Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Ver. 9. " For then will I turn to the nations a pure lip, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve I lint icith one shoulder. Ver. 10. From beyond the rivers of Cush will they bring my u'orshij>j^crsy the daughter of my dispersed ones, as a meat-offering to me." By the explanatory Id the promise is connected with the threat of judgment. The train of thought is this: the believers are to wait for the judgment, for it will bring them redemption. The first clause in ver. 9 is explained in different ways. Many commentators understand by sdphdh bherurdh the lip of God, which He will turn to the nations through His holy servants. According to this view, Luther has adopted the rendering: u Then will I cause the nations to be preached to otherwise, with friendly lips, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord." But this view, which has been defended by Cocceius, Mark, and Hofmann (Schriftbeiceis, ii. 2, pp. 573-4), would only be admissible if bdrur signified clear, evident, — a meaning which Hofmann assumes as the ground of his explanation: u A clear, easily intelligible, unmistakeable lanfmaiie does God turn to the nations, to call them all in the name of Jehovah, that they may serve Him as one man." But, apart from the inadmissible rendering of '" Dtri Nip, this explanation, is proved to be erroneous by the fact that bdrur does not mean clear, intelligible; that even in

We I ire b re in Old 1 I rm the tl ia relation the I tee who fa leu a. im the call • the proj by flying in all directions to their own homes, for example even to Cosh, and who having become converted, offer to the Lord the gift that is His duo. But, apart from the parallel paasage in ha. brvL 20, which alone is qnite decisive, this view is proved to be untenable by lath pMxti, daughter of my dispersed ones. The thought that Jehovah disperses the heathen, either at the judgment or through the judgment, is foreign to the whole of the Old Testament, as Hitzig himself appears to have felt, when he changed puts, to disperse, into its very opposite— namely, to come home. The thought, on the other hand, that God will disperse His people Israel among all nations on account of their sins, and will hereafter gather them together again, is a truth expressed even in the song of Moses,

(1 John i; / phaniah explains what by adding the assurance of the blessing which is promised in the law us the reward of faithful walk in the commandments <'f the Lord. This reason rests upon the assumption that they only rejoice in the promised blessing who walk in the commandments of God. In this respect the enjoyment of the blessing yields a practical proof that wrong and wickedness occur no more. The words ^"Ji *>T;' may be explained from the comparison of the remnant of Israel to a flock both in Mie. vii. 14 and Luke xii. 32 ("little flock;" for the fact itself, compare Mic. iv. 4). This blading is still further developed in what follows, first of all by a reference to the removal of the judgments of God (vers. 14-17), and secondly by the promise of God that ihi liiitpih.u and rather together that wi />ersed, and make tltem a prtrisi aid a name M every land of their shame. \ er. 20. At that time will I hring you and gather you in time; for I will make you a name and a pfWSM among all the nations of the earth} when I tu7*ji your eaj>tivity before your eyes, iotth JehovaJL* The salvation held up in prospect before the remnant of Israel, which has been refined by the judgments and delivered, was at a very remote distance in Zephaniah's time.

1 M He assumes the person of a mortal man, because, unless He stammers in this manner, He cannot sufficiently show how much He loves us. Thy God will therefore be quiet in His love, i.e. this will be the greatest delight of thy God, this His chief pleasure, when He shall cherish thee. As a man caresses his dearest wife, so will God then quietly repose in thy love." — Calvin.

The first thing that awaited the nation was the judgment, through which it was to be dispersed among the heathen, rding to the testimony of M - and all the prophets, and I in the furnace of affliction. The ten tribes ■ already carried away into exile, and Judah was to share the same fate immediately afterwards. In order, then fore, to offer t<> the pious a linn consolation of hope in the period oi Mittcrinc that awaited them, and one on which their faith could i in the mi 1st of tribulation, Zephaniah mentions in conclusion the gathering together of all who pine in misery al a distance mourn, or ho troubled. Md'id, the time of the feast, when all [srael gathered together to rejoice before Jehovah, as in IIos.

Xii. 10, except that the Word IS Hot to 1 ictod to tllC fea-t of tabernacles, hot may he and lating to all the feasti to which pilgrimages were made. The preposition mim is taken by many in th< far from; in support of which

Hit/.ie- appeals to Lam. i. 4. lint that pa i ather (.pp.

causal surnification is to he retained here also, if only because of the dose connection between *W and ""V":*:, according to which the dependent word can only denote the object or occa- meeting are they who mourn hecan -e they cannot participate in the joy of assembling i the face of the Lord, namely, expressing descent or origin, as in Isa. hriiL L2, Ezra ii. 59, l>s. Lwiii. 27; and the whole clause containing the reason for their meeting). The explanation given by Anton and Strauss is unsuitable and forced: " They will be away from thee, namely, separated from thee as mourners." In the last clause it is a matter of dispute to what the suffix in if$j refers. The explanation of Strauss, that it refers to Zion, is precluded by the fact that Zion is itself addressed, both in what precedes and what follows, and the thought does not require so rapid a change of persons. It is more natural to refer it to W, in which ease the singular suffix is used collectively as a neuter, like the femininea ny>vn and nrnin; and the meaning takes this form: a burden upon them, viz. those who mourned for the feasts, was the reproach, sc. of slavery among the heathen (compare ver. 19, at the close). Consequently the clause assigns a still further reason for the promise, that they are to be gathered together. In ver. 19, niry with nx signifies neither to handle in an evil sense, nor comprimere, conculcare, but to treat or negotiate with a person, as in Ezek. xxiii. 25 and xvii. 17, where nix, according to a later usage of the language, is a ] (reposition, and not a sign of the accusative. The more precise definition of the procedure, or of the kind of negotiation, is evident from the context. The reference is to a punitive procedure, or treating in wrath, T^VP as in Ps. lx. 14, the heathen nations who had subjugated Israel. What follows is taken almost verbatim from Mic. iv. 6; and the last clause points back to Deut. xx vi. 19, to tell the people that the Lord will assuredly realize the glorification promised to the people of His possession, and make Israel an object of praise to the whole earth. DW3 H?t?^> *n a^ lands, where they have suffered shame. Boshtdm is epexegetical of hadrets, which governs it; this explains the use of the article with the nomen regens (cf. Ewald, § 290, d). In order to paint the glory of the future salvation in still more vivid colours before the eyes of the people, the Lord ends by repeating this promise once more, with a slight change in the words. At that time will I lead you. The indefinite K^K might be expounded from the context, by supplying the place to which God will lead them, after such passages as Isa. xiv. 2, xliii. 5. But it is more natural to think of the phrase, to lead out and in, according to Num. xxvii. 17, and to take N^N as an abbreviation of N^ni fcOtf n> picturing the pastoral fidelity with which the Lord will guide the redeemed. The following words B^riX *5f3£ point to this: compare Isa. xl. 11, where the gathering of the lambs is added to the feeding of the flock, to give- prominence to the faithful care of the shepherds for the weak and helpless. "^P is the infinitive: my gathering you, sc, will take place. The choice of this form is to be traced, as Hitzig supposes, to the endeavour to secure uniformity in the clauses. A fresh reason is then assigned for the promise, by a further illusion to the glorification appointed the peopl. above all the is of the earth, coupled with nt that this will tal al the turning of tl tptivity, when God i ibolish the

luallv un Igh the I of the name of the Lord and Hil all nations, and Will be eventually and 1 dized at the second coining of OJ to the last judgment, and to perfect Ili^ kingdom in the establishment of the New Jerusalem (Rev. wi. and \\ii.). It lb true that both the judgment and the salvation of the remnant of brael seeking Jehovah and Hi^ righteousness commenced d before Christ, with the giving up of Judah, together with all the tribes and kingdoms Falling within the horizon of OKI I: prophecy, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar and the imperial rulera who followed him; bat so far a iuestion of the fulfilment of our prophecy is concerned, these events come into consideration merely as preliminary 9 of and prepara- tions for the times of d cision, which commenced with Christ not only for the Jews, but for all nations.

S imaritani >. to. and in common with the j: Zechariah, who couuues* laboot months i of i of his life have no evidence at all to support them. This is tl;. fot example, with the statement of Fa, Dofothenfl an 1 Pa, Bpiphanioa, thai Ha came from Babylon to Jerosalem when quite i young man, and that he survived the rebuilding <>f the temple, and was tinv me and Cyril of Alexandria, and which arose from a misinterpretation of the word "s^p in ch. i. 13, \ iz. that II a

I who appeared in human shape. And Ewald's conjecture, that Haggai had seen the temple of Solomon, cannot be inferred from ch. ii. 3. In that case lie would have n about eighty years old when he commenced his labours as a prophet.

