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Introduction to the Old Testament

J >> John Edgar McFadyen >> Introduction to the Old Testament




Patience and faith are the watch-words of Habakkuk, ii. 3, 4. There
was a time when he had expected an adequate historical solution to
his doubts in his own day, i. 5; but, as he contemplates the immoral
progress of the Chaldeans, he recognizes his difficulty to be only
aggravated by this solution, and he is content to commit the future
to God. He is comforted and strengthened by a larger vision of the
divine purpose and its inevitable triumph--if not now, then
hereafter. "Though it tarry, wait for it, for it is sure to come, it
will not lag behind." That purpose wills the triumph of justice, and
though the righteous may seem to perish, in reality he lives, and
shall continue to live, by his faithfulness.




ZEPHANIAH


If the Hezekiah who was Zephaniah's great-great-grandfather, i. 1,
was, as is probable, the king of that name, then Zephaniah was a
prince as well as a prophet, and this may lend some point to his
denunciation of the princes who imitated foreign customs, i. 8. He
prophesied in the reign of Josiah, i. 1, and the fact that he censures
not the king but the king's children, i. 8, points to the period when
Josiah was still a minor (about or before 626 B.C.). With this
coincides his description of the moral and religious condition of
Judah, which necessitates a date prior to the reformation in 621.
Idolatry, star-worship and impure Jehovah-worship are rampant,
i. 4, 5, 9. The rich are easy-going and indifferent to religion,
supposing that God will leave the world to itself, i. 12. The people
of Jerusalem are incorrigible, iii. 2, reckless of the lessons that
God has written in nature and history, iii. 5ff.; their leaders--princes,
prophets, priests--are immoral or incompetent. The prophecy may be
placed between 630 and 626, and the prophet must have been a young man.

To this idolatrous and indifferent people he announces the speedy
coming of the day of Jehovah, whose terrors he describes with a
certain solemn grandeur (i.). The judgment is practically
inevitable, i. 18, but it may perhaps yet be averted by an earnest
quest of Jehovah, ii, 1-3. That judgment will sweep along the coast
through the Philistine country, ii. 4-7, and on to Egypt, and
afterwards turn northwards and utterly destroy Assyria with her
great capital Nineveh, ii. 12-15. Again the prophet turns to
Jerusalem, and for the sins of her people and their leaders
proclaims a general day of judgment, from which, however, the humble
will be saved, iii. 1-13 (except _vv_. 9, 10.). The book ends
with a fine vision of the latter days, when the dispersed of Judah
will be restored to their own land, and rejoice in the omnipotent
love of their God, iii. 14-20.

The prophecy presents a very impressive picture of the day of Jehovah,
but it cannot all be from the pen of Zephaniah. Besides adopting a
very different attitude towards Jerusalem from the rest of the prophecy,
iii. 14-20 clearly presupposes the exile, _v_. 19, towards the end
of which it was probably written. Ch. ii. 11, iii. 9, 10, containing
ideas which are hardly earlier than Deutero-Isaiah, are also probably
exilic or post-exilic. The oracle against Moab and Ammon, ii. 8-10,
countries which lay off the line of the Scythian march southwards from
Philistia, _v_. 7, to Egypt, _v_. 12, are for linguistic,
contextual, and other reasons, also probably late.

Prophecy has practically always an historical occasion, and the
thought of the black and terrible day of Jehovah was no doubt
suggested to Zephaniah by the formidable bands of roving Scythians
which scoured Western Asia about this time, sweeping all before them
(Hdt. i. 105). They do not seem to have touched Judah; but it is not
surprising that men like Jeremiah and Zephaniah should have regarded
them as divinely ordained ministers of vengeance upon Jehovah's
degenerate people.




HAGGAI


The post-exilic age sharply distinguished itself from the pre-exilic
(Zech. i. 4), and nowhere is the difference more obvious than in
prophecy. Post-exilic prophecy has little of the literary or moral
power of earlier prophecy, but it would be very easy to do less than
justice to Haggai. His prophecy is very short; into two chapters is
condensed a summary, probably not even in his own words, of no less
than four addresses. Meagre as they may seem to us, they produced a
great effect on those who heard them.

