a tsemach which Jehovah will raise up, or cause to shoot up to David, from Isa. xi. 1, 2, lili. 2, according to which the Messiah is to spring up as a rod out of the stem of Jesse that has been hewn down, or as a root-shoot out of dry ground. Tsemach, therefore, denotes the Messiah in His origin from the family of David that has fallen into humiliation, as a sprout which will grow up from its original state of humiliation to exaltation and glory, and answers therefore to the train of thought in this passage, in which the deeply humiliated priesthood is exalted by the grace of the Lord into a type of the Messiah. Whether the designation of the sprout as “my servant” is taken from Isa. lii. 13 and liii. 11 (cf. xlii. 1, xlix. 3), or formed after “my servant David” in Ezek. xxxiv. 24, xxxvii. 24, is a point which cannot be decided, and is of no importance to the matter in hand. The circumstance that the removal of iniquity, which is the peculiar work of the Messiah, is mentioned in ver. 96, furnishes no satisfactory reason for deducing ‘abhdt tsemach pre-eminently from Isa. lili. For in ver. 9 the removal of iniquity is only mentioned in the second rank, in the explanation of Jehovah’s purpose to bring His servant Tsemach. The first rank is assigned to the stone, which Jehovah has laid before Joshua, etc. The answer to the question, what this stone signifies, or who is to be understood by it, depends upon the view we take of the words DY... JAN by, Most of the commentators admit that these words do not form a parenthesis (Hitzig, Ewald), but introduce a statement concerning {287 437}, Accordingly, 3) j284 139 is placed at the head absolutely, and resumed in NMS Jax by This statement may mean, either upon one stone are seven eyes (visible or to be found), or seven eyes are directed upon one stone. For although, in the latter case, we should expect aN instead of >Y (according to Ps. xxxiil. 18, xxxiv. 16), 99 PY DY does occur in the sense of the exercise of loving care (Gen. xliv. 21; Jer. xxxix. 12, xl. 4). But if the seven eyes were to be seen upon the stone, they could only be engraved or drawn upon it. And what follows, 9) MAD °335, does not agree with this, inasmuch as, according to this, the engraving upon the stone had now first to take place instead of having been done already, since hinnzh followed by a participle never expresses what has already occurred, but always what is to take place in the future. For this reason we must 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. xxviil. 16 and Ps. exviii. 22,—a view with which the expression ndthatti, “ 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, iphné, 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 pittécch ptttuchah in harmony with the figure of the stone (cf. Ezek. xxviii. 9, 11). “JT will engrave the engraving thereof,” 7.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. Mash is used here in a transitive sense, to cause to depart, to wipe away. 877 YIND (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, b°ydm’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 the removal of guilt from the land, would take place simultaneously (Hofmann, Koehler); but the expression “in one day” is substantially the same as éfdzraé in Heb. vii. 27, ix. 12, x. 10, and affirms that the wiping away of sin to be effected by the Messiah (tsemach) will not resemble that effected by the typical priesthood, which had to be continually repeated, but will be all finished at once. This one day is the day of Golgotha. Accordingly, the thought of this verse is the following: Jehovah will cause His servant Tsemach to come, because He will prepare His kingdom gloriously, and exterminate all the sins of His people and land at once. By the wiping away of all guilt and iniquity, not only of that which rests upon the land (Koehler), but also of that of the inhabitants of the land, z.e. of the whole nation, all the discontent and all the misery which flow from sin will be swept away, and a state of blessed peace will ensue for the purified church of God. This is the thought of the tenth verse, which is formed after Mic. iv. 4 and 1 Kings y. 5, and with which the vision closes. ‘The next vision shows the glory of the purified church.
Ver. 1. “ And the angel that talked with me returned and waked me, like a man who is waked out of his sleep.’ After the prophet has seen four visions one after another, probably with very short intervals, and has heard the marvellous interpretation of them, he is so overpowered by the impression produced by what he has seen and heard, that he falls into a state of spiritual exhaustion resembling sleep, just as Peter and his companions were unable to keep awake at the transfiguration of Christ (Luke ix. 32). He has not only fallen back into the state of ordinary human consciousness, but his ordinary spiritual consciousness was so depressed that he resembled a man asleep, and had to be waked out of this sleep-like state by the mediating angel, in order to be qualified for further seeing. It is evident from the expression avy (and he returned) that the angelus mterpres had left the prophet after the termination of the previous visions, and now came back to him again. The fresh vision which presents itself to his spiritual intuition, is described according to its principal features in vers. 2 and 3. Ver. 2. “And he said to me, What seest thou? And I said, I see, and behold a candlestick all of gold, and its otl-vessel up above it, and its seven lamps upon it, seven pipes each for the lamps upon the top of it. Ver. 3. And two olive trees (oil trees) by it, one to the right of the otl-vessel, and one to the left of it.’ The second x (chethib) in ver. 2 might, if necessary, be explained in the way proposed by L. de Dieu, Gusset., and Hofmann, viz. by supposing that the mediating angel had no sooner asked the prophet what he saw, than he proceeded, without waiting for his answer, to give a description himself of what was seen. But this is at variance with the analogy of all the rest of the visions, where the visions seen by the prophet are always introduced with ‘NS? or 7818) followed by: 737) (cf. ch. i. 8, ii. 1, 5, v. 1, vi. 1), and it remains quite inflexible; so that we must accept the keri 128}, which is adopted by the early translators, and found in many codd., as being the true reading, and pronounce 78% a copyist’s error. On the combination mp2 ant 17439, in which the last two words are construed as a relative clause in subordination to m‘norath, see Ewald, § 332, ¢. The visionary candlestick, all of gold, with its seven lamps, is unquestionably a figurative representation of the seven-branched golden candlestick in the tabernacle, and differs from this only in the three following additions which are peculiar to itself: (1) That it has its gullah (mb: for nba, with the feminine termination resolved; cf. Hos. xili. 2, and Ewald, § 257, d), i.e. a can or round vessel for the oil, which was omitted altogether from the candlestick of the holy place, when the lamps were filled with oil by the priests, “at the top of it” (AUNTY); (2) That it had seven mitsdqoth (pipes) each for the lamps, that is to say, tubes through which the oil poured from the gulléh into the lamps, or was conducted to them, whereas the candlestick of the tabernacle had no pipes, but only seven arms (gdénim), for the purpose of holding the lamps, which of course could not be wanting in the case of the visionary candlestick, and are merely omitted from the description as being self-evident. The number of the pipes is also a disputed point, viz. whether Ty2¥) NYY means seven and seven, i.e. fourteen, or whether it is to be taken distributively, seven each for the lamps, i.e. seven for each lamp, and therefore forty-nine for the seven. The distributive view is disputed by Hitzig and Koehler as at variance with the usage of the language: the former proposing to alter the text, so as to obtain seven pipes, #.e. one for each lamp; and the latter, on the other hand, assuming that there were fourteen pipes, and inferring from the statement “seven and seven,” instead of fourteen, that the second seven are to be sought in a different place from the first, that is to say, that the first seven led from the oil-vessel to the seven different lamps, whilst the second seven connected the seven lamps with one another, which would have been a very strange and perfectly useless provision. But there is no foundation whatever for the assertion that it is at variance with the usage of the language. For although a distributive relation is certainly Bye as a rule by the simple repetition of the number without any connecting Vav, such passages as 2 Sam. xxi. 20 and 1 Chron. xx. 6 show quite indisputably that the repetition of the same number with the Vav cop. between is also to be taken distributively. When, for example, it is stated in 2 Sam. xxi. 20, with regard to the hero of Gath, that the fingers of his hands and the fingers (toes) of his feet were “ shésh vadshésh, four-and-twenty in number,” it is evident that shésh vdshésh cannot mean “six and six,” because six and six do not make twenty-four; and a division of the shésh between the hands and feet is also untenable, because his two hands had not six fingers on them, but twelve, and so his two feet had not six toes on them, but twelve. Consequently shésh vashésh must be taken distributively: the fingers of his (two) hands and the toes of his (two) feet were six each; for it is only 2+2 (=4) 6 that can give 24. This is shown still more clearly in 1 Chron. xx. 6: « and his fingers were shésh vashéesh, four-and-twenty.” It is in this distributive sense, which is thus thoroughly established, so far as the usage of the language is concerned, that ‘Sv nyavh nyAw is to ne taken: seven pipes each for the lamps, ¢.e. forty-nine for the seven lamps; inasmuch as if fourteen pipes were meant, it would be impossible to imagine any reason why “seven and seven” should be written instead of fourteen. And we cannot be shaken in this conviction, either by the objection “that if there was any proportion between the pipes and the size of the oil-vessel, such a number of pipes could not possibly (?) spring from one oil-can ”
(Koehler), or by the statement that “forty-nine would be quite as much at variance with the original as fourteen, since that had only one pipe for every lamp” (Hitzig). For the supposed original for the pipes had no existence, inasmuch as the Mosaic candlestick had no pipes at all; and we can form no opinion as to the possibility of forty-nine pipes issuing from one oilvessel, because we have no information as to the size either of the oil-vessel or of the pipes. (3) The third peculiarity in the visionary candlestick consists in the olive trees on the right and left of the oil-vessel, which supplied it with oil, and whose connection with the candlestick is first described in ver. 12. These three additions which were made to the golden candlestick seen by Zechariah, as contrasted with the golden candlestick of the tabernacle, formed the apparatus through which it was supplied with the oil required to light it continually without the intervention of man.