2. Tite Book of Haggai contains four words of God uttered by the prophet in the second year of the reign of Darius

in the law. They had also bo far made the rebuilding of the temple, that even in the second month of the second year after their return they ie conl ind object of tl s viz. the circumstance that they are chiefly occupied with the command to Wild the temple, and attach great promises to the performance *f '- ' v rk« (an ™*7 be explained in part, however, from the t that the fidelity of the nation towards its God showed itself in zeal for the house of God. The deeper and truer

Since thi miah wu fulfilled, to in the line of Solomon, hot Neri, i & icendant m but that the latter had only a daughter, who married a man of the family of her father's tribe, according to the law of the heiresses. Num. xxvii. 8, xx.xvi. 8, 9— namelv Xeri, who belonged to the tribe of Judah and family of David. From

tune jor the house of Jehovah to be built." f*n r;-, i^, / | Ufa* not my people, or Jehovah's people, but ho::/hn\u in a contemptuous sense. Of the two clauses, (a) « It is not time to come," and (b) « The time of the house of Jehovah/' the latter gives the more precise definition of the former, the to (to come) being explained as meaning the time to build the house of Jehovah. The meaning is simply this: the time has not yet arrived to come and build the house of Jehovah; for *6 in tins connection signifies "not yet," as in Gen. ii. 5, Job xxn. 16. A distinction is drawn between coming to the house of Jehovah and building the house, as in ver. 14. There is no ground, therefore, for altering the text, as Hitzig proposes, inasmuch as the defective mode of writing the infinitive K3 is

I -, •, i I..i.. i, |..,-jr civil and politi< al condition could nol be ag utinnmiTf. tliat that a

which they procured yielded no warmth; and the wagee which the day-labourer earned vani>hed ju^t as raj.idlv U if it had been placed in a bag full of holes (cf. Lev. xxvi. 26; Hoa. iv.

1 Calvin and Osiander see a doable curse in ver. 6. The former ■

"■ Ue know that God punishes men in both ways, both bv withdrawing His blessing, so that the earth is parched, and the heaven gives no rain and also, even when there is a good supply of the fruits of the earth, by preventing their satisfying, so that there is no real enjoyment of them. It often happens that men collect what would be quite a sufficient quantity for food, but for all that, are still always hungry. This kind of cur is seen the more plainly when God deprives the bread and wine of their true virtue, so that eating and drinking fail to support the strength."

hut little wm rasped, and the little that wm brought hon I awaj without doing any good To tl i this taken place 1 that lie may impress the cans* With the ater emphaSM upon their hardened mind. I;rie reason he inaertl once more, between the question and the answer, the words "is the saying of Jehovah of hosts," that the answer may not be mistaken for a subjective riew, but laid to heart as a declaration of the God who rules the world. The choice of the form HD for HO was probablv occasioned by the guttural V in the R, which is closely connected with it, just as the analogous use of no^y instead of ncrfy in Isa. i. 5 pi ii., and Joshua as the high priest, are ii"t in thf passages qu: i, when thoae who arc deacribed as the sftfMtA, or raoanaat, ere memben or portions of the whole in mamliuil The u remnant of the people," a^ in Zech. viii. 6, ii clause I ~-~. which be had to speak according to the command of God | Hitzig); cf. Mic. iii. 4. The first fruit of the hearing was, that the people feared before Jehovah; the second il mentioned in ver. 14, namely, that they resinned the building of the temple. Their fearing before Jehovah presupposes that they saw their sin against God, and discerned in the drought a judgment from God.

This penitential state of mind on the part of the people and their rulers was met by the Lord with the promise of His assistance, in order to elevate this disposition into determina-

1 his companions, who had made inquiries concerning the command to build, did not stop the building while they sent

M affair to the king (Ezra v. 5). Moreover, the conjecture that the people had been seized with a feelin- of the v. id so far ail exhorti khan to eontnrae the work in comfort, and them thai the Lord will ba with them, and fulfil B promiaee. Iha mMtfioa in iddraaad to I,„..„, who had nan Botoaoo'i temple in all its glory. Then might be man J add) man still living as it was only Mxtv-seven or sixty- eight yean nnce the -tion of the Bm temple, "wwn is the predicate to the ml jecfl t), and baa the article becani defined by the reflex action of the relative danae which folloi et qmlm Metis, In what condition do j it now? is appended to the last clause of the first qaeetkm: the house which ye saw in its former -lory. There then follows with ICfto, m the form of a lively assurance, the statement of the difference betue.n the two buildings. RTJ Vital, which has been interpreted in very different ways, may be explained from the double use of the 3 in comparisons, which is common in Hebrew, and which answers to our as—so: here, however, it is used in the same way as in Gen. xviii. 25 and xliv. 18; that is to say, the object to be compared is mentioned first, and the object with which the comparison is instituted is mentioned afterwards, in this sense, " so is it, as haying no existence," in which case we should either leave out the first particle of comparison, or if it were expressed, should have to reverse the order of the words: " as not existing (nothing), so is it in your eyes." Koehler gives this correct explanation; whereas if tflba be explained according to Joel ii. 2, its equal, Of Mich an one, we get the unsuitable thought, that it is not the temple itself, but something like the temple, that is compared to nothing. Even in 1. xliv. 18, to which Ewald very properly refers as containing a perfectly equivalent phrase, it is not a man equal to Joseph, but.' b. -If. who is compared to Pharaoh, and described

|Ual to him. Nevertheless they are not to let their con: til, but to be comforted and to work. Chdzaq, to be inwardly strong, L$, t<> be comforted. 'J -</•'. to work or procure d Rath ii. L9 and Prov, \wi. 13, in actual fact, to continue tin- work of building bravely, without there being any. roioc from ch. i. 14. For Jehovah will be with them (cf. ch. i. 13). In confirmation of tins promise the them. cannot be cither the with, or the tive of norm <»r measure (Luther, Calvin, and other-). To conned it with \l<u yields no suitable meaning. It i> not the word, which they 1 * 1 to the Lord, at the conclusion of the covenant, that they are to do now, but the work which they had begun, viz. the building of the temple, they are new to continue. It is perfectly arbitrary to supply the verb zikhru, remember (Ewald and HengStenberg), and to understand the prophet as reminding them of the word u fear not" (Ex. xx. 17 (20)). That word, " fear not," with which Moses, not God, infused courage into the people, who were alarmed at the terrible phenomenon with which Jehovah came down upon Sinai, lias no such central significance as that Haggai could point to it without further introduction, and say that Jehovah had concluded it with them on their coming out of Egypt. The word which the Lord concluded with Israel when He led it out of Egypt, can only be the promise which established the covenant, to the fulfilment of which God bound

Himself in relation to the people, when He led them out of Egypt, namely, the word that He would make Israel into His own property out of all nations (Ex. xix. 5, 6; Deut. vii. 6; cf. Jer. vii. 22, 23, and xi. 4). It would quite agree with this to take \t1i as the accusative of the norm, and also to connect it as a preposition, if this could only be shown to be in accordance with the rules of the language. But although the accusative in Hebrew is often used, in the relation of free subordination, u to express more precisely the relation of measure and size, space and time, mode and kind" (cf. Ewald, § 204-206), it is impossible to find any example of such an accusative of norm as is here assumed, especially with yeth preceding it. But if 'ith were a preposition instead of EDnx, we should have D3^V, inasmuch as the use of "OTrrnR, as a parallel to E?nxy makes the words clumsy and awkward. The thought which Haggai evidently wishes to express requires that hadddbhdr should stand upon the same line with ruchi, so that ' ' eth-hadddbhdr is actually the subject to 'omedeth, and yeth is simply used to connect the new declaration with the preceding one, and to place it in subjection to the one which follows, in the sense of " as regards," quoad (Ewald, § 277, d, pp. 683-4), in which case the choice of the accusative in the present instance may either be explained from a kind of attraction (as in the Latin, urbera quam statuo vestra est), as Hitzig supposes, or from the blending together of two constructions, as Koehler maintains; that is to say, Haggai intended to write WJPJ5J Wl| "irnrrnx, but was induced to alter the proposed construction by the relative clause 'U1 wa "IBW attaching itself to "9"??. Consequently 'omedeth, as predicate, not only belongs to ruchi, but also to hadddbhdr, in the sense of to have continuance and validity; and according to a later usage of the language, "T?V is used for Dip, to stand fast (compare Isa. xl. 8 with Dan. xi. 14). The word, that Israel is the property of Jehovah, and Jehovah the God of Israel, still stands in undiminished force; and not only so, but His Spirit also still works in the midst of Israel. Riidch, in parallelism with the word containing the foundation of the covenant, is neither the spirit of prophecy (Chald., J. D. Mich.), nor the spirit which once filled Bezaleel and his companions (Ex. xxxi. 1 sqq., xxxvi. 1 sqq.), enabling them to erect the tabernacle in a proper manner, and one well-pleasing to God