The addresses were delivered between September and December in the
year 520 B.C. The people were suffering from a drought, and in the
first address, i. 1-11, Haggai interprets this as a penalty for
their indifference to religion--in particular, for their neglect to
build the temple. The effect of the appeal was that three weeks
afterwards a beginning was made upon the building, i. 12-15. The
people, however, seem to be discouraged by the scantiness of their
resources, and a month afterwards Haggai has to appeal to them
again, reminding them that with the silver and the gold, which are
His, Jehovah will soon make the new temple more glorious than the
old, ii. 1-9. Two months later the prophet again reminds them that,
as their former unholy indifference had infected all their life with
failure, so loyal devotion to the work now would ensure success and
blessing, ii. 10-19; and on the same day Haggai assures Zerubbabel a
unique place in the Messianic kingdom which is soon to be ushered
in, ii. 20-23.

The appeals of Haggai and Zechariah were successful (Ezra v. 1, vi.
14), and within four years the temple was rebuilt (Ezra vi. 15). It
was now the centre of national life, and therefore also of prophetic
interest. Haggai was probably not himself a priest, but in so short
a prophecy his elaborate allusion to ritual is very significant, ii.
11ff. This prophecy, like pre-exilic prophecy, was no doubt
conditioned by the historical situation. The allusion to the shaking
of the world in ii. 7, 22, appears to be a reflection of the
insurrections which broke out all over the Persian empire on the
accession of Darius to the throne in 521 B.C.; and probably the Jews
were encouraged by the general commotion to make a bold bid for the
re-establishment of an independent national life. That they
cherished the ambition of being once more a political as well as a
religious force, seems to be suggested by the frequency with which
Haggai links the name of Zerubbabel, of the royal line of Judah,
with that of Joshua the high priest; and, in particular, by the
extraordinary language applied to him--in ii. 23 he is the elect of
Jehovah, His servant and signet. Clearly he is to be king in the
Messianic kingdom which is to issue out of the convulsion of the
world.

It cannot be safely inferred from ii. 3 that Haggai was among those
who had seen the temple of Solomon and was therefore a very old man.
Simple as are his words, his faith is strong and his hope very bold.
Considering the meagre resources of the post-exilic community, it is
touching to note the confidence with which he assures the people
that Jehovah will bring together the treasures of the world to make
His temple glorious.




ZECHARIAH


CHAPTERS I-VIII

Two months after Haggai had delivered his first address to the
people in 520 B.C., and a little over a month after the building of
the temple had begun (Hag. i. 15), Zechariah appeared with another
message of encouragement. How much it was needed we see from the
popular despondency reflected in Hag. ii. 3, Jerusalem is still
disconsolate (Zech. i. 17), there has been fasting and mourning,
vii. 5, the city is without walls, ii. 5, the population scanty, ii.
4, and most of the people are middle-aged, few old or young, viii.
4, 5. The message they need is one of consolation and encouragement,
and that is precisely the message that Zechariah brings: "I have
determined in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of
Judah; fear not," viii. 15.

The message of Zechariah comes in the peculiar form of visions, some
of them resting apparently on Babylonian art, and not always easy to
interpret. After an earnest call to repentance, i. 1-6, the visions
begin, i. 7-vi. 8. In the first vision, i. 7-17, the earth, which
has been troubled, is at rest; the advent of the Messianic age may
therefore be expected soon. The divine promise is given that
Jerusalem shall be graciously dealt with and the temple rebuilt. The
second is a vision, i. 18-21, of the annihilation of the heathen
world represented by four horns. The third vision (ii.)--that of a
young man with a measuring-rod--announces that Jerusalem will be
wide and populous, the exiles will return to it, and Jehovah will
make His abode there.

These first three visions have to do, in the main, with the city and
the people; the next two deal more specifically with the leaders of
the restored community on its civil and religious side, Zerubbabel
the prince and Joshua the priest. In the fourth vision (iii.) Joshua
is accused by the Adversary and the accuser is rebuked--symbolic
picture of the misery of the community and its imminent redemption.
Joshua is to have full charge of the temple, and he and his priests
are the guarantee that the Branch, i.e. the Messianic king (Jer.
xxiii. 5, xxxiii, 15), no doubt Zerubbabel (Zech, iii. 8, vi. 12;
Hag. ii. 23), is coming. In the fifth vision (iv.)[1] the prophet
sees a lampstand with seven lamps and an olive tree on either side,
the trees representing the two anointed leaders, Zerubbabel and
Joshua, enjoying the divine protection.
[Footnote 1: Except vv. 6b-10a, which appears to be a special
assurance, hardly here in place, that Zerubbabel would finish the
temple which he had begun.]

