~be <!Catnbrftrgc 35tblt for ~tboobs anl:I <!to llcgc~. HAGGAI AND ZECHARIAH. iLonbon: c. J. CLA y AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. QI'.ambribge: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO, 1.tip)ig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. ~f)t Qtambrtbgt 13tblt for §,cDoolu anb <ltolltgtfS. GENERAL EDITOR:-J. J. s. PEROWNE, D.D. DEAN OF PETERBOROUGH. HAGGAI AND ZECH AR I AH, WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION BY THE VEN. T. T. PEROWNE, 13.D. ARCHDEACON OF NORWICH; LATE FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMllRIDGE. EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. QC.ambtib'gt : AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1890 [All Rights reserved.] Qtamhti'!Jgr: PRINTED BY C, J, CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY Pr.ESS, PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. THE General Editor of The Cambri'dge Bible for Schools thinks it right to say that he does not hold himself responsible either for the interpretation of particular passages which the Editors of the several Books have adopted, or for any opinion on points of doctrine that they may have expressed. In the New Testament more especially questions arise of the deepest theological import, on which the ablest and most conscientious interpreters have differed and always will differ. His aim has been in all such cases to leave each Contributor to the unfettered exercise of his own judgment, only taking care that mere controversy should as far as possible be avoided. He has contented himself. chiefly with a careful revision of the notes, with pointing out omissions, with 6 PREFACE. suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages, and the like. Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere, feeling it better that each Commentary should have its own individual character, and being convinced that freshness and variety of treatment are more than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in the Series. DEA!\ERY1 PETERBOROUGH. CONTENTS. PAGES I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. Chapter I. The Times of Haggai and Zechariah Chapter II. Chronological Table .................... II. INTRODUCTION TO HAGGAI. Chapter I. The Prophet Haggai Chapter II. Analysis of the Book III. TEXT AND NOTES ......................................... IV. INTRODUCTION TO ZECHARIAH. Chapter I. The Prophet Zechariah .............. 47-48 Chapter II. Unity of the Book .................... 49-57 Chapter III. Analysis of the Book ................. 5i-63 . V. TEXT AND NOTES APPENDIX. Note A. On the Title, The Lord of Hosts ........ ISI-153 Note· B. On Satan ...................................... 153-157 IKDEX ........................................................ * " The Text adopted in this Edition is that of Dr Scrivener's * Cambrid,ge Paragraph Bible. A few variations from the ordi• nary Text, chiefly in the spelling of certain words, and in the use of italics, will be noticed. For the principles adopted by Dr Scrivener as regards the printing of the Text see his In­ troduction to the Paragraph Bible, published by the Cambridge University Press. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. THE TIMES OF HAGGAI AND ZECHARIAH. J. IT was at a critical period of the history both of the Jewish nation and of the world at large, that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah lived and prophesied. By the taking of Babylon by Cyrus king of Persia, and the consequent development of the Persian Empire, a new era in the secular history of the world was inaugurated. With that event, as Dean Stanley has pointed out 1, we pass from the shadowy region of "primreval history," as he has called it, to the middle period of authentic "classical history," which intervenes between those earliest times and the "modern history" of the world. But with the taking of Babylon by Cyrns Jewish history also entered upon a new epoch. The overthrow of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, with which the previous, and as it might well have seemed the final stage of that history had closed, preceded only by a few years the capture of Babylon. The Jewish exiles were still in Babylon when Cyrus entered it2• It was his conquest of it, which was the immediate cause of their return to their own country and of the rebuilding of their city and temple. These last events were fraught with far weightier consequences to the world at large, than the taking of Babylon, or than any transition or advance, however great, in its merely secular history could produce. They led the way to the fulfilment of the promise in which the hope of the human race was bound up. They were a necessary step to the coming of Christ and to the introduction of Chris­ tianity, with the inestimable benefits which it has conferred 1 '.Jewish Church, vol. 111. p. 46. 