The interpretation of this vision must therefore be founded upon the meaning of the golden candlestick in the symbolism of the tabernacle, and be in harmony with it. The prophet receives, first of all, the following explanation, in reply to his question on this point: Ver. 4. “And I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord? Ver. 5. And the angel that talked with me answered and said to me, Knowest thou not what these are? And I said, No, my lord. Ver. 6. Then he answered and spake to me thus: This is the word of Jehovah to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, and not by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts. Ver. 7. Who art thou, O great mountain before Zerubbabel? Into a plain! And He will bring out the top-stone amidst shoutings, Grace, grace unto it!” The question addressed by the prophet to the mediating angel, “ What are these?” (mdh élleh, as in ch. ii. 2) does not refer to the two olive trees only (Umbreit, Klhiefoth), but to everything described in vers. 2 and 3. We are not warranted in assuming that the prophet, like every other Israelite, knew what the candlestick with its seven lamps signified; and even if Zechariah had been perfectly acquainted with the meaning of the golden candlestick in the holy place, the candlestick seen by him had other things beside the two olive trees which were not to be found in the candlestick of the temple, viz. the gul/éh and the pipes for the lamps, which might easily make the meaning of the visionary candlestick a doubtful thing. And the counter-question of the angel, in which astonishment is expressed, is not at variance with this. For that simply presupposes that the object of these additions is so clear, that their meaning might be discovered from the meaning of the candlestick itself. The angel then gives him the answer in ver. 6: “ This (the vision as a symbolical prophecy) is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might,” etc. That is to say, through this vision Zerubbabel is informed that it—namely, the work which Zerubbabel has taken in hand or has to carry out—will not be effected by human strength, but by the Spirit of God. The work itself is not mentioned by the angel, but is referred to for the first time in ver. 7 in the words, “He will bring out the top-stone,” and then still more clearly described in the word of Jehovah in ver. 9: “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house (the temple), and his hands will finish it.” It by no means follows from this that the candlestick, with its seven lamps, represented Zerubbabel’s temple (Grotius, Hofmann); for whilst it is impossible that the candlestick, as one article of furniture in the temple, should be a figurative representation of the whole temple, what could the two olive trees, which supplied the candlestick with oil, signify with such an interpretation? Still less can the seven lamps represent the seven eyes of God (ver. 10), according to which the candlestick would be a symbol of God or of the Spirit (Hitzig, Maurer, Schegg). The significance of the candlestick in the holy place centred, as I have shown in my Obiblische Archdologie (i. p. 107), in its seven lamps, which were lighted every evening, and burned through the night. The burning lamps were a symbol of the church or of the nation of God, which causes the light of its spirit, or of its knowledge of God, to shine before the Lord, and lets it stream out into the night of a world estranged from God. As the disciples of Christ were called, as lights of the world (Matt. v. 14), to let their lamps burn and shine, or, as candlesticks in the world (Luke xii. 35; Phil. ii. 15), to shine with their light before men (Matt. v. 16), so was the church of the Old Testament also. The correctness of this explanation of the meaning of the candlestick is placed beyond all doubt by Rev. i. 20, where the seven Avxviat, Which
John saw before the throne of God, are explained as being the seven éxxdnaiat, which represent the new people of God, viz. the Christian church. The candlestick itself merely comes into consideration here as the stand which carried the lamps, in order that they-might shine, and as such was the divinely appointed form for the realization of the purpose of the shining lamps. In this respect it might be taken as a symbol of the kingdom of God on its formal side, ¢.e. of the divinely appointed organism for the perpetuation and life of the church. But the lamps received their power to burn from the oil, with which they had to be filled before they could possibly burn. Oil, regarded according to its capacity to invigorate the body and increase the energy of the vital spirits, is used in the Scriptures as a symbol of the Spirit of God, not in its transcendent essence, but so far as it works in the world, and is indwelling in the church; and not merely the anointing oil, as Kliefoth supposes, but also the lamp oil, since the Israelites had no other oil than olive oil even for burning, and this was used for anointing also." And in the case of the candlestick, the oil comes into consideration as a symbol of the Spirit of God. There is no force in Kliefoth’s objection—namely, that inasmuch as the oil of the candlestick was to be presented by the people, it could not represent the Holy Spirit with its power and grace, as coming from God to man, but must rather
1The distinction between lamp oil and anointing oil, upon which Kliefoth founds his interpretation of the visionary candlestick, and which he tries to uphold from the language itself, by the assertion that the anointing oil is always called shemen, whereas the lamp oil is called yitshar, is shown to be untenable by the simple fact that, in the minute description of the preparation of the lamp oil for the sacred candlestick, and the repeated allusion to this oil in the Pentateuch, the term yitshdr is never used, but always shemen, although the word yitshdr is by no means foreign to the Pentateuch, but occurs in Num. xvii. 12, Deut. vii. 13, xi. 14, xii. 17, and other passages. According to Hx. xxvii. 20, the lamp oil for the candlestick was to be prepared from shemen zayith zakh kathith, pure, beaten olive oil (so also according to Lev. xxiv. 2); and according to Ex. xxx. 24, shemen zayith, olive oil, was to be used for anointing oil. Accordingly the Jamp oil for the candlestick is called shemen lammd’or in Ex. xxv. 6, xxxv. 8, 28, and shemen hammd’or in Ex. xxxy. 14, xxxix. 37, and Num. iv. 16; and the anointing oi! is called shemen hammishchah in Ex, xxix. 7, xxxi. 11, xxxv. 15, xxxix. 38, xl. 9, Lev. viii. 2, 10, and other passages; and shemen mishchath-qodesh in Ex, xxx. 25. Apart from represent something human, which being given up to God, is cleansed by God through the fire of His word and Spirit; and being quickened thereby, is made into a shining light. For, apart from the fact that the assumption upon which this argument is founded—namely, that in the oil of the candlestick the Spirit of God was symbolized by the altar fire with which it was lighted—is destitute of all scriptural support, since it is not mentioned anywhere that the lamps of the candlestick were lighted with fire taken from the altar of burnt-offering, but it is left quite indefinite where the light or fire for kindling the lamps was to be taken from; apart, I say, from this, such an argument proves too much (nimiwm, ergo nihil), because the anointing oil did not come directly from God, but was also presented by the people. Supposing, therefore, that this circumstance was opposed to the symbolical meaning of the lamp oil, it would also be impossible that the anointing oil should be a symbol of the Holy Ghost, since not only the oil, but the spices also, which were used in preparing the anointing oil, were given by the people (Ex. xxv. 6). We might indeed
say, with Kliefoth, that “the oil, as the fatness of the fruit of the olive tree, is the last pure result of the whole of the vital process of the olive tree, and therefore the quintessence of its nature; and that man also grows, and flourishes, and bears fruit like an olive tree; and therefore the fruit of his life’s fruit,
ver. 14 of the chapter before us, yitsha@r is never used for the lamp oil as such, but simply in the enumeration of the productions of the land, or of the tithes and first-fruits, when it occurs in connection with tirdsh, must or new wine (Num. xviii. 12; Deut. vii. 13, xi. 14, xiv. 23, xviii. 4, xxviii. 51; 2-Chron. xxxi. 5, xxxii. 28; Neh. v. 11, x. 40, xiii) 12; Hos. i. 10524 Joel i. 10, ii. 19,24; Jer. xxxi. 12; Hag. i. 11), but never in connection with yayin (wine), with which shemen is connected (1 Chron. xix. 40; 2 Chron, ii. 14, xi. 11; Prov. xxi. 17; Jer. xl. 10). It is evident from this that yitshar, the shining, bears the same relation to shemen, fatness, as tirosh, must, to yayin, wine,—namely, that yitshdr is applied to oil as the juice of the olive, i.e. as the produce of the land, from its shining colour, whilst shemen is the name given to it when its strength and use are considered. Hengstenberg’s opinion, that yitshdr is the rhetorical or poetical name for oil, has no real foundation in the circumstance that yitsh@r only occurs once in the first four books of the Pentateuch (Num. xviii. 12) and shemen occurs very frequently; whereas in Deuteronomy yitshdr is te more frequently than shemen, viz. the former six times, and the latter our.
the produce of his personality and of the unfolding of his life, may be compared to oil.” But it must also be added (and this
Kliefoth has overlooked), that the olive tree could not grow, flourish, and bear fruit, unless God first of all implanted or communicated the power to grow and bear fruit, and then gave it rain and sunshine and the suitable soil for a prosperous growth. And so man also requires, for the production of the spiritual fruits of life, not only the kindling of this fruit by the fire of the word and Spirit of God, but also the continued nourishment and invigoration of this fruit through God’s word and Spirit, just as the lighting and burning of the lamps are. not effected simply by the kindling of the flame, but it is also requisite that the oil should possess the power to burn and shine. In this double respect the candlestick, with its burning and shining lamps, was a symbol of the church of God, which lets the fruit of its life, which is not only kindled but also nourished by the Holy Spirit, shine before God. And the additions made to the visionary candlestick indicate generally, that the church of the Lord will be supplied with the conditions and requirements necessary to enable it to burn and shine perpetually, i.e. that the daughter of Zion will never fail to have the Spirit of God, to make its candlestick bright. (See at ver. 14.)
There is no difficulty whatever in reconciling the answer of the angel in ver. 6 with the meaning of the candlestick, as thus unfolded according to its leading features, without having to resort to what looks like a subterfuge, viz. the idea that ver. 6 does not contain an exposition, but passes on to something new, or without there being any necessity to account, as Koehler does, for the introduction of the candlestick, which he has quite correctly explained (though he weakens the explanation by saying that it applies primarily to Zerubbabel), namely, by assuming that “it was intended, on the one hand, to remind him what the calling of Israel was; and, on the other hand, to admonish him that Israel could never reach this calling by the increase of its might and the exaltation of its strength, but solely by suffering itself to be filled with the Spirit of Jehovah.” For the candlestick does not set forth the object after which Israel is to strive, but symbolizes the church of God, as it will shine in the splendour of the light received through the Spirit of God. It therefore symbolizes the future glory of the people of God. Israel will not acquire this through human power and might, but through the Spirit of the Lord, in whose power Zerubbabel will accomplish the work he has begun. Ver. 7 does not contain a new promise for Zerubbabel, that if he lays to heart the calling of Israel, and acts accordingly, 7.e. if he resists the temptation to bring Israel into a free and independent position by strengthening its external power, the difficulties which have lain in the way of the completion of the building of the temple will clear away of themselves by the command. of Jehovah (Koehler). For there is not the slightest intimation of any such temptation as that supposed to have presented itself to Zerubbabel, either in the vision itself or in the historical and prophetical writings of that time. Moreover, ver. 7 has not at all the form of a promise, founded upon the laying to heart of what has been previously mentioned. The contents of the verse are not set forth as anything new either by nim DS) (saith Jehovah), or by any other introductory formula. Tt can only be a further explanation of the word of Jehovah, which is still covered by the words “ saith Jehovah of hosts » at the close of ver. 6. The contents of the verse, when properly understood, clearly lead to this. The great mountain before Zerubbabel is to become a plain, not by human power, but by the Spirit of Jehovah. The meaning is given in the second hemistich: He (Zerubbabel) will bring out the topstone. §'Si7) is not a simple preterite, “he ee brought out the foundation-stone” (viz. at the laying of the foundation of the temple), as Hengstenberg supposes; but a future, “he will bring out,” as is evident from the Vav consec., through which S17 is attached to the preceding command as a consequence to which it leads. Moreover, HWN77 J38 does not mean the foundation-stone, which is called mp BS, lit. corner-stone (Job xxxviii. 6; Isa. xxviii. 16; Jer. li. 26), or 735 WNT, the head-stone of the corner (Ps. cxviii. 22), but the stone of the top, i.e. the finishing or gable stone (NWN with raphe as a feminine form of WN, and in apposition to }287), Ns si7, to bring out, namely out of the workshop in which it had been cut, to set it in its proper place in the wall. That these words ae to the finishing of the building of the temple which
Zerubbabel had begun, is placed beyond all doubt by ver. 9.