The next two visions elaborate the promise of iii. 9: "I will remove
the iniquity of that land,"--and indicate the removal of all that
taints the land of Judah, alike sin and sinners. The flying roll of
the sixth vision, v. 1-4, carries the curse that will fall upon
thieves and perjurers; and in the somewhat grotesque figure of the
seventh vision, v. 5-11, Sin is personified as a woman and borne
away in a closed cask by two women with wings like storks, to the
land of Shinar, i.e. Babylon, there to work upon the enemy of Judah
the ruin she has worked for Judah herself. In the last vision, vi.
1-8, which is correlate with the first--four chariots issuing from
between two mountains of brass--the divine judgment is represented
as being executed upon the north country, i.e. the country opposed
to God, and particularly Babylonia.

The cumulative effect of the visions is very great. All that hinders
the coming of the Messianic days is to be removed, whether it be the
great alien world powers or the sinners within Jerusalem itself. The
purified city will be blessed with prosperity of every kind, and
over her civil and religious affairs will be two leaders, who enjoy
a unique measure of the divine favour. In an appendix to the visions
vi. 9-15, Zechariah is divinely commissioned to make a crown for
Zerubbabel (or for him and Joshua)[1] out of the gold and silver
brought by emissaries of the Babylonian Jews, and the hope is
expressed that peace will prevail between the leaders--a hope
through which we may perhaps read a growing rivalry.
[Footnote 1: It seems practically certain that the original prophecy
in _v_. 11 has been subsequently modified, doubtless because it
was not fulfilled. The last clause of _v_. 13--"the counsel of
peace shall be between them _both"_--shows that two persons
have just been mentioned. The preceding clause must therefore be
translated, not as in A. V. and R. V., "and _he_ shall be a
priest upon his throne," as if the office of king and priest were to
be combined in a single person, but "and _there_ shall be" (or,
as Wellhausen suggests, "and _Joshua_ shall be") "a priest upon
his throne," (or no doubt more correctly, with the Septuagint, "a
priest _at his right hand_"). As two persons are involved, and
the word "crowns" in v. 11 is in the plural, it has been supposed
that the verse originally read, "set the crowns _upon the head of
Zerubbabel and_ upon the head of Joshua." On the other hand, in
_v_. 14 the word "crown" must be read in the singular, and
should probably also be so read in _v_. 11 (though even the
plural could refer to one crown). In that case, if there be but one
crown, who wears it? Undoubtedly Zerubbabel: he is the Branch, iii.
8, and the Branch is the Davidic king (Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15).
The building of the temple here assigned to the Branch, vi. 12, is
elsewhere expressly assigned to Zerubbabel, iv. 9. It is, therefore,
he who is crowned: in other words, v. 11, may have originally read,
"set it _upon the head of Zerubbabel._" Whether we accept this
solution or the other, it seems certain that the original prophecy
contemplated the crowning of Zerubbabel. As the hopes that centred
upon Zerubbabel were never fulfilled, the passage was subsequently
modified to its present form.]

The concluding chapters of the prophecy (vii., viii.), delivered two
years later than the rest of the book, vii. 1, are occupied with the
ethical conditions of the impending Messianic kingdom. To the
question whether the fast-days which commemorated the destruction of
Jerusalem are still to be observed, Zechariah answers that the
ancient demands of Jehovah had nothing to do with fasting, but with
justice and mercy. As former disobedience had been followed by a
divine judgment, so would obedience now be rewarded with blessing,
fast-days would be turned into days of joy and gladness, and the
blessing would be so great that representatives of every nation
would be attracted to Jerusalem, to worship the God of the Jews.

In Zechariah even more than in Haggai it is clear that prophecy has
entered upon a new stage.[1] There is the same concentration of
interest upon the temple, the same faith in the unique importance of
Zerubbabel. But the apocalyptic element, though not quite a new
thing, is present on a scale altogether new to prophecy. Again, the
transcendence of God is acutely felt--the visions have to be
interpreted by an angel. We see, too, in the book the rise of the
idea of Satan (iii.) and of the conception of sin as an independent
force, v. 5-11. The yearning for the annihilation of the kingdoms
opposed to Judah, i. 18-21, has a fine counterpart in the closing
vision, viii. 22, 23, of the nations flocking to Jerusalem because
they have heard that God is there. The book is of great historical
value, affording as it does contemporary evidence of the drooping
hopes of the early post-exilic community, and of the new manner in
which this disappointment was met by prophecy. But, though Zechariah's
message was largely concerned with the building of the temple, and
was delivered for the most part in terms of vision and apocalyptic,
the ethical elements on which the "former prophets" had laid the
supreme emphasis, were by no means forgotten, viii. 16, 17.
[Footnote 1: Zechariah himself is conscious of the distinction, which
is more than a temporal one, between himself and the pre-exilic
prophets: notice the manner of his allusion to the "former prophets,"
i. 4, vii. 7, 12.]


