was extracted just as it stands, in -proof of which Budde points to its abrupt beginning -and end. We have seen another reason for the -latter;<a name="FNanchor_1494_1494" id="FNanchor_1494_1494"></a><a href="#Footnote_1494_1494" class="fnanchor">[1494]</a> and it is very improbable that the Midrashim, -so largely the basis of the Books of Chronicles, shared -that spirit of universalism which inspires the Book of -Jonah.<a name="FNanchor_1495_1495" id="FNanchor_1495_1495"></a><a href="#Footnote_1495_1495" class="fnanchor">[1495]</a> But we may well believe that it was in some -Midrash of the Book of Kings that the author of the -Book of Jonah found the basis of the latter part of -his immortal work, which too clearly reflects the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> -fortunes and conduct of all Israel to have been wholly -drawn from a Midrash upon the story of the individual -prophet Jonah.</p> - -<h4 id="XXXIVsec4">4. O<span class="small">UR</span> - L<span class="small">ORD’S</span> - U<span class="small">SE OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>We have seen, then, that the Book of Jonah is not -actual history, but the enforcement of a profound -religious truth nearer to the level of the New Testament -than anything else in the Old, and cast in the -form of Christ’s own parables. The full proof of this -can be made clear only by the detailed exposition of -the book. There is, however, one other question, -which is relevant to the argument. Christ Himself -has employed the story of Jonah. Does His use of it -involve His authority for the opinion that it is a story -of real facts?</p> - -<p>Two passages of the Gospels contain the words of -our Lord upon Jonah: Matt. xii. 39, 41, and Luke xi. -29, 30.<a name="FNanchor_1496_1496" id="FNanchor_1496_1496"></a><a href="#Footnote_1496_1496" class="fnanchor">[1496]</a> <i>A generation, wicked and adulterous, seeketh a -sign, and sign shall not be given it, save the sign of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> -prophet Jonah. … The men of Niniveh shall stand up -in the Judgment with this generation, and condemn it, for -they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a -greater than Jonah is here. This generation is an evil -generation: it seeketh a sign; and sign shall not be given -it, except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign -to the Ninivites, so also shall the Son of Man be to this -generation.</i></p> - -<p>These words, of course, are compatible with the -opinion that the Book of Jonah is a record of real fact. -The only question is, are they also compatible with the -opinion that the Book of Jonah is a parable? Many -say No; and they allege that those of us who hold -this opinion are denying, or at least ignoring, the -testimony of our Lord; or that we are taking away -the whole force of the parallel which He drew. This -is a question of interpretation, not of faith. We do -not believe that our Lord had any thought of confirming -or not confirming the historic character of the -story. His purpose was purely one of exhortation, -and we feel the grounds of that exhortation to be just -as strong, when we have proven the Book of Jonah -to be a parable. Christ is using an illustration: it -surely matters not whether that illustration be drawn -from the realms of fact or of poetry. Again and again -in their discourses to the people do men use illustrations -and enforcements drawn from traditions of the -past. Do we, even when the historical value of these -traditions is <i>very</i> ambiguous, give a single thought to -the question of their historical character? We never -think of it. It is enough for us that the tradition is -popularly accepted and familiar. And we cannot deny -to our Lord that which we claim for ourselves.<a name="FNanchor_1497_1497" id="FNanchor_1497_1497"></a><a href="#Footnote_1497_1497" class="fnanchor">[1497]</a> Even -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> -conservative writers admit this. In his recent Introduction -to Jonah Orelli says expressly: “It is not, -indeed, proved with conclusive necessity that, if the -resurrection of Jesus was a physical fact, Jonah’s abode -in the fish’s belly must also be just as historical.”<a name="FNanchor_1498_1498" id="FNanchor_1498_1498"></a><a href="#Footnote_1498_1498" class="fnanchor">[1498]</a></p> - -<p>Upon the general question of our Lord’s authority -in matters of criticism, His own words with regard to -personal questions may be appositely quoted: <i>Man, -who made Me a judge or divider over you? I am come -not to judge ... but to save.</i> Such matters our Lord -surely leaves to ourselves, and we have to decide them -by our reason, our common-sense and our loyalty to -truth—of all of which He Himself is the creator, and -of which we shall have to render to Him an account -at the last. Let us remember this, and we shall use -them with equal liberty and reverence. <i>Bringing every -thought into subjection to Christ</i> is surely just using our -knowledge, our reason, and every other intellectual -gift which He has given us, with the accuracy and -the courage of His own Spirit.</p> - -<h4 id="XXXIVsec5">5. T<span class="small">HE</span> - U<span class="small">NITY OF THE</span> - B<span class="small">OOK</span>.</h4> - -<p>The next question is that of the Unity of the Book. -Several attempts have been made to prove from discrepancies, -some real and some alleged, that the book -is a compilation of stories from several different hands. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> -But these essays are too artificial to have obtained any -adherence from critics; and the few real discrepancies -of narrative from which they start are due, as we have -seen, rather to the license of a writer of parable than -to any difference of authorship.<a name="FNanchor_1499_1499" id="FNanchor_1499_1499"></a><a href="#Footnote_1499_1499" class="fnanchor">[1499]</a></p> - -<p>In the question of the Unity of the Book, the Prayer -or Psalm in chap. ii. offers a problem of its own, consisting -as it does almost entirely of passages parallel -to others in the Psalter. Besides a number of religious -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> -phrases, which are too general for us to say that one -prayer has borrowed them from another,<a name="FNanchor_1500_1500" id="FNanchor_1500_1500"></a><a href="#Footnote_1500_1500" class="fnanchor">[1500]</a> there are -several unmistakeable repetitions of the Psalms.<a name="FNanchor_1501_1501" id="FNanchor_1501_1501"></a><a href="#Footnote_1501_1501" class="fnanchor">[1501]</a></p> - -<p>And yet the Psalm of Jonah has strong features, -which, so far as we know, are original to it. The horror -of the great deep has nowhere in the Old Testament -been described with such power or with such conciseness. -So far, then, the Psalm is not a mere string -of quotations, but a living unity. Did the author of -the book himself insert it where it stands? Against -this it has been urged that the Psalm is not the prayer -of a man inside a fish, but of one who on dry land -celebrates a deliverance from drowning, and that if the -author of the narrative himself had inserted it, he -would rather have done so after ver. 11, which records -the prophet’s escape from the fish.<a name="FNanchor_1502_1502" id="FNanchor_1502_1502"></a><a href="#Footnote_1502_1502" class="fnanchor">[1502]</a> And a usual theory -of the origin of the Psalm is that a later editor, having -found the Psalm ready-made and in a collection where -it was perhaps attributed to Jonah,<a name="FNanchor_1503_1503" id="FNanchor_1503_1503"></a><a href="#Footnote_1503_1503" class="fnanchor">[1503]</a> inserted it after -ver. 2, which records that Jonah did pray from the -belly of the fish, and inserted it there the more readily, -because it seemed right for a book which had found -its place among the Twelve Prophets to contribute, -as all the others did, some actual discourse of the -prophet whose name it bore.<a name="FNanchor_1504_1504" id="FNanchor_1504_1504"></a><a href="#Footnote_1504_1504" class="fnanchor">[1504]</a> This, however, is not -probable. Whether the original author found the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span>Psalm ready to his hand or made it, there is a great -deal to be said for the opinion of the earlier critics,<a name="FNanchor_1505_1505" id="FNanchor_1505_1505"></a><a href="#Footnote_1505_1505" class="fnanchor">[1505]</a> that -he himself inserted it, and just where it now stands. -For, from the standpoint of the writer, Jonah was -already saved, when he was taken up by the fish—saved -from the deep into which he had been cast by -the sailors, and the dangers of which the Psalm so -vividly describes. However impossible it be for us to -conceive of the compilation of a Psalm (even though -full of quotations) by a man in Jonah’s position,<a name="FNanchor_1506_1506" id="FNanchor_1506_1506"></a><a href="#Footnote_1506_1506" class="fnanchor">[1506]</a> it -was consistent with the standpoint of a writer who had -just affirmed that the fish was expressly <i>appointed by -Jehovah</i>, in order to save his penitent servant from the -sea. To argue that the Psalm is an intrusion is therefore -not only unnecessary, but it betrays failure to -appreciate the standpoint of the writer. Given the fish -and the Divine purpose of the fish, the Psalm is -intelligible and appears at its proper place. It were -more reasonable indeed to argue that the fish itself is -an insertion. Besides, as we shall see, the spirit of -the Psalm is national; in conformity with the truth -underlying the book, it is a Psalm of Israel as a whole.</p> - -<p>If this be correct, we have the Book of Jonah as it came from the hands -of its author. The text is in wonderfully good condition, due to the -ease of the narrative and its late date. The Greek version - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> -exhibits the usual proportion of clerical errors and mistranslations,<a name="FNanchor_1507_1507" id="FNanchor_1507_1507"></a><a href="#Footnote_1507_1507" class="fnanchor">[1507]</a> -omissions<a name="FNanchor_1508_1508" id="FNanchor_1508_1508"></a><a href="#Footnote_1508_1508" class="fnanchor">[1508]</a> and amplifications,<a name="FNanchor_1509_1509" id="FNanchor_1509_1509"></a><a href="#Footnote_1509_1509" class="fnanchor">[1509]</a> with some variant -readings<a name="FNanchor_1510_1510" id="FNanchor_1510_1510"></a><a href="#Footnote_1510_1510" class="fnanchor">[1510]</a> and other changes that will be noted in the verses -themselves.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE GREAT REFUSAL</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">ONAH</span> i</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -We have now laid clear the lines upon which the -Book of Jonah was composed. Its purpose is -to illustrate God’s grace to the heathen in face of His -people’s refusal to fulfil their mission to them. The -author was led to achieve this purpose by a parable, -through which the prophet Jonah moves as the symbol -of his recusant, exiled, redeemed and still hardened -people. It is the Drama of Israel’s career, as the -Servant of God, in the most pathetic moments of that -career. A nation is stumbling on the highest road -nation was ever called to tread.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Who is blind but My servant,</div> -<div class="verse">Or deaf as My messenger whom I have sent?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He that would read this Drama aright must remember -what lies behind the Great Refusal which forms its -tragedy. The cause of Israel’s recusancy was not only -wilfulness or cowardly sloth, but the horror of a whole -world given over to idolatry, the paralysing sense of -its irresistible force, of its cruel persecutions endured -for centuries, and of the long famine of Heaven’s -justice. These it was which had filled Israel’s eyes -too full of fever to see her duty. Only when we -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> -feel, as the writer himself felt, all this tragic background -to his story are we able to appreciate the exquisite -gleams which he flashes across it: the generous -magnanimity of the heathen sailors, the repentance of -the heathen city, and, lighting from above, God’s pity -upon the dumb heathen multitudes.</p> - -<p>The parable or drama divides itself into three parts: -The Prophet’s Flight and Turning (chap. i.); The Great -Fish and What it Means (chap. ii.); and The Repentance -of the City (chaps. iii. and iv.).</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The chief figure of the story is Jonah, son of -Amittai, from Gath-hepher in Galilee, a prophet identified -with that turn in Israel’s fortunes, by which she -began to defeat her Syrian oppressors, and win back -from them her own territories—a prophet, therefore, -of revenge, and from the most bitter of the heathen -wars. <i>And the word of Jehovah came to Jonah, the son -of Amittai, saying, Up, go to Niniveh, the Great City, -and cry out against her, for her evil is come up before -Me.</i> But <i>he arose to flee</i>. It was not the length of the -road, nor the danger of declaring Niniveh’s sin to -her face, which turned him, but the instinct that God -intended by him something else than Niniveh’s destruction; -and this instinct sprang from his knowledge -of God Himself. <i>Ah now, Jehovah, was not my word, -while I was yet upon mine own soil, at the time I made -ready to flee to Tarshish, this—that I knew that Thou -art a God gracious and tender and long-suffering, -plenteous in love and relenting of evil?</i><a name="FNanchor_1511_1511" id="FNanchor_1511_1511"></a><a href="#Footnote_1511_1511" class="fnanchor">[1511]</a> Jonah interpreted -the Word which came to him by the Character -which he knew to be behind the Word. This is a -significant hint upon the method of revelation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> -It would be rash to say that, in imputing even to -the historical Jonah the fear of God’s grace upon the -heathen, our author were guilty of an anachronism.<a name="FNanchor_1512_1512" id="FNanchor_1512_1512"></a><a href="#Footnote_1512_1512" class="fnanchor">[1512]</a> -We have to do, however, with a greater than Jonah—the -nation herself. Though perhaps Israel little -reflected upon it, the instinct can never have been far -away that some day the grace of Jehovah might reach -the heathen too. Such an instinct, of course, must -have been almost stifled by hatred born of heathen -oppression, as well as by the intellectual scorn which -Israel came to feel for heathen idolatries. But we -may believe that it haunted even those dark periods -in which revenge upon the Gentiles seemed most just, -and their destruction the only means of establishing -God’s kingdom in the world. We know that it moved -uneasily even beneath the rigour of Jewish legalism. -For its secret was that faith in the essential grace of -God, which Israel gained very early and never lost, -and which was the spring of every new conviction and -every reform in her wonderful development. With a -subtle appreciation of all this, our author imputes the -instinct to Jonah from the outset. Jonah’s fear, that -after all the heathen may be spared, reflects the restless -apprehension even of the most exclusive of his -people—an apprehension which by the time our book -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> -was written seemed to be still more justified by God’s -long delay of doom upon the tyrants whom He had -promised to overthrow.</p> - -<p>But to the natural man in Israel the possibility of -the heathen’s repentance was still so abhorrent, that -he turned his back upon it. <i>Jonah rose to flee to -Tarshish from the face of Jehovah.</i> In spite of recent -arguments to the contrary, the most probable location -of Tarshish is the generally accepted one, that it was -a Phœnician colony at the other end of the Mediterranean. -In any case it was far from the Holy Land; -and by going there the prophet would put the sea -between himself and his God. To the Hebrew -imagination there could not be a flight more remote. -Israel was essentially an inland people. They had -come up out of the desert, and they had practically -never yet touched the Mediterranean. They lived within -sight of it, but from ten to twenty miles of foreign -soil intervened between their mountains and its stormy -coast. The Jews had no traffic upon the sea, nor (but -for one sublime instance<a name="FNanchor_1513_1513" id="FNanchor_1513_1513"></a><a href="#Footnote_1513_1513" class="fnanchor">[1513]</a> to the contrary) had their -poets ever employed it except as a symbol of arrogance -and restless rebellion against the will of God.<a name="FNanchor_1514_1514" id="FNanchor_1514_1514"></a><a href="#Footnote_1514_1514" class="fnanchor">[1514]</a> It was -all this popular feeling of the distance and strangeness -of the sea which made our author choose it as the -scene of the prophet’s flight from the face of Israel’s -God. Jonah had to pass, too, through a foreign land -to get to the coast: upon the sea he would only be -among heathen. This was to be part of his conversion. -<i>He went down to Yapho, and found a ship going to -Tarshish, and paid the fare thereof, and embarked on her -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> -to get away with</i> her crew<a name="FNanchor_1515_1515" id="FNanchor_1515_1515"></a><a href="#Footnote_1515_1515" class="fnanchor">[1515]</a> <i>to Tarshish—away from the -face of Jehovah</i>.</p> - -<p>The scenes which follow are very vivid: the sudden -wind sweeping down from the very hills on which -Jonah believed he had left his God; the tempest; the -behaviour of the ship, so alive with effort that the -story attributes to her the feelings of a living thing—<i>she -thought she must be broken</i>; the despair of the -mariners, driven from the unity of their common task -to the hopeless diversity of their idolatry—<i>they cried -every man unto his own god</i>; the jettisoning of the -tackle of the ship to lighten her (as we should say, -they let the masts go by the board); the worn-out -prophet in the hull of the ship, sleeping like a stowaway; -the group gathered on the heaving deck to cast -the lot; the passenger’s confession, and the new fear -which fell upon the sailors from it; the reverence with -which these rude men ask the advice of him, in whose -guilt they feel not the offence to themselves, but the -sacredness to God; the awakening of the prophet’s -better self by their generous deference to him; how -he counsels to them his own sacrifice; their reluctance to -yield to this, and their return to the oars with increased -perseverance for his sake. But neither their generosity -nor their efforts avail. The prophet again offers himself, -and as their sacrifice he is thrown into the sea.</p> - -<p><i>And Jehovah cast a wind<a name="FNanchor_1516_1516" id="FNanchor_1516_1516"></a><a href="#Footnote_1516_1516" class="fnanchor">[1516]</a> on the sea, and there was -a great tempest,<a name="FNanchor_1517_1517" id="FNanchor_1517_1517"></a><a href="#Footnote_1517_1517" class="fnanchor">[1517]</a> and the ship threatened<a name="FNanchor_1518_1518" id="FNanchor_1518_1518"></a><a href="#Footnote_1518_1518" class="fnanchor">[1518]</a> to break up. -And the sailors were afraid, and cried every man unto -his own god; and they cast the tackle of the ship into the -sea, to lighten it from upon them. But Jonah had gone -down to the bottom of the ship and lay fast asleep. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> -And the captain of the ship<a name="FNanchor_1519_1519" id="FNanchor_1519_1519"></a><a href="#Footnote_1519_1519" class="fnanchor">[1519]</a> came to him, and said -to him, What art thou doing asleep? Up, call on thy -God; peradventure the God will be gracious to us, that we -perish not. And they said every man to his neighbour, -Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose -sake is this evil</i> come <i>upon us. So they cast lots, and the -lot fell on Jonah. And they said to him, Tell us now,<a name="FNanchor_1520_1520" id="FNanchor_1520_1520"></a><a href="#Footnote_1520_1520" class="fnanchor">[1520]</a> -what is thy business, and whence comest thou? what -is thy land, and from what people art thou? And he -said to them, A Hebrew am I, and a worshipper of -the God of Heaven,<a name="FNanchor_1521_1521" id="FNanchor_1521_1521"></a><a href="#Footnote_1521_1521" class="fnanchor">[1521]</a> who made the sea and the dry -land. And the men feared greatly, and said to him, -What is this thou hast done? (for they knew he was -fleeing from the face of Jehovah, because he had told -them). And they said to him, What are we to do to -thee that the sea cease</i> raging <i>against us? For the sea -was surging higher and higher. And he said, Take -me and throw me into the sea; so shall the sea cease</i> -raging <i>against you: for I am sure that it is on my -account that this great tempest is</i> risen <i>upon you. And -the men laboured<a name="FNanchor_1522_1522" id="FNanchor_1522_1522"></a><a href="#Footnote_1522_1522" class="fnanchor">[1522]</a> with the oars to bring the ship to -land, and they could not, for the sea grew more and -more stormy against them. So they called on Jehovah -and said, Jehovah, let us not perish, we pray Thee, for -the life of this man, neither bring innocent blood upon -us: for Thou art Jehovah, Thou doest as Thou pleasest. -Then they took up Jonah and cast him into the sea, -and the sea stilled from its raging. But the men were -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> -in great awe of Jehovah, and sacrificed to Him and -vowed vows.</i></p> - -<p>How very real it is and how very noble! We see -the storm, and then we forget the storm in the joy of -that generous contest between heathen and Hebrew. -But the glory of the passage is the change in Jonah -himself. It has been called his punishment and the -conversion of the heathen. Rather it is his own -conversion. He meets again not only God, but the -truth from which he fled. He not only meets that -truth, but he offers his life for it.</p> - -<p>The art is consummate. The writer will first reduce -the prophet and the heathen whom he abhors to the -elements of their common humanity. As men have -sometimes seen upon a mass of wreckage or on an ice-floe -a number of wild animals, by nature foes to each -other, reduced to peace through their common danger, -so we descry the prophet and his natural enemies -upon the strained and breaking ship. In the midst of -the storm they are equally helpless, and they cast for all -the lot which has no respect of persons. But from -this the story passes quickly, to show how Jonah feels -not only the human kinship of these heathen with -himself, but their susceptibility to the knowledge of -his God. They pray to Jehovah as the God of the -sea and the dry land; while we may be sure that -the prophet’s confession, and the story of his own -relation to that God, forms as powerful an exhortation -to repentance as any he could have preached -in Niniveh. At least it produces the effects which -he has dreaded. In these sailors he sees heathen -turned to the fear of the Lord. All that he has fled -to avoid happens there before his eyes and through -his own mediation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> -The climax is reached, however, neither when Jonah -feels his common humanity with the heathen nor -when he discovers their awe of his God, but when -in order to secure for them God’s sparing mercies -he offers his own life instead. <i>Take me up and cast -me into the sea; so shall the sea cease from</i> raging -<i>against you.</i> After their pity for him has wrestled -for a time with his honest entreaties, he becomes their -sacrifice.</p> - -<p class="thb"> </p> - -<p>In all this story perhaps the most instructive passages -are those which lay bare to us the method of God’s -revelation. When we were children this was shown -to us in pictures of angels bending from heaven to -guide Isaiah’s pen, or to cry Jonah’s commission to -him through a trumpet. And when we grew older, -although we learned to dispense with that machinery, -yet its infection remained, and our conception of the -whole process was mechanical still. We thought of -the prophets as of another order of things; we -released them from our own laws of life and thought, -and we paid the penalty by losing all interest in them. -But the prophets were human, and their inspiration -came through experience. The source of it, as this -story shows, was God. Partly from His guidance -of their nation, partly through close communion with -Himself, they received new convictions of His character. -Yet they did not receive these mechanically. They -spake neither at the bidding of angels, nor like heathen -prophets in trance or ecstasy, but as <i>they were moved -by the Holy Ghost</i>. And the Spirit worked upon them -first as the influence of God’s character,<a name="FNanchor_1523_1523" id="FNanchor_1523_1523"></a><a href="#Footnote_1523_1523" class="fnanchor">[1523]</a> and second -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> -through the experience of life. God and life—these -are all the postulates for revelation.</p> - -<p>At first Jonah fled from the truth, at last he laid -down his life for it. So God still forces us to the -acceptance of new light and the performance of strange -duties. Men turn from these, because of sloth or -prejudice, but in the end they have to face them, and -then at what a cost! In youth they shirk a self-denial -to which in some storm of later life they have to bend -with heavier, and often hopeless, hearts. For their -narrow prejudices and refusals, God punishes them by -bringing them into pain that stings, or into responsibility -for others that shames, these out of them. The -drama of life is thus intensified in interest and beauty; -characters emerge heroic and sublime.</p> - -<p class="center small display">“But, oh the labour, <br /> - O prince, the pain!”</p> - -<p>Sometimes the neglected duty is at last achieved -only at the cost of a man’s breath; and the truth, -which might have been the bride of his youth and his -comrade through a long life, is recognised by him only -in the features of Death.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE GREAT FISH AND WHAT IT MEANS—THE PSALM</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">ONAH</span> ii</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -At this point in the tale appears the Great Fish. -<i>And Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, -and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three -nights.</i></p> - -<p>After the very natural story which we have followed, -this verse obtrudes itself with a shock of unreality and -grotesqueness. What an anticlimax! say some; what -a clumsy intrusion! So it is if Jonah be taken as an -individual. But if we keep in mind that he stands here, -not for himself, but for his nation, the difficulty and the -grotesqueness disappear. It is Israel’s ill-will to the -heathen, Israel’s refusal of her mission, Israel’s embarkation -on the stormy sea of the world’s politics, -which we have had described as Jonah’s. Upon her -flight from God’s will there followed her Exile, and from -her Exile, which was for a set period, she came back -to her own land, a people still, and still God’s servant -to the heathen. How was the author to express this -national death and resurrection? In conformity with -the popular language of his time, he had described -Israel’s turning from God’s will by her embarkation on -a stormy sea, always the symbol of the prophets for -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> -the tossing heathen world that was ready to engulf -her; and now to express her exile and return he sought -metaphors in the same rich poetry of the popular -imagination.</p> - -<p>To the Israelite who watched from his hills that -stormy coast on which the waves hardly ever cease -to break in their impotent restlessness, the sea was a -symbol of arrogance and futile defiance to the will of -God. The popular mythology of the Semites had -filled it with turbulent monsters, snakes and dragons -who wallowed like its own waves, helpless against the -bounds set to them, or rose to wage war against the -gods in heaven and the great lights which they had -created; but a god slays them and casts their carcases -for meat and drink to the thirsty people of the desert.<a name="FNanchor_1524_1524" id="FNanchor_1524_1524"></a><a href="#Footnote_1524_1524" class="fnanchor">[1524]</a> -It is a symbol of the perpetual war between light and -darkness; the dragons are the clouds, the slayer the -sun. A variant form, which approaches closely to that -of Jonah’s great fish, is still found in Palestine. In -May 1891 I witnessed at Hasbeya, on the western -skirts of Hermon, an eclipse of the moon. When the -shadow began to creep across her disc, there rose -from the village a hideous din of drums, metal pots -and planks of wood beaten together; guns were fired, -and there was much shouting. I was told that this -was done to terrify the great fish which was swallowing -the moon, and to make him disgorge her.</p> - -<p>Now these purely natural myths were applied by -the prophets and poets of the Old Testament to the -illustration, not only of Jehovah’s sovereignty over the -storm and the night, but of His conquest of the heathen -powers who had enslaved His people.<a name="FNanchor_1525_1525" id="FNanchor_1525_1525"></a><a href="#Footnote_1525_1525" class="fnanchor">[1525]</a> Isaiah had -heard in the sea the confusion and rage of the peoples -against the bulwark which Jehovah set around Israel;<a name="FNanchor_1526_1526" id="FNanchor_1526_1526"></a><a href="#Footnote_1526_1526" class="fnanchor">[1526]</a> -but it is chiefly from the time of the Exile onward that -the myths themselves, with their cruel monsters and -the prey of these, are applied to the great heathen -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>powers -and their captive, Israel. One prophet explicitly -describes the Exile of Israel as the swallowing -of the nation by the monster, the Babylonian tyrant, -whom God forces at last to disgorge its prey. Israel -says:<a name="FNanchor_1527_1527" id="FNanchor_1527_1527"></a><a href="#Footnote_1527_1527" class="fnanchor">[1527]</a> <i>Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured -me<a name="FNanchor_1528_1528" id="FNanchor_1528_1528"></a><a href="#Footnote_1528_1528" class="fnanchor">[1528]</a> and crushed me,<a name="FNanchor_1528_1528a" id="FNanchor_1528_1528a"></a><a href="#Footnote_1528_1528" class="fnanchor">[1528]</a> ... he hath swallowed me -up like the Dragon, filling his belly, from my delights he -hath cast me out</i>. But Jehovah replies:<a name="FNanchor_1529_1529" id="FNanchor_1529_1529"></a><a href="#Footnote_1529_1529" class="fnanchor">[1529]</a> <i>I will punish -Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that -which he hath swallowed.... My people, go ye out of the -midst of her.</i></p> - -<p>It has been justly remarked by Canon Cheyne that -this passage may be considered as the intervening link -between the original form of the myth and the application -of it made in the story of Jonah.<a name="FNanchor_1530_1530" id="FNanchor_1530_1530"></a><a href="#Footnote_1530_1530" class="fnanchor">[1530]</a> To this the -objection might be offered that in the story of Jonah -the <i>great fish</i> is not actually represented as the means -of the prophet’s temporary destruction, like the monster -in Jeremiah li., but rather as the vessel of his -deliverance.<a name="FNanchor_1531_1531" id="FNanchor_1531_1531"></a><a href="#Footnote_1531_1531" class="fnanchor">[1531]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> -This is true, yet it only means that our author -has still further adapted the very plastic material -offered him by this much transformed myth. But we -do not depend for our proof upon the comparison of a -single passage. Let the student of the Book of Jonah -read carefully the many passages of the Old Testament, -in which the sea or its monsters rage in vain against -Jehovah, or are harnessed and led about by Him; or -still more those passages in which His conquest of -these monsters is made to figure His conquest of the -heathen powers,<a name="FNanchor_1532_1532" id="FNanchor_1532_1532"></a><a href="#Footnote_1532_1532" class="fnanchor">[1532]</a>—and the conclusion will appear irresistible -that the story of the <i>great fish</i> and of Jonah the -type of Israel is drawn from the same source. Such a -solution of the problem has one great advantage. It -relieves us of the grotesqueness which attaches to the -literal conception of the story, and of the necessity of -those painful efforts for accounting for a miracle which -have distorted the common-sense and even the orthodoxy -of so many commentators of the book.<a name="FNanchor_1533_1533" id="FNanchor_1533_1533"></a><a href="#Footnote_1533_1533" class="fnanchor">[1533]</a> We are -dealing, let us remember, with poetry—a poetry inspired -by one of the most sublime truths of the Old Testament, -but whose figures are drawn from the legends and myths -of the people to whom it is addressed. To treat this -as prose is not only to sin against the common-sense -which God has given us, but against the simple and -obvious intention of the author. It is blindness both -to reason and to Scripture.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> -These views are confirmed by an examination of the -Psalm or Prayer which is put into Jonah’s mouth while -he is yet in the fish. We have already seen what -grounds there are for believing that the Psalm belongs -to the author’s own plan, and from the beginning -appeared just where it does now.<a name="FNanchor_1534_1534" id="FNanchor_1534_1534"></a><a href="#Footnote_1534_1534" class="fnanchor">[1534]</a> But we may also -point out how, in consistence with its context, this -is a Psalm, not of an individual Israelite, but of the -nation as a whole. It is largely drawn from the -national liturgy.<a name="FNanchor_1535_1535" id="FNanchor_1535_1535"></a><a href="#Footnote_1535_1535" class="fnanchor">[1535]</a> It is full of cries which we know, -though they are expressed in the singular number, to -have been used of the whole people, or at least of that -pious portion of them, who were Israel indeed. True -that in the original portion of the Psalm, and by far its -most beautiful verses, we seem to have the description -of a drowning man swept to the bottom of the sea. -But even here, the colossal scenery and the magnificent -hyperbole of the language suit not the experience of -an individual, but the extremities of that vast gulf of -exile into which a whole nation was plunged. It is a -nation’s carcase which rolls upon those infernal tides -that swirl among the roots of mountains and behind -the barred gates of earth. Finally, vv. 9 and 10 are -obviously a contrast, not between the individual prophet -and the heathen, but between the true Israel, who in -exile preserve their loyalty to Jehovah, and those -Jews who, forsaking their <i>covenant-love</i>, lapse to -idolatry. We find many parallels to this in exilic -and post-exilic literature.</p> - -<p><i>And Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the belly -of the fish, and said:—</i></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I cried out of my anguish to Jehovah, and He</div> -<div class="verse indent2">answered me;</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> -<div class="verse">From the belly of Inferno I sought help—Thou</div> -<div class="verse indent2">heardest my voice.</div> -<div class="verse">For Thou hadst<a name="FNanchor_1536_1536" id="FNanchor_1536_1536"></a><a href="#Footnote_1536_1536" class="fnanchor">[1536]</a> -cast me into the depth, to the heart</div> -<div class="verse indent2">of the seas, and the flood rolled around me;</div> -<div class="verse">All Thy breakers and billows went over me.</div> -<div class="verse">Then I said, I am hurled from Thy sight:</div> -<div class="verse">How<a name="FNanchor_1537_1537" id="FNanchor_1537_1537"></a><a href="#Footnote_1537_1537" class="fnanchor">[1537]</a> -shall I ever again look towards Thy holy</div> -<div class="verse indent2">temple?</div> -<div class="verse">Waters enwrapped me to the soul; the Deep rolled</div> -<div class="verse indent2">around me;</div> -<div class="verse">The tangle was bound about my head.</div> -<div class="verse">I was gone down to the roots of the hills;</div> -<div class="verse">Earth <span class="norm">and</span> -her bars were behind me for ever.</div> -<div class="verse">But Thou broughtest my life up from destruction,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Jehovah my God!</div> -<div class="verse">When my soul fainted upon me, I remembered</div> -<div class="verse indent2">Jehovah,</div> -<div class="verse">And my prayer came in unto Thee, to Thy holy</div> -<div class="verse indent2">temple.</div> -<div class="verse">They that observe the idols of vanity,</div> -<div class="verse">They forsake their covenant-love.</div> -<div class="verse">But to the sound of praise I will sacrifice to Thee;</div> -<div class="verse">What I have vowed I will perform.</div> -<div class="verse">Salvation is Jehovah’s.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><i>And Jehovah spake to the fish, and it threw up -Jonah on the dry land.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">THE REPENTANCE OF THE CITY</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">ONAH</span> iii</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Having learned, through suffering, his moral -kinship with the heathen, and having offered his -life for some of them, Jonah receives a second command -to go to Niniveh. He obeys, but with his prejudice -as strong as though it had never been humbled, -nor met by Gentile nobleness. The first part of his -story appears to have no consequences in the second.<a name="FNanchor_1538_1538" id="FNanchor_1538_1538"></a><a href="#Footnote_1538_1538" class="fnanchor">[1538]</a> -But this is consistent with the writer’s purpose to treat -Jonah as if he were Israel. For, upon their return -from Exile, and in spite of all their new knowledge -of themselves and the world, Israel continued to -cherish their old grudge against the Gentiles.</p> - -<p><i>And the word of Jehovah came to Jonah the second -time, saying, Up, go to Niniveh, the great city, and call -unto her with the call which I shall tell thee. And -Jonah arose and went to Niniveh, as Jehovah said. -Now Niniveh was a city great before God, three days’ -journey</i> through and through.<a name="FNanchor_1539_1539" id="FNanchor_1539_1539"></a><a href="#Footnote_1539_1539" class="fnanchor">[1539]</a> <i>And Jonah began by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span> -going through the city one day’s journey, and he cried and -said, Forty<a name="FNanchor_1540_1540" id="FNanchor_1540_1540"></a><a href="#Footnote_1540_1540" class="fnanchor">[1540]</a> days more and Niniveh shall be overturned</i>.</p> - -<p>Opposite to Mosul, the well-known emporium of trade -on the right bank of the Upper Tigris, two high -artificial mounds now lift themselves from the otherwise -level plain. The more northerly takes the name -of Kujundschik, or “little lamb,” after the Turkish -village which couches pleasantly upon its north-eastern -slope. The other is called in the popular -dialect Nebi Yunus, “Prophet Jonah,” after a mosque -dedicated to him, which used to be a Christian -church; but the official name is Niniveh. These two -mounds are bound to each other on the west by a -broad brick wall, which extends beyond them both, -and is connected north and south by other walls, -with a circumference in all of about nine English miles. -The interval, including the mounds, was covered with -buildings, whose ruins still enable us to form some -idea of what was for centuries the wonder of the -world. Upon terraces and substructions of enormous -breadth rose storied palaces, arsenals, barracks, -libraries and temples. A lavish water system spread -in all directions from canals with massive embankments -and sluices. Gardens were lifted into mid-air, filled -with rich plants and rare and beautiful animals. -Alabaster, silver, gold and precious stones relieved the -dull masses of brick and flashed sunlight from every -frieze and battlement. The surrounding walls were so -broad that chariots could roll abreast on them. The -gates, and especially the river gates, were very massive.<a name="FNanchor_1541_1541" id="FNanchor_1541_1541"></a><a href="#Footnote_1541_1541" class="fnanchor">[1541]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> -All this was Niniveh proper, whose glory the -Hebrews envied and over whose fall more than one -of their prophets exult. But this was not the Niniveh -to which our author saw Jonah come. Beyond the -walls were great suburbs,<a name="FNanchor_1542_1542" id="FNanchor_1542_1542"></a><a href="#Footnote_1542_1542" class="fnanchor">[1542]</a> and beyond the suburbs -other towns, league upon league of dwellings, so -closely set upon the plain as to form one vast complex -of population, which is known to Scripture as <i>The -Great City</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1543_1543" id="FNanchor_1543_1543"></a><a href="#Footnote_1543_1543" class="fnanchor">[1543]</a> To judge from the ruins which still cover -the ground,<a name="FNanchor_1544_1544" id="FNanchor_1544_1544"></a><a href="#Footnote_1544_1544" class="fnanchor">[1544]</a> the circumference must have been about -sixty miles, or three days’ journey. It is these nameless -leagues of common dwellings which roll before us in -the story. None of those glories of Niniveh are -mentioned, of which other prophets speak, but the -only proofs offered to us of the city’s greatness are its -extent and its population.<a name="FNanchor_1545_1545" id="FNanchor_1545_1545"></a><a href="#Footnote_1545_1545" class="fnanchor">[1545]</a> Jonah is sent to three -days, not of mighty buildings, but of homes and -families, to the Niniveh, not of kings and their glories, -but of men, women and children, <i>besides much cattle</i>. -The palaces and temples he may pass in an hour or -two, but from sunrise to sunset he treads the dim -drab mazes where the people dwell.</p> - -<p>When we open our hearts for heroic witness to -the truth there rush upon them glowing memories -of Moses before Pharaoh, of Elijah before Ahab, of -Stephen before the Sanhedrim, of Paul upon Areopagus, -of Galileo before the Inquisition, of Luther at the -Diet. But it takes a greater heroism to face the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> -people than a king, to convert a nation than to -persuade a senate. Princes and assemblies of the -wise stimulate the imagination; they drive to bay all -the nobler passions of a solitary man. But there is -nothing to help the heart, and therefore its courage -is all the greater, which bears witness before those -endless masses, in monotone of life and colour, that -now paralyse the imagination like long stretches of -sand when the sea is out, and again terrify it like -the resistless rush of the flood beneath a hopeless -evening sky.</p> - -<p>It is, then, with an art most fitted to his high -purpose that our author—unlike all other prophets, -whose aim was different—presents to us, not the -description of a great military power: king, nobles -and armed battalions: but the vision of those monotonous -millions. He strips his country’s foes of -everything foreign, everything provocative of envy -and hatred, and unfolds them to Israel only in their -teeming humanity.<a name="FNanchor_1546_1546" id="FNanchor_1546_1546"></a><a href="#Footnote_1546_1546" class="fnanchor">[1546]</a></p> - -<p>His next step is still more grand. For this teeming -humanity he claims the universal human possibility -of repentance—that and nothing more.</p> - -<p>Under every form and character of human life, -beneath all needs and all habits, deeper than despair -and more native to man than sin itself, lies the power -of the heart to turn. It was this and not hope that -remained at the bottom of Pandora’s Box when every -other gift had fled. For this is the indispensable -secret of hope. It lies in every heart, needing indeed -some dream of Divine mercy, however far and vague, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> -to rouse it; but when roused, neither ignorance of God, -nor pride, nor long obduracy of evil may withstand it. -It takes command of the whole nature of a man, and -speeds from heart to heart with a violence, that like -pain and death spares neither age nor rank nor degree -of culture. This primal human right is all our author -claims for the men of Niniveh. He has been blamed -for telling us an impossible thing, that a whole city -should be converted at the call of a single stranger; -and others have started up in his defence and quoted -cases in which large Oriental populations have actually -been stirred by the preaching of an alien in race and -religion; and then it has been replied, “Granted the -possibility, granted the fact in other cases, yet where -in history have we any trace of this alleged conversion -of all Niniveh?” and some scoff, “How could a Hebrew -have made himself articulate in one day to those -Assyrian multitudes?”</p> - -<p>How long, O Lord, must Thy poetry suffer from -those who can only treat it as prose? On whatever -side they stand, sceptical or orthodox, they are equally -pedants, quenchers of the spiritual, creators of unbelief.</p> - -<p>Our author, let us once for all understand, makes no -attempt to record an historical conversion of this vast -heathen city. For its men he claims only the primary -human possibility of repentance; expressing himself -not in this general abstract way, but as Orientals, to -whom an illustration is ever a proof, love to have it -done—by story or parable. With magnificent reserve -he has not gone further; but only told into the -prejudiced faces of his people, that out there, beyond -the Covenant, in the great world lying in darkness, -there live, not beings created for ignorance and hostility -to God, elect for destruction, but men with consciences -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> -and hearts, able to turn at His Word and to hope in -His Mercy—that to the farthest ends of the world, and -even on the high places of unrighteousness, Word and -Mercy work just as they do within the Covenant.</p> - -<p>The fashion in which the repentance of Niniveh is -described is natural to the time of the writer. It is -a national repentance, of course, and though swelling -upwards from the people, it is confirmed and organised -by the authorities: for we are still in the Old Dispensation, -when the picture of a complete and thorough -repentance could hardly be otherwise conceived. And -the beasts are made to share its observance, as in the -Orient they always shared and still share in funeral -pomp and trappings.<a name="FNanchor_1547_1547" id="FNanchor_1547_1547"></a><a href="#Footnote_1547_1547" class="fnanchor">[1547]</a> It may have been, in addition, -a personal pleasure to our writer to record the part -of the animals in the movement. See how, later on, -he tells us that for their sake also God had pity upon -Niniveh.</p> - -<p><i>And the men of Niniveh believed upon God, and cried -a fast, and from the greatest of them to the least of them -they put on sackcloth. And word came to the king of -Niniveh, and he rose off his throne, and cast his mantle -from upon him, and dressed in sackcloth and sat in the -dust. And he sent criers to say in Niniveh:—</i></p> - -<p><i>By Order of the King and his Nobles, thus:—Man -and Beast, Oxen and Sheep, shall not taste anything, -neither eat nor drink water. But let them clothe themselves<a name="FNanchor_1548_1548" id="FNanchor_1548_1548"></a><a href="#Footnote_1548_1548" class="fnanchor">[1548]</a> -in sackcloth, both man and beast, and call upon -God with power, and turn every man from his evil way -and from every wrong which they have in hand. Who -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> -knoweth but that God may<a name="FNanchor_1549_1549" id="FNanchor_1549_1549"></a><a href="#Footnote_1549_1549" class="fnanchor">[1549]</a> relent and turn from the fierceness -of His wrath, that we perish not?</i><a name="FNanchor_1550_1550" id="FNanchor_1550_1550"></a><a href="#Footnote_1550_1550" class="fnanchor">[1550]</a></p> - -<p><i>And God saw their doings, how they turned from their -evil way; and God relented of the evil which He said He -would do to them, and did it not.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="captitle">ISRAEL’S JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH</p> - -<p class="csubtitle">J<span class="small">ONAH</span> iv</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Having illustrated the truth, that the Gentiles -are capable of repentance unto life, the Book -now describes the effect of their escape upon Jonah, and -closes by revealing God’s full heart upon the matter.</p> - -<p>Jonah is very angry that Niniveh has been spared. -Is this (as some say) because his own word has not -been fulfilled? In Israel there was an accepted rule -that a prophet should be judged by the issue of his -predictions: <i>If thou say in thine heart, How shall we -know the word which Jehovah hath not spoken?—when a -prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing -follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which -Jehovah hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken -presumptuously, thou shalt have no reverence for him</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1551_1551" id="FNanchor_1551_1551"></a><a href="#Footnote_1551_1551" class="fnanchor">[1551]</a> -Was it this that stung Jonah? Did he ask for death -because men would say of him that when he predicted -Niniveh’s overthrow he was false and had not God’s -word? Of such fears there is no trace in the story. -Jonah never doubts that his word came from Jehovah, -nor dreads that other men will doubt. There is -absolutely no hint of anxiety as to his professional -reputation. But, on the contrary, Jonah says that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> -from the first he had the foreboding, grounded upon -his knowledge of God’s character, that Niniveh would -be spared, and that it was from this issue he shrank -and fled to go to Tarshish. In short he could not, either -then or now, master his conviction that the heathen -should be destroyed. His grief, though foolish, is not -selfish. He is angry, not at the baffling of his word, but -at God’s forbearance with the foes and tyrants of Israel.</p> - -<p>Now, as in all else, so in this, Jonah is the type of -his people. If we can judge from their literature -after the Exile, they were not troubled by the nonfulfilment -of prophecy, except as one item of what -was the problem of their faith—the continued prosperity -of the Gentiles. And this was not, what it appears -to be in some Psalms, only an intellectual problem -or an offence to their sense of justice. Nor could they -meet it always, as some of their prophets did, with a -supreme intellectual scorn of the heathen, and in the -proud confidence that they themselves were the favourites -of God. For the knowledge that God was infinitely -gracious haunted their pride; and from the very heart -of their faith arose a jealous fear that He would show -His grace to others than themselves. To us it may -be difficult to understand this temper. We have not -been trained to believe ourselves an elect people; -nor have we suffered at the hands of the heathen. -Yet, at least, we have contemporaries and fellow-Christians -among whom we may find still alive many -of the feelings against which the Book of Jonah was -written. Take the Oriental Churches of to-day. -Centuries of oppression have created in them an awful -hatred of the infidel, beneath whose power they are -hardly suffered to live. The barest justice calls for -the overthrow of their oppressors. That these share -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> -a common humanity with themselves is a sense they -have nearly lost. For centuries they have had no -spiritual intercourse with them; to try to convert a -Mohammedan has been for twelve hundred years a -capital crime. It is not wonderful that Eastern -Christians should have long lost power to believe in -the conversion of infidels, and to feel that anything -is due but their destruction. The present writer once -asked a cultured and devout layman of the Greek -Church, Why then did God create so many Mohammedans? -The answer came hot and fast: To fill up -Hell! Analogous to this were the feelings of the -Jews towards the peoples who had conquered and -oppressed them. But the jealousy already alluded -to aggravated these feelings to a rigour no Christian -can ever share. What right had God to extend to -their oppressors His love for a people who alone had -witnessed and suffered for Him, to whom He had -bound Himself by so many exclusive promises, whom -He had called His Bride, His Darling, His Only -One? And yet the more Israel dwelt upon that Love -the more they were afraid of it. God had been so -gracious and so long-suffering to themselves that they -could not trust Him not to show these mercies to -others. In which case, what was the use of their -uniqueness and privilege? What worth was their -living any more? Israel might as well perish.</p> - -<p>It is this subtle story of Israel’s jealousy of Jehovah, -and Jehovah’s gentle treatment of it, which we follow -in the last chapter of the book. The chapter starts -from Jonah’s confession of a fear of the results of God’s -lovingkindness and from his persuasion that, as this -spread to the heathen, the life of His servant spent -in opposition to the heathen was a worthless life; and -the chapter closes with God’s own vindication of His -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> -Love to His jealous prophet.</p> - -<p><i>It was a great grief to Jonah, and he was angered; -and he prayed to Jehovah and said: Ah now, Jehovah, -while I was still upon mine own ground, at the time -that I prepared to flee to Tarshish, was not this my -word, that I knew Thee to be a God gracious and tender, -long-suffering and plenteous in love, relenting of evil? -And now, Jehovah, take, I pray Thee, my life from me, -for for me death is better than life.</i></p> - -<p>In this impatience of life as well as in some subsequent -traits, the story of Jonah reflects that of Elijah. -But the difference between the two prophets was this, -that while Elijah was very jealous <i>for</i> Jehovah, Jonah -was very jealous <i>of</i> Him. Jonah could not bear to see -the love promised to Israel alone, and cherished by her, -bestowed equally upon her heathen oppressors. And -he behaved after the manner of jealousy and of the -heart that thinks itself insulted. He withdrew, and -sulked in solitude, and would take no responsibility -nor further interest in his work. Such men are best -treated by a caustic gentleness, a little humour, a little -rallying, a leaving to nature, and a taking unawares in -their own confessed prejudices. All these—I dare to -think even the humour—are present in God’s treatment -of Jonah. This is very natural and very beautiful. -Twice the Divine Voice speaks with a soft sarcasm: <i>Art -thou very angry?</i><a name="FNanchor_1552_1552" id="FNanchor_1552_1552"></a><a href="#Footnote_1552_1552" class="fnanchor">[1552]</a> Then Jonah’s affections, turned -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> -from man and God, are allowed their course with a bit of -nature, the fresh and green companion of his solitude; -and then when all his pity for this has been roused by -its destruction, that very pity is employed to awaken -his sympathy with God’s compassion for the great city, -and he is shown how he has denied to God the same -natural affection which he confesses to be so strong -in himself. But why try further to expound so clear -and obvious an argument?</p> - -<p><i>But Jehovah said, Art thou <span class="norm">so</span> very angry? -<span class="norm">Jonah would not answer—how lifelike is his silence at this -point!—</span>but went out from the city and sat down before -it,<a name="FNanchor_1553_1553" id="FNanchor_1553_1553"></a><a href="#Footnote_1553_1553" class="fnanchor">[1553]</a> and made him there a booth and dwelt beneath it in -the shade, till he should see what happened in the city. -And Jehovah God prepared a gourd,<a name="FNanchor_1554_1554" id="FNanchor_1554_1554"></a><a href="#Footnote_1554_1554" class="fnanchor">[1554]</a> and it grew up -above Jonah to be a shadow over his head....<a name="FNanchor_1555_1555" id="FNanchor_1555_1555"></a><a href="#Footnote_1555_1555" class="fnanchor">[1555]</a> And -Jonah rejoiced in the gourd with a great joy. But as -dawn came up the next day God prepared a worm, and -<span class="norm">this</span><a name="FNanchor_1556_1556" id="FNanchor_1556_1556"></a><a href="#Footnote_1556_1556" class="fnanchor">[1556]</a> wounded the gourd, that it perished. And it -came to pass, when the sun rose, that God prepared a -dry east-wind,<a name="FNanchor_1557_1557" id="FNanchor_1557_1557"></a><a href="#Footnote_1557_1557" class="fnanchor">[1557]</a> and the sun smote on Jonah’s head, so -that he was faint, and begged for himself that he might -die,<a name="FNanchor_1558_1558" id="FNanchor_1558_1558"></a><a href="#Footnote_1558_1558" class="fnanchor">[1558]</a> saying, Better my dying than my living! And -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> -God said unto Jonah, Art thou so very angry about the -gourd? And he said, I am very angry—even unto -death! And Jehovah said: Thou carest for a gourd -for which thou hast not travailed, nor hast thou brought -it up, a thing that came in a night and in a night has -perished.<a name="FNanchor_1559_1559" id="FNanchor_1559_1559"></a><a href="#Footnote_1559_1559" class="fnanchor">[1559]</a> And shall I not care for Niniveh, the Great -City,<a name="FNanchor_1560_1560" id="FNanchor_1560_1560"></a><a href="#Footnote_1560_1560" class="fnanchor">[1560]</a> in which there are more than twelve times ten -thousand human beings who know not their right hand -from their left, besides much cattle?</i></p> - -<p>God has vindicated His love to the jealousy of those -who thought that it was theirs alone. And we are left -with this grand vague vision of the immeasurable city, -with its multitude of innocent children and cattle, and -God’s compassion brooding over all.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<!-- \([0–9]\)\([\.,;]\)< ==> <a href="#Page_\1">\1</a>\2< --> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span></p> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX OF PROPHETS</h3> -</div> - -<p class="noindent"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H<span class="small">ABAKKUK</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chaps. i.—ii. 4, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 5–20, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii., <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H<span class="small">AGGAI</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chap. i., <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 1–9, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 10–19, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 20–23, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J<span class="small">OEL</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chaps. i.—ii. 17, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 18–32, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii., <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J<span class="small">ONAH</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chap. i., <a href="#Page_514">514</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii., <a href="#Page_523">523</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii., <a href="#Page_529">529</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iv., <a href="#Page_536">536</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“M<span class="small">ALACHI</span>,” Introduction, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chap. i. 2–5, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">i. 6–14, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 1–9, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 10–16, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 17—iii. 5, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii. 6–12, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii. 13—iv. 2 (Eng.; iii. 13–21 Heb.), <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iv. 3–5 (Eng.; iii. 22–24 Heb.), <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">N<span class="small">AHUM</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chap. i., <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii., iii., <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O<span class="small">BADIAH</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vv. 1–21, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, -<a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span> (i.—viii.), Introduction, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chap. i. 1–6, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">i. 7–17, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">i. 18–21 (Eng.; ii. 1–4 Heb.), <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 1–5 (Eng.; ii. 5–9 Heb.), <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii., <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iv., <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">v. 1–4, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">v. 5–11, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vi. 1–8, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vi. 9–15, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vii., <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">viii., <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Z<span class="small">ECHARIAH</span>” (ix.—xiv.), Introduction, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chap. ix. 1–8, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ix. 9–12, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ix. 13–17, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">x. 1, 2, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">x. 3–12, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">xi. 1–3, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">xi. 4–17, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">xii. 1–7, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">xii. 8—xiii. 6, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">xiii. 7–9, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">xiv., <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Z<span class="small">EPHANIAH</span>, Introduction, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chaps. i.