2,3. A few patriarchs of venerable age remained to remember the glory of that first temple which had now lain desolate about sixty-eight years. The Lord calls their attention to the contrast between that and this. “How do ye see this now? Is not this in your eyes, compared with that, as nothing?” Ezra 3: 12, 13 gives us a touching allusion to this scene, blending the joy of the young people with the grief of their fathers—the shoutings of the one class and the sad wallings of the other—each swelling up, and perhaps each exciting the other, until the noise was heard afar, and men could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the outcries of grief—a scene not soon forgotten by either the joyous or the sad ones of that day. The Lord calls attention to the wide contrast between this latter house and the former because He had something to say about it. H. C.

3-5. To strengthen them against every depressing influence, to inspirit them to “work” on in faith and hope, he repeats the Divine assurance with which the previous chapter closes, “For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts”—i.e., “I am for you, although the Persians and the Samaritans and even the ancient men of Israel may be against you.” And this assurance He confirms with an argument which they could bring to the test of experience. The word, or “covenant” of God, and the “Spirit” of God remained with them. They might suppose that this covenant had ceased and determined when they had so flagrantly violated it, as that God had given them a prey to their enemies and suffered them to be carried away captive to Babylon; but it had not ceased despite their sins; it still stood. God would be even better to them than His word; and here was a proof patent to them all—the Spirit, which alone gives life to the word, was still with them and manifestly with them. That Spirit was working in the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who brought them messages from heaven; nay, it was working in their own hearts, and compelling them to act on the inspiration of the prophets; for had not the Lord, barely a month since, “stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, and the spirit of Joshua, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people,” so that they had “hearkened unto the voice of the Lord their God, and did according to the words of Haggai the prophet, since God had sent him” (chap. 1: 12-14)? Here, then, was the proof that God was with them. Here was the proof that His word or covenant with them still held good; for the presence and activity of His Spirit in their midst was the surest of all signs that both God and His word remained with them, and had not been alienated or withdrawn. Why, then, should they fear, let the old men say what they would? Cox.

4. Here is the temper for all Christian workers. Let them realize the duty of strength; let them have recourse to the fountain of strength; let them mark the purpose of strength, which is “work,” as Haggai puts it so emphatically. We have nothing to do with the magnitude of what we may be able to build. It may be very poor beside the great houses that greater ages or men have been able to rear. But whether it be a temple brave with gold and cedar, or a log-hut, it is our business to put all our strength into the task, and to draw that strength from the assurance that God is with us. A. M.

5. This indicates convulsions among the great nationalities of the world—Assyrian, Chaldean, Medo-Persian, and Grecian—to pave the way for the coming of Messiah’s kingdom. They dash one against another, each in succession overwhelming its immediate predecessor, but each revolution ripening the world for the coming of Messiah. In a similar strain Ezekiel says (21: 27): “I will overturn, overturn, overturn, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him.” In this view of the sense, the next verse will be explanatory—“Yea, I will shake all nations,” etc. This passage, almost beyond a doubt, affirms (1) That the covenant made at Sinai is still in force, no less since the Captivity than before; and (2) that God’s Spirit also still abides with the people; so that for both reasons the people ought not to fear, but be strong and of good courage. With such a covenant of promise, and such a present, indwelling Spirit, why should they bewail the lack of those external splendors which pertained to the Temple of Solomon? H. C.

6. This prophecy should be compared with the contemporary prophecies of Zechariah, in which prosperity to Israel is foretold in connection with the discomfiture of the heathen nations by whom Israel had been oppressed, and who at this time were in a state of rest and security (Zech. 1: 11, 14, 15, 21; 2: 7-9). I will shake the heavens, etc., is a figurative description of convulsions among the heathen kingdoms of the earth. B. C.

6-9. The plain historic sense of the words I suppose to be this. They would understand that a great convulsion was at hand, in which the nations and empires that now oppressed them would be overthrown, and compelled to recognize the power of Him who had chosen the Hebrew race to be His people; that they themselves would be emancipated from their subjection to Persia, and raised to a height of freedom and strength which would set them above the reach of their adversaries; that they need have no fear about the completion of the temple, or that it would lack splendor, since He was with them to whom the silver and the gold belonged; and that, when the temple was complete, God would grant them a settled peace, and so manifest His power among them as that the last glory of His house and kingdom should surpass the first. If this was, as probably it was, the sense in which the Jews took the words of Haggai, we can well believe that, as they listened to them, their hearts would be filled with new courage. That, besides their first historical meaning, Haggai’s words (verse 7) had a larger predictive and Messianic meaning, the words themselves bear witness. They are of too wide and lofty a sweep to be exhausted by the first fulfilment. And though perhaps Haggai himself never saw, or never clearly saw, what and what manner of thing the Spirit of God that was in him did signify, nevertheless we, with whom his words remain, and the Spirit which can alone quicken the Word to life, may well believe that he testified beforehand, if not of the sufferings of Christ, yet “of the glory that should follow.” Cox.