to, hut also in Hah. iii. 6, the inaaifeatatioa of Gh I upon Sinai is represented as a trembling or shaking of the earth, whereby the powen of the heaven won- iet in motion, and the heavens dropped down water. The approaching shaking of the world will be much more violent; it will affect the heaven and the earth in all their parts, the sea and the solid ground, and also the nations. Then will the condition of the whole of the visible creation and of the whole of the world of nations be altered. The shaking of the heaven and the earth, i.e. of the universe, is closely connected with the shaking of all nations. It is not merely a figurative representation or symbol,

▼«r. 8 their gold tad uWer, or their imwm and nrhos; At bat among the heathen (Theod. Mopa. Cajf

Cannot be the accuaatire of direction, aiare that the ■nthl come to the trrajum of all the

o praniae doaea with this Kb ry of this house will l«- pi ^ regarded ara have taken it so, afr«-r the P aa a«?' be bas< -l the i lea, that through^ all agi only with its present miseral lition. 1 earlier writers — namely, whether by the b< temple to onderstaiid the templs of Z;: ibd or the temple as alt by 1 the third — the temple will also lie i lasting one* T implied in the closing wordi of the prosnises u And in this place will I peace/' "This place*1 is not the temple, but J lem, as the place where the tern] ad the"] piritoal

• -, but external peace, which does indeed in ita perfect form include spiritual | M WelL Thi ident from propheev, WO must keep the two features quite distinct — (a) the shaking of heaven and earth and all nations; (b) the consequence of this shaking the coming of the heathen with their possessions to the glorification of the temple — although they both stand in close connection. The earlier commentators were no doubt generally right, when they sought for the fulfilment in the establishment of the new covenant through Christ; they simply erred in referring the predicted shaking of the nations and the promised glorification of the temple in too one-sided and exclusive a manner to the coming of Christ in the flesh, to His teaching in the temple, and to the establishment of the kingdom of heaven through the preaching of the gospel. They were thereby compelled, on the one hand, to force upon the prophecy a meaning irreconcilable with the words themselves, and, on the other hand, to seek for its fulfilment in historical particulars to some extent of very subordinate importance.

which r Inst the.' Hii Christ is broken, and the world which has been thrown into confu by the sin of men, and is made subject to corruptibility on their account, shall perish, and the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, for which we are looking, shall be established (2 Pet. iii. 12, 13;.1

1 Aug. Koeklflt also assumes that the ultimate fulfilment of our prophecy will not take place till the second coming of Christ, although he is

Um falnlmrtit of these crcote oagat to hare uarn place with Um coming of Jean* of Nsanreth, to establish the new covenant as the Mca» v covenant, and ha-* at any rate in part already become the people ot Consequently the events predicts i i y i laggai

Haggai announced aa |Cfl OVC *• been postponed f«>r man I years. Thia is K w. But if there bed really been her God was mistaken as t<> t: r time for l - Son, or in His jr. as to the moral condition of Israel. If Koehler this clearly to his own mind, he would certainly have hoc. built up a view on the basis of an erroneous idea of the day of the I which necessarily leads to the denial)j«-t only of the divine i e or but also of the supernatural character of the Old prophe< 1 We must not, however, include the additions to Zerubbabel's temple

y dVecent, the work wa* oot uadert*. from am the I*rd, bat (a* Calvin, and Hmgsteuberg. GarifftW i prophecy, in order to prevent Um owning of the kingdom was that it would pot aa end to his car

Um peoj <*u»g them that the temple built after the return of the father* from exile waa «ull sixty cubit* who are the rulers of the whole world' H< « at ■ ' Ml has called to the government ha* gold and silver — ongh And the words " in this place will I give peace ■ are now fulfilled. The manner in which he strained kingdom of God at the time «, and that by the fa that all the heathen nations will dedicate their | to it.

This glorification of the hooae of God commenced with the introduction of the kingdom of heaven, which Jeans Christ preached, and of which He laid the foundation in Hu church. And whilst the stone-temple at Jerusalem built hv Zerubbabd and splendidly finished by Herod fell into ruins! became the Jews had rejected their Saviour, and crucified Him, this has been carried on through the spread of the kingdom of God among the nations of the earth, and will be completed at the end of the course of this world; not, however, hv the erection of a new and much more glorious temple in Jerusalem, but in the founding of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God upon the new earth, after the overthrow of all the powers of the world that are hostile to God. This holy city will have the glory of God {rj 86£a rov Beov = HJ.T -TU3), but no temple; because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Into this holy city of God will the kings ild beat n II. Meeting iim again. The ninth month in i. I the middle* December, when the winter ed after the I had set in, so that in t mdant fall of this rain they might

;.i." In or ler to impress most >tly upon the hearts of t pie the fact that it was through their sin that they brought upon themselves the failure of crops that had hitherto prevailed, viz. as a punishment from God, the prophet proposes two questions concerning holy and clean for the priests tnswer, in order that he may make an application of the answer they give to the moral condition of the nation. TOrdh in ver. 11, without the article, is used in its primary signification of instruction, and is governed by «/fi accus. rei: to ask a person anything, for to ask or solicit anything from him. The first question has reference to the communication of the holiness of holy objects to other objects brought into contact with them: whether, if a person carried holy flesh in

After tl il to lay to heart the nasi rime during which the bleeu 1 been withhel I, Haggaj called npoo ti le ah this day for will I The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month was the day on which Haggaj uttered this word of God

(ver. 10). Hence fyJJ?J in wr. U is to be understood as denoting the direction towards the future (Itala, Vulg., and many eomm.). This is evident partly from the fact, that only in that case can the repetition of 02227 Wp in ver. 18 (end), and the careful announcement of the point of time (from the twenty-fourth day, etc.), be simply and naturally explained, and partly from the fact that min hayyOm hazzeh (from this day) is not explained here, as in ver. 15, by a clause pointing back to

tin-:•: i ■ sraasaid ia tae raign of C jro*, ta ti.«- monad yaar lie return from Babjrlon, but alao make* the prophet •gai contrad..self in a be i» to their simple meaning, express the earning on or f the I ^ with the L the statement, ik I did work ot 1 tenable proof of I N r can list assumption that I'm in is synonymous v I ie statement, '* that fmin only differs from rnin in the greater emphasis with winch it is 8] I aid (§ 81fi a.s ire have just ahoWB, such an assumption vi- -Ids n<> appropriate meaning. fo> followed d indeed <

Wed instead of the simple mm. Hut if we look D at the passag-. 7; J nn. vii. n), the ^ is n.\»r superfluous; and Ptnin is simply used in cases where the definition so introduced is not closely Connected with what goes before, but is meant fto be brought out as an indolent assertion or additional definition, so that in all such cases the / " has the DOCoBof force of a brief allusion to something not to be overlooked, a retrospective glance at the separate parts, or a rapid summary of the whole, like our 'with regard to/ 'as regards' (Lat. quoad)-" and it only fails to correspond entirely to this, " from the fact that? is only expressible in the softest manner, and indeed in ^>ur language can hardly be expressed in words at all, though it quite perceptibly yields this sense" (Ewald, § 310). fl?i?P< is also I in this sense in Dan. i. 18 instead of MPD (ver. 15), whilst in other cases (e.g. in p^rnpb jn 2 Sam. vii. 19) it indicates the thetical thought; tl we mi nine that the prophet, in order to set clearly I their minds the difference d the past when the building of the temple wai mepended, and the future commencing with thai lay, before promSaing the bleating of God to be enjoyed in the future, dire iher look at the peat, and thai from the time of the laying of the foundation of the temple in the reign of Cyrm to bu <>wn time, and remindi then:;' the waul of bleating which they had experienced from that time forth even to the present time. KoeluWl objection to this view cannot BJttaineA He says, " The Jews are t i rvc the time from that day forward, namely, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (backwards); the time from the laying of the foundation of the tempi' in the reign of Cynu (forwardt),...