The great mountain, therefore, is apparently “a figure denoting the colossal difficulties, which rose up mountain high at the continuation and completion of the building of the temple.” Koehler adopts this explanation in common with “the majority of commentators.” But, notwithstanding this appearance, we must adhere to the view adopted by the Chald., Jerome, Theod. Mops., Theodoret, Kimchi, Luther, and others, that the great mountain is a symbol of the power of the world, or the imperial power, and see no difficulty in the “ unwarrantable consequence” spoken of by Koehler, viz. that in that case the plain must be a symbol of the kingdom of God (see, on the contrary, Isa. xl. 4). For it is evident from what follows, that the passage refers to something greater than this, namely to the finishing of the building of the temple that has already begun, or to express it briefly and clearly, that the building of the temple of stone and wood is simply regarded as a type of. the building of the kingdom of God, as ver. 9 clearly shows. There was a great mountain standing in the way of this building of Zerubbabel’s—namely the power of the world, or the imperial power—and this God would level to a plain. Just as, in the previous vision, Joshua is introduced as the representative of the high-priesthood, so here Zerubbabel, the prince of Judah, springing from the family of David, comes into consideration not as an individual, but according to his official rank as the representative of the government of Israel, which is now so deeply humbled by the imperial power. But the government of Israel has no reality or existence, except in the government of Jehovah. The.family of David will rise up into a new royal power and glory in the Zsemach, whom Jehovah will bring forth as His servant (ch. iii. 8). This servant of Jehovah will fill the house of God, which Zerubbabel has built, with glory. In order that this may be done, Zerubbabel must build the temple, because the temple is the house in which Jehovah dwells in the midst of His people. On account of this importance of the temple in relation to Israel, the opponents of Judah sought to throw obstacles in the way of its being built; and these obstacles were a sign and prelude of the opposition which the imperial power of the world, standing before Zerubbabel as a great mountain, will offer to the kingdom of God. This mountain is to become a plain. What Zerubbabel the governor of Judah has begun, he will bring to completion; and as he will finish the building of the earthly temple, so will the true Zerubbabel, the Messiah, Tsemach, the servant of Jehovah, build the spiritual temple, and make Israel into a candlestick, which is supplied with oil by two olive trees, so that its lantps may shine brightly in the world. In this sense the angel’s reply gives an explanation of the meaning of the visionary candlestick. Just as, according to the economy of the Old Testament, the golden candlestick stood in the holy place of the temple before the face of Jehovah, and could only shine there, so does the congregation, which is symbolized by the candlestick, need a house of God, that it may be able to cause its light to shine. This house is the kingdom of God symbolized by the temple, which was to be built by Zerubbabel, not by human might and power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. In this building the words “ He will bring forth the top-stone” find their complete and final fulfilment. The finishing of this building will take place ' me } In jn ninwa, ze. amidst load cries of the people, “Grace, grace unto it.” ninvin j is an accusative of more precise definition, or of the attendant circumstances (cf. Ewald, § 204, a), and signifies noise, tumult, from Niv = ANY, a eet cry (Sob XXXIX. 7: Isa. xxil. 2). The suffix mp core so far as the form is concerned, to AYNIN j2Nn, but actually to habbayith, the temple which is finished with the gable-stone. To this stone (so the words mean) may God direct are favour or grace, that the temple may stand for ever, and never be destroyed again.
A further and still clearer explanation of the angel’s answer (vers. 6 and 7) is given in the words of Jehovah which follow in vers. 8-10. Ver. 8. “ And the word of Jehovah came to me thus: Ver. 9. The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will finish it; and thow wilt know that Jehovah of hosts hath sent me to you. Wer. 10. For who despiseth the day of small things? and they joyfully behold the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, those seven: the eyes of Jehovah, they sweep through the whole earth.” This word of God is not addressed to the prophet through the angelus interpres, but comes direct from Jehovah, though, as ver. 90 clearly shows when compared with ch. ii, 9b and 110, through the Maleach Jehovah. Although the words “ the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house” unquestionably refer primarily to the building of the earthly temple, and announce the finishing of that building by Zerubbabel, yet the apodosis commencing with “and thou shalt know” shows that the sense is not thereby exhausted, but rather that the building is simply mentioned here as a type of the spiritual temple (as in ch. vi. 12, 13), and that the completion of the typical temple simply furnishes a pledge of the completion of the true temple. For it was not by the finishing of the earthly building, but solely by the carrying out of the kingdom of God which ine shadowed forth, that Sada could diseeiil that the angel of Jehovah had sk sent to it. This is also apparent from the reason assigned for this promise in ver. 10, the meaning of which has been explained in very different ways. Many take "1 INDY as an apodosis, and connect it with 12 "9 °3 as the protasis: “ for whoever despises the day of small things, they shall see with. joy,” etc. (LXX., Chald., Pesh., Vulg., Luth., Calv., and others); but "2 can hardly be taken as an indefinite pronoun, inasmuch as the introduction of the apodosis by Vav would be unsuitable, and it has hitherto been impossible to find a single well-established example of the indefinite "9 followed by a perfect with Vav consec. And the idea that v’sdm*cha is a circumstantial clause, in the sense of “whereas they see with joy” (Hitzig, Koehler), is equally untenable, for in a circumstantial clause the verb never stands at the head, but always the subject; and this is so essential, that if the subject of the minor (or circumstantial) clause is a noun which has already been mentioned in the major clause, either the noun itself, or at any rate its pronoun, must be repeated (Mwald, § 341, a), because this is the only thing by which the clause can be recognised as a circumstantial clause. We must therefore take * as an interrogative pronoun: Who has ever despised the day of the small things? and understand the question in the sense of a negation, “No one has ever despised,” ete. The perfect baz with the syllable sharpened, for béz, from biz (like tach for téch in Isa. xliv. 18; cf. Ges. § 72, Anm. 8), expresses a truth of experience resting upon facts. The words contain a perfect truth, if we only take them in the sense in which they were actually intended,—namely, that no one who hopes to accomplish, or does accomplish, anything great, despises the day of VOL. II. NS)
the small things. Yom q*tannoth, a day on which only small things occur (cf. Num. xxii. 18). This does not merely mean the day on which the foundation-stone of the temple was first laid, and the building itself was still in the stage of its. small pesiiainge according to which the time when ‘the temple was built up again in full splendour would be the day of great things (Koehler and others). For the time when Zerubbabel’s temple was finished—namely, the sixth year of Darius—was just as miserable as that in which the foundation was laid, and the building that had been suspended was resumed once more. The whole period from Darius to the coming of the Messiah, who will be the first to accomplish great things, is a day of small things, as being a period in which everything that was done for the building of the kingdom of God seemed but small, and in comparison with the work of the Messiah really was small, although it contained within itself the germs of the greatest things. The following perfects, 381) IND”, have Vav. consec., and express the consequence, though. not “ ay necessary consequence, of their having despised the day of small beginnings,” as Koehler imagines, who for that reason properly rejects this view, but the consequence which will ensue if the day of small things is not despised. The fact that the clause beginning with v’sdm’cha is attached to the first clause of the verse in the form of a consequence, may be very simply explained on the ground that the question “ who hath despised,” with its negative answer, contains an admonition to the people and their rulers not to despise the small beginnings. If they lay this admonition to heart, the seven eyes of God will see with delight the plumb-lead in the hand of Zerubbabel. In the pouiviaatien ANT) IND the verb sdm‘chu takes the place of an adverb (Ges. § 142, So a). 2120 }28 is not a stone filled up with lead, but an eb hea which is lead, i.e. the plumb-lead or plummet. A plummet in the hand is a sign of being engaged in the work of building, or of superintending the eS of a building. The meaning of the clause is therefore, “Then will the seven eyes of Jehovah look with joy, or with satisfaction, upon the execution,” not, however, in the sense of.“ They will find their pleasure in this restored temple, and look upon it with protecting care” (Kliefoth); for if this were the meaning, the introduction of the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel would be a very superfluous addition. Zerubbabel is still simply the type of the future Zerubbabel—namely, the Messiah—who will build the true temple of God; and the meaning is the following: Then will the seven eyes of God help to carry out this building. nbs nya’ cannot be grammatically joined to TiN) 3"? in the sense of “these seven eyes,” as the position of *élleh (these) between the numeral and the noun precludes this; but nim 2) is an explanatory apposition to ms nyav: “those (well-known) seven, (viz.) the eyes of Jehovah.” The reference is to the seven eyes mentioned in the previous vision, which are directed upon a stone. These, according to ch. iii. 9, are the sevenfold radiations or operations of the Spirit of the Lord. Of these the angel of the Lord says still further here: They sweep through the whole earth, i.¢. their influence stretches over all the earth. These words also receive their full significance only on the supposition that the angel of Jehovah is speaking of the Messianic building of the house or kingdom of God. For the eyes of Jehovah would not need to sweep through the whole earth, in order to see whatever could stand in the way and hinder the erection of Zerubbabel’s temple, but simply to watch over the opponents of Judah in the immediate neighbourhood and the rule of Darius.