CHAPTERS IX.-XIV.

Practically all the distinctive features of the first eight chapters
disappear in ix.-xiv. The style and the historical presuppositions
are altogether different. There are two new superscriptions, ix. 1,
xii. 1, but there is no reference to Zerubbabel, Joshua, or the
situation of their time. There the immediate problem was the
building of the temple; here, more than once, Jerusalem is
represented as in a state of siege. A sketch of the contents will
show how unlike the one situation is to the other.

The general theme of ix. 1-xi. 3 is the destruction of the world-powers
and the establishment of the kingdom of God. Judgment is declared at
the outset upon Damascus, Phoenicia and Philistia, while Jerusalem is
to enjoy the divine protection and to be the seat of the Messianic King,
ix. 1-9. Greece, the great enemy, will be overcome by Judah and Ephraim,
who are but weapons in Jehovah's hand, ix. 10-17. Then follows[1] a
passage in which "the shepherds" are threatened with a dire fate. Judah
receives a promise of victory, and Ephraim is assured that her exiles
will be gathered and brought home from Egypt and Assyria to Gilead and
Lebanon; the cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan--types perhaps of
foreign rulers--will be laid low, x. 3-xi. 3.
[Footnote 1: Ch. x. 1, 2 appears to stand by itself. It is an
injunction to bring the request for rain to Jehovah and to put no
faith in teraphim and diviners.]

The next section is of a different kind. In it the prophet is
divinely commissioned to tend the flock which has been neglected and
impoverished by other shepherds. To this end he takes two staves,
named Favour and Unity, to indicate respectively the favour enjoyed
by Judah in her relations with her neighbours, and the unity
subsisting between her and Israel (or Jerusalem, according to two
codices); and thus invested with the instruments of the pastoral
office he destroyed three shepherds in a short time. But the flock
grew tired of him, and, in consequence he broke the staves, i.e. the
relations of favour and unity were ruptured. A foolish and careless
shepherd is then raised up, who abuses the flock, and over him a woe
is pronounced, xi. 4-17, more minutely defined in xiii. 7-9, which
appears to have been misplaced. Jehovah will slay the shepherd and
scatter the sheep; a third of the flock after being purified by fire
will constitute the people of Jehovah.

The next section, xii. 1-xiii. 6, introduces us to a siege of
Jerusalem by the heathen, abetted by Judah. Suddenly, however, Judah
changes sides; by the help of Jehovah they destroy the heathen, and
Jerusalem is saved, xii. 1-8. Then the people and their leaders are
moved by the outpouring of the spirit to confess and entreat
forgiveness for some judicial murder which they have committed and
which they publicly and bitterly lament, xii. 9-14. The prayer is
answered; people and leaders are cleansed in a fountain opened, with
the result that idolatry and prophecy of the ancient public type are
abjured, xiii. 1-6.

The theme of the last section also (xiv.) is a heathen attack upon
Jerusalem, but this time the city is destroyed and half the
inhabitants exiled. Then Jehovah intervenes, and by a miracle upon
the Mount of Olives the rest of the people effect their escape, and
Jehovah Fights with all His angels against the heathen. Those
glorious Messianic days, when Jehovah will be King over all the
earth, will know no heat or cold, or change from light to darkness.
Jerusalem will be secure and the land about her level and fruitful,
watered east and west by a living stream. Those who have made war
against her will waste away, while the rest of the world will make
pilgrimages to the holy city to worship Jehovah and celebrate the
feast of booths. Then the mighty war-horses, once the object of His
hatred, will be consecrated to His service, and the number of
pilgrims will be so great that every pot in the city and in the
province of Judah will be needed for ceremonial purposes.

Few problems in the Old Testament are more perplexing than that of the
origin and relation of the sections composing, ix.-xiv. to one another.
The utmost that can be said with comparative certainty is that the
prophecy, in its present form, is post-exilic, while certain elements
in it, especially in ix.-xi., are, if not pre-exilic, at any rate
imitations or reminiscences of pre-exilic prophecy. Many scholars even
deny that ix.-xiv. is a unity and assign it to at least two authors.
Though the superscription in xii. 1, which seems to justify this
distinction, was probably added, like Malachi i. i, by a later hand,
the presence of certain broad distinctions between ix.-xi. and
xii.-xiv. can hardly be denied. In the former section, Ephraim is
occasionally mentioned in combination with Judah, cf. ix. 13; in the
latter, Judah alone is mentioned, and partly, on the strength of this,
the former section is assigned to a period between Tiglath Pileser's
invasion of the north of Palestine in 734 (xi. 1-3) and the fall of the
northern kingdom in 721, while the latter is assigned to a period between
the death of Josiah in 609, to which the mourning in Megiddo is supposed
to allude, xii. 11, and the fall of the southern kingdom in 586.