ii a mod-' of expression seems utterly out of place." Bat this only affects the erroneous assumption, that the definition "from the day of the laying of the foundation of the temple" is merely a more precise explanation of tin- previous definition, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, and falls to the ground of itself as soon as these two detentions are separated, as the expression and the matter in hand require. The second objection — namely, that the day of the laying of the foundation of the temple in the reign of Oynu does not suit as a terminus a quo for the commencement of the withdrawal of the divine favour, or for the infliction of a curse upon the people, inasmuch as the Jews were not punished because they laid the foundation for the house of Jehovah, but simply because they neglected the house of God, that is to say, because they desisted from the building they had already begun — is one that would have some force if an interval of at least one or more years had elapsed between the laying of the foundation of the temple and the suspension of the building. But if the work of building was interrupted immediately after the foundation had been laid, as is evident from Ezra iii. 10, as compared with ch. iv., Haggai might with perfect propriety describe the whole time from the laying of the foundation of the temple in the reign of Cyrus to the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month of the second year of Darius as a time without blessing, without there being any necessity for him expressly to deduct

Zerobbftbd I jnet-ri: • from the importance of the signet-ring in the eyes of an oriental, who is accustomed to carry his signet-ring constantly about with him, and to take care of it as a very valuable possession. It is introduced with the same idea in the Song of Sol. viii. 6, " Lay me as a signetring upon thy breast, as a signet-ring in thine arms;" and it is in the same sense that Jehovah says of Jehoiachin in Jer. xxii. 24, "Though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim were even a signet-ring upon my right hand, i.e. a possession from which it would be thought impossible that I should separate myself, yet would I tear thee away from thence." Hence we obtain this thought for our present passage, namely, that on the

-. /. irii i name of frequent occurrence in the of priestly d< o of / I grandson of

LKlo (ch. i. 1, 7)j th<: of one of tin- priestly families, that returned from exile with Zernbbabel and.Joshua (Neh.

xi i. 4). He followed his grandfather in that office Quota the high priest Jehoiakim (Neh. xii. lt>), from which it has been justly concladed that he retained from Babylon while still a youth, and that his father died JTOOng. This also probably serves to explain the fact that Z«*chariah is called bar 'Iddo\ the son (grandson) of Iddo, in Ezra v. 1 and vi. 14, and that his father is passed over. lie commenced his prophetic labours in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, only two months later than his contemporary Haggai, in common with whom he sought to stimulate the building of the temple (Ezra v. 1, vi. 14), and that while he was still of youthful age, as we may infer partly from the facts quoted above, and partly from the epithet?pn lysn (the young man) in ch. ii. 8 (4), which refers to him. On the other hand, the legends handed down by the fathers, which are at variance with the biblical accounts, to the effect that Zechariah returned from Chaldaea at an advanced age, that he had previously predicted to Jozadak the birth of his son Joshua, and to Shealtiel the birth of Zerubbabel, and had shown to Cyrus his victory over Croesus and Astyages by means of a miracle (Ps. Dor., Ps. Epiph., Hesych., and others), are not worth noticing. It is impossible to determine how long acti«>n which closes t "-. 1 1 BO mpletion of in His own person the dignity th priest and king. If we compare with these the last two L we have tir-t of all a pictore of the judgment the kii I the

(ch. ix. x.), and secondly, re minute ription of the attitude of the Lord towards t ind the heathen world (ch. xi.); and in ch. xii.-xiv. we have an announcement of the conflict of the nations of the world with Jerusalem, of the conversion of Israel to the Messiah, whom it once rejected and put to death (ch. xii. xiii.); and lastly, of the final attack of the heathen world upon the city of God, with its consequences, — namely, the purification and transfiguration of Jerusalem into a holy dwelling-place of the Lord, as King over the whole earth (ch. xiv.); so that in both oracles the develop-

"»« »«tion before the eaptiritr even when the Tvrian,:iI,d PhilMne. ste threatened wiih dmne rotr.but,.„ for having sold tothe Javanites the prisoners ot.iiulali and Jerusalem (Joel iii. 6).

On the other hand, the differences whieh prevail between the first two prophecies of Zecharmh and the last two are not o such a character as to point to two or three different pro- Id** It.s true that in ch. «.-xiv. there occur no ^ ^ ting Dpoo ti. of predeceaaon is net r in his caaa than in that of many of the prophet the captivitv. The prophetic addreaaea an nt rich in repetitions, eapeciallj in ch« rii and viii., and tolerably uniform -, hut in the leal two oraclea they rise into?erj bold and moat original views and figures, which vidently the production of;i lively and youthful imagination. This abundance of verv unu>ual figune, COUl with much har>h;

expression and transitions without intermediate lin the work of exposition a very difficult one; so that Jerome the rabbini raise fety general, hut still greatly ex ated, lamentatioi r the i tit J of this prophet. The diction is, on the whole, five from Chaldaiama, and formed upon the model of £ood earlier writ- r-. i' t the proofs of this, as well as for the exegetical literature, see my Ltkrbuek dcr Einleitwig,

The first word of the Lord was addressed to the prophet Zechariah in the eighth month of the second year of the reign of Darius, and therefore about two months after Han-fiai's first prophecy and the commencement of the rebuilding of the temple, which that prophecy was intended to promote (compare ver. 1 with Hag. i. 1 and 15), and a few weeks after Haggai's prophecy of the great glory which the new temple would although it >mmunica( phel in the form of a from ( ■:. if actually only the introduction

| the k m of Judah, and of Jerusalem

nation I _s of God for tl. ll under the form of

I to dec. duty of His people, or the condition

upon which it will be becoming in God to grant them an abundant tu] of those good things.'' — YiTKi' *m. in Sack. p. V

ami the temple, and also in exile. The Statement in ver. 15, that.Jehovah Vtafl angry D£D, is not at variance with this; for refer to the strength of the anger, but to its duration, fpDKl jg the }'>'/• with Van cons$en and is used for the imperative, because the summons to repentance follows as a necessary conseqnence from the fact stated in ver. 2 (of. Ewald, § 342, b and c). Dn?s does not refer to the fathers, which might appear to be grammatically the simplest interpretation, but to the contemporaries of the prophet, addressed in the pronoun your fathers, the existing generation of Jndah. •JSj ORB* does not presuppose that the people had just fallen away from the Lord again, or had lost all their pleasure in the continuance of the work of building the temple, but simply that the return to the Lord was not a perfect one, not a thorough conversion of heart. So had Jehovah also turned to the people again, and had not only put an end to the sufferings of exile, but had also promised His aid to those who had returned (compare B3nx ^K Jn Hag. i. 13); but the more earnestly and the more thoroughly the people turned to Him, the more faithfully and the more gloriously would He bestow upon them His grace and the promised salvation. This admonition is shown to be extremely important by the threefold " saith the Lord of Zebaoth," and strengthened still further in ver. 4 by the negative turn not to do like the fathers, who cast the admonitions of the prophets to the winds. The " earlier prophets" are those before the captivity (cf. ch. vii. 7, 12). The predicate DtftflTl points to the fact that there was a gap between Zechariah and his predecessors, namely the period of the exile, so that Daniel and Ezekiel, who lived in exile, are overlooked; the former because his prophecies are not admonitions addressed to the people, the latter because the greater part of his ministry fell in the very commencement of the exile. Moreover, when alluding to the admonitions of the earlier prophets, Zechariah has not only such utterances in his mind as those in which the prophets summoned the people to repentance with the words '%Xi *2W (e.g. Joel ii. 13; Hos. xiv. 2, 3; Isa. xxxi. 6; Jer. iii. 12 sqq., vii. 13, etc.), but the admonitions, threatenings, and reproofs of the earlier prophets generally (compare 2 Kings xvii. 13 sqq.). The chethib tobbyo is to be read M^WjTD, a plural form BvyJJ from n£y8, and is to be retained, since the

-'^'-'th Me. Hk m.ti..,,. and wodd gfenfj it in the future <H^. n. 10-23;. To set forth in i:, this blessing and vontormat.on of the kingdom of God, Has the object of these visions winch are designated in the introdu. tion as « word of aovah, because the pictures seen in the spirit, together with their interpretation, had the significance of verba, revelatjons and are to some extent still further explained by the addition of words of God (cf. i. 14 sqq, ii. 10-17). As they were shown to the prophet one after another in a single night, so that in all probabihty only short pauses intervened between the different views; so did they present a substantially connected picture of the future of Israel, which was linked on to the then existing time, and closed with the prospect of the ultimate completion of the kingdom of God.