—ii. 3, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ii. 4–15, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii. 1–13, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">iii. 14–20, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, - <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> -<br /> -</p> - -<div id="fn" class="part"> - -<h3><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a></h3> - -<!-- PREFACE --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1_1" -id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1897</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER I --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> -See Vol. I., p. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_viii">viii</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a -href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a> Expositor’s -Bible, <i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i>, Chap. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43672/43672-h/43672-h.htm#CHAPTER_II">II</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a -href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a> It is uncertain -whether Hezekiah was an Assyrian vassal during these years, as his -successor Manasseh is recorded to have been in 676.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a -href="#FNanchor_5_5">[5]</a> 2 Kings xviii. -4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6">[6]</a> The exact date is quite uncertain; 695 is suggested on the -chronological table prefixed to this volume, but it may have been -690 or 685.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7">[7]</a> Cf. McCurdy, <i>History, Prophecy and the Monuments</i>, -§ 799.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a -href="#FNanchor_8_8">[8]</a> Stade (<i>Gesch. -des Volkes Israel</i>, I., pp. 627 f.) denies to Manasseh the -reconstruction of the high places, the Baal altars and the Asheras, -for he does not believe that Hezekiah had succeeded in destroying -these. He takes 2 Kings xxi. 3, which describes these -reconstructions, as a late interpolation rendered necessary to -reconcile the tradition that Hezekiah’s reforms had been quite in -the spirit of Deuteronomy, with the fact that there were still -high places in the land when Josiah began his reforms. Further, -Stade takes the rest of 2 Kings xxi. 2<i>b</i>-7 as also an -interpolation, but unlike verse 3 an accurate account of -Manasseh’s idolatrous institutions, because it is corroborated by -the account of Josiah’s reforms, 2 Kings xxiii. Stade also -discusses this passage in <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1886, pp. 186 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9">[9]</a> See Vol. I., p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_41">41</a>. -In addition to the reasons of the change given above, we must remember -that we are now treating, not of -Northern Israel, but of the more stern and sullen Judæans.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10">[10]</a> 2 Kings xxi., xxiii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11">[11]</a> <i>Filled from mouth to mouth</i> (2 Kings xxi. 16).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12">[12]</a> Jer. ii. 30.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13">[13]</a> We have already seen that there is no reason for that theory of so many critics which assigns to this period Micah. See Vol. I., p. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_370">370</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14">[14]</a> 2 Kings xxi. 10 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15">[15]</a> Whether the parenthetical apostrophes to Jehovah as Maker of -the heavens, their hosts and all the powers of nature (Amos iv. 13, -v. 8, 9, ix. 5, 6), are also to be attributed to Manasseh’s reign is -more doubtful. Yet the following facts are to be observed: that -these passages are also (though to a less degree than v. 26 f.) -parenthetic; that their language seems of a later cast than that of the -time of Amos (see Vol. I., pp. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_204">204</a>, -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_205">205</a>: -though here evidence is -adduced to show that the late features are probably post-exilic); and -that Jehovah is expressly named as the <i>Maker</i> of certain of the -stars. Similarly when Mohammed seeks to condemn the worship of -the heavenly bodies, he insists that God is their Maker. Koran, Sur. -41, 37: “To the signs of His Omnipotence belong night and day, -sun and moon; but do not pray to sun or moon, for God hath -created them.” Sur. 53, 50: “Because He is the Lord of Sirius.” -On the other side see Driver’s <i>Joel and Amos</i> (Cambridge Bible for -Schools Series), 1897, pp. 118 f., 189. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -How deeply Manasseh had planted in Israel the worship of the -heavenly host may be seen from the survival of the latter through -all the reforms of Josiah and the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer. vii. 18, -viii., xliv.; Ezek. viii. Cf. Stade, <i>Gesch. des V. Israel</i>, I., -pp. 629 ff.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16">[16]</a> The Jehovist and Elohist into the closely mortised JE. Stade -indeed assigns to the period of Manasseh Israel’s first acquaintance -with the Babylonian cosmogonies and myths which led to that -reconstruction of them in the spirit of her own religion which we -find in the Jehovistic portions of the beginning of Genesis (<i>Gesch. -des V. Isr.</i>, I., pp. 630 ff.). But it may well be doubted (1) whether the -reign of Manasseh affords time for this assimilation, and (2) whether -it was likely that Assyrian and Babylonian theology could make -so deep and lasting impression upon the purer faith of Israel at a -time when the latter stood in such sharp hostility to all foreign -influences and was so bitterly persecuted by the parties in Israel -who had succumbed to these influences.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17">[17]</a> Chaps. v.—xxvi., xxviii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18">[18]</a> 621 <span class="small">B.C.</span></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19">[19]</a> 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20">[20]</a> 2 Kings xxi. 23.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21">[21]</a> But in his conquests of Hauran, Northern Arabia and the -eastern neighbours of Judah, he had evidently sought to imitate the -policy of Asarhaddon in 675 f., and secure firm ground in Palestine and -Arabia for a subsequent attack upon Egypt. That this never came shows -more than anything else could Assyria’s consciousness of growing -weakness.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22">[22]</a> The name of Josiah’s (<span class="heb">יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ</span>) mother was Jedidah (<span class="heb">יְדִידָה</span>), -daughter of Adaiah (<span class="heb">עֲדָיָה</span>) of Boṣḳath in the Shephelah of Judah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23">[23]</a> 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24">[24]</a> Zeph. i. 4: the LXX. reads <i>names of Baal</i>. See -below, p. 40, n. <a href="#Footnote_87_87">87</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25">[25]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26">[26]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 8–12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27">[27]</a> I. 102 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28">[28]</a> Herod., I. 105.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29">[29]</a> The new name of Bethshan in the mouth of Esdraelon, viz. -Scythopolis, is said to be derived from them (but see <i>Hist. Geog. -of the Holy Land</i>, pp. 363 f.); they conquered Askalon (Herod., I. 105).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30">[30]</a> 2 Kings xvii. 6: <i>and in the cities</i> (LXX. <i>mountains</i>) <i>of the Medes</i>. -The Heb. is <span class="heb">מָדָי</span>, Madai.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31">[31]</a> Mentioned by Sargon.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32">[32]</a> Sayce, <i>Empires of the East</i>, 239: cf. McCurdy, § 823 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33">[33]</a> Herod., I. 103.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34">[34]</a> Heb. Kasdim, <span class="heb">כַּשְׂדִּים</span>; LXX. Χαλδαῖοι; Assyr. Kaldâa, Kaldu. -The Hebrew form with <i>s</i> is regarded by many authorities as the -original, from the Assyrian root <i>kashadu</i>, to conquer, and the Assyrian -form with <i>l</i> to have arisen by the common change of <i>sh</i> through <i>r</i> -into <i>l</i>. The form with <i>s</i> does not occur, however, in Assyrian, which -also possesses the root <i>kaladu</i>, with the same meaning as <i>kashadu</i>. -See Mr. Pinches’ articles on Chaldea and the Chaldeans in the new -edition of Vol. I. of Smith’s <i>Bible Dictionary</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35">[35]</a> About 880 <span class="small">B.C.</span> in the annals of Assurnatsirpal. -See <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_xix">Chronological Table</a> to Vol. I.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36">[36]</a> No inscriptions of Asshur-itil-ilani have been found later than -the first two years of his reign.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37">[37]</a> Billerbeck-Jeremias, “Der Untergang Niniveh’s,” in Delitzsch -and Haupt’s <i>Beiträge zur Assyriologie</i>, III., p. 113.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38">[38]</a> Nahum ii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39">[39]</a> See below, p. <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40">[40]</a> Abydenus (apud Euseb., <i>Chron.</i>, I. 9) reports a marriage -between Nebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar’s son, and the daughter of -the Median king.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41">[41]</a> 2 Kings xxiii. 29. The history is here very obscure. Necho, -met at Megiddo by Josiah, and having slain him, appears to have -spent a year or two in subjugating, and arranging for the government -of, Syria (<i>ibid.</i>, verses 33–35), and only reached the Euphrates in 605, -when Nebuchadrezzar defeated him.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42">[42]</a> The reverse view is taken by Wellhausen, who says (<i>Israel u. -Jüd. Gesch.</i>, pp. 97 f.): “Der Pharaoh scheint ausgezogen zu sein um -sich seinen Teil an der Erbschaft Ninives vorwegzunehmen, während -die Meder und Chaldäer die Stadt belagerten.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43">[43]</a> See above, p. 20, n. <a href="#Footnote_37_37">37</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44">[44]</a> I. 106.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45">[45]</a> A stele of Nabonidus discovered at Hilleh and now in the museum -at Constantinople relates that in his third year, 553, the king restored -at Harran the temple of Sin, the moon-god, which the Medes had -destroyed fifty-four years before, <i>i.e.</i> 607. Whether the Medes did -this before, during or after the siege of Niniveh is uncertain, but the -approximate date of the siege, 608—606, is thus marvellously confirmed. -The stele affirms that the Medes alone took Niniveh, but that they -were called in by Marduk, the Babylonian god, to assist Nabopolassar -and avenge the deportation of his image by Sennacherib to Niniveh. -Messerschmidt (<i>Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft</i>, I. -1896) argues that the Medes were summoned by the Babylonians -while the latter were being sore pressed by the Assyrians. Winckler -had already (<i>Untersuch.</i>, pp. 124 ff., 1889) urged that the Babylonians -would refrain from taking an active part in the overthrow of Niniveh, in -fear of incurring the guilt of sacrilege. Neither Messerschmidt’s paper, -nor Scheil’s (who describes the stele in the <i>Recueil des Travaux</i>, -XVIII. 1896), being accessible to me, I have written this note on the -information supplied by Rev. C. H. W. Johns, of Cambridge, in the -<i>Expository Times</i>, 1896, and by Prof. A. B. Davidson in App. I. to -<i>Nah., Hab. and Zeph.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46">[46]</a> Berosus and Abydenus in Eusebius.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47">[47]</a> This spelling (Jer. xlix. 28) is nearer the original than the alternative -Hebrew Nebuchad<i>n</i>ezzar. But the LXX. Ναβουχοδονόσορ, and -the Ναβουκοδρόσορος of Abydenus and Megasthenes and Ναβοκοδρόσορος -of Strabo, have preserved the more correct vocalisation; for the -original is Nabu-kudurri-uṣur = Nebo, defend the crown!</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48">[48]</a> But see below, pp. <a href="#Page_123">123</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49">[49]</a> Below, pp. <a href="#Page_121">121</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50">[50]</a> 2 Kings xxii. 11–20. The genuineness of this passage is proved -(as against Stade, <i>Gesch. des Volkes Israel</i>, I.) by the promise which -it gives to Josiah of a peaceful death. Had it been written after -the battle of Megiddo, in which Josiah was slain, it could not have -contained such a promise.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51">[51]</a> Jer. vii. 4, viii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52">[52]</a> vi. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53">[53]</a> All these reforms in 2 Kings xxiii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54">[54]</a> Jer. xxii. 15 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55">[55]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ver. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56">[56]</a> -We have no record of this, but a prince who so rashly flung -himself in the way of Egypt would not hesitate to claim authority -over Moab and Ammon.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57">[57]</a> -2 Kings xxiii. 24. The question whether Necho came by land -from Egypt or brought his troops in his fleet to Acre is hardly -answered by the fact that Josiah went to Megiddo to meet him. -But Megiddo on the whole tells more for the land than the sea. It -is not on the path from Acre to the Euphrates; it is the key of the -land-road from Egypt to the Euphrates. Josiah could have no hope -of stopping Pharaoh on the broad levels of Philistia; but at Megiddo -there was a narrow pass, and the only chance of arresting so large an -army as it moved in detachments. Josiah’s tactics were therefore -analogous to those of Saul, who also left his own territory and -marched north to Esdraelon, to meet his foe—and death.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58">[58]</a> -A. B. Davidson, <i>The Exile and the Restoration</i>, p. 8 (Bible -Class Primers, ed. by Salmond; Edin., T. & T. Clark, 1897).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59">[59]</a> 2 Kings xxiii. 33–35.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60">[60]</a> Jer. xxii. 13–15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61">[61]</a> Jer. xi.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62">[62]</a> xxv. 1 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63">[63]</a> xxxvi.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64">[64]</a> -2 Kings xxiv. 1. In the chronological table appended to -Kautzsch’s <i>Bibel</i> this verse and Jehoiakim’s submission are assigned -to 602. But this allows too little time for Nebuchadrezzar to confirm -his throne in Babylon and march to Palestine, and it is not -corroborated by the record in the Book of Jeremiah of events in -Judah in 604—602.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65">[65]</a> Nebuchadrezzar did not die till 562.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66">[66]</a> -See <i>Isaiah i.—xxxix.</i> (Expositor’s Bible), pp. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39767/39767-h/39767-h.htm#Page_223">223</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67">[67]</a> -See above, p. 26, n. <a href="#Footnote_56_56">56</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68">[68]</a> 2 Kings xxiv. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69">[69]</a> Jer. xxxvii. 30, but see 2 Kings xxiv. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70">[70]</a> -So Josephus puts it (X. <i>Antiq.</i>, vii. 1). Jehoiachin was unusually -bewailed (Lam. iv. 20; Ezek. xvii. 22 ff.). He survived in captivity -till the death of Nebuchadrezzar, whose successor Evil-Merodach -in 561 took him from prison and gave him a place in his palace -(2 Kings xxv. 27 ff.).</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER II --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71">[71]</a> -i. 3<i>b</i>, 5<i>b</i>; ii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 last word, 14<i>b</i>; -iii. 18, 19<i>a</i>, 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72">[72]</a> -i. 14<i>b</i>; ii. 1, 3; iii. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73">[73]</a> -i. 3<i>b</i>, 5<i>b</i>; ii. 2, 6; iii. 5 (?).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74">[74]</a> For details see translation below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75">[75]</a> i. 3, <span class="heb">מַכְשֵׁלוֹת</span>, -only in Isa. iii. 6; 15, <span class="heb">משואה</span>, only in Job xxx. 3, -xxxviii. 27—cf. Psalms lxxiii. 18, lxxiv. 3; ii. 8, <span class="heb">גדפים</span>, -Isa. xliii. 28—cf. -li. 7; 9, <span class="heb">חרול</span>, Prov. xxiv. 31, -Job xxx. 7; 15, <span class="heb">עליזה</span>, Isa. xxii. 2, -xxiii. 7, xxxii. 13—cf. xiii. 3, xxiv. 8; iii. 1, <span class="heb">נגאלה</span>, -see next note but one; 3, <span class="heb">זאבי ערב</span>, -Hab. i. 8; 11, <span class="heb">עליזי גאותך</span>, -Isa. xiii. 3; 18, <span class="heb">נוגי</span>, -Lam. i. 4, <span class="heb">נוגות</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76">[76]</a> i. 11, <span class="heb">המכתש</span> -as the name of a part of Jerusalem, otherwise only -Jer. xv. 19; <span class="heb" dir="ltr">נטילי כסף</span>; 12, <span class="heb">קפא</span> -in pt. Qal, and otherwise only Exod. -xv. 8, Zech. xiv. 6, Job x. 10; 14, <span class="heb">מַהֵר</span> (adj.), -but the pointing may -be wrong—cf. Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Isa. viii. 1, 3; <span class="heb">צרח</span> in Qal, -elsewhere only once in Hi. Isa. xlii. 13; 17, <span class="heb">לחום</span> -in sense of flesh, cf. -Job xx. 23; 18, <span class="heb">נבהלה</span> if a noun (?); -ii. 1, <span class="heb">קשש</span> in Qal and Hithpo, -elsewhere only in Polel; 9, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">מכרה ,ממשק</span>; -11, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">רזה</span>, to make lean, -otherwise only in Isa. xvii. 4, to be lean; 14, <span class="heb">ארזה</span> (?); -iii. 1, <span class="heb">מראה</span>, -pt. of <span class="heb">יונה ;מרה</span>, -pt. Qal, in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16, it may be a noun; -4, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">אנשי בגדות</span>; 6, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">נצדו</span>; -9, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">שכם אחד</span>; 10, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">עתרי בת־פוצי</span> (?); -15, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">פנה</span> in sense to <i>turn away</i>; 18, -<span class="heb">ממך היו</span> (?).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77">[77]</a> -i. 8, etc., <span class="heb">פקד על</span>, followed by person, but not by thing—cf. -Jer. ix. 24, xxiii. 34, etc., Job xxxvi. 23, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Ezek. -i. 2; 13, <span class="heb">משׁסה</span>, -only in Hab. ii. 7, Isa. xlii., Jer. xxx. 16, 2 Kings -xxi. 14; 17, <span class="heb">הֵצֵר</span>, Hi. of <span class="heb">צרר</span>, -only in 1 Kings viii. 37, and Deut., 2 Chron., -Jer., Neh.; ii. 3, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">ענוה</span>; 8 <span class="heb">גדופים</span>, -Isa. xliii. 28, li. 7 (fem. pl.); 9, <span class="heb">חרול</span>, -Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; iii. 1, <span class="heb">נגאלה</span>, -Ni, pt. = impure, Isa. -lix. 3, Lam. iv. 14; <span class="heb">יונה</span>, -a pt. in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16; 3, <span class="heb">זאבי ערב</span>, -Hab. i. 8—cf. Jer. v. 6, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">זאב ערבות</span>; -9, <span class="heb">ברור</span>, Isa. xlix. 2, <span class="heb">ברר</span>, -Ezek. xx. 38, 1 Chron. vii. 40, ix. 22, xvi. 41, Neh. v. 18, Job -xxxiii. 3, Eccles. iii. 18, ix. 1; 11, <span class="heb">עליזי גאוה</span>, -Isa. xiii. 3; 18, <span class="heb">נוּגֵי</span>, -Lam. i. 4 has <span class="heb">נוּגות</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78">[78]</a> So Hitzig, Ewald, Pusey, Kuenen, -Robertson Smith (<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>), -Driver, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick, Budde, von Orelli, Cornill, Schwally, -Davidson.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79">[79]</a> -So Delitzsch, Kleinert, and Schulz (<i>Commentar über den Proph. -Zeph.</i>, 1892, p. 7, quoted by König).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80">[80]</a> So König.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81">[81]</a> Jer. xxv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82">[82]</a> Jer. vii. 18.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83">[83]</a> i. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84">[84]</a> -Kleinert in his Commentary in Lange’s <i>Bibelwerk</i>, and Delitzsch -in his article in Herzog’s <i>Real-Encyclopädie</i>², both offer a number of -inconclusive arguments. These are drawn from the position of -Zephaniah after Habakkuk, but, as we have seen, the order of the -Twelve is not always chronological; from the supposition that -Zephaniah i. 7, <i>Silence before the Lord Jehovah</i>, quotes Habakkuk ii. -20, <i>Keep silence before Him, all the earth</i>, but the phrase common to -both is too general to be decisive, and if borrowed by one or other -may just as well have been Zephaniah’s originally as Habakkuk’s; -from the phrase <i>remnant of Baal</i> (i. 4), as if this were appropriate -only after the Reform of 621, but it was quite as appropriate after -the beginnings of reform six years earlier; from the condemnation -of <i>the sons of the king</i> (i. 8), whom Delitzsch takes as Josiah’s sons, -who before the great Reform were too young to be condemned, -while later their characters did develop badly and judgment fell -upon all of them, but <i>sons of the king</i>, even if that be the correct -reading (LXX. <i>house of the king</i>), does not necessarily mean the -reigning monarch’s children; and from the assertion that Deuteronomy -is quoted in the first chapter of Zephaniah, and “so quoted as to show -that the prophet needs only to put the people in mind of it as something -supposed to be known,” but the verses cited in support of this -(viz. 13, 15, 17: cf. Deut. xxviii. 30 and 29) are too general in their -character to prove the assertion. See translation below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85">[85]</a> -König has to deny the authenticity of this in order to make his -case for the reign of Jehoiakim. But nearly all critics take the phrase -as genuine.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86">[86]</a> -See above, p. <a href="#Page_15">15</a>. -For inconclusive reasons Schwally, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, -1890, pp. 215—217, prefers the Egyptians under Psamtik. See in answer -Davidson, p. 98.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87">[87]</a> Not much stress can be laid upon the phrase <i>I will cut off the -remnant of Baal</i>, ver. 4, for, if the reading be correct, it may only mean -the destruction of Baal-worship, and not the uprooting of what has -been left over.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88">[88]</a> -See below, p. 47, n. <a href="#Footnote_105_105">105</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89">[89]</a> -If 695 be the date of the accession of Manasseh, being then twelve, -Amariah, Zephaniah’s great-grandfather, cannot have been more than -ten, that is, born in 705. His son Gedaliah was probably not born -before 689, his son Kushi probably not before 672, and his son -Zephaniah probably not before 650.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90">[90]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1890, Heft 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91">[91]</a> -Bacher, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1891, 186; Cornill, <i>Einleitung</i>, 1891; Budde, -<i>Theol. Stud. u. Krit.</i>, 1893, 393 ff.; Davidson, <i>Nah., Hab. and Zeph.</i>, -100 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92">[92]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1891, Heft 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93">[93]</a> -By especially Bacher, Cornill and Budde as above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94">[94]</a> See Budde and Davidson.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95">[95]</a> -The ideal of chap. i.—ii. 3, of the final security of a poor and lowly -remnant of Israel, “necessarily implies that they shall no longer be -threatened by hostility from without, and this condition is satisfied -by the prophet’s view of the impending judgment on the ancient -enemies of his nation,” <i>i.e.</i> those mentioned in ii. 4–15 (Robertson -Smith, <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. “Zephaniah”).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96">[96]</a> -See, however, Davidson for some linguistic reasons for taking the -two sections as one. Robertson Smith, also in 1888 (<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, -art. “Zephaniah”), assumed (though not without pointing out the -possibility of the addition of other pieces to the genuine prophecies -of Zephaniah) that “a single leading motive runs through the whole” -book, and “the first two chapters would be incomplete without the -third, which moreover is certainly pre-exilic (vv. 1–4) and presents -specific points of contact with what precedes, as well as a general -agreement in style and idea.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97">[97]</a> Schwally (234) thinks that the epithet <span class="heb">צדיק</span> (ver. 5) was first -applied to Jehovah by the Second Isaiah (xlv. 21, lxiv. 2, xlii. 21), -and became frequent from his time on. In disproof Budde (3398) -quotes Exod. ix. 27, Jer. xii. 1, Lam. i. 18. Schwally also points to -<span class="heb">נצדו</span> as borrowed from Aramaic.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98">[98]</a> -Budde, p. 395; Davidson, 103. Schwally (230 ff.) seeks to prove -the unity of 9 and 10 with the context, but he has apparently mistaken -the meaning of ver. 8 (231). That surely does not mean that the -nations are gathered in order to punish the godlessness of the Jews, -but that they may themselves be punished.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99">[99]</a> See Davidson, 103.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER III --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100">[100]</a> -Josiah, born <i>c.</i> 648, succeeded <i>c.</i> 639, was about eighteen in 630, -and then appears to have begun his reforms.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101">[101]</a> -See above, pp. <a href="#Page_40">40</a> f., n. <a href="#Footnote_85_85">85</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102">[102]</a> Jer. i. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103">[103]</a> See G. B. Gray, <i>Hebrew Proper Names</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104">[104]</a> Josiah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105">[105]</a> It is not usual in the O.T. to carry a man’s genealogy beyond -his grandfather, except for some special purpose, or in order to -include some ancestor of note. Also the name Hezekiah is very -rare apart from the king. The number of names compounded with -Jah or Jehovah is another proof that the line is a royal one. The -omission of the phrase <i>king of Judah</i> after Hezekiah’s name proves -nothing; it may have been of purpose because the phrase has to -occur immediately again.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106">[106]</a> It was not till 652 that a league was made between the Palestine -princes and Psamtik I. against Assyria. This certainly would have -been the most natural year for a child to be named Kushi. But -that would set the birth of Zephaniah as late as 632, and his prophecy -towards the end of Josiah’s reign, which we have seen to -be improbable on other grounds.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107">[107]</a> Jer. xxi. 1, xxix. 25, 29, xxxvii. 3, lii. 24 ff.; 2 Kings xxv. 18. The -analogous Phœnician name <span class="heb">צפנבעל</span>, Saphan-ba’al = “Baal protects -or hides,” is found in No. 207 of the Phœnician inscriptions in the -<i>Corpus Inscr. Semiticarum</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108">[108]</a> Chap. i. 15. With the above paragraph cf. Robertson Smith, -<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. “Zephaniah.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109">[109]</a> Chap. i. 14<i>b</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110">[110]</a> In fact this forms one difficulty about the conclusion which we -have reached as to the date. We saw that one reason against putting -the Book of Zephaniah after the great Reforms of 621 was that it -betrayed no sign of their effects. But it might justly be answered that, -if Zephaniah prophesied before 621, his book ought to betray some -sign of the approach of reform. Still the explanation given above is -satisfactory.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111">[111]</a> Chap. i. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112">[112]</a> So <i>wine upon the lees</i> is a generous wine according to Isa. xxv. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113">[113]</a> Jer. xlviii. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114">[114]</a> The text reads <i>the ruins</i> (<span class="heb">מַכְשֵׁלוֹת</span>, unless we prefer with Wellhausen -<span class="heb">מִכְשֹׁלים</span>, <i>the stumbling-blocks</i>, i.e. <i>idols</i>) <i>with the wicked, and I will cut -off man</i> (LXX. <i>the lawless</i>) <i>from off the face of the ground.</i> Some think -the clause partly too redundant, partly too specific, to be original. -But suppose we read <span class="heb">וְהִכְשַׁלְתִּי</span> (cf. Mal. ii. 8, Lam. i. 14 and <i>passim</i>: -this is more probable than Schwally’s <span class="heb">כִּשַׁלְתִּי</span>, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 169), and -for <span class="heb">אדם</span> the reading which probably the LXX. had before them, -<span class="heb">אדם רשע</span> (Job xx. 29, xxvii. 13, Prov. xi. 7: cf. <span class="heb">אדם בליעל</span> Prov. vi. 12) -or <span class="heb">אדם עַוָּל</span> (cf. iii. 5), we get the rendering adopted in the translation -above. Some think the whole passage an intrusion, yet it is surely -probable that the earnest moral spirit of Zephaniah would aim at the -wicked from the very outset of his prophecy.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115">[115]</a> LXX. <i>names</i>, held by some to be the original reading (Schwally, -etc.). In that case the phrase might have some allusion to the well-known -promise in Deut., <i>the place where I shall set My name</i>. This is -more natural than a reference to Hosea ii. 19, which is quoted by -some.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116">[116]</a> Some Greek codd. take Baal as fem., others as plur.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117">[117]</a> So LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118">[118]</a> Heb. reads <i>and them who bow themselves, who swear, by Jehovah</i>. -So LXX. B with <i>and</i> before <i>who swear</i>. But LXX. A omits <i>and</i>. -LXX. Q omits <i>them who bow themselves</i>. Wellhausen keeps the -clause with the exception of <i>who swear</i>, and so reads (to the end of -verse) <i>them who bow themselves to Jehovah and swear by Milcom</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119">[119]</a> Or Molech = king. LXX. <i>by their king</i>. Other Greek versions: -Moloch and Melchom. Vulg. Melchom.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120">[120]</a> LXX. <i>His.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121">[121]</a> So LXX. Heb. <i>sons</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122">[122]</a> Is this some superstitious rite of the idol-worshippers as described -in the case of Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 5? Or is it a phrase for breaking into -a house, and so parallel to the second clause of the verse? Most -interpreters prefer the latter. The idolatrous rites have been left -behind. Schwally suggests the original order may have been: <i>princes -and sons of the king, who fill their lord’s house full of violence and deceit; -and I will visit upon every one that leapeth over the threshold on that -day, and upon all that wear foreign raiment</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123">[123]</a> The <i>Second</i> or New Town: cf. 2 Kings xxii. 14, 2 Chron. xxxiv. -22, which state that the prophetess Huldah lived there. Cf. Neh. -iii. 9, 12, xi. 9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124">[124]</a> The hollow probably between the western and eastern hills, or -the upper part of the Tyropœan (Orelli).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125">[125]</a> Heb. <i>people of Canaan</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126">[126]</a> <span class="heb">נטיל</span>, found only here, from <span class="heb">נטל</span>, to lift up, and in Isa. xl. 15 to -weigh. Still it may have a wider meaning, <i>all they that carry money</i> -(Davidson).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127">[127]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128">[128]</a> The Hebrew text and versions here add: <i>And they shall build -houses and not inhabit</i> (Greek <i>in them</i>), <i>and plant vineyards and not -drink the wine thereof.</i> But the phrase is a common one (Deut. -xxviii. 30; Amos v. 11: cf. Micah vi. 15), and while likely to have been -inserted by a later hand, is here superfluous, and mars the firmness -and edge of Zephaniah’s threat.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129">[129]</a> For <span class="heb">מהר</span> Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">ממהר</span>, pt. Pi; but <span class="heb">מהר</span> -may be a verbal adj.; compare the phrase <span class="heb">מהר שלל</span>, Isa. viii. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130">[130]</a> Dies Iræ, Dies Illa!</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131">[131]</a> Heb. sho’ah u-mesho’ah. Lit. ruin (or devastation) and -destruction.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132">[132]</a> Some take this first clause of ver. 18 as a gloss. See Schwally -<i>in loco</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133">[133]</a> Read <span class="heb">אף</span> for <span class="heb">אך</span>. -So LXX., Syr., Wellhausen, Schwally.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134">[134]</a> In vv. 1–3 of chap. ii., wrongly separated from chap. i.: see -Davidson.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135">[135]</a> -Heb. <span class="heb" dir="ltr">וָקשּׁוּ</span> <span class="heb">הִתְקוֹשְׁשׁוּ</span>. A.V. <i>Gather yourselves together, yea, -gather together</i> (<span class="heb">קוֹשֵׁשׁ</span> -is <i>to gather straw or sticks</i>—cf. Arab. <i>ḳash</i>, to -sweep up—and Nithp. of the Aram. is to assemble). Orelli: <i>Crowd and -crouch down</i>. Ewald compares Aram. <i>ḳash</i>, late Heb. <span class="heb">קְשַׁשׁ</span>, -<i>to grow old</i>, which he believes originally meant <i>to be withered, grey</i>. Budde -suggests <span class="heb">בשו התבששו</span>, but, as Davidson remarks, it is not easy to -see how this, if once extant, was altered to the present reading.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136">[136]</a> <span class="heb">נִכְסָף</span> -is usually thought to have as its root meaning <i>to be pale</i> -or <i>colourless</i>, <i>i.e.</i> either white or black (<i>Journal of Phil.</i>, 14, 125), -whence <span class="heb">כֶּסֶף</span>, <i>silver</i> or <i>the pale metal</i>: -hence in the Qal to long for, -Job xiv. 15, Ps. xvii. 12; so Ni, Gen. xxxi. 30, Ps. lxxxiv. 3; and here -<i>to be ashamed</i>. But the derivation of the name for silver is quite -imaginary, and the colour of shame is red rather than white: cf. the -mod. Arab. saying, “They are a people that cannot blush; they have -no blood in their faces,” <i>i.e.</i> shameless. Indeed Schwally says (<i>in loco</i>), -“Die Bedeutung fahl, blass ist unerweislich.” Hence (in spite of the -meanings of the Aram. <span class="heb">כסף</span> both to lose colour and to be ashamed) -a derivation for the Hebrew is more probably to be found in the -root <i>kasaf</i>, to cut off. The Arab. <span class="arab">کﺴف</span>, -which in the classic tongue -means to cut a thread or eclipse the sun, is in colloquial Arabic to -give a rebuff, refuse a favour, disappoint, shame. In the forms -<i>inkasaf</i> and <i>itkasaf</i> it means to receive a rebuff, be disappointed, then -shy or timid, and <i>kasûf</i> means shame, shyness (as well as eclipse of -the sun). See Spiro’s <i>Arabic-English Vocabulary</i>. In Ps. lxxxiv. <span class="heb">נכסף</span> -is evidently used of unsatisfied longing (but see Cheyne), which is -also the proper meaning of the parallel <span class="heb">כלה</span> -(cf. other passages where -<span class="heb">כלה</span> is used of still unfulfilled or rebuffed hopes: Job xix. 27, Ps. -lxix. 4, cxix. 81, cxliii. 7). So in Ps. xvii. 4 <span class="heb">כסף</span> is used of a lion who is longing for, <i>i.e.</i> still disappointed in, his prey, and so in Job -xiv. 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137">[137]</a> LXX. πρὸ γένεσθαι ὑμᾶς ὡς ἄνθος -(here in error reading <span class="heb">נץ</span> for -<span class="heb">מץ</span>) παραπορευόμενον, πρὸ τοῦ ἐπελθεῖν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς ὀργὴν κυρίου (last -clause omitted by <span class="heb">א</span><span class="sup">c.b</span>). According to this the Hebrew text, -which is obviously disarranged, may be restored -to <span class="heb">בְּטֶרֶם לאֹ־תִהיוּ כַמֹּץ עֹבֵר בְּטֶרֶם לאֹ־יָבֹא עֲלֵיכֶם חֲרוֹן יהוה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138">[138]</a> This clause Wellhausen deletes. Cf. Hexaplar Syriac translation.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139">[139]</a> LXX. take this also as imperative, <i>do judgment</i>, and so co-ordinate -to the other clauses.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER IV --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140">[140]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141">[141]</a> Some, however, think the prophet is speaking in prospect of the -Chaldean invasion of a few years later. This is not so likely, because -he pictures the overthrow of Niniveh as subsequent to the invasion -of Philistia, while the Chaldeans accomplished the latter only after -Niniveh had fallen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142">[142]</a> According to Herodotus.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143">[143]</a> ver. 7, LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144">[144]</a> The measure, as said above, is elegiac: alternate lines long -with a rising, and short with a falling, cadence. There is a -play upon the names, at least on the first and last—“Gazzah” or -“‘Azzah ‘Azubah”—which in English we might reproduce by the -use of Spenser’s word for “dreary”: <i>For Gaza ghastful shall be.</i> -“‘Eḳron te’aḳer.” LXX. Ἀκκαρων ἐκριζωθήσεταὶ (B), ἐκριφήσεται (A). -In the second line we have a slighter assonance, ‘Ashkĕlōn lishĕmamah. -In the third the verb is <span class="heb">יְגָרְשׁוּהָ</span>; -Bacher (<i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1891, 185 ff.) -points out that <span class="heb">גֵּרַשׁ</span> is not used of cities, -but of their populations or -of individual men, and suggests (from Abulwalid) -<span class="heb">יירשוה</span>, <i>shall possess -her</i>, as “a plausible emendation.” Schwally (<i>ibid.</i>, 260) prefers to -alter to <span class="heb">יְשָׁרְשׁוּהָ</span>, -with the remark that this is not only a good parallel -to <span class="heb">תעקר</span>, but suits the LXX. ἐκριφήσεται.—On the expression -<i>by noon</i> -see Davidson, <i>N. H. and Z.</i>, Appendix, Note 2, where he quotes a -parallel expression, in the Senjerli inscription, of Asarhaddon: that -he took Memphis by midday or in half a day (Schrader). This suits -the use of the phrase in Jer. xv. 8, where it is parallel to <i>suddenly</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145">[145]</a> Canaan omitted by Wellhausen, who reads <span class="heb">עליך</span> for <span class="heb">עליכם</span>. But -as the metre requires a larger number of syllables in the first line of -each couplet than in the second, Kĕna’an should probably remain. -The difficulty is the use of Canaan as synonymous with <i>Land of -the Philistines</i>. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is it expressly -applied to the coast south of Carmel, though it is so used in the -Egyptian inscriptions, and even in the Old Testament in a sense -which covers this as well as other lowlying parts of Palestine.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146">[146]</a> An odd long line, either the remains of two, or perhaps we should -take the two previous lines as one, omitting Canaan.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147">[147]</a> So LXX.: Hebrew text <i>and the sea-coast shall become dwellings, -cots</i> (<span class="heb">כְּרֹת</span>) <i>of shepherds</i>. But the pointing and meaning of <span class="heb">כרת</span> are -both conjectural, and the <i>sea-coast</i> has probably fallen by mistake -into this verse from the next. On Kereth and Kerethim as names -for Philistia and the Philistines see <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 171.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148">[148]</a> LXX. adds <i>of the sea</i>. So Wellhausen, but unnecessarily and improbably -for phonetic reasons, as sea has to be read in the next line.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149">[149]</a> So Wellhausen, reading for <span class="heb">עַל־הַיָּם עֲליהֶם</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150">[150]</a> Some words must have fallen out, for <i>first</i> a short line is required -here by the metre, and <i>second</i> the LXX. have some additional words, -which, however, give us no help to what the lost line was: ἀπὸ -προσώπου υἱῶν Ἰούδα.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151">[151]</a> As stated above, there is no conclusive reason against the pre-exilic -date of this expression.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152">[152]</a> Cf. Isa. xvi. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153">[153]</a> LXX. <i>My.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154">[154]</a> Doubtful word, not occurring elsewhere.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155">[155]</a> Heb. singular.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156">[156]</a> LXX. omits <i>the people of</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157">[157]</a> LXX. <i>maketh Himself manifest</i>, <span class="heb">נראה</span> for <span class="heb">נורא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158">[158]</a> ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. The passive of the verb means <i>to grow lean</i> -(Isa. xvii. 4).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159">[159]</a> <span class="heb">מקום</span> -has probably here the sense which it has in a few other -passages of the Old Testament, and in Arabic, of <i>sacred place</i>. -</p> -<p class="fnote"> -Many will share Schwally’s doubts (p. 192) about the authenticity -of ver. 11; nor, as Wellhausen points out, does its prediction of the -conversion of the heathen agree with ver. 12, which devotes them -to destruction. ver. 12 follows naturally on to ver. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160">[160]</a> Wellhausen reads <i>His sword</i>, to agree with the next verse. -Perhaps <span class="heb">חרבי</span> is an abbreviation -for <span class="heb">חרב יהוה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161">[161]</a> See Budde, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1882, 25.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162">[162]</a> Heb. reads <i>a nation</i>, and Wellhausen translates <i>ein buntes -Gemisch von Volk</i>. LXX. <i>beasts of the earth</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163">[163]</a> <span class="heb">קאת</span>, -a water-bird according to Deut. xiv. 17, Lev. xi. 18, mostly -taken as <i>pelican</i>; so R.V. A.V. <i>cormorant</i>. -<span class="heb">קִפֹּד</span> has usually been -taken from <span class="heb">קפד</span>, to draw together, -therefore <i>hedgehog</i> or <i>porcupine</i>. -But the other animals mentioned here are birds, and it is birds which -would naturally roost on capitals. Therefore <i>bittern</i> is the better -rendering (Hitzig, Cheyne). The name is onomatopœic. Cf. Eng. -butter-dump. LXX. translates <i>chameleons and hedgehogs</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164">[164]</a> Heb.: <i>a voice shall sing in the window, desolation on the threshold, -for He shall uncover the cedar-work</i>. LXX. καὶ θηρία φωνήσει ἐν τοῖς -διορύγμασιν αὐτῆς, κόρακες ἐν τοῖς πυλῶσιν αὐτῆς, διότι κέδρος τὸ -ἀνάστημα αὐτῆς: Wild beasts shall sound in her excavations, ravens -in her porches, because (the) cedar is her height. -For <span class="heb">קול</span>, <i>voice</i>, -Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">כוס</span>, <i>owl</i>, and with the LXX. -<span class="heb">ערב</span>, <i>raven</i>, for -<span class="heb">חרב</span>, <i>desolation</i>. -The last two words are left untranslated above. -<span class="heb">אַרְזָה</span> occurs only here and is usually taken to mean cedar-work; -but it might be pointed <i>her</i> cedar. -<span class="heb">ערה</span>, <i>he</i>, or <i>one, has stripped the -cedar-work</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165">[165]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166">[166]</a> At the battle of Karkar, 854.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167">[167]</a> Under Tiglath-Pileser in 734.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER V --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168">[168]</a> -See above, pp. <a href="#Page_43">43</a>-45.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169">[169]</a> Heb. <i>the city the oppressor</i>. The two participles in the first -clause are not predicates to the noun and adjective of the second -(Schwally), but vocatives, though without the article, after <span class="heb">הוֹי</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170">[170]</a> LXX. <i>wolves of Arabia</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171">[171]</a> The verb left untranslated, <span class="heb">גרמו</span>, -is quite uncertain in meaning. -<span class="heb">גרם</span> is a root common to the Semitic languages and seems to mean -originally <i>to cut off</i>, while the noun <span class="heb">גרם</span> -is <i>a bone</i>. In Num. xxiv. 8 -the Piel of the verb used with another word for bone means <i>to gnaw</i>, -<i>munch</i>. (The only other passage where it is used, Ezek. xxiii. 34, is -corrupt.) So some take it here: <i>they do not gnaw bones till morning</i>, -<i>i.e.</i> devour all at once; but this is awkward, and Schwally (198) has -proposed to omit the negative, <i>they do gnaw bones till morning</i>, yet in -that case surely the impf. and not the perf. tense would have been -used. The LXX. render <i>they do not leave over</i>, and it has been -attempted, though inconclusively, to derive this meaning from that of -<i>cutting off</i>, i.e. <i>laying aside</i> (the Arabic Form II. means, however, <i>to -leave behind</i>). Another line of meaning perhaps promises more. In -Aram. the verb means <i>to be the cause of anything, to bring about</i>, and -perhaps contains the idea of <i>deciding</i> (Levy <i>sub voce</i> compares κρίνω, -<i>cerno</i>); in Arab. it means, among other things, <i>to commit a crime, be -guilty</i>, but in mod. Arabic <i>to fine</i>. Now it is to be noticed that here -the expression is used of <i>judges</i>, and it may be there is an intentional -play upon the double possibility of meaning in the root.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172">[172]</a> Ezek. xxii. 26: <i>Her priests have done violence to My Law and -have profaned My holy things; they have put no difference between the -holy and profane, between the clean and the unclean.</i> Cf. Jer. ii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173">[173]</a> Schwally by altering the accents: <i>morning by morning He giveth -forth His judgment: no day does He fail</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174">[174]</a> On this ver. 6 see above, p. <a href="#Page_44">44</a>. It is doubtful.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175">[175]</a> Or <i>discipline</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176">[176]</a> Wellhausen: <i>that which I have commanded her</i>. Cf. Job -xxxvi. 23; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23; Ezra i. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177">[177]</a> So LXX., reading <span class="heb">מֵעֵינֶיהָ</span> for the -Heb. <span class="heb">מְעוֹנָהּ</span>, <i>her dwelling</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178">[178]</a> A frequent phrase of Jeremiah’s.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179">[179]</a> <span class="heb">משפטי</span>, decree, ordinance, decision.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180">[180]</a> Heb. <i>My anger.</i> LXX. omits.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181">[181]</a> That is to say, the prophet returns to that general judgment of -the whole earth, with which in his first discourse he had already -threatened Judah. He threatens her with it again in this eighth -verse, because, as he has said in the preceding ones, all other -warnings have failed. The eighth verse therefore follows naturally -upon the seventh, just as naturally as in Amos iv. ver. 12, introduced -by the same <span class="heb">לָכֵן</span> as here, follows its predecessors. The next -two verses of the text, however, describe an opposite result: instead -of the destruction of the heathen, they picture their conversion, and it -is only in the eleventh verse that we return to the main subject of -the passage, Judah herself, who is represented (in harmony with the -close of Zephaniah’s first discourse) as reduced to a righteous and -pious remnant. Vv. 9 and 10 are therefore obviously a later insertion, -and we pass to the eleventh verse. Vv. 9 and 10: <i>For then</i> (this has -no meaning after ver. 8) <i>will I give to the peoples a pure lip</i> (elliptic -phrase: <i>turn to the peoples a pure lip</i>—i.e. <i>turn their</i> evil lip into <i>a -pure lip</i>: pure = <i>picked out</i>, <i>select</i>, <i>excellent</i>, -cf. Isa. xlix. 2), <i>that they -may all of them call upon the name of the Lord, that they may serve Him -with one consent</i> (Heb. <i>shoulder</i>, LXX. <i>yoke</i>). <i>From beyond the rivers -of Ethiopia</i>—there follows a very obscure phrase, -<span class="heb">עֲתָרַי בַּת־פּוּצַי</span>, <i>suppliants -(?) of the daughter of My dispersed</i>, but Ewald <i>of the daughter -of Phut—they shall bring Mine offering</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182">[182]</a> Wellhausen <i>despair</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183">[183]</a> Heb. <i>the jubilant ones of thine arrogance</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184">[184]</a> See vv. 4, 5, 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185">[185]</a> Heb. <i>the</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186">[186]</a> <span class="heb">מִשְׁפָּטַיִךְ</span>. But Wellhausen reads -<span class="heb">מְשׁוֹפְטַיִךְ</span>, thine adversaries: cf. Job ix. 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187">[187]</a> Reading <span class="heb">תִּרְאִי</span> (with LXX., Wellhausen and Schwally) for <span class="heb">תִּירָאִי</span> -of the Hebrew text, <i>fear</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188">[188]</a> Lit. <i>hero</i>, <i>mighty man</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189">[189]</a> Heb. <i>will be silent in</i>, <span class="heb">יַחֲרִישׁ</span>, -but not in harmony with the next -clause. LXX. and Syr. render <i>will make new</i>, which translates -<span class="heb">יַחֲדִישׁ</span>, -a form that does not elsewhere occur, though that is no objection to -finding it in Zephaniah, or <span class="heb">יְחַדֵּשׁ</span>. Hitzig: <i>He makes new things in -His love</i>. Buhl: <i>He renews His love</i>. -Schwally suggests <span class="heb">יחדה</span>, <i>He -rejoices in His love</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190">[190]</a> LXX. <i>In the days of thy festival</i>, which it takes with the previous -verse. The Heb. construction is ungrammatical, though not unprecedented—the -construct state before a preposition. Besides <span class="heb">נוגי</span> is -obscure in meaning. It is a Ni. pt. for <span class="heb">נוגה</span> from <span class="heb">יגה</span>, <i>to be sad</i>: cf. the -Pi. in Lam. iii. 33. But the Hiphil <span class="heb">הוגה</span> in 2 Sam. xx. 13, -followed (as here) by <span class="heb">מן</span>, means -<i>to thrust away from</i>, and that is probably the sense here.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191">[191]</a> LXX. <i>thine oppressed</i> in acc. governed by the preceding verb, which -in LXX. begins the verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192">[192]</a> The Heb., <span class="heb">מַשְׂאֵת</span>, <i>burden of</i>, -is unintelligible. Wellhausen proposes <span class="heb">מִשְׂאֵת עֲלֵיהֶם</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193">[193]</a> This rendering is only a venture in the almost impossible task of -restoring the text of the clause. As it stands the Heb. runs, <i>Behold, I -am about to do</i>, or <i>deal, with thine oppressors</i> (which Hitzig and Ewald -accept). Schwally points <span class="heb">מְעַנַּיִךְ</span> (active) as a passive, -<span class="heb">מְעֻנַּיִךְ</span>, <i>thine oppressed</i>. -LXX. has ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ποιῶ ἐν σοὶ ἕνεκεν σοῦ, <i>i.e.</i> -it read <span class="heb">אִתֵּךְ לְמַעֲנֵךְ</span>. -Following its suggestion we might read <span class="heb">אֶת־כֹּל לְמַעֲנֵךְ</span>, and -so get the above translation.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194">[194]</a> Micah iv. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195">[195]</a> This rendering (Ewald’s) is doubtful. The verse concludes with -<i>in the whole earth their shame</i>. But <span class="heb">בָּשְׁתָּם</span> may be a gloss. -LXX. take it as a verb with the next verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196">[196]</a> LXX. <i>do good to you</i>; perhaps <span class="heb">אטיב</span> -for <span class="heb">אביא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197">[197]</a> So Heb. literally, but the construction is very awkward. Perhaps -we should read <i>in that time I will gather you</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198">[198]</a> <i>Before your eyes</i>, <i>i.e.</i> in your lifetime. -It is doubtful whether ver. 20 is original to the passage. -For it is simply a variation on ver. 19, and it has more than one -impossible reading: see previous note, and -for <span class="heb">שבותיכם</span> read <span class="heb">שבותכם</span>.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER VI --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199">[199]</a> In the English version, but in the Hebrew chap. ii. vv. 1 and 3; -for the Hebrew text divides chap. i. from chap. ii. differently from -the English, which follows the Greek. The Hebrew begins chap. ii. -with what in the English and Greek is the fifteenth verse of chap. i.: -<i>Behold, upon the mountains</i>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200">[200]</a> In the English text, but in the Hebrew with the omission of -vv. 1 and 3: see previous note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201">[201]</a> Other meanings have been suggested, but are impossible.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202">[202]</a> So it lies on Billerbeck’s map in Delitzsch and Haupt’s <i>Beiträge -zur Assyr.</i>, III. Smith’s <i>Bible Dictionary</i> puts it at only 2 m. N. of -Mosul.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203">[203]</a> Layard, <i>Niniveh and its Remains</i>, I. 233, 3rd ed., 1849.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204">[204]</a> Bohn’s <i>Early Travels in Palestine</i>, p. 102.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205">[205]</a> Just as they show Jonah’s tomb at Niniveh itself.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206">[206]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207">[207]</a> Just as in Micah’s case Jerome calls his birthplace Moresheth by -the adjective Morasthi, so with equal carelessness he calls Elḳosh -by the adjective with the article Ha-elḳoshi, the Elḳoshite. Jerome’s -words are: “Quum Elcese usque hodie in Galilea viculus sit, parvus -quidem et vix ruinis veterum ædificiorum indicans vestigia, sed tamen -notus Judæis et mihi quoque a circumducente monstratus” (in <i>Prol. -ad Prophetiam Nachumi</i>). In the <i>Onomasticon</i> Jerome gives the name -as Elcese, Eusebius as Ἐλκεσέ, but without defining the position.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208">[208]</a> This Elkese has been identified, though not conclusively, with -the modern El Kauze near Ramieh, some seven miles W. of Tibnin.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209">[209]</a> Cf. Kuenen, § 75, n. 5; Davidson, p. 12 (2). -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -Capernaum, which the Textus Receptus gives as Καπερναούμ, but -most authorities as Καφαρναούμ and the Peshitto as Kaphar Nahum, -obviously means Village of Nahum, and both Hitzig and Knobel -looked for Elḳôsh in it. See <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 456. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -Against the Galilean origin of Nahum it is usual to appeal to -John vii. 52: <i>Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet</i>; -but this is not decisive, for Jonah came out of Galilee.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210">[210]</a> Though perhaps falsely.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211">[211]</a> This occurs in the Syriac translation of the Old Testament by Paul -of Tella, 617 <span class="small">A.D.</span>, in which the notices of Epiphanius (Bishop of -Constantia in Cyprus <span class="small">A.D.</span> 367) or Pseudepiphanius are attached to -their respective prophets. It was first communicated to the <i>Z.D.P.V.</i>, -I. 122 ff., by Dr. Nestle: cf. <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 231, n. 1. The previously -known readings of the passage were either geographically impossible, -as “He came from Elkesei beyond Jordan, towards Begabar of the -tribe of Simeon” (so in Paris edition, 1622, of the works of -St. Epiphanius, Vol. II., p. 147: cf. Migne, <i>Patr. Gr.</i>, XLIII. 409); -or based on a misreading of the title of the book: “Nahum son of -Elkesaios was of Jesbe of the tribe of Simeon”; or indefinable: -“Nahum was of Elkesem beyond Betabarem of the tribe of Simeon”; -these last two from recensions of Epiphanius published in 1855 by -Tischendorf (quoted by Davidson, p. 13). In the Στιχηρὸν τῶν ΙΒ´ -Προφητῶν καὶ Ἰσαιοῦ, attributed to Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem, -who died 428 of 433 (Migne, <i>Patrologia Gr.</i>, XCIII. 1357), it is -said that Nahum was ἀπὸ Ἑλκεσεὶν (Helcesin) πέραν τοῦ τηνβαρεὶν -ἐκ φυλῆς Συμεών; to which has been added a note from Theophylact, -Ἑλκασαΐ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου εἰς Βιγαβρὶ.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212">[212]</a> Ad Nahum i. I (Migne, <i>Patr. Gr.</i>, LXXI. 780): Κώμη δὲ αὕτη -πάντως ποῦ τῆς Ἰουδαίων χώρας.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213">[213]</a> The selection Bashan, Carmel and Lebanon (i. 4), does not prove -northern authorship.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214">[214]</a> <span class="heb">אֶלְקוֹשׁ</span> may be (1) a theophoric name = Ḳosh is God; and -Ḳosh might then be the Edomite deity <span class="heb">קוֹס</span> whose name is spelt with -a Shin on the Assyrian monuments (Baethgen, <i>Beiträge z. Semit. -Religionsgeschichte</i>, p. 11; Schrader, <i>K.A.T.</i>², pp. 150, 613), and who -is probably the same as the Arab deity Ḳais (Baethgen, <i>id.</i>, p. 108); -and this would suit a position in the south of Judah, in which region -we find the majority of place-names compounded with <span class="heb">אל</span>. Or -else (2) the <span class="heb">א</span> is prosthetic, as in the place-names -<span class="heb">אכזיב</span> on the Phœnician coast, -<span class="heb">אכשׁף</span> in Southern Canaan, <span class="heb">אשדוד</span>, etc. -In this case we might find its equivalent in the form -<span class="heb">לְקוֹש</span> (cf. <span class="heb">כזיב אכזיב</span>); -but no such form is now extant or recorded at any previous period. -The form Lâḳis would not suit. On Bir el Ḳûs see Robinson, <i>B.R.</i>, -III., p. 14, and Guérin, <i>Judée</i>, III., p. 341. Bir el Ḳûs means Well of -the Bow, or, according to Guérin, of the Arch, from ruins that stand -by it. The position, <i>east</i> of Beit-Jibrin, is unsuitable; for the early -Christian texts quoted in the previous note fix it <i>beyond</i>, presumably -south or south-west of Beit-Jibrin, and in the tribe of Simeon. The -error “tribe of Simeon” does not matter, for the same fathers place -Bethzecharias, the alleged birthplace of Habakkuk, there.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215">[215]</a> <i>Einleitung</i>, 1st ed.