Verses 6-9 set things invisible over against the visible. In general terms the prophet announces a speedy convulsion, partly symbolical and partly real, in which “all nations” shall be revolutionized, and, as a consequence, shall become Jehovah’s worshippers, bringing their treasures to the temple, and so filling the house with glory. This shall be because Jehovah is the true possessor of all their wealth. But the scope of verse 9 seems to transcend these promises, and to point to an undescribed “glory,” still greater than that of the universal flocking of the nations with their gifts, and to reach a climax in the wide promise of peace given in the temple, and thence, as is implied, flowing out “like a river” through a tranquillized world. A. M.

The prophet seems to point at two events, which should happen at different periods of time. One is, the destruction of the Jewish religion, temple-worship and political government, in consequence of the coming of the Messiah; and the establishment of a new law, and spiritual kingdom by His death and resurrection, that should never be destroyed; and that as the delivery of the Mosaical law at Mount Sinai was accompanied with mighty signs and prodigies in the heavens and the earth, so should the law of Christ be introduced with prodigies, which accordingly happened. This sense of the prophecy is confirmed in the twelfth of Hebrews, at the end, where it is quoted. The other is, the “shaking of all nations,” antecedently to the advent of the Messiah. This denotes disturbances and revolutions of States, by war and conquest; and it is to be noted that these “shakings” began quickly after the giving out of this prophecy, and continued with little interruption down to our Saviour’s approach. For the Persian monarchy was quickly overturned by the Greeks, and the Grecian monarchy was again swallowed up by the Romans; and Rome, after devouring all the kingdoms that lay within the flight of her conquering eagle, fell into civil wars that lasted till the empire and an universal peace were settled in the time of Augustus. The Jewish nation had her share in these great commotions, being first oppressed by the Syrians, and afterward reduced under the Roman yoke, and made a Roman province under a governor of that nation. Abp. Hort.

7. Desirable things of all nations.** The Hebrew word is plural, and is the same elsewhere used for “pleasant” or “precious” vessels. The reference that follows to the “silver and gold” shows that what the prophet had in mind was the glory that would accrue to the temple from the free-will offerings of Gentile converts. Plumptre.

What the text asserts is simply this, that by reason of the offerings of the Gentiles, the later glory and adornment of the house of God should far exceed the promise of its present condition; and that the calamities about to fall on the heathen nations should give peace to Jerusalem. Thus viewed verses 7 and 9 are very naturally linked together by verse 8. The fact that the passage is not quoted by the Evangelists in connection with the presence of our Lord in the temple is significant. Especially might we have expected to find St. Matthew claiming the fulfilment of Haggai’s words in his description of our Lord’s visit to the temple (Matt. 21: 12-14). B. C.

Let it be borne in mind that this entire passage grows out of the contrast between the meagreness of the new temple and the wealth and splendor of the old, and out of the consequent discouragement and depression of the

Lord’s people. He calls their special attention to this wide contrast (verse 3). He proceeds to intimate (verses 4, 5) that the absence of gold and silver, and of material splendor in this new temple, may be abundantly compensated by His spiritual blessings; by the fact that “I am with you,” and the further fact that the covenant and the Spirit are still remaining. He advances yet in the same line of thought—I am about to convulse the nations—to revolutionize the state of the world, and thus, as the ultimate outcome, the desirable things of all nations—their wealth, beauty and glory—shall come to Zion; and “I will fill this temple with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.” The silver and the gold of all the world are Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, and by the might of My power over the hearts of men and over all human society, it shall be consecrated to Immanuel’s kingdom. Special stress must be accorded to this frequent repetition of the phrase, “saith the Lord of hosts,” closing each of three successive verses, 7, 8, 9. Let it also be borne in mind that, according to this construction, the Lord speaks precisely to that which constituted the chief solicitude of the pious Jews. They were saying in their heart: How much we do miss the riches—the silver, the gold, the cedars, the tapestry—of that ancient temple! When and how can we ever rear a temple worthy of the God of our fathers? We are very poor; shall we ever be rich enough to build and adorn a temple worthy of our God? To this the Lord very kindly and pertinently replies: Give yourselves no solicitudes in that line. I am the Lord God of hosts; I rule this wide world, and I can command all its silver and gold when I will for my kingdom. And I shall do it! In support of this construction may be urged: 1. It gives the ordinary and established sense to the word rendered “desire.” This word is used mainly for those things which worldly men desire. 2. It meets the exigencies of the plural verb, since it embraces in its idea many things, not one only. 3. It is, as we have seen, fully in keeping with the previous context—the train of thought which occasioned this prophecy, and which introduced this passage. 4. It is equally in harmony with the subsequent context—filling this house with glory, and God’s claiming the silver and the gold of the world as His own. 5. It is also in harmony with other prophecies, as Isa. 60. H. C.