Jehovah amand and have found the whole earth quiet and al reel; whereupon the I -f Jehovah addresses a prayer to Jehovah for pity upon J I the i tified with th J i the latter with the [t ii true that the identity of the rider

LI); l>ut all I From this is that I ler stopped at the place where the angel of Jehovah wai standing,.-. in front of him, to pr port to him of tb rth, information to the man upon the red horse, the troop of horsemen could not i >od behind him, but would have stood either opposite to him or in front of him. And the different epithets applied to the two furnish a d<;isive proof that the aiiiiel of th 1 and "the angel that talked with me" are not one and the same. The angel, who gives or conveys to the prophet the interpretation of the vision, is constantly called " the angel that talked with me," not only in ver. 9, where it is preceded by an address on the part of the prophet to this same angel, but also in vers. 13 and 14, and in the visions which follow (ch. ii. 2, 7, iv. 1, 4, v. 5, 10, vi. 4), from which it is perfectly obvious that *3 Ijftn denotes the function which this angel performs in these visions (dibber be, signifying the speaking of God or of an angel within a man, as in Hos. i. 2, Hab. ii. 1, Num. xii. 6, 8). His occupation, therefore, was to interpret the visions to the prophet, and convey the divine revelations, so that he was only an angelus interpres or collocutor.

The hollo i symbol of the power of the WOrlb^ or the " of the kingdom* of the world

Chaldee paraphrase in /.'■■' '■ evi lently thought; for this eranot he proved from inch paaeag ch..\. L6, la. \liv. l'7, and Pa, cviL -l. In the myrtle-bushes, <>r myrtle grove, we have no doubt a symbol of the theocracy, Of of the land of

Judah as a land that w ir and lovely in the estimation of the Lord (cf« Dan. wiiL 9, \i. L6)j for the myrtl i lovely ornamental plant. Hence the hollow in which th— myrtle the deep degradation into which the land and ] of God had fallen at that time. There ii a greal dive raity of opinion ■I to the significance <>f the colour of the horsee, although all the commentators agree that the colour IS significant, as in eh. vi. 2 sqq. and Rev. vi. S and that this is the only reason why the h ling to their colours, and the riders are not mentioned at all. About two of the colours there is no dispute. CN. n 1, the colour of the hlood; and JjJ>, white, brilliant white, the reflection of heavenly and divine glory (Matt. xvii. 2, xxviii. 3: Acta i. 10), hence the symbol of a glorious victory (Rev. vi. -J). The meaning of fruqqim is a disputed one. The bXX. have rendered it yjrapol kqX ttoikiXoi, like MfD*! D*TQ in eh. vi. 3; the Itala and Vulgate, ">; the Peshito, versicolores. Hence fUsfm tfruqqim would correspond to the 'lttttos ^\a>p6? of Rev. vi. 8. The word 8eruqqim only occurs again in the Old Testament in Isa. xvi. 8, where it is applied to the tendrils or branches of the vine, for which zGrcq (Isa. v. 2; Jer. ii. 21) or sereqdh (Gen. xlix. 11) is used here. On the c

Jehovah hath seal to go through the earth;" and then proto give the angel of th I. i I ther whom the former, with his horsemen (hence the plural "they:i "» ] ] I W given a report of the result of their mission. 3 lie verb 'dndh, to answer, refers not to any definite qu but to the request for an explanation contained in the com n between the prophet and the interpreting anrrel is. 10 and 11, is not the land of Judah, or any other land, but the earth. The answer, that the whole earth sits still and at rest (TlO^j nif denotes the peaceful and secure condition of a land and its inhabitants, undisturbed by any foe; cf. ch. vii. 7, 1 Chron. iv. 40, and Judg. xviii. 27), points

I. in its. |f one ition. 1 1 iiiiv was i J rtaken I lis j II fail to the 1 alfilm< the dii ine I that I.' liovah addresses an intercessory prawr t->.!< -:.<.\ah on behalf of Jndah,

(Hag. i. 1 1, it might vt as though ti of the c iptivity would n d. I Y ach circumstances, the l< an < d i to be pat to the mournful condition old not fail to becom< iter and iter; and the pray< r, u 1' il an end, O Lord, put an end to all our dial more importunate than Jehovah replied to the intei »n of the an. the Lord with good and a (c£«.1 «h. xxiii. 11: Jer. sxix. 10). So far as they fore the people the pn of the mitigation of their (list: they are jiiclaimmun, consolations. The v.

Instead of the form jilchumnum, the keri has the form nichumim^ which is grammatically the more correct of the two, and which is written still more accurately nichunilm in some of the codd. in Kennicott. The contents of these words, which are addressed to the interpreting angel either directly or through the medium of the ang.d of Jehovah, follow in the announcement which mark i ff it is to occupy, and the plan upon which it is to l« an I. The chethib Hip,

The last two els nnd off the promise. When the Lord shall restore the temple and city, then will Zion and Jerusalem learn that He is comforting her, and bs n her still. The

In this vision it i^ shown t<> the prophet, an 1 through him to the people, that although the immediate condition <>f thi

I of the fulfilment of the pron toration an<l glorification of Israel, the Lord I already appointed the instrumei His judgment, and sent them out to overthrow the nations, world, that are still living at and in security, and to perfect His Zion. The fulfilment of this consolatory promise is neither to he transferred to the end of the present course of this world, as is supposed by Ilofmann ( Weiss, u. ErfttfL i. 335), who refers to ch. xiv. 18, 19 in support of this, nor to be restricted to what was done in the immediate future for the rebuilding of the temple and of the city of Jerusalem. The promise embraces the whole of the future of the kingdom of God; so that whilst the commencement of the fulfilment is to be seen in the fact that the building of the temple was finished in the sixth year of Darius, and Jerusalem itself was also restored by Nehemiah in the reign of Artaxerxes, these commencements of the fulfilment simply furnished a pledge that the glorification of the nation and kingdom of God predicted by the earlier prophets would quite as assuredly follow.

Jndah in the tim I Z bariahj for it cannot be shown that there were four such nations. At that time all the nations round about Judah the Persian «mpi. they had been in Nebuchadi the Babylonian. B the number four and the inward intuition, in which th It j sther time of their ap] g in hi dity. Just as the prophet in ch. vl bariots all together, although they follow one another in actio!,;•' the four horns which are seen simultaneously represent nations which si one

Dan, ii. and \ii., in which not only the Colossal ini;r u in

■ dream by Nebuchadnezzar (ch. ii.), hut also the four beasts which are seen l>v Daniel to ascend simultaneously from the. symbolize the four empires, which rose up in succession one after the other. Jt is to these four empires that the four horns of our vision refer, as Jerome, A barb., Hengstenberg, and others have correctly pointed out, since even the picturing of nations or empires as horns points hack to Dan. vii. 7, 8, and viii. 3-9. Zechariah sees those in all the full developmentof their power, in which they have oppressed and crushed the people of God (hence the perfect cfnl), and for which they are to be destroyed themselves. Z<i/d/i, to scatter, denotes the dissolution of the united condition and independence of the nation of God. In this sense all four empires destroyed Judah, although the Persian and Grecian empires did not carry Judah out of their own land. The striking combination, "Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem," in which not only the introduction of the name of Israel between Judah and Jerusalem is to be noticed, but also the fact that the nota ace. J")N is only placed before Y'hoddh and Yisrd'ltl, and not before Y'rHshdlaim also, is not explained on the ground that Israel denotes the kingdom of the ten tribes, Judah the southern kingdom, and Jerusalem the capital of the kingdom (Maurer, Umbreit, and others), for in that case Israel would necessarily have been repeated before Judah, and 9ith before Y'rushdlaim. Still less can the name Israel denote the rural population of Judah (Ilitzig), or the name Judah the princely house (Neumann). By the fact that 'eth is omitted before Y'rushdlaim, and only Vav stands before it, Jerusalem is connected with Israel and separated from Judah; and by the repetition of 9ith before Yisrael, as well as before Yehuddh, Israel wdth Jerusalem is co-ordinated with Judah. Kliefoth infers from this that " the heathen had dispersed on the one hand Judah, and on the other hand Israel together with Jerusalem," and understands this as signifying that in the nation of God itself a separation is presupposed, like the previous separation into Judah and the kingdom of the ten tribes. " When the Messiah comes," he says, " a small portion of the Israel according to the flesh will receive Him, and so constitute the genuine people of God and the true Israel, the rr?8 is: •.1 nominative written absolutely it the 1 of the lentenoe in the "theeehoi that would in I to that t:;emeiit of the purp whieh the smiths have ooum is attached in the form of an ep< are the horns, ete., and they (the smiths) have come." At the same time, the earlier rl:it as tothe honu u defin< d more minutely by the additional clause rUl thf llj according to the measur D Ktch a manner that no man lifted up his 1.