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216">[216]</a> Who seems to have owed the hint to a quotation by Delitzsch -on Psalm ix. from G. Frohnmeyer to the effect that there were traces -of “alphabetic” verses in chap, i., at least in vv. 3–7. See Bickell’s -<i>Beiträge zur Semit. Metrik</i>, Separatabdruck, Wien, 1894.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217">[217]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1893, pp. 223 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218">[218]</a> Cf. Ezra ii. 42; Neh. vii. 45; 2 Sam. xvii. 27.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219">[219]</a> ver. 1 is title; 2 begins with <span class="heb">א</span>; then ב is -found in <span class="heb" dir="ltr">בסופה</span>, 3<i>b</i>; <span class="heb">ג</span> in -<span class="heb" dir="ltr">גוער</span>, 4; ד is wanting—Bickell -proposes to substitute a New-Hebrew -word <span class="heb">דצק</span>, Gunkel <span class="heb">דאב</span>, -for <span class="heb" dir="ltr">אמלל</span>, 4<i>b</i>; <span class="heb">ה</span> -in <span class="heb" dir="ltr">ותשא</span>, 5<i>b</i>; -<span class="heb" >ז</span> by removing <span class="heb">לפני</span> -of ver. 6<i>a</i> to the end of the clause (and reading -it there <span class="heb">לפניו</span>), and so leaving -<span class="heb">זעמו</span> as the first word; -<span class="heb">ח</span> in <span class="heb">חמתו</span> in -6<i>b</i>; <span class="heb">ט</span> in <span class="heb" dir="ltr">טוב</span>, -7<i>a</i>; <span class="heb">י</span> by eliding <span class="heb">ו</span> -from <span class="heb" dir="ltr">וידע</span>, 7<i>b</i>; <span class="heb">כ</span> -in <span class="heb" dir="ltr">כלה </span>, 8; <span class="heb">ל</span> is -wanting, though Gunkel seeks to supply it by taking 9<i>c</i>, beginning -<span class="heb">לא</span>, with 9<b>b</b>, before 9<i>a</i>; -<span class="heb">מ</span> begins 9<i>a</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220">[220]</a> See below in the translation.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221">[221]</a> As thus: 9<i>a</i>, 11<i>b</i>, 12 (but unintelligible), -10, 13, 14, ii. 1, 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222">[222]</a> See above on Zephaniah, pp. <a href="#Page_49">49</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223">[223]</a> Cornill, in the 2nd ed. of his <i>Einleitung</i>, has accepted Gunkel’s -and Bickell’s main contentions.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224">[224]</a> iii. 8–10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225">[225]</a> The description of the fall of No-Amon precludes the older view -almost universally held before the discovery of Assurbanipal’s destruction -of Thebes, viz. that Nahum prophesied in the days of Hezekiah -or in the earlier years of Manasseh (Lightfoot, Pusey, Nägelsbach, etc.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226">[226]</a> So Schrader, Volck in Herz. <i>Real. Enc.</i>, and others.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227">[227]</a> It is favoured by Winckler, <i>A.T. Untersuch.</i>, pp. 127 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228">[228]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_15">15</a> f.; -<a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229">[229]</a> This in answer to Jeremias in Delitzsch’s and Haupt’s <i>Beiträge -zur Assyriologie</i>, III. 96.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230">[230]</a> I. 103.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231">[231]</a> Hitzig’s other reason, that the besiegers of Niniveh are described -by Nahum in ii. 3 ff. as single, which was true of the siege in 625 <i>c.</i>, but -not of that of 607—6, when the Chaldeans joined the Medes, is disposed -of by the proof on p. <a href="#Page_22">22</a> above, that even in 607—6 the Medes carried -on the siege alone.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232">[232]</a> Page 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233">[233]</a> In commenting on chap. i. 9; p. 156 of <i>Kleine Propheten</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234">[234]</a> The phrase which is so often appealed to by both sides, i. 9, -<i>Jehovah maketh a complete end, not twice shall trouble arise</i>, is really -inconclusive. Hitzig maintains that if Nahum had written this after -the first and before the second siege of Niniveh he would have had -to say, “not thrice <i>shall trouble arise</i>.” This is not conclusive: the -prophet is looking only at the future and thinking of it—<i>not twice</i> -again <i>shall trouble arise</i>; and if there were really two sieges of -Niniveh, would the words <i>not twice</i> have been suffered to remain, if -they had been a confident prediction <i>before</i> the first siege? Besides, -the meaning of the phrase is not certain; it may be only a general -statement corresponding to what seems a general statement in the -first clause of the verse. Kuenen and others refer the <i>trouble</i> not -to that which is about to afflict Assyria, but to the long slavery and -slaughter which Judah has suffered at Assyria’s hands. Davidson -leaves it ambiguous.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235">[235]</a> Technical military terms: ii. 2, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">מצורה</span>; -4, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">פלדת</span> (?); 4, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">הרעלו</span>; -6, <span class="heb">הסכך</span>; iii. 3, <span class="heb">מעלה</span> (?). -Probably foreign terms: ii. 8, <span class="heb">הצב</span>; -iii. 17, <span class="heb">מנזריך</span>. Certainly foreign: iii. 17, <span class="heb">טפסריך</span>.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER VII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236">[236]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_78">78</a> ff., <a href="#Page_85">85</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237">[237]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_81">81</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238">[238]</a> ver. 3, if the reading be correct.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239">[239]</a> Gunkel amends to <i>in mercy</i> to make the parallel exact. But see -above, p. <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240">[240]</a> Gunkel’s emendation is quite unnecessary here.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241">[241]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242">[242]</a> So LXX. Heb. = <i>for a stronghold in the day of trouble</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243">[243]</a> <i>Thrusts into</i>, Wellhausen, reading <span class="heb">ינדף</span> or <span class="heb">ידף</span> for <span class="heb">ירדף</span>. LXX. -<i>darkness shall pursue</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244">[244]</a> Heb. and R.V. <i>drenched as with their drink</i>. LXX. <i>like a tangled -yew</i>. The text is corrupt.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245">[245]</a> The superfluous word <span class="heb">מלא</span> at the end of ver. 10 Wellhausen -reads as <span class="heb">הלא</span> at the beginning of ver. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246">[246]</a> Usually taken as Sennacherib.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247">[247]</a> The Hebrew is given by the R.V. <i>though they be in full strength -and likewise many</i>. LXX. <i>Thus saith Jehovah ruling over many waters</i>, -reading <span class="heb">משל מים רבים</span> and omitting the first <span class="heb">וכן</span>. Similarly Syr. <i>Thus saith Jehovah of the heads of many waters</i>, -<span class="heb">על משלי מים רבים</span>. -Wellhausen, substituting <span class="heb">מים</span> -for the first <span class="heb">וכן</span>, translates, <i>Let the great -waters be ever so full, they will yet all</i> ...? (misprint here) <i>and vanish</i>. -For <span class="heb">עבר</span> read <span class="heb">עברו</span> -with LXX., borrowing <span class="heb">ו</span> from next word.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248">[248]</a> Lit. <i>and I will afflict thee, I will not afflict thee again</i>. This -rendering implies that Niniveh is the object. The A.V., <i>though -I have afflicted thee I will afflict thee no more</i>, refers to Israel.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249">[249]</a> Omit ver. 13 and run 14 on to 12. For the curious alternation -now occurs: Assyria in one verse, Judah in the other. Assyria: -i. 12, 14, ii. 2 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 1), 4 ff. Judah: i. 13, ii. 1 (Heb.; -Eng. i. 15), 3 (Heb.; Eng. 2). Remove these latter, as Wellhausen -does, and the verses on Assyria remain a connected and orderly -whole. So in the text above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250">[250]</a> Syr. <i>make it thy sepulchre</i>. The Hebrew left untranslated above -might be rendered <i>for thou art vile</i>. Bickell amends into <i>dunghills</i>. -Lightfoot, <i>Chron. Temp. et Ord. Text V.T.</i> in Collected Works, I. 109, -takes this as a prediction of Sennacherib’s murder in the temple, -an interpretation which demands a date for Nahum under either -Hezekiah or Manasseh. So Pusey also, p. 357.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251">[251]</a> LXX. <i>destruction</i> <span class="heb">כָּלָה</span>, for <span class="heb">כֻּלה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252">[252]</a> Davidson: <i>restoreth the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel</i>, -but when was the latter restored?</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER VIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253">[253]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_22">22</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254">[254]</a> The authorities are very full. First there is M. Botta’s huge work -<i>Monument de Ninive</i>, Paris, 5 vols., 1845. Then must be mentioned -the work of which we availed ourselves in describing Babylon in -<i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i>, Expositor’s Bible, pp. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43672/43672-h/43672-h.htm#Page_52">52</a> ff.: -“Memoirs by Commander -James Felix Jones, I.N.,” in <i>Selections from the Records of the -Bombay Government</i>, No. XLIII., New Series, 1857. It is good to find -that the careful and able observations of Commander Jones, too much -neglected in his own country, have had justice done them by the -German Colonel Billerbeck in the work about to be cited. Then -there is the invaluable <i>Niniveh and its Remains</i>, by Layard. There -are also the works of Rawlinson and George Smith. And recently -Colonel Billerbeck, founding on these and other works, has published -an admirable monograph (lavishly illustrated by maps and pictures), -not only upon the military state of Assyria proper and of Niniveh -at this period, but upon the whole subject of Assyrian fortification -and art of besieging, as well as upon the course of the Median -invasions. It forms the larger part of an article to which Dr. Alfred -Jeremias contributes an introduction, and reconstruction with notes -of chaps. ii. and iii. of the Book of Nahum: “Der Untergang -Niniveh’s und die Weissagungschrift des Nahum von Elḳosh,” in -Vol. III. of <i>Beiträge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft</i>, -edited by Friedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt, with the support -of Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S.A.: Leipzig, 1895.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255">[255]</a> Pages <a href="#Page_20">20</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256">[256]</a> Colonel Billerbeck (p. 115) thinks that the south-east frontier at -this time lay more to the north, near the Greater Zab.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257">[257]</a> First excavated by M. Botta, 1842–1845. See also George Smith, -<i>Assyr. Disc.</i>, pp. 98 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258">[258]</a> iii. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259">[259]</a> iii. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260">[260]</a> See Jones and Billerbeck.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261">[261]</a> Delitzsch places the <span class="heb">עיר רחבות</span> of Gen. x. 11, the “ribit Nina” -of the inscriptions, on the north-east of Niniveh.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262">[262]</a> ii. 4 Eng., 5 Heb.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263">[263]</a> ii. 3 Eng., 4 Heb.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264">[264]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265">[265]</a> iii. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266">[266]</a> iii. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267">[267]</a> It is the waters of the Tigris that the tradition avers to have -broken the wall; but the Tigris itself runs in a bed too low for this: -it can only have been the Choser. See both Jones and Billerbeck.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268">[268]</a> ii. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269">[269]</a> If the above conception of chaps. ii. and iii. be correct, then -there is no need for such a re-arrangement of these verses as has -been proposed by Jeremias and Billerbeck. In order to produce a -continuous narrative of the progress of the siege, they bring forward -iii. 12–15 (describing the fall of the fortresses and gates of the land -and the call to the defence of the city), and place it immediately after -ii. 2, 4 (the description of the invader) and ii. 5–11 (the appearance -of chariots in the suburbs of the city, the opening of the floodgates, -the flight and the spoiling of the city). But if they believe that the -original gave an orderly account of the progress of the siege, why do -they not bring forward also iii. 2 f., which describe the arrival of the -foe under the city walls? The truth appears to be as stated above. -We have really two poems against Niniveh, chap. ii. and chap. iii. -They do not give an orderly description of the siege, but exult over -Niniveh’s imminent downfall, with gleams scattered here and there -of how this is to happen. Of these “impressions” of the coming -siege there are three, and in the order in which we now have them -they occur very naturally: ii. 5 ff., iii. 2 f., and iii. 12 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270">[270]</a> ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. -See above, pp. <a href="#Page_99">94</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271">[271]</a> ii. 13, iii. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272">[272]</a> See above, Vol. I., Chap. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a>, -especially pp. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_54">54</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273">[273]</a> ii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274">[274]</a> <i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i> (Expositor’s Bible), pp. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43672/43672-h/43672-h.htm#Page_197">197</a> ff. -</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275">[275]</a> Read <span class="heb">מַפֵּץ</span> with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade’s <i>Wörterbuch</i>, -sub <span class="heb">פּוּץ</span>) for <span class="heb">מֵפִיץ</span>, <i>Breaker in pieces</i>. In Jer. li. 20 Babylon is also -called by Jehovah His <span class="heb">מַפֵּץ</span>, <i>Hammer</i> or <i>Maul</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276">[276]</a> <i>Keep watch</i>, Wellhausen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277">[277]</a> This may be a military call to attention, the converse of “Stand -at ease!”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278">[278]</a> Heb. literally: <i>brace up thy power exceedingly</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279">[279]</a> Heb. singular.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280">[280]</a> Rev. ix. 17. Purple or red was the favourite colour of the Medes. -The Assyrians also loved red.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281">[281]</a> Read <span class="heb">כאשׁ</span> for <span class="heb">באשׁ</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282">[282]</a> <span class="heb">פלדות</span>, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur elsewhere. -LXX. ἡνίαι; Vulg. <i>habenæ</i>. Some have thought that it means <i>scythes</i>—cf. -the Arabic <i>falad</i>, “to cut”—but the earliest notice of chariots -armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish literature -they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 97, -where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum are applicable to -the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian monuments, from -which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf. <i>ibid.</i>, p. 167, n. ***. -But from the parallelism of the verse it is more probable that -ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots were covered -with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p. 167).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283">[283]</a> So LXX., reading <span class="heb">פרשים</span> for <span class="heb">ברשים</span> of Heb. text, that means -<i>fir-trees</i>. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose -with Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were -meant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls -by engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be -the cavalry and chariots in the open that are here described.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284">[284]</a> Or <i>broad places</i> or <i>suburbs</i>. -See above, pp. <a href="#Page_100">100</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285">[285]</a> See above, p. 106, end of n. <a href="#Footnote_282_282">282</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286">[286]</a> Heb. <i>They stumble in their goings.</i> Davidson holds this is more -probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the -besiegers. See next note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287">[287]</a> <span class="heb">הסֹּכֵךְ</span>. Partic. of the verb <i>to cover</i>, hence covering thing: whether <i>mantlet</i> (on the side of the besiegers) -or <i>bulwark</i> (on the side of the besieged: cf. <span class="heb">מָסָךְ</span>, -Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain. Billerbeck says, if it be -an article of defence, we can read ver. 5 as illustrating the vanity of -the hurried defence, when the elements themselves break in vv. 6 -and 7 (p. 101: cf. p. 176, n. *).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288">[288]</a> <i>Sluices</i> (Jeremias) or <i>bridge-gates</i> (Wellhausen)?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289">[289]</a> Or <i>breaks into motion</i>, i.e. <i>flight</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290">[290]</a> <span class="heb">הֻצּב</span>, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of <span class="heb">נצב</span> and has been -taken to mean <i>it is determined, she</i> (Niniveh) <i>is taken captive</i>. -Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: <i>it is settled</i>. LXX. ὑπόστασις = -<span class="heb">מצב</span>. Vulg. <i>miles</i> (as if some form of -<span class="heb">צבא</span>?). Hitzig points it <span class="heb">הַצָּב</span>, -<i>the lizard</i>, Wellhausen <i>the toad</i>. But this noun is masculine -(Lev. xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other -<span class="heb">הַצָּב</span>, fem., the <i>litter</i> or <i>palanquin</i> (Isa. lxvi. 20): -“in lieu of anything better one might be tempted to think that the litter might -mean the woman or lady, just as in Arab. ḍḥa’inah means a woman’s -litter and then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of <span class="heb">הַצְּבי</span>, -<i>the beauty</i>. The Targ. has <span class="heb">מלכתא</span>, <i>the queen</i>. -From as early as at least 1527 (<i>Latina Interpretatio</i> Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised -and edited for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken -by a series of scholars as a proper name, Huṣṣab. So Ewald and -others. It may be an Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. -Perhaps, again, the text is corrupt. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -Mr. Paul Ruben (<i>Academy</i>, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead -of <span class="heb">העלתה</span>, <i>is brought forth</i>, to read <span class="heb">העתלה</span>, and to translate it by -analogy of the Assyrian “etellu,” fem. “etellitu” = great or exalted, -<i>The Lady</i>. The line would then run <i>Huṣṣab, the lady, is stripped</i>. -(With <span class="heb">העתלה</span> Cheyne, <i>Academy</i>, June 21st, 1896, compares <span class="heb">עתליה</span>, -which, he suggests, is “Yahwe is great” or “is lord.”)</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291">[291]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">מֵימֵי הִיא</span> for <span class="heb">מימי אשר היא</span>, <i>from days she was</i>. A.V. <i>is of -old</i>. R.V. <i>hath been of old</i>, and Marg. <i>from the days that she hath been</i>. -LXX. <i>her waters</i>, מֵימֶיהָ. On waters fleeing, cf. Ps. civ. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292">[292]</a> Buḳah, umebuḳah, umebullāḳah. Ewald: <i>desert and desolation -and devastation</i>. The adj. are feminine.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293">[293]</a> Literally: <i>and the faces of all them gather lividness</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294">[294]</a> For <span class="heb">מרעה</span> Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">מערה</span>, <i>cave</i> or <i>hold</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295">[295]</a> LXX., reading <span class="heb">לבוא</span> for <span class="heb">לביא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296">[296]</a> Heb. <i>her chariots</i>. LXX. and Syr. suggest <i>thy mass</i> or <i>multitude</i>, -<span class="heb">רבכה</span>. Davidson suggests <i>thy lair</i>, <span class="heb">רבצכה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297">[297]</a> Literally <i>and the chariot dancing</i>, but the word, merakedah, has -a rattle in it.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298">[298]</a> Doubtful, <span class="heb">מַעֲלֶה</span>. LXX. ἀναβαίνοντος.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299">[299]</a> Jeremias (104) shows how the Assyrians did this to female -captives.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300">[300]</a> Jer. xlvi. 25: <i>I will punish Amon at No</i>. Ezek. xxx. 14–16: -<i> . . . judgments in No. . . . -I will cut off No-Amon</i> (Heb. and A.V. -<i>multitude of No</i>, reading <span class="heb">המון</span>; so also LXX. τὸ πλῆθος for <span class="heb">אמון</span>) . . . <i>and No shall be broken up</i>. -It is Thebes, the Egyptian name of which -was Nu-Amen. The god Amen had his temple there: Herod. I. 182, -II. 42. Nahum refers to Assurbanipal’s account of the fall of Thebes. -See above, p. <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301">[301]</a> <span class="heb">היארים</span>. Pl. of the word for Nile.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302">[302]</a> Arabs still call the Nile the sea.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303">[303]</a> So LXX., reading <span class="heb">מַיִם</span> for Heb. <span class="heb">מִיָּם</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304">[304]</a> So LXX.; Heb. <i>thee</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305">[305]</a> Heb. <i>be drunken</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306">[306]</a> I.e. <i>against</i>, <i>because of</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307">[307]</a> Jer. l. 37, li. 30.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308">[308]</a> Heb. and LXX. add <i>devour thee like the locust</i>, probably a gloss.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309">[309]</a> Cf. Jer. ix. 33. Some take it of the locusts stripping the skin -which confines their wings: Davidson.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310">[310]</a> <span class="heb">מנזריך</span>. A.V. <i>thy crowned ones</i>; -but perhaps like its neighbouran Assyrian word, meaning we know not what. -Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">ממזרך</span>, LXX. ὁ συμμικτός σοῦ -(applied in Deut. xxiii. 3 and Zech. ix. 6 -to the offspring of a mixed marriage between an Israelite and a -Gentile), deine Mischlinge: a term of contempt for the floating foreign -or semi-foreign population which filled Niniveh and was ready to fly -at sight of danger. Similarly Wellhausen takes the second term, -<span class="heb">טפסר</span>. This, which occurs also in Jer. li. 27, appears to be some -kind of official. In Assyrian <i>dupsar</i> is scribe, which may, like -Heb. <span class="heb">שׁטר</span>, have been applied to any high official. See Schrader, -<i>K.A.T.</i>, Eng. Tr., I. 141, II. 118. See also Fried. Delitzsch, <i>Wo lag -Parad.</i>, p. 142. The name and office were ancient. Such Babylonian -officials are mentioned in the Tell el Amarna letters as present at the -Egyptian court.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311">[311]</a> Heb. <i>day of cold</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312">[312]</a> <span class="heb">ישכנו</span>, <i>dwell</i>, is the Heb. reading. But LXX. <span class="heb">ישנו</span>, ἐκοίμισεν. Sleep -must be taken in the sense of death: cf. Jer. li. 39, 57; Isa. xiv. 18.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER IX --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313">[313]</a> Except one or two critics who place it in Manasseh’s reign. -See below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314">[314]</a> See next note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315">[315]</a> So Pusey. Delitzsch in his commentary on Habakkuk, 1843, -preferred Josiah’s reign, but in his <i>O. T. Hist. of Redemption</i>, 1881, -p. 226, Manasseh’s. Volck (in Herzog, <i>Real Encyc.</i>,² art. “Habakkuk,” -1879), assuming that Habakkuk is quoted both by Zephaniah (see -above, p. 39, n.) and Jeremiah, places him before these. Sinker (<i>The -Psalm of Habakkuk</i>: see below, p. 127, -n. <a href="#Footnote_342_342">342</a>) deems “the prophecy, -taken as a whole,” to bring “before us the threat of the Chaldean -invasion, the horrors that follow in its train,” etc., with a vision of the -day “when the Chaldean host itself, its work done, falls beneath -a mightier foe.” He fixes the date either in the concluding years -of Manasseh’s reign, or the opening years of that of Josiah -(Preface, 1–4).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316">[316]</a> Pages 53, 49. Kirkpatrick (Smith’s <i>Dict. of the Bible</i>,² art. -“Habakkuk,” 1893) puts it not later than the sixth year of Jehoiakim.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317">[317]</a> <i>Einl. in das A. T.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318">[318]</a> <i>Beiträge zur Jesaiakritik</i>, 1890, pp. 197 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319">[319]</a> See Further Note on p. <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320">[320]</a> <i>Studien u. Kritiken</i> for 1893.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321">[321]</a> Cf. the opening of § 30 in the first edition of his <i>Einleitung</i> with -that of § 34 in the third and fourth editions.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322">[322]</a> Budde’s explanation of this is, that to the later editors of the -book, long after the Babylonian destruction of Jews, it was -incredible that the Chaldean should be represented as the deliverer -of Israel, and so the account of him was placed where, while his call -to punish Israel for her sins was not emphasised, he should be pictured -as destined to doom; and so the prophecy originally referring to the -Assyrian was read of him. “This is possible,” says Davidson, “if -it be true criticism is not without its romance.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323">[323]</a> This in opposition to Budde’s statement that the description -of the Chaldeans in i. 5–11 “ist eine phantastische Schilderung” -(p. 387).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324">[324]</a> It is, however, a serious question whether it would be possible -in 615 to describe the Chaldeans as <i>a nation that traversed the breadth -of the earth to occupy dwelling-places that were not his own</i> (i. 6). This -suits better after the battle of Carchemish.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325">[325]</a> See above, p. 121, n. <a href="#Footnote_322_322">322</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326">[326]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_114">114</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327">[327]</a> Pages 49 and 50.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328">[328]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_118">118</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329">[329]</a> Wellhausen in 1873 (see p. 661); Giesebrecht in 1890; Budde -in 1892, before he had seen the opinions of either of the others (see -<i>Stud. und Krit.</i>, 1893, p. 386, n. 2).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330">[330]</a> Cornill quotes a rearrangement of chaps, i., ii., by Rothstein, -who takes i. 2–4, 12 <i>a</i>, 13, ii. 1–3, 4, 5 <i>a</i>, i. 6–10, 14, 15 <i>a</i>, ii. 6 <i>b</i>, -7, 9, 10 <i>a</i> <i>b</i> β, 11, 15, 16, 19, 18, as an oracle against Jehoiakim and -the godless in Israel about 605, which during the Exile was worked -up into the present oracle against Babylon. Cornill esteems it -“too complicated.” Budde (<i>Expositor</i>, 1895, pp. 372 ff.) and Nowack -hold it untenable.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331">[331]</a> As of course was universally supposed according to either of the -other two interpretations given above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332">[332]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1884, p. 154.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333">[333]</a> Cf. Isa. v. 8 ff. (x. 1–4), etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334">[334]</a> So LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335">[335]</a> Cf. Davidson, p. 56, and Budde, p. 391, who allows 9–11 and 15–17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336">[336]</a> <i>E.g.</i> Isa. xl. 18 ff., xliv. 9 ff., xlvi. 5 ff., etc. On this ground -it is condemned by Stade, Kuenen and Budde. Davidson finds this -not a serious difficulty, for, he points out, Habakkuk anticipates -several later lines of thought.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337">[337]</a> See above, p. 39, n. <a href="#Footnote_84_84">84</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338">[338]</a> <i>A. T. Religionsgeschichte</i>, p. 229, n. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339">[339]</a> Cf. the ascription by the LXX. of Psalms cxlvi.-cl. to the prophets -Haggai and Zechariah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340">[340]</a> Cf. Kuenen, who conceives it to have been taken from a post-exilic -collection of Psalms. See also Cheyne, <i>The Origin of the Psalter</i>: -“exilic or more probably post-exilic” (p. 125). “The most natural -position for it is in the Persian period. It was doubtless appended -to Habakkuk, for the same reason for which Isa. lxiii. 7—lxiv. was -attached to the great prophecy of Restoration, viz. that the earlier -national troubles seemed to the Jewish Church to be typical of its own -sore troubles after the Return. … The lovely closing -verses of Hab. iii. are also in a tone congenial to the later religion” -(p. 156). Much less certain is the assertion that the -language is imitative and artificial -(<i>ibid.</i>); while the statement that in ver. 3—cf. with Deut. xxxiii. 2—we -have an instance of the effort to avoid the personal name of the -Deity (p. 287) is disproved by the use of the latter in ver. 2 and -other verses.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341">[341]</a> <span class="heb">ישע את</span>, ver. 13, cannot be taken as a proof of lateness; read -probably <span class="heb">הושיע את</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342">[342]</a> Pusey, Ewald, König, Sinker (<i>The Psalm of Habakkuk</i>, Cambridge, -1890), Kirkpatrick (Smith’s <i>Bible Dict.</i>, art. “Habakkuk”), Von Orelli.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER X --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343">[343]</a> <span class="heb">חֲבַקּוּק</span> (the Greek Ἁμβακουμ, LXX. version of the title of this book, and again the inscription to <i>Bel and the Dragon</i>, suggests -the pointing <span class="heb">חַבַּקוּק</span>; Epiph., <i>De Vitis Proph.</i>—see -next note—spells it Ἁββακουμ), from <span class="heb">חבק</span>, -<i>to embrace</i>. Jerome: “He is called ‘embrace’ -either because of his love to the Lord, or because he wrestles with -God.” Luther: “Habakkuk means one who comforts and holds up -his people as one embraces a weeping person.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344">[344]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_126">126</a> ff. -The title to the Greek version of <i>Bel and the -Dragon</i> bears that the latter was taken from the prophecy of Hambakoum, -son of Jesus, of the tribe of Levi. Further details are offered -in the <i>De Vitis Prophetarum</i> of (Pseud-) Epiphanius, <i>Epiph. Opera</i>, -ed. Paris, 1622, Vol. II., p. 147, according to which Habakkuk belonged -to Βεθζοχηρ, which is probably Βεθζαχαριας of 1 Macc. vi. 32, -the modern Beit-Zakaryeh, a little to the north of Hebron, and placed -by this notice, as Nahum’s Elkosh is placed, in the tribe of Simeon. -His grave was shown in the neighbouring Keilah. The notice further -alleges that when Nebuchadrezzar came up to Jerusalem Habakkuk -fled to Ostracine, where he travelled in the country of the Ishmaelites; -but he returned after the fall of Jerusalem, and died in 538, two years -before the return of the exiles. <i>Bel and the Dragon</i> tells an extraordinary -story of his miraculous carriage of food to Daniel in the lions’ -den soon after Cyrus had taken Babylon.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345">[345]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_119">119</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346">[346]</a> Heb. <i>saw</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347">[347]</a> Text uncertain. Perhaps we should read, <i>Why make me look -upon sorrow and trouble? why fill mine eyes with violence and wrong? -Strife is come before me, and quarrel arises</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348">[348]</a> <i>Never gets away</i>, to use a colloquial expression.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349">[349]</a> Here vv. 5–11 come in the original.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350">[350]</a> ver. 12<i>b</i>: <i>We shall not die</i> (many Jewish authorities read <i>Thou -shalt not die</i>). <i>O Jehovah, for judgment hast Thou set him, and, O my -Rock, for punishment hast Thou appointed him.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351">[351]</a> Wellhausen: <i>on the robbery of robbers</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352">[352]</a> LXX. <i>devoureth the righteous</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353">[353]</a> Literally <i>Thou hast made men</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354">[354]</a> Wellhausen: cf. Jer. xviii. 1, xix. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355">[355]</a> So Giesebrecht (see above, p. 119, n. <a href="#Footnote_318_318">318</a>), -reading <span class="heb">העולם יריק חרבו</span> -for <span class="heb">העל־כן יריק חרמו</span>, <i>shall he therefore empty his net?</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356">[356]</a> Wellhausen, reading <span class="heb">יהרג</span> for <span class="heb">להרג</span>: <i>should he therefore be emptying -his net continually, and slaughtering the nations without pity?</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357">[357]</a> <span class="heb">מצור</span>. But Wellhausen takes it as from <span class="heb">נצר</span> and = <i>ward</i> or -<i>watch-tower</i>. So Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358">[358]</a> So Heb. and LXX.; but Syr. <i>he</i>: so Wellhausen, <i>what answer -He returns to my plea</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359">[359]</a> Bredenkamp (<i>Stud. u. Krit.</i>, 1889, pp. 161 ff.) suggests that the -writing on the tablets begins here and goes on to ver. 5<i>a</i>. Budde -(<i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1889, pp. 155 f.) takes the כי which opens it as simply -equivalent to the Greek ὅτι, introducing, like our marks of quotation, -the writing itself.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360">[360]</a> <span class="heb">וְיָפֵחַ</span>: cf. Psalm xxvii. 12. Bredenkamp -emends to <span class="heb">וְיִפְרַח</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361">[361]</a> <i>Not be late</i>, or past its fixed time.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362">[362]</a> So literally the Heb. <span class="heb">עֻפְּלָה</span>, i.e. <i>arrogant</i>, <i>false</i>: cf. -the colloquial -expression <i>swollen-head</i> = conceit, as opposed to level-headed. -Bredenkamp, <i>Stud. u. Krit.</i>, 1889, 121, reads <span class="heb">הַנֶעֱלָף</span> for <span class="heb">הִנֵּה עֻפְּלָה</span>. -Wellhausen suggests <span class="heb">הִנֵּה הֶעַוָל</span>, <i>Lo, the sinner</i>, in contrast to <span class="heb">צדיק</span> -of next clause. Nowack prefers this.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363">[363]</a> LXX. wrongly <i>my</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364">[364]</a> LXX. πίδτις, <i>faith</i>, and so in N. T.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365">[365]</a> Chap. i. 5–11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366">[366]</a> So to bring out the assonance, reading <span class="heb">הִתְמַהְמְהוּ וּתִמָהוּ</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367">[367]</a> So LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368">[368]</a> Or Chaldeans; on the name and people -see above, p. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369">[369]</a> Heb. singular.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370">[370]</a> Omit <span class="heb">ופרשיו</span> (evidently a dittography) and the lame <span class="heb">יבאו</span> which -is omitted by LXX. and was probably inserted to afford a verb for the -second <span class="heb">פרשיו</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371">[371]</a> Heb. sing., and so in all the clauses here except the next.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372">[372]</a> A problematical rendering. <span class="heb">מגמה</span> is found only here, and probably -means <i>direction</i>. Hitzig translates <i>desire</i>, <i>effort</i>, <i>striving</i>. <span class="heb">קדימה</span>, <i>towards -the front</i> or <i>forward</i>; but elsewhere it means only <i>eastward</i>: -<span class="heb">קדים</span>, <i>the east wind</i>. Cf. Judg. v. 21, -<span class="heb">נחל קדומים נחל קישון</span>, <i>a river of -spates or rushes is the river Kishon</i> (<i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 395). Perhaps -we should change <span class="heb">פניהים</span> to a singular suffix, -as in the clauses before and after, and this would -leave <span class="heb">מ</span> to form with <span class="heb">קדימה</span> a participle -from <span class="heb">הקדים</span> (cf. Amos ix. 10).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373">[373]</a> Or <i>their spirit changes</i>, or <i>they change like the wind</i> (Wellhausen -suggests <span class="heb">כרוח</span>). Grätz reads <span class="heb">כֺּחַ</span> and <span class="heb">יַחֲלִיף</span>, <i>he renews his strength</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374">[374]</a> Von Orelli. For <span class="heb">אשׁם</span> Wellhausen proposes <span class="heb">וְיָשִׂם</span>, <i>and sets</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375">[375]</a> <i>The wicked</i> of chap. i. 4 must, as we have seen, be the same as -<i>the wicked</i> of chap. i. 13—a heathen oppressor of <i>the righteous</i>, <i>i.e.</i> the -people of God.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376">[376]</a> i. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377">[377]</a> i. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378">[378]</a> i. 13–17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379">[379]</a> Amos iii. 6. See Vol. I., p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_90">90</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380">[380]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_119">119</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381">[381]</a> Its proper place in Budde’s re-arrangement is after chap. ii. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382">[382]</a> Above, p. 134, n. <a href="#Footnote_362_362">362</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383">[383]</a> <span class="heb">עֻקְּלָה</span> instead of <span class="heb">עֻפְּלָה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384">[384]</a> Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385">[385]</a> <span class="heb">אֱמוּנָה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386">[386]</a> Exod. xvii. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387">[387]</a> 2 Chron. xix. 9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388">[388]</a> Hosea ii. 22 (Heb.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389">[389]</a> Prov. xiv. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390">[390]</a> Isa. xi. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391">[391]</a> Prov. xii. 17: cf. Jer. ix. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392">[392]</a> Prov. xii. 22, xxviii. 30.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393">[393]</a> Heb. x. 37, 38.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XI --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394">[394]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_125">125</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395">[395]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_125">125</a> f. -Nowack (1897) agrees that Cornill’s and -others’ conclusion that vv. 9–20 are not Habakkuk’s is too sweeping. -He takes the first, second and fourth of the taunt-songs as authentic, -but assigns the third (vv. 12–14) and the fifth (18–20) to another -hand. He deems the refrain, 8<i>b</i> and 17<i>b</i>, to be a gloss, and puts 19 -before 18. Driver, <i>Introd.</i>, 6th ed., holds to the authenticity of all the -verses.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396">[396]</a> The text reads, <i>For also wine is treacherous</i>, under which we -might be tempted to suspect some such original as, <i>As wine is -treacherous, so</i> (next line) <i>the proud fellow</i>, etc. (or, as Davidson -suggests, <i>Like wine is the treacherous dealer</i>), were it not that the -word <i>wine</i> appears neither in the Greek nor in the Syrian version. -Wellhausen suggests that <span class="heb">היין</span>, <i>wine</i>, is a corruption of <span class="heb">הוי</span>, with -which the verse, like vv. 6<i>b</i>, 9, 12, 15, 19, may have originally -begun, but according to 6<i>a</i> the taunt-songs, opening with <span class="heb">הוי</span>, start -first in 6<i>b</i>. Bredenkamp proposes <span class="heb">וְאֶפֶס כְּאַיִן</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397">[397]</a> The text is <span class="heb">ינוה</span>, a verb not elsewhere found in the Old Testament, -and conjectured by our translators to mean <i>keepeth at home</i>, because -the noun allied to it means <i>homestead</i> or <i>resting-place</i>. The Syriac -gives <i>is not satisfied</i>, and Wellhausen proposes to read <span class="heb">ירוה</span> with -that sense. See Davidson’s note on the verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398">[398]</a> A.V. <i>thick clay</i>, which is reached by breaking up the word <span class="heb">עבטיט</span>, -<i>pledge</i> or <i>debt</i>, into <span class="heb">עב</span>, <i>thick cloud</i>, and <span class="heb">טיט</span>, <i>clay</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399">[399]</a> Literally <i>thy biters</i>, <span class="heb">נשכיך</span>, but <span class="heb">נשך</span>, <i>biting</i>, is <i>interest</i> or <i>usury</i>, and -the Hiphil of <span class="heb">נשך</span> is <i>to exact interest</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400">[400]</a> LXX. sing., Heb. pl.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401">[401]</a> These words occur again in ver. 17. Wellhausen thinks they -suit neither here nor there. But they suit all the taunt-songs, and -some suppose that they formed the refrain to each of these.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402">[402]</a> Dynasty or people?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403">[403]</a> So LXX.; Heb. <i>cutting off</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404">[404]</a> The grammatical construction is obscure, if the text be correct. -There is no mistaking the meaning.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405">[405]</a> <span class="heb">כפיס</span>, not elsewhere found in the O.T., is in Rabbinic Hebrew -both <i>cross-beam</i> and <i>lath</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406">[406]</a> Micah iii. 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407">[407]</a> Jer. xxii. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408">[408]</a> Literally <i>fire</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409">[409]</a> Jer. li. 58: which original?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410">[410]</a> After Wellhausen’s suggestion to read <span class="heb">מסף חמתו</span> instead of -the text <span class="heb">מספח חמתך</span>, <i>adding</i>, or <i>mixing</i>, <i>thy wrath</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411">[411]</a> So LXX. Q.; Heb. <i>their</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412">[412]</a> Read <span class="heb">הרעל</span> (cf. Nahum ii. 4; Zech. xii. 2). The text is <span class="heb">הערל</span>, not -found elsewhere, which has been conjectured to mean <i>uncover the -foreskin</i>. And there is some ground for this, as parallel to <i>his nakedness</i> -in the previous clause. Wellhausen also removes the first clause -to the end of the verse: <i>Drink also thou and reel; there comes to thee -the cup in Jehovah’s right hand, and thou wilt glut thyself with shame -instead of honour.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413">[413]</a> So R.V. for <span class="heb">קיקלון</span>, which A.V. has taken as two words—<span class="heb">קי</span> for -which cf. Jer. xxv. 27, where however the text is probably corrupt, -and <span class="heb">קלון</span>. With this confusion cf. above, ver. 6, -<span class="heb">עבטיט</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414">[414]</a> Read with LXX. <span class="heb">יחתך</span> for <span class="heb">יחיתן</span> of the text.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415">[415]</a> See above, ver. <a href="#Page_146">8</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416">[416]</a> <span class="heb">תָּפוּשׂ</span>?</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417">[417]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_126">126</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418">[418]</a> <span class="heb">רגז</span> nowhere in the Old Testament means <i>wrath</i>, but either roar -and noise of thunder (Job xxxvii. 2) and of horsehoofs (xxxix. 24), -or the raging of the wicked (iii. 17) or the commotion of fear (iii. 26; -Isa. xiv. 3).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419">[419]</a> -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Jehovah from Sinai hath come,</div> -<div class="verse">And risen from Se‘ir upon them;</div> -<div class="verse">He shone from Mount Paran,</div> -<div class="verse">And broke from Meribah of Ḳadesh:</div> -<div class="verse">From the South fire ... to them.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="fnote"> -Deut. xxxiii. 2, slightly altered after the LXX. <i>South</i>: some form -of <span class="heb">ימין</span> must be read to bring the line into -parallel with the others; <span class="heb">תימן</span>, Teman, is from -the same root. -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Jehovah, in Thy going forth from Se’ir,</div> -<div class="verse">In Thy marching from Edom’s field,</div> -<div class="verse">Earth shook, yea, heaven dropped,</div> -<div class="verse">Yea, the clouds dropped water.</div> -<div class="verse">Mountains flowed down before Jehovah,</div> -<div class="verse">Yon Sinai at the face of the God of Israel.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="fnote"> -Judges v. 4, 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420">[420]</a> Exod. xv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421">[421]</a> In this case ver. 17 would be the only one that offered any -reason for suspicion that it was an intrusion.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422">[422]</a> <span class="heb">תפלה</span>, lit. Prayer, but used for Psalm: cf. Psalm cii. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423">[423]</a> Sinker takes with this the first two words of next line: <i>I have -trembled, O LORD, at Thy work</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424">[424]</a> <span class="heb">תודע</span>, Imp. Niph., after LXX. γνωσθήσῃ. The Hebrew has -<span class="heb">תּוֹדִיעַ</span>, Hi., <i>make known</i>. The LXX. had a text of these verses which -reduplicated them, and it has translated them very badly.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425">[425]</a> <span class="heb">רֹגֶז</span>, <i>turmoil</i>, <i>noise</i>, as in Job: a meaning that offers a better -parallel to <i>in the midst of the years</i> than <i>wrath</i>, which the word also -means. Davidson, however, thinks it more natural to understand the -<i>wrath</i> manifest at the coming of Jehovah to judgment. So Sinker.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426">[426]</a> Vulg. <i>ab Austro</i>, <i>from the South</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427">[427]</a> LXX. adds κατασκίον δασέος, which seems the translation of a -clause, perhaps a gloss, containing the name of Mount Se‘ir, as in the -parallel descriptions of a theophany, Deut. xxiii. 2, Judg. v. 4. See -Sinker, p. 45.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428">[428]</a> Wellhausen, reading <span class="heb">שׂם</span> for <span class="heb">שׁם</span>, translates <i>He made them</i>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429">[429]</a> So LXX. Heb. <i>and measures the earth</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430">[430]</a> This is the only way of rendering the verse so as not to make -it seem superfluous: so rendered it sums up and clenches the -theophany from ver. 3 onwards; and a new strophe now begins. -There is therefore no need to omit the verse, as Wellhausen does.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431">[431]</a> LXX. Ἀίθιοπες; but these are Kush, and the parallelism requires -a tribe in Arabia. Calvin rejects the meaning <i>Ethiopian</i> on the same -ground, but takes the reference as to King Kushan in Judg. iii. 8, 10, -on account of the parallelism with Midian. The Midianite wife -whom Moses married is called the Kushite (Num. xii. 1). Hommel -(<i>Anc. Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments</i>, p. 315 and n. 1) -appears to take Zerah the Kushite of 2 Chron. xiv. 9 ff. as a prince -of Kush in Central Arabia. But the narrative which makes him -deliver his invasion of Judah at Mareshah surely confirms the usual -opinion that he and his host were Ethiopians coming up from Egypt.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432">[432]</a> For <span class="heb">הבנהרים</span>, <i>is it with streams</i>, read <span class="heb">הבהרים</span>, <i>is it with hills</i>: -because hills have already been mentioned, and rivers occur in the -next clause, and are separated by the same disjunctive particle, <span class="heb">אִם</span>, -which separates <i>the sea</i> in the third clause from them. The whole -phrase might be rendered, <i>Is it with hills</i> Thou art <i>angry, O Jehovah</i>?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433">[433]</a> Questionable: the verb <span class="heb">תֵּעוֹר</span>, Ni. of a supposed <span class="heb">עוּר</span>, does not -elsewhere occur, and is only conjectured from the noun <span class="heb">עֶרְוָה</span>, <i>nakedness</i>, -and <span class="heb">עֶרְיָה</span>, <i>stripping</i>. LXX. has ἐντείνων ἐνέτεινας, and Wellhausen -reads, after 2 Sam. xxiii. 18, <span class="heb">עוֹרֵר תְּעוֹרֵר</span>, <i>Thou bringest -into action Thy bow</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434">[434]</a> <span class="heb">שְׁבֻעוֹת מַטּוֹת אֹמֶר</span>, literally <i>sworn are staves</i> or <i>rods of speech</i>. -A.V.: according <i>to the oaths of the tribes</i>, even Thy <i>word</i>. LXX. -(omitting <span class="heb">שְׁבֻעוֹת</span> and adding <span class="heb">יהוה</span>) ἐπὶ σκῆπτρα, λέγει κύριος. These -words “form a riddle which all the ingenuity of scholars has not -been able to solve. Delitzsch calculates that a hundred translations -of them have been offered” (Davidson). In parallel to previous -clause about a <i>bow</i>, we ought to expect <span class="heb">מטות</span>, <i>staves</i>, though it is not -elsewhere used for <i>shafts</i> or <i>arrows</i>. <span class="heb">שׁבעות</span> may have been <span class="heb">שַׂבֵּעְתָּ</span>, -<i>Thou satest</i>. The Cod. Barb. reads: ἐχόρτασας βολίδας τῆς φαρέτρης -αὐτοῦ, <i>Thou hast satiated the shafts of his quiver</i>. Sinker: <i>sworn -are the punishments of the solemn decree</i>, and relevantly compares -Isa. xi. 4, <i>the rod of His mouth</i>; xxx. 32, <i>rod of doom</i>. Ewald: -<i>sevenfold shafts of war</i>. But cf. Psalm cxviii. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435">[435]</a> Uncertain, but a more natural result of cleaving than <i>the rivers -Thou cleavest into dry land</i> (Davidson and Wellhausen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436">[436]</a> But Ewald takes this as of the Red Sea floods sweeping on the -Egyptians.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437">[437]</a> <span class="heb">רום ידיהו נשא</span> = <i>he lifts up his hands on high</i>. But the LXX. read -<span class="heb">מריהו</span>, φαντασίας αὐτῆς, and took <span class="heb">נשא</span> with the next verse. The -reading <span class="heb">מריהו</span> (for <span class="heb">מראיהו</span>) is indeed nonsense, but suggests an -emendation to <span class="heb">מרזחו</span>, <i>his shout or wail</i>: cf. Amos vi. 7, Jer. xvi. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438">[438]</a> Reading for <span class="heb">הושיע ישע</span>, required by the acc. following. <i>Thine -anointed</i>, lit. <i>Thy Messiah</i>, according to Isa. xl. ff. the whole people.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439">[439]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">יסוד</span>, <i>foundation</i>. LXX. <i>bonds</i>. Some suggest laying bare -from the foundation to the neck, but this is mixed unless <i>neck</i> happened -to be a technical name for a part of a building: cf. Isa. viii. 8, xxx. 28.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440">[440]</a> Heb. <i>his spears</i> or <i>staves</i>; <i>his own</i> (Von Orelli). LXX. ἐν ἐκστάσει: -see Sinker, pp. 56 ff. <i>Princes</i>: <span class="heb">פְרָזָו</span> only here. Hitzig: <i>his brave -ones</i>. Ewald, Wellhausen, Davidson: <i>his princes</i>. Delitzsch: <i>his hosts</i>. -LXX. κεφαλὰς δυναστῶν.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441">[441]</a> So Heb. literally. A very difficult line. On LXX. see Sinker, -pp. 60 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442">[442]</a> For <span class="heb">חֹמֶר</span>, <i>heap</i> (so A.V.), read some part of <span class="heb">חמר</span>, <i>to foam</i>. LXX. -ταράσσοντας: cf. Psalm xlvi. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443">[443]</a> So LXX. <span class="heb">א</span> (some codd.), softening the original <i>belly</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444">[444]</a> Or <i>my lips quiver aloud</i>—<span class="heb">לקול</span>, <i>vocally</i> (Von Orelli).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445">[445]</a> By the Hebrew the bones were felt, as a modern man feels his -nerves: Psalms xxxii., li.; Job.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446">[446]</a> For <span class="heb">אשר</span>, for which LXX. gives ἡ ἔξις μου, read <span class="heb">אשרי</span>, <i>my steps</i>; -and for <span class="heb">ארגז</span>, LXX. ἑταράχθη, <span class="heb">ירגזו</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447">[447]</a> <span class="heb">אָנוּחַ</span>. LXX. ἀναπαύσομαι, <i>I will rest</i>. A.V.: <i>that I might rest in the -day of trouble</i>. Others: <i>I will wait for</i>. Wellhausen suggests <span class="heb">אִנָּחֵם</span> -(Isa. l. 24), <i>I will take comfort</i>. Sinker takes <span class="heb">אשר</span> as the simple -relative: <i>I who will wait patiently for the day of doom</i>. Von Orelli -takes it as the conjunction <i>because</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448">[448]</a> <span class="heb">יְגֻדֶנּוּ</span>, <i>it invades</i>, <i>brings up troops on them</i>, only in Gen. xlix. 19 -and here. Wellhausen: <i>which invades us</i>. Sinker: <i>for the coming -up against the people of him who shall assail it</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449">[449]</a> <span class="heb">תפרח</span>; but LXX. <span class="heb">תפרה</span>, οὐ καρποφορήσει, <i>bear no fruit</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450">[450]</a> For <span class="heb">גזר</span> Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">נִגזר</span>. LXX. ἐξελιπεν.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451">[451]</a> <i>De Civitate Dei</i>, XVIII. 32.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452">[452]</a> So he paraphrases <i>in the midst of the years</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453">[453]</a> From the prayer with which Calvin concludes his exposition of -Habakkuk.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454">[454]</a> <span class="heb">עֹבַדְיָה</span>, ‘Obadyah, the later form of <span class="heb">עֹבַדְיָהוּ</span>, ‘Obadyahu (a name occurring thrice before the Exile: -Ahab’s steward who hid the -prophets of the Lord, 1 Kings xviii. 3–7, 16; of a man in David’s -house, 1 Chron. xxvii. 19; a Levite in Josiah’s reign, 2 Chron. xxxiv. -12), is the name of several of the Jews who returned from exile: -Ezra viii. 9, the son of Jehi’el (in 1 Esdras viii. Ἀβαδιας); Neh. x. 6, -a priest, probably the same as the Obadiah in xii. 25, a porter, and -the <span class="heb">עַבְדָּא</span>, the singer, in xi. 17, who is called <span class="heb">עֹבַדְיָה</span> in 1 Chron. ix. 16. Another ‘Obadyah is given in the eleventh generation from -Saul, 1 Chron. viii. 38, ix. 44; another in the royal line in the time -of the Exile, iii. 21; a man of Issachar, vii. 3; a Gadite under David, -xii. 9; a <i>prince</i> under Jehoshaphat sent <i>to teach in the cities of Judah</i>, -2 Chron. xvii. 7. With the Massoretic points <span class="heb">עֹבַדְיָה</span> means worshipper -of Jehovah: cf. Obed-Edom, and so in the Greek form, Ὀβδειου, of Cod. -B. But other Codd., A, θ and <span class="heb">א</span>, give Ἀβδιου or Ἀβδειου, -and this, with the alternative Hebrew form <span class="heb">אַבְדָּא</span> -of Neh. xi. 17, suggests rather <span class="heb">עֶבֶד יָה</span>, -<i>servant of Jehovah</i>. The name as given in the title -is probably intended to be that of an historical individual, as in -the titles of all the other books; but which, or if any, of the above -mentioned it is impossible to say. Note, however, that it is the later -post-exilic form of the name that is used, in spite of the book occurring -among the pre-exilic prophets. Some, less probably, take the name -Obadyah to be symbolic of the prophetic character of the writer.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455">[455]</a> 889 <span class="small">B.C.</span> Hofmann, Keil, etc.; and soon after 312, Hitzig.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456">[456]</a> Cf. the extraordinary tirade of Pusey in his Introd. to Obadiah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457">[457]</a> The first in his Commentary on <i>Die Zwölf Kleine Propheten</i>; -the other in his <i>Einleitung</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458">[458]</a> Caspari (<i>Der Proph. Ob. ausgelegt</i> 1842), Ewald, Graf, Pusey, -Driver, Giesebrecht, Wildeboer and König. Cf. Jer. xlix. 9 with -Ob. 5; Jer. xlix. 14 ff. with Ob. 1–4. The opening of Ob. 1 ff. is held to -be more in its place than where it occurs in the middle of Jeremiah’s -passage. The language of Obadiah is “terser and more forcible. -Jeremiah seems to expand Obadiah, and parts of Jeremiah which -have no parallel in Obadiah are like Obadiah’s own style” (Driver). -This strong argument is enforced in detail by Pusey: “Out of the -sixteen verses of which the prophecy of Jeremiah against Edom -consists, four are identical with those of Obadiah; a fifth embodies -a verse of Obadiah’s; of the eleven which remain ten have some -turns of expression or idioms, more or fewer, which occur in Jeremiah, -either in these prophecies against foreign nations, or in his prophecies -generally. Now it would be wholly improbable that a -prophet, selecting verses out of the prophecy of Jeremiah, should -have selected precisely those which contain none of Jeremiah’s -characteristic expressions; whereas it perfectly fits in with the -supposition that Jeremiah interwove verses of Obadiah with his own -prophecy, that in verses so interwoven there is not one expression -which occurs elsewhere in Jeremiah.” Similarly Nowack, <i>Comm.</i>, 1897.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459">[459]</a> 2 Chron. xx.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460">[460]</a> 2 Chron. xxi. 14–17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461">[461]</a> So Delitzsch, Keil, Volck in Herzog’s <i>Real. Ency.