2 Daniel v. ro INTRODUCTION. upon mankind. If Jerusalem had not been rebuilt and the ap­ parently defunct national existence of its people revived, as by a resurrection (rom the dead 1, then, humanly speaking, Christ could not have been born and died. The history of the world, the rise and fall of vast empires and mighty dynasties, waits upon and subserves the history of the sons of Abraham, because in the purpose of God, in the seed of Abraham all the families of the earth are to be blessed. To this critical and important period the two prophets with whom we are now concerned undoubtedly belong. The Book of Ezra, which contains the history of the return from Babylon, and of the events which followed immediately upon it, mentions them both by name, and describes the effect upon the people of their prophecies, of which the written records are preserved to us in these Books'. z. Scarcely had Cyrus added the Babylonian Empire to his dominions, and so gained for himself authority alike over the Jewish exiles in Babylon and over Palestine their country, when he issued an edict for their return. This to the Jews was no unexpected event. Not only had their captivity and the length ofits duration been foretold by the voice of prophecy, but Cyrus had been spoken of by name as their deliverer3• The remark­ .able circumstances which have been commonly supposed to have ~tended his capture of Babylon-" the stratagems by which the water was diverted, first in the Gyndes, and then in the Euphrates," "the ·hundred gates all of bronze along the vast circuit of the walls, the folding doors,-the two-leaved gates, which so carefully guarded the approaches of the Euphrates, opened as by magic for the conquerors4 ;" "must, it would seem, have belonged, not to the reign of Cyrus, but to that of Darius Hystaspes.... We have the express testimony of Cyrus himself that the city opened its gates to his general 'without fighting orbattle'5.'' But the capture itself and the safe conduct 1 Ezek. xxxvii. 1-14. 2 Ezra v. 1, 2; vi. r4. 3 Jeremiah xxv. 9-r3; xxix. 10-14; Isaiahxliv. 2S. 4 Stanley's :Jewisk Ckurck, vol. III. p. 58. 5 Prof. Sayce, Ezra and Nekemiak, p. 16. INTRODUCTION. II of the returning exiles through the vast desert that lay between Chaldea and Palestine, as by a causeway thrown up for a royal progress or the advance of a victorious army, had been an­ nounced beforehand 1. And now the event itself was to fulfil these prophecies and satisfy the expectations based upon them. The time to favour Zion was come, and He in whose hand is t'1e king's heart to turn it whithersoever He will, as the streams of water are guided by the cultivator into the channels which he has prepared for the irrigation of his land 2, "stirred up the spirit of Cyrus" to petfurm His will. 3. The .edict by which Cyrus invited the captives to return, and which he both proclaimed by heralds throughout all his kingdom and published as a written document, is preserved at the close of the second Book of Chronicles, and repeated in a fuller form in the opening verses of the Book of Ezra. "Jehovah, the God of heaven," so it ran, "nathgiven me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all His people, his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Jehovah the God of Israel, (He is the God,) which is in J eru­ salem. And whosoever remaineth, in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill 3 offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem .'' By what channel this "charge" reached Cyrus we are not now concerned to enquire. It may have been, that his atten­ tion had been directed by Daniel to the prophecy of Isaiah, which pointed him out by name as the restorer of Israel. It has been thought that the monotheism of his own Persian religion would dispose him to regard with favour and sympathy a people, whose pure monotheistic creed was in this respect so nearly akin to his own. But our present knowledge derived from the recently discovered tablet and cylinder inscriptions, renders this view no longer tenable. It appears now to be 1 Isaiah xliv. 28; xl. 3, 4. ~ Proverbs xxi. 1. 3 Ezra i. 2-4. See also '2 Chron, xxxvi. '2'2, z3, and I Esdrasii. 1-z, 12 INTRODUCTION. certain that Cyrus was, on his own testimony, an Elamite rather than a Persian, and as we should therefore expect, a polytheist. His conduct towards the Jews was in accordance with the general policy, the reverse of that of his Babylonian and Assyrian predecessors, which he appears to have adopted to­ wards conquered nations.