This gave to the prophet a general explanation of the meaning of the vision; for the angel had told him that the house (or kingdom) of God would be built and finished by the Spirit of Jehovah, and the church of the Lord would accomplish its mission, to shine brightly as a candlestick. But there is one point in the vision that is not yet quite clear to him, and he therefore asks for an explanation in vers. 11-14. Ver. 11. “ And I answered and said to him, What are these two olive-trees on the right of the candlestick, and on the left? Ver. 12. And I answered the second time, and said to him, What are the two branches (ears) of the olive-trees which are at the hand of the two golden spouts, which pour the gold out of themselves? Ver. 13. And he spake to me thus: Knowest thow not what these are? and I said, No, my lord. Ver. 14. Then said he, These are the two oil-children, which stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” The meaning of the olive-trees on the right and left sides of the candlestick (‘al, over, because the olive-trees rose above the candlestick on the two sides) is not quite obvious to the prophet. He asks about this in ver. 11; at the same time, recognising the fact that their meaning is bound up with the two shibbale hazzéthim, he does not wait for an answer, but gives greater precision to his question, by asking the meaning of these two branches of the olive-trees. On ‘AY the Masora observes, that the dagesh forte conjunct., which is generally found after the interrogative pronoun mdh, is wanting in the ¥, and was probably omitted, simply because the & has not a full vowel, but a sheva, whilst the n which follows has also a dagesh. These branches of the olive-trees were b’yad, “ at the hand of” (ie. close by, as in Job xv. 23) the two golden tsant*roth, which poured the gold from above into the gulldh of the candlestick. Tsant*roth (am. dey.) is supposed by Aben Ezra and others to stand for oil-presses; but there is no further ground for this than the conjecture that the olive-trees could only supply the candlestick with oil when the olives were pressed. The older translators render the word by spouts or ‘ channels” (UX X. pvgaTypes, Vulg. rostra, Pesh. noses). It is probably related in meaning to tsinnor, channel or waterfall, and to be derived from tsdénar, to rush: hence spouts into which the branches of the olive-trees emptied the oil of the olives, so that it poured with a rush out of them into the oil vessel. The latter is obviously implied in the words hamm*riqgim, ete., which empty out the gold from above themselves, i.e. the gold which comes to them from above. Hazzdhabh, the gold which the tsant’roth empty out, is supposed by most commentators to signify the golden-coloured oil. Hofmann (Weiss. u. Erf. i. 844-5) and Kliefoth, on the contrary, understand by it real gold, which flowed out of the spouts into the candlestick, so that the latter was thereby perpetually renewed. But as the candlestick is not now for the first time in process of formation, but is represented in the vision as perfectly finished, and as the gold comes from the branches of the olive-trees, it is impossible to think of anything else than the oil which shines like gold. Accordingly the oil (yitshar, lit. shining) is called zéhdbh, as being, as it were, liquid gold. Hence arises the play upon words: the spouts are of gold, and they pour gold from above themselves into the candlestick (Hitzig and Koehler). The angel having expressed his astonishment at the prophet’s ignorance, as he does in ver. 5, gives this answer: These (the two bushes of the olive-tree, for which the olive-trees stood there) are the two b’né yitshdr, sons of oil, ze. endowed or-supplied with oil (cf. Isa. v. 1), which stand by the Lord of the whole earth, namely as His servants (on ‘dmad ‘al, denoting the standing posture of a servant, who rises above his master when seated, see 1 Kings xxl. 19, also Isa. vi. 2). The two children of oil cannot be the Jews and Gentiles (Cyril), or Israel and the Gentile world in their fruitful branches, ¢.¢. their believing members (Kliefoth), because the candlestick is the symbol of the church of the Lord, consisting of the believers in Israel and also in the Gentile world. This is just as clear as the distinction between the olive-trees and the candlestick, to which they conduct the oil. Others think of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (J. D. Mich., Hofm., Baumg., etc.); but although there is no force in Koehler’s objection, that in that case there would be a double order of prophets in Israel, since two prophets, both influenced by the Spirit of God, would not imply a double order of prophets, this explanation is decidedly precluded by the fact that two mortal men could not convey to the church for all ages the oil of the Spirit of God. The two sons of oil can only be the two media, anointed with oil, through whom the spiritual and gracious gifts of God were conveyed to the church of the Lord, namely, the existing representatives of the priesthood and the regal government, who were at that time Joshua the high priest and the prince Zerubbabel. These stand by the Lord of the whole earth, as the divinely appointed instruments through whom the Lord causes His Spirit to flow into His congregation. Israel had indeed possessed both these instruments from the time of its first adoption as the people of Jehovah, and both were consecrated to their office by anointing. So far the fact that the olive-trees stand by the side of the candlestick does not appear to indicate anything that the prophet could not have interpreted for himself; and hence the astonishment expressed in the question of the angel in ver. 13. Moreover, the vision was not intended to represent an entirely new order of things, but simply to show the completion of that which was already contained and typified in the old covenant. The seven-armed candlestick was nothing new in itself. All that was new in the candlestick seen by Zechariah was the apparatus through which it was supplied with oil that it might give light, namely, the connection between the candlestick and the two olive-trees, whose branches bore olives like bunches of ears, to supply it abundantly with oil, which was conveyed to each of its seven lamps through seven pipes. The candlestick of the tabernacle had to be supplied every day with the necessary oil by the hands of the priests. This oil the congregation had to present; and to this end the Lord had to bestow His blessing, that the fruits of the land might be made to prosper, so that the olive-tree should bear its olives, and yield a supply of oil. But this blessing was withdrawn from the nation when it fell away from its God (cf. Joeli. 10). If, then, the candlestick had two olivetrees by its side, yielding oil in such copious abundance, that every one of the seven lamps received its supply through seven pipes, it could never fail to have sufficient oil for a full and brilliant light. This was what was new in the visionary candlestick; and the meaning was this, that the Lord would in future bestow upon His congregation the organs of His Spirit, and maintain them in such direct connection with it, that it would be able to let its light shine with sevenfold brilliancy.
These two figures are so closely connected, that they are to be taken as one vision. The circumstance, that a pause is introduced between the first and second view, in which both the ecstatic elevation and the interpreting angel leave the prophet, so that it is stated in ver. 5 that “the angel came forth,” furnishes no sufficient reason for the assumption that there were two different visions. For the figure of the ephah with the woman sitting in it is also divided into two views, since the prophet first of all sees the woman and receives the explanation (vers. 5-8), and the further development of the vision is then introduced in ver. 9 with a fresh introductory formula, “ And I lifted up my eyes, and saw.” And just as this introductory formula, through which new and different visions are introduced in ch. ii. 1 and 5, by no means warrants us in dividing what is seen here into two different visions; so there is nothing in the introduction in ver. 5 to compel us to separate the vision of the flying roll (vers. 1-4) from the following vision of the ephah, since there is no such difference in the actual contents of the two as to warrant such a separation. They neither stand in such a relation to one another, as that the first sets forth the extermination of sinners out of the holy land, and the second the extermination of sin itself, as Maurer supposes; nor does the one treat of the fate of the sinners and the other of the full measure of the sin; but the vision of the flying roll prepares the way for, and introduces, what is carried out in the vision of the ephah (vers. 5-11), and the connection between the two is indicated formally by the fact that the suffix in 52 in ver. 6 refers back to vers. 3 and 4. Ver. 1. “And I lifted up my eyes again, and saw, and behold a flying roll. Ver. 2. And he said to me, What seest thou? And I said, I see a flying roll; its length twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits. Ver. 3. And he said to me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the whole land: for every one that stealeth will be cleansed away from this side, according to it; and every one that sweareth will be cleansed away from that side, according to it. Ver. 4. Ihave caused it to go forth, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts, and it will come into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth by my name for deceit: and tt will pass the night in the midst of his house, and consume both its beams and its stones.” 'The person calling the prophet’s attention to the vision, and interpreting it, is the angelus interpres. This is not specially mentioned here, as being obvious from what goes before. The roll (book-scroll, m°gillah = mgillath sépher, Ezek. ii. 9) is seen flying over the earth unrolled, so that its length and breadth can be seen. The statement as to its size is not to be regarded as “an approximative estimate,” so that the roll would be simply described as of considerable size (Koehler), but is unquestionably significant. It corresponds both to the size of the porch of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings vi. 3), and also to the dimensions of the holy place in the tabernacle, which was twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad. Hengstenberg, Hofmann, and Umbreit, following the example of Kimchi, assume that the reference is to the porch of the temple, and suppose that the roll has the same dimensions as this porch, to indicate that the judgment is “a consequence of the theocracy,” or was to issue from the sanctuary of Israel, where the people assembled before the Lord. But the porch of the temple was neither a symbol of the theocracy, nor the place where the people assembled before the Lord, but a mere architectural ornament, which had no significance whatever in relation to the worship. The people assembled before the Lord in the court, to have reconciliation made for them with God by sacrifice; or they entered the holy place in the person of their sanctified mediators, the priests, as cleansed from sin, there to appear before God and engage in His spotless worship. The dimensions of the roll are taken from the holy place of the tabernacle, just as in the previous vision the candlestick was the Mosaic candlestick of the tabernacle. Through the similarity of the dimensions of the roll to those of the holy place in the tabernacle, there is no intention to indicate that the curse proceeds from the holy place of the tabernacle or of the temple; for the roll would have issued from the sanctuary, if it had been intended to indicate this. Moreover, the curse or judgment does indeed begin at the house of God, but it does not issue or come from the house of God. Kliefoth has pointed to the true meaning in the following explanation which he gives: “'The faet that the writing, which brings the curse upon all the sinners of the earth, has the same dimensions as the tabernacle, signifies that the measure will be meted out according to the measure of the holy place;” and again, “the measure by which this curse upon sinners will be meted out, will be the measure of the holy place.”