</i> II., Orelli and -Kirkpatrick. Delitzsch indeed suggests that the prophet may have -been <i>Obadiah the prince</i> appointed by Jehoshaphat <i>to teach in the -cities of Judah</i>. See above, p. 163, n. <a href="#Footnote_454_454">454</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462">[462]</a> Driver, <i>Introd.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463">[463]</a> Jer. xlix. 9 and 16 appear to be more original than Ob. 3 and -2b. Notice the presence in Jer. xlix. 16 of <span class="heb">תפלצתך</span> which Obadiah -omits.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464">[464]</a> 2 Kings xiv. 22; xvi. 6, Revised Version margin.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465">[465]</a> <i>Einl.</i>³ pp. 185 f.: “In any case Obadiah 1–9 are older than the -fourth year of Jehoiakim.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466">[466]</a> “That the verses Obadiah 10 ff. refer to this event [the sack of -Jerusalem] will always remain the most natural supposition, for the -description which they give so completely suits that time that it is -not possible to take any other explanation into consideration.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467">[467]</a> Edom paid tribute to Sennacherib in 701, and to Asarhaddon -(681—669). According to 2 Kings xxiv. 2 Nebuchadrezzar sent -Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites [for <span class="heb">ארם</span> read <span class="heb">אדם</span>] against -Jehoiakim, who had broken his oath to Babylonia.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468">[468]</a> For Edom’s alliances with Arab tribes cf. Gen. xxv. 13 with -xxxvi. 3, 12, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469">[469]</a> Ezek. xxv. 4, 5, 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470">[470]</a> Diod. Sic. XIX. 94. A little earlier they are described as in -possession of Iturea, on the south-east slopes of Anti-Lebanon -(Arrian II. 20, 4).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471">[471]</a> Psalm lxxxiii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472">[472]</a> i. 1–5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473">[473]</a> <i>E.g.</i> in the New Testament: Mark iii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474">[474]</a> So too Nowack, 1897.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475">[475]</a> Deut. ii. 5, 8, 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476">[476]</a> Ezek. xxxv., esp. 2 and 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477">[477]</a> iv. 21: yet <i>Uz</i> fails in LXX., and some take <span class="heb">ארץ</span> to refer to the -Holy Land itself. Buhl, <i>Gesch. der Edomiter</i>, 73.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478">[478]</a> It can hardly be supposed that Edom’s treacherous allies were -Assyrians or Babylonians, for even if the phrase “men of thy covenant” -could be applied to those to whom Edom was tributary, the Assyrian -or Babylonian method of dealing with conquered peoples is described -by saying that they took them off into captivity, not that they <i>sent -them to the border</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479">[479]</a> So even Cornill, <i>Einl.</i>³</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480">[480]</a> This in answer to Wellhausen on the verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481">[481]</a> See below, p. 175, n. <a href="#Footnote_504_504">6</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482">[482]</a> Calvin, while refusing in his introduction to Obadiah to fix a -date (except in so far as he thinks it impossible for the book to be -earlier than Isaiah), implies throughout his commentary on the book -that it was addressed to Edom while the Jews were in exile. -See his remarks on vv. 18–20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483">[483]</a> There is a mistranslation in ver. 18: <span class="heb">שׂריד</span> is rendered by πυρόφορος.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484">[484]</a> This is no doubt from the later writer, who before he gives the -new word of Jehovah with regard to Edom, quotes the earlier prophecy, -marked above by quotation marks. In no other way can we -explain the immediate following of the words “Thus hath the Lord -spoken” with “<i>We</i> have heard a report,” etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485">[485]</a> ‘Sela,’ the name of the Edomite capital, Petra.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486">[486]</a> The parenthesis is not in Jer. xlix. 9; Nowack omits it. <i>If -spoilers</i> occurs in Heb. before <i>by night</i>: delete.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487">[487]</a> Antithetic to <i>thieves</i> and <i>spoilers by night</i>, as the sending of the -people to their border is antithetic to the thieves taking only what -they wanted.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488">[488]</a> <span class="heb">לחמך</span>, <i>thy bread</i>, which here follows, is not found in the LXX., -and is probably an error due to a mechanical repetition of the letters -of the previous word.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489">[489]</a> Again perhaps a quotation from an earlier prophecy: Nowack -counts it from another hand. Mark the sudden change to the future.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490">[490]</a> Heb. <i>so that</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491">[491]</a> With LXX. transfer this expression from the end of the ninth to -the beginning of the tenth verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492">[492]</a> “When thou didst stand on the opposite side.”—Calvin.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493">[493]</a> Plural; LXX. and Qeri.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494">[494]</a> Sudden change to imperative. The English versions render, <i>Thou -shouldest not have looked on</i>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495">[495]</a> Cf. Ps. cxxxvii. 7, <i>the day of Jerusalem</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496">[496]</a> The day of his strangeness = <i>aliena fortuna</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497">[497]</a> With laughter. Wellhausen and Nowack suspect ver. 13 as an -intrusion.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498">[498]</a> <span class="heb">פֶּרֶק</span> does not elsewhere occur. -It means cleaving, and the -LXX. render it by διεκβολή, <i>i.e.</i> pass between mountains. The -Arabic forms from the same root suggest the sense of a band of men -standing apart from the main body on the watch for stragglers -(cf. <span class="heb">נגד</span>, in ver. 11). Calvin, “the going forth”; Grätz <span class="heb">פרץ</span>, <i>breach</i>, but -see Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499">[499]</a> Wellhausen proposes to put the last two clauses immediately -after ver. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500">[500]</a> The prophet seems here to turn to address his own countrymen: -the drinking will therefore take the meaning of suffering God’s -chastising wrath. Others, like Calvin, take it in the opposite sense, -and apply it to Edom: “as ye have exulted,” etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501">[501]</a> <i>Reel</i>—for <span class="heb">לעוּ</span> we ought (with Wellhausen) -probably to read <span class="heb">נעוּ</span>: cf. Lam. iv. 2. -Some codd. of LXX. omit <i>all the nations … -continuously, drink and reel</i>. -But <span class="heb">א</span><span class="sup">c.a</span>A -and Q have <i>all the nations shall drink wine</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502">[502]</a> So LXX. Heb. <i>their heritages</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503">[503]</a> That is the reverse of the conditions after the Jews went into -exile, for then the Edomites came up on the Negeb and the Philistines -on the Shephelah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504">[504]</a> <i>I.e.</i> of Judah, the rest of the country outside the Negeb and -Shephelah. The reading is after the LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505">[505]</a> Whereas the pagan inhabitants of these places came upon the -hill-country of Judæa during the Exile.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506">[506]</a> An unusual form of the word. Ewald would read <i>coast</i>. The -verse is obscure.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507">[507]</a> So LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508">[508]</a> The Jews themselves thought this to be Spain: so Onkelos, who -translates <span class="heb">ספרד</span> by <span class="heb">אַסְפַּמְיָא</span> = Hispania. Hence the origin of the name Sephardim Jews. The supposition that it is Sparta need -hardly be noticed. Our decision must lie between two other regions—the -one in Asia Minor, the other in S.W. Media. <i>First</i>, in the -ancient Persian inscriptions there thrice occurs (great Behistun inscription, -I. 15; inscription of Darius, II. 12, 13; and inscription of -Darius from Naḳsh-i-Rustam) Çparda. It is connected with Janua or -Ionia and Katapatuka or Cappadocia (Schrader, <i>Cun. Inscr. and O. T.</i>, -Germ. ed., p. 446; Eng., Vol. II., p. 145); and Sayce shows that, called -Shaparda on a late cuneiform inscription of 275 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, -it must have -lain in Bithynia or Galatia (<i>Higher Criticism and Monuments</i>, p. 483). -Darius made it a satrapy. It is clear, as Cheyne says (<i>Founders of -O. T. Criticism</i>, p. 312), that those who on other grounds are convinced -of the post-exilic origin of this part of Obadiah, of its origin in the -Persian period, will identify Sepharad with this Çparda, which both -he and Sayce do. But to those of us who hold that this part of -Obadiah is from the time of the Babylonian exile, as we have sought -to prove above on pp. 171 f., then Sepharad cannot be Çparda, for -Nebuchadrezzar did not subdue Asia Minor and cannot have transported -Jews there. Are we then forced to give up our theory of the -date of Obadiah 10–21 in the Babylonian exile? By no means. For, -<i>second</i>, the inscriptions of Sargon, king of Assyria -(721—705 <span class="small">B.C.</span>), -mention a Shaparda, in S.W. Media towards Babylonia, a name -phonetically correspondent to <span class="heb">ספרד</span> (Schrader, <i>l.c.</i>), -and the identification -of the two is regarded as “exceedingly probable” by Fried. -Delitzsch (<i>Wo lag das Paradies?</i> p. 249). But even if this should be -shown to be impossible, and if the identification Sepharad = Çparda -be proved, that would not oblige us to alter our opinion as to the -date of the whole of Obadiah 10–21, for it is possible that later -additions, including Sepharad, have been made to the passage.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XIV --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509">[509]</a> Amos i. 11. See Vol. I., p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_129">129</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510">[510]</a> John Hyrcanus, about 130 <span class="small">B.C.</span></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511">[511]</a> Irby and Mangles’ <i>Travels</i>: cf. Burckhardt’s <i>Travels in Syria</i>, and -Doughty, <i>Arabia Deserta</i>, I.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512">[512]</a> Obadiah 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513">[513]</a> Amos i.: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514">[514]</a> Obadiah 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515">[515]</a> <i>C. I. S.</i>, II. i. 183 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516">[516]</a> Obadiah 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517">[517]</a> Verse 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518">[518]</a> See the details in Vol. I., pp. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_129">129</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519">[519]</a> Heb. xii. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520">[520]</a> We even know the names of some of these deities from the -theophorous names of Edomites: <i>e.g.</i> Baal-chanan (Gen. xxxvi. 38), -Hadad (<i>ib.</i> 35; 1 Kings xi. 14 ff.); Malikram, Ḳausmalaka, Ḳausgabri -(on Assyrian inscriptions: Schrader, <i>K.A.T.</i>² 150, 613); Κοσαδαρος, -Κοσβανος, Κοσγηρος, Κοσνατανος (<i>Rev. archéol.</i> 1870, I. pp. 109 ff., -170 ff.), Κοστοβαρος (Jos., XV. <i>Ant.</i> vii. 9). See Baethgen, <i>Beiträge -zur Semit. Rel. Gesch.</i>, pp. 10 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521">[521]</a> Obadiah 8: cf. Jer. xlix. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522">[522]</a> Obadiah 11, 12: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 12 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523">[523]</a> 1–5 or 6. See above, pp. <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, -<a href="#Page_171">171</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524">[524]</a> Verse 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525">[525]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XV --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526">[526]</a> The chief authorities for this period are as follows:—A. Ancient: -the inscriptions of Nabonidus, last native King of Babylon, Cyrus -and Darius I.; the Hebrew writings which were composed in, or -record the history of, the period; the Greek historians Herodotus, -fragments of Ctesias in Diodorus Sic. etc., of Abydenus in Eusebius, -Berosus. B. Modern: Meyer’s and Duncker’s Histories of Antiquity; -art. “Ancient Persia” in <i>Encycl. Brit.</i>, by Nöldeke and Gutschmid; -Sayce, <i>Anc. Empires</i>; the works of Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and -Kosters given on p. <a href="#Page_192">192</a> -[n. <a href="#Footnote_531_531">531</a>]; -recent histories of Israel, <i>e.g.</i> Stade’s, -Wellhausen’s and Klostermann’s; P. Hay Hunter, <i>After the Exile, a -Hundred Years of Jewish History and Literature</i>, 2 Vols., Edin. 1890; -W. Fairweather, <i>From the Exile to the Advent</i>, Edin. 1895. On Ezra -and Nehemiah see especially Ryle’s <i>Commentary</i> in the <i>Cambridge -Bible for Schools</i>, and Bertheau-Ryssel’s in <i>Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches -Handbuch</i>: cf. also Charles C. Torrey, <i>The Composition and Historical -Value of Ezra-Nehemiah</i>, in the <i>Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W.</i>, II., 1896.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527">[527]</a> Ezra iv. 5–7, etc., vi. 1–14, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528">[528]</a> Havet, <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, XCIV. 799 ff. (art. <i>La Modernité -des Prophètes</i>); Imbert (in defence of the historical character of the -Book of Ezra), <i>Le Temple Reconstruit par Zorobabel</i>, extrait du <i>Muséon</i>, -1888–9 (this I have not seen); Sir Henry Howorth in the <i>Academy</i> -for 1893—see especially pp. 320 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529">[529]</a> Another French writer, Bellangé, in the <i>Muséon</i> for 1890, quoted -by Kuenen (<i>Ges. Abhandl.</i>, p. 213), goes further, and places Ezra and -Nehemiah under the <i>third</i> Artaxerxes, Ochus (358—338).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530">[530]</a> Ezra iv. 6—v.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531">[531]</a> Kuenen, <i>De Chronologie van het Perzische Tijdvak der Joodsche -Geschiedenis</i>, 1890, translated by Budde in Kuenen’s <i>Gesammelte -Abhandlungen</i>, pp. 212 ff.; Van Hoonacker, <i>Zorobabel et le Second -Temple</i> (1892); Kosters, <i>Het Herstel van Israel</i>, in <i>Het Perzische -Tijdvak</i>, 1894, translated by Basedow, <i>Die Wiederherstellung Israels -im Persischen Zeitalter</i>, 1896.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532">[532]</a> Hag. ii. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533">[533]</a> Zech. i. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534">[534]</a> Ezra iv. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535">[535]</a> Ezra ii. 2, iv. 1 ff., v. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536">[536]</a> As Kuenen shows, p. 226, nothing can be deduced from Ezra -vi. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537">[537]</a> P. 227; in answer to De Saulcy, <i>Étude Chronologique des Livres -d’Esdras et de Néhémie</i> (1868), <i>Sept Siècles de l’Histoire Judaïque</i> -(1874). De Saulcy’s case rests on the account of Josephus (XI. -<i>Ant.</i> vii. 2–8: cf. ix. 1), the untrustworthy character of which and its -confusion of two distant eras Kuenen has no difficulty in showing.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538">[538]</a> When Nehemiah came to Jerusalem Eliyashib was high priest, -and he was grandson of Jeshua, who was high priest in 520, or -seventy-five years before; but between 520 and the twentieth year of -Artaxerxes II. lie one hundred and thirty-six years. And again, the -Artaxerxes of Ezra iv. 8–23, under whom the walls of Jerusalem -were begun, was the immediate follower of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and -therefore Artaxerxes I., and Van Hoonacker has shown that he must -be the same as the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539">[539]</a> Kosters, p. 43.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540">[540]</a> vii. 1–8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541">[541]</a> Neh. xii. 36, viii., x.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542">[542]</a> Vernes, <i>Précis d’Histoire Juive depuis les Origines jusqu’à -l’Époque Persane</i> (1889), pp. 579 ff. (not seen); more recently also -Charles C. Torrey of Andover, <i>The Composition and Historical Value -of Ezra-Nehemiah</i>, in the <i>Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W.</i>, II., 1896.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543">[543]</a> Pages 113 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544">[544]</a> Page 237.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545">[545]</a> The failure of his too hasty and impetuous attempts at so wholesale -a measure as the banishment of the heathen wives; or his return -to Babylon, having accomplished his end. See Ryle, <i>Ezra and -Nehemiah</i>, in the <i>Cambridge Bible for Schools</i>, Introd., pp. xl. f.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XVI --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546">[546]</a> 42,360, <i>besides their servants</i>, is the total -sum given in Ezra ii. 64; -but the detailed figures in Ezra amount only to 29,818, those in -Nehemiah to 31,089, and those in 1 Esdras to 30,143 (other MSS. -30,678). See Ryle on Ezra ii. 64.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547">[547]</a> Ezra i. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548">[548]</a> Ezra v. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549">[549]</a> <i>Ib.</i> 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550">[550]</a> Ezra ii. 63.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551">[551]</a> <span class="heb">יֵשׁוּעַ בֶּן־יוֹצָדָק</span>: Ezra iii. 2, like Ezra i. 1–8, from the Compiler -of Ezra-Nehemiah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552">[552]</a> <span class="heb">זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן־שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553">[553]</a> Ezra ii. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554">[554]</a> Hag. i. 14, ii. 2, 21, and perhaps by Nehemiah (vii. 65–70). -Nehemiah himself is styled both Peḥah (xiv. 20) and Tirshatha -(viii. 9, x. 1).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555">[555]</a> As Daniel and his three friends had also Babylonian names.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556">[556]</a> Ezra ii. 63.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557">[557]</a> Cf. Ryle, xxxi ff.; and on Ezra i. 8, ii. 63.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558">[558]</a> Stade, <i>Gesch. des Volkes Israel</i>, II. 98 ff.: cf. Kuenen, <i>Gesammelte -Abhandl.</i>, 220.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559">[559]</a> Ezra i. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560">[560]</a> Ezra i. compared with ii. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561">[561]</a> Some think to find this in 1 Esdras v. 1–6, where it is said that -Darius, a name they take to be an error for that of Cyrus, brought -up the exiles with an escort of a thousand cavalry, starting in the first -month of the second year of the king’s reign. This passage, however, -is not beyond suspicion as a gloss (see Ryle on Ezra i. 11), and -even if genuine may be intended to describe a second contingent of -exiles despatched by Darius I. in his second year, 520. The names -given include that of Jesua, son of Josedec, and instead of Zerubbabel’s, -that of his son Joacim.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562">[562]</a> Ezra iii. 3–7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563">[563]</a> <i>Ib.</i> 8–13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564">[564]</a> Ezra iv. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565">[565]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566">[566]</a> iv. 24.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567">[567]</a> Ezra iv. 24—vi. 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568">[568]</a> There are in the main two classes of such attempts. (<i>a</i>) Some -have suggested that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and Artaxerxes mentioned -in Ezra iv. 6 and 7 ff. are not the successors of Darius I. who -bore these names, but titles of his predecessors Cambyses and the -Pseudo-Smerdis (see above, p. <a href="#Page_190">190</a>). -This view has been disposed of -by Kuenen, <i>Ges. Abhandl.</i>, pp. 224 ff., and by Ryle, pp. 65 ff. (<i>b</i>) The -attempt to prove that the Darius under whom the Temple was -built was not Darius I. (521—485), the predecessor of Xerxes I. and -Artaxerxes I. (485—424), but their successor once removed, Darius II., -Nothus (423—404). So, in defence of the Book of Ezra, Imbert. -For his theory and the answer to it see above, pp. <a href="#Page_191">191</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569">[569]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_192">192</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570">[570]</a> For his work see above, p. 192, n. <a href="#Footnote_531_531">531</a>. -I regret that -neither Wellhausen’s answer to it, nor Kosters’ reply to Wellhausen, -was accessible to me in preparing this chapter. Nor did I read Mr. -Torrey’s <i>resume</i> of Wellhausen’s answer, or Wellhausen’s notes -to the second edition of his <i>Isr. u. Jüd. Geschichte</i>, till the -chapter was written. Previous to Kosters, the Return under Cyrus had -been called in question only by the very arbitrary French scholar M. -Vernes in 1889–90.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571">[571]</a> ii. 6 ff. Eng., 10 ff. Heb.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572">[572]</a> His chief grounds for this analysis are (1) that in v. 1–5 the Jews -are said to have <i>begun</i> to build the Temple in the second year of -Darius, while in v. 16 the foundation-stone is said to have been laid -under Cyrus; (2) the frequent want of connection throughout the -passage; (3) an alleged doublet: in v. 17—vi. 1 search is said to -have been made for the edict of Cyrus <i>in Babylon</i>, while in vi. 2 the -edict is said to have been found <i>in Ecbatana</i>. But (1) and (3) are -capable of very obvious explanations, and (2) is far from conclusive.—The -remainder of the Aramaic text, iv. 8–24, Kosters seeks to prove is -by the Chronicler or Compiler himself. As Torrey (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 11) has -shown, this “is as unlikely as possible.” At the most he may have -made additions to the Aramaic document.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573">[573]</a> Ezra v. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574">[574]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_201">201</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575">[575]</a> Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1. According to Kosters, the statement of -the Aramaic document about the rebuilding of the Temple is therefore -a pious invention of a literal fulfilment of prophecy. To this -opinion Cheyne adheres (<i>Introd. to the Book of Isaiah</i>, 1895, p. xxxviii), -and adds the further assumption that the Chronicler, being “shocked -at the ascription to Cyrus (for the Judæan builders have no credit -given them) of what must, he thought, have been at least equally due -to the zeal of the exiles,” invented his story in the earlier chapters -of Ezra as to the part the exiles themselves took in the rebuilding. -It will be noticed that these assumptions have precisely the value -of such. They are merely the imputation of motives, more or less -probable to the writers of certain statements, and may therefore be -fairly met by probabilities from the other side. But of this more -later on.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576">[576]</a> This is the usual opinion of critics, who yet hold it to be genuine—<i>e.g.</i> -Ryle.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577">[577]</a> He seeks to argue that a List of Exiles returned under Cyrus in -536 could be of no use for Nehemiah’s purpose to obtain in 445 a -census of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; but surely, if in his efforts to -make a census Nehemiah discovered the existence of such a List, it -was natural for him to give it as the basis of his inquiry, or (because -the List—see above, p. <a href="#Page_203">203</a>—contains elements from Nehemiah’s own -time) to enlarge it and bring it down to date. But Dr. Kosters thinks -also that, as Nehemiah would never have broken the connection of -his memoirs with such a List, the latter must have been inserted by -the Compiler, who at this point grew weary of the discursiveness of -the memoirs, broke from them, and then—inserted this lengthy List! -This is simply incredible—that he should seek to atone for the -diffuseness of Nehemiah’s memoirs by the intrusion of a very long -catalogue which had no relevance to the point at which he broke -them off.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578">[578]</a> Hag. i. 2, 12; ii. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579">[579]</a> Hag. i. 12, 14; ii. 2; Zech. viii. 6, 11, 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580">[580]</a> Hag. ii. 4; Zech. vii. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581">[581]</a> Zech. ii. 16; viii. 13, 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582">[582]</a> It is used in Hag. i. 12, 14, ii. 2, only after the mention of the -leaders; see, however, Pusey’s note 9 to Hag. i. 12; while in -Zech. viii. 6, 11, 18, it might be argued that it was employed in such -a way as to cover not only Jews who had never left their land, but -all Jews as well who were left of ancient Israel.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583">[583]</a> Compare Cheyne, <i>Introduction to the Book of Isaiah</i>, 1895, xxxv. ff., -who says that in the main points Kosters’ conclusions “appear so -inevitable” that he has “constantly presupposed them” in dealing -with chaps. lvi.—lxvi. of Isaiah; and Torrey, <i>op. cit.</i>, 1896, p. 53: -“Kosters has demonstrated, from the testimony of Haggai and -Zechariah, that Zerubbabel and Jeshua were not returned exiles; -and furthermore, that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah knew -nothing of an important return of exiles from Babylonia.” Cf. also -Wildeboer, <i>Litteratur des A. T.</i>, pp. 291 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584">[584]</a> iv. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585">[585]</a> Of course it is always possible that, if there had been no great -Return from Babylon under Cyrus, the community at Jerusalem in -520 had not heard of the prophecies of the Second Isaiah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586">[586]</a> This argument, it is true, does not fully account for the curious -fact that Haggai and Zechariah never call the Jewish community at -Jerusalem by a name significant of their return from exile. But in -reference to this it ought to be noted that even the Aramaic document -in the Book of Ezra which records the Return under Cyrus does not -call the builders of the Temple by any name which implies that they -have come up from exile, but styles them simply <i>the Jews who were -in Judah and Jerusalem</i> (Ezra v. 1), in contrast to the Jews who were -in foreign lands.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587">[587]</a> Indeed, why does he ignore the whole Exile itself if no return -from it has taken place?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588">[588]</a> Zech. ii. 10–17 Heb., 6–13 Eng.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_589_589" id="Footnote_589_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_589">[589]</a> <i>E.g.</i> Stade, Kuenen (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 216). So, too, Klostermann, <i>Gesch. -des Volkes Israel</i>, München, 1896. Wellhausen, in the second edition -of his <i>Gesch.</i>, does not admit that the List is one of exiles returned -under Cyrus (p. 155, n.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_590_590" id="Footnote_590_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_590">[590]</a> ix. 4; x. 6, 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_591_591" id="Footnote_591_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_591">[591]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 216, where he also quotes the testimony of the Book -of Daniel (ix. 25).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_592_592" id="Footnote_592_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_592">[592]</a> Since writing the above I have seen the relevant notes to the -second edition of Wellhausen’s <i>Gesch.</i>, pp. 155 and 160. “The refounding -of Jerusalem and the Temple cannot have started from the -Jews left behind in Palestine.” “The remnant left in the land would -have restored the old popular cultus of the high places. Instead of -that we find even before Ezra the legitimate cultus and the hierocracy -in Jerusalem: in the Temple-service proper Ezra discovers nothing -to reform. Without the leaven of the Gôlah the Judaism of Palestine -is in its origin incomprehensible.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_593_593" id="Footnote_593_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_593">[593]</a> The inscription of Cyrus is sometimes quoted to this effect: cf. -P. Hay Hunter, <i>op. cit.</i>, I. 35. But it would seem that the statement -of Cyrus is limited to the restoration of Assyrian idols and their -worshippers to Assur and Akkad. Still, what he did in this case -furnishes a strong argument for the probability of his having done -the same in the case of the Jews.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_594_594" id="Footnote_594_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_594">[594]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, -and especially n. <a href="#Footnote_575_575">575</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_595_595" id="Footnote_595_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_595">[595]</a> Even Cheyne, after accepting Kosters’ conclusions as in the main -points inevitable (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. xxxv), considers (p. xxxviii) that “the -earnestness of Haggai and Zechariah (who cannot have stood alone) -implies the existence of a higher religious element at Jerusalem long -before 432 <span class="small">B.C.</span> Whence came this higher element but from its -natural home among the more cultured Jews in Babylonia?”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_596_596" id="Footnote_596_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_596">[596]</a> Ezra iii. 8–13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_597_597" id="Footnote_597_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_597">[597]</a> Schrader, “Ueber die Dauer des Tempelbaues,” in <i>Stud. u. Krit.</i>, -1879, 460 ff.; Stade, <i>Gesch. des Volkes Israel</i>, II. 115 ff.; Kuenen, <i>op. cit.</i>, -p. 222; Kosters, <i>op. cit.</i>, Chap. I., § 1. To this opinion others have -adhered: König (<i>Einleit. in das A. T.</i>), Ryssel (<i>op. cit.</i>) and Marti (2nd -edition of Kayser’s <i>Theol. des A. T.</i>, p. 200). Schrader (p. 563) -argues that Ezra iii. 8–13 was not founded on a historical document, -but is an imitation of Neh. vii. 73—viii.; and Stade that the Aramaic -document in Ezra which ascribes the laying of the foundation-stone -to Sheshbazzar, the legate of Cyrus, was not earlier than 430.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_598_598" id="Footnote_598_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_598">[598]</a> Ryle, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. xxx.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_599_599" id="Footnote_599_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_599">[599]</a> Stade, Wellhausen, etc. -See below, Chap. <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a> on Hag. ii. 18.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_600_600" id="Footnote_600_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_600">[600]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_210">210</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_601_601" id="Footnote_601_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_601">[601]</a> Ezra iv. 24, v. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_602_602" id="Footnote_602_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_602">[602]</a> Ezra v. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_603_603" id="Footnote_603_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_603">[603]</a> <i>Ib.</i> 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_604_604" id="Footnote_604_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_604">[604]</a> <i>Ib.</i> 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_605_605" id="Footnote_605_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_605">[605]</a> <i>Gesch.</i>, II., p. 123.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_606_606" id="Footnote_606_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_606">[606]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_607_607" id="Footnote_607_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_607">[607]</a> Ezra iv. 1–4. “That the relation of Ezra iv. 1–4 is historical seems -to be established against objections which have been taken to it by -the reference to Esarhaddon, which A. v. Gutschmid has vindicated -by an ingenious historical combination with the aid of the Assyrian -monuments (<i>Neue Beiträge</i>, p. 145).”—Robertson Smith, art. “Haggai,” -<i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_608_608" id="Footnote_608_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_608">[608]</a> Cf. <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, pp. 317 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_609_609" id="Footnote_609_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_609">[609]</a> Ezra iv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_610_610" id="Footnote_610_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_610">[610]</a> There was a sharp skirmish at Rabbath-Ammon the night we -spent there, and at least one Circassian was shot.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_611_611" id="Footnote_611_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_611">[611]</a> “Sheshbazzar presumably having taken up his task with the usual -conscientiousness of an Oriental governor, that is having done nothing -though the work was nominally in hand all along (Ezra v. 16).”—Robertson -Smith, art. “Haggai,” <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_612_612" id="Footnote_612_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_612">[612]</a> See below, Chap. <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_613_613" id="Footnote_613_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_613">[613]</a> Herod., I. 130, III. 127.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_614_614" id="Footnote_614_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_614">[614]</a> 1 Chron. iii. 19 makes him a son of Pedaiah, brother of She’altî’el, -son of Jehoiachin, the king who was carried away by Nebuchadrezzar -in 597 and remained captive till 561, when King Evil-Merodach set -him in honour. It has been supposed that, She’altî’el dying childless, -Pedaiah by levirate marriage with his widow became father of -Zerubbabel.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XVII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_615_615" id="Footnote_615_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_615">[615]</a> In the English Bible the division corresponds to that of the Hebrew, -which gives fifteen verses to chap. i. The LXX. takes the fifteenth -verse along with ver. 1 of chap. ii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_616_616" id="Footnote_616_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_616">[616]</a> ii. 9, 14: see on these passages, n. <a href="#Footnote_685_685">685</a>, -n. <a href="#Footnote_700_700">700</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_617_617" id="Footnote_617_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_617">[617]</a> Besides the general works on the text of the Twelve Prophets, -already cited, M. Tony Andrée has published <i>État Critique du Texte -d’Aggée: Quatre Tableaux Comparatifs</i> (Paris, 1893), which is also -included in his general introduction and commentary on the prophet, -quoted below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_618_618" id="Footnote_618_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_618">[618]</a> Robertson Smith (<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. “Haggai,” 1880) does not -even mention authenticity. “Without doubt from Haggai himself” -(Kuenen). “The Book of Haggai is without doubt to be dated, -according to its whole extant contents, from the prophet Haggai, -whose work fell in the year 520” (König). So Driver, Kirkpatrick, -Cornill, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_619_619" id="Footnote_619_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_619">[619]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1887, 215 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_620_620" id="Footnote_620_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_620">[620]</a> So also Wellhausen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_621_621" id="Footnote_621_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_621">[621]</a> Which occurs only in the LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_622_622" id="Footnote_622_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_622">[622]</a> See note on that verse [n. <a href="#Footnote_694_694">694</a>].</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_623_623" id="Footnote_623_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_623">[623]</a> Cf. Wildeboer, <i>Litter. des A. T.</i>, 294.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_624_624" id="Footnote_624_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_624">[624]</a> <i>Le Prophète Aggée, Introduction Critique et Commentaire.</i> Paris, -Fischbacher, 1893.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_625_625" id="Footnote_625_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_625">[625]</a> Page 151.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_626_626" id="Footnote_626_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_626">[626]</a> Below, p. <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_627_627" id="Footnote_627_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_627">[627]</a> i. 10, 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_628_628" id="Footnote_628_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_628">[628]</a> ii. 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_629_629" id="Footnote_629_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_629">[629]</a> They follow drought in Amos iv. 9; and in the other passages -where they occur—Deut. xxviii. 22; 1 Kings viii. 37; 2 Chron. vi. 28—they -are mentioned in a list of possible plagues after famine, or -pestilence, or fevers, all of which, with the doubtful exception of -fevers, followed drought.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_630_630" id="Footnote_630_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_630">[630]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_216">216</a>; -below, p. 248, n. <a href="#Footnote_708_708">708</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_631_631" id="Footnote_631_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_631">[631]</a> Some of M. Andrée’s alleged differences need not be discussed at -all, <i>e.g.</i> that between <span class="heb">מפני</span> and <span class="heb">לפני</span>. But here are the others. He -asserts that while chap. i. calls <i>oil and wine</i> “yiṣhar and tîrôsh,” -chap. ii. (10) 11–19 calls them “yayin and shemen.” But he overlooks -the fact that the former pair of names, meaning the newly -pressed oil and wine, suit their connection, in which the fruits of the -earth are being catalogued, i. 11, while the latter pair, meaning the -finished wine and oil, equally suit their connection, in which articles -of food are being catalogued, ii. 12. Equally futile is the distinction -drawn between i. 9, which speaks of bringing the crops <i>to the house</i>, -or as we should say <i>home</i>, and ii. 19, which speaks of seed being <i>in -the barn</i>. Again, what is to be said of a critic who adduces in -evidence of distinction of authorship the fact that i. 6 employs the -verb labhash, <i>to clothe</i>, while ii. 12 uses beged for <i>garment</i>, and who -actually puts in brackets the root bagad, as if it anywhere in the -Old Testament meant <i>to clothe</i>! Again, Andrée remarks that while -ii. (10) 11–19 does not employ the epithet <i>Jehovah of Hosts</i>, but only -<i>Jehovah</i>, the rest of the book frequently uses the former; but he -omits to observe that the rest of the book, besides using <i>Jehovah of -Hosts</i>, often uses the name Jehovah alone [the phrase in ii. (10) 11–19 -is <span class="heb">נאם יהוה</span>, and occurs twice ii. 14, 17; but the rest of the book has -also <span class="heb">נאם יהוה</span>, ii. 4; and besides <span class="heb">דבר יהוה</span>, i. 1, ii. 1, ii. 20; <span class="heb">אמר יהוה</span>, -i. 8; and <span class="heb">יהוה אלהים</span> and <span class="heb">מפני יהוה</span>, i. 12]. Again, Andrée observes -that while the rest of the book designates Israel always by <span class="heb">עם</span> and -the heathen by <span class="heb">גוי</span>, chap. ii. (10) 11–19, in ver. 14, uses both terms of -Israel. Yet in this latter case <span class="heb">גוי</span> is used only in parallel to <span class="heb">עם</span>, -as frequently in other parts of the Old Testament. Again, that while -in the rest of the book Haggai is called the prophet (the doubtful -i. 13 may be omitted), he is simply named in ii. (10) 11–19, means -nothing, for the name here occurs only in introducing his contribution -to a conversation, in recording which it was natural to omit titles. -Similarly insignificant is the fact that while the rest of the book -mentions only <i>the High Priest</i>, chap. ii. (10) 11–19 talks only of <i>the -priests</i>: because here again each is suitable to the connection.—Two or -three of Andrée’s alleged grounds (such as that from the names for -wine and oil and that from labhash and beged) are enough to discredit -his whole case.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_632_632" id="Footnote_632_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_632">[632]</a> ii. 15, 18.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_633_633" id="Footnote_633_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_633">[633]</a> In this opinion, stated first by Eichhorn, most critics agree.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_634_634" id="Footnote_634_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_634">[634]</a> Marcus Dods, <i>Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi</i>, 1879, in Handbooks -for Bible Classes: Edin., T. & T. Clark.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_635_635" id="Footnote_635_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_635">[635]</a> <span class="heb">חַגַּי</span>, Greek Ἀγγαῖος.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_636_636" id="Footnote_636_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_636">[636]</a> <span class="heb">חַגִּי</span>, Gen. xlvi. 16, Num. xxvi. 15; Greek Ἁγγει, Ἁγγεις. The -feminine <span class="heb">חַגִּית</span>, Haggith, was the name of one of David’s wives: -2 Sam. iii. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_637_637" id="Footnote_637_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_637">[637]</a> No. 67 of the Phœnician inscriptions in <i>C. I. S.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_638_638" id="Footnote_638_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_638">[638]</a> Hiller, <i>Onom. Sacrum</i>, Tüb., 1706 (quoted by Andrée), and Pusey.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_639_639" id="Footnote_639_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_639">[639]</a> <span class="heb">חַגִּיָּה</span>, see 1 Chron. vi. 15; Greek Ἁγγια, Lu. Ἀναια.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_640_640" id="Footnote_640_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_640">[640]</a> Köhler, <i>Nachexil. Proph.</i>, I. 2; Wellhausen in fourth edition of -Bleek’s <i>Einleitung</i>; Robertson Smith, <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. “Haggai.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_641_641" id="Footnote_641_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_641">[641]</a> <span class="heb">חגריה</span> = <i>Jehovah hath girded</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_642_642" id="Footnote_642_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642_642">[642]</a> Derenbourg, <i>Hist. de la Palestine</i>, pp. 95, 150.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_643_643" id="Footnote_643_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643_643">[643]</a> Jerome, Gesenius, and most moderns.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_644_644" id="Footnote_644_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644_644">[644]</a> As in the names <span class="heb">קַלַּי ,כְּלוּבַי ,בַּרְזִלַּי</span>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_645_645" id="Footnote_645_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645_645">[645]</a> The radical double <i>g</i> of which appears in composition.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_646_646" id="Footnote_646_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646_646">[646]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_647_647" id="Footnote_647_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647_647">[647]</a> i. 1, the new moon; ii. 1, the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles; -ii. 18, the foundation of the Temple (?).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_648_648" id="Footnote_648_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648_648">[648]</a> Baba-bathra, 15<i>a</i>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_649_649" id="Footnote_649_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649_649">[649]</a> Megilla, 2<i>b</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_650_650" id="Footnote_650_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650_650">[650]</a> Hesychius: see above, p. 80, n.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_651_651" id="Footnote_651_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651_651">[651]</a> Augustine, <i>Enarratio in Psalm cxlvii.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_652_652" id="Footnote_652_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652_652">[652]</a> Pseud-Epiphanius, <i>De Vitis Prophetarum</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_653_653" id="Footnote_653_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653_653">[653]</a> Jerome on Hag. i. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_654_654" id="Footnote_654_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654_654">[654]</a> Eusebius did not find these titles in the Hexaplar Septuagint. -See Field’s <i>Hexaplar</i> on Psalm cxlv. 1. The titles are of course -wholly without authority.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_655_655" id="Footnote_655_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655_655">[655]</a> Pseud-Epiphanius, as above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_656_656" id="Footnote_656_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656_656">[656]</a> So Ewald, Wildeboer (p. 295) and others.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XVIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_657_657" id="Footnote_657_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657_657">[657]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_210">210</a>-18, -and emphasise specially the facts that the -most pronounced adherents of Kosters’ theory seek to qualify his -absolute negation of a Return under Cyrus, by the admission that -some Jews did return; and that even Stade, who agrees in the main -with Schrader that no attempt was made by the Jews to begin -building the Temple till 520, admits the probability of a stone being -laid by Sheshbazzar about 536.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_658_658" id="Footnote_658_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658_658">[658]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_218">218</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_659_659" id="Footnote_659_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659_659">[659]</a> Hag. i. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_660_660" id="Footnote_660_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660_660">[660]</a> Art. “Haggai,” <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_661_661" id="Footnote_661_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661_661">[661]</a> Heb. Daryavesh.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_662_662" id="Footnote_662_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662_662">[662]</a> Heb. <i>by the hand of</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_663_663" id="Footnote_663_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663_663">[663]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_199">199</a> f. -and <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_664_664" id="Footnote_664_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664_664">[664]</a> See below, pp. <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, -<a href="#Page_292">292</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_665_665" id="Footnote_665_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665_665">[665]</a> Heb. <i>saying</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_666_666" id="Footnote_666_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666_666">[666]</a> For <span class="heb">לאֹ עֶת־בֹּא</span> = <i>not the time of coming</i> read with Hitzig and -Wellhausen <span class="heb">לאֹ עַתָּ בָא</span>, <i>not now is come</i>; for <span class="heb">עַתָּ</span> cf. Ezek. xxiii. 4, -Psalm lxxiv. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_667_667" id="Footnote_667_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667_667">[667]</a> The emphasis may be due only to the awkward grammatical -construction.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_668_668" id="Footnote_668_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668_668">[668]</a> <span class="heb">ספונים</span>, from <span class="heb">ספן</span>, <i>to cover</i> with planks of cedar, 2 Kings vi. 9: -cf. iii. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_669_669" id="Footnote_669_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669_669">[669]</a> Heb. <i>set your hearts</i> (see Vol. I., -pp. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_258">258</a>, -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_275">275</a>, -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_321">321</a>, -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_323">323</a>) -<i>upon your -ways</i>; but <i>your ways</i> cannot mean here, as elsewhere, <i>your conduct</i>, -but obviously from what follows <i>the ways</i> you have been led, <i>the way</i> -things have gone with you—the barren seasons and little income.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_670_670" id="Footnote_670_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670_670">[670]</a> The Hebrew and Versions here insert <i>set your hearts upon your -ways</i>, obviously a mere clerical repetition from ver. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_671_671" id="Footnote_671_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671_671">[671]</a> For <span class="heb">והנה למעט</span> read with the LXX. <span class="heb">והיה למעט</span> or <span class="heb">ויהי</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_672_672" id="Footnote_672_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672_672">[672]</a> The <span class="heb">עליכם</span> here inserted in the Hebrew text is unparsable, not -found in the LXX. and probably a clerical error by dittography from -the preceding <span class="heb">על־כן</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_673_673" id="Footnote_673_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673_673">[673]</a> Heb. <i>heavens are shut from dew</i>. But perhaps the <span class="heb">מ</span> of <span class="heb">מטל</span> -should be deleted. So Wellhausen. There is no instance of an -intransitive Qal of <span class="heb">כלא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_674_674" id="Footnote_674_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674_674">[674]</a> Query?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_675_675" id="Footnote_675_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675_675">[675]</a> Vol. I., -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_162">162</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_676_676" id="Footnote_676_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676_676">[676]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_677_677" id="Footnote_677_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677_677">[677]</a> The LXX. wrongly takes this last verse of chap. i. as the first -half of the first verse of chap. ii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_678_678" id="Footnote_678_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678_678">[678]</a> Lev. xxiii. 34, 36, 40–42.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_679_679" id="Footnote_679_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679_679">[679]</a> <i>By the hand of.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_680_680" id="Footnote_680_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680_680">[680]</a> <span class="heb">הֲלאֹ כָמֹהוּ כְאַיִן בְּעֵינֵיכֶם</span>. Literally, <i>is not the like of it as nothing in your eyes</i>? But that can hardly be the meaning. It might be -equivalent to <i>is it not, as it stands, as nothing in your eyes?</i> But the -fact is that in Hebrew construction of a simple, unemphasised comparison, -the comparing particle <span class="heb">כ</span> stands before <i>both</i> -objects compared: as, for instance, in the phrase -(Gen. xliv. 18) <span class="heb">כִּי כָמוֹךָ כְּפַרְעֹה</span>, <i>thou -art as Pharaoh</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_681_681" id="Footnote_681_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681_681">[681]</a> Literally: <i>be strong</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_682_682" id="Footnote_682_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682_682">[682]</a> It is difficult to say whether <i>high priest</i> belongs to the text or not.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_683_683" id="Footnote_683_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683_683">[683]</a> Here occurs the anacolouthic clause, introduced by an acc. without -a verb, which is not found in the LXX. and is probably a gloss -(see above, p. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>): <i>The promise which -I made with you in your going forth from Egypt</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_684_684" id="Footnote_684_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684_684">[684]</a> Hebrew has singular, <i>costly thing</i> or <i>desirableness</i>, <span class="heb">חֶמְדַּת</span> (fem, for neut.), but the verb <i>shall come</i> is in -the plural, and the LXX. has τα ἐκλεκτά, <i>the choice things</i>. -See below, next page [<a href="#Page_243">243</a>].</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_685_685" id="Footnote_685_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685_685">[685]</a> The LXX. add a parallel clause καὶ εἰρήνην φυχῆς εἰς περιποίησιν -παντὶ τῷ κτίζοντι τοῦ ἀναστῆσαι τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον, which would read in -Hebrew <span class="heb">וְשַׁלְוַת נֶפֶשׁ לְחַיּוֹת כָּל־הַיֹֹּסֵד לְקוֹמֵם הַהֵיכָל הַזֶּה</span>. On -<span class="heb">חיות</span> Wellhausen cites 1 Chron. xi. 8, = <i>restore</i> or <i>revive</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_686_686" id="Footnote_686_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686_686">[686]</a> = <span class="heb">חֶמְדַּת</span> <i>longing</i>, 2 Chron. xxi. 2, and <i>object of longing</i>, -Dan. xi. 37. It is the feminine or neuter, and might be rendered as -a collective, <i>desirable things</i>. Pusey cites Cicero’s address to his wife: -<i>Valete, mea desideria, valete</i> (<i>Ep. ad Famil.</i>, xiv. 2 fin.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_687_687" id="Footnote_687_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687_687">[687]</a> <span class="heb">חֲמֻדֹת</span> plural feminine of pass. part., as in Gen. xxvii. 15, where -it is an adjective, but used as a noun = <i>precious things</i>, Dan. xi. -38, 43, which use meets the objection of Pusey, <i>in loco</i>, where he -wrongly maintains that <i>precious things</i>, if intended, must have been -expressed by <span class="heb">מַחֲמַדֵּי</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_688_688" id="Footnote_688_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688_688">[688]</a> ἥξει τὰ ἐκλεκτὰ πάντων τῶν ἐθνῶν. Theodore of Mopsuestia takes -it as <i>elect persons of all nations</i>, to which a few moderns adhere.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_689_689" id="Footnote_689_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689_689">[689]</a> Augustini <i>Contra Donatistas post Collationem</i>, cap. xx. -30 (Migne, <i>Latin Patrology</i>, XLIII., p. 671).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_690_690" id="Footnote_690_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690_690">[690]</a> Calvin, <i>Comm. in Haggai</i>, ii. 6–9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_691_691" id="Footnote_691_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691_691">[691]</a> Deut. xvii. 8 ff.: <span class="heb">עַל־פּי הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר יוֹרוּךָ</span>. Compare the expression -<span class="heb">כּוֹהֵן מוֹרֶה</span>, in 2 Chron. xv. 3, and the duties of the teaching -priests assigned by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xvii. 7–9) to the days of -Jehoshaphat.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_692_692" id="Footnote_692_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692_692">[692]</a> Note that it is not <i>the Torah</i>, but <i>a Torah</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_693_693" id="Footnote_693_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693_693">[693]</a> The nearest passage to the <i>deliverance</i> of the priests to Haggai is -Lev. vi. 20, 21 (Heb.), 27, 28 (Eng.). This is part of the Priestly Code -not promulgated till 445 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, but based, of course, on long extant -custom, some of it very ancient. <i>Everything that touches the flesh</i> (of -the sin-offering, which is holy) <i>shall be holy</i>—<span class="heb">יִקְדַּשׁ</span>, the verb used by -the priests in their answer to Haggai—<i>and when any of its blood has -been sprinkled on a garment, that whereon it was sprinkled shall be -washed in a holy place. The earthen vessel wherein it has been boiled -shall be broken, and if it has been boiled in a brazen vessel, this shall be -scoured and rinsed with water.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_694_694" id="Footnote_694_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694_694">[694]</a> So several old edd. and many codd., and adopted by Baer (see -his note <i>in loco</i>) in his text. But most of the edd. of the Massoretic -text read <span class="heb">ביד</span> after Cod. Hill. For the importance of the question -see above, p. <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_695_695" id="Footnote_695_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695_695">[695]</a> Torah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_696_696" id="Footnote_696_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696_696">[696]</a> <span class="heb">תְּמֵא נֶפֶשׁ</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_697_697" id="Footnote_697_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697_697">[697]</a> There does not appear to be the contrast between indirect contact -with a holy thing and direct contact with a polluted which -Wellhausen says there is. In either case the articles whose character -is in question stand second from the source of holiness and pollution—the -holy flesh and the corpse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_698_698" id="Footnote_698_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698_698">[698]</a> See above, p. 245, n. <a href="#Footnote_693_693">693</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_699_699" id="Footnote_699_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699_699">[699]</a> Pusey, <i>in loco</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_700_700" id="Footnote_700_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700_700">[700]</a> The LXX. have here found inserted three other clauses: ἕνεκεν -τῶν λημμάτων αὐτῶν τῶν ὀρθρινῶν, ὀδυνηθήσονται ἀπὸ προσώπου πόνων -αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐμισεῖτε ἐν πύλαις ἐλέγχοντας. The first clause is a misreading -(Wellhausen), <span class="heb">יַעַן לִקְחֹתָם שַׁחַר</span> for <span class="heb">יַעַן לְקַחְתֶּם שֹׁחַד</span>, <i>because -ye take a bribe</i>, and goes well with the third clause, modified -from Amos v. 10: <span class="heb">שָׂנְאוּ בַשַׁעַר מוֹכִיחַ</span>, <i>they hate him who reproves in -the gate</i>. These may have been inserted into the Hebrew text by -some one puzzled to know what the source of the people’s pollution -was, and who absurdly found it in sins which in Haggai’s time it -was impossible to impute to them. The middle clause, <span class="heb">יִתְעַנּוּ מִפְּנֵי עַצְבֵיהֶם</span>, -<i>they vex themselves with their labours</i>, is suitable to the sense -of the Hebrew text of the verse, as Wellhausen points out, but -besides gives a connection with what follows.