Even within these sections there are differences which are held to
be incompatible with the unity of each section. The most notable
difference is perhaps that affecting the siege of Jerusalem. In ch.
xii. the heathen are destroyed before Jerusalem, while the city
itself remains secure; in ch. xiv. the houses are rifled, the women
ravished, and half of the people go into captivity before Jehovah
intervenes to protect the remainder. These and other differences are
unmistakable, yet it may be questioned whether they are so serious
as to be fatal to the unity of the whole section, ix.-xiv. It is not
impossible that they may be due to the eclectic spirit of an author
who gathered from many quarters material for his eschatological
pictures. Besides, the sections which have been by some scholars
relegated to different authors, occasionally seem to imply each
other. The general assault on Jerusalem in ch. xii., e.g., is the
natural result of the breaking of the staves, Favour and Unity, in
ch. xi. But, even if ix.-xiv. be a unity, it is well to remember, as
Cornill reminds us, that there is "much in these chapters which will
ever remain obscure and unintelligible, because our knowledge of the
whole post-exilic and especially of the early Hellenic period is
extremely deficient."

This leads to the question of date. The last section (xii.-xiv.) at
any rate is obviously post-exilic. The idea of the general assault
on Jerusalem is undoubtedly suggested by Ezekiel xxxviii.; the
curiously condemnatory attitude to prophecy in xiii. 2-6 would have
been impossible in pre-exilic times; the phrase, "Uzziah _king of
Judah_," xiv. 5, rather implies that the dynasty is past, and the
reference to the earthquake in his reign has the flavour of a
learned reminiscence.[1] These and other circumstances practically
necessitate a post-exilic date, and the objection based upon xii. 11
falls to the ground, as that verse alludes, in all probability, not
to lamentations for the death of Josiah, which would no doubt have
taken place in Jerusalem, but to laments which accompanied the
worship of the Semitic Adonis. Nor can any objection be grounded
upon the allusion to idolatry in xiii. 2, as idolatry persisted into
post-exilic times.[2]
[Footnote 1: Even if the earliest possible date (about 600) for this
section be accepted, the earthquake had taken place a century and a
half before.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Job xxxi. 2eff. and perhaps also Ps. xvi.]

If ix.-xiv. be a unity, a definite _terminus a quo_ is provided
in ix. 13 by the mention of the Greeks, whose sons are opposed to
the sons of Zion. Such a relation of Jews to Greeks is not
conceivable before the time of Alexander the Great, and this fact
alone would throw the prophecy, at the earliest, into the fourth
century B.C. But there are other facts which seem to some to make
for a pre-exilic date: e.g. the mention of Judah and Ephraim
together, ix. 13 (cf. ix. 10), seems to presuppose the existence of
both kingdoms, and Egypt and Assyria are placed side by side, x. 10,
11, precisely in the manner of Hosea (ix. 3, xi. 5). But these
facts, significant as they may seem, are by no means decisive in
favour of a pre-exilic date. Assyria was the first great world power
with which Israel came into hostile contact, and the name was not
unnaturally transferred by later ages to the hostile powers of their
own day--to Babylon in Lam. v. 6, to Persia in Ezra vi. 22, and
possibly to Syria in Isaiah xxvii. 13. Consequently, in a context
which assigns the passage, at the earliest, to the Greek period,
Assyria and Egypt would very naturally designate the Seleucid and
Ptolemaic kingdoms respectively, and the prophecy might be safely
relegated to the third century, B.C.[1] The allusion to Ephraim is
not incompatible with this date, for the prophecy presupposes a
general dispersion, x. 9, which must be later than the fall of Judah
in 586, considering that residence in Egypt, x. 10, is implied (cf.
Jer. xlii.-xliv.). Nothing more need be implied by the allusion to
Ephraim than that there will be a general restoration of all the
tribes that were once driven into exile and are now scattered
throughout the world.
[Footnote 1: Marti puts it as late as 160. One of the most important
clues would be furnished by xi. 8--"I cut off the three shepherds in
one month"--if the reference were not so cryptic. Advocates of a
pre-exilic date find in the words an allusion to three successors of
Jeroboam II. of Israel--Zechariah, Shallum and some unknown
pretender (about 740); others, to the rapid succession of high
priests before the Maccabean wars (about 170). One month probably
signifies generally a brief time.]

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