The old interpretation of “the desire of all nations” as meaning Jesus Christ gave a literal fulfilment to the prophecy by His presence in the temple; but that meaning of the phrase is untenable, both because the verb is in the plural, which would be impossible if a person were meant, and because the only interpretation which gives relevancy to verse 8 is that the expression means the silver and gold, there declared to be Jehovah’s. That venerable explanation, then, cannot stand. There were offerings from heathen kings, such as those from Darius recorded in Ezra 6: 6-10, and the gifts of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7: 15), which may be regarded as incipient accomplishments; but such things as these cannot exhaust the prophecy.

It must be admitted that nothing happened during the history of that temple to answer to the full meaning of this prophecy. But was it therefore a delusion that God spoke by Haggai? We must distinguish between form and substance. The temple was the centre point of the kingdom of God on earth, the place of meeting between God and men, the place of sacrifice. The fulfilment of the prophecy is not to be found in any house made with hands, but in the true temple, which Jesus Christ has built. He in His own humanity was all that the temple shadowed and foretold. It is in Him, and in the spiritual temple which He has reared, that Haggai’s vision finds its full realization, which is yet future. The powers that issue from Him shattered the Roman empire, have ever since been casting earth’s kingdoms into new moulds, and have still destructive work to do. The “once more” began when Jesus came, but the final “shaking” lies in front still. Every smaller revolution in thoughts or sweeping away of institutions is a prelude to that great “shaking” when everything will go except the kingdom that cannot be moved. Its result shall be that the treasures of the nations shall be poured at His feet who is “worthy to receive riches,” even as other prophecies have foretold that “men shall bring unto Thee the wealth of the nations” (Isa. 6: 11; Rev. 21: 24, 26). In that true temple the glory of the Shechinah, which was wanting in the second, forever abides, “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;” and in it dwells forever the dove of peace, ready to glide into every heart that enters to worship at the shrine. Jesus Christ is not the “Desire of all nations” which shall come to the temple, but is the temple to which the wealth of all nations shall be brought, in whom the true glory of a manifested God abides, and from whom the peace of God which passeth all understanding, and is His own peace too, shall enter reconciled souls, and calm turbulent passions, and reconcile contending peoples, and diffuse its calm through all the nations of the saved who there “walk in the light of the Lord.” A. M.

9. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former. Rather, Greater shall be the later glory of this house than the former. So the LXX. The adjectives belong to the noun glory, not to house. If Zerubbabel’s building was a second temple and not a rebuilding of Solomon’s, then Herod’s temple, the temple visited by Jesus, was a third temple; and with this further difficulty, that it seems to have been more highly adorned than either of the other buildings. In Haggai’s view there was but one temple. B. C.—The antithesis really lies between the former and the latter glory of this same temple then in building—its “former glory” being what it had under Zerubbabel, and onward down through what remained of the age before Christ; and the latter, that which it shall attain when the desirable things of all nations shall come into it; when the wealth and beauty of the world shall be consecrated to Immanuel, who shall reign in His own spiritual temple, filling it with the glory of His own presence. H. C.

And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. As if He had said, I can easily accumulate riches far exceeding those which Solomon collected, and which may be lavished by the monarchs of the earth in all the exuberance of their wealth, “the silver and the gold are Mine;” but I will bestow on this house a nobler gift, here will I display a costlier treasure, ‘in this place will I give peace.’ There Jesus Christ, the great peace-maker, preached the gospel of peace; in that temple He wrought many of His miracles; and in its immediate vicinity, on Mount Calvary, offered Himself up for the sins of the world. R. Hall.