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_701_701" id="Footnote_701_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701_701">[701]</a> From this day and onward.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_702_702" id="Footnote_702_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702_702">[702]</a> Heb. literally <i>since they were</i>. A.V. <i>since those days were</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_703_703" id="Footnote_703_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703_703">[703]</a> Winevat, <span class="heb">יֶקֶב</span>, is distinguished from winepress, <span class="heb">גת</span>, in Josh. ix. 13, -and is translated by the Greek ὑπολήνιον Mark xii. I, ληνόν Matt. xxi. 33, -<i>dug a pit for the winepress</i>; but the name is applied sometimes to the -whole winepress—Hosea ix. 2 etc., Job xxiv. 11, <i>to tread the winepress</i>. -The word translated <i>measures</i>, as in LXX. -μετρητάς, is <span class="heb">פּוּרָה</span>, and -that is properly the vat in which the grapes were trodden (Isa. lxiii. 3), -but here it can scarcely mean fifty <i>vatfuls</i>, but must refer to some -smaller measure—cask?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_704_704" id="Footnote_704_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704_704">[704]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_228">228</a> f., -n. <a href="#Footnote_625_625">625</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_705_705" id="Footnote_705_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705_705">[705]</a> The words omitted cannot be construed in the Hebrew, -<span class="heb">וְאֵין־אֶתְכֶם אֵלַי</span>, -literally <i>and not you</i> (acc.) <i>to Me</i>. Hitzig, etc., -propose to read <span class="heb">אִתְּכם</span> and render <i>there was -none with you</i> who turned -<i>to Me</i>. Others propose <span class="heb">אֵינְכֶם</span>, <i>as if -none of you</i> turned <i>to Me</i>. Others -retain <span class="heb">אֶתְכֶם</span> and render <i>as for you</i>. The versions LXX. Syr., -Vulg. <i>ye will not return</i> or <i>did not return to Me</i>, reading perhaps -for <span class="heb">לאֹ שָׁבְתֶּם ,אֵין אֶתְכֶם</span>, which is found in Amos iv. 9, of which -the rest of the verse is an echo. Wellhausen deletes the whole -verse as a gloss. It is certainly suspicious, and remarkable in that -the LXX. text has already introduced two citations from Amos. See -above on ver. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_706_706" id="Footnote_706_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706_706">[706]</a> Heb. <i>from this day backwards</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_707_707" id="Footnote_707_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707_707">[707]</a> The date Wellhausen thinks was added by a later hand.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_708_708" id="Footnote_708_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708_708">[708]</a> This is the ambiguous clause on different interpretations of which -so much has been founded: <span class="heb">לְמִן־הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר־יֻסַּד הֵיכַל־יְהוָֹה</span>. Does -this clause, in simple parallel to the previous one, describe the day on -which the prophet was speaking, <i>the twenty-fourth day of the ninth -month</i>, the <i>terminus a quo</i> of the people’s retrospect? In that case -Haggai regards the foundation-stone of the Temple as laid on the -twenty-fourth day of the ninth month 520 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, and does not know, -or at least ignores, any previous laying of a foundation-stone. So -Kuenen, Kosters, Andrée, etc. Or does <span class="heb">למן</span> signify <i>up to the time -the foundation-stone was laid</i>, and state a <i>terminus ad quem</i> for the -people’s retrospect? So Ewald and others, who therefore find in -the verse a proof that Haggai knew of an earlier laying of the -foundation-stone. But that <span class="heb">למן</span> is ever used -for <span class="heb">ועד</span> cannot be -proved, and indeed is disproved by Jer. vii. 7, where it occurs in contrast -to <span class="heb">ועד</span>. Van Hoonacker finds the same, but in a more subtle translation -of <span class="heb" dir="ltr">למן</span>. <span class="heb">מן</span>, he says, -is never used except of a date distant from -the speaker or writer of it; <span class="heb">למן</span> (if I understand him aright) refers -therefore to a date previous to Haggai to which the people’s thoughts -are directed by the <span class="heb">ל</span> and then brought back from it to the date at -which he was speaking by means of the <span class="heb">מן</span>: “la préposition -<span class="heb">ל</span> signifie -la direction de l’esprit vers une époque du passé d’où il est -ramené par la préposition <span class="heb">מן</span>.” But surely <span class="heb">מן</span> can be used (as -indeed Haggai has just used it) to signify extension backwards from -the standpoint of the speaker; and although in the passages cited -by Van Hoonacker of the use of <span class="heb">למן</span> it always refers to a past -date—Deut. ix. 7, Judg. xix. 30, 2 Sam. vi. 11, Jer. vii. 7 and 25—still, -as it is there nothing but a pleonastic form for <span class="heb">מן</span>, it surely -might be employed as <span class="heb">מן</span> is sometimes employed for departure from -the present backwards. Nor in any case is it used to express what -Van Hoonacker seeks to draw from it here, the idea of direction of -the mind to a past event and then an immediate return from that. -Had Haggai wished to express that idea he would have phrased it -thus: <span class="heb">למן היום אשר יסד היכל יהוה ועד היום הזה</span> (as Kosters -remarks). Besides, as Kosters has pointed out (pp. 7 ff. of the -Germ. trans. of <i>Het Herstel</i>, etc.), even if Van Hoonacker’s translation -of <span class="heb">למן</span> were correct, the context would show that it might refer -only to a laying of the foundation-stone since Haggai’s first address -to the people, and therefore the question of an earlier foundation-stone -under Cyrus would remain unsolved. Consequently Haggai -ii. 18 cannot be quoted as a proof of the latter. -See above, p. <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_709_709" id="Footnote_709_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709_709">[709]</a> Meaning <i>there is none</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_710_710" id="Footnote_710_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710_710">[710]</a> <span class="heb">ועוד</span> or <span class="heb">וְעֹד</span> for <span class="heb">וְעַד</span>, after LXX. καὶ εἰ ἔτι.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_711_711" id="Footnote_711_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711_711">[711]</a> The twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, according to chap. i. 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_712_712" id="Footnote_712_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712_712">[712]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_713_713" id="Footnote_713_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713_713">[713]</a> -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry1"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“For I believe the devil’s voice</div> -<div class="i2">Sinks deeper in our ear,</div> -<div class="verse">Than any whisper sent from heaven,</div> -<div class="i2">However sweet and clear.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_714_714" id="Footnote_714_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714_714">[714]</a> Only in xxxiv. 24, xxxvii. 22, 24.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_715_715" id="Footnote_715_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715_715">[715]</a> <span class="heb">נשׂיא</span>: cf. Skinner, <i>Ezekiel</i> (Expositor’s Bible Series), pp. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46975/46975-h/46975-h.html#Pg447">447</a> ff., -who, however, attributes the diminution of the importance of the civil -head in Israel, not to the feeling that he would henceforth always be -subject to a foreign emperor, but to the conviction that in the future -he will be “overshadowed by the personal presence of Jehovah in -the midst of His people.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_716_716" id="Footnote_716_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716_716">[716]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_717_717" id="Footnote_717_717"></a><a href="#FNanchor_717_717">[717]</a> LXX. enlarges: <i>and the sea and the dry land</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_718_718" id="Footnote_718_718"></a><a href="#FNanchor_718_718">[718]</a> Heb. sing. collect. LXX. plural.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_719_719" id="Footnote_719_719"></a><a href="#FNanchor_719_719">[719]</a> Again a sing. coll.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XIX --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_720_720" id="Footnote_720_720"></a><a href="#FNanchor_720_720">[720]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_225">225</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_721_721" id="Footnote_721_721"></a><a href="#FNanchor_721_721">[721]</a> Below, p. <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_722_722" id="Footnote_722_722"></a><a href="#FNanchor_722_722">[722]</a> Ezra v. 1, vi. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_723_723" id="Footnote_723_723"></a><a href="#FNanchor_723_723">[723]</a> i. 12, vii. 5: reckoning in round numbers from 590, midway between -the two Exiles of 597 and 586, that brings us to about 520, the second -year of Darius.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_724_724" id="Footnote_724_724"></a><a href="#FNanchor_724_724">[724]</a> ii. 6 (Eng., Heb. 10). On the question whether the Book of -Zechariah gives no evidence of a previous Return from Babylon see -above, pp. <a href="#Page_208">208</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_725_725" id="Footnote_725_725"></a><a href="#FNanchor_725_725">[725]</a> viii. 7, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_726_726" id="Footnote_726_726"></a><a href="#FNanchor_726_726">[726]</a> viii. 4, 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_727_727" id="Footnote_727_727"></a><a href="#FNanchor_727_727">[727]</a> iii. 1–10, iv. 6–10, vi. 11 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_728_728" id="Footnote_728_728"></a><a href="#FNanchor_728_728">[728]</a> viii. 9, 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_729_729" id="Footnote_729_729"></a><a href="#FNanchor_729_729">[729]</a> i. 1–6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_730_730" id="Footnote_730_730"></a><a href="#FNanchor_730_730">[730]</a> i. 7–17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_731_731" id="Footnote_731_731"></a><a href="#FNanchor_731_731">[731]</a> iv. 6–10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_732_732" id="Footnote_732_732"></a><a href="#FNanchor_732_732">[732]</a> i. 7–21 (Eng., Heb. i. 7—ii. 4).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_733_733" id="Footnote_733_733"></a><a href="#FNanchor_733_733">[733]</a> iv. 6 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_734_734" id="Footnote_734_734"></a><a href="#FNanchor_734_734">[734]</a> iii., iv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_735_735" id="Footnote_735_735"></a><a href="#FNanchor_735_735">[735]</a> i. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_736_736" id="Footnote_736_736"></a><a href="#FNanchor_736_736">[736]</a> v.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_737_737" id="Footnote_737_737"></a><a href="#FNanchor_737_737">[737]</a> vii. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_738_738" id="Footnote_738_738"></a><a href="#FNanchor_738_738">[738]</a> vii. 1–7, viii. 18, 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_739_739" id="Footnote_739_739"></a><a href="#FNanchor_739_739">[739]</a> viii. 20–23.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_740_740" id="Footnote_740_740"></a><a href="#FNanchor_740_740">[740]</a> viii. 16, 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_741_741" id="Footnote_741_741"></a><a href="#FNanchor_741_741">[741]</a> viii. 20–23.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_742_742" id="Footnote_742_742"></a><a href="#FNanchor_742_742">[742]</a> ii. 10 f. Heb., 6 f. LXX. and Eng.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_743_743" id="Footnote_743_743"></a><a href="#FNanchor_743_743">[743]</a> Though the expression <i>I have scattered you to the four winds of -heaven</i> seems to imply the Exile before any return.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_744_744" id="Footnote_744_744"></a><a href="#FNanchor_744_744">[744]</a> For the bearing of this on Kosters’ theory of the Return see -pp. <a href="#Page_211">211</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_745_745" id="Footnote_745_745"></a><a href="#FNanchor_745_745">[745]</a> See below, p. <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_746_746" id="Footnote_746_746"></a><a href="#FNanchor_746_746">[746]</a> Outside the Visions the prophecies contain these echoes or -repetitions of earlier writers: chap. i. 1–6 quotes the constant refrain -of prophetic preaching before the Exile, and in chap. vii. 7–14 (ver. 8 -must be deleted) is given a summary of that preaching; in chap. -viii. ver. 3 echoes Isa. i. 21, 26, <i>city of troth</i>, and Jer. xxxi. 23, -<i>mountain of holiness</i> (there is really no connection, as Kuenen holds, -between ver. 4 and Isa. lxv. 20; it would create more interesting -questions as to the date of the latter if there were); ver. 8 is based -on Hosea ii. 15 Heb., 19 Eng., and Jer. xxxi. 33; ver. 12 is based -on Hosea ii. 21 f. (Heb. 23 f.); with ver. 13 compare Jer. xlii. 18, -<i>a curse</i>; vv. 21 ff. with Isa. ii. 3 and Micah iv. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_747_747" id="Footnote_747_747"></a><a href="#FNanchor_747_747">[747]</a> <i>E.g.</i> vii. 5, <span class="heb">צַמְתֻּנִי אָנִי</span> for <span class="heb">צַמְתֶּם לִי</span>: cf. Ewald, <i>Syntax</i>, § 315<i>b</i>. -The curious use of the acc. in the following verse is perhaps only -apparent; part of the text may have fallen out.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_748_748" id="Footnote_748_748"></a><a href="#FNanchor_748_748">[748]</a> Though there are not wanting, of course, echoes here as in the -other prophecies of older writings, <i>e.g.</i> i. 12, 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_749_749" id="Footnote_749_749"></a><a href="#FNanchor_749_749">[749]</a> <span class="heb">לאמר</span>, <i>saying</i>, ii. 8 (Gr. ii. 4); iv. 5, <i>And the angel who spoke with me said</i>; i. 17, cf. vi. 5. <i>All</i> is inserted in i. 11, iii. 9; <i>lord</i> in ii. 2; -<i>of hosts</i> (after <i>Jehovah</i>) viii. 17; and there are other instances of -palpable expansion, <i>e.g.</i> i. 6, 8, ii. 4 bis, 6, viii. 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_750_750" id="Footnote_750_750"></a><a href="#FNanchor_750_750">[750]</a> <i>E.g.</i> ii. 2, iv. 2, 13, v. 9, vi. 12 bis, vii. 8: -cf. also vi. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_751_751" id="Footnote_751_751"></a><a href="#FNanchor_751_751">[751]</a> i. 8 ff., iii. 4 ff.: cf. also vi. 3 with vv. 6 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_752_752" id="Footnote_752_752"></a><a href="#FNanchor_752_752">[752]</a> <i>E.g.</i> (but this is outside the Visions) the very flagrant misunderstanding to which the insertion of vii. 8 is due.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_753_753" id="Footnote_753_753"></a><a href="#FNanchor_753_753">[753]</a> v. 6, <span class="heb">עינם</span> for <span class="heb">עונם</span> -as in LXX., and the last words of v. 11; perhaps vi. 10; -and almost certainly vii. 2<i>a</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_754_754" id="Footnote_754_754"></a><a href="#FNanchor_754_754">[754]</a> Chap. iv. On 6<i>a</i>, 10<i>b</i>-14 should immediately follow, and 6<i>b</i>-10<i>a</i> -come after 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_755_755" id="Footnote_755_755"></a><a href="#FNanchor_755_755">[755]</a> vi. 11 ff. See below, pp. <a href="#Page_308">308</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_756_756" id="Footnote_756_756"></a><a href="#FNanchor_756_756">[756]</a> Chief variants: i. 8, 10; ii. 15; iii. 4; iv. 7, 12; v. 1, 3, 4, 9; -vi. 10, 13; vii. 3; viii. 8, 9, 12, 20. Obvious mistranslations or -misreadings: ii. 9, 10, 15, 17; iii. 4; iv. 7, 10; v. 1, 4, 9; vi. 10, -cf. 14; vii. 3.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XX --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_757_757" id="Footnote_757_757"></a><a href="#FNanchor_757_757">[757]</a> <span class="heb">זֶכֶרְיָה</span>; LXX. Ζαχαρίας.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_758_758" id="Footnote_758_758"></a><a href="#FNanchor_758_758">[758]</a> i. 1: <span class="heb">בֶּן־בֶרֶכְיָה בֶּן־עִדּוֹ</span>. In i. 7: <span class="heb">בֶּרֶכְיָהוּ בֶּן־עִדּוֹא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_759_759" id="Footnote_759_759"></a><a href="#FNanchor_759_759">[759]</a> Ezra v. 1, vi. 14: <span class="heb">בַּר־עִדּוֹא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_760_760" id="Footnote_760_760"></a><a href="#FNanchor_760_760">[760]</a> Gen. xxiv. 47, cf. xxix. 5; 1 Kings xix. 16, cf. 2 Kings ix. 14, 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_761_761" id="Footnote_761_761"></a><a href="#FNanchor_761_761">[761]</a> Isa. viii. 2: <span class="heb">בֶּן־יְבֶרֶכְיָהוּ</span>. This confusion, which existed in early -Jewish and Christian times, Knobel, Von Ortenberg, Bleek, Wellhausen -and others take to be due to the effort to find a second -Zechariah for the authorship of chaps. ix. ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_762_762" id="Footnote_762_762"></a><a href="#FNanchor_762_762">[762]</a> So Vatke, König and many others. Marti prefers it (<i>Der -Prophet Sacharja</i>, p. 58). See also Ryle on Ezra v. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_763_763" id="Footnote_763_763"></a><a href="#FNanchor_763_763">[763]</a> Neh. xii. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_764_764" id="Footnote_764_764"></a><a href="#FNanchor_764_764">[764]</a> <i>Ib.</i> 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_765_765" id="Footnote_765_765"></a><a href="#FNanchor_765_765">[765]</a> This is not proved, as Pusey, König (<i>Einl.</i>, p. 364) and others -think, by <span class="heb">נַעַר</span>, or young man, of the Third Vision (ii. 8 Heb., -ii. 4 LXX. and Eng.). Cf. Wright, <i>Zechariah and his Prophecies</i>, -p. xvi.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_766_766" id="Footnote_766_766"></a><a href="#FNanchor_766_766">[766]</a> v. 1, vi. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_767_767" id="Footnote_767_767"></a><a href="#FNanchor_767_767">[767]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_768_768" id="Footnote_768_768"></a><a href="#FNanchor_768_768">[768]</a> More than this we do not know of Zechariah. The Jewish and -Christian traditions of him are as unfounded as those of other -prophets. According to the Jews he was, of course, a member of -the mythical Great Synagogue. See above on Haggai, pp. <a href="#Page_232">232</a> f. As -in the case of the prophets we have already treated, the Christian -traditions of Zechariah are found in (Pseud-)Epiphanius, <i>De Vitis -Prophetarum</i>, Dorotheus, and Hesychius, as quoted above, p. <a href="#Page_80">80</a>. -They amount to this, that Zechariah, after predicting in Babylon -the birth of Zerubbabel, and to Cyrus his victory over Crœsus and -his treatment of the Jews, came in his old age to Jerusalem, -prophesied, died and was buried near Beit-Jibrin—another instance -of the curious relegation by Christian tradition of the birth and burial -places of so many of the prophets to that neighbourhood. Compare -Beit-Zakharya, 12 miles from Beit-Jibrin. Hesychius says he was -born in Gilead. Dorotheus confuses him, as the Jews did, with -Zechariah of Isa. viii. 1. -See above, p. 265, n. <a href="#Footnote_761_761">761</a>. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -Zechariah was certainly not the Zechariah whom our Lord describes -as slain between the Temple and the Altar (Matt. xxiii. 35; Luke xi. 51). -In the former passage alone is this Zechariah called the son of -Barachiah. In the <i>Evang. Nazar.</i> Jerome read <i>the son of Yehoyada</i>. -Both readings may be insertions. According to 2 Chron. xxiv. 21, -in the reign of Joash, Zechariah, the son of Yehoyada the priest, was -stoned in the court of the Temple, and according to Josephus (IV. -<i>Wars</i>, v. 4), in the year 68 <span class="small">A.D.</span> Zechariah son of Baruch was -assassinated in the Temple by two zealots. The latter murder may, -as Marti remarks (pp. 58 f.), have led to the insertion of Barachiah -into Matt. xxiii. 35.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_769_769" id="Footnote_769_769"></a><a href="#FNanchor_769_769">[769]</a> ii. 13, 15; iv. 9; vi. 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_770_770" id="Footnote_770_770"></a><a href="#FNanchor_770_770">[770]</a> LXX. Ἀδδω. See above, p. <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_771_771" id="Footnote_771_771"></a><a href="#FNanchor_771_771">[771]</a> Heb. <i>angered with anger</i>; Gr. <i>with great anger</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_772_772" id="Footnote_772_772"></a><a href="#FNanchor_772_772">[772]</a> As in LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_773_773" id="Footnote_773_773"></a><a href="#FNanchor_773_773">[773]</a> LXX. has misunderstood and expanded this verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_774_774" id="Footnote_774_774"></a><a href="#FNanchor_774_774">[774]</a> It is to be noticed that Zechariah appeals to the Torah of the -prophets, and does not mention any Torah of the priests. Cf. Smend, -<i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, pp. 176 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_775_775" id="Footnote_775_775"></a><a href="#FNanchor_775_775">[775]</a> Page 267, n. <a href="#Footnote_769_769">769</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_776_776" id="Footnote_776_776"></a><a href="#FNanchor_776_776">[776]</a> This picture is given in one of the Visions: the Third.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXI --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_777_777" id="Footnote_777_777"></a><a href="#FNanchor_777_777">[777]</a> iv. 6. Unless this be taken as an earlier prophecy. See -above, p. <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_778_778" id="Footnote_778_778"></a><a href="#FNanchor_778_778">[778]</a> ii. 9, 10 Heb., 5, 6 LXX. and Eng.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_779_779" id="Footnote_779_779"></a><a href="#FNanchor_779_779">[779]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, where this is stated as an argument against -Kosters’ theory that there was no Return from Babylon in the reign -of Cyrus.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_780_780" id="Footnote_780_780"></a><a href="#FNanchor_780_780">[780]</a> Vv. 17 and 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_781_781" id="Footnote_781_781"></a><a href="#FNanchor_781_781">[781]</a> See Zechariah’s <a href="#vis5">Fifth Vision</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_782_782" id="Footnote_782_782"></a><a href="#FNanchor_782_782">[782]</a> xliv. 1 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_783_783" id="Footnote_783_783"></a><a href="#FNanchor_783_783">[783]</a> xlv. 22.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_784_784" id="Footnote_784_784"></a><a href="#FNanchor_784_784">[784]</a> xliv. 23, 24.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_785_785" id="Footnote_785_785"></a><a href="#FNanchor_785_785">[785]</a> Its origin was the Exile, whether its date be before or after -the First Return under Cyrus in 537 <span class="small">B.C.</span></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_786_786" id="Footnote_786_786"></a><a href="#FNanchor_786_786">[786]</a> Fourth Vision, chap. iii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_787_787" id="Footnote_787_787"></a><a href="#FNanchor_787_787">[787]</a> vi. 9–15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_788_788" id="Footnote_788_788"></a><a href="#FNanchor_788_788">[788]</a> See ver. 11. [p. <a href="#Page_380">380</a>]</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_789_789" id="Footnote_789_789"></a><a href="#FNanchor_789_789">[789]</a> ii. 20–23.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_790_790" id="Footnote_790_790"></a><a href="#FNanchor_790_790">[790]</a> iii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_791_791" id="Footnote_791_791"></a><a href="#FNanchor_791_791">[791]</a> <span class="heb">חִלָּה אֶת־פְנֵי יהוה</span>. The verb (Piel) originally means <i>to make -weak</i> or <i>flaccid</i> (the Kal means <i>to be sick</i>), and so <i>to soften</i> or -<i>weaken by flattery</i>. 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings xiii. 6, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_792_792" id="Footnote_792_792"></a><a href="#FNanchor_792_792">[792]</a> First Vision, chap. i. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_793_793" id="Footnote_793_793"></a><a href="#FNanchor_793_793">[793]</a> Second Vision, ii. 1–4 Heb., i. 18–21 LXX. and Eng.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_794_794" id="Footnote_794_794"></a><a href="#FNanchor_794_794">[794]</a> Eighth Vision, chap. vi. 1–8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_795_795" id="Footnote_795_795"></a><a href="#FNanchor_795_795">[795]</a> xxi. 36 Heb., 31 Eng.: <i>skilful to destroy</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_796_796" id="Footnote_796_796"></a><a href="#FNanchor_796_796">[796]</a> See next chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">[XXII].</a></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_797_797" id="Footnote_797_797"></a><a href="#FNanchor_797_797">[797]</a> Jer. xxv. 12; Hag. ii. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_798_798" id="Footnote_798_798"></a><a href="#FNanchor_798_798">[798]</a> Myrtles were once common in the Holy Land, and have been -recently found (Hasselquist, <i>Travels</i>). For their prevalence near -Jerusalem see Neh. viii. 15. They do not appear to have any -symbolic value in the Vision.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_799_799" id="Footnote_799_799"></a><a href="#FNanchor_799_799">[799]</a> For a less probable explanation see above, -p. <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_800_800" id="Footnote_800_800"></a><a href="#FNanchor_800_800">[800]</a> See pp. <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_801_801" id="Footnote_801_801"></a><a href="#FNanchor_801_801">[801]</a> Ewald omits <i>riding a brown horse</i>, as “marring the lucidity of the -description, and added from a misconception by an early hand.” But -we must not expect lucidity in a phantasmagoria like this.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_802_802" id="Footnote_802_802"></a><a href="#FNanchor_802_802">[802]</a> <span class="heb">מְצֻלָה</span>, Meṣullah, either <i>shadow</i> from <span class="heb">צלל</span>, or for <span class="heb">מְצוּלָה</span>, <i>ravine</i>, -or else a proper name. The LXX., which uniformly for <span class="heb">הֲדַסִּים</span>, -<i>myrtles</i>, reads <span class="heb">הרים</span>, <i>mountains</i>, renders <span class="heb">אשר במצלה</span> by τῶν κατασκίων. -Ewald and Hitzig read <span class="heb">מְצִלָּה</span>, Arab, mizhallah, <i>shadowing</i> or <i>tent</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_803_803" id="Footnote_803_803"></a><a href="#FNanchor_803_803">[803]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">שרקים</span>, only here. For this LXX. gives two kinds, καὶ ψαροὶ -καὶ ποικίλοι, <i>and dappled and piebald</i>. Wright gives a full treatment -of the question, pp. 531 ff. He points out that the cognate word in -Arabic means sorrel, or yellowish red.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_804_804" id="Footnote_804_804"></a><a href="#FNanchor_804_804">[804]</a> <i>Who stood among the myrtles</i> omitted by Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_805_805" id="Footnote_805_805"></a><a href="#FNanchor_805_805">[805]</a> Isa. xxxvii. 29; Jer. xlviii. 11; Psalm cxxiii. 4; Zeph. i. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_806_806" id="Footnote_806_806"></a><a href="#FNanchor_806_806">[806]</a> Or <i>for</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_807_807" id="Footnote_807_807"></a><a href="#FNanchor_807_807">[807]</a> <i>Who talked with me</i> omitted by Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_808_808" id="Footnote_808_808"></a><a href="#FNanchor_808_808">[808]</a> Heb. <i>helped for evil</i>, or <i>till it became a calamity</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_809_809" id="Footnote_809_809"></a><a href="#FNanchor_809_809">[809]</a> Marcus Dods, <i>Hag., Zech. and Mal.</i>, p. 71. Orelli: “In distinction -from Daniel, Zechariah is fond of a simultaneous survey, not the -presenting of a succession.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_810_810" id="Footnote_810_810"></a><a href="#FNanchor_810_810">[810]</a> For the symbolism of iron horns see Micah iv. 13, and compare -Orelli’s note, in which it is pointed out that the destroyers must be -smiths as in Isa. xliv. 12, <i>workmen of iron</i>, and not as in LXX. -<i>carpenters</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_811_811" id="Footnote_811_811"></a><a href="#FNanchor_811_811">[811]</a> Wellhausen and Nowack delete <i>Israel and Jerusalem</i>; the latter -does not occur in Codd. A, Q, of Septuagint.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_812_812" id="Footnote_812_812"></a><a href="#FNanchor_812_812">[812]</a> Wellhausen reads, after Mal. ii. 9, <span class="heb">כפי אשר</span>, <i>so that it lifted not -its head</i>; but in that case we should not find <span class="heb">ראׁׁשׁוֹ</span>, but <span class="heb">ראׁׁשָׁהּ</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_813_813" id="Footnote_813_813"></a><a href="#FNanchor_813_813">[813]</a> <span class="heb">החריד</span>, but LXX. read <span class="heb">החדיד</span>, and either that or some verb of -cutting must be read.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_814_814" id="Footnote_814_814"></a><a href="#FNanchor_814_814">[814]</a> The Hebrew, literally <i>comes forth</i>, is the technical term throughout -the Visions for the entrance of the figures upon the stage of -vision.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_815_815" id="Footnote_815_815"></a><a href="#FNanchor_815_815">[815]</a> LXX. ἵστηκει, <i>stood up</i>: adopted by Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_816_816" id="Footnote_816_816"></a><a href="#FNanchor_816_816">[816]</a> Psalm xxiv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_817_817" id="Footnote_817_817"></a><a href="#FNanchor_817_817">[817]</a> Isa. xvii. 12–14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_818_818" id="Footnote_818_818"></a><a href="#FNanchor_818_818">[818]</a> Psalm cxxii. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_819_819" id="Footnote_819_819"></a><a href="#FNanchor_819_819">[819]</a> Some codd. read <i>with the four winds</i>. LXX. <i>from the four winds -will I gather you</i> (σὺνάξω ὑμᾶς), and this is adopted by Wellhausen -and Nowack. But it is probably a later change intended to adapt the -poem to its new context.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_820_820" id="Footnote_820_820"></a><a href="#FNanchor_820_820">[820]</a> <i>Dweller of the daughter of Babel.</i> But <span class="heb">בת</span>, <i>daughter</i>, is mere -dittography of the termination of the preceding word.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_821_821" id="Footnote_821_821"></a><a href="#FNanchor_821_821">[821]</a> A curious phrase here occurs in the Heb. and versions, <i>After -glory hath He sent me</i>, which we are probably right in omitting. -In any case it is a parenthesis, and ought to go not with <i>sent me</i> but -with <i>saith Jehovah of Hosts</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_822_822" id="Footnote_822_822"></a><a href="#FNanchor_822_822">[822]</a> So LXX. Heb. <i>to me</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_823_823" id="Footnote_823_823"></a><a href="#FNanchor_823_823">[823]</a> Cf. Zeph. i. 7; Hab. ii. 20. “Among the Arabians, after the -slaughter of the sacrificial victim, the participants stood for some -time in silence about the altar. That was the moment in which the -Deity approached in order to take His share in the sacrifice.” -(Smend, <i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, p. 124).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_824_824" id="Footnote_824_824"></a><a href="#FNanchor_824_824">[824]</a> Cf. vv. 1 and 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_825_825" id="Footnote_825_825"></a><a href="#FNanchor_825_825">[825]</a> See below, p. <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_826_826" id="Footnote_826_826"></a><a href="#FNanchor_826_826">[826]</a> In this Vision the verb <i>to stand before</i> is used in two technical -senses: (<i>a</i>) of the appearance of plaintiff and defendant before their -judge (vv. 1 and 3); (<i>b</i>) of servants before their masters (vv. 4 and 7).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_827_827" id="Footnote_827_827"></a><a href="#FNanchor_827_827">[827]</a> See below, p. 294, n. <a href="#Footnote_835_835">835</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_828_828" id="Footnote_828_828"></a><a href="#FNanchor_828_828">[828]</a> Isa. iv. 2, xi. 1; Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15; Isa. liii. 2. Stade -(<i>Gesch. des Volkes Isr.</i>, II. 125), followed by Marti (<i>Der Proph. Sach.</i>, -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">85 n.), suspects the clause <i>I will bring in My Servant the Branch</i> as a</span> -later interpolation, entangling the construction and finding in this -section no further justification.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_829_829" id="Footnote_829_829"></a><a href="#FNanchor_829_829">[829]</a> Or <i>Adversary</i>; see p. <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_830_830" id="Footnote_830_830"></a><a href="#FNanchor_830_830">[830]</a> <i>To Satan him</i>: <i>slander</i>, or <i>accuse, him</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_831_831" id="Footnote_831_831"></a><a href="#FNanchor_831_831">[831]</a> That is <i>the Angel of Jehovah</i>, which Wellhausen and Nowack -read; but see below, p. <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_832_832" id="Footnote_832_832"></a><a href="#FNanchor_832_832">[832]</a> This clause interrupts the Angel’s speech to the servants. -Wellh. and Nowack omit it. <span class="heb">העביר</span> cf. 2 Sam. xii. 13; Job vii. 21.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_833_833" id="Footnote_833_833"></a><a href="#FNanchor_833_833">[833]</a> So LXX. Heb. has a degraded grammatical form, <i>clothe thyself</i> -which has obviously been made to suit the intrusion of the previous -clause, and is therefore an argument against the authenticity of the -latter.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_834_834" id="Footnote_834_834"></a><a href="#FNanchor_834_834">[834]</a> LXX. omits <i>I said</i> and reads <i>Let them put</i> -as another imperative, -<i>Do ye put</i>, following on the two of the previous verse. Wellhausen -adopts this (reading <span class="heb">שימו</span> for <span class="heb">ישימו</span>). Though it is difficult to see -how <span class="heb">ואמר</span> dropped out of the text if once there, it is equally so to -understand why if not original it was inserted. The whole passage -has been tampered with. If we accept the Massoretic text, then we -have a sympathetic interference in the vision of the dreamer himself -which is very natural; and he speaks, as is proper, not in the direct, -but indirect, imperative, <i>Let them put</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_835_835" id="Footnote_835_835"></a><a href="#FNanchor_835_835">[835]</a> <span class="heb">צָנִיף</span>, the headdress of rich women (Isa. iii. 23), as of eminent -men (Job xxix. 14), means something wound round and round the -head (cf. the use of <span class="heb">צנף</span> to form like a ball in Isa. xxii. 18, and -the use of <span class="heb">חבשׁ</span> (to wind) to express the putting on of the headdress -(Ezek. xvi. 10, etc.)). Hence <i>turban</i> seems to be the proper -rendering. Another form from the same root, <span class="heb">מצנפת</span>, is the name -of the headdress of the Prince of Israel (Ezek. xxi. 31); and in the -Priestly Codex of the Pentateuch the headdress of the high priest -(Exod. xxviii. 37, etc.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_836_836" id="Footnote_836_836"></a><a href="#FNanchor_836_836">[836]</a> Wellhausen takes the last words of ver. 5 with ver. 6, reads <span class="heb">עָמַד</span> -and renders <i>And the Angel of Jehovah stood up or stepped forward</i>. -But even if <span class="heb">עָמַד</span> be read, the order of the words would require -translation in the pluperfect, which would come to the same as the -original text. And if Wellhausen’s proposal were correct the words -<i>Angel of Jehovah</i> in ver. 6 would be superfluous.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_837_837" id="Footnote_837_837"></a><a href="#FNanchor_837_837">[837]</a> Read <span class="heb">מַהֲלָכִים</span> (Smend, <i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, p. 324, n. 2).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_838_838" id="Footnote_838_838"></a><a href="#FNanchor_838_838">[838]</a> Or <i>facets</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_839_839" id="Footnote_839_839"></a><a href="#FNanchor_839_839">[839]</a> <i>E.g.</i> Marti, <i>Der Prophet Sacharja</i>, p. 83.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_840_840" id="Footnote_840_840"></a><a href="#FNanchor_840_840">[840]</a> Hitzig, Wright and many others. On the place of this stone in -the legends of Judaism see Wright, pp. 75 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_841_841" id="Footnote_841_841"></a><a href="#FNanchor_841_841">[841]</a> Ewald, Marcus Dods.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_842_842" id="Footnote_842_842"></a><a href="#FNanchor_842_842">[842]</a> Von Orelli, Volck.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_843_843" id="Footnote_843_843"></a><a href="#FNanchor_843_843">[843]</a> Bredenkamp.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_844_844" id="Footnote_844_844"></a><a href="#FNanchor_844_844">[844]</a> Wellhausen, <i>in loco</i>, and Smend, <i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, 345.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_845_845" id="Footnote_845_845"></a><a href="#FNanchor_845_845">[845]</a> So Marti, p. 88.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_846_846" id="Footnote_846_846"></a><a href="#FNanchor_846_846">[846]</a> 1 Kings vii. 49.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_847_847" id="Footnote_847_847"></a><a href="#FNanchor_847_847">[847]</a> 1 Macc. i. 21; iv. 49, 50. Josephus, XIV. <i>Ant.</i> iv. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_848_848" id="Footnote_848_848"></a><a href="#FNanchor_848_848">[848]</a> LXX. Heb. has <i>seven sevens</i> of pipes.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_849_849" id="Footnote_849_849"></a><a href="#FNanchor_849_849">[849]</a> Wellhausen reads <i>its right</i> and deletes <i>the bowl</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_850_850" id="Footnote_850_850"></a><a href="#FNanchor_850_850">[850]</a> <span class="heb" dir="ltr">ואען</span>. <span class="heb">ענה</span> is not only <i>to answer</i>, but to take part in a conversation, -whether by starting or continuing it. LXX. rightly ἐπηρώτησα.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_851_851" id="Footnote_851_851"></a><a href="#FNanchor_851_851">[851]</a> Heb. <i>saying</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_852_852" id="Footnote_852_852"></a><a href="#FNanchor_852_852">[852]</a> In the Hebrew text, followed by the ancient and modern versions, -including the English Bible, there here follows 6<i>b</i>-10<i>a</i>, the Word to -Zerubbabel. They obviously disturb the narrative of the Vision, and -Wellhausen has rightly transferred them to the end of it, where they -come in as naturally as the word of hope to Joshua comes in at the -end of the preceding Vision. Take them away, and, as can be seen -above, ver. 10<i>b</i> follows quite naturally upon 6<i>a</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_853_853" id="Footnote_853_853"></a><a href="#FNanchor_853_853">[853]</a> Heb. <i>gold</i>. So LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_854_854" id="Footnote_854_854"></a><a href="#FNanchor_854_854">[854]</a> Wellhausen omits the whole of this second question (ver. 12) as -intruded and unnecessary. So also Smend as a doublet on ver. 11 -(<i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, 343 n.). So also Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_855_855" id="Footnote_855_855"></a><a href="#FNanchor_855_855">[855]</a> Heb. <i>saying</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_856_856" id="Footnote_856_856"></a><a href="#FNanchor_856_856">[856]</a> LXX. <i>I</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_857_857" id="Footnote_857_857"></a><a href="#FNanchor_857_857">[857]</a> Or <i>Fair, fair is it!</i> Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_858_858" id="Footnote_858_858"></a><a href="#FNanchor_858_858">[858]</a> <i>The stone, the leaden</i>. Marti, <i>St. u. Kr.</i>, 1892, p. 213 n., takes <i>the -leaden</i> for a gloss, and reads simply <i>the stone</i>, <i>i.e.</i> the top-stone; but -the plummet is the last thing laid to the building to test the straightness -of the top-stone.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_859_859" id="Footnote_859_859"></a><a href="#FNanchor_859_859">[859]</a> <i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, 312 n.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_860_860" id="Footnote_860_860"></a><a href="#FNanchor_860_860">[860]</a> <span class="heb">מגלה</span> <i>roll</i> or <i>volume</i>. LXX. δρέπανον, <i>sickle</i>, <span class="heb">מַגָּל</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_861_861" id="Footnote_861_861"></a><a href="#FNanchor_861_861">[861]</a> A group of difficult expressions. The verb <span class="heb">נִקָּה</span> -is Ni. of a -root which originally had the physical meaning to <i>clean out of a -place</i>, and this Ni. is so used of a plundered town in Isa. iii. 26. -But its more usual meaning is to be spoken free from guilt (Psalm -xix. 14, etc.). Most commentators take it here in the physical sense, -Hitzig quoting the use of καθαρίζω in Mark vii. 19. <span class="heb">מִזֶה כָמוֹהָ</span> -are variously rendered. <span class="heb">מזה</span> is mostly understood -as locative, <i>hence</i>, -<i>i.e.</i> from the land just mentioned, but some take it with <i>steal</i> (Hitzig), -some with <i>cleaned out</i> (Ewald, Orelli, etc.). <span class="heb">כָמוֹהָ</span> -is rendered <i>like it</i>—the -flying roll (Ewald, Orelli), which cannot be, since the roll flies -upon the face of the land, and the sinner is to be purged out of it; -or in accordance with the roll or its curse (Jerome, Köhler). But -Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">מִזֶה כַמֶּה</span>, and takes -<span class="heb">נִקָּה</span> in its usual meaning -and in the past tense, and renders <i>Every thief has for long remained -unpunished</i>; and so in the next clause. So, too, Nowack. LXX. -<i>Every thief shall be condemned to death</i>, ἕως θανάτου ἐκδιθήσεται.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_862_862" id="Footnote_862_862"></a><a href="#FNanchor_862_862">[862]</a> Heb. <i>lodge</i>, <i>pass the night</i>: -cf. Zeph. ii. 14 (above, p. <a href="#Page_65">65</a>), <i>pelican -and bittern shall roost upon the capitals</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_863_863" id="Footnote_863_863"></a><a href="#FNanchor_863_863">[863]</a> Smend sees a continuation of Ezekiel’s idea of the guilt of man -overtaking him (iii. 20, xxxiv.). Here God’s curse does all.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_864_864" id="Footnote_864_864"></a><a href="#FNanchor_864_864">[864]</a> This follows from the shape of the disc that fits into it. Seven -gallons are seven-eighths of the English bushel: that in use in -Canada and the United States is somewhat smaller.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_865_865" id="Footnote_865_865"></a><a href="#FNanchor_865_865">[865]</a> Ewald.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_866_866" id="Footnote_866_866"></a><a href="#FNanchor_866_866">[866]</a> Upon the stage of vision.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_867_867" id="Footnote_867_867"></a><a href="#FNanchor_867_867">[867]</a> For Heb. <span class="heb">עֵינָם</span> read <span class="heb">עוֹנָם</span> with LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_868_868" id="Footnote_868_868"></a><a href="#FNanchor_868_868">[868]</a> By inserting <span class="heb">איפה</span> after -<span class="heb">מה</span> in ver. 5, and deleting <span class="heb" dir="ltr">היוצאת</span> -… <span class="heb">ויאמר</span> in ver. 6, Wellhausen secures the more concise text: -<i>And see what this bushel is that comes forth. And I said, What is it? -And he said, That is the evil of the people in the whole land</i>. But to -reduce the redundancies of the Visions is to delete the most characteristic -feature of their style. Besides, Wellhausen’s result gives no -sense. The prophet would not be asked to see what a bushel is: -the angel is there to tell him this. So Wellhausen in his translation -has to omit the <span class="heb">מה</span> of ver. 5, while telling us in his note to replace -<span class="heb">האיפה</span> after it. His emendation is, therefore, to be rejected. Nowack, -however, accepts it.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_869_869" id="Footnote_869_869"></a><a href="#FNanchor_869_869">[869]</a> LXX. Heb. <i>this</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_870_870" id="Footnote_870_870"></a><a href="#FNanchor_870_870">[870]</a> In the last clause the verbal forms are obscure if not corrupt. -LXX. καὶ ἕτοιμασαι καὶ θήσουσιν αὐτο ἐκεῖ = <span class="heb">לְהָכִין וַהֲנִיחֻהָ שָׁם</span>; but -see Ewald, <i>Syntax</i>, 131 <i>d</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_871_871" id="Footnote_871_871"></a><a href="#FNanchor_871_871">[871]</a> Wellhausen suggests that in the direction assigned to the white -horses, <span class="heb">אחריהם</span> (ver. 6), which we have rendered <i>westward</i>, we might -read <span class="heb">ארץ הקדם</span>, <i>land of the east</i>; and that from ver. 7 <i>the west</i> has -probably fallen out after <i>they go forth</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_872_872" id="Footnote_872_872"></a><a href="#FNanchor_872_872">[872]</a> Heb. <i>I turned again and</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_873_873" id="Footnote_873_873"></a><a href="#FNanchor_873_873">[873]</a> Hebrew reads <span class="heb">אֲמֻצִּים</span>, <i>strong</i>; LXX. ψαροί, <i>dappled</i>, and for the -previous <span class="heb">בְּרֻדּים</span>, <i>spotted</i> or <i>dappled</i>, it reads ποικίλοι, <i>piebald</i>. Perhaps -we should read <span class="heb">חמצים</span> (cf. Isa. lxiii. 1), <i>dark red</i> or <i>sorrel</i>, with <i>grey -spots</i>. So Ewald and Orelli. Wright keeps <i>strong</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_874_874" id="Footnote_874_874"></a><a href="#FNanchor_874_874">[874]</a> Wellhausen, supplying <span class="heb">ל</span> before <span class="heb">ארבע</span>, renders <i>These go forth -to the four winds of heaven after they have presented themselves</i>, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_875_875" id="Footnote_875_875"></a><a href="#FNanchor_875_875">[875]</a> Heb. <i>behind them</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_876_876" id="Footnote_876_876"></a><a href="#FNanchor_876_876">[876]</a> <span class="heb">אמצים</span>, the second epithet of the horses of the fourth chariot, ver. 3. See note there [n. <a href="#Footnote_873_873">873</a>].</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_877_877" id="Footnote_877_877"></a><a href="#FNanchor_877_877">[877]</a> Or <i>anger to bear</i>, Heb. <i>rest</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_878_878" id="Footnote_878_878"></a><a href="#FNanchor_878_878">[878]</a> The collective name for the Jews in exile.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_879_879" id="Footnote_879_879"></a><a href="#FNanchor_879_879">[879]</a> LXX. παρὰ τῶν ἀρχόντων, <span class="heb">מִחֹרִים</span>; but since an accusative is -wanted to express the articles taken, Hitzig proposes to read <span class="heb">מַחֲמַדַּי</span>, -<i>My precious things</i>. The LXX. reads the other two names καὶ παρὰ -τῶν χρησίμων αὐτῆς καὶ παρὰ τῶν ἐπεγνωκότων αὐτήν.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_880_880" id="Footnote_880_880"></a><a href="#FNanchor_880_880">[880]</a> The construction of ver. 10 is very clumsy; above it is rendered -literally. Wellhausen proposes to delete <i>and do thou go ... to the -house of</i>, and take Yosiyahu’s name as simply a fourth with the others, -reading the last clause <i>who have come from Babylon</i>. This is to cut, -not disentangle, the knot.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_881_881" id="Footnote_881_881"></a><a href="#FNanchor_881_881">[881]</a> The Hebrew text here has <i>Joshua son of Jehosadak, the high priest</i>, -but there is good reason to suppose that the crown was meant for -Zerubbabel, but that the name of Joshua was inserted instead in a -later age, when the high priest was also the king—see below, note. -For these reasons Ewald had previously supposed that the whole verse -was genuine, but that there had fallen out of it the words <i>and on the -head of Zerubbabel</i>. Ewald found a proof of this in the plural form -<span class="heb">עטרות</span>, which he rendered <i>crowns</i>. (So also Wildeboer, <i>A. T.</i> -<i>Litteratur</i>, p. 297.) But <span class="heb">עטרות</span> is to be rendered <i>crown</i>; see ver. 11, -where it is followed by a singular verb. The plural form refers -to the several circlets of which it was woven.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_882_882" id="Footnote_882_882"></a><a href="#FNanchor_882_882">[882]</a> Some critics omit the repetition.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_883_883" id="Footnote_883_883"></a><a href="#FNanchor_883_883">[883]</a> So Wellhausen proposes to insert. The name was at least understood -in the original text.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_884_884" id="Footnote_884_884"></a><a href="#FNanchor_884_884">[884]</a> So LXX. Heb. <i>on his throne</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_885_885" id="Footnote_885_885"></a><a href="#FNanchor_885_885">[885]</a> With this phrase, vouched for by both the Heb. and the Sept., -the rest of the received text cannot be harmonised. There were two: -one is the priest just mentioned who is to be at the right hand of the -crowned. The received text makes this crowned one to be the high -priest Joshua. But if there are two and the priest is only secondary, -the crowned one must be Zerubbabel, whom Haggai has already -designated as Messiah. Nor is it difficult to see why, in a later age, -when the high priest was sovereign in Israel, Joshua’s name should -have been inserted in place of Zerubbabel’s, and at the same time the -phrase <i>priest at his right hand</i>, to which the LXX. testifies in harmony -with <i>the two of them</i>, should have been altered to the reading of the -received text, <i>priest upon his throne</i>. With the above agree Smend, -<i>A. T. Rel. Gesch.</i>, 343 n., and Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_886_886" id="Footnote_886_886"></a><a href="#FNanchor_886_886">[886]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">חֵלֶם</span>, Hēlem, but the reading Heldai, <span class="heb">חלדי</span>, is proved by the -previous occurrence of the name and by the LXX. reading here, τοῖς -ὑπομένουσιν, <i>i.e.</i> from root <span class="heb">חלד</span>, <i>to last</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_887_887" id="Footnote_887_887"></a><a href="#FNanchor_887_887">[887]</a> <span class="heb">חן</span>, but Wellhausen and others take it as abbreviation or misreading -for the name of Yosiyahu (see ver. 10).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_888_888" id="Footnote_888_888"></a><a href="#FNanchor_888_888">[888]</a> Here the verse and paragraph break suddenly off in the middle -of a sentence. On the passage see Smend, 343 and 345.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_889_889" id="Footnote_889_889"></a><a href="#FNanchor_889_889">[889]</a> So Robertson Smith, art. “Angels” in the <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, 9th ed.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_890_890" id="Footnote_890_890"></a><a href="#FNanchor_890_890">[890]</a> So already in Deborah’s Song, Judg. v. 23, and throughout both -J and E.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_891_891" id="Footnote_891_891"></a><a href="#FNanchor_891_891">[891]</a> Cf. especially Gen. xxxii. 29.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_892_892" id="Footnote_892_892"></a><a href="#FNanchor_892_892">[892]</a> Judg. vi. 12 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_893_893" id="Footnote_893_893"></a><a href="#FNanchor_893_893">[893]</a> Robertson Smith, as above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_894_894" id="Footnote_894_894"></a><a href="#FNanchor_894_894">[894]</a> 2 Sam. xiv. 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_895_895" id="Footnote_895_895"></a><a href="#FNanchor_895_895">[895]</a> Exod. xiv. 19 (?), xxiii. 20, etc.; Josh. v. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_896_896" id="Footnote_896_896"></a><a href="#FNanchor_896_896">[896]</a> 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17; 2 Kings xix. 35; Exod. xii. 23. In Eccles. -v. 6 this destroying angel is the minister of God: cf. Psalm lxxviii. 49<i>b</i>, -<i>hurtful angels</i>—Cheyne, <i>Origin of Psalter</i>, p. 157.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_897_897" id="Footnote_897_897"></a><a href="#FNanchor_897_897">[897]</a> Balaam: Num. xxii. 23, 31.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_898_898" id="Footnote_898_898"></a><a href="#FNanchor_898_898">[898]</a> vi. 2–6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_899_899" id="Footnote_899_899"></a><a href="#FNanchor_899_899">[899]</a> Vol. I., p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_114">114</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_900_900" id="Footnote_900_900"></a><a href="#FNanchor_900_900">[900]</a> ix.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_901_901" id="Footnote_901_901"></a><a href="#FNanchor_901_901">[901]</a> xl. 3 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_902_902" id="Footnote_902_902"></a><a href="#FNanchor_902_902">[902]</a> xliii. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_903_903" id="Footnote_903_903"></a><a href="#FNanchor_903_903">[903]</a> Zech. i. 18 ff.; Ezek. ix. 1 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_904_904" id="Footnote_904_904"></a><a href="#FNanchor_904_904">[904]</a> Zech. i. 8: so even in the Book of Daniel we have <i>the man</i> -Gabriel—ix. 21.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_905_905" id="Footnote_905_905"></a><a href="#FNanchor_905_905">[905]</a> i. 9, 19; ii. 3; iv. 1, 4, 5; v. 5, 10; vi. 4. -But see above, pp. <a href="#Page_261">261</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_906_906" id="Footnote_906_906"></a><a href="#FNanchor_906_906">[906]</a> i. 8, 10, 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_907_907" id="Footnote_907_907"></a><a href="#FNanchor_907_907">[907]</a> iii. 1 compared with 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_908_908" id="Footnote_908_908"></a><a href="#FNanchor_908_908">[908]</a> iii. 6, 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_909_909" id="Footnote_909_909"></a><a href="#FNanchor_909_909">[909]</a> vi. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_910_910" id="Footnote_910_910"></a><a href="#FNanchor_910_910">[910]</a> i. 9, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_911_911" id="Footnote_911_911"></a><a href="#FNanchor_911_911">[911]</a> iii. 1. <i>Stand before</i> is here used forensically: cf. the N.T. phrases -to <i>stand before God</i>, Rev. xx. 12; <i>before the judgment-seat of Christ</i>, -Rom. xiv. 10; and <i>be acquitted</i>, Luke xxi. 36.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_912_912" id="Footnote_912_912"></a><a href="#FNanchor_912_912">[912]</a> iii. 4. Here the phrase is used domestically of servants in the -presence of their master. See above, p. 293, n. <a href="#Footnote_826_826">826</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_913_913" id="Footnote_913_913"></a><a href="#FNanchor_913_913">[913]</a> ii. 3, 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_914_914" id="Footnote_914_914"></a><a href="#FNanchor_914_914">[914]</a> Hab. ii. 1: cf. also Num. xii. 6–9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_915_915" id="Footnote_915_915"></a><a href="#FNanchor_915_915">[915]</a> First Vision, i. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_916_916" id="Footnote_916_916"></a><a href="#FNanchor_916_916">[916]</a> x. 21, xii. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_917_917" id="Footnote_917_917"></a><a href="#FNanchor_917_917">[917]</a> Isa. xxiv. 21.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_918_918" id="Footnote_918_918"></a><a href="#FNanchor_918_918">[918]</a> Book of Daniel x., xii.; Tobit xii. 15; Book of Enoch <i>passim</i>; -Jude 9; Rev. viii. 2, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_919_919" id="Footnote_919_919"></a><a href="#FNanchor_919_919">[919]</a> Psalm lxxviii. 49. -See above, p. 312, n. <a href="#Footnote_896_896">896</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_920_920" id="Footnote_920_920"></a><a href="#FNanchor_920_920">[920]</a> Amos iii. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_921_921" id="Footnote_921_921"></a><a href="#FNanchor_921_921">[921]</a> 1 Kings xxii. 20 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_922_922" id="Footnote_922_922"></a><a href="#FNanchor_922_922">[922]</a> 2 Sam. xxiv. 1; 1 Chron. xxi. 1. Though here difference of age -between the two documents may have caused the difference of view.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_923_923" id="Footnote_923_923"></a><a href="#FNanchor_923_923">[923]</a> There are two forms of the verb, <span class="heb">שׂטן</span>, satan, and <span class="heb">שׂטם</span>, satam, the -latter apparently the older.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_924_924" id="Footnote_924_924"></a><a href="#FNanchor_924_924">[924]</a> Num. xxii. 22, 32.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_925_925" id="Footnote_925_925"></a><a href="#FNanchor_925_925">[925]</a> 1 Sam. xxix. 4; 2 Sam. xix. 23 Heb., 22 Eng.; 1 Kings v. 18, -xi. 14, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_926_926" id="Footnote_926_926"></a><a href="#FNanchor_926_926">[926]</a> Zech. iii. 1 ff.; Job i. 6 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_927_927" id="Footnote_927_927"></a><a href="#FNanchor_927_927">[927]</a> 1 Chron. xxi. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_928_928" id="Footnote_928_928"></a><a href="#FNanchor_928_928">[928]</a> i. 6<i>b</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_929_929" id="Footnote_929_929"></a><a href="#FNanchor_929_929">[929]</a> See Davidson in <i>Cambridge Bible for Schools</i> on Job i. 6–12, -especially on ver. 9: “The Satan of this book may show the beginnings -of a personal malevolence against man, but he is still rigidly -subordinated to Heaven, and in all he does subserves its interests. -His function is as the minister of God to try the sincerity of man; -hence when his work of trial is over he is no more found, and no -place is given him among the <i>dramatis personæ</i> of the poem.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_930_930" id="Footnote_930_930"></a><a href="#FNanchor_930_930">[930]</a> Cheyne, <i>The Origin of the Psalter</i>, p. 272. -Read carefully on this -point the very important remarks on pp. 270 ff. and 281 f.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_931_931" id="Footnote_931_931"></a><a href="#FNanchor_931_931">[931]</a> Cf. chap. vii. 3: <i>the priests which were of the -house of Jehovah</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_932_932" id="Footnote_932_932"></a><a href="#FNanchor_932_932">[932]</a> Jer. xli. 2; 2 Kings xxv. 25.