* With this measure would all sinners be measured, that they might be cut off from the congregation of the Lord, which appeared before God in the holy place. The flight of the roll symbolized the going forth of the curse over the whole land. INTs is rendered by Hofmann, Neumann, and Kliefoth “the whole earth,” because “ it evidently signifies the whole earth in ch. iv. 10, 14, and vi. 5” (Kliefoth). But these passages, in which the Lord of the whole earth is spoken of, do not prove anything in relation to our vision, in which yasarb3 is unmistakeably limited to the land of Canaan (Judah) by the antithesis in ver. 11, “the land of Shinar.” If the sinners who are smitten by the curse proceeding over ysto3 are to be carried into the land of Shinar, the former must be a definite land, and not the earth as the sum of all lands. It cannot be argued in opposition to this, that the sin of the land in which the true house of God and the true priesthood were, was wiped away by expiation, whereas the sin of the whole world would be brought into the land of judgment, when its measure was concluded by God; for this antithesis is foreign not only to this vision, but to the Scriptures universally. The Scriptures know nothing of any distribution or punishment of sins according to different lands, but simply according to the character of the sinners, viz. whether they are penitent or hardened. At the same time, the fact that PINT-PD denotes the whole of the land of Israel, by no means proves that our vision either treats of the “ carrying away of Israel into exile,” which had already occurred (Ros.), or “sets before them a fresh carrying away into exile, and one still in the future” (Hengstenberg), or that on the coming of the millennial kingdom the sin and the sinners will be exterminated from the whole of the holy land, and the sin thrown back upon the rest of the earth, which is still under the power of the world (Hofmann). The vision certainly refers to the remote future of the kingdom of God; and therefore “the whole land” cannot be restricted to the extent and boundaries of Judea or Palestine, but reaches as far as the spiritual Israel or church of Christ is spread over the earth; but there is no allusion in our vision to the millennial kingdom, and its establishment within the limits of the earthly Canaan. The curse falls upon all thieves and false swearers. aW30 in ver. 3 is defined more precisely in ver. 4, as swearing in the name of Jehovah for deceit, and therefore refers to perjury in the broadest sense of the word, or to all abuse of the name of God for false, deceitful swearing. Thieves are mentioned for the sake of individualizing, as sinners against the second table of the decalogue; false swearers, as sinners against the first table. The repetition of MiD2 MD points to this; for mizzeh, repeated in correlative clauses, signifies ine et illinc, hence and thence, i.e. on one side and the other (Ex. xvii. 12; Num. xxii. 24; Ezek. xlvii. 7), and can only refer here to the fact that the roll was written upon on both sides, so that it is to be taken in close connection with 7193: “on this side... and on that, according to it” (the roll), i.e. according to the curse written upon this side and that side of the roll. We have therefore to picture the roll to ourselves as having the curse against the thieves written upon the one side, and that against the perjurers upon the other. The supposition that mizzeh refers to yaNn-53 is precluded most decidedly, by the fact that mzzzeh does not mean “thence,” ze. from the whole land, but when used adverbially of any place, invariably signifies “hence,” and refers to the place where the speaker himself is standing. Moreover, the double use of mizzeh is at variance with any allusion to hd’ Grets, as well as the fact that if it belonged to the verb, it would stand after 793, whether before or after the verb. Niggah, the niphal, signifies here to be cleaned out, like xa@api&oOas in Mark vii. 19 (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 10; Deut. xvii. 12). This is explained in ver. 4 thus: Jehovah causes the curse to go forth and enter into the house of the thief and perjurer, so that it will pass the night there, i.e. stay there (Jéneh third pers. perf. of lan, from ldndh, to be blunted, like zéreh in Isa. lix. 5, and other verbal formations); it will not remain idle, however, but work therein, destroying both the house and sinners therein, so that beams and stones will be consumed (cf. 1 Kings xviii. 38). The suffix in 3792 (for 3nd, cf. Ges. § 75, Anm. 19) refers to the house, of course including the inhabitants. The following nouns introduced with NS) are in explanatory apposition: both its beams and its stones. The roll therefore symbolizes the curse which will fall upon sinners throughout the whole land, consuming them with their houses, and thus sweeping them out of the nation of God.
To this there is appended in vers. 5-11 a new view, which exhibits the further fate of the sinners who have been separated from the congregation of the saints. Ver. 5. “ And the angel that talked with me went forth, and said to me, Lift up now thine eyes, and sce, what is this that goeth out there? Ver. 6. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah going out. And he said, This is their aspect in all the land. Ver. 7. And behold a disk of lead was lifted up, and there was a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah. Ver. 8. And he said, This as wickedness; and he cast it into the midst of the ephah, and cast the leaden weight upon its mouth.” With the disappearing of the previous vision, the angelus interpres had also vanished from the eyes of the prophet. After a short pause he comes out again, calls the prophet’s attention to a new figure which emerges out of the cloud, and so comes within the range of vision (NNI7 NNN), and informs him with regard to it: “ This is the ephah which goeth out.” 3, to go out, in other words, to come to view. The ephah was the greatest measure of capacity which really existed among the Hebrews for dry goods, and was about the size of a cubic foot; for the chomer, which contained ten ephahs, appears to have had only an ideal existence, viz. for the purpose of calculation. The meaning of this figure is indicated generally in the words ‘23 Oy nt, the meaning of which depends upon the interpretation to be given to By. The suffix of this word can only refer to the sinners mentioned before, viz. the thieves and perjurers; for it is contrary to the Hebrew usage to suppose that the words refer to the expression appended, PINT", in the sense of “all those who are in the whole land” (Koehler). Consequently f does not mean the eye, but adspectus, appearance, or shape, as in Ley. xii. 55, Ezek. i. 4 sqq; and the words have this meaning: The ephah (bushel) is the shape, z.e. represents the figure displayed by the sinners in all the land, after the roll of the curse has gone forth over the land, z.e. it shows into what condition they have come through that anathema (Kliefoth). The point of comparison between the ephah and the state into which sinners have come in consequence of the curse, does not consist in the fact that the ephah is carried away, and the sinners likewise (Maurer), nor in the fact that the sin now reaches its full measure (Hofm., Hengstenberg); for “the carrying away of the sinners does not come into consideration yet, and there is nothing at all here about the sin becoming full.” It is true that, according to what follows, sin sits in the ephah as a woman, but there is nothing to indicate that the ephah is completely filled by it, so that there is no further room in it; and this thought would be generally out of keeping here. The point of comparison is rather to be found in the explanation given by Kliefoth: “Just as in a bushel the separate grains are all collected together, so will the individual sinners over the whole earth be brought into a heap, when the curse of the end goes forth over the whole earth.’ We have no hesitation in appropriating this explanation, although we have not rendered /)S7 “the earth,” inasmuch as at the final fulfilment of the vision the holy land will extend over all the earth. Immediately afterwards the prophet is shown still more clearly what is in the ephah. A covering of lead (hikkdr, a circle, a rounding or a circular plate) rises up, or is lifted up, and then he sees a woman sitting in the ephah (achath does not stand for the indefinite article, but is a numeral, the sinners brought into a heap appearing as a unity, z.e. as one living personality, instead of forming an atomistic heap of individuals). This woman, who had not come into the ephah now for the first time, but was already sitting there, and was only seen now that the lid was raised, is described by the angel as mirsha‘ath, ungodliness, as being wickedness embodied, just as in 2 Chron. xxiv. 7 this name is given to godless Jezebel. ‘Thereupon he throws her into the ephah, out of which she had risen up, and shuts it with the leaden lid, to carry her away, as the following vision shows, out of the holy land.
Ver. 9. “ And I lifted wp my eyes, and saw, and behold there came forth two women, and wind in their wings, and they had wings like a stork’s wings; and they carried the ephah between earth and heaven. Ver. 10. And I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither are these taking the ephah? Ver. 11. And he said to me, To build it a dwelling in the land of Shinar: and it will be placed and set up there upon its stand.” ‘The meaning of this new scene may easily be discovered. The ephah with the woman in it is carried away between earth and heaven, 7.e. through the air. Women carry it because there is a woman inside; and two women, because two persons are required to carry so large and heavy a measure, that they may lay hold of it on both sides (72% with the 8 dropped; cf. Ges. § 74, Anm. 4). These women have wings, because it passes through the air; and a stork’s wings, because these birds have broad pinions, and not because the stork is a bird of passage or an unclean bird. The wings are filled with wind, that they may be able to carry their burden with greater velocity through the air. The women denote the instruments or powers employed by God to carry away the sinners out of His congregation, without any special allusion to this or the other historical nation. This is all that we have to seek for in these features, which only serve to give distinctness to the picture. But the statement in ver. 11 is significant: “to build it a house in the land of Shinar.” The pronoun nd with the suffix softened instead of ne, as in Ex.
ix. 18, Lev. xiii. 4 (cf. Ewald, § 247, d), refers grammatically to D871; but so far as the sense is concerned, it refers to the woman sitting in the ephah, since a house is not built fora measure, but only for men to dwell in. This also applies to the feminine form 131, and to the suffix in 70232. The building of a house ipidiehies that the woman is to dwell there permanently, as is still more clearly expressed in the second hemistich. ‘125 refers to M2, and is not to be taken hypothetically, in the sense of “as soon as the house shall be restored,” but is a perfect with Vav consec.; and hakhan, the hophal of kan, is not to be taken in the sense of restoring, but, in correspondence with m%khundah, in the sense of establishing or building on firm foundations. M%hundh: the firmly established house. In this the woman of sin is brought to rest. The land in which the woman of sin carried away out of the holy land is permanently to dwell, is the land of Shinar. This name is not to be identified with Babel, so as to support the conclusion that it refers to a fresh removal of the people of Israel into exile; but according to Gen. x. 10 and xi. 2, Shinar is the land in which Nimrod founded the first empire, and where the human race built the tower of Babel which was to reach to the sky. The name is not to be taken geographically here as an epithet applied to Mesopotamia, but is a notional or real definition, which affirms that the ungodliness carried away out of the sphere of the people of God will have its permanent settlement in the sphere of the imperial power that is hostile to God. The double vision of this chapter, therefore, shows the separation of the wicked from the congregation of the Lord, and their banishment into and concentration within the ungodly kingdom of the world. This distinction and separation commenced with the coming of the Messiah, and runs through all the ages of the spread and development of the Christian church, until at the time of the end they will come more and more into outward manifestation; and the evil, having been sifted out by the judicial power of God and His Spirit, will form itself into a Babel of the last days, as Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix. clearly show, and attempt a last struggle with the kingdom of God, in which it will be overcome and destroyed by the last judgment.