plained as referring t<> the the naftii i by the horns. '/. tU Y'hudak (the land of Judah) stands for the inhabitants of the land. The four smiths, therefore, symbolize the instruments uof the divine omnipotence by which the imperial power in i::al historical form* i- overthrown" (Kliefothj, or, as Theod. M presses it, " the poweri that serve God and inflict pon them from many directions." The vision does not show what powers God will use for this purpose. It is simply d 1 to show to the people of God, that ry hostile power of the world which lias risen up against it, or shall rise up, is to be judged and destroyed by the Lord.

"Whilst the second vision sets forth the destruction of the powers that were hostile to Israel, the third (ch. ii. 1-5) with the prophetic explanation (vers. 6-13) shows the development of the people and kingdom of God till the time of its final glory. The vision itself appears very simple, only a few of the principal features being indicated; but in this very brevity it presents many difficulties so far as the exposition is concerned. It is as follows: Ver. 1. "And I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold a man, and in his hand a measuring line. Ver. 2. Then away from the presence of the prophet, where we have to think of him us his interpreter, in the direction of the man with t!. to find out what he is g i do, from which the former comes. Having come to meet him, lie (the second am: i to him (the aii "Ron, say to this young man," etc. The subject t<> TDtfl can only be the i angel; for if, on grammatical grounds, the ang\ sucli an assumption is proved t<» be untenable, by the fad that it was no pari <>f the office of th- lus interpret to give there is notliin" at all to preclude another angel from rewaling a decree of God to the angelus interpret for him to communicate to the prophet; inasmuch as this does not bring the angelus interpret into action any further than his function requires, so that there is no ground for the objection that this is at variance with his standing elsewhere (Kliefoth). But the other an eel could not rive the instructions mentioned in ver. 4 to the angelus interpret) unless he were either himself a superior anirel, viz. the angel of Jehovah, or had been directed to do so by the man with the measuring line, in which case this "man" would be the angel of Jehovah. Of these two possibilities we prefer the latter on two grounds: (1) because it is impossible to think of any reason why the "other angel" should not be simply called nirp T[xp^ if he really were the angel of the Lord; and (2) because, according to the analogy of Ezek. xl. 3, the man with the measuring line most probably was the angel of Jehovah, with whose dignity it would be quite in keeping that he should explain his purpose to the angelus interpres through the medium of another (inferior) angel. And if this be established, so far as the brevity of the account will allow, we cannot understand by the " young man " the man with the measuring line, as Hitzig, Maurer, and Kliefoth do. The only way in which such an assumption as this could be rendered tenable or in harmony with the rest, would be by supposing that the design of the message was to tell the man with the measuring line that " he might desist from his useless enterprise " (Hitzig), as Jerusalem could not be measured at all, on account of the if a prop] the words of God, and carried on as Mich. 1 l the purpose of I scaping from this simple conclusion, Koehler has forcibly broken op thii continuous address, and has separated the words of vers. 8, 9, and 11, in which the ar.. thai Jehovah has sent him, from the words of.Jehovah proclaimed by ti.: inter- polations, but without succeeding in explaining them either simply or naturally.

The prophecy commences thus in vers. G-(.»: Ver. 6. " Ho, ho, flee out of the hmd of the north, is the saying of Jehovah; for J ipread you out as the four winds of heaven, is the saying of Jehovah. Ver. 7. Ho, Zion, save thyself, thou that dwellest with the daughter Babel. Yer. 8. For thus saith Jehovah of host*) After glory hath he sent me to the nations that have plundered you; for whoever toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye. Ver. 9. For, behold, I swing my hand over them, and they

Ion or ooantrj of Babylonia personified, but the inhabitant and - sonstrued with t; of the former explanations 0 in the fact that *3 only directly upon the introductory formula; but not, ai ii here assume 1, when s long parenth I between, without

qplanations furnish i mitable meaning. It the: only followed in rer. '.'. Wfcvjj in the first clause would be left without any noun to which to refer; and if they commenced with '>"'-~ '- (for he that toncheth), the thought uhe that toncheth you," etc, would assign no reason for the call to Bee and save themselves. For if Israel is defended or valued by God as a pupil of the eye, there can be no necessity for it to tle<\ And lastly, it is impossible to see what can be the meaning or object of the parenthesis, "After glory hath of punishment upon the heathen" (Koehler), it would be inserted in an unsuitable place, since the threat of punishment

Would not follow till afterwards. All these difficulties vanish if Jehovah's words commence with 'aekar kdbhod (after glory), in which c 'b-loml (He hath sent me) may he very simply explained from the fact that the address is introduced, not in a direct form, hut indirectly: Jehovah says, He has sent me after glory. The sender is Jehovah, and the person sent is not the prophet, but the angel of the Lord. Achar kdbhod: behind glory, after glory; not however " after the glory of success" (Hitzig, Ewald, etc.), still less u with a glorious commission," but to get glory upon the heathen, i.e. to display the glory of God upon the heathen through the.judgment by which their power is broken, and the heathen world is made to serve the people of God. The manner in which the next two clauses, commencing with kl (for), are attached, is the following: The

. has sent him to the heathen, namely, because they bare plui I His people, and have thereby toached the pupil of the upUioj us being the Fully the practical ground for this sendin.. The who reveals His nature, to dwell in tlie rniilst of her. Tins dwelling of Jehovah, or of His angel, in the midst of Zion, is essentially different from the dwelling of Jehovah in the Most

Holy Place of Hi^ tempfe. It commences with the coming <>f the Son of God in the Beth, an«l is completed hy Bis return in glory (John i. 14 and Rev, wi..">). Then will many, or

I, which has hitherto been restricted to Israel, will he spread out and glorified by the reception of the heathen nations which are seeking God (Mic iv. 2). The repetition of the expression, at vit. 13. Jerusalem will thereby receive the expansion shown to the prophet in ver. 4; and through the dwelling of God in th-.' midst of her, the promise in ver. 5 will also be fulfilled. The next verse refers to this.

portion in tlie holy land, and vill yet choose Jerusalem* Ver. 13. Be still, all flesh, Jehovah; for He ha up out of JIi< holy habitation." The first hemistich of ver. 12 rests upon Dent, xxxii. 9, where [srael, as the chosen nation, is called the ehileq and nachdldh of Jehovah. This appointment of Israel to be the possession of Jehovah will become perfect truth and reality in the future, through the coming of the Lord. Yehuddh is Judah as delivered, i.e. the remnant of the whole of the covenant nation. This remnant, after being gathered out of Babel, will dwell upon holy ground, or in a holy land, as the possession of the Lord. The holy land is the land of Jehovah (Hos. ix. 3); but this is not to be set down without reserve as identical with Palestine. On the contrary, every place where Jehovah may be is holy ground (cf. Ex. iii. 5); so that even Palestine is only holy when the Lord dwells there. And we must not limit the idea of the holy land in this passage to Palestine, because the idea of the people of God will be so expanded by the addition of many nations, that it will not have room enough within the limits of Palestine; and according to ver. 4, even Jerusalem will no longer be a city with limited boundaries. The holy land reaches just as far as the nations, which have become the people of Jehovah by attaching themselves to Judah, spread themselves out over the surface of the earth. The words u choose Jerusalem again" round off the promise, just as in ch. i. 17;

