George Adam Smith

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“And this is the tragedy of the Book of Jonah, that a Book which is made the means of one of the most sublime revelations of truth in the Old Testament should be known to most only for its connection with a whale.”

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CHAPTER XXXIV

THE BOOK OF JONAH

The book of Jonah is cast throughout in the form of narrative—the only one of our Twelve which is so. This fact, combined with the extraordinary events which the narrative relates, starts questions not raised by any of the rest. Besides treating, therefore, of the book’s origin, unity, division and other commonplaces of introduction, we must further seek in this chapter reasons for the appearance of such a narrative among a collection of prophetic discourses. We have to ask whether the narrative be intended as one of fact; and if not, why the author was directed to the choice of such a form to enforce the truth committed to him.

The appearance of a narrative among the Twelve Prophets is not, in itself, so exceptional as it seems to be. Parts of the Books of Amos and Hosea treat of the personal experience of their authors. The same is true of the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in which the prophet’s call and his attitude to it are regarded as elements of his message to men. No: the peculiarity of the Book of Jonah is not the presence of narrative, but the apparent absence of all prophetic discourse.[1458]

Yet even this might be explained by reference to the first part of the prophetic canon—Joshua to Second Kings.[1459] These Former Prophets, as they are called, are wholly narrative—narrative in the prophetic spirit and written to enforce a moral. Many of them begin as the Book of Jonah does:[1460] they contain stories, for instance, of Elijah and Elisha, who flourished immediately before Jonah and like him were sent with commissions to foreign lands. It might therefore be argued that the Book of Jonah, though narrative, is as much a prophetic book as they are, and that the only reason why it has found a place, not with these histories, but among the Later Prophets, is the exceedingly late date of its composition.[1461]

This is a plausible, but not the real, answer to our question. Suppose we were to find the latter by discovering that the Book of Jonah, though in narrative form, is not real history at all, nor pretends to be; but, from beginning to end, is as much a prophetic sermon as any of the other Twelve Books, yet cast in the form of parable or allegory? This would certainly explain the adoption of the book among the Twelve; nor would its allegorical character appear without precedent to those (and they are among the most conservative of critics) who maintain (as the present writer does not) the allegorical character of the story of Hosea’s wife.[1462]

It is, however, when we pass from the form to the substance of the book that we perceive the full justification of its reception among the prophets. The truth which we find in the Book of Jonah is as full and fresh a revelation of God’s will as prophecy anywhere achieves. That God has granted to the Gentiles also repentance unto life[1463] is nowhere else in the Old Testament so vividly illustrated. It lifts the teaching of the Book of Jonah to equal rank with the second part of Isaiah, and nearest of all our Twelve to the New Testament. The very form in which this truth is insinuated into the prophet’s reluctant mind, by contrasting God’s pity for the dim population of Niniveh with Jonah’s own pity for his perished gourd, suggests the methods of our Lord’s teaching, and invests the book with the morning air of that high day which shines upon the most evangelic of His parables.

One other remark is necessary. In our effort to appreciate this lofty gospel we labour under a disadvantage. That is our sense of humour—our modern sense of humour. Some of the figures in which our author conveys his truth cannot but appear to us grotesque. How many have missed the sublime spirit of the book in amusement or offence at its curious details! Even in circles in which the acceptance of its literal interpretation has been demanded as a condition of belief in its inspiration, the story has too often served as a subject for humorous remarks. This is almost inevitable if we take it as history. But we shall find that one advantage of the theory, which treats the book as parable, is that the features, which appear so grotesque to many, are traced to the popular poetry of the writer’s own time and shown to be natural. When we prove this, we shall be able to treat the scenery of the book as we do that of some early Christian fresco, in which, however rude it be or untrue to nature, we discover an earnestness and a success in expressing the moral essence of a situation that are not always present in works of art more skilful or more correct.

1.THE DATE OF THE BOOK.

Jonah ben-Amittai, from Gath-hepher[1464] in Galilee, came forward in the beginning of the reign of Jeroboam II. to announce that the king would regain the lost territories of Israel from the Pass of Hamath to the Dead Sea.[1465] He flourished, therefore, about 780, and had this book been by himself we should have had to place it first of all the Twelve, and nearly a generation before that of Amos. But the book neither claims to be by Jonah, nor gives any proof of coming from an eye-witness of the adventures which it describes,[1466] nor even from a contemporary of the prophet. On the contrary, one verse implies that when it was written Niniveh had ceased to be a great city.[1467] Now Niniveh fell, and was practically destroyed, in 606 B.C.[1468] In all ancient history there was no collapse of an imperial city more sudden or so complete.[1469] We must therefore date the Book of Jonah some time after 606, when Niniveh’s greatness had become what it was to the Greek writers, a matter of tradition. A late date is also proved by the language of the book. This not only contains Aramaic elements which have been cited to support the argument for a northern origin in the time of Jonah himself,[1470] but a number of words and grammatical constructions which we find in the Old Testament, some of them in the later and some only in the very latest writings.[1471] Scarcely less decisive are a number of apparent quotations and echoes of passages in the Old Testament, mostly later than the date of the historical Jonah, and some of them even later than the Exile.[1472] If it could be proved that the Book of Jonah quotes from Joel, that would indeed set it down to a very late date—probably about 300 B.C., the period of the composition of Ezra-Nehemiah, with the language of which its own shows most affinity.[1473] This would leave time for its reception into the Canon of the Prophets, which was closed by 200 B.C.[1474] Had the book been later it would undoubtedly have fallen, like Daniel, within the Hagiographa.