10-23. The ninth month of the Jewish year answers to the period between the middle of November and the middle of December. At this period, in Palestine, the winter crops have been sown, and the early or autumnal rain has set in. It was on the twenty-fourth day of this month, when, as we may suppose, the rains were well on, that the word of the Lord came once more to Haggai the prophet. On the very day he spoke it was exactly three months after the building of the temple had been resumed, and about two months after he had been moved to relieve the depression of the builders by the glowing hopes and promises of his second prophecy. Cox.

10-19. Works and sacrifices are displeasing to God so long as the rebuilding of the temple is neglected. The calamities caused by this neglect, and the blessings to follow on renewal of the work.

12-14. The scope of the questions propounded and of the answers given in verses 12, 13 is that no ceremonial obedience would be acceptable to God, so long as His will respecting the temple was being set at nought; and that disobedience on this one point was a contamination for which no ceremonial observances could atone. B. C.

The priests say: 1. Ceremonial holiness is not imparted by the touch. 2. Ceremonial uncleanness is imparted by the touch. This doctrine of the ceremonial law the Lord applies to the people. They had sinned in neglecting to build the Lord’s temple. By reason of this sin, their moral state became analogous to that of the man ceremonially unclean. This sin imparted its moral character to all they did. The Lord could not take pleasure in the labors of their hands; it all became unclean. On the other hand, if they should do any good thing, it could not carry its good quality over to anything else they might do. Under the law of God, works of supererogation are unknown. H. C.

In like manner as “holy flesh,” or any part of a sacrifice, will not make anything else which it touches to become holy; so neither have the sacrifices of this people, which have been all along offered since their leaving off the work of My temple, made them holy or acceptable unto God. But, on the contrary, as the touch of an unclean person renders what he touches unclean also, so the very sacrifices of this people, since they have left off the building of My temple, are become unclean or unacceptable to Me, by reason of that uncleanness or impurity of their minds, which has caused their neglect of My house. Dr. Wells.

By comparing them to the man who carried sacred flesh in the skirt of his garment, but did not therefore sanctify the bread his garment brushed, or the pottage, or the wine, or the oil, Haggai taught them that the election of God was of itself no guarantee of prosperity, that it did not necessarily involve a blessing on all the labor of their hands. They must be true to that election. They must serve the God who had chosen them, and keep His law, before they could look for His blessing on their toils. And they had not been true to Him or to His law. They had lost their sanctity by their sins, just as the “cleanest” Hebrew lost his purity the moment he touched a corpse.

They had forgotten God, and let His house lie waste while they built sumptuous houses for themselves. They had shown that they did not care for His presence or His law. And it was this moral uncleanness which had worked like an infection through the land, and which took visible form in the blight and the mildew which had destroyed their growing crops. Themselves unclean, everything they touched became unclean—all kinds of food, “all the work of their hands,” and even “that which they had offered there”—that is, on the altar of sacrifice, which they had long since set up on its ancient base (Ezra 3 : 3). In fine, the sole cause of their deficient harvests was their forgetfulness of God, and the sins which that forgetfulness had induced. Cox.

This statement has not been improved upon in all these five-and-twenty centuries. The persistent sin will contaminate and discredit all the good and honorable acts; the good deed will not be of any avail to sanctify the sin. The show of good in a bad life is not by any means always due to conscious hypocrisy. Sometimes it is so due; and these cases are the most melancholy in the natural history of sin. But often it comes of tact and good taste, a sense of the fitness of things, an indisposition to affront or distress the sensibilities of innocent people. And often, also, it comes of a strong, unaffected religious sentimentality, which delights in the poetry and pathos of religion, in the high walks of theologic argument, and kindles into great fervors in the conflicts and triumphs of the Church, but which stands in no practical governing relation with the conscience and the life. As gross hypocrisy is the most repulsive form of this so-called “double life,” so this sincere sentimentality is the most illusive and perilous—the most baffling to the diagnosis of spiritual physicians. But let no man, in either case, flatter himself that he is living at once on both sides of the boundary between a right purpose of life and a wrong purpose of life. There is no residuum of humanity left when the judgment of God’s Word and of men’s honest conscience divides “between the righteous and the wicked—between him that (in his personal choice) serveth God and him that (in his personal choice) serveth Him not.” S. S. T.