1 not our vi.i.n, in hia miu.l. but another na, which hai not I j in tue ca]l01lica] Scriptm is added. Because Jehovah has chosen Jerusalem, and ma tains His choice in its integrity (this is implied in the partici] boclwr). He must rebuke Satan, who hopes that his accu tion will have the effect of repealing the choice of Jerusale by deposing the high priest. For if any sin of the high prie which inculpated the nation, had been sufficient to secure his moval or deposition, the office of high priest would have ceas altogether, because no man is without sin. 1W, to rebuke, d< not mean merely to nonsuit, but to reprove for a thing; a when used of God, to reprove by action, signifying to swc both him and his accusation entirely away. The motive: the repulse of the accuser is strengthened by the clause wh follows: Is he (Joshua) not a brand plucked out of the fir i.e. one who has narrowly escaped the threatening destructi (for the figure, see Amos iv. 11). These words, again, must not take as referring to the high priest as an individu; nor must we restrict their meaning to the fact that Josh had been brought back from captivity, and reinstated in 1 office of high priest. Just as the accusation does not ap] to the individual, but to the office which Joshua filled, so these words also apply to the supporter of the official digni The fire, out of which Joshua had been rescued as a brai was neither the evil which had come upon Joshua throu neglecting the building of the temple (Koehler), nor the gi of allowing his sons to marry foreign wives (Targ., Jeror Rashi, Kimchi): for in the former case the accusation woi have come too late, since the building of the temple had be resumed five months before (Hag. i. 15, compared with Ze i. 7); and in the latter it would have been much too ear since these misalliances did not take place till fifty years aft wards. And, in general, guilt which might possibly lead ruin could not be called a fire; still less could the cessat: or removal of this sin be called deliverance out of the h* Fire is a figurative expression for punishment, not for s The fire out of which Joshua had been saved like a brand v the captivity, in which both Joshua and the nation had be brought to the verge of destruction. Out of this fire Josh the high priest had been rescued. But, as Kliefoth has ap observed, " the priesthood of Israel wras concentrated in 1 high priest, just as the character of Israel as the holy nati as concentrated in the priesthood. The high priest reprented the holiness and priestliness of Israel, and that not erely in certain official acts and functions, but so that as a irticular Levite and Aaronite, and as the head for the time >ing of the house of Aaron, he represented in his own person Lat character of holiness and priestliness which had been 'aciously bestowed by God upon the nation of Israel." This rves to explain how the hope that God must rebuke the:cuser could be made to rest upon the election of Jerusalem,?. upon the love of the Lord to the whole of His nation, he pardon and the promise do not apply to Joshua personally ly more than the accusation; but they refer to him in his ficial position, and to the whole nation, and that with regard i the special attributes set forth in the high priesthood — imely, its priestliness and holiness. We cannot, therefore, id any better words with wdiich to explain the meaning of lis vision than those of Kliefoth. "The character of Israel," 3 says, " as the holy and priestly nation of God, was violated -violated by the general sin and guilt of the nation, which od had been obliged to punish with exile. This guilt of the ition, which neutralized the priestliness and holiness of Israel, pleaded by Satan in the accusation which he brings before Le Maleach of Jehovah against the high priest, who was its spresentative. A nation so guilty and so punished could no nger be the holy and priestly nation: its priests could no nger be priests; nor could its high priests be high priests any ore. But the Maleach of Jehovah sweeps away the accusaon wTith the assurance that Jehovah, from His grace, and for le sake of its election, will still give validity to Israel's priest- Dod, and has already practically manifested this purpose of [is by bringing it out of its penal condition of exile."

After the repulse of the accuser, Joshua is cleansed from le guilt attaching to him. When he stood before the angel f the Lord he had dirty clothes on. The dirty clothes are not le costume of an accused person (Drus., Ewald); for this 'oman custom (Lev. ii. 54, vi. 20) was unknown to the lebrews. Dirt is a figurative representation of sin; so that irty clothes represent defilement with sin and guilt (cf. Isa. dv. 5, iv. 4; Prov. xxx. 12; Rev. iii. 4, vii. 14). The Lord ad indeed refined His nation in its exile, and in His grace had preserved it from destruction; but its sin was not tlierel wiped away. The place of grosser idolatry had been taken I the more refined idolatry of self-righteousness, selfishness, ar conformity to the world. And the representative of the natic before the Lord was affected with the dirt of these sins, whk gave Satan a handle for his accusation. But the Lord wou cleanse His chosen people from this, and make it a holy ai glorious nation. This is symbolized by what takes place

. 4 and 5. The angel of the Lord commands those wl stand before Him, i.e. the angels who serve Ilim, to take c the dirty clothes from the high priest, and put on festal clot ing; and then adds, by way of explanation to Joshua, Behol I have caused thy guilt to pass away from thee, that is to sa I have forgiven thy sin, and justified thee (cf. 2 Sam. xii. 1 xxiv. 10), and clothe thee with festal raiment. The inf. al halbish stands, as it frequently dors, for the finite verb, ar has its norm in Wl3yn (see at Hag. i. (>). The last words a either spoken to the attendant angelfl as well, or else, what more likely, they an1 simply passed over in the command giv( to them, and mentioned for the first time here. MachdldtsOt costly clothes, which nly worn on festal occasions (see

Isa. iii. 22). They are not symbols of innocence and righteou ness (Chald.), which are symbolized by clean or wdiite raimei ( R v. iii. i, vii. 9); nor are they figurative representations of jc ( Koehler), but are rather symbolical of glory. The high pries and the nation in him, are not only to be cleansed from si and justified, but to be sanctified and glorified as well. — Ver. At this moment the prophet feels compelled to utter the pray* that they may also put a clean mitre upon Joshua's head, whk prayer is immediately granted. The prayer appears at first be superfluous, inasmuch as the mitre would certainly not 1 forgotten when the dirty clothes were taken away and the fest dress was put on. Nevertheless, the fact that it is grante shows that it was not superfluous. The meaning of the prayi was hardly that the high priest might be newdy attired fro head to foot, as Hengstenberg supposes, but is rather connects witli the significance of the mitre. Tsdnlph is not a turba: such as might be worn by anybody (Koehler), but the hea< dress of princely persons and kings (Job xxix. 14; Isa. lxii. 3 and is synonymous with mitsnepheth, the technical wrord for tl tiara prescribe'd for the high priest in the law (Ex. and Lev.), as we may see from Ezek. xxi. 31, where the regal diadem, which is called tsdnlph in Isa. lxii. 3, is spoken of under the name of mitsnepheth. The turban of the high priest was that portion of his dress in which he carried his office, so to speak, upon his forehead; and the clean turban was the substratum for the golden plate that was fastened upon it, and by which he was described as holy to the Lord, and called to bear the guilt of the children of Israel (Ex. xxviii. 38). The prayer for a clean mitre to be put upon his head, may therefore be accounted for from the wish that 'Joshua should not only be splendidly decorated, but should be shown to be holy, and qualified to accomplish the expiation of the people. Purity, as the earthly type of holiness, forms the foundation for glory. In the actual performance of the matter, therefore, the putting on of the clean mitre is mentioned first, and then the clothing with festal robes. This took place in the presence of the angel of the Lord. That is the meaning of the circumstantial clause, " and the angel of the Lord stood " (ritum tanquam herus imperans, probans et prcesentia sua ornans, C. B. Mich.), and not merely that the angel of the Lord, who had hitherto been sitting in the judge's seat, rose up from his seat for the purpose of speaking while the robing was going on (Hofmann, Koehler). *W does not mean to stand up, but simply to remain standing.