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_933_933" id="Footnote_933_933"></a><a href="#FNanchor_933_933">[933]</a> The Hebrew text is difficult if not impossible to construe: <i>For -Bethel sent Sar’eser</i> (without sign of accusative) <i>and Regem-Melekh -and his men</i>. Wellhausen points out that Sar’eser is a defective -name, requiring the name or title of deity in front of it, and Marti -proposes to find this in the last syllable of Bethel, and to read -’El-sar’eser. It is tempting to find in the first syllable of Bethel the -remnant of the phrase <i>to the house of Jehovah</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_934_934" id="Footnote_934_934"></a><a href="#FNanchor_934_934">[934]</a> To stroke the face of.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_935_935" id="Footnote_935_935"></a><a href="#FNanchor_935_935">[935]</a> The fifth month Jerusalem fell, the seventh month Gedaliah was -murdered: Jer. lii. 12 f.; 2 Kings xxv. 8 f., 25.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_936_936" id="Footnote_936_936"></a><a href="#FNanchor_936_936">[936]</a> So LXX. Heb. has acc. sign before <i>words</i>, perhaps implying -<i>Is it not rather necessary to do the words?</i> etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_937_937" id="Footnote_937_937"></a><a href="#FNanchor_937_937">[937]</a> Omit here ver. 8, <i>And the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, saying</i>. -It is obviously a gloss by a scribe who did not notice that the -<span class="heb">כה אמר</span> of ver. 9 is God’s statement by the former prophets.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_938_938" id="Footnote_938_938"></a><a href="#FNanchor_938_938">[938]</a> Cf. the phrase <i>with one shoulder</i>, <i>i.e.</i> unanimously.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_939_939" id="Footnote_939_939"></a><a href="#FNanchor_939_939">[939]</a> So Heb. and LXX.; but perhaps we ought to point <i>and I -whirled them away</i>, taking the clause with the next.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_940_940" id="Footnote_940_940"></a><a href="#FNanchor_940_940">[940]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_271">271</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_941_941" id="Footnote_941_941"></a><a href="#FNanchor_941_941">[941]</a> Cf. especially Isa. xl. ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_942_942" id="Footnote_942_942"></a><a href="#FNanchor_942_942">[942]</a> Isa. i. 26.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_943_943" id="Footnote_943_943"></a><a href="#FNanchor_943_943">[943]</a> Not merely <i>My people</i> (Wellhausen), but their return shall constitute -them a people once more. The quotation is from Hosea ii. 25.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_944_944" id="Footnote_944_944"></a><a href="#FNanchor_944_944">[944]</a> So LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_945_945" id="Footnote_945_945"></a><a href="#FNanchor_945_945">[945]</a> <i>But he that made wages made them to put them into a bag with -holes</i>, Haggai i. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_946_946" id="Footnote_946_946"></a><a href="#FNanchor_946_946">[946]</a> Read <span class="heb">כי אזרעה השלום</span> for <span class="heb">כי זרע השלום</span> of the text, <i>for the seed -of peace</i>. The LXX. makes <span class="heb">זרע</span> a verb. Cf. Hosea ii. 23 ff., which the -next clauses show to be in the mind of our prophet. Klostermann -and Nowack prefer <span class="heb">זַרְעָהּ שָׁלוֹם</span>, <i>her</i> (the remnant’s) <i>seed shall be peace</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_947_947" id="Footnote_947_947"></a><a href="#FNanchor_947_947">[947]</a> In the tenth month the siege of Jerusalem had begun (2 Kings -xxv. 1); on the ninth of the fourth month Jerusalem was taken -(Jer. xxxix. 2); on the seventh of the fifth City and Temple were -burnt down (2 Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh month Gedaliah was -assassinated and the poor relics of a Jewish state swept from the -land (Jer. xli.). See above, pp. <a href="#Page_30">30</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_948_948" id="Footnote_948_948"></a><a href="#FNanchor_948_948">[948]</a> LXX. <i>the citizens of five cities will go to one</i>.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXIV --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_949_949" id="Footnote_949_949"></a><a href="#FNanchor_949_949">[949]</a> <span class="heb">מלאכיה</span> or <span class="heb">מלאכיהו</span>. -To judge from the analogy of other cases -of the same formation (<i>e.g.</i> Abiyah = Jehovah is Father, and not -Father of Jehovah), this name, if ever extant, could not have borne -the meaning, which Robertson Smith, Cornill, Kirkpatrick, etc., suppose -it must have done, of <i>Angel of Jehovah</i>. These scholars, it should be -added, oppose, for various reasons, the theory that it is a proper -name.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_950_950" id="Footnote_950_950"></a><a href="#FNanchor_950_950">[950]</a> Cf. the suggested meaning of Haggai, Festus. -Above, p. <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_951_951" id="Footnote_951_951"></a><a href="#FNanchor_951_951">[951]</a> And added the words, <i>lay</i> it <i>to your hearts</i>: ἐν χειρὶ ἀγγέλοῦ αὐτοῦ -θέσθε δὴ ἐπὶ τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν. Bachmann (<i>A. T. Untersuch.</i>, Berlin, -1894, pp. 109 ff.) takes this added clause as a translation of <span class="heb">וְשִׂימוּ בַלֵּב</span>, -and suggests that it may be a corruption of an original <span class="heb">וּשְׁמוֹ כָלֵב</span>, -<i>and his name was Kaleb</i>. But the reading <span class="heb">וְשִׂימוּ בַלֵּב</span> is not the -exact equivalent of the Greek phrase.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_952_952" id="Footnote_952_952"></a><a href="#FNanchor_952_952">[952]</a> <span class="heb">מַלְאֲכִי דְיִתְקְרֵי שְׁמֵיהּ עֶזְרָא סָפְרָא</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_953_953" id="Footnote_953_953"></a><a href="#FNanchor_953_953">[953]</a> See Stade, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1881, p. 14; 1882, p. 308; Cornill, -<i>Einleitung</i>, 4th ed., pp. 207 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_954_954" id="Footnote_954_954"></a><a href="#FNanchor_954_954">[954]</a> So (besides Calvin, who takes it as a title) even Hengstenberg in -his <i>Christology of the O. T.</i>, Ewald, Kuenen, Reuss, Stade, Rob. Smith, -Cornill, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick (probably), Wildeboer, Nowack. On -the other side Hitzig, Vatke, Nägelsbach and Volck (in Herzog), Von -Orelli, Pusey and Robertson hold it to be a personal name—Pusey with -this qualification, “that the prophet may have framed it for himself,” -similarly Orelli. They support their opinion by the fact that even -the LXX. entitle the book Μαλαχιας; that the word was regarded -as a proper name in the early Church, and that it is a possible name -for a Hebrew. In opposition to the hypothesis that it was borrowed -from chap. iii. 1, Hitzig suggests the converse that in the latter the -prophet plays upon his own name. None of these critics, however, -meets the objections to the name drawn from the peculiar character of -the title and its relations to Zech. ix. 1, xii. 1. The supposed name -of the prophet gave rise to the legend supported by many of the -Fathers that Malachi, like Haggai and John the Baptist, was an -incarnate angel. This is stated and condemned by Jerome, <i>Comm. ad -Hag.</i> i. 13, but held by Origen, Tertullian and others. The existence -of such an opinion is itself proof for the impersonal character of the -name. As in the case of the rest of the prophets, Christian tradition -furnishes the prophet with the outline of a biography. See (Pseud-)Epiphanius -and other writers quoted above, p. <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_955_955" id="Footnote_955_955"></a><a href="#FNanchor_955_955">[955]</a> iii. 16 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_956_956" id="Footnote_956_956"></a><a href="#FNanchor_956_956">[956]</a> See above on Obadiah, p. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, and below on the passage -itself.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_957_957" id="Footnote_957_957"></a><a href="#FNanchor_957_957">[957]</a> i. 2–5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_958_958" id="Footnote_958_958"></a><a href="#FNanchor_958_958">[958]</a> i. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_959_959" id="Footnote_959_959"></a><a href="#FNanchor_959_959">[959]</a> i. 11: the verbs here are to be taken in the present, not as in -A.V. in the future, tense.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_960_960" id="Footnote_960_960"></a><a href="#FNanchor_960_960">[960]</a> <i>Passim</i>: especially iii. 13 ff., 24.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_961_961" id="Footnote_961_961"></a><a href="#FNanchor_961_961">[961]</a> i. 10; iii. 1, 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_962_962" id="Footnote_962_962"></a><a href="#FNanchor_962_962">[962]</a> ii. 1–9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_963_963" id="Footnote_963_963"></a><a href="#FNanchor_963_963">[963]</a> ii. 10–16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_964_964" id="Footnote_964_964"></a><a href="#FNanchor_964_964">[964]</a> iii. 7–12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_965_965" id="Footnote_965_965"></a><a href="#FNanchor_965_965">[965]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_195">195</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_966_966" id="Footnote_966_966"></a><a href="#FNanchor_966_966">[966]</a> i. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_967_967" id="Footnote_967_967"></a><a href="#FNanchor_967_967">[967]</a> ii. 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_968_968" id="Footnote_968_968"></a><a href="#FNanchor_968_968">[968]</a> ii. 17—iii. 12; iii. 22 f., Eng. iv. The above sentences are from -Robertson Smith, art. “Malachi,” <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, 9th ed.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_969_969" id="Footnote_969_969"></a><a href="#FNanchor_969_969">[969]</a> Above, p. 332, n. <a href="#Footnote_952_952">952</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_970_970" id="Footnote_970_970"></a><a href="#FNanchor_970_970">[970]</a> “Mal.” i. 8; Neh. v.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_971_971" id="Footnote_971_971"></a><a href="#FNanchor_971_971">[971]</a> Deut. xii. 11, xxvi. 12; “Mal.” iii. 8, 10; Num. xviii. 21 ff. (P).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_972_972" id="Footnote_972_972"></a><a href="#FNanchor_972_972">[972]</a> Vatke (contemporaneous with Nehemiah), Schrader, Keil, -Kuenen (perhaps in second governorship of Nehemiah, but see above, -p. <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, for a decisive reason against this), -Köhler, Driver, Von Orelli -(between Nehemiah’s first and second visit), Kirkpatrick, Robertson.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_973_973" id="Footnote_973_973"></a><a href="#FNanchor_973_973">[973]</a> Deut. xii. 11. In P tĕrûmah is a due paid to priests as distinct -from Levites.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_974_974" id="Footnote_974_974"></a><a href="#FNanchor_974_974">[974]</a> ii. 4–8: cf. Deut. xxxiii. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_975_975" id="Footnote_975_975"></a><a href="#FNanchor_975_975">[975]</a> i. 8; Deut. xv. 21.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_976_976" id="Footnote_976_976"></a><a href="#FNanchor_976_976">[976]</a> i. 14; Lev. iii. 1, 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_977_977" id="Footnote_977_977"></a><a href="#FNanchor_977_977">[977]</a> iii. 5; Deut. v. 11 ff., xviii. 10, xxiv. 17 ff.; Lev. xix. 31, 33 f., -xx. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_978_978" id="Footnote_978_978"></a><a href="#FNanchor_978_978">[978]</a> iii. 22 Heb., iv. 4 Eng. <i>Law of Moses</i> and <i>Moses My servant</i> are -found only in the Deuteronomistic portions of the Hexateuch and -historical books and here. In P Sinai is the Mount of the Law. To -the above may be added <i>segullah</i>, iii. 17, which is found in the -Pentateuch only outside P and in Psalm cxxxv. 4. All these resemblances -between “Malachi” and Deuteronomy and “Malachi’s” divergences -from P are given in Robertson Smith’s <i>Old Test. in the Jewish -Church</i>, 2nd ed., 425 ff.: cf. 444 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_979_979" id="Footnote_979_979"></a><a href="#FNanchor_979_979">[979]</a> Lev. xvii.—xxvi. From this and Ezekiel he received the conception -of the profanation of the sanctuary by the sins of the people—ii. -11: cf. also ii. 2, iii. 3, 4, for traces of Ezekiel’s influence.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_980_980" id="Footnote_980_980"></a><a href="#FNanchor_980_980">[980]</a> ii. 6 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_981_981" id="Footnote_981_981"></a><a href="#FNanchor_981_981">[981]</a> See below, pp. <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, -<a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_982_982" id="Footnote_982_982"></a><a href="#FNanchor_982_982">[982]</a> Herzfeld, Bleek, Stade, Kautzsch (probably), Wellhausen (<i>Gesch.</i>, -p. 125), Nowack before the arrival of Ezra, Cornill either soon before -or soon after 458, Robertson Smith either before or soon after 445. -Hitzig at first put it before 458, but was afterwards moved to date it -after 358, as he took the overthrow of the Edomites described in -chap. i. 2–5 to be due to a campaign in that year by Artaxerxes -Ochus (cf. Euseb., <i>Chron.</i>, II. 221).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_983_983" id="Footnote_983_983"></a><a href="#FNanchor_983_983">[983]</a> -But see below, pp. <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_984_984" id="Footnote_984_984"></a><a href="#FNanchor_984_984">[984]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1887, 210 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_985_985" id="Footnote_985_985"></a><a href="#FNanchor_985_985">[985]</a> i. 11, for <span class="heb">גדול</span> δεδόξασται; perhaps ii. 12, <span class="heb">עד</span> -for <span class="heb">ער</span>; perhaps iii. 8 ff., -for <span class="heb" dir="ltr">עקב קבע</span>; 16, for <span class="heb">או</span> ταῦτα.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_986_986" id="Footnote_986_986"></a><a href="#FNanchor_986_986">[986]</a> i. 11 ff.; ii. 3, and perhaps 12, 15.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXV --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_987_987" id="Footnote_987_987"></a><a href="#FNanchor_987_987">[987]</a> Ezra iv. 6–23.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_988_988" id="Footnote_988_988"></a><a href="#FNanchor_988_988">[988]</a> This is recorded in the Aramean document which has been -incorporated in our Book of Ezra, and there is no reason to doubt -its reality. In that document we have already found, in spite of its -comparatively late date, much that is accurate history. See above, -p. <a href="#Page_212">212</a>. And it is clear that, the Temple being finished, the Jews -must have drawn upon themselves the same religious envy of the -Samaritans which had previously delayed the construction of the -Temple. To meet it, what more natural than that the Jews should -have attempted to raise the walls of their city? It is almost -impossible to believe that they who had achieved the construction -of the Temple in 516 should not, in the next fifty years, make some -effort to raise their fallen walls. And indeed Nehemiah’s account of -his own work almost necessarily implies that they had done so, for -what he did after 445 was not to build new walls, but rather to -repair shattered ones.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_989_989" id="Footnote_989_989"></a><a href="#FNanchor_989_989">[989]</a> See above, p. 335, n. <a href="#Footnote_970_970">970</a>, -and below, p. <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, on “Mal.” i. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_990_990" id="Footnote_990_990"></a><a href="#FNanchor_990_990">[990]</a> Cf. Stade, <i>Gesch. des Volkes Israel</i>, II., pp. 128–138, the best -account of this period.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_991_991" id="Footnote_991_991"></a><a href="#FNanchor_991_991">[991]</a> “Mal.” iii. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_992_992" id="Footnote_992_992"></a><a href="#FNanchor_992_992">[992]</a> “Mal.” i. 2, 6; iii. 8 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_993_993" id="Footnote_993_993"></a><a href="#FNanchor_993_993">[993]</a> <i>Id.</i> i. 7 f., 12–14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_994_994" id="Footnote_994_994"></a><a href="#FNanchor_994_994">[994]</a> <i>Id.</i> i. 6 f., ii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_995_995" id="Footnote_995_995"></a><a href="#FNanchor_995_995">[995]</a> <i>Id.</i> ii, 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_996_996" id="Footnote_996_996"></a><a href="#FNanchor_996_996">[996]</a> “Mal.” ii. 10–16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_997_997" id="Footnote_997_997"></a><a href="#FNanchor_997_997">[997]</a> For proof of this see above, pp. <a href="#Page_331">331</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_998_998" id="Footnote_998_998"></a><a href="#FNanchor_998_998">[998]</a> “Mal.” iii. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_999_999" id="Footnote_999_999"></a><a href="#FNanchor_999_999">[999]</a> iii. 2, 19 ff. Heb., iv. 1 ff. Eng.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1000_1000" id="Footnote_1000_1000"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1000_1000">[1000]</a> iii. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1001_1001" id="Footnote_1001_1001"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1001_1001">[1001]</a> i. 11.</p> - -<!-- chapter xxvi --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1002_1002" id="Footnote_1002_1002"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1002_1002">[1002]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1003_1003" id="Footnote_1003_1003"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1003_1003">[1003]</a> See above, <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Chapter XIV.</a> -on “Edom and Israel.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1004_1004" id="Footnote_1004_1004"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1004_1004">[1004]</a> Heb. xii. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1005_1005" id="Footnote_1005_1005"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1005_1005">[1005]</a> Romans ix. 13. The citation is from the LXX.: τὸν Ἰακὼβ -ἠγάπησα, τὸν δὲ Ἠσαῦ ἐμίσησα.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1006_1006" id="Footnote_1006_1006"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1006_1006">[1006]</a> This was mainly <i>after</i> the beginning of exile. Shortly before -that Deut. xxiii. 7 says: <i>Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is -thy brother</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1007_1007" id="Footnote_1007_1007"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1007_1007">[1007]</a> So even so recently as 1888, Stade, <i>Gesch. des Volkes Israel</i>, -II., p. 112.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1008_1008" id="Footnote_1008_1008"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1008_1008">[1008]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>. -This interpretation is there said to be -Wellhausen’s; but Cheyne, in a note contributed to the <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, -1894, p. 142, points out that Grätz, in an article “Die Anfänge -der Nabatäer-Herrschaft” in the <i>Monatschrift für Wissenschaft u. -Geschichte des Judenthums</i>, 1875, pp. 60–66, had already explained -“Mal.” i. 1–5 as describing the conquest of Edom by the Nabateans. -This is adopted by Buhl in his <i>Gesch. der Edomiter</i>, p. 79.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1009_1009" id="Footnote_1009_1009"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1009_1009">[1009]</a> The verb in the feminine indicates that the population of Edom -is meant.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1010_1010" id="Footnote_1010_1010"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1010_1010">[1010]</a> i. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1011_1011" id="Footnote_1011_1011"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1011_1011">[1011]</a> Psalm ciii. 9. In Psalm lxxiii. 15 believers are called <i>His -children</i>; but elsewhere sonship is claimed only for the king—ii. -7, lxxxix. 27 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1012_1012" id="Footnote_1012_1012"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1012_1012">[1012]</a> Hosea xi. 1 ff. (though even here the idea of discipline is present) -and Isa. lxiii. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1013_1013" id="Footnote_1013_1013"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1013_1013">[1013]</a> iii. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1014_1014" id="Footnote_1014_1014"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1014_1014">[1014]</a> Isa. lxiv. 8, cf. Deut. xxxii. 11 where the discipline of Israel by -Jehovah, shaking them out of their desert circumstance and tempting -them to their great career in Palestine, is likened to the father-eagle’s -training of his new-fledged brood to fly: A.V. mother-eagle.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1015_1015" id="Footnote_1015_1015"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1015_1015">[1015]</a> Cf. Cheyne, <i>Origin of the Psalter</i>, p. 305, n. O.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1016_1016" id="Footnote_1016_1016"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1016_1016">[1016]</a> Vol. I., Chap. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a>. -</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1017_1017" id="Footnote_1017_1017"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1017_1017">[1017]</a> Or used polluted things with respect to Thee. For similar construction -see Zech. vii. 5: <span class="heb">צמתוני</span>. This in answer to Wellhausen, -who, on the ground that the phrase gives <span class="heb">גאל</span> a wrong object and -destroys the connection, deletes it. Further he takes <span class="heb">מגאל</span>, not in -the sense of pollution, but as equivalent to <span class="heb">נבזה</span>, <i>despised</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1018_1018" id="Footnote_1018_1018"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1018_1018">[1018]</a> Obviously <i>in their hearts = thinking</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1019_1019" id="Footnote_1019_1019"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1019_1019">[1019]</a> LXX. <i>is there no harm?</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1020_1020" id="Footnote_1020_1020"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1020_1020">[1020]</a> <i>Pacify the face of</i>, as in Zechariah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1021_1021" id="Footnote_1021_1021"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1021_1021">[1021]</a> So LXX. Heb. <i>is great</i>, but the phrase is probably written by -mistake from the instance further on: <i>is glorified</i> could scarcely have -been used in the very literal version of the LXX. unless it had been -found in the original.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1022_1022" id="Footnote_1022_1022"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1022_1022">[1022]</a> <span class="heb">מקום</span>, here to be taken in the sense it bears in Arabic of <i>sacred -place</i>. See on Zeph. ii. 11: above, p. 64, n. <a href="#Footnote_159_159">159</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1023_1023" id="Footnote_1023_1023"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1023_1023">[1023]</a> Wellhausen deletes <span class="heb">מגש</span> as a gloss on <span class="heb">מקטר</span>, and the vau before -<span class="heb">מנחה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1024_1024" id="Footnote_1024_1024"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1024_1024">[1024]</a> Heb. <i>say</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1025_1025" id="Footnote_1025_1025"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1025_1025">[1025]</a> Heb. also has <span class="heb">ניבו</span>, found besides only in Keri of Isa. lvii. 19. -But Robertson Smith (<i>O.T.J.C.</i>, 2, p. 444) is probably right in considering -this an error for <span class="heb">נבזה</span>, which has kept its place after the correction -was inserted.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1026_1026" id="Footnote_1026_1026"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1026_1026">[1026]</a> This clause is obscure, and comes in awkwardly before that -which follows it. Wellhausen omits.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1027_1027" id="Footnote_1027_1027"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1027_1027">[1027]</a> <span class="heb">גָּזוּל</span>. Wellhausen emends <span class="heb">אֶת־הָעִוֵּר</span> borrowing the first three -letters from the previous word. LXX. ἁρπάγματα.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1028_1028" id="Footnote_1028_1028"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1028_1028">[1028]</a> LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1029_1029" id="Footnote_1029_1029"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1029_1029">[1029]</a> Cf. Lev. iii. 1, 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1030_1030" id="Footnote_1030_1030"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1030_1030">[1030]</a> Quoted by Pusey, <i>in loco</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1031_1031" id="Footnote_1031_1031"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1031_1031">[1031]</a> See Cheyne, <i>Origin of the Psalter</i>, 292 and 305 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1032_1032" id="Footnote_1032_1032"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1032_1032">[1032]</a> <i>Isaiah i.—xxxix.</i> (Expositor’s Bible), -p. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39767/39767-h/39767-h.htm#Page_188">188</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1033_1033" id="Footnote_1033_1033"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1033_1033">[1033]</a> See most admirable remarks on this subject in Archdeacon -Wilson’s <i>Essays and Addresses</i>, No. III. “The Need of giving Higher -Biblical Teaching, and Instruction on the Fundamental Questions of -Religion and Christianity.” London: Macmillan, 1887.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1034_1034" id="Footnote_1034_1034"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1034_1034">[1034]</a> Doubtful. LXX. adds καὶ διεσκεδάσω τῆν εὐλόγιαν ὑμῶν κὰι οὐκ -ἔσται ἐν ὑμῖν: obvious redundancy, if not mere dittography.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1035_1035" id="Footnote_1035_1035"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1035_1035">[1035]</a> An obscure phrase, <span class="heb">הִנְנִי גֹּעֵר לָכֶם אֶת־הַזֶרַע</span>, <i>Behold, I rebuke -you the seed</i>. LXX. <i>Behold</i>, <i>I separate from you the arm</i> or <i>shoulder</i>, -reading <span class="heb">זְרֹעַ</span> for <span class="heb">זֶרַע</span> and perhaps <span class="heb">גֹּדֵעַ</span> for <span class="heb">גֹּעֵר</span>, both of which readings -Wellhausen adopts, and Ewald the former. The reference may -be to the arm of the priest raised in blessing. Orelli reads <i>seed = -posterity</i>. It may mean the whole <i>seed</i> or <i>class</i> or <i>kind</i> of the priests. -The next clause tempts one to suppose that <span class="heb">את־הזרע</span> contains the -verb of this one, as if scattering something.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1036_1036" id="Footnote_1036_1036"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1036_1036">[1036]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">וְנָשָׂא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָיו</span>, <i>and one shall bear you to it</i>. Hitzig: -filth shall be cast on them, and they on the filth.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1037_1037" id="Footnote_1037_1037"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1037_1037">[1037]</a> Others would render <i>My covenant being with Levi</i>. Wellhausen: -<i>for My covenant was with Levi</i>. But this new Charge or covenant -seems contrasted with a former covenant in the next verse.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1038_1038" id="Footnote_1038_1038"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1038_1038">[1038]</a> Num. xxv. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1039_1039" id="Footnote_1039_1039"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1039_1039">[1039]</a> This sentence is a literal translation of the Hebrew. With other -punctuation Wellhausen renders <i>My covenant was with him, life and -peace I gave them to him, fear...</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1040_1040" id="Footnote_1040_1040"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1040_1040">[1040]</a> Or <i>peace</i>, <span class="heb">שָׁלוֹם</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1041_1041" id="Footnote_1041_1041"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1041_1041">[1041]</a> Or <i>revelation</i>, Torah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1042_1042" id="Footnote_1042_1042"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1042_1042">[1042]</a> <span class="heb">וְנַם־אֲנִי</span>: cf. Amos iv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1043_1043" id="Footnote_1043_1043"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1043_1043">[1043]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1044_1044" id="Footnote_1044_1044"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1044_1044">[1044]</a> Here occur the two verses and a clause, 11–13<i>a</i>, upon the -foreign marriages, which seem to be an intrusion.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1045_1045" id="Footnote_1045_1045"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1045_1045">[1045]</a> See Vol. I., p. <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1046_1046" -id="Footnote_1046_1046"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1046_1046">[1046]</a> -Heb. literally: <i>And not one did, and -a remnant of spirit was his</i>; which (1) A.V. renders: <i>And did not -he make one? Yet he had the residue of the spirit</i>, which Pusey -accepts and applies to Adam and Eve, interpreting the second clause as -<i>the breath of life</i>, by which Adam <i>became a living soul</i> -(Gen. ii. 7). In Gen. i. 27 Adam and Eve are called one. In that case -the meaning would be that the law of marriage was prior to that of -divorce, as in the words of our Lord, Matt. xix. 4–6. (2) The Hebrew -might be rendered, <i>Not one has done this who had any spirit left in -him</i>. So Hitzig and Orelli. In that case the following clauses of the -verse are referred to Abraham. <i>“But what about the One?”</i> (LXX. -insert <i>ye say</i> after <i>But</i>)—the one who did put away his -wife. Answer: <i>He was seeking a Divine seed</i>. The objection to this -interpretation is that Abraham did not cast off the wife of his youth, -Sarah, but the foreigner Hagar. (3) Ewald made a very different -proposal: <i>And has not One created them, and all the Spirit</i> (cf. -Zeph. i. 4) <i>is His? And what doth the One seek? A Divine seed.</i> -So Reinke. Similarly Kirkpatrick (<i>Doct. of the Proph.</i>, p. 502): -<i>And did not One make</i>[you both]<i>? And why</i> [did]<i>the One -</i>[do so]<i>? Seeking a goodly seed</i>. (4) Wellhausen goes further -along the same line. Reading <span class="heb">הלא</span> for <span -class="heb">ולא</span>, and <span class="heb">וישאר</span> for <span -class="heb">ושאר</span>, and <span class="heb">לנו</span> for <span -class="heb">לו</span>, he translates: <i>Hath not the same God created -and sustained your (? our) breath? And what does He desire? A seed of -God.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1047_1047" id="Footnote_1047_1047"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1047_1047">[1047]</a> Literally: <i>let none be unfaithful to the wife of thy youth</i>, a curious -instance of the Hebrew habit of mixing the pronominal references. -Wellhausen’s emendation is unnecessary.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1048_1048" id="Footnote_1048_1048"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1048_1048">[1048]</a> See Gesenius and Ewald for Arabic analogies for the use of -clothing = wife.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1049_1049" id="Footnote_1049_1049"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1049_1049">[1049]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1050_1050" id="Footnote_1050_1050"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1050_1050">[1050]</a> Wellhausen omits.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1051_1051" id="Footnote_1051_1051"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1051_1051">[1051]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">עֵר וְעֹנֶה</span>, <i>caller and answerer</i>. But LXX. read <span class="heb">עד</span>, <i>witness</i> -(see iii. 5), though it pointed it differently.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1052_1052" id="Footnote_1052_1052"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1052_1052">[1052]</a> 13<i>a</i>, <i>But secondly ye do this</i>, is the obvious addition of the editor -in order to connect his intrusion with what follows.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1053_1053" id="Footnote_1053_1053"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1053_1053">[1053]</a> See above, -pp. <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1054_1054" id="Footnote_1054_1054"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1054_1054">[1054]</a> Delete <i>silver</i>: the longer LXX. text shows how easily it was -added.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1055_1055" id="Footnote_1055_1055"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1055_1055">[1055]</a> <i>Made an end of</i>, reading the verb as Piel (Orelli). LXX. <i>refrain -from</i>. <i>Your sins</i> are understood, the sins which have always characterised -the people. LXX. connects the opening of the next verse with -this, and with a different reading of the first word translates <i>from -the sins of your fathers</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1056_1056" id="Footnote_1056_1056"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1056_1056">[1056]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">קבע</span>, only here and Prov. xxii. 32. LXX. read <span class="heb">עקב</span>, <i>supplant</i>, -<i>cheat</i>, which Wellhausen adopts.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1057_1057" id="Footnote_1057_1057"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1057_1057">[1057]</a> <span class="heb">תְּרוּמָה</span>, <i>the heave offering</i>, the tax or tribute given to the sanctuary -or priests and associates with the tithes, as here in Deut. xii. 11, -to be eaten by the offerer (<i>ib.</i> 17), but in Ezekiel by the priests -(xliv. 30); taken by the people and the Levites to the Temple -treasury for the priests (Neh. x. 38, xii. 44): corn, wine and oil. In -the Priestly Writing it signifies the part of each sacrifice which was -the priests’ due. Ezekiel also uses it of the part of the Holy Land -that fell to the prince and priests.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1058_1058" id="Footnote_1058_1058"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1058_1058">[1058]</a> <span class="heb">טֵרֶף</span> in its later meaning: cf. Job xxiv. 5; Prov. xxxi. 15.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1059_1059" id="Footnote_1059_1059"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1059_1059">[1059]</a> <i>I.e.</i> locust.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1060_1060" id="Footnote_1060_1060"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1060_1060">[1060]</a> <i>A dew of lights.</i> -See <i>Isaiah i.—xxxix.</i> (Expositor’s Bible), pp. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39767/39767-h/39767-h.htm#Page_448">448</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1061_1061" id="Footnote_1061_1061"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1061_1061">[1061]</a> So LXX.; Heb. <i>then</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1062_1062" id="Footnote_1062_1062"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1062_1062">[1062]</a> Ezek. xiii. 9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1063_1063" id="Footnote_1063_1063"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1063_1063">[1063]</a> <span class="heb">חשב</span>, <i>to think</i>, <i>plan</i>, has much the same meaning as here in Isa. -xiii. 17, xxxiii. 8, liii. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1064_1064" id="Footnote_1064_1064"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1064_1064">[1064]</a> Heb. <i>when I am doing</i>; but in the sense in which the word is -used of Jehovah’s decisive and final doing, Psalms xx., xxxii., etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1065_1065" id="Footnote_1065_1065"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1065_1065">[1065]</a> Hab. i. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1066_1066" id="Footnote_1066_1066"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1066_1066">[1066]</a> See note to Amos vi. 4: Vol. I., p. 174, n. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Footnote_326_326">326</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1067_1067" id="Footnote_1067_1067"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1067_1067">[1067]</a> Or <i>dust</i>.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXVII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1068_1068" id="Footnote_1068_1068"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1068_1068">[1068]</a> See above, Chap. <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1069_1069" id="Footnote_1069_1069"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1069_1069">[1069]</a> -See Vol. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm">I.</a> -The Assyria of “Zech.” x. 11 is Syria. See below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1070_1070" id="Footnote_1070_1070"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1070_1070">[1070]</a> The two exceptions, Nahum and Habakkuk, are not relevant to -this question. Their dates are fixed by their references to Assyria -and Babylon.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1071_1071" id="Footnote_1071_1071"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1071_1071">[1071]</a> See Rob. Smith, art. “Joel,” <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1072_1072" id="Footnote_1072_1072"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1072_1072">[1072]</a> So obvious is this alternative that all critics may be said to grant -it, except König (<i>Einl.</i>), on whose reasons for placing Joel in the end -of the seventh century see below, p. 386, n. <a href="#Footnote_1130_1130">1130</a>. -Kessner (<i>Das Zeitalter der Proph. Joel</i>, 1888) deems the date unprovable.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1073_1073" id="Footnote_1073_1073"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1073_1073">[1073]</a> See <i>The Religion of Israel</i>, Vol. I., pp. 86 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1074_1074" id="Footnote_1074_1074"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1074_1074">[1074]</a> <i>The O.T. and its Contents</i>, p. 105.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1075_1075" id="Footnote_1075_1075"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1075_1075">[1075]</a> <i>Lex Mosaica</i>, pp. 422, 450.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1076_1076" id="Footnote_1076_1076"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1076_1076">[1076]</a> See especially Ewald on Joel in his <i>Prophets of the O.T.</i>, and -Kirkpatrick’s very fair argument in <i>Doctrine of the Prophets</i>, pp. 57 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1077_1077" id="Footnote_1077_1077"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1077_1077">[1077]</a> On Joel’s picture of the Day of Jehovah Ewald says: “We have -it here in its first simple and clear form, nor has it become a subject -of ridicule as in Amos.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1078_1078" id="Footnote_1078_1078"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1078_1078">[1078]</a> i. 9, 13, 16, ii. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1079_1079" id="Footnote_1079_1079"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1079_1079">[1079]</a> So Ewald.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1080_1080" id="Footnote_1080_1080"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1080_1080">[1080]</a> 2 Kings xi. 4–21.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1081_1081" id="Footnote_1081_1081"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1081_1081">[1081]</a> 1 Kings xiv. 25 f.: cf. Joel iii. 17<i>b</i>, 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1082_1082" id="Footnote_1082_1082"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1082_1082">[1082]</a> 2 Kings viii. 20–22: cf. Joel iii. 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1083_1083" id="Footnote_1083_1083"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1083_1083">[1083]</a> 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17, xxii. 1: cf. Joel iii. 4–6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1084_1084" id="Footnote_1084_1084"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1084_1084">[1084]</a> Amos i.: cf. Joel iii. 4–6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1085_1085" id="Footnote_1085_1085"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1085_1085">[1085]</a> 2 Chron. xx., especially 26: cf. Joel iii. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1086_1086" id="Footnote_1086_1086"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1086_1086">[1086]</a> Joel iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) 16; Amos i. 2. For a list of the various -periods to which Joel has been assigned by supporters of this early -date see Kuenen, § 68.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1087_1087" id="Footnote_1087_1087"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1087_1087">[1087]</a> The reference of Egypt in iii. 19 to Shishak’s invasion appears -particularly weak.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1088_1088" id="Footnote_1088_1088"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1088_1088">[1088]</a> Cf. Robertson, <i>O. T. and its Contents</i>, 105, and Kirkpatrick’s -cautious, though convinced, statement of the reasons for an early date.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1089_1089" id="Footnote_1089_1089"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1089_1089">[1089]</a> iii. 6 (Heb. iv. 6).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1090_1090" id="Footnote_1090_1090"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1090_1090">[1090]</a> Amos i. 9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1091_1091" id="Footnote_1091_1091"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1091_1091">[1091]</a> <i>Bibl. Theol.</i>, I., p. 462; <i>Einl.</i>, pp. 675 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1092_1092" id="Footnote_1092_1092"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1092_1092">[1092]</a> <i>Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol.</i>, X., Heft 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1093_1093" id="Footnote_1093_1093"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1093_1093">[1093]</a> <i>Theol. der Proph.</i>, pp. 275 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1094_1094" id="Footnote_1094_1094"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1094_1094">[1094]</a> <i>Theol. Tijd.</i>, 1876, pp. 362 ff. (not seen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1095_1095" id="Footnote_1095_1095"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1095_1095">[1095]</a> <i>Onderz.</i>, § 68.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1096_1096" id="Footnote_1096_1096"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1096_1096">[1096]</a> <i>Expositor</i>, 1888, Jan.—June, pp. 198 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1097_1097" id="Footnote_1097_1097"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1097_1097">[1097]</a> See Cheyne, <i>Origin of Psalter</i>, xx.; Driver, <i>Introd.</i>, in the sixth -edition of which, 1897, he supports the late date of Joel more strongly -than in the first edition, 1892.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1098_1098" id="Footnote_1098_1098"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1098_1098">[1098]</a> Wellhausen allowed the theory of the early date of Joel to stand -in his edition of Bleek’s <i>Einleitung</i>, but adopts the late date in his -own <i>Kleine Propheten</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1099_1099" id="Footnote_1099_1099"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1099_1099">[1099]</a> <i>Die Prophetie des Joels u. ihre Ausleger</i>, 1879.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1100_1100" id="Footnote_1100_1100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1100_1100">[1100]</a> <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. “Joel,” 1881.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1101_1101" id="Footnote_1101_1101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1101_1101">[1101]</a> <i>Gesch.</i>, II. 207.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1102_1102" id="Footnote_1102_1102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1102_1102">[1102]</a> <i>Theol. Tijdschr.</i>, 1885, p. 151; <i>Comm.</i>, 1885 (neither seen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1103_1103" id="Footnote_1103_1103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1103_1103">[1103]</a> “Sprachcharakter u. Abfassungszeit des B. Joels” in <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, -1889, pp. 89 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1104_1104" id="Footnote_1104_1104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1104_1104">[1104]</a> <i>Minor Prophets.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1105_1105" id="Footnote_1105_1105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1105_1105">[1105]</a> <i>Bibel.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1106_1106" id="Footnote_1106_1106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1106_1106">[1106]</a> <i>Einleit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1107_1107" id="Footnote_1107_1107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1107_1107">[1107]</a> <i>Litteratur des A. T.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1108_1108" id="Footnote_1108_1108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1108_1108">[1108]</a> <i>Expositor</i>, September 1893.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1109_1109" id="Footnote_1109_1109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1109_1109">[1109]</a> <i>Comm.</i>, 1897.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1110_1110" id="Footnote_1110_1110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1110_1110">[1110]</a> iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 1. For this may only mean <i>turn again the -fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1111_1111" id="Footnote_1111_1111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1111_1111">[1111]</a> iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 2. The supporters of a pre-exilic date -either passed this over or understood it of incursions by the heathen -into Israel’s territories in the ninth century. It is, however, too -universal to suit these.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1112_1112" id="Footnote_1112_1112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1112_1112">[1112]</a> iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1113_1113" id="Footnote_1113_1113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1113_1113">[1113]</a> Kautzsch dates after Artaxerxes Ochus, and <i>c.</i> 350.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1114_1114" id="Footnote_1114_1114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1114_1114">[1114]</a> -Ezekiel (xxvii. 13, 19) is the first to give the name Javan, <i>i.e.</i> -ΙαϜων, or Ionian (earlier writers name Egypt, Edom, Arabia and -Phœnicia as the great slave-markets: Amos i.; Isa. xi. 11; Deut. -xxviii. 68); and Greeks are also mentioned in Isa. lxvi. 19 (a -post-exilic passage); Zech. ix. 13; Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2; -1 Chron. i. 5, 7, and Gen. x. 2. -See below, Chap. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1115_1115" id="Footnote_1115_1115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1115_1115">[1115]</a> <span class="heb">בני היונים</span> instead of <span class="heb">בני יון</span>, just as the Chronicler gives <span class="heb">בני הקרחים</span> -for <span class="heb">בני קרח</span>: see Wildeboer, p. 348, and Matthes, quoted by Holzinger, -p. 94.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1116_1116" id="Footnote_1116_1116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1116_1116">[1116]</a> Movers, <i>Phön. Alterthum.</i>, II. 1, pp. 70 <i>sqq.</i>: which reference I -owe to R. Smith’s art. in the <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1117_1117" id="Footnote_1117_1117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1117_1117">[1117]</a> With these might be taken the use of <span class="heb">קהל</span> (ii. 16) in its sense of -a gathering for public worship. The word itself was old in Hebrew, -but as time went on it came more and more to mean the convocation -of the nation for worship or deliberation. Holzinger, pp. 105 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1118_1118" id="Footnote_1118_1118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1118_1118">[1118]</a> Cf. Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11. Also Acts xxvi. 7: -τὸ δωδεκάφυλον ἡμῶν ἐν ἐκτενεία νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν λατρεύον. Also the -passages in Jos., XIV. <i>Ant.</i> iv. 3, xvi. 2, in which Josephus mentions -the horror caused by the interruption of the daily sacrifice by famine -in the last siege of Jerusalem, and adds that it had happened in no -previous siege of the city.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1119_1119" id="Footnote_1119_1119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1119_1119">[1119]</a> Cf. Jer. xiv. 12; Isa. lviii. 6; Zech. vii. 5, vi. 11, 19, with -Neh. i. 4, ix. 1; Ezra viii. 21; Jonah iii. 5, 7; Esther iv. 3, 16, ix. 31; -Dan. ix. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1120_1120" id="Footnote_1120_1120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1120_1120">[1120]</a> The gathering of the Gentiles to judgment, Zeph. iii. 8 (see -above, p. <a href="#Page_69">69</a>) and Ezek. xxxviii. 22; the stream issuing from the -Temple to fill the Wady ha-Shittim, Ezek. xlvii. 1 ff., cf. Zech. xiv. 8; -the outpouring of the Spirit, Ezek. xxxix. 29.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1121_1121" id="Footnote_1121_1121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1121_1121">[1121]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1889, pp. 89–136. Holzinger’s own conclusion is stated more emphatically than above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1122_1122" id="Footnote_1122_1122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1122_1122">[1122]</a> For an exhaustive list the reader must be referred to Holzinger’s -article (cf. Driver, <i>Introd.</i>, sixth edition; <i>Joel and Amos</i>, p. 24; -G. B. Gray, <i>Expositor</i>, September 1893, p. 212). But the following -(a few of which are not given by Holzinger) are sufficient to prove the -conclusion come to above: i. 2, iv. 4, <span class="heb">וְאִם</span> … -<span class="heb">הֲ</span>—this is the form of -the disjunctive interrogative in later O. T. writings, replacing the -earlier <span class="heb">אִם</span> … <span class="heb">הֲ</span>; i. 8, <span class="heb">אלי</span> only here in O. T., but frequent in Aram.; -13, <span class="heb">נמנע</span> in Ni. only from Jeremiah onwards, Qal only in two -passages before Jeremiah and in a number after him; 18, <span class="heb">נאנחה</span>, if -the correct reading, occurs only in the latest O. T. writings, the Qal -only in these and Aram.; ii. 2, iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 20, -<span class="heb">דור ודור</span> first -in Deut. xxxii. 7, and then exilic and post-exilic frequently; -8, <span class="heb">שלח</span>, -a late word, only in Job xxxiii. 18, xxxvi. 12, 2 Chron. xxiii. 10, -xxxii. 5, Neh. iii. 15, iv. 11, 17; 20, <span class="heb">סוֹף</span>, -<i>end</i>, only in 2 Chron. xx. 16 -and Eccles., Aram. of Daniel, and post Bibl. Aram. and Heb.; iv. -(Heb.; iii. Eng.) 4, <span class="heb">נמל על</span>, cf. -2 Chron. xx. 11; 10, <span class="heb">רמח</span>, see below -on this verse; 11, <span class="heb">הנחת</span>, Aram.; 13, <span class="heb">בשׁל</span>, -in Hebrew to cook (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 5), and in other forms always with that meaning down to -the Priestly Writing and “Zech.” ix.—xiv., is used here in the sense -of <i>ripen</i>, which is frequent in Aram., but does not occur elsewhere -in O. T. Besides, Joel uses for the first personal -pronoun <span class="heb">אני</span>—ii. 27 -(<i>bis</i>), iv. 10, 17—which is by far the most usual form with later -writers, and not <span class="heb">אנכי</span>, preferred by pre-exilic writers. (See below -on the language of Jonah.)</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1123_1123" id="Footnote_1123_1123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1123_1123">[1123]</a> G. B. Gray, <i>Expositor</i>, September 1893, pp. 213 f. For the above -conclusions ample proof is given in Mr. Gray’s detailed examination -of the parallels: pp. 214 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1124_1124" id="Footnote_1124_1124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1124_1124">[1124]</a> Driver, <i>Joel and Amos</i>, p. 27.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1125_1125" id="Footnote_1125_1125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1125_1125">[1125]</a> Scholz and Rosenzweig (not seen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1126_1126" id="Footnote_1126_1126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1126_1126">[1126]</a> Hilgenfeld, Duhm, Oort. Driver puts it “most safely shortly -after Haggai and Zechariah i.—viii., <i>c.</i> 500 <span class="small">B.C.</span>”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1127_1127" id="Footnote_1127_1127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1127_1127">[1127]</a> Vernes, Robertson Smith, Kuenen, Matthes, Cornill, Nowack, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1128_1128" id="Footnote_1128_1128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1128_1128">[1128]</a> Joel iii. 4 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 31); “Mal.” iv. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1129_1129" id="Footnote_1129_1129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1129_1129">[1129]</a> iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1130_1130" id="Footnote_1130_1130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1130_1130">[1130]</a> Perhaps this is the most convenient place to refer to König’s -proposal to place Joel in the last years of Josiah. Some of his -arguments (<i>e.g.</i> that Joel is placed among the first of the Twelve) we -have already answered. He thinks that i. 17–20 suit the great -drought in Josiah’s reign (Jer. xiv. 2–6), that the name given to the -locusts, <span class="heb">הצפוני</span>, ii. 20, is due to Jeremiah’s enemy <i>from the north</i>, and -that the phrases <i>return with all your heart</i>, ii. 12, and <i>return to Jehovah -your God</i>, 13, imply a period of apostasy. None of these conclusions -is necessary. The absence of reference to the <i>high places</i> finds an -analogy in Isa. i. 13; the <span class="heb">מנחה</span> is mentioned in Isa. i. 13: if Amos -viii. 5 testifies to observance of the Sabbath, and Nahum ii. 1 to other -festivals, who can say a pre-exilic prophet would not be interested in -the meal and drink offerings? But surely no pre-exilic prophet -would have so emphasised these as Joel has done. Nor is König’s -explanation of iv. 2 as of the Assyrian and Egyptian invasion of -Judah so probable as that which refers the verse to the Babylonian -exile. Nor are König’s objections to a date after “Malachi” convincing. -They are that a prophet near “Malachi’s” time must have specified as -“Malachi” did the reasons for the repentance to which he summoned -the people, while Joel gives none, but is quite general (ii. 13<i>a</i>). But -the change of attitude may be accounted for by the covenant and -Law of 444. “Malachi” i. 11 speaks of the Gentiles worshipping -Jehovah, but not even in Jonah iii. 5 is any relation of the Gentiles -to Jehovah predicated. Again, the greater exclusiveness of Ezra and -his Law may be the cause. Joel, it is true, as König says, does not -mention the Law, while “Malachi” does (ii. 8, etc.); but this was not -necessary if the people had accepted it in 444. Professor Ryle (<i>Canon -of O.T.</i>, 106 n.) leaves the question of Joel’s date open.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1131_1131" id="Footnote_1131_1131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1131_1131">[1131]</a> Pages 333 f. n.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1132_1132" id="Footnote_1132_1132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1132_1132">[1132]</a> Vernes, <i>Histoire des Idées Messianiques depuis Alexandre</i>, pp. 13 ff., -had already asserted that chaps. i. and ii. must be by a different -author from chaps. iii. and iv., because the former has to do wholly -with the writer’s present, with which the latter has no connection -whatever, but it is entirely eschatological. But in his <i>Mélanges de -Crit. Relig.</i>, pp. 218 ff., Vernes allows that his arguments are not -conclusive, and that all four chapters may have come from the same -hand.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1133_1133" id="Footnote_1133_1133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1133_1133">[1133]</a> <i>I.e.</i> Hitzig, Vatke, Ewald, Robertson Smith, Kuenen, Kirkpatrick, -Driver, Davidson, Nowack, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1134_1134" id="Footnote_1134_1134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1134_1134">[1134]</a> This allegorical interpretation was a favourite one with the -early Christian Fathers: cf. Jerome.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1135_1135" id="Footnote_1135_1135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1135_1135">[1135]</a> <i>Zeitschr. für wissensch. Theologie</i>, 1860, pp. 412 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1136_1136" id="Footnote_1136_1136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1136_1136">[1136]</a> Cambyses 525, Xerxes 484, Artaxerxes Ochus 460 and 458.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1137_1137" id="Footnote_1137_1137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1137_1137">[1137]</a> In Germany, among other representatives of this opinion, are -Bertholdt (<i>Einl.</i>) and Hengstenberg (<i>Christol.</i>, III. 352 ff.), the latter -of whom saw in the four kinds of locusts the Assyrian-Babylonian, -the Persian, the Greek and the Roman tyrants of Israel.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1138_1138" id="Footnote_1138_1138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1138_1138">[1138]</a> ii. 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1139_1139" id="Footnote_1139_1139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1139_1139">[1139]</a> ii. 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1140_1140" id="Footnote_1140_1140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1140_1140">[1140]</a> i. 19, 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1141_1141" id="Footnote_1141_1141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1141_1141">[1141]</a> Plur. ii. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1142_1142" id="Footnote_1142_1142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1142_1142">[1142]</a> ii. 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1143_1143" id="Footnote_1143_1143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1143_1143">[1143]</a> iii. (Heb. iv.) 1 f., 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1144_1144" id="Footnote_1144_1144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1144_1144">[1144]</a> i. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1145_1145" id="Footnote_1145_1145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1145_1145">[1145]</a> i. 2 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1146_1146" id="Footnote_1146_1146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1146_1146">[1146]</a> i. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1147_1147" id="Footnote_1147_1147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1147_1147">[1147]</a> i. 17 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1148_1148" id="Footnote_1148_1148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1148_1148">[1148]</a> ii. 17, ii. 9 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1149_1149" id="Footnote_1149_1149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1149_1149">[1149]</a> <span class="heb">למשל בם</span></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1150_1150" id="Footnote_1150_1150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1150_1150">[1150]</a> A. B. Davidson, <i>Expos.