15-17. While the people are pondering this simple yet startling application of Haggai’s parable, he once more employs and repeats his favorite formula, “Set your heart,” and bids them ponder the history of the last fourteen years. How had it tared with them before they resumed the building of the temple, “laying stone to stone”? Was it not true that up to that time, do what they would, they did nothing to purpose? And why were their just hopes thus miserably disappointed? Simply because God was against them, because He was punishing their neglect of Him. It was He who had sent the blight and the mildew to prey upon their corn; it was He who had smitten the budding vines with hail. And yet no one of them had had the wit to see whence their miseries came, or the grace to turn in penitence and amendment to Him who chastened them! Now at last, let them consider more wisely the years which lay between today and the day full fourteen years ago, when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid; and they would see that it was their uncleanness which had defiled everything they touched, and made it abominable to God, so that all the labor of their hands miscarried. Cox.

The Lord would have them review the period from that day backward to the point where the building of the temple commenced, and so from that day onward to the present, and observe how fearfully their harvests had been blighted. “I smote you with blasting and blight, yet ye moved not toward Me”—literally, “there was nothing of you to Me.” Up to this point His chastisements had proved altogether unavailing. H. C.

18,19. The harvest will not and shall not fail them, says the prophet. From this day forward God will bless them. The fields shall be covered with corn; the terraced hills shall be loaded with the purple grapes. Now that they have returned to Him, God will return to them. The heaven shall no more withhold its dew, nor the earth its fruit. Cox.—Is the seed yet in the barn? Yes it is, and not yet thrown into the ground; the fruit-trees do not as yet bud, the vine and the fig tree and the olive-tree have not as yet brought forth, so that nothing appears to promise a good harvest and vintage next year; nature does not promise it; but now that you begin to apply yourselves in good earnest to your duty, the God of nature promises it. He has said, From this day I will bless you. “I will bless you, and then you shall soon recover all your losses, shall thrive as fast as before you went backward; for the blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and those whom He blesseth are blessed indeed.” When we begin to make conscience of our duty to God, we may expect His blessing; and this tree of life is so known by its fruits, that one may discern almost to a day a remarkable turn of Providence, in favor of those that return in a way of duty; so that they and others may say that from this day they are blessed. H.

20-23. A word of encouragement specially addressed to Zerubbabel as the temporal head of the restored nation; and as such it declares the approaching overthrow of the thrones and kingdoms of the heathen, and the weakening of their political and military power. That Zerubbabel needed to be stirred up and encouraged in the prosecution of the work laid upon him may be inferred from 1: 12-14. The moral effect of the Captivity, as a discipline of suffering leading to repentance and amendment of life, had begun to grow weaker by the lapse of time. In that furnace of affliction the national tendency to idolatry had been burned out of the national heart, never to reappear. The idolatry of Babylon had had no attraction for the people who were the bondslaves of its votaries. But the transition from that state of bondage which inspired the mournful notes of the one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm to the freedom and practical independence which followed the return to Judea was not without its own temptations. What these temptations were may be inferred from the warnings of Zechariah, Haggai’s colleague and contemporary (Zech. 7: 9, 10; 8: 16, 17). B. C.

On the very day on which he prophesied of the returning favor of Heaven to the people, Haggai also animated the heart of their prince by disclosing God’s purpose to fulfil His covenant with David through the line of Zerubbabel. Just as Judah had been chosen from among the sons of Jacob, and David from among the sons of Jesse, and Solomon from among the sons of David, so now Zerubbabel is chosen from among all the descendants of the royal house, to be the heir of the promise. Of him, concerning the flesh, the Messiah was to come, and did come.

Here, then, while his prophetic soul is not simply dreaming of things to come, but seeing in Him who was to come the Darling of Jehovah and the Desire of all nations, we part with the prophet Haggai. Like all the goodly fellowship of the prophets, he teaches that sin brings judgment; that judgment means mercy, and is designed for correction; that repentance secures the forgiveness of sin, and that amendment of life has power to turn the very curse of God into a benediction. And, like his brethren, he is made strong for teaching these truths in an evil age, by his assured conviction that good will yet triumph over evil; that, sooner or later, the Christ of God will bring in a kingdom, wide as the earth, in which truth shall reign and righteousness and peace. Cor.