Ver. 1. “And again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold four chariots coming forth between the two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. Ver. 2. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black horses. Ver. 5. And in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot speckled powerful horses. Ver. 4. And I answered and said to the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord? Ver. 5. And the angel answered and said to me, These are the four winds of heaven going out, after having stationed themselves by the Lord of the whole earth. Ver. 6. Those in which the black horses are, go out into the land of the north, and the white have gone out behind them, and the speckled have gone out into the land of the south. Ver. 7. And the powerful ones have gone out, and sought to go, to pass through the earth; and he said, Go ye, and pass through the earth; and they passed through the earth. Ver. 8. And he called to me, and spake to me thus: Behold, those which go out into the land of the north let down my spirit in the land of the north.’ The four chariots are explained in ver. 5 by the interpreting angel to be the four winds of heaven, which go forth after they have taken their stand by the Lord of the whole earth, i.e. have appeared before Him in the attitude of servants, to lay their account before Him, and to receive commands from Him (oY 23:3, as in Job i. 6, ii. 1). This addition shows that the explanation is not a real interpretation; that is to say, the meaning is not that the chariots represent the four winds; but the less obvious figure of the chariots is explained through the more obvious figure of the winds, which answers better to the reality. Since, for example, according to ver. 8, the chariots are designed to carry the Spirit (radch) of God, there was nothing neil which they could be more suitably compared than the winds (radch) of heaven, for these are the most appropriate earthly substratum to symbolize the working of the Divine Spirit (cf. Jer. xlix. 36; Dan. vii. 2). This Spirit, in its judicial operations, is to. be borne by the chariots to the places more immediately designated in the vision. As they go out, after having appeared before God, the two mountains, between which they go out or come forth, can only be sought in the place where God’s dwelling is. But the mountains are of brass, and therefore are not earthly mountains; but they are not therefore mere symbols of the might of God with which His church is defended (Hengst., Neumann), or allusions to the fact that the dwelling-place of God is immoveable and unapproachable (Koehler), or symbols of the imperial power of the world and the kingdom of God (Kliefoth), according to which the power of the world would be just as immoveable as the kingdom of God. The symbol has rather a definite geographical view as its basis. As the lands to which the chariots go are described geographically as the lands of the north and south, the starting-point of the chariots must also be thought of geographically, and must therefore be a place or country lying between the northern and southern lands: this is the land of Israel, or more especially Jerusalem, the centre of the Old Testament kingdom of God, where the Lord had His dwelling-place. It is therefore the view of Jerusalem and its situation that lies at the foundation of the vision; only we must not think of the mountains Zion and Moriah (as Osiander, Maurer, Hofmann, and Umbreit do), for these are never distinguished from one another in the Old Testament as forming two separate mountains; but we have rather to think of Zion and the Mount of Olives, which stood opposite to it towards the east. Both are named as places where or from which the Lord judges the world, viz. the Mount of Olives in ch. xiv. 4, and Zion very frequently, e.g. in Joel iii. 16. The place between the two mountains is, then, the valley of Jehoshaphat, in which, according to Joel iii. 2 sqq., the Lord judges the nations. In the vision before us this valley simply forms the starting-point for the chariots, which carry the judgment from the dwelling-place of God into the lands of the north and south, which are mentioned as the seat of the imperial power; and the mountains are of brass, to denote the immoveable firmness of the place where the Lord dwells, and where He has founded His kingdom.
The colour of the horses, by which the four chariots are distinguished, is just as significant here as in ch. i. 8; and indeed, so far as the colour is the same, the meaning is also the same here as there. Three colours are alike, since b’ruddim, speckled, is not essentially different from s’ruqgim, starling-grey, viz. black and white mixed together (see at ch. i. 8). The black horses are added here. Black is the colour of grief (cf. “black as sackcloth of hair,” Rev. vi. 12). The rider upon the black horse in Rev. vi. 5, 6, holds in his hand the emblem of dearness, the milder form of famine. Consequently the colours of the horses indicate the destination of the chariots, to execute judgment upon the enemies of the kingdom of God. Red, as the colour of blood, points to war and bloodshed; the speckled colour to pestilence and other fatal plagues; and the black colour to dearness and famine: so that these three chariots symbolize the three great judgments, war, pestilence, and hunger (2 Sam. xxiv. 11 sqq.), along with which “the noisome beast” is also mentioned in Ezek. xiv. 21 as a fourth judgment. In the vision before us the fourth chariot is drawn by white horses, to point to the glorious victories of the ministers of the divine judgment. The explanation of the chariots in this vision is rendered more difficult by the fact, that on the one hand the horses of the fourth chariot are not only called b’ruddim, but O'¥28 also; and on the other hand, that in the account of the starting of the chariots the red horses are omitted, and the speckled are distinguished from the O°S8 instead, inasmuch as it is affirmed of the former that they went forth into the south country, and of the latter, that “they sought to go that they might pass through the whole earth,” and they passed through with the consent of God. The commentators have therefore attempted in different ways to identify DONT in ver. 7 with OWI. Hitzig and Maurer assume that DDN is omitted from ver. 6 by eee and that o'yDs in ver. 7 is a copyist’s error for D938, although there is nota single critical authority that can be adduced in support of this. Hengstenberg and Umbreit suppose that the predicate D'¥9x, strong, in ver. 3 refers to all the horses in the four chariots, and that by the “strong” horses of ver. 7 we are to understand the “red” horses of the first chariot. But if the horses of all the chariots were strong, the red alone cannot be so called, since the article not only stands before O°¥8 in ver. 7, but ale before the three other colours, and indicates noiine more than that the colours have been mentioned before. Mores over, it is grammatically impossible that D'¥DN in ver. 3 should maker to Ai the four teams; as “ we must in that case have had nbp Dis” (Koehler). Others (e.g. Abulw., Kimchi, Calvin, and Koehler) have attempted to prove that DsDX may have the sense of DNSIN; regarding }{O8 as a softened form of 49M, and explaining the latter, after Isa. Ixiii. 1, as signifying bright red. But apart from the fact that it is impossible to see why so unusual a word should have been chosen in the place of the intelligible word ’adummim in the account of the destination of the red team in ver. 7, unless DSO were merely a copyist’s error for ’adummim, there are no satisfactory grounds for identifying j8 with 779M, since it is impossible to adduce any well-established examples of the change of n into s in Hebrew. The assertion of Koehler, that the Chaldee verb DON, robustus uit, is pen in Hebrew in Job xxxix. 4, is incorrect; for we find pon in the sense of to be healthy and strong in the Syriac and Talmudic as well, and the Chaldaic DN is a softened form of nby, and not of pon. The fact that in 1 Chron. viii. 35 we have the name YISA in the place of 79H in 1 Chron. ix. 41, being the only instance of the interchange of 8 and 7m in Hebrew, is not sufficient of itself to sustain the alteration, amidst the great mass of various readings in the genealogies of the Chronicles. Moreover, chdémiats, from chdméts, to be sharp, does not mean red (=’déddm), but a glaring colour, like the Greek o£vs; and even in Isa. Ixili. 1 it has simply this meaning, ze. merely “denotes the unusual redness of the dress, which does not look like the purple of a king’s talar, or the scarlet of a chlamys” (Delitzsch); or, speaking more correctly, it merely denotes the glaring colour which the dress has acquired through being sprinkled over with red spots, arising either from the dark juice of the grape or from blood. All that remains therefore is to acknowledge, in accordance with the words of the text, that in the interpretation of the vision the departure of the team with the red horses is omitted, and the team with speckled powerful horses divided into two teams —one with speckled horses, and the other with black. We cannot find any support in this for the interpretation of the four chariots as denoting the four imperial monarchies of Daniel, since neither the fact that there are four chariots nor the colour of the teams furnishes any tenable ground for this. And it is precluded by the angel’s comparison of the four chariots to the four winds, which point to four quarters of the VOL. II. T globe, as in Jer. xlix. 36 and Dan. vii. 2, but not to four empires rising one after another, one of which always took the place of the other, so that they embraced the same lands, and were merely distinguished from one another by the fact that each in succession spread over a wider surface than its predecessor. The colour of the horses also does not favour, but rather opposes, any reference to the four great empires. Leaving out of sight the arguments already adduced at ch. i. 8 against this interpretation, Kliefoth himself admits that, so far as the horses and their colour are concerned, there is a thorough contrast between this vision and the first one (ch. i. 7-17),—namely, that in the first vision the colour assigned to the horses corresponds to the kingdoms of the world to which they are sent, whereas in the vision before us they have the colour of the kingdoms from which they set out to convey the judgment to the others; and he endeavours to explain this distinction, by saying that in the first vision the riders procure information from the different kingdoms of the world as to their actual condition, whereas in the vision before us the chariots have to convey the judgment to the kingdoms of the world. But this distinction furnishes no tenable ground for interpreting the colour of the horses in the one case in accordance with the object of their mission, and in the other case in accordance with their origin or starting-point. If the intention was to set forth the stamp of the kingdoms in the colours, they would correspond in both visions to the kingdoms upon or in which the riders and the chariots had to perform their mission. If, on the other hand, the colour is regulated by the nature and object of the vision, so that these are indicated by it, it cannot exhibit the character of the great empires.