2. THE CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.

Nor does this book, written so many centuries after Jonah had passed away, claim to be real history. On the contrary, it offers to us all the marks of the parable or allegory. We have, first of all, the residence of Jonah for the conventional period of three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, a story not only very extraordinary in itself and sufficient to provoke the suspicion of allegory (we need not stop to argue this), but apparently woven, as we shall see,[1475] from the materials of a myth well known to the Hebrews. We have also the very general account of Niniveh’s conversion, in which there is not even the attempt to describe any precise event. The absence of precise data is indeed conspicuous throughout the book. “The author neglects a multitude of things, which he would have been obliged to mention had history been his principal aim. He says nothing of the sins of which Niniveh was guilty,[1476] nor of the journey of the prophet to Niniveh, nor does he mention the place where he was cast out upon the land, nor the name of the Assyrian king. In any case, if the narrative were intended to be historical, it would be incomplete by the frequent fact, that circumstances which are necessary for the connection of events are mentioned later than they happened, and only where attention has to be directed to them as having already happened.”[1477] We find, too, a number of trifling discrepancies, from which some critics[1478] have attempted to prove the presence of more than one story in the composition of the book, but which are simply due to the license a writer allows himself when he is telling a tale and not writing a history. Above all, there is the abrupt close to the story at the very moment at which its moral is obvious.[1479] All these things are symptoms of the parable—so obvious and so natural, that we really sin against the intention of the author, and the purpose of the Spirit which inspired him, when we wilfully interpret the book as real history.[1480]

3. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.

The general purpose of this parable is very clear. It is not, as some have maintained,[1481] to explain why the judgments of God and the predictions of His prophets were not always fulfilled—though this also becomes clear by the way. The purpose of the parable, and it is patent from first to last, is to illustrate the mission of prophecy to the Gentiles, God’s care for them, and their susceptibility to His word. More correctly, it is to enforce all this truth upon a prejudiced and thrice-reluctant mind.[1482]

Whose was this reluctant mind? In Israel after the Exile there were many different feelings with regard to the future and the great obstacle which heathendom interposed between Israel and the future. There was the feeling of outraged justice, with the intense conviction that Jehovah’s kingdom could not be established save by the overthrow of the cruel kingdoms of this world. We have seen that conviction expressed in the Book of Obadiah. But the nation, which read and cherished the visions of the Great Seer of the Exile,[1483] could not help producing among her sons men with hopes about the heathen of a very different kind—men who felt that Israel’s mission to the world was not one of war, but of service in those high truths of God and of His Grace which had been committed to herself. Between the two parties it is certain there was much polemic, and we find this still bitter in the time of our Lord. And some critics think that while Esther, Obadiah and other writings of the centuries after the Return represent the one side of this polemic, which demanded the overthrow of the heathen, the Book of Jonah represents the other side, and in the vexed and reluctant prophet pictures such Jews as were willing to proclaim the destruction of the enemies of Israel, and yet like Jonah were not without the lurking fear that God would disappoint their predictions and in His patience leave the heathen room for repentance.[1484] Their dogmatism could not resist the impression of how long God had actually spared the oppressors of His people, and the author of the Book of Jonah cunningly sought these joints in their armour to insinuate the points of his doctrine of God’s real will for nations beyond the covenant. This is ingenious and plausible. But in spite of the cleverness with which it has been argued that the details of the story of Jonah are adapted to the temper of the Jewish party who desired only vengeance on the heathen, it is not at all necessary to suppose that the book was the produce of mere polemic. The book is too simple and too grand for that. And therefore those appear more right who conceive that the writer had in view, not a Jewish party, but Israel as a whole in their national reluctance to fulfil their Divine mission to the world.[1485] Of them God had already said: Who is blind but My servant, or deaf as My messenger whom I have sent?... Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? Did not Jehovah, He against whom we have sinned?—for they would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient to His law.[1486] Of such a people Jonah is the type. Like them he flees from the duty God has laid upon him. Like them he is, beyond his own land, cast for a set period into a living death, and like them rescued again only to exhibit once more upon his return an ill-will to believe that God had any fate for the heathen except destruction. According to this theory, then, Jonah’s disappearance in the sea and the great fish, and his subsequent ejection upon dry land, symbolise the Exile of Israel and their restoration to Palestine.