In order to understand the meaning of the prophecy which permits some other fulfilment than the literal, we note the function of the temple under the Old Testament covenant. The temple was the centre of the ancient theocracy. It was the place where God met man and revealed Himself. The real glory of the temple was not its external glory, although this glory was the fruit and symbol of precious spiritual service. Whatever might be the embodiment of the same truths, the vehicle of the same service, the point of meeting between God and man would really continue the temple. We may note the following facts as giving a real fulfilment of the prophecy: 1. This house had a glory in some real sense superior to the former glory. As centre of worship it represented the more spiritual life and faith which existed after the Captivity. Especially are to be noted prayer, which began to take its proper place in common public worship, and the use of Scripture as seen in the regular synagogue service. 2. The Church of Christ is the invisible temple which takes the place of the visible temple. It is the centre of the later theocracy. Israel failed to see the truths of which the visible temple was the embodiment and symbol; hence it was destroyed and the Christian Church substituted. In the extravagant regard for the visible glory of the ancient temple, and for its ritual, the Jews lose sight of the spiritual worship. The spiritual nature of the invisible temple compels the remembrance of its true glory. 3. Ever since the day of Pentecost the Spirit has been arousing men—shaking the nations. 4. Powers antagonistic to God’s kingdom and to His Church, as the spiritual centre of that kingdom, have been gradually destroyed. This destruction has been largely the result of mutual jealousies, or even it has been suicidal. 5. Already many peoples and their rulers have given a real or nominal allegiance as subjects in the kingdom of God. There has been constant growth of the kingdom of God among men and over the nations. 6. The glory of this kingdom is now apprehended by an ever-increasing number of its subjects as not external, not merely moral, but as spiritual power, as consisting in the fact that for every child of man it is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Thus we may close with saying that while there is no prophecy of a personal Messiah in Haggai, these prophecies are Messianic in the broad sense inasmuch as referring to the Messianic kingdom, and that, so far as they illustrate such prophecy, Messianic prophecy is now in process of fulfilment. Denio.

As the entrance of Christ into the course of humanity was brought about by the co-working of supernatural with natural elements, so both these agencies conspired in preparing the way for that great event, the centre of all things, and the aim of all preceding history. So we interpret the relations of the Jews and heathens to the appearance of Christ. The natural development of the heathen was destined, under the Divine guidance, to prepare them for receiving the new light which emanated from Jesus; and the history of the Jewish people was all preparatory to the appearance and ministry of Christ, who was to come forth out of their midst. The notion of a Messiah, carried about by the Jews in their intercourse with different nations, everywhere found a point of contact with the religious sense of men; and thus natural and revealed religion worked into each other, as well as separately, in preparing the way for the appearance of Christ. Neander.

Every student who reads below the surface of the letter understands that the whole course of Eastern empire and emigration, from the patriarchs, as much as the literal predictions of Jacob or Isaiah, was a making ready for just that spiritual revolution which came embodied in the Galilean carpenter, the Everlasting King. From the very beginning He was sending out, along the highways of ages, voices, two and two, of herald and psalm, of priesthood and commandments, of awakened conscience and struggling faith, of failing virtue and falling thrones, into the places whither He Himself would come. There is a wider view of history, and of God’s majestic purposes in it, still. To narrow and jealous interpreters it used to appear to be somehow a slight upon the Scriptures to suppose that the Almighty took other nations besides the Jews into His design, or that He illuminated Gentile seers and sages to catch any glimpses of the Gospel. But Scripture itself sees religion beyond the bounds of Judea. It honors Melchisedec’s devotion and Balaam’s vision of the Christian Star rising out of Jacob, and celebrates the adoration of the wise men, and welcomes the ships of Tarshish, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, the outstretched hands of Ethiopia. Christian scholarship in later years, rising to loftier conceptions of the Christly providence and the Divine philosophy in history, discovers proofs that, long before Mary took her way to the feast, or laid Jesus in the manger, there were great converging lines of thought and life pointing to that wonderful nativity. On the purer pages of both Greek and Latin literature there are guesses of an evangelic future; there are ideas working out from men’s minds under the breath of the all-inspiring Spirit, preparing the way for the reconciliation of Calvary, for the brotherhood of the race, for the Sermon on the Mount, for the parable of the Good Samaritan, for the missionary journeys of St. Paul. Over the plains of Syria, along the sea-coasts of the Mediterranean, in the northern forests, tribes and their captains were moving, thrones were put down and set up, armies were gathered and dispersed—the mighty leaders themselves not conscious for what King of kings they were opening a path, but all shaping the face of the earth for His kingdom. F. D. H.

Introduction.