</i>, 1888, pp. 200 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1151_1151" id="Footnote_1151_1151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1151_1151">[1151]</a> ii. 4 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1152_1152" id="Footnote_1152_1152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1152_1152">[1152]</a> Eng. ii. 28 ff., Heb. iii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1153_1153" id="Footnote_1153_1153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1153_1153">[1153]</a> Eng. iii., Heb. iv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1154_1154" id="Footnote_1154_1154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1154_1154">[1154]</a> <i>Die Prophetie des Joel u. ihre Ausleger</i>, 1879. The following -summary and criticism of Merx’s views I take from an (unpublished) -review of his work which I wrote in 1881.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1155_1155" id="Footnote_1155_1155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1155_1155">[1155]</a> For <span class="heb">וַיְקַנֵּא</span> etc. he reads <span class="heb">וִיקַנֵּא</span> etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1156_1156" id="Footnote_1156_1156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1156_1156">[1156]</a> “The proposal of Merx, to change the pointing so as to transform -the perfects into futures, ... is an exegetical monstrosity.”—Robertson -Smith, art. “Joel,” <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1157_1157" id="Footnote_1157_1157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1157_1157">[1157]</a> i. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1158_1158" id="Footnote_1158_1158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1158_1158">[1158]</a> Even the comparison of the ravages of the locusts to burning by -fire. But probably also Joel means that they were accompanied by -drought and forest fires. See below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1159_1159" id="Footnote_1159_1159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1159_1159">[1159]</a> ii. 20.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXVIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1160_1160" id="Footnote_1160_1160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1160_1160">[1160]</a> <i>Arabia Deserta</i>, p. 307.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1161_1161" id="Footnote_1161_1161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1161_1161">[1161]</a> <i>Arabia Deserta</i>, p. 335.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1162_1162" id="Footnote_1162_1162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1162_1162">[1162]</a> <i>Id.</i>, 396.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1163_1163" id="Footnote_1163_1163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1163_1163">[1163]</a> <i>Id.</i>, 335.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1164_1164" id="Footnote_1164_1164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1164_1164">[1164]</a> Barrow, <i>South Africa</i>, p. 257, quoted by Pusey.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1165_1165" id="Footnote_1165_1165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1165_1165">[1165]</a> <i>Impressions of South Africa</i>, by James Bryce: Macmillans, 1897.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1166_1166" id="Footnote_1166_1166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1166_1166">[1166]</a> Volney, <i>Voyage en Syrie</i>, I. 277, quoted by Pusey.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1167_1167" id="Footnote_1167_1167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1167_1167">[1167]</a> Lebanon.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1168_1168" id="Footnote_1168_1168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1168_1168">[1168]</a> Abridged from Thomson’s <i>The Land and the Book</i>, ed. 1877, -Northern Palestine, pp. 416 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1169_1169" id="Footnote_1169_1169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1169_1169">[1169]</a> From Driver’s abridgment (<i>Joel and Amos</i>, p. 90) of an account -in the <i>Journ. of Sacred Lit.</i>, October 1865, pp. 235 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1170_1170" id="Footnote_1170_1170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1170_1170">[1170]</a> Morier, <i>A Second Journey through Persia</i>, p. 99, quoted by Pusey, -from whose notes and Driver’s excursus upon locusts in <i>Joel and -Amos</i> the following quotations have been borrowed.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1171_1171" id="Footnote_1171_1171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1171_1171">[1171]</a> Shaw’s <i>Travels in Barbary</i>, 1738, pp. 236–8; Jackson’s <i>Travels -to Morocco</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1172_1172" id="Footnote_1172_1172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1172_1172">[1172]</a> Adansson, <i>Voyage au Sénegal</i>, p. 88.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1173_1173" id="Footnote_1173_1173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1173_1173">[1173]</a> Chénier, <i>Recherches Historiques sur les Maures</i>, III., p. 496.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1174_1174" id="Footnote_1174_1174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1174_1174">[1174]</a> Burckhardt, <i>Notes</i>, II. 90.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1175_1175" id="Footnote_1175_1175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1175_1175">[1175]</a> Barrow, <i>South Africa</i>, p. 257.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1176_1176" id="Footnote_1176_1176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1176_1176">[1176]</a> <i>Journ. of Sac. Lit.</i>, October 1865.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1177_1177" id="Footnote_1177_1177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1177_1177">[1177]</a> Lichtenstein, <i>Travels in South Africa</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1178_1178" id="Footnote_1178_1178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1178_1178">[1178]</a> <i>Standard</i>, December 25th, 1896.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1179_1179" id="Footnote_1179_1179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1179_1179">[1179]</a> Fr. Alvarez.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1180_1180" id="Footnote_1180_1180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1180_1180">[1180]</a> Barheb., <i>Chron. Syr.</i>, p. 784; Burckhardt, <i>Notes</i>, II. 90.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1181_1181" id="Footnote_1181_1181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1181_1181">[1181]</a> i. 20, 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1182_1182" id="Footnote_1182_1182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1182_1182">[1182]</a> i. 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1183_1183" id="Footnote_1183_1183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1183_1183">[1183]</a> i. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1184_1184" id="Footnote_1184_1184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1184_1184">[1184]</a> Cf. i. 12, 13, and many verses in chap. ii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1185_1185" id="Footnote_1185_1185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1185_1185">[1185]</a> Of Merx and others: see above, p. <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1186_1186" id="Footnote_1186_1186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1186_1186">[1186]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1187_1187" id="Footnote_1187_1187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1187_1187">[1187]</a> See Vol. I., pp. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_242">242</a>, -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_245">245</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1188_1188" id="Footnote_1188_1188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1188_1188">[1188]</a> Jer. xiv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1189_1189" id="Footnote_1189_1189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1189_1189">[1189]</a> Cf. Ezek. xlvi. 15 on the Thamid, and Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11, -xi. 31, xii. 11: cf. p. <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1190_1190" id="Footnote_1190_1190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1190_1190">[1190]</a> Acts xxvi. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1191_1191" id="Footnote_1191_1191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1191_1191">[1191]</a> XIV. <i>Antt.</i> iv. 3, xvi. 2; VI. <i>Wars</i> ii. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1192_1192" id="Footnote_1192_1192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1192_1192">[1192]</a> i. 9, 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1193_1193" id="Footnote_1193_1193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1193_1193">[1193]</a> i. 16.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1194_1194" id="Footnote_1194_1194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1194_1194">[1194]</a> ii. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1195_1195" id="Footnote_1195_1195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1195_1195">[1195]</a> i. 8, 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1196_1196" id="Footnote_1196_1196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1196_1196">[1196]</a> ii. 12.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1197_1197" id="Footnote_1197_1197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1197_1197">[1197]</a> LXX. Βαθουήλ</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1198_1198" id="Footnote_1198_1198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1198_1198">[1198]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_399">399</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1199_1199" id="Footnote_1199_1199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1199_1199">[1199]</a> <span class="heb">חסיל</span> from <span class="heb">חסל</span>, used in the O.T. only in Deut. xxviii. 38, <i>to devour</i>; -but in post-biblical Hebrew <i>to utterly destroy</i>, <i>bring to an end</i>. <i>Talmud -Jerus.</i>: Taanith III. 66<i>d</i>, “Why is the locust called <span class="heb">חסיל</span>? Because -it brings everything to an end.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1200_1200" id="Footnote_1200_1200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1200_1200">[1200]</a> A.V. <i>cheek-teeth</i>, R.V. <i>jaw-teeth</i>, or <i>eye-teeth</i>. “Possibly (from the -Arabic) <i>projectors</i>”: Driver.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1201_1201" id="Footnote_1201_1201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1201_1201">[1201]</a> Heb. text inserts <i>elders</i>, which may be taken as vocative, or with -the LXX. as accusative, but after the latter we should expect <i>and</i>. -Wellhausen suggests its deletion, and Nowack regards it as an -intrusion. For <span class="heb">אספו</span> Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">האספו</span>, <i>be ye gathered</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1202_1202" id="Footnote_1202_1202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1202_1202">[1202]</a> Keshōdh mishshaddhai (Isa. xiii. 6); Driver, <i>as overpowering -from the Overpowerer</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1203_1203" id="Footnote_1203_1203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1203_1203">[1203]</a> A.V. <i>clods</i>. <span class="heb">מגרפותיהם</span>: the meaning is doubtful, but the corresponding -Arabic word means <i>besom</i> or <i>shovel</i> or (<i>P.E.F.Q.</i>, 1891, -p. 111, with plate) <i>hoe</i>, and the Aram. <i>shovel</i>. See Driver’s note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1204_1204" id="Footnote_1204_1204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1204_1204">[1204]</a> Reading, after the LXX. τί ἀποθήσομεν ἑαυτοῖς (probably an error -for ἐν αὐτοῖς), <span class="heb">מה נניחה בהם</span> for the Massoretic <span class="heb">מה נאנחה בהמה</span> -<i>How the beasts sob!</i> to which A.V. and Driver adhere.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1205_1205" id="Footnote_1205_1205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1205_1205">[1205]</a> Lit. <i>press themselves</i> in perplexity.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1206_1206" id="Footnote_1206_1206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1206_1206">[1206]</a> Reading, with Wellhausen and Nowack (“perhaps rightly,” -Driver) <span class="heb">נשמו</span> for <span class="heb">נאשמו</span>, <i>are guilty</i> or <i>punished</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1207_1207" id="Footnote_1207_1207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1207_1207">[1207]</a> <span class="heb">מדבר</span>, usually rendered <i>wilderness</i> or <i>desert</i>, but literally <i>place -where the sheep are driven</i>, land not cultivated. See <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 656.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1208_1208" id="Footnote_1208_1208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1208_1208">[1208]</a> See on Amos iii. 6: Vol. I., p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_82">82</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1209_1209" id="Footnote_1209_1209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1209_1209">[1209]</a> Zeph. i. 15. See above, p. <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1210_1210" id="Footnote_1210_1210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1210_1210">[1210]</a> <span class="heb">פרשׂ</span> in Qal <i>to spread abroad</i>, but the passive is here to be taken -in the same sense as the Ni. in Ezek. xvii. 21, <i>dispersed</i>. The figure -is of dawn crushed by and struggling with a mass of cloud and mist, -and expresses the gleams of white which so often break through a -locust cloud. See above, p. <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1211_1211" id="Footnote_1211_1211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1211_1211">[1211]</a> So travellers have described the effect of locusts. -See above, p. <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1212_1212" id="Footnote_1212_1212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1212_1212">[1212]</a> Ezek. xxxvi. 35.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1213_1213" id="Footnote_1213_1213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1213_1213">[1213]</a> Heb. <i>in his own ways</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1214_1214" id="Footnote_1214_1214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1214_1214">[1214]</a> <span class="heb">יעבטון</span>, an impossible metaphor, so that most read <span class="heb">יעבתון</span>, a root -found only in Micah vii. 3 (see Vol. I., p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_428">428</a>), -<i>to twist</i> or <i>tangle</i>; -but Wellhausen reads <span class="heb">יְעַוְּתוּן</span>, <i>twist</i>, Eccles. vii. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1215_1215" id="Footnote_1215_1215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1215_1215">[1215]</a> Heb. <i>highroad</i>, as if defined and heaped up for him alone.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1216_1216" id="Footnote_1216_1216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1216_1216">[1216]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1217_1217" id="Footnote_1217_1217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1217_1217">[1217]</a> Zeph. i. 14; “Mal.” iii. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1218_1218" id="Footnote_1218_1218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1218_1218">[1218]</a> So (and not <i>elders</i>) in contrast to children.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1219_1219" id="Footnote_1219_1219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1219_1219">[1219]</a> <i>Canopy</i> or <i>pavilion</i>, bridal tent.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1220_1220" id="Footnote_1220_1220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1220_1220">[1220]</a> <span class="heb">למשל בם</span>, which may mean either <i>rule over them</i> or <i>mock them</i>, -but the parallelism decides for the latter.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXIX --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1221_1221" id="Footnote_1221_1221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1221_1221">[1221]</a> A.V., adhering to the Massoretic text, in which the verbs are -pointed for the past, has evidently understood them as instances of -the prophetic perfect. But “this is grammatically indefensible”: -Driver, <i>in loco</i>; see his <i>Heb. Tenses</i>, § 82, <i>Obs.</i> Calvin and others, -who take the verbs of ver. 18 as future, accept those of the next -verse as past and with it begin the narrative. But if God’s answer -to His people’s prayer be in the past, so must His jealousy and -pity. All these verbs are in the same sequence of time. Merx -proposes to change the vowel-points of the verbs and turn them into -futures. But see above, p. <a href="#Page_395">395</a>. ver. 21 shows that Jehovah’s action -is past, and Nowack points out the very unusual character of the -construction that would follow from Merx’s emendation. Ewald, -Hitzig, Kuenen, Robertson Smith, Davidson, Robertson, Steiner, -Wellhausen, Driver, Nowack, etc., all take the verbs in the past.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1222_1222" id="Footnote_1222_1222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1222_1222">[1222]</a> This is scarcely a name for the locusts, who, though they might -reach Palestine from the N.E. under certain circumstances, came -generally from E. and S.E. But see above, p. <a href="#Page_397">397</a>: so Kuenen, -Wellhausen, Nowack. W. R. Smith suggests the whole verse as an -allegorising gloss. Hitzig thought of the locusts only, and rendered -<span class="heb">הצפוני</span> ὁ τυφωνικός, Acts xxvii. 14; but this is not proved.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1223_1223" id="Footnote_1223_1223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1223_1223">[1223]</a> <i>I.e.</i> the Dead Sea (Ezek. xlvii. 18; Zech. xiv. 8) and the Mediterranean.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1224_1224" id="Footnote_1224_1224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1224_1224">[1224]</a> The construction shows that the clause preceding this, <span class="heb">ועלה באשו</span>, -is a gloss. So Driver. But Nowack gives the other clause as the -gloss.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1225_1225" id="Footnote_1225_1225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1225_1225">[1225]</a> Nah. iii. 17; Exod. x. 19.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1226_1226" id="Footnote_1226_1226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1226_1226">[1226]</a> <i>De Civitate Dei</i>, III. 31.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1227_1227" id="Footnote_1227_1227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1227_1227">[1227]</a> I. 278, quoted by Pusey.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1228_1228" id="Footnote_1228_1228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1228_1228">[1228]</a> i. 17–20: see above, p. <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1229_1229" id="Footnote_1229_1229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1229_1229">[1229]</a> Prophetic past: Driver.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1230_1230" id="Footnote_1230_1230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1230_1230">[1230]</a> Opinion is divided as to the meaning of this phrase: <span class="heb">לצדקה</span> = -<i>for righteousness</i>. A. There are those who take it as having a <i>moral</i> -reference; and (1) this is so emphatic to some that they render -the word for <i>early rain</i>, <span class="heb">מורה</span>, -which also means <i>teacher</i> or <i>revealer</i>, -in the latter significance. So (some of them applying it to the -Messiah) Targum, Symmachus, the Vulgate, <i>doctorem justitiæ</i>, some -Jews, <i>e.g.</i> Rashi and Abarbanel, and some moderns, <i>e.g.</i> (at opposite -extremes) Pusey and Merx. But, as Calvin points out (this is another -instance of his sanity as an exegete, and refusal to be led by -theological presuppositions: he says, “I do not love strained expositions”), -this does not agree with the context, which speaks not of -spiritual but wholly of physical blessings. (2) Some, who take <span class="heb">מורה</span> -as <i>early rain</i>, give <span class="heb">לצדקה</span> the meaning -<i>for righteousness</i>, <i>ad justitiam</i>, -either in the sense that God will give the rain as a token of His -own righteousness, or in order to restore or vindicate the people’s -righteousness (so Davidson, <i>Expositor</i>, 1888, I., p. 203, n.), in the frequent -sense in which <span class="heb">צדקה</span> is employed in Isa. xl. ff. -(see <i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i>, Expositor’s Bible, -pp. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43672/43672-h/43672-h.htm#Page_219">219</a> ff.). -Cf. Hosea x. 13, <span class="heb">צדק</span>; above, Vol. I., p. 289, -n. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Footnote_611_611">611</a>. -This of course is possible, especially in view of Israel -having been made by their plagues a reproach among the heathen. -Still, if Joel had intended this meaning, he would have applied the -phrase, not to the <i>early rain</i> only, but to the whole series of blessings -by which the people were restored to their standing before God. -B. It seems, therefore, right to take <span class="heb">לצדקה</span> -in a purely physical sense, -of the measure or quality of the <i>early rain</i>. So even Calvin, <i>rain -according to what is just</i> or <i>fit</i>; A.V. <i>moderately</i> (inexact); R.V. <i>in -just measure</i>; Siegfried-Stade <i>sufficient</i>. -The root-meaning of <span class="heb">צדק</span> is -probably <i>according to norm</i> (cf. <i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i>, p. 215), and in that -case the meaning would be <i>rain of normal quantity</i>. This too suits -the parallel in the next clause: <i>as formerly</i>. In Himyaritic the word -is applied to good harvests. A man prays to God for <span class="heb">אפקל ואתֹמר צדקם</span>, -<i>full</i> or <i>good harvests and fruits</i>: <i>Corp. Inscr. Sem.</i>, Pars -Quarta, Tomus I., No. 2, lin. 1–5; cf. the note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1231_1231" id="Footnote_1231_1231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1231_1231">[1231]</a> Driver, <i>in loco</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1232_1232" id="Footnote_1232_1232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1232_1232">[1232]</a> Heb. also repeats here <i>early rain</i>, but redundantly.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1233_1233" id="Footnote_1233_1233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1233_1233">[1233]</a> <span class="heb">בראשון</span>, <i>in the first</i>. A.V. adds <i>month</i>. But LXX. and Syr. -read <span class="heb">כראשננה</span>, which is probably the correct reading, <i>as before</i> or -<i>formerly</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1234_1234" id="Footnote_1234_1234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1234_1234">[1234]</a> i. 18.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1235_1235" id="Footnote_1235_1235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1235_1235">[1235]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1236_1236" id="Footnote_1236_1236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1236_1236">[1236]</a> Cf. <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, Chap. XXI., especially p. 463.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1237_1237" id="Footnote_1237_1237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1237_1237">[1237]</a> By Thorold Rogers, pp. 80 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1238_1238" id="Footnote_1238_1238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1238_1238">[1238]</a> <i>E.g.</i> the Quakers and the Independents. The Independents of the -seventeenth century “were the founders of the Bank of England.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1239_1239" id="Footnote_1239_1239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1239_1239">[1239]</a> All living things, Gen. vi. 17, 19, etc.; mankind, Isa. xl. 5, -xlix. 26. See Driver’s note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1240_1240" id="Footnote_1240_1240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1240_1240">[1240]</a> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">Next chapter</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1241_1241" id="Footnote_1241_1241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1241_1241">[1241]</a> Acts x. 45.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXX --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1242_1242" id="Footnote_1242_1242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1242_1242">[1242]</a> I am unable to feel Driver’s and Nowack’s arguments for a connection -conclusive. The only reason Davidson gives is (p. 204) that -the judgment of the heathen is an essential element in the Day of -Jehovah, a reason which does not make Joel’s authorship of the last -chapter certain, but only possible.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1243_1243" id="Footnote_1243_1243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1243_1243">[1243]</a> The phrase of ver. 1, <i>when I turn again the captivity of Judah and -Jerusalem</i>, may be rendered <i>when I restore the fortunes of Israel</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1244_1244" id="Footnote_1244_1244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1244_1244">[1244]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, -especially n. <a href="#Footnote_1130_1130">1130</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1245_1245" id="Footnote_1245_1245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1245_1245">[1245]</a> xxxviii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1246_1246" id="Footnote_1246_1246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1246_1246">[1246]</a> Some have unnecessarily thought of the Vale of Berakhah, in -which Jehoshaphat defeated Moab, Ammon and Edom (2 Chron. xx.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1247_1247" id="Footnote_1247_1247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1247_1247">[1247]</a> See above, p. 381, nn. <a href="#Footnote_1114_1114">1114</a>, -<a href="#Footnote_1115_1115">1115</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1248_1248" id="Footnote_1248_1248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1248_1248">[1248]</a> ver. 6<i>b</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1249_1249" id="Footnote_1249_1249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1249_1249">[1249]</a> Or <i>turn again the fortunes</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1250_1250" id="Footnote_1250_1250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1250_1250">[1250]</a> <i>Jehovah-judges.</i> -See above, p. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1251_1251" id="Footnote_1251_1251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1251_1251">[1251]</a> See above, Obadiah 11 and Nahum iii. 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1252_1252" id="Footnote_1252_1252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1252_1252">[1252]</a> <span class="heb">בזונה</span>. Oort suggests <span class="heb">במזון</span>, <i>for food</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1253_1253" id="Footnote_1253_1253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1253_1253">[1253]</a> Gelilôth, the plural feminine of Galilee—the <i>circuit</i> (of the Gentiles). -<i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 413.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1254_1254" id="Footnote_1254_1254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1254_1254">[1254]</a> Scil. <i>that I must repay</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1255_1255" id="Footnote_1255_1255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1255_1255">[1255]</a> LXX. <i>they shall give them into captivity</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1256_1256" id="Footnote_1256_1256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1256_1256">[1256]</a> Technical use of <span class="heb">עלה</span>, <i>to go up to war</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1257_1257" id="Footnote_1257_1257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1257_1257">[1257]</a> <span class="heb">עושו</span>, not found elsewhere, but supposed to mean <i>gather</i>. Cf. -Zeph. ii. 1. Others read <span class="heb">חושו</span>, <i>hasten</i> (Driver); Wellhausen <span class="heb">עורו</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1258_1258" id="Footnote_1258_1258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1258_1258">[1258]</a> <span class="heb">מגּל</span>, only here and in Jer. l. 16: other Heb. word for sickle ḥermesh (Deut. xvi. 9, xxiii. 26).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1259_1259" id="Footnote_1259_1259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1259_1259">[1259]</a> Driver, future.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1260_1260" id="Footnote_1260_1260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1260_1260">[1260]</a> Not the well-known scene of early Israel’s camp across Jordan, -but it must be some dry and desert valley near Jerusalem (so most -comm.). Nowack thinks of the Wadi el Sant on the way to Askalon, -but this did not need watering and is called the Vale of Elah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1261_1261" id="Footnote_1261_1261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1261_1261">[1261]</a> Merx applies this to the Jews of the Messianic era. LXX. read -ἐκζητήσω = <span class="heb">ונקמתי</span>. So Syr. Cf. 2 Kings ix. 7. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -Steiner: <i>Shall I leave their blood unpunished? I will not leave it -unpunished.</i> Nowack deems this to be unlikely, and suggests, <i>I will -avenge their blood; I will not leave unpunished</i> the shedders of it.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1262_1262" id="Footnote_1262_1262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1262_1262">[1262]</a> Heb. construction is found also in Hosea xii. 5.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXXI --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1263_1263" id="Footnote_1263_1263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1263_1263">[1263]</a> Gen. x. 2, 4. <span class="heb">יון</span> Javan, -is Ιαϝων, or Ιαων, the older form of the -name of the Ionians, the first of the Greek race with whom Eastern -peoples came into contact. They are perhaps named on the Tell-el-Amarna -tablets as “Yivana,” serving “in the country of Tyre” -(<i>c.</i> 1400 <span class="small">B.C.</span>); and on an -inscription of Sargon (<i>c.</i> 709) Cyprus is called Yâvanu.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1264_1264" id="Footnote_1264_1264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1264_1264">[1264]</a> xxvii. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1265_1265" id="Footnote_1265_1265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1265_1265">[1265]</a> <i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i> (Expositor’s Bible), p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43672/43672-h/43672-h.htm#Page_108">108</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1266_1266" id="Footnote_1266_1266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1266_1266">[1266]</a> iii. 6 (Eng.; iv. 6 Heb.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1267_1267" id="Footnote_1267_1267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1267_1267">[1267]</a> The sense of distance between the two peoples was mutual. -Writing in the middle of the fifth century <span class="small">B.C.</span>, -Herodotus has heard -of the Jews only as a people that practise circumcision and were -defeated by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo (II. 104, 159; on the latter -passage see <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 405 n.). He does not even know them by -name. The fragment of Chœrilos of Samos, from the end of the -fifth century, which Josephus cites (<i>Contra Apionem</i>, I. 22) as a -reference to the Jews, is probably of a people in Asia Minor. Even -in the last half of the fourth century and before Alexander’s campaigns, -Aristotle knows of the Dead Sea only by a vague report -(<i>Meteor.</i>, II. iii. 39). His pupil Theophrastus (<i>d.</i> 287) names and -describes the Jews (Porphyr. <i>de Abstinentia</i>, II. 26; Eusebius, <i>Prepar. -Evang.</i>, IX. 2: cf. Josephus, <i>C. Apion.</i>, I. 22); and another pupil, -Clearchus of Soli, records the mention by Aristotle of a travelled Jew -of Cœle-Syria, but “Greek in soul as in tongue,” whom the great -philosopher had met, and learned from him that the Jews were -descended from the philosophers of India (quoted by Josephus, -<i>C. Apion.</i>, I. 22).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1268_1268" id="Footnote_1268_1268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1268_1268">[1268]</a> Jos., XI. <i>Antt.</i> iv. 5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1269_1269" id="Footnote_1269_1269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1269_1269">[1269]</a> <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 347.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1270_1270" id="Footnote_1270_1270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1270_1270">[1270]</a> <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, pp. 593 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1271_1271" id="Footnote_1271_1271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1271_1271">[1271]</a> See above, p. 440, n. <a href="#Footnote_1267_1267">1267</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1272_1272" id="Footnote_1272_1272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1272_1272">[1272]</a> Hence the Seleucid era dates from 312.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1273_1273" id="Footnote_1273_1273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1273_1273">[1273]</a> <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, 538.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1274_1274" id="Footnote_1274_1274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1274_1274">[1274]</a> Cf. Ewald, <i>Hist.</i> (Eng. Ed.), V. 226 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1275_1275" id="Footnote_1275_1275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1275_1275">[1275]</a> Asshur or Assyria fell in 607 (as we have seen), but her name -was transferred to her successor Babylon (2 Kings xxiii. 29; -Jer. ii. 18; Lam. v. 6), and even to Babylon’s successor Persia -(Ezra vi. 22). When Seleucus secured what was virtually the old -Assyrian Empire with large extensions to Phrygia on the west and -the Punjaub on the east, the name would naturally be continued to his -dominion, especially as his first capital was Babylon, from his capture -of which in 312 the Seleucid era took its start. There is actual -record of this. Brugsch (<i>Gesch. Aeg.</i>, p. 218) states that in the -hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Ptolemæan period the kingdom of -the Seleucids is called Asharu (cf. Stade, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1882, p. 292, -and Cheyne, <i>Book of Psalms</i>, p. 253, and <i>Introd. to Book of Isaiah</i>, -p. 107, n. 3). As the Seleucid kingdom shrank to this side of the -Euphrates, it drew the name Assyria with it. But in Greek mouths -this had long ago (cf. Herod.) been shortened to Syria: Herodotus -also appears to have applied it only to the west of the Euphrates. -Cf. <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, pp. 3 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1276_1276" id="Footnote_1276_1276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1276_1276">[1276]</a> XII. <i>Antt.</i> i.: cf. <i>Con. Apion.</i>, I. 22.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1277_1277" id="Footnote_1277_1277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1277_1277">[1277]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_442">442</a>. -Eusebius, <i>Chron. Arm.</i>, II. 225, assigns it to 320.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1278_1278" id="Footnote_1278_1278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1278_1278">[1278]</a> Cheyne, <i>Introd. to Book of Isaiah</i>, p. 105.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXXII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1279_1279" id="Footnote_1279_1279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1279_1279">[1279]</a> Except in the passage ix. 10–12, which seems strangely out of -place in the rest of ix.—xiv.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1280_1280" id="Footnote_1280_1280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1280_1280">[1280]</a> <i>Works</i>, 4th ed. 1677, pp. 786 ff. (1632), 834. Mede died 1638.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1281_1281" id="Footnote_1281_1281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1281_1281">[1281]</a> Matt. xxvii. 9.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1282_1282" id="Footnote_1282_1282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1282_1282">[1282]</a> <i>Demonstration of the Messias</i>, 1700.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1283_1283" id="Footnote_1283_1283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1283_1283">[1283]</a> <i>An Attempt towards an Improved Version of the Twelve Minor -Prophets</i>, 1785 (not seen). See also Wright on Archbishop Seeker.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1284_1284" id="Footnote_1284_1284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1284_1284">[1284]</a> <i>Die Weissagungen, welche bei den Schriften des Proph. Sacharja -beygebogen sind, übersetzt</i>, etc., Hamburg (not seen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1285_1285" id="Footnote_1285_1285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1285_1285">[1285]</a> <i>Einleitung in A. u. N. T.</i> (not seen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1286_1286" id="Footnote_1286_1286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1286_1286">[1286]</a> Isa. viii. 2. See above, p. <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1287_1287" id="Footnote_1287_1287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1287_1287">[1287]</a> ix. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1288_1288" id="Footnote_1288_1288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1288_1288">[1288]</a> See above, Chap. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1289_1289" id="Footnote_1289_1289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1289_1289">[1289]</a> x. 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1290_1290" id="Footnote_1290_1290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1290_1290">[1290]</a> ix. 10, 13, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1291_1291" id="Footnote_1291_1291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1291_1291">[1291]</a> <i>Dan. u. Sacharja.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1292_1292" id="Footnote_1292_1292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1292_1292">[1292]</a> Page 503.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1293_1293" id="Footnote_1293_1293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1293_1293">[1293]</a> See Addenda, p. <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1294_1294" id="Footnote_1294_1294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1294_1294">[1294]</a> <i>Einl.</i> in the beginning of the century.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1295_1295" id="Footnote_1295_1295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1295_1295">[1295]</a> <i>Neue Exeg. krit. Aehrenlese z. A. T.</i>, 1864.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1296_1296" id="Footnote_1296_1296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1296_1296">[1296]</a> <i>Einl.</i>, 1882, p. 709.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1297_1297" id="Footnote_1297_1297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1297_1297">[1297]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1881, 1882. See further proof of the late character -of language and style, and of the unity, by Eckardt, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1893, -pp. 76 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1298_1298" id="Footnote_1298_1298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1298_1298">[1298]</a> § 81, n. 3, 10. -See p. 457, end of note <a href="#Footnote_1310_1310">1310</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1299_1299" id="Footnote_1299_1299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1299_1299">[1299]</a> <i>Jewish Quart. Review</i>, 1889.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1300_1300" id="Footnote_1300_1300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1300_1300">[1300]</a> <i>Einl.</i>⁴</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1301_1301" id="Footnote_1301_1301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1301_1301">[1301]</a> <i>A. T. Litt.</i></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1302_1302" id="Footnote_1302_1302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1302_1302">[1302]</a> <i>Untersuchung über die Komposition u. Abfassungszeit von Zach.</i> -9–14, etc. Halle, 1891 (not seen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1303_1303" id="Footnote_1303_1303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1303_1303">[1303]</a> 1892: quoted by Wildeboer.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1304_1304" id="Footnote_1304_1304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1304_1304">[1304]</a> 1893: quoted by Wildeboer.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1305_1305" id="Footnote_1305_1305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1305_1305">[1305]</a> <i>Doctrine of the Prophets</i>, 438 ff., in which the English reader will -find a singularly lucid and fair treatment of the question. See, too, -Wright.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1306_1306" id="Footnote_1306_1306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1306_1306">[1306]</a> Page 472, Note A.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1307_1307" id="Footnote_1307_1307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1307_1307">[1307]</a> Kautzsch—the Greek period.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1308_1308" id="Footnote_1308_1308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1308_1308">[1308]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_451">451</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1309_1309" id="Footnote_1309_1309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1309_1309">[1309]</a> Robinson, pp. 76 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1310_1310" id="Footnote_1310_1310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1310_1310">[1310]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1893, 76 ff. See also the summaries of linguistic -evidence given by Robinson. Kuenen finds in ix.—xi. the following -pre-exilic elements: ix. 1–5, 8–10, 13<i>a</i> (?); x. 1 f., 10 f.; xi. 4–14 or 17.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1311_1311" id="Footnote_1311_1311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1311_1311">[1311]</a> Kuenen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1312_1312" id="Footnote_1312_1312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1312_1312">[1312]</a> See above, p. 453, n. <a href="#Footnote_1297_1297">1297</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1313_1313" id="Footnote_1313_1313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1313_1313">[1313]</a> See also Robinson.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1314_1314" id="Footnote_1314_1314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1314_1314">[1314]</a> <i>Jewish Quarterly Review</i>, 1889, p. 81.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1315_1315" id="Footnote_1315_1315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1315_1315">[1315]</a> As Robinson, <i>e.g.</i>, does.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1316_1316" id="Footnote_1316_1316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1316_1316">[1316]</a> E.g. <i>holy land</i>, ii. 16, and <i>Mount of Olives</i>, xiv. 4.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1317_1317" id="Footnote_1317_1317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1317_1317">[1317]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, 103–109: cf. Driver, <i>Introd.</i>⁶, 354.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1318_1318" id="Footnote_1318_1318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1318_1318">[1318]</a> <i>Introd.</i>⁶, p. 354.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1319_1319" id="Footnote_1319_1319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1319_1319">[1319]</a> ix. 13.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1320_1320" id="Footnote_1320_1320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1320_1320">[1320]</a> ix. 1 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1321_1321" id="Footnote_1321_1321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1321_1321">[1321]</a> x. 11. See above, p. <a href="#Page_451">451</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1322_1322" id="Footnote_1322_1322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1322_1322">[1322]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_331">331</a> ff., -for proof of the original anonymity of the Book of “Malachi.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1323_1323" id="Footnote_1323_1323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1323_1323">[1323]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1324_1324" id="Footnote_1324_1324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1324_1324">[1324]</a> So Staerk, who thinks Amos I. made use of vv. 1–5.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1325_1325" id="Footnote_1325_1325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1325_1325">[1325]</a> ix. 1, <span class="heb">אדם</span>, <i>mankind</i>, in contrast to the tribes of Israel; 3, <span class="heb">חרוץ</span>, -<i>gold</i>; 5, <span class="heb">ישב</span> as passive, cf. xii. 6; <span class="heb">הוביש</span>, Hi. of <span class="heb">בּוּשׁ</span>, in passive -sense only after Jeremiah (cf. above, p. <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, on Joel); -in 2 Sam. xix. 6, Hosea ii. 7, it is active.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1326_1326" id="Footnote_1326_1326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1326_1326">[1326]</a> See p. <a href="#Page_442">442</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1327_1327" id="Footnote_1327_1327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1327_1327">[1327]</a> ix. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1328_1328" id="Footnote_1328_1328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1328_1328">[1328]</a> Heb. <i>resting-place</i>: cf. Zech. vi. 8, <i>bring Mine anger to rest</i>. This -meets the objection of Bredenkamp and others, that <span class="heb">מנוחה</span> is otherwise -used of Jehovah alone, in consequence of which they refer the -suffix to Him.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1329_1329" id="Footnote_1329_1329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1329_1329">[1329]</a> The expression <i>hath an eye</i> is so unusual that Klostermann, <i>Theo. -Litt. Zeit.</i>, 1879, 566 (quoted by Nowack), proposes to read for <span class="heb">עין</span> -<span class="heb">ערי</span>, <i>Jehovah’s are the cities of the heathen</i>. For <span class="heb">אדם</span>, <i>mankind</i>, as -= <i>heathen</i> cf. Jer. xxxii. 20.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1330_1330" id="Footnote_1330_1330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1330_1330">[1330]</a> So LXX.: Heb. <i>also</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1331_1331" id="Footnote_1331_1331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1331_1331">[1331]</a> So LXX.: Heb. has verb in sing.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1332_1332" id="Footnote_1332_1332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1332_1332">[1332]</a> Cf. Nahum iii. 8; Isa. xxvi. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1333_1333" id="Footnote_1333_1333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1333_1333">[1333]</a> Read <span class="heb">מִבְטָחָה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1334_1334" id="Footnote_1334_1334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1334_1334">[1334]</a> Deut. xxiii. 3 (Heb., 2 Eng.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1335_1335" id="Footnote_1335_1335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1335_1335">[1335]</a> The prepositions refer to the half-breeds. Ezekiel uses the term -<i>to eat upon the blood</i>, <i>i.e.</i> meat eaten without being ritually slain and -consecrated, for illegal sacrifices (xxxiii. 35: cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 32 f.; -Lev. xix. 26, xvii. 11–14).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1336_1336" id="Footnote_1336_1336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1336_1336">[1336]</a> <span class="heb">מִצַָּּבָה</span> for <span class="heb">מִן־צָבָא</span>; but to be -amended to <span class="heb" dir="ltr">מַצָּבָה</span>, 1 Sam. xiv. 12, -<i>a military post</i>. Ewald reads <span class="heb">מֻצָּבָה</span>, <i>rampart</i>. LXX. ἀνάστημα = -<span class="heb">מַצֵּבָה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1337_1337" id="Footnote_1337_1337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1337_1337">[1337]</a> ix. 10, <span class="heb">מֹשֶׁל</span>, cf. Dan. xi. 4; <span class="heb">אפסי ארץ</span> only in late writings -(unless Deut. xxxiii. 17 be early)—see Eckardt, p. 80; 12, <span class="heb">בצּרון</span> is -ἅπαξ λεγόμενον; the last clause of 12 is based on Isa. lxi. 7. If our -interpretation of <span class="heb">צדיק</span> and <span class="heb">נושע</span> be right, they are also symptoms of -a late date.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1338_1338" id="Footnote_1338_1338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1338_1338">[1338]</a> <span class="heb">נושׁע</span> (ver. 9): the passive participle.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1339_1339" id="Footnote_1339_1339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1339_1339">[1339]</a> Cf. <i>Isaiah xl.—lxvi.</i> (Expositor’s Bible), p. -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43672/43672-h/43672-h.htm#Page_219">219</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1340_1340" id="Footnote_1340_1340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1340_1340">[1340]</a> Why <i>chariot from Ephraim</i> and <i>horse -from Jerusalem</i> is explained -in <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, pp. 329–331.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1341_1341" id="Footnote_1341_1341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1341_1341">[1341]</a> See above.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1342_1342" id="Footnote_1342_1342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1342_1342">[1342]</a> Symbol of peace as the horse was of war.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1343_1343" id="Footnote_1343_1343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1343_1343">[1343]</a> Son of she-asses.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1344_1344" id="Footnote_1344_1344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1344_1344">[1344]</a> Mass.: LXX. <i>He</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1345_1345" id="Footnote_1345_1345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1345_1345">[1345]</a> Heb. <i>blood of thy covenant</i>, but the suffix refers to the whole -phrase (Duhm, <i>Theol. der Proph.</i>, p. 143). The covenant is Jehovah’s; -the blood, that which the people shed in sacrifice to ratify the -covenant.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1346_1346" id="Footnote_1346_1346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1346_1346">[1346]</a> Heb. adds <i>there is no water in it</i>, but this is either a gloss, or -perhaps an attempt to make sense out of a dittography of <span class="heb">מבור</span>, -or a corruption of <i>none shall be ashamed</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1347_1347" id="Footnote_1347_1347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1347_1347">[1347]</a> Isa. lxi. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1348_1348" id="Footnote_1348_1348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1348_1348">[1348]</a> <i>Doctrine of the Prophets</i>, Note A, p. 472.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1349_1349" id="Footnote_1349_1349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1349_1349">[1349]</a> 14, on <span class="heb">תימן</span> see Eckardt; 15, <span class="heb">זויות</span>, Aramaism; <span class="heb">כבשׁ</span> is late; 17, -<span class="heb">התנוסס</span>, only here and Psalm lx. 6; <span class="heb">נוב</span>, probably late.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1350_1350" id="Footnote_1350_1350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1350_1350">[1350]</a> So LXX.: Heb. reads, <i>thy sons, O Javan</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1351_1351" id="Footnote_1351_1351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1351_1351">[1351]</a> LXX. ἐν σάλῳ τῆς ἀπειλῆς αὐτοῦ, <i>in the tossing of His threat</i>, -<span class="heb">בשער גערו</span> (?) or <span class="heb">בשער העדו</span>. -It is natural to see here a reference to the Theophanies of Hab. iii. 3, Deut. xxxiii. -(see above, pp. <a href="#Page_150">150</a> f.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1352_1352" id="Footnote_1352_1352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1352_1352">[1352]</a> Perhaps <span class="heb">וְיָכְלוּ</span>, <i>overcome them</i>. LXX. καταναλώσουσιν.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1353_1353" id="Footnote_1353_1353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1353_1353">[1353]</a> Heb. <i>stones of a sling</i>, <span class="heb">אבני קלע</span>. Wellhausen and Nowack read -<i>sons</i>, <span class="heb">בני</span>, but what then is <span class="heb">קלע</span>?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1354_1354" id="Footnote_1354_1354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1354_1354">[1354]</a> Reading <span class="heb">דמם</span> for Heb. <span class="heb">והמו</span>, <i>and roar</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1355_1355" id="Footnote_1355_1355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1355_1355">[1355]</a> Heb. <i>like a flock of sheep His people</i>, (but how is one to construe -this with the context?) <i>for (? like) stones of a diadem lifting themselves -up (? shimmering) over His land</i>. Wellhausen and Nowack -delete <i>for stones ... shimmering</i> as a gloss. This would leave <i>like -a flock of sheep His people in His land</i>, to which it is proposed to add -<i>He will feed</i>. This gives good sense.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1356_1356" id="Footnote_1356_1356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1356_1356">[1356]</a> Wellhausen, reading <span class="heb">טובה</span>, fem. suffix for neuter. Ewald and -others <i>He</i>. Hitzig and others <i>they</i>, the people.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1357_1357" id="Footnote_1357_1357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1357_1357">[1357]</a> Of these cf. “Mal.” iii. 5; the late Jer. xliv. 8 ff.; Isa. lxv. 3–5; -and, in the Priestly Law, Lev. xix. 31, xx. 6.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1358_1358" id="Footnote_1358_1358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1358_1358">[1358]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, I. 60. He compares this verse with 1 Sam. xv. 23. -In Ezek. xxi. 26 they give oracles.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1359_1359" id="Footnote_1359_1359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1359_1359">[1359]</a> <span class="heb">חזיז</span>, <i>lightning-flash</i>, only here and in Job xxviii. 26, xxxviii. 25.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1360_1360" id="Footnote_1360_1360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1360_1360">[1360]</a> LXX. read: <i>in season early rain and latter rain</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1361_1361" id="Footnote_1361_1361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1361_1361">[1361]</a> <span class="heb">נסעו</span>, used of a nomadic life in Jer. xxxi. 24 (23), and so it is -possible that in a later stage of the language it had come to mean to -wander or stray. But this is doubtful, and there may be a false -reading, as appears from LXX. ἐξηράνθησαν.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1362_1362" id="Footnote_1362_1362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1362_1362">[1362]</a> For <span class="heb">יענו</span> read <span class="heb">וינעו</span>. The LXX. ἐκακώθησαν read <span class="heb">וירעו</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1363_1363" id="Footnote_1363_1363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1363_1363">[1363]</a> There can therefore be none of that connection between the two -pieces which Kirkpatrick assumes (p. 454 and note 2).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1364_1364" id="Footnote_1364_1364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1364_1364">[1364]</a> <span class="heb">פקד על</span></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1365_1365" id="Footnote_1365_1365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1365_1365">[1365]</a> <span class="heb">פקד את</span></p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1366_1366" id="Footnote_1366_1366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1366_1366">[1366]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1367_1367" id="Footnote_1367_1367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1367_1367">[1367]</a> x. 5, <span class="heb">בוס</span>, Eckardt, p. 82; 6, 12, <span class="heb">גִּבֵּר</span>, Pi., cf. Eccles. x. 10, where -it alone occurs besides here; 5, 11, <span class="heb">הבישו</span> in passive sense.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1368_1368" id="Footnote_1368_1368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1368_1368">[1368]</a> As we should say, <i>bell-wethers</i>: cf. Isa. xiv. 9, also a late meaning.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1369_1369" id="Footnote_1369_1369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1369_1369">[1369]</a> So LXX., reading <span class="heb">כי־יפקד</span> for <span class="heb">כי־פקד</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1370_1370" id="Footnote_1370_1370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1370_1370">[1370]</a> <i>Corner-stone</i> as name for a chief: cf. Judg. xx. 2; 1 Sam. xiv. 38; -Isa. xix. 13. <i>Stay</i> or <i>tent-pin</i>, Isa. xxii. 23. <i>From Him</i>, others -<i>from them</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1371_1371" id="Footnote_1371_1371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1371_1371">[1371]</a> Read <span class="heb">בַּגִּבֹּרִים</span> and <span class="heb">כְּטִיט</span> (Wellhausen).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1372_1372" id="Footnote_1372_1372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1372_1372">[1372]</a> Read <span class="heb">וַהֲשִׁבוֹתִים</span> for the Mass. <span class="heb">וְהוֹשְׁבוֹתִים</span>, <i>and I will make them -to dwell</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1373_1373" id="Footnote_1373_1373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1373_1373">[1373]</a> <span class="heb">רחמתים</span> and <span class="heb" dir="ltr">זנחתים</span>, <span class="heb">אלהיהם</span> and <span class="heb">אענם</span>, keywords of Hosea -i.—iii.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1374_1374" id="Footnote_1374_1374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1374_1374">[1374]</a> LXX.; sing. Heb.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1375_1375" id="Footnote_1375_1375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1375_1375">[1375]</a> Changing the Heb. points which make the verb future. See -Nowack’s note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1376_1376" id="Footnote_1376_1376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1376_1376">[1376]</a> With LXX. read <span class="heb">וְחִיּוּ</span> for Mass. <span class="heb">וְחָיוּ</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1377_1377" id="Footnote_1377_1377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1377_1377">[1377]</a> -See above, pp. <a href="#Page_451">451</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1378_1378" id="Footnote_1378_1378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1378_1378">[1378]</a> So LXX.; Mass. sing.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1379_1379" id="Footnote_1379_1379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1379_1379">[1379]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">צרה</span>, <i>narrow sea</i>: so LXX., but Wellhausen suggests -<span class="heb">מצרים</span>, which Nowack adopts.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1380_1380" id="Footnote_1380_1380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1380_1380">[1380]</a> <span class="heb">גברתם</span> for <span class="heb">גברתים</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1381_1381" id="Footnote_1381_1381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1381_1381">[1381]</a> For <span class="heb">יתהלכו</span> read <span class="heb">יתהללו</span>, with LXX. and Syr.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1382_1382" id="Footnote_1382_1382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1382_1382">[1382]</a> Heb. adds here a difficult clause, <i>for nobles are wasted</i>. Probably -a gloss.