If we look still further at the statement of the angel as to the destination of the chariots, the two attempts made by Hofmann and Kliefoth to combine the colours of the horses with the empires, show most distinctly the untenable character of this view. According to both these expositors, the angel says nothing about the chariot with the red horses, because the Babylonian empire had accomplished its mission to destroy the Assyrian empire. But the Perso-Median empire had also accomplished its mission to destroy the Babylonian, and therefore the team with the black horses should also have been left unnoticed in the explanation. On the other hand, Kliefoth asserts, and appeals to the participle D'SY* in ver. 6 in support of his assertion, that the chariot with the horses of the imperial monarchy of Medo-Persia goes to the north country, viz. Mesopotamia, the seat of Babel, to convey the judgment of God thither; that the judgment was at that very time in process of execution, and the chariot was going in the prophet’s own day. But although the revolt of Babylon in the time of Darius, and its result, furnish an apparent proof that the power of the Babylonian empire was not yet completely destroyed in Zechariah’s time, this intimation cannot lie in the participle as expressing what is actually in process, for the simple reason that in that case the perfects 3838’ which follow would necessarily affirm what had already taken place; and consequently not only _ would the white horses, which went out behind the black, i.e.
the horses of the imperial monarchy of Macedonia, have executed the judgment upon the Persian empire, but the speckled horses would have accomplished their mission also, since the same %N¥" is affirmed of both. The interchange of this participle with the ‘perfect does not point to any difference in the time at which the events occur, but simply expresses a distinction in the idea. In the clause with O'' the mission of the chariot is expressed through the medium of the participle, according to its idea. The expression “the black horses are going out” is equivalent to, “they are appointed to go out;” whereas in the following clauses with 38% the going out is expressed in the form of a fact, for which we should use the present.
A still greater difficulty lies in the way of the interpretation of the colours of the horses as denoting the great empires, from the statement concerning the places to which the teams go forth. Kliefoth finds the reason why not only the black horses (of the Medo-Persian monarchy), but also the white horses (of the Greeco-Macedonian), go forth to the north country (Mesopotamia), but the latter after the former, in the fact that not only the Babylonian empire had its seat there, but the Medo- Persian empire also. But how does the going forth of the speckled horses into the south country (Egypt) agree with this? If the fourth chariot answered to the fourth empire in Daniel, i.e. to the Roman empire, since this empire executed the judgment upon the Greco-Macedonian monarchy, this chariot must of necessity have gone forth to the seat of that monarchy. But that was not Egypt, the south country, but Central Asia or Babylon, where Alexander died in the midst of his endeavours to give a firm foundation to his monarchy. In order to explain the going out of the (fourth) chariot with the speckled horses into the south country, Hofmann inserts between the Graco-Macedonian monarchy and the Roman the empire of Antiochus Epiphanes as a small intermediate empire, which is indicated by the speckled horses, and thereby brings Zechariah into contradiction not only with Daniel’s description of the empires, but also with the historical circumstances, according to which, as Kliefoth has already observed, “ Antiochus Epiphanes and his power had not the importance of an imperial monarchy, but were merely an offshoot of another imperial monarchy, namely the Greeco-Macedonian.”* Kliefoth’s attempt to remove this difficulty is also a failure. Understanding by the spotted strong horses the Roman empire, he explains the separation of the spotted from the powerful horses in the angel’s interpretation from the peculiar character of the imperial monarchy of Rome,—namely, that it will first of all appear as an actual and united empire, but will then break up into ten kingdoms, 7.¢. into a plurality of kingdoms embracing the whole
1 Kliefoth (Sach. p. 90) adds, by way of still further argument in
support of the above: ‘‘The way in which Antiochus Hpiphanes is introduced in Dan. viii. is in perfect accordance with these historical circumstances. The third monarchy, the Greeco-Macedonian, represented as a he-goat, destroys the Medo-Persian empire; but its first great horn, Alexander, breaks off in the midst of its victorious career: four horns or kingdoms grow out of the Greeco-Macedonian, and one of these offshoots of the Macedonian empire is Antiochus Epiphanes, the ‘little horn,’ the bold and artful king.” But Zechariah would no more agree with this
description in Daniel than with the historical fulfilment, if he had intended the speckled horses to represent Antiochus Epiphanes. For whereas, like Daniel, he enumerates four imperial monarchies, he makes the spotted horses appear not with the third chariot, but with the fourth, and expressly combines the spotted horses with the powerful ones, which, even according to Hofmann, were intended to indicate the Romans, and therefore unquestionably connects the spotted horses with the Roman empire. If, then, he wished the spotted horses to be understood as referring to Antiochus Epiphanes, he would represent Antiochus Epiphanes not as an offshoot of the third or Greeco-Macedonian monarchy, but as the first member of the fourth or Roman, in direct contradiction to the book of Daniel and to the historical order of events.
earth, and finally pass over into the kingdom of Antichrist. Accordingly, the spotted horses go out first of all, and carry the spirit of wrath to the south country, Egypt, which comes into consideration as the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and as that most vigorous offshoot of the Graco-Macedonian monarchy, which survived Antiochus Epiphanes himself. The powerful horses harnessed to the same chariot as the Roman horses go out after this, and wander over the whole earth. They are the divided kingdoms of Daniel springing out of the Roman empire, which are called the powerful ones, not only because they go over the whole earth, but also because Antichrist with his kingdom springs out of them, to convey the judgments of God over the whole earth. But however skilful this interpretation is, it founders on the fact, that it fails to explain the going forth of the speckled horses into the land of the south in a manner corresponding to the object of the vision and the historical circumstances. If the vision represented the judgment, which falls upon the empires in such a manner that the one kingdom destroys or breaks up the other, the speckled horses, which are intended to represent the actual and united Roman empire, would of necessity have gone out not merely into the south country, but into the north country also, because the Roman empire conquered and destroyed not only the one offshoot of the Greeco-Macedonian empire, but all the kingdoms that sprang out of that empire. Kliefoth has given no reason for the exclusive reference to the southern branch of this imperial monarchy, nor can any reason be found. The kingdom of the Ptolemies neither broke up the other kingdoms that sprang out of the monarchy of Alexander, nor received them into itself, so that it could be mentioned as pars pro toto, and it had no such importance in relation to the holy land and nation as that it could be referred to on that account. If the angel had simply wished to mention a vigorous offshoot of the Greco-Macedonian empire instead of mentioning the whole, he would certainly have fixed his eye upon the kingdom of the Seleucidze, which developed itself in Antiochus Epiphanes into a type of Antichrist, and have let the speckled horses also go to the north, i.e. to Syria. This could have been explained by referring to Daniel; but not their going forth to the south country from the fact that the south country is mentioned in Dan. xi. 5, as Kliefoth supposes, inasmuch as in this prophecy of Daniel not only the king of the south, but the king of the north is also mentioned, and that long-continued conflict between the two described, which inflicted such grievous injury upon the holy land.
To obtain a simple explanation of the vision, we must consider, above all things, that in all these visions the interpretations of the angel do not furnish a complete explanation of all the separate details of the vision, but simply hints and expositions of certain leading features, from which the meaning of the whole may be gathered. This is the case here. All the commentators have noticed the fact, that the statement in ver. 8 concerning the horses going forth into the north country, viz. that they carry the Spirit of Jehovah thither, also applies to the rest of the teams—namely, that they also carry the Spirit of Jehovah to the place to which they go forth. It is also admitted that the angel confines himself to interpreting single features by individualizing. This is the case here with regard to the two lands to which the chariots go forth. The land of the north, ze. the territory covered by the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the land of the south, i.e. Egypt, are mentioned as the two principal seats of the power of the world in its hostility to Israel: Egypt on the one hand, and Asshur-Babel on the other, which were the principal foes of the people of God, not only before the captivity, but also afterwards, in the conflicts between Syria and Egypt for the possession of Palestine (Dan. xi.). If we observe this combination, the hypothesis that our vision depicts the fate of the four imperial monarchies, is deprived of all support. Two chariots go into the north country, which is one representative of the heathen world-power: viz. first of all the black horses, to carry famine thither, as one of the great plagues of God with which the ungodly are punished: a plague which is felt all the more painfully, in proportion to the luxury and excess in which men have previously lived. Then follow the white horses, indicating that the judgment will lead to complete victory over the power of the world. Into the south country, 7.e. to Egypt, the other representative of the heathen world-power, goes the chariot with the speckled horses, to carry the manifold judgment of death by sword, famine, and pestilence, which is indicated by this colour. After what has been said concerning the team that went forth into the north country, it. follows as a matter of course that this judgment will also execute the will of the Lord, so that it is quite sufficient for a chariot to be mentioned. On the other hand, it was evidently important to guard against the opinion that the judgment would only affect the two countries or kingdoms that are’ specially mentioned, and to give distinct prominence to the fact that they are only representatives of the heathen world, and that what is here announced applies to the whole world that is at enmity against God. This is done through the explanation in ver. 7 concerning the going out of a fourth team, to pass through the whole earth. This mission is not received by the red horses, but by the powerful ones, as the speckled horses are also called in the vision, to indicate that the manifold judgments indicated by the speckled horses will pass over the earth in all their force. The going forth of the red horses is not mentioned, simply because, according to the analogy of what has been said concerning the other teams, there could be no doubt about it, as the blood-red colour pointed clearly enough to the shedding of blood. The object of the going forth of the chariots is to let down the Spirit of Jehovah upon the land in question. ‘* 1 0, to cause the Spirit of Jehovah to rest, i.e. to let it down, is not identical with non 2, to let out His wrath, in Ezek. v. 13, xvi. 42; for radch is not equivalent to chémah, wrath or fury; but the Spirit of Jehovah is riitich mishpadt (Isa. iv. 4), a spirit of judgment, which not only destroys what is ungodly, but also quickens and invigorates what is related to God. The vision does not set forth the destruction of the world-power, which is at enmity against God, but simply the judgment by which God purifies the sinful world, exterminates all that is ungodly, and renews it by His Spirit. It is also to be observed, that vers. 6 and 7 are a continuation of the address of the angel, and not an explanation given by the prophet of what has been said by the angel in ver. 5. The construction in ver. 6a is anakolouthic, the horses being made the subject in D8, instead of the chariot with black horses, because the significance of the chariots lay in the horses. The object to 7198" in ver. 7) is “the Lord of the whole earth” in ver. 5, who causes the chariots to go forth; whereas in ‘18 Pym in ver. 8 it is the interpreting angel again.