ZECHARIAH calls himself the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo (1:1, 7), whereas Ezra speaks of him as Zechariah, the son of Iddo (Ezra 5:1; 6:14). The discrepancy is ex plained by assuming that Berechiah died before Iddo, and that Zechariah succeeded his grandfather Iddo in the headship of the Davidic priestly course, which the latter held in the time of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the high priest (Neh. 12:4). Zechariah is mentioned as one of the priests, the chief of the fathers, in the days of Joiakim, the successor and son of Jeshua (Neh. 12: 16). These facts do not necessarily imply that he was a very young man when his prophetic ministry commenced, in the second year of Darius. His grandfather Iddo may well have been one of the original exiles; and though Zechariah was probably younger than Haggai, he had reached, when he came back to Jerusalem, a period of life at which the associations of residence in Chaldea had been powerful to influence the current of his thoughts and to give a color to the imagery in which his prophecies are clothed. His first prophetic utterance is dated only two months after that of Haggai, with whom he seems to have associated himself in the prosecution of a common purpose—viz., the encouragement of his fellow-countrymen in the work of rebuilding the temple and re-establishing the theocracy. The fourth year of Darius is the latest undisputed date of his prophecies (7: 1); and after the brief notice in Nehemiah (12: 16) we have no clew to the period to which his life was prolonged, beyond a tradition that he died at an advanced age and was buried beside Haggai. B. C.

The Book of Zechariah consists of two parts—chaps. 1-8 and 9-14. The first part contains three or more prophecies for the temple builders specifically dated in the second and fourth years of Darius (Zech. 1: 1, 7; 7: 1). The second part consists of two “burdens”: “The burden . . . upon the land of Hadrach (Zech. 9-11), and “The burden . . . concerning Israel” (Zech. 12-14). It is very different from the first part. W. J. B.

Zechariah began to prophesy in the eighth month of the second year of Darius Hystaspes, B.C. 520, contemporary with Haggai, when Zerubbabel was governor of Judah, and Joshua was high priest. At this period, the great matters of interest in the visible kingdom of God were the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the resettlement of the returned and still-returning captives from Chaldea, and yet more especially the rebuilding of the temple, and the culture of the faith and religious life of the people composing the new community. In many respects it was a time of laying again the foundations of religion and morals, and of planting anew those institutions which were to be the fountains of their future religious life, and hence of their abiding prosperity. Consequently, there was abundant work for the prophets of the Lord. It is pleasant to note that their work was more hopeful and less dis couraging than that of their predecessors for many generations. The people were more impressible; the word of the Lord was effective; the spirit of obedience, and not of rebellion, was in the main predominant. Hence, most of the messages sent from the Lord by Zechariah were of cheerful tone, breathing far more of promise than of threatening.

The reader will notice in this prophet (relatively to the whole amount of his writings) more predictions of the Messiah than in any other. The people were at first a small and feeble band, estimated in comparison with other tribes and sovereignties about them. They could scarcely have stood their ground against these hostile powers, save under the protection of the Persian throne. In this throne, God had remarkably provided for their security. Hence, they had great reason to feel that in this respect their salvation and national life were from the Lord. In the same line of thought the Lord often revealed to them that Greater Patron and more glorious Refuge, ere-long to appear in the person of Immanuel, the real King of Zion.

The first six chapters are distinguished from the rest of the book, and indeed from most of the other prophetic writings of the Old Testament, by the blending of symbol and vision. The things presented to the prophet in vision were highly symbolic. Most of these symbols were so far explained to the prophet as to give us an adequate clew to their significance. Some critics have assumed that the diversity in the point of symbolic vision, between the first six chapters and the remaining eight, is sufficient proof that the latter portion was not written by the same Zechariah. The only valid ground for this assumption must be another further back—viz., that, if God reveals any truth to a given prophet by symbolic visions, He must pursue this precise method and no other without variation throughout that prophet’s life. I look upon this assumption as one of the follies, not to say absurdities, of hyper-criticism. The book throughout is richly instructive, fraught with spiritual life and power, and consolatory to the feeble but trusting children of God. H. C.

The later date of the last six chapters and their being the work of Zechariah, the son of Iddo, have been maintained in England by Blayney, Henry, Scott, Henderson, Ayre, etc.; in Germany by Carpzov, Beckhaus, Jahn, Köster, Hengstenberg, Hävernick, Keil, De Wette (in the later editions of his Introduction), Stähelin, etc.; in the United States by Moore, etc.

Those who impugn the later date of Zech. 9-14 rest their arguments on the change in style and subject after chap. 8, but differ much in the application of their criticism. In reply to the arguments alleged by the advocates of the theories that chaps. 9-14 are by one or two prophets different from Zechariah, the son of Iddo, Keil, Stähelin, etc., urge that the difference of style is not greater than may reasonably be accounted for by the change of subject, that the predictions which do occur in the first section have a general similarity to those of the second, that the same peculiar forms of expression occur in the two sections, and that the historical references in the later chapters are perfectly consistent with a post-exile date. Dic. B.