Vers. 6-10. In these verses there follows a prophetic address, in which the angel of the Lord describes the symbolical action of the re-clothing of the high priest, according to its typical significance in relation to the continuance and the future of the kingdom of God. Ver. 6. u And the angel of the Lord testified to Joshua, and said, Ver. 7. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts. If thou shalt walk in my ways, and keep my charge, thou shalt both judge my house and keep my courts, and I will give thee ways among these standing here. Ver. 8. Hear then, thou high priest Joshua, thou, and thy comrades who sit before thee: yea, men of wonder are they: for, behold, I bring my servant Zemach (Sprout). Ver. 9. For behold the stone which I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone are seven eyes: behold I engrave its carving, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts, and 1 clear away the iniquity of this land in one day. Ver. 10. In that

ise that be ihoald alwaji have • i an 1: tweeu hfiftfflf an J ivah, to carry op his praj From ( tod, and

Ip (John i. 52: II fmann). This thought would be quite a suitable one; but it is no! dned in the words, the ai. n if they walk between the standing angels and in the midst of them, do not g i to and Fro 1 Jehovah and Joshua91 (Kliefoth). In the latter case the high • would merely neral assurance of the assistance of superior anj ind For such • thought as this the expression would be an extremely marvellous nd the P?

and others, who take -'-'"- as i substantive, from a lingular """:. • n I after -V*:. 1DOD, E1D, or else as a plural of V-*:. to be pointed E*rw~': B ««, Hitzig, Kliefoth). The words then add to the promise, which ensured to the people the continuance of the priesthood and of the blessings which it conveyed, this new feature, that the high priest would also receive a free access to God, which had not yet been conferred upon him by his office. Tiiis points to a time when the restrictions of the Old Testament will be swept away. The further address, in vers. 8 and 9, announces how God will bring about this new time or future. To show the importance of what follows, Joshua is called upon to " hear." It is doubtful where what vol. ji. E for this summons passes imperceptibly into that to which he to give heed, is hardly admissible, and has only been adopt these words are evidently explanatory of nan naiD ^:s (m of wonder, etc.). Nor can it commence with umashti (and with ver. 9, " for behold the stone," as he also maintains in

in ver. 9, are unmistakeably a continuation and further explai tion of the words, " for behold I will bring forth my servj

Zemach," in ver. 8. The address begins with " thou and 1 subject is placed at the head absolutely, it is used in the so of miracle, or of a miraculous sign, as mophethy to repas, p really corresponds to tvttos t&v fieWovrcov (see at Ex. iv. 1

Isa. viii. 18). n^n stands for oris, the words passing over fr the second person to the third on the resuming of the subjt which is placed at the head absolutely, just as in Zeph. ii. 12, a refers not only to TV?., but to Joshua and his comrades. Tl are men of typical sign, but not simply on account of the ofi ie commentators assume. For " this applies, in the first s, not only to Joshua and his priests, but to the Old Testa-; priesthood generally; and secondly, there was nothing:ulous in this mediatorial work of the priesthood, which have been the case if they were to be mopheth. The sle, which is to be seen in Joshua and his priests, consists sr in the fact that the priesthood of Israel is laden with, but by the grace of God it has been absolved, and)ted by God again, as the deliverance from exile shows," Joshua and his priests are therefore brands plucked by)mnipotence of grace from the fire of merited judgment jfoth). This miracle of grace which has been wrought for, points beyond itself to an incomparably greater and better)f the sin-absolving grace of God, which is still in the •e. This is the way in which the next clause, " for I bring ervant Zemach," which is explanatory of 'anshe mopheth i of miracle), attaches itself. The word Tsemach is used echariah simply as a proper name of the Messiah; and the)ination 'abhdi Tsemach (my servant Tsemach) is precisely ame as * abhdi David (my servant David) in Ezek. xxxiv. 23,:xxvii. 24, or u my servant Job" in Job i. 8, ii. 3, etc. The ition raised by Koehler — namely, that if tsemach, as a more se definition of 'abhdi (my servant), or as an announcement servant of Jehovah is intended, were used as a proper name, »uld either be construed with the article (np^n)? or else we Id have fo® H£¥ ^2j; as in ch. vi. 12 — is quite groundless. " if poets or prophets form new proper names at pleasure, names, even when deprived of the article, easily assume listinguishing sign of most proper names, like bdgoddh and ubhdh in Jer. iii." (Ewald, § 277, c.) It is different witi in ch. vi. 12; there shemo is needed for the sake of the j, as in 1 Sam. i. 1 and Job i. 1, and does not serve to jnate the preceding word as a proper name, but simply to e the person spoken of more precisely by mentioning his 3. Zechariah has formed the name Tsemach, Sprout, or >t, primarily from Jer. xxiii. 5 and xxxiii. 15, where the tise is given that a righteous Sprout (tsemach tsaddlq), or rout of righteousness, shall be raised up to Jacob. And miah took the figurative description of the great descen- a tsemach which Jehovah will raise up, or cause to shoot to David, from Isa. xi. 1, 2, liii. 2, according to which t Messiah is to spring up as a rod out of the stem of Jesse tl lias been hewn clown, or as a root-shoot out of dry groin Tsemach, therefore, denotes the Messiah in His origin fr< the family of David that has fallen into humiliation, as sprout which will grow up from its original state of humil tion to exaltation and glory, and answers therefore to the to of thought in this passage, in which the deeply humiliat priesthood is exalted by the grace of the Lord into a type the Messiah. Whether the designation of the sprout as M i servant" is taken from Isa. lii. 13 and liii. 11 (cf. xlii. 1, xlix.! or formed after " my servant David" in Ezek. xxxiv. 24, xxx^ 24, is a point which cannot be decided, and is of no importai to the. matter in hand. The circumstance that the removal iniquity, which is the peculiar work of the Messiah, is m( tioned in ver. 96, furnishes no sati<factory reason for deduci 'abhdi tsemach pre-eminently from Isa. liii. For in ver. 9 t removal of iniquity is only mentioned in the second rank, in t ■ lanation of Jehovah's purpose to bring His servant Tsema The first rank is assigned to the stone, which Jehovah has 1; before Joshua, etc. The answer to the question, what t stone signifies, or who is to be understood by it, depends up the view v of the words DWJ... |3K hv. Most of 1 commentators admit that these words do not form a parenthc (Hitzigj Ewald), but introduce a statement concerning |3Xn M Accordingly, '131 |3sn r\ir\ js placed at the head absolutely, a resumed in Jins* |3S;V. This statement may mean, either ur one stone are seven eyes (visible or to be found), or seven e; are directed upon one stone. For although, in the latter ca we should expect?$ instead of?V (according to Ps. xxxiii. xxxiv. 10),?V?y D% does occur in the sense of the exercise loving care (Gen. xliv. 21; Jer. xxxix. 12, xl. 4). But if 1 seven eyes were to be seen upon the stone, they could only engraved or drawn upon it. And what follows, rUl Pli^P *J does not agree with this, inasmuch as, according to this, 1 engraving upon the stone had now first to take place inste of having been done already, since hinneh followed by a p ticiple never expresses what has already occurred, but alw; what is to take place in the future. For this reason we mi decide that the seven eyes are directed towards the stone, or watch over it with protecting care. But this overthrows the view held by the expositors of the early church, and defended by Kliefoth, namely, that the stone signifies the Messiah, after Isa. xxviii. 16 and Ps. cxviii. 22, — a view with which the expression ndthattl, " given, laid before Joshua," can hardly be reconciled, even if this meant that Joshua was to see with his own eyes, as something actually present, that God was laying the foundation-stone. Still less can we think of the foundation-stone of the temple (Ros., Hitz.), since this had been laid long ago, and we cannot see for what purpose it was to be engraved; or of the stone which, according to the Rabbins, occupied the empty place of the ark of the covenant in the most holy place of the second temple (Hofmann); or of a precious stone in the breastplate of the high priest. The stone is the symbol of the kingdom of God, and is laid by Jehovah before Joshua, by God's transferring to him the regulation of His house and the keeping of His courts (before, liphng, in a spiritual sense, as in 1 Kings ix. 6, for example). The seven eyes, which watch with protecting care over this stone, are not a figurative representation of the all-embracing providence of God; but, in harmony with the seven eyes of the Lamb, which are the seven Spirits of God (Rev. v. 6), and with the seven eyes of Jehovah (Zech. iv. 10), they are the sevenfold radiations of the Spirit of Jehovah (after Isa. xi. 2), which show themselves in vigorous action upon this stone, to prepare it for its destination. This preparation is called pitteach pittuchdh in harmony with the figure of the stone (cf. Ezek. xxviii. 9, 11). "I will engrave the engraving thereof," i.e. engrave it so as to prepare it for a beautiful and costly stone. The preparation of this stone, i.e. the preparation of the kingdom of God established in Israel, by the powers of the Spirit of the Lord, is one feature in which the bringing of the tsemach will show itself. The other consists in the wiping away of the iniquity of this land. Mush is used here in a transitive sense, to cause to depart, to wipe away. K?5 H^? (that land) is the land of Canaan or Judah, which will extend in the Messianic times over the whole earth. The definition of the time, Ifyom 'echdd, cannot of course mean " on one and the same day," so as to affirm that the communication of the true nature to Israel, namely, of one well pleasing to God, and