By py, lit. he cried to him, i.e. called out to him with a loud voice, the contents of the exclamation are held up as important to the interpretation of the whole.
The series of visions closes with a symbolical transaction, which is closely connected with the substance of the nightvisions, and sets before the eye the figure of the mediator of salvation, who, as crowned high priest, or as priestly king, is to build the kingdom of God, and raise it into a victorious power over all the kingdoms of this world, for the purpose of comforting and strengthening the congregation. ‘The transaction is the following: Ver. 9. “ And the word of Jehovah came to me thus: Ver. 10. Take of the people of the captivity, of Cheldai, of Tobijah, and of Jedahyah, and go thou the same day, go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah, whither they have come from Babel; Ver. 11. And take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Jocadak the high priest.” By the introduction, “The word of the Lord came to me,” the following transaction is introduced as a procedure of symbolical importance. It is evident from vers. 10 and 11 that messengers had come to Jerusalem from the Israelites who had been left behind in Babel, to offer presents of silver and gold, probably for supporting the erection of the temple, and had gone to the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah. The prophet is to go to them, and to take silver and gold from them, to have a crown made for Joshua the high priest. The construction in vers. 10 and 11 is somewhat broad and dragging. The object is wanting to the inf. absol. nipe, which is used instead of the imperative; and the sentence which has been begun is interrupted by ‘10 NN3, so that the verb which stands at the head is resumed in the Ano of ver. 11, and the sentence finished by the introduction of the object. This view is the simplest one. For it is still more impracticable to take nip? in an absolute sense, and either supply the object from the context, or force it out by alterations of the text (Hitzig). If, for example, we were to supply as the object, “that which they are bringing,” this meaning would result: “accept what they are bringing, do not refuse it,” without there being any ground for the assumption that there had been any unwillingness to accept the presents. The alteration of “end into "12M, “my jewels,” is destitute of any critical support, and “eM is defended against critical caprice by the pone in ver. 14. Nor can npian ns) be taken as the object to nipo, “take (some) from the emigration,” because this thought requires }2, and is irreconcilable with NN, “ from with.” Haggoldh, lit. the wandering into exile, then those who belong to the wandering, or to the exiled, not merely those who are still in exile, but very frequently also those who have returned from exile. This is the meaning here, as in Ezra iv. 1, vi. 19, etc. Mécheldat is an abbreviation for "Ion MND. Cheldai, Tobiyah, and Yedahyah, were the persons who had come from Babylon to bring the present. This is implied in the words ‘219 382 WN, whither they have come from Babel. WS is an accus. loci, pointing back to M3. We are not warranted in interpreting the names of these men symbolically or typically, either by the circumstance that the names have an appellative meaning, like all proper names in Hebrew, or by the fact that Cheldai is written Chélem in ver. 14, and that instead of Josiah we have there apparently chén. For chén is not a proper name (see at ver. 14), and chélem, i.e. strength, is not materially different from Cheldai, 1.e. the enduring one; so that it is only a variation of the name, such as we often meet with. The definition “on that day” can only point back to the day mentioned in ch. i. 7, on which Zechariah saw the night-visions, so that it defines the chronological connection between this symbolical transaction and those night-visions. For, with the explanation given by C. B. Michaelis, “ die isto quo scil. facere debes que nunc mando,” the definition of the time is unmeaning. If God had defined the day more precisely to the prophet in the vision, the prophet would have recorded it. Zechariah is to have given to him as much of the silver and gold which they have brought with them as is required to make ‘aidroth. The plural ‘atdroth does indeed apparently point to at least two crowns, say a silver and a golden one, as C. B. Michaelis and Hitzig suppose. But what follows cannot be made to harmonize with this. The prophet is to put the ‘atdroth upon Joshua’s head. But you do not put two or more crowns upon the head of one man; and the indifference with which Ewald, Hitzig, and Bunsen interpolate the words VNID baant after WN13, without the smallest critical authority, is condemned by the ack that in what follows only one wearer of a crown is spoken of, and in ver. 13, according to the correct interpretation, there is no “ sharp distinalon vauile between the priest and the Messiah.” The plural “adrdth denotes here one single splendid crown, consisting of several gold and silver twists wound together, or rising one above another, as in Job xxxi. 36, and just as in Rev. xix. 12 (él ty Kehadiy aitod diadnuata moda) Christ is said to wear, not many separate diadems, but a crown consisting of several diadems twisted together, as the insignia of His Eel dignity. The meaning a this is expiinceat in vers. 12-15. Ver. 12. “ And speak to him, saying, Thus speaketh Jehovah of hosts, saying, Behold a man, His name is Tsemach (Sprout), and OT His place will He sprout up, and build the temple of Jehovah. Ver. 13. And He will build the temple of Jehovah, and He will carry loftiness, and will sit and rule upon His throne, and will be a priest upon His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between them both. Ver. 14. And the crown will be to Chelem, and to Tobijah, and to Jedahjah, and the favour of the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of Jehovah. Ver. 15. And they that are far off will come and build at the temple of Jehovah; then will ye know that Jehovah of hosts hath sent me -to you; and it will come to pass, if ye hearken to the voice of Jehovah your God.” Two things are stated in these verses concerning the crown: (1) In vers. 12 and 13 the meaning is explained of the setting of the crown upon the head of Joshua the high priest; and (2) in vers. 14, 15, an explanation is given of the circumstance, that the crown had been made of silver and gold presented by men of the captivity. The crowning of Joshua the high priest with a royal crown, which did not properly belong to the high priest as such, as his headdress is neither called a crown (‘cétdréh) nor formed part of the insignia of royal dignity and glory, had a typical significance. It pointed to a man who would sit upon his throne as both ruler and priest, that is to say, would combine both royalty and priesthood in his own person and rank. The expression “ Speak thou to him” shows that the peer of Jehovah are addressed to Joshua, and to him alone (v2 S is singular), and therefore that Zerubbabel must not be interpolated into ver. 11 along with Joshua. The man whom Joshua is to represent or typify, by having a crown placed upon his head, is designated as the Messiah, by the name Tsemach (see at ch. iii. 8); and this name is hie by the expression nis) YAM, These words must not be taken impersonally, in the sense of “ under him will it sprout” (LX X., Luth., Calov., Hitzig, Maurer, and others); for this thought cannot be justified from the usage of the language, to say nothing of its being quite remote from the context, since we have YANND, and not YANM (under him); and moreover, the change of ees in nosy and 72) would be intolerably harsh. In addition to this, according to Jer. xxxili. 15, the Messiah is called Tsemach, because Jehovah causes a righteous growth to spring up to David, so that Tsemach is the sprouting one, and not he who makes others or something else to sprout. AnD, “from under himself,” is equivalent to “ from his place” (Ex. x. 23), ¢.e. from his soil; and is correctly explained by Alting in Hengstenberg thus: “ both as to his nation and as to his country, of the house of David, Judah, and Abraham, to whom the promises were made.” It also contains an allusion to the fact that He will grow from below upwards, from lowliness to eminence. ‘This Sprout will build the temple of the Lord. That these words do not refer to the building of the earthly temple of stone and wood, as Ros. and Hitzig Aes the Rabbins suppose, is so obvious, eat even Koehler has given up this view here, and understands the words, as ee 2 oy Tholuck, and abhors do, as relating to the spiritual temple, of which the tabernacle and the temples of both Solomon and Zerubbabel were only symbols, the temple which is the church of God itself (Hos. viii. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 5; Heb. iii. 6; and Eph. ii. 21, 22). Zechariah not only speaks of this temple here, but also in ch. iv. 9, as Haggai had done before him, in Hag. ii. 6-9, which puts the correctness of our explanation of these passages beyond the reach of doubt. The repetition of this statement in ver. 1éa is not useless, but serves, as the emphatic S17) before this and the following sentence shows, to bring the work of the Tsemach into connection with the place He will occupy, in other words, to show the glory of the temple to be built. The two clauses are to be linked together thus: “ He who will build the temple, the same will carry eminence.” There is no “ antithesis to the building of the temple by Joshua and Zerubbabel” (Koehler) in 87); but. this is quite as foreign to the context as another view of the same commentator, viz. that ver. 13 interrupts the explanation of what the shoot is to be. ‘tin, eminence, is the true word for regal majesty (cf. Jer. xxii. 18; 1 Chron. xxix. 25; Dan. xi. 21). In this majesty He will sit upon His throne and rule, also using His regal dignity and power for the good of His people, and will be a Priest upon His throne, «.e. will be at once both Priest and King upon the throne which He assumes. The rendering, “ And there will be a priest upon His throne” (Ewald and Hitzig), is precluded by the simple structure of the sentences, and still more by the strangeness of the thought which it expresses; for the calling of a priest in relation to God and the people is not to sit upon a throne, but to stand before Jehovah (cf. Judg. xx. 28; Deut. xvii. 12), Even the closing words of this verse, “ And a counsel of peace will be between them both,” do not compel us to introduce a priest sitting upon the throne into the text by the side of the Tsemach ruling upon His throne. O73 cannot be taken as a neuter in the sense of “ between the regal dignity of the Messiah and Wis priesthood” (Capp., Ros.), and does not even refer to the Tsemach and Jehovah, but to the Moshél and Kohén, who sit upon the throne, united in one person, in the Tsemach. Between these two there will be ‘dsath shalom. ‘This does ‘not merely mean, “ the most perfect harmony will exist” (Hofmann, Umbreit), for that is a matter of course, and does not exhaust the meaning of the words. ‘Atsath shalom, counsel of peace, is not merely peaceful, harmonious consultation, but consultation which has peace for its object; and the thought is the following: The Messiah, who unites in Himself royalty and priesthood, will counsel and promote the peace of His people.