De Wette, in the first three editions of his “Introduction to the Old Testament,” accepted the theory of two authors, but has since affirmed that the quotations or allusions in the last six chapters not merely to Isaiah, Joel, Micah and Amos, but even to Jeremiah, Zephaniah and Ezekiel, are so many, that the author must have lived after the Exile. So also a closer examination of the historical allusions has shown that they all agree with the political state of things in Zechariah’s days; and to this we must add what after all is the great argument, that the canon of Old Testament Scripture was settled scarcely a lifetime after Zechariah’s death, and was in course of preparation long before, so that it is hard to conceive that so great a mistake could possibly have been made as to ascribe to one of the prophets who flourished in post-exilian days the writings of one of the older seers. The very fact that there is a dissimilarity of style would have prevented the mistake; nor can we imagine that any one would have attributed these chapters to the same author as the first eight unless they had really been his. R. P. S.

It is highly probable, from the apparent difference both of style and subject, that they came forth at a different and more advanced period of our prophet’s life. It is not at all surprising if this writer, as he advanced in years and dignity, should have learned to express himself in a tone of more elevation and energy. At such distant periods also, as we suppose, the subject of course would be materially changed. For he would no longer have occasion to stimulate his countrymen to the building of the temple, which was already completely finished; but he was actually engaged in predicting some remarkable occurrences, that would distinguish his own and the neighboring nations in remote periods, some of them perhaps not yet arrived; and in urging an immediate reformation of national manners. Blayney.

Whatever the origin of these prophecies, all will unite in admiration of their majestic, if sometimes weird and sombre grandeur. They are couched in a style of much power and imaginative beauty. The religious conceptions, marked as they are by inevitable imperfections, are in their essential contents profound and creative. How great has been their influence can only be measured by those who are acquainted with Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writings. The part they play in the Messianic delineations of the New Testament needs not to be recounted. In each and all of its elements and influence the Book of Zechariah has amply vindicated its right to a place in the history of the old dispensation, and beyond the measure of many other prophecies has prepared and heralded the advent of Christ and the establishment of His kingdom. Elmslie.

Outline Analysis of the Book.

Chap. 1:1-6 is introductory, comprising a brief but earnest appeal to his countrymen to turn from their evil ways—an appeal founded upon the experience of their forefathers in regard to the judgments as well as the mercies of Jehovah.

Chaps. 1:7-6:8 contains a series of eight prophetic visions presented to the mind of the prophet in one night—viz., the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, in the second year of Darius. As might have been inferred, this identity of time carries with it an identity of purpose, which runs through the whole series—viz., the encouragement of the Jews under their present hindrances and trials by the promise of the destruction of the heathen powers around them, and of the restoration of the theocracy under its civil and ecclesiastical leaders. In dealing with this theme, Zechariah, after the example of the older prophets, and guided by the inspiration of Jehovah, unfolds as in a type the spiritual victories and the spiritual establishment of the kingdom of Messiah.

Chap. 6:9-15 is a symbolical transaction of precisely similar import to the preceding visions. It prefigures the union of the regal and the priestly offices in the person of Christ, His work as the builder up of His Church, and the gathering in of the Gentiles. Zechariah himself and those among whom he prophesied may or may not have been conscious of this scope of his words; but the event constitutes our title to apply them in this sense, and to regard them as a proof of the assertion that to Him give all the prophets witness.

Chaps. 7, 8. Quitting both vision and symbol, we have in these chapters an example of the practical functions of the prophetic office in solving questions of duty. Were the fasts which had been enjoined as commemorative of those national judgments which had marked God’s displeasure with His people, to be continued now that their sins had been repented of and forsaken, and they were entering upon a new career of national obedience and prosperity? Jehovah’s answer propounds two general principles of universal application. First, that the moral law is above the ceremonial; and secondly, that His promises are conditional on obedience to His precepts. These truths being admitted and acted upon, fasts are to be changed into feasts, and the Gentiles are to be brought in to worship the God of the Jews.

Chaps. 9-14. These chapters agree with the preceding prophecies of Zechariah in indicating the overthrow of the heathen powers of the earth, and in foreshadowing the coming of Messiah, and the establishment of His kingdom. In this respect they share a character which is common to many of the earlier prophetic writings. B. C.