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1383_1383" id="Footnote_1383_1383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1383_1383">[1383]</a> After the Ḳerî.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1384_1384" id="Footnote_1384_1384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1384_1384">[1384]</a> I.e. <i>rankness</i>; applied to the thick vegetation in the larger bed of -the stream: see <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, p. 484.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1385_1385" id="Footnote_1385_1385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1385_1385">[1385]</a> xi. 5, <span class="heb">וַאעְשִׁר</span>, Hiph., but intransitive, -<i>grow rich</i>; 6, <span class="heb">ממציא</span>; vv. 7, 10, -<span class="heb" dir="ltr">נעם</span> (?); 8, <span class="heb">בחל</span>, Aram.; 13, -<span class="heb">יְקָר</span>, Aram., Jer. xx. 5, Ezek. xxii. 25, -Job xxviii. 10; in Esther ten, in Daniel four times (Eckardt); xiii. 7, -<span class="heb">עמית</span>, one of the marks of the affinity of the language of “Zech.” -ix.—xiv. to that of the Priestly Code (cf. Lev. v. 21, xviii. 20, etc.), -but in P it is concrete, here abstract; <span class="heb" dir="ltr">צערים</span>; 8, -<span class="heb">גוע</span>, see Eckardt, p. 85.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1386_1386" id="Footnote_1386_1386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1386_1386">[1386]</a> Jer. xxiii. 1–8; Ezek. xxxiv., xxxvii. 24 ff.: cf. Kirkpatrick -p. 462.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1387_1387" id="Footnote_1387_1387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1387_1387">[1387]</a> Exod. xxi. 32.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1388_1388" id="Footnote_1388_1388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1388_1388">[1388]</a> LXX. <i>God of Hosts</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1389_1389" id="Footnote_1389_1389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1389_1389">[1389]</a> Read plural with LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1390_1390" id="Footnote_1390_1390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1390_1390">[1390]</a> That is the late Hebrew name for the heathen: cf. ix. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1391_1391" id="Footnote_1391_1391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1391_1391">[1391]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">רֵעֵהוּ</span>, <i>neighbour</i>; read <span class="heb">רֹעֵהוּ</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1392_1392" id="Footnote_1392_1392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1392_1392">[1392]</a> Many take this verse as an intrusion. It certainly seems to add -nothing to the sense and to interrupt the connection, which is clear -when it is removed.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1393_1393" id="Footnote_1393_1393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1393_1393">[1393]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">לָכֵן עֲנִיֵּי הַצֹּאן</span>, -<i>wherefore the miserable of the flock</i>, which makes no sense. -But LXX. read εἰς τήν Χαναάνιτην, and this suggests the -Heb. <span class="heb">לכנעני</span>, <i>to the Canaanites</i>, -i.e. <i>merchants</i>, <i>of the sheep</i>: so in ver. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1394_1394" id="Footnote_1394_1394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1394_1394">[1394]</a> Lit. <i>Bands</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1395_1395" id="Footnote_1395_1395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1395_1395">[1395]</a> The sense is here obscure. Is the text sound? In harmony -with the context <span class="heb">עמים</span> ought to mean -<i>tribes of Israel</i>. But every passage in the O.T. in -which <span class="heb">עמים</span> might mean <i>tribes</i> has been shown -to have a doubtful text: Deut. xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 3; Hosea x. 14; -Micah i. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1396_1396" id="Footnote_1396_1396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1396_1396">[1396]</a> See above, note <a href="#Footnote_1393_1393">1393</a>, -on the same mis-read phrase in ver. 7.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1397_1397" id="Footnote_1397_1397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1397_1397">[1397]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">הַיּוֹצֵר</span>, <i>the potter</i>. LXX. χωνευτήριον <i>smelting furnace</i>. Read -<span class="heb">הָאוֹצָר</span> by change of <span class="heb">א</span> for <span class="heb">י</span>: the two are often confounded; -see n. <a href="#Footnote_1399_1399">1399</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1398_1398" id="Footnote_1398_1398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1398_1398">[1398]</a> Wellhausen and Nowack read <i>thou hast been valued of them</i>. But -there is no need of this. The clause is a sarcastic parenthesis spoken -by the prophet himself.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1399_1399" id="Footnote_1399_1399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1399_1399">[1399]</a> Again Heb. <i>the potter</i>, LXX. <i>the smelting furnace</i>, as above in ver. 13. The additional clause <i>House of God</i> proves how right it -is to read <i>the treasury</i>, and disposes of the idea that <i>to throw to the -potter</i> was a proverb for throwing away.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1400_1400" id="Footnote_1400_1400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1400_1400">[1400]</a> Two codd. read <i>Jerusalem</i>, which Wellhausen and Nowack -adopt.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1401_1401" id="Footnote_1401_1401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1401_1401">[1401]</a> Heb. <span class="heb">הַנַּעַר</span>, <i>the scattered</i>. LXX. τὸν ἐσκορπίσμενον.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1402_1402" id="Footnote_1402_1402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1402_1402">[1402]</a> <span class="heb">הַנִּצָּבָה</span>, obscure: some translate <i>the sound</i> or <i>stable</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1403_1403" id="Footnote_1403_1403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1403_1403">[1403]</a> Heb. <i>and their hoofs he will tear</i> (?).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1404_1404" id="Footnote_1404_1404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1404_1404">[1404]</a> For Heb. <span class="heb">האליל</span> read as in ver. 15 <span class="heb">האוילי</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1405_1405" id="Footnote_1405_1405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1405_1405">[1405]</a> <span class="heb">עמית</span>: only in Lev. and here.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1406_1406" id="Footnote_1406_1406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1406_1406">[1406]</a> <span class="heb">הך</span>. Perhaps we should read <span class="heb">אַכֶּה</span>, <i>I smite</i>, with Matt. xxvi. 31.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1407_1407" id="Footnote_1407_1407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1407_1407">[1407]</a> Some take this as a promise: <i>turn My hand towards the little ones</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1408_1408" id="Footnote_1408_1408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1408_1408">[1408]</a> LXX. Heb. <span class="heb">אמרתי</span>, but the <span class="heb">ו</span> has fallen from the front of it.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1409_1409" id="Footnote_1409_1409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1409_1409">[1409]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1410_1410" id="Footnote_1410_1410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1410_1410">[1410]</a> xii. 2, <span class="heb">רַעַל</span>, -a noun not found elsewhere in O. T. We found the -verb in Nahum ii. 4 (see above, p. <a href="#Page_106">106</a>), and probably in Hab. ii. 16 -for <span class="heb">והערל</span> -(see above, p. 147, n. <a href="#Footnote_412_412">412</a>): -it is common in Aramean; other -forms belong to later Hebrew (cf. Eckardt, p. 85). 3, <span class="heb">שׂרט</span> is used -in classic Heb. only of intentional cutting and tattooing of oneself; -in the sense of <i>wounding</i> which it has here it is frequent in Aramean. -3 has besides <span class="heb">אבן מעמסה</span>, not found elsewhere. 4 has three nouns -terminating in <span class="heb">־ון</span>, two of them—<span class="heb">תמהון</span>, <i>panic</i>, and <span class="heb">עורון</span>, judicial <i>blindness</i>—in -O. T. only found here and in Deut. xxviii. 28, the former also -in Aramean. 7 <span class="heb">למען לא</span> is also cited by Eckardt as used only in -Ezek. xix. 6, xxvi. 20, and four times in Psalms.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1411_1411" id="Footnote_1411_1411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1411_1411">[1411]</a> xii. 6, <span class="heb">תחתיה</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1412_1412" id="Footnote_1412_1412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1412_1412">[1412]</a> The text reads <i>against</i> Judah, as if it with Jerusalem suffered -the siege of the heathen. But (1) this makes an unconstruable -clause, and (2) the context shows that Judah was <i>against</i> Jerusalem. -Therefore Geiger (<i>Urschrift</i>, p. 58) is right in deleting <span class="heb">על</span>, and restoring -to the clause both sense in itself and harmony with the -context. It is easy to see why <span class="heb">על</span> was afterwards introduced. -LXX. καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1413_1413" id="Footnote_1413_1413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1413_1413">[1413]</a> Since Jerome, commentators have thought of a stone by throwing -or lifting which men try their strength, what we call a “putting -stone.” But is not the idea rather of one of the large stones half-buried -in the earth which it is the effort of the husbandman to tear -from its bed and carry out of his field before he ploughs it? Keil -and Wright think of a heavy stone for building. This is not so -likely.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1414_1414" id="Footnote_1414_1414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1414_1414">[1414]</a> <span class="heb">שׂרט</span>, elsewhere only in Lev. xxi. 5, is there used of intentional -cutting of oneself as a sign of mourning. Nowack takes the clause -as a later intrusion; but there is no real reason for this.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1415_1415" id="Footnote_1415_1415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1415_1415">[1415]</a> Heb. <i>upon Judah will I keep My eyes open</i> -to protect him, and this -has analogies, Job xiv. 3, Jer. xxxii. 19. But the reading <i>its eyes</i>, -which is made by inserting a <span class="heb">ו</span> that might easily have dropped out -through confusion with the initial <span class="heb">ו</span> of the next word, -has also analogies (Isa. xlii. 7, etc.), and stands in better -parallel to the next clause, as -well as to the clauses describing the panic of the heathen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1416_1416" id="Footnote_1416_1416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1416_1416">[1416]</a> Others read <span class="heb">אַלְפֵי</span>, <i>thousands</i>, i.e. <i>districts</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1417_1417" id="Footnote_1417_1417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1417_1417">[1417]</a> Heb. <i>I will find me</i>; LXX. εὑρήσομεν ἑαυτοῖς.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1418_1418" id="Footnote_1418_1418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1418_1418">[1418]</a> Hebrew adds a gloss: <i>in Jerusalem</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1419_1419" id="Footnote_1419_1419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1419_1419">[1419]</a> The population in time of war.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1420_1420" id="Footnote_1420_1420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1420_1420">[1420]</a> xii. 10, <span class="heb">שׁפך רוח</span>, not earlier than Ezek. xxxix. 29, Joel iii. 1, 2 -(Heb.); <span class="heb">תחנונים</span>, only in Job, Proverbs, Psalms and Daniel; <span class="heb">המר</span>, -an intrans. Hiph.; xiii. 1, <span class="heb">מקור</span>, <i>fountain</i>, before Jeremiah only in -Hosea xiii. 15 (perhaps a late intrusion), but several times in post-exilic -writings instead of pre-exilic <span class="heb">באר</span> (Eckardt); <span class="heb">נִדָּה</span> only after -Ezekiel; 3, cf. xii. 10, <span class="heb">דקר</span>, chiefly, but not only, in post-exilic -writings.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1421_1421" id="Footnote_1421_1421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1421_1421">[1421]</a> See especially xii. 12 ff., which is very suggestive of the Priestly -Code.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1422_1422" id="Footnote_1422_1422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1422_1422">[1422]</a> <i>Hist. Geog.</i>, Chap. XIX. On the name <i>plain of Megiddo</i> see -especially notes, p. 386.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1423_1423" id="Footnote_1423_1423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1423_1423">[1423]</a> 2 Chron. xxxv. 22 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1424_1424" id="Footnote_1424_1424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1424_1424">[1424]</a> Another explanation offered by the Targum is the mourning for -“Ahab son of Omri, slain by Hadad-Rimmon son of Tab-Rimmon.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1425_1425" id="Footnote_1425_1425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1425_1425">[1425]</a> LXX. gives for Hadad-Rimmon only the second part, ῥοῶν.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1426_1426" id="Footnote_1426_1426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1426_1426">[1426]</a> Ezek. viii. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1427_1427" id="Footnote_1427_1427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1427_1427">[1427]</a> Baudissin, <i>Studien z. Sem. Rel. Gesch.</i>, I. 295 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1428_1428" id="Footnote_1428_1428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1428_1428">[1428]</a> Heb. <i>Me</i>; several codd. <i>him</i>: some read <span class="heb">אֱלֵי</span> <i>to</i> (him) <i>whom -they have pierced</i>; but this would require the elision of the sign of -the acc. before <i>who</i>. Wellhausen and others think something has -fallen from the text.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1429_1429" id="Footnote_1429_1429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1429_1429">[1429]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_482">482</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1430_1430" id="Footnote_1430_1430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1430_1430">[1430]</a> LXX. Συμεών.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1431_1431" id="Footnote_1431_1431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1431_1431">[1431]</a> Cf. Ezek. xxxvi. 25, xlvii. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1432_1432" id="Footnote_1432_1432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1432_1432">[1432]</a> Read <span class="heb">אֲדָמָה קִנְיָנִי</span> for the Mass. <span class="heb">אדם הקנני</span>: so Wellhausen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1433_1433" id="Footnote_1433_1433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1433_1433">[1433]</a> Heb. <i>between</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1434_1434" id="Footnote_1434_1434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1434_1434">[1434]</a> But see below, p. <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1435_1435" id="Footnote_1435_1435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1435_1435">[1435]</a> <span class="heb">ליהוה</span>: or <i>belonging to Jehovah</i>; or like the <i>Lamed auctoris</i> or -Lamed when construed with passive verbs (see Oxford <i>Heb.-Eng. -Dictionary</i>, pp. 513 and 514, col. 1), <i>from, by means of, Jehovah</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1436_1436" id="Footnote_1436_1436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1436_1436">[1436]</a> Heb.: <i>and ye shall flee, the ravine of My mountains</i>. The text -is obviously corrupt, but it is difficult to see how it should be repaired. -LXX., Targ. Symmachus and the Babylonian codd. (Baer, p. 84) -read <span class="heb">וְנִסְתַּם</span>, <i>shall be closed</i>, for <span class="heb">וְנַסְתֶּם</span>, <i>ye shall flee</i>, and this is adopted -by a number of critics (Bredenkamp, Wellhausen, Nowack). But it -is hardly possible before the next clause, which says the valley -extends to ’Aṣal.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1437_1437" id="Footnote_1437_1437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1437_1437">[1437]</a> Wellhausen suggests the ravine (<span class="heb">גיא</span>) of Hinnom.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1438_1438" id="Footnote_1438_1438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1438_1438">[1438]</a> <span class="heb">אָצַל</span>, place-name: cf. <span class="heb">אָצֵל</span>, name of a family of Benjamin, viii. 37 f., ix. 43 f.; and <span class="heb">בֵית הָאֵצֶל</span>, Micah i. 11. -Some would read <span class="heb">אֵצֶל</span>, the adverb <i>near by</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1439_1439" id="Footnote_1439_1439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1439_1439">[1439]</a> Amos i. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1440_1440" id="Footnote_1440_1440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1440_1440">[1440]</a> LXX.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1441_1441" id="Footnote_1441_1441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1441_1441">[1441]</a> LXX.; Heb. <i>thee</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1442_1442" id="Footnote_1442_1442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1442_1442">[1442]</a> Heb. Kethibh, <span class="heb">יְקָרוֹת יִקְפָּאוּן</span>, <i>jewels</i> (? hardly stars as some -have sought to prove from Job xxxi. 26) <i>grow dead</i> or <i>congealed</i>. -Heb. Ḳerê, <i>jewels and frost</i>, <span class="heb">וְקִפָּאוֹן</span>. LXX. καὶ ψύχη καὶ πάγος, -<span class="heb">וְקָרוּת וְקִפָּאוֹן</span>, <i>and cold and frost</i>. Founding on this Wellhausen -proposes to read <span class="heb">חוֹם</span> for <span class="heb">אוֹר</span>, and renders, <i>there shall be neither -heat nor cold nor frost</i>. So Nowack. But it is not easy to see how -<span class="heb">חוֹם</span> ever got changed to <span class="heb">אוֹר</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1443_1443" id="Footnote_1443_1443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1443_1443">[1443]</a> <i>Unique</i> or <i>the same</i>?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1444_1444" id="Footnote_1444_1444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1444_1444">[1444]</a> Taken as a gloss by Wellhausen and Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1445_1445" id="Footnote_1445_1445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1445_1445">[1445]</a> <span class="heb">עֲרָבָה</span>, the name for the Jordan Valley, the Ghôr (<i>Hist. Geog.</i>, -pp. 482–484). It is employed, not because of its fertility, but because -of its level character. Cf. Josephus’ name for it, “the Great Plain” -(IV. <i>Wars</i> viii. 2; IV. <i>Antt.</i> vi. 1): -also 1 Macc. v. 52, xvi. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1446_1446" id="Footnote_1446_1446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1446_1446">[1446]</a> Geba “long the limit of Judah to the north, 2 Kings xxiii. 8” -(<i>Hist. Geog.</i>, pp. 252, 291). Rimmon was on the southern border of -Palestine (Josh. xv. 32, xix. 7), the present Umm er Rummamin N. -of Beersheba (Rob., <i>B. R.</i>).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1447_1447" id="Footnote_1447_1447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1447_1447">[1447]</a> Or <i>be inhabited as it stands</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1448_1448" id="Footnote_1448_1448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1448_1448">[1448]</a> Cf. “Mal.” iii. 24 (Heb.).</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1449_1449" id="Footnote_1449_1449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1449_1449">[1449]</a> Ezek. xxxviii. 21.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1450_1450" id="Footnote_1450_1450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1450_1450">[1450]</a> So Wellhausen and Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1451_1451" id="Footnote_1451_1451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1451_1451">[1451]</a> So LXX. and Syr. The Heb. text inserts a <i>not</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1452_1452" id="Footnote_1452_1452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1452_1452">[1452]</a> <span class="heb">חטאת</span>, in classic Heb. <i>sin</i>; but as in Num. xxxii. 23 and -Isa. v. 18, <i>the punishment that sin brings down</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1453_1453" id="Footnote_1453_1453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1453_1453">[1453]</a> Hosea xiv. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1454_1454" id="Footnote_1454_1454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1454_1454">[1454]</a> ix. 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1455_1455" id="Footnote_1455_1455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1455_1455">[1455]</a> So Wellhausen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1456_1456" id="Footnote_1456_1456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1456_1456">[1456]</a> ix. 10.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1457_1457" id="Footnote_1457_1457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1457_1457">[1457]</a> Heb. <i>Canaanite</i>. Cf. Christ’s action in cleansing the Temple of -all dealers (Matt. xxi. 12–14).</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER 34 --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1458_1458" id="Footnote_1458_1458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1458_1458">[1458]</a> Unless the Psalm were counted as such. -See below, p. <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1459_1459" id="Footnote_1459_1459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1459_1459">[1459]</a> <i>Minus</i> Ruth of course.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1460_1460" id="Footnote_1460_1460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1460_1460">[1460]</a> Cf. with Jonah i. 1, <span class="heb">וַיְהִי</span>, Josh. i. 1, 1 Sam. i. 1, 2 Sam. i. 1. -The corrupt state of the text of Ezek. i. 1 does not permit us to -adduce it also as a parallel.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1461_1461" id="Footnote_1461_1461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1461_1461">[1461]</a> See below, p. <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1462_1462" id="Footnote_1462_1462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1462_1462">[1462]</a> See above, Vol. I., -p. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_236">236</a>. -</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1463_1463" id="Footnote_1463_1463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1463_1463">[1463]</a> Acts xi. 8.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1464_1464" id="Footnote_1464_1464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1464_1464">[1464]</a> Cf. Gittah-hepher, Josh. xix. 13, by some held to be El Meshhed, -three miles north-east of Nazareth. The tomb of Jonah is pointed -out there.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1465_1465" id="Footnote_1465_1465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1465_1465">[1465]</a> 2 Kings xiv. 25.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1466_1466" id="Footnote_1466_1466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1466_1466">[1466]</a> Cf. Kuenen, <i>Einl.</i>, II. 417, 418.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1467_1467" id="Footnote_1467_1467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1467_1467">[1467]</a> iii. 3: <span class="heb">היתה</span>, <i>was</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1468_1468" id="Footnote_1468_1468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1468_1468">[1468]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_21">21</a> ff., -<a href="#Page_96">96</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1469_1469" id="Footnote_1469_1469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1469_1469">[1469]</a> Cf. George Smith, <i>Assyrian Discoveries</i>, p. 94; Sayce, <i>Ancient -Empires of the East</i>, p. 141. Cf. previous note.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1470_1470" id="Footnote_1470_1470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1470_1470">[1470]</a> As, <i>e.g.</i>, by Volck, article “Jona” in Herzog’s <i>Real. Encycl.</i>²: the use of <span class="heb">שֶׁל</span> for <span class="heb">אֲשֶׁר</span>, -as, <i>e.g.</i>, in the very early Song of Deborah. But -the same occurs in many late passages: Eccles. i. 7, 11, ii. 21, 22, etc.; -Psalms cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxv. 2, 8, cxxxvii. 8, cxlvi. 3.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1471_1471" id="Footnote_1471_1471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1471_1471">[1471]</a> A. Grammatical constructions:—i. 7, <span class="heb" dir="ltr">בְּשֶׁלְּמִי</span>; -12, <span class="heb">בְּשֶׁלִּי</span>: that <span class="heb">בשל</span> -has not altogether displaced <span class="heb">באשרל</span> König (<i>Einl.</i>, 378) -thinks a proof of the date of Jonah in the early Aramaic period. iv. 6, the use -of <span class="heb">לוֹ</span> for the accusative, cf. Jer. xl. 2, Ezra viii. 24: -seldom in earlier -Hebrew, 1 Sam. xxiii. 10, 2 Sam. iii. 30, especially when the object -stands before the verb, Isa. xi. 9 (this may be late), 1 Sam. xxii. 7, -Job v. 2; but continually in Aramaic, Dan. ii. 10, 12, 14, 24, etc. -The first personal pronoun <span class="heb">אני</span> (five times) occurs oftener than -<span class="heb">אנכי</span> (twice), just as in all exilic and post-exilic writings. The -numerals ii. 1, iii. 3, precede the noun, as in earlier Hebrew. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -B. Words:—<span class="heb">מנה</span> in Pi. is a favourite term of our author, ii. 1, -iv. 6, 8; is elsewhere in O.T. Hebrew found only in Dan. i. 5, 10, -18, 1 Chron. ix. 29, Psalm lxi. 8; but in O.T. Aramaic <span class="heb">מנא</span> Pi. -<span class="heb">מנּי</span> occurs in Ezra vii. 25, Dan. ii. 24, 49, iii. 12, etc. <span class="heb">ספינה</span>, i. 5, -is not elsewhere found in O.T., but is common in later Hebrew -and in Aramaic. <span class="heb">התעשת</span>, i. 6, <i>to think</i>, for the Heb. <span class="heb">חשב</span>, cf. Psalm -cxlvi. 4, but Aram. cf. Dan. vi. 4 and Targums. <span class="heb">טעם</span> in the sense -<i>to order or command</i>, iii. 7, is found elsewhere in the O.T. only in -the Aramaic passages Dan. iii. 10, Ezra vi. 1, etc. <span class="heb">רבּו</span>, iv. 11, for -the earlier <span class="heb">רבבה</span> occurs only in later Hebrew, Ezra ii. 64, Neh. vii. -66, 72, 1 Chron. xxix. 7 (Hosea viii. 12, Kethibh is suspected). -<span class="heb">שתק</span>, i. 11, 12, occurs only in Psalm cvii. 30, Prov. xxvi. 20. <span class="heb">עמל</span>, -iv. 10, instead of the usual <span class="heb">יגע</span>. -The expression <i>God of Heaven</i>, -i. 9, occurs only in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Psalm cxxxvi. 26, Dan. ii. 18, -19, 44, and frequently in Ezra and Nehemiah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1472_1472" id="Footnote_1472_1472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1472_1472">[1472]</a> In chap. iv. there are undoubted echoes of the story of Elijah’s -depression in 1 Kings xix., though the alleged parallel between -Jonah’s tree (iv. 8) and Elijah’s broom-bush seems to me forced. -iv. 9 has been thought, though not conclusively, to depend on Gen. -iv. 6, and the appearance of <span class="heb">יהוה אלהים</span> has been referred to its -frequent use in Gen. ii. f. More important are the parallels with -Joel: iii. 9 with Joel ii. 14<i>a</i>, and the attributes of God in iv. 2 with -Joel ii. 13. But which of the two is the original?</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1473_1473" id="Footnote_1473_1473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1473_1473">[1473]</a> Kleinert assigns the book to the Exile; Ewald to the fifth or sixth -century; Driver to the fifth century (<i>Introd.</i><sup>6</sup>, 301); Orelli to the last -Chaldean or first Persian age; Vatke to the third century. These assign -generally to after the Exile: Cheyne (<i>Theol. Rev.</i>, XIV., p. 218: cf. art. -“Jonah” in the <i>Encycl. Brit.</i>), König (<i>Einl.</i>), Rob. Smith, Kuenen, -Wildeboer, Budde, Cornill, Farrar, etc. Hitzig brings it down as -far as the Maccabean age, which is impossible if the prophetic canon -closed in 200 <span class="small">B.C.</span>, and seeks for its origin in Egypt, “that land of -wonders,” on account of its fabulous character, and because of the -description of the east wind as <span class="heb">חרישׁית</span> (iv. 8), and the name of the -gourd, <span class="heb">קיקיון</span>, Egyptian <i>kiki</i>. But such a -wind and such a plant were -found outside Egypt as well. Nowack dates the book after Joel.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1474_1474" id="Footnote_1474_1474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1474_1474">[1474]</a> See above, Vol. I., -p. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_5">5</a>. -</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1475_1475" id="Footnote_1475_1475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1475_1475">[1475]</a> Below, pp. <a href="#Page_523">523</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1476_1476" id="Footnote_1476_1476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1476_1476">[1476]</a> Contrast the treatment of foreign states by Elisha, Amos and -Isaiah, etc.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1477_1477" id="Footnote_1477_1477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1477_1477">[1477]</a> Abridged from pp. 3 and 4 of Kleinert’s Introduction to the Book -of Jonah in Lange’s Series of Commentaries. Eng. ed., Vol. XVI.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1478_1478" id="Footnote_1478_1478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1478_1478">[1478]</a> Köhler, <i>Theol. Rev.</i>, Vol. XVI.; -Böhme, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1887, pp. 224 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1479_1479" id="Footnote_1479_1479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1479_1479">[1479]</a> Indeed throughout the book the truths it enforces are always -more pushed to the front than the facts.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1480_1480" id="Footnote_1480_1480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1480_1480">[1480]</a> Nearly all the critics who accept the late date of the book -interpret it as parabolic. See also a powerful article by the late -Dr. Dale in the <i>Expositor</i>, Fourth Series, Vol. VI., July 1892, pp. 1 ff. -Cf., too, C. H. H. Wright, <i>Biblical Essays</i> (1886), pp. 34–98.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1481_1481" id="Footnote_1481_1481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1481_1481">[1481]</a> Marck (quoted by Kleinert) said: “Scriptum est magna parte -historicum sed ita ut in historia ipsa lateat maximi vaticinii mysterium, -atque ipse fatis suis, non minus quam effatis vatem se verum demonstret.” -Hitzig curiously thinks that this is the reason why it has -been placed in the Canon of the Prophets next to the unfulfilled -prophecy of God against Edom. But by the date which Hitzig assigns -to the book the prophecy against Edom was at least in a fair way -to fulfilment. Riehm (<i>Theol. Stud. u. Krit.</i>, 1862, pp. 413 f.): “The -practical intention of the book is to afford instruction concerning the -proper attitude to prophetic warnings”; these, though genuine words -of God, may be averted by repentance. Volck (art. “Jona” in -Herzog’s <i>Real. Encycl.</i>²) gives the following. Jonah’s experience is -characteristic of the whole prophetic profession. “We learn from it -(1) that the prophet must perform what God commands him, however -unusual it appears; (2) that even death cannot nullify his calling; -(3) that the prophet has no right to the fulfilment of his prediction, -but must place it in God’s hand.” Vatke (<i>Einl.</i>, 688) maintains that -the book was written in an apologetic interest, when Jews expounded -the prophets and found this difficulty, that all their predictions -had not been fulfilled. “The author obviously teaches: (1) -since the prophet cannot withdraw from the Divine commission, he -is also not responsible for the contents of his predictions; (2) the -prophet often announces Divine purposes, which are not fulfilled, -because God in His mercy takes back the threat, when repentance -follows; (3) the honour of a prophet is not hurt when a threat is -not fulfilled, and the inspiration remains unquestioned, although many -predictions are not carried out.” -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -To all of which there is a conclusive answer, in the fact that, had -the book been meant to explain or justify unfulfilled prophecy, the -author would certainly not have chosen as an instance a judgment -against Niniveh, because, by the time he wrote, all the early predictions -of Niniveh’s fall had been fulfilled, we might say, to the -very letter.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1482_1482" id="Footnote_1482_1482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1482_1482">[1482]</a> So even Kimchi; and in modern times De Wette, Delitzsch, -Bleek, Reuss, Cheyne, Wright, König, Farrar, Orelli, etc. So virtually -also Nowack. Ewald’s view is a little different. He thinks that the -fundamental truth of the book is that “true fear and repentance -bring salvation from Jehovah.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1483_1483" id="Footnote_1483_1483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1483_1483">[1483]</a> Isa. xl. ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1484_1484" id="Footnote_1484_1484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1484_1484">[1484]</a> So virtually Kuenen, <i>Einl.</i>, II., p. 423; Smend, <i>Lehrbuch der -A. T. Religionsgeschichte</i>, pp. 408 f., and Nowack.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1485_1485" id="Footnote_1485_1485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1485_1485">[1485]</a> That the book is a historical allegory is a very old theory. -Hermann v. d. Hardt (<i>Ænigmata Prisci Orbis</i>, 1723: cf. <i>Jonas in</i> -<i>Carcharia, Israel in Carcathio</i>, 1718, quoted by Vatke, <i>Einl.</i>, p. 686) -found in the book a political allegory of the history of Manasseh led -into exile, and converted, while the last two chapters represent the -history of Josiah. That the book was symbolic in some way of -the conduct and fortunes of Israel was a view familiar in Great -Britain during the first half of this century: see the Preface to the -English translation of Calvin on Jonah (1847). Kleinert (in his -commentary on Jonah in Lange’s Series, Vol. XVI. English translation, -1874) was one of the first to expound with details the symbolising -of Israel in the prophet Jonah. Then came the article in the <i>Theol. -Review</i> (XIV. 1877, pp. 214 ff.) by Cheyne, following Bloch’s <i>Studien -z. Gesch. der Sammlung der althebräischen Litteratur</i> (Breslau, 1876); -but adding the explanation of <i>the great fish</i> from Hebrew mythology -(see below). Von Orelli quotes Kleinert with approval in the main.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1486_1486" id="Footnote_1486_1486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1486_1486">[1486]</a> Isa. xlii. 19–24.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1487_1487" id="Footnote_1487_1487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1487_1487">[1487]</a> Jer. li. 34, 44 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1488_1488" id="Footnote_1488_1488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1488_1488">[1488]</a> That the Book of Jonah employs mythical elements is an opinion -that has prevailed since the beginning of this century. But before -Semitic mythology was so well known as it is now, these mythical -elements were thought to have been derived from the Greek mythology. -So Gesenius, De Wette, and even Knobel, but see especially -F. C. Baur in Ilgen’s <i>Zeitschrift</i> for 1837, p. 201. Kuenen (<i>Einl.</i>, 424) -and Cheyne (<i>Theol. Rev.</i>, XIV.) rightly deny traces of any Greek -influence on Jonah, and their denial is generally agreed in. -</p> -<p class="fnote2"> -Kleinert (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 10) points to the proper source in the native -mythology of the Hebrews: “The sea-monster is by no means -an unusual phenomenon in prophetic typology. It is the secular -power appointed by God for the scourge of Israel and of the earth -(Isa. xxvii. 1)”; and Cheyne (<i>Theol. Rev.</i>, XIV., “Jonah: a Study in -Jewish Folk-lore and Religion”) points out how Jer. li. 34, 44 f., forms -the connecting link between the story of Jonah and the popular -mythology.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1489_1489" id="Footnote_1489_1489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1489_1489">[1489]</a> <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, 1892, pp. 40 ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1490_1490" id="Footnote_1490_1490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1490_1490">[1490]</a> 2 Chron. xxiv. 27.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1491_1491" id="Footnote_1491_1491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1491_1491">[1491]</a> Cf. Driver, <i>Introduction</i>, I., p. 497.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1492_1492" id="Footnote_1492_1492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1492_1492">[1492]</a> 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1493_1493" id="Footnote_1493_1493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1493_1493">[1493]</a> See Robertson Smith, Old Test. in the Jewish Church, pp. 140, 154.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1494_1494" id="Footnote_1494_1494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1494_1494">[1494]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_499">499</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1495_1495" id="Footnote_1495_1495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1495_1495">[1495]</a> Cf. Smend, <i>A. T. Religionsgeschichte</i>, p. 409, n. 1.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1496_1496" id="Footnote_1496_1496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1496_1496">[1496]</a> Matt. xii. 40—<i>For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three -days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the -earth three days and three nights</i>—is not repeated in Luke xi. 29, 30, -which confines the sign to the preaching of repentance, and is -suspected as an intrusion both for this and other reasons, e.g. that -ver. 40 is superfluous and does not fit in with ver. 41, which gives the -proper explanation of the sign; that Jonah, who came by his burial -in the fish through neglect of his duty and not by martyrdom, could -not therefore in this respect be a type of our Lord. On the other -hand, ver. 40 is not unlike another reference of our Lord to His -resurrection, John ii. 19 ff. Yet, even if ver. 40 be genuine, the vagueness -of the parallel drawn in it between Jonah and our Lord surely -makes for the opinion that in quoting Jonah our Lord was not -concerned about quoting facts, but simply gave an illustration from -a well-known tale. Matt. xvi. 4, where the sign of Jonah is again -mentioned, does not explain the sign.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1497_1497" id="Footnote_1497_1497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1497_1497">[1497]</a> Take a case. Suppose we tell slothful people that theirs will be -the fate of the man who buried his talent, is this to commit us to the -belief that the personages of Christ’s parables actually existed? Or -take the homiletic use of Shakespeare’s dramas—“as Macbeth did,” -or “as Hamlet said.” Does it commit us to the historical reality of -Macbeth or Hamlet? Any preacher among us would resent being -bound by such an inference. And if we resent this for ourselves, how -chary we should be about seeking to bind our Lord by it.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1498_1498" id="Footnote_1498_1498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1498_1498">[1498]</a> Eng. trans. of <i>The Twelve Minor Prophets</i>, p. 172. Consult also -Farrar’s judicious paragraphs on the subject: <i>Minor Prophets</i>, 234 f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1499_1499" id="Footnote_1499_1499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1499_1499">[1499]</a> The two attempts which have been made to divide the Book of -Jonah are those by Köhler in the <i>Theol. Rev.</i>, XVI. 139 ff., and by -Böhme in the <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, VII. 224 ff. Köhler first insists on traits of -an earlier age (rude conception of God, no sharp boundary drawn -between heathens and the Hebrews, etc.), and then finds traces of a -late revision: lacuna in i. 2; hesitation in iii. 1, in the giving of the -prophet’s commission, which is not pure Hebrew; change of three -days to forty (cf. LXX.); mention of unnamed king and his edict, -which is superfluous after the popular movement; beasts sharing -in mourning; also in i. 5, 8, 9, 14, ii. 2, <span class="heb">דָּגָה</span>, -iii. 9, iv. 1–4, as disturbing context; also the building of -a booth is superfluous, and only -invented to account for Jonah remaining forty days instead of the -original three; iv. 6, <span class="heb">להיות צל על ראשׁו</span> for an original <span class="heb">לְהַּצִּל לוֹ</span> = to offer him shade; 7, <i>the worm</i>, -<span class="heb">תולעת</span>, due to a copyist’s change of -the following <span class="heb">בעלות</span>. Withdrawing these, Köhler gets an account -of the sparing of Niniveh on repentance following a sentence of -doom, which, he says, reflects the position of the city of God in -Jeremiah’s time, and was due to Jeremiah’s opponents, who said in -answer to his sentence of doom: If Niniveh could avert her fate, -why not Jerusalem? Böhme’s conclusion, starting from the alleged -contradictions in the story, is that no fewer than four hands have -had to deal with it. A sufficient answer is given by Kuenen (<i>Einl.</i>, -426 ff.), who, after analysing the dissection, says that its “improbability -is immediately evident.” With regard to the inconsistencies -which Böhme alleges to exist in chap. iii. between ver. 5 and vv. 6–9, -Kuenen remarks that “all that is needed for their explanation is -a little good-will”—a phrase applicable to many other difficulties -raised with regard to other Old Testament books by critical attempts -even more rational than those of Böhme. Cornill characterises -Böhme’s hypothesis as absurd.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1500_1500" id="Footnote_1500_1500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1500_1500">[1500]</a> <i>To Thy holy temple</i>, vv. 5 and 8: -cf. Psalm v. 8, etc. <i>The waters -have come round me to my very soul</i>, ver. 6: cf. Psalm lxix. 2. <i>And -Thou broughtest up my life</i>, ver. 7: cf. Psalm xxx. 4. <i>When my soul -fainted upon me</i>, ver. 8: cf. Psalm cxlii. 4, etc. <i>With the voice of -thanksgiving</i>, ver. 10: cf. Psalm xlii. 5. The reff. are to the Heb. text.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1501_1501" id="Footnote_1501_1501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1501_1501">[1501]</a> Cf. ver. 3 with Psalm xviii. 7; ver. 4 with Psalm xlii. 8; -ver. 5 with Psalm xxxi. 23; ver. 9 with Psalm xxxi. 7, and ver. 10 with -Psalm l. 14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1502_1502" id="Footnote_1502_1502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1502_1502">[1502]</a> Budde, as above, p. 42.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1503_1503" id="Footnote_1503_1503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1503_1503">[1503]</a> De Wette, Knobel, Kuenen.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1504_1504" id="Footnote_1504_1504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1504_1504">[1504]</a> Budde.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1505_1505" id="Footnote_1505_1505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1505_1505">[1505]</a> <i>E.g.</i> Hitzig.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1506_1506" id="Footnote_1506_1506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1506_1506">[1506]</a> Luther says of Jonah’s prayer, that “he did not speak with these -exact words in the belly of the fish, nor placed them so orderly, but -he shows how he took courage, and what sort of thoughts his heart -had, when he stood in such a battle with death.” We recognise in -this Psalm “the recollection of the confidence with which Jonah -hoped towards God, that since he had been rescued in so wonderful -a way from death in the waves, He would also bring him out of the -night of his grave into the light of day.”</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1507_1507" id="Footnote_1507_1507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1507_1507">[1507]</a> ii. 5, B has λαόν for ναόν; i. 9, for <span class="heb">עברי</span> it reads <span class="heb">עבדי</span>, and takes the -<span class="heb">י</span> to be abbreviation for <span class="heb">יהוה</span>; ii. 7, for <span class="heb">בעדי</span> it reads <span class="heb">בעלי</span> and translates -κάτοχοι; iv. 11, for <span class="heb">ישׁ־בהּ</span> it reads <span class="heb">ישׁבו</span>, and translates κατοικοῦσι.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1508_1508" id="Footnote_1508_1508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1508_1508">[1508]</a> i. 4, <span class="heb">גדולה</span>, perhaps rightly omitted before following <span class="heb">גדול</span>; i. 8, -B omits the clause <span class="heb">באשר</span> to <span class="heb">לנו</span>, probably rightly, for it is needless, -though supplied by Codd. A, Q; iii. 9, one verb, μετανοήσει, for -<span class="heb">ישוב ונחם</span>, probably correctly, see below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1509_1509" id="Footnote_1509_1509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1509_1509">[1509]</a> i. 2, ἡ κραυγὴ τῆς κακίας for <span class="heb">רעתם</span>; ii. 3, τὸν θεόν μου after <span class="heb">יהוה</span>; -ii. 10, in obedience to another reading; iii. 2, τὸ ἔμπροσθεν after <span class="heb">קראיה</span>; -iii. 8, <span class="heb">לאמר</span>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1510_1510" id="Footnote_1510_1510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1510_1510">[1510]</a> iii. 4, 8.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXXV --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1511_1511" id="Footnote_1511_1511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1511_1511">[1511]</a> iv. 2.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1512_1512" id="Footnote_1512_1512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1512_1512">[1512]</a> For the grace of God had been the most formative influence in -the early religion of Israel (see Vol. I., -p. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43847/43847-h/43847-h.htm#Page_19">19</a>), -and Amos, only -thirty years after Jonah, emphasised the moral equality of Israel -and the Gentiles before the one God of righteousness. Given these -two premisses of God’s essential grace and the moral responsibility -of the heathen to Him, and the conclusion could never have been -far away that in the end His essential grace must reach the heathen -too. Indeed in sayings not later than the eighth century it is -foretold that Israel shall become a blessing to the whole world. -Our author, then, may have been guilty of no anachronism in -imputing such a foreboding to Jonah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1513_1513" id="Footnote_1513_1513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1513_1513">[1513]</a> Second Isaiah. See chap. lx.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1514_1514" id="Footnote_1514_1514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1514_1514">[1514]</a> See the author’s <i>Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land</i>, pp. 131–134.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1515_1515" id="Footnote_1515_1515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1515_1515">[1515]</a> Heb. <i>them</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1516_1516" id="Footnote_1516_1516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1516_1516">[1516]</a> So LXX.: Heb. <i>a great wind</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1517_1517" id="Footnote_1517_1517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1517_1517">[1517]</a> Heb. <i>on the sea</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1518_1518" id="Footnote_1518_1518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1518_1518">[1518]</a> Lit. <i>reckoned</i> or <i>thought</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1519_1519" id="Footnote_1519_1519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1519_1519">[1519]</a> Heb. <i>ropes</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1520_1520" id="Footnote_1520_1520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1520_1520">[1520]</a> The words <i>for whose sake is this evil</i> come <i>upon us</i> do not occur -in LXX. and are unnecessary.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1521_1521" id="Footnote_1521_1521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1521_1521">[1521]</a> Wellhausen suspects this form of the Divine title.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1522_1522" id="Footnote_1522_1522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1522_1522">[1522]</a> Heb. <i>dug</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1523_1523" id="Footnote_1523_1523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1523_1523">[1523]</a> <i>I knew how Thou art a God gracious.</i></p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XXXVI --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1524_1524" id="Footnote_1524_1524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1524_1524">[1524]</a> For the Babylonian myths see Sayce’s Hibbert Lectures; George -Smith’s <i>Assyrian Discoveries</i>; and Gunkel, <i>Schöpfung u. Chaos</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1525_1525" id="Footnote_1525_1525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1525_1525">[1525]</a> Passages in which this class of myths are taken in a physical -sense are Job iii. 8, vii. 12, xxvi. 12, 13, etc., etc.; and passages in -which it is applied politically are Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Jer. li. 34, 44; -Psalm lxxiv., etc. See Gunkel, <i>Schöpfung u. Chaos</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1526_1526" id="Footnote_1526_1526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1526_1526">[1526]</a> Chap. xvii. 12–14.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1527_1527" id="Footnote_1527_1527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1527_1527">[1527]</a> Jer. li. 34.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1528_1528" id="Footnote_1528_1528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1528_1528">[1528]</a> Heb. margin, LXX. and Syr.; Heb. text <i>us</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1529_1529" id="Footnote_1529_1529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1529_1529">[1529]</a> Jer. li. 44, 45.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1530_1530" id="Footnote_1530_1530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1530_1530">[1530]</a> Cheyne, <i>Theol. Rev.</i>, XIV. -See above, p. <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1531_1531" id="Footnote_1531_1531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1531_1531">[1531]</a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_511">511</a>, -on the Psalm of Jonah.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1532_1532" id="Footnote_1532_1532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1532_1532">[1532]</a> Above, p. 525, n. <a href="#Footnote_1525_1525">1525</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1533_1533" id="Footnote_1533_1533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1533_1533">[1533]</a> It is very interesting to notice how many commentators (<i>e.g.</i> -Pusey, and the English edition of Lange) who take the story in its -individual meaning, and therefore as miraculous, immediately try to -minimise the miracle by quoting stories of great fishes who have -swallowed men, and even men in armour, whole, and in one case at -least have vomited them up alive!</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1534_1534" id="Footnote_1534_1534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1534_1534">[1534]</a> See above, pp. <a href="#Page_511">511</a> f.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1535_1535" id="Footnote_1535_1535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1535_1535">[1535]</a> See above, p. 511, -nn. <a href="#Footnote_1500_1500">1500</a>, -<a href="#Footnote_1501_1501">1501</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1536_1536" id="Footnote_1536_1536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1536_1536">[1536]</a> The grammar, which usually expresses result, more literally runs, -<i>And Thou didst cast me</i>; but after the preceding verse it must be -taken not as expressing consequence but cause.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1537_1537" id="Footnote_1537_1537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1537_1537">[1537]</a> Read <span class="heb">אֵיךְ</span> for <span class="heb">אַךְ</span>, and with the LXX. take the sentence interrogatively.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XVII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1538_1538" id="Footnote_1538_1538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1538_1538">[1538]</a> Only in iii. 1, <i>second time</i>, and in iv. 2 are there any references -from the second to the first part of the book.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1539_1539" id="Footnote_1539_1539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1539_1539">[1539]</a> The diameter rather than the circumference seems intended -by the writer, if we can judge by his sending the prophet <i>one day’s -journey through the city</i>. Some, however, take the circumference as -meant, and this agrees with the computation of sixty English miles -as the girth of the greater Niniveh described below.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1540_1540" id="Footnote_1540_1540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1540_1540">[1540]</a> LXX. Codd. B, etc., read <i>three days</i>; other Codd. have the <i>forty</i> -of the Heb. text.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1541_1541" id="Footnote_1541_1541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1541_1541">[1541]</a> For a more detailed description of Niniveh see above on the -Book of Nahum, pp. <a href="#Page_98">98</a> ff.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1542_1542" id="Footnote_1542_1542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1542_1542">[1542]</a> <span class="heb">רחבות עיר</span>, Gen. x. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1543_1543" id="Footnote_1543_1543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1543_1543">[1543]</a> Gen. x. 12, according to which the Great City included, besides -Niniveh, at least Resen and Kelach.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1544_1544" id="Footnote_1544_1544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1544_1544">[1544]</a> And taking the present Kujundschik, Nimrud, Khorsabad and -Balawat as the four corners of the district.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1545_1545" id="Footnote_1545_1545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1545_1545">[1545]</a> iii. 2, iv. 11.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1546_1546" id="Footnote_1546_1546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1546_1546">[1546]</a> Compare the Book of Jonah, for instance, with the Book of -Nahum.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1547_1547" id="Footnote_1547_1547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1547_1547">[1547]</a> Cf. Herod. IX. 24; Joel i. 18; Virgil, <i>Eclogue</i> V., <i>Æneid</i> XI. 89 ff.; -Plutarch, <i>Alex.</i> 72.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1548_1548" id="Footnote_1548_1548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1548_1548">[1548]</a> LXX.: <i>and they did clothe themselves in sackcloth</i>, and so on.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1549_1549" id="Footnote_1549_1549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1549_1549">[1549]</a> So LXX. Heb. text: <i>may turn and relent, and turn</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1550_1550" id="Footnote_1550_1550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1550_1550">[1550]</a> The alleged discrepancies in this account have been already -noticed. As the text stands the fast and mourning are proclaimed -and actually begun before word reaches the king and his proclamation -of fast and mourning goes forth. The discrepancies might be -removed by transferring the words in ver. 6, <i>and they cried a fast, -and from the greatest of them, to the least they clothed themselves in -sackcloth</i>, to the end of ver. 8, with a <span class="heb">לאמר</span> or <span class="heb">ויאמרו</span> to introduce ver. 9. But, as said above -(pp. <a href="#Page_499">499</a>, 510, -n. <a href="#Footnote_1499_1499">1499</a>), it is more probable -that the text as it stands was original, and that the inconsistencies -in the order of the narrative are due to its being a tale or parable.</p> - -<!-- CHAPTER XVIII --> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1551_1551" id="Footnote_1551_1551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1551_1551">[1551]</a> Deut. xviii. 21, 22.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1552_1552" id="Footnote_1552_1552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1552_1552">[1552]</a> The Hebrew may be translated either, first, <i>Doest thou well to be -angry?</i> or second, <i>Art thou very angry?</i> Our versions both prefer -the <i>first</i>, though they put the <i>second</i> in the margin. The LXX. take -the <i>second</i>. That the second is the right one is not only proved by -its greater suitableness, but by Jonah’s answer to the question, -<i>I am very angry, yea, even unto death</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1553_1553" id="Footnote_1553_1553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1553_1553">[1553]</a> Heb. <i>the city</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1554_1554" id="Footnote_1554_1554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1554_1554">[1554]</a> <span class="heb">קִיקָיון</span>, the Egyptian kiki, the Ricinus or Palma Christi. See above, p. 498, n. <a href="#Footnote_1473_1473">1473</a>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1555_1555" id="Footnote_1555_1555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1555_1555">[1555]</a> Heb. adds <i>to save him from his evil</i>, perhaps a gloss.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1556_1556" id="Footnote_1556_1556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1556_1556">[1556]</a> Heb. <i>it</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1557_1557" id="Footnote_1557_1557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1557_1557">[1557]</a> <span class="heb">חֲרִישִׁית</span>. The Targum implies a <i>quiet</i>, i.e. <i>sweltering</i>, <i>east wind</i>. -Hitzig thinks that the name is derived from the season of ploughing -and some modern proverbs appear to bear this out: <i>an autumn east -wind</i>. LXX. συγκαίων Siegfried-Stade: <i>a cutting east wind</i>, as if from -<span class="heb">חרשׁ</span>. Steiner emends to <span class="heb">חריסית</span>, as if from <span class="heb">חֶרֶס</span> = <i>the piercing</i>, a poetic -name of the sun; and Böhme, <i>Z.A.T.W.</i>, VII. 256, to <span class="heb">חרירית</span>, from <span class="heb">חרר</span>, -<i>to glow</i>. Köhler (<i>Theol. Rev.</i>, XVI., p. 143) compares <span class="heb">חֶרֶשׁ</span>, <i>dried clay</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1558_1558" id="Footnote_1558_1558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1558_1558">[1558]</a> Heb.: <i>begged his life, that he might die</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1559_1559" id="Footnote_1559_1559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1559_1559">[1559]</a> Heb.: <i>which was the son of a night, and son of a night has -perished</i>.</p> - -<p class="fnote"><a name="Footnote_1560_1560" id="Footnote_1560_1560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1560_1560">[1560]</a> Gen. x. 12.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center vsmall"> -PRINTED BY<br /> -HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.,<br /> -LONDON AND AYLESBURY. -</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible; The Book of the -Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2 (of 2), by George Adam Smith - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE; TWELVE PROPHETS, VOL. 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