In proof of this view it has been pointed out that, while the prophets frequently represent the heathen tyrants of Israel as the sea or the sea-monster, one of them has actually described the nation’s exile as its swallowing by a monster, whom God forces at last to disgorge his living prey[1487]. The full illustration of this will be given in Chapter XXXVI. on “The Great Fish and What it Means.” Here it is only necessary to mention that the metaphor was borrowed, not, as has been alleged by many, from some Greek, or other foreign, myth, which, like that of Perseus and Andromeda, had its scene in the neighbourhood of Joppa, but from a Semitic mythology which was well known to the Hebrews, and the materials of which were employed very frequently by other prophets and poets of the Old Testament.[1488]

Why, of all prophets, Jonah should have been selected as the type of Israel, is a question hard but perhaps not impossible to answer. In history Jonah appears only as concerned with Israel’s reconquest of her lands from the heathen. Did the author of the book say: I will take such a man, one to whom tradition attributes no outlook beyond Israel’s own territories, for none could be so typical of Israel, narrow, selfish and with no love for the world beyond herself? Or did the author know some story about a journey of Jonah to Niniveh, or at least some discourse by Jonah against the great city? Elijah went to Sarepta, Elisha took God’s word to Damascus: may there not have been, though we are ignorant of it, some connection between Niniveh and the labours of Elisha’s successor? Thirty years after Jonah appeared, Amos proclaimed the judgment of Jehovah upon foreign nations, with the destruction of their capitals; about the year 755 he clearly enforced, as equal with Israel’s own, the moral responsibility of the heathen to the God of righteousness. May not Jonah, almost the contemporary of Amos, have denounced Niniveh in the same way? Would not some tradition of this serve as the nucleus of history, round which our author built his allegory? It is possible that Jonah proclaimed doom upon Niniveh; yet those who are familiar with the prophesying of Amos, Hosea, and, in his younger days, Isaiah, will deem it hardly probable. For why do all these prophets exhibit such reserve in even naming Assyria, if Israel had already through Jonah entered into such articulate relations with Niniveh? We must, therefore, admit our ignorance of the reasons which led our author to choose Jonah as a type of Israel. We can only conjecture that it may have been because Jonah was a prophet, whom history identified only with Israel’s narrower interests. If, during subsequent centuries, a tradition had risen of Jonah’s journey to Niniveh or of his discourse against her, such a tradition has probability against it.

A more definite origin for the book than any yet given has been suggested by Professor Budde.[1489] The Second Book of Chronicles refers to a Midrash of the Book of the Kings[1490] for further particulars concerning King Joash. A Midrash[1491] was the expansion, for doctrinal or homiletic purposes, of a passage of Scripture, and very frequently took the form, so dear to Orientals, of parable or invented story about the subject of the text. We have examples of Midrashim among the Apocrypha, in the Books of Tobit and Susannah and in the Prayer of Manasseh, the same as is probably referred to by the Chronicler.[1492] That the Chronicler himself used the Midrash of the Book of the Kings as material for his own book is obvious from the form of the latter and its adaptation of the historical narratives of the Book of Kings.[1493] The Book of Daniel may also be reckoned among the Midrashim, and Budde now proposes to add to their number the Book of Jonah. It may be doubted whether this distinguished critic is right in supposing that the book formed the Midrash to 2 Kings xiv. 25 ff. (the author being desirous to add to the expression there of Jehovah’s pity upon Israel some expression of His pity upon the heathen), or that it was extracted just as it stands, in proof of which Budde points to its abrupt beginning and end. We have seen another reason for the latter;[1494] and it is very improbable that the Midrashim, so largely the basis of the Books of Chronicles, shared that spirit of universalism which inspires the Book of Jonah.[1495] But we may well believe that it was in some Midrash of the Book of Kings that the author of the Book of Jonah found the basis of the latter part of his immortal work, which too clearly reflects the fortunes and conduct of all Israel to have been wholly drawn from a Midrash upon the story of the individual prophet Jonah.

4. OUR LORD’S USE OF THE BOOK.

We have seen, then, that the Book of Jonah is not actual history, but the enforcement of a profound religious truth nearer to the level of the New Testament than anything else in the Old, and cast in the form of Christ’s own parables. The full proof of this can be made clear only by the detailed exposition of the book. There is, however, one other question, which is relevant to the argument. Christ Himself has employed the story of Jonah. Does His use of it involve His authority for the opinion that it is a story of real facts?

Two passages of the Gospels contain the words of our Lord upon Jonah: Matt. xii. 39, 41, and Luke xi. 29, 30.[1496] A generation, wicked and adulterous, seeketh a sign, and sign shall not be given it, save the sign of the prophet Jonah. … The men of Niniveh shall stand up in the Judgment with this generation, and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. This generation is an evil generation: it seeketh a sign; and sign shall not be given it, except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninivites, so also shall the Son of Man be to this generation.

These words, of course, are compatible with the opinion that the Book of Jonah is a record of real fact. The only question is, are they also compatible with the opinion that the Book of Jonah is a parable? Many say No; and they allege that those of us who hold this opinion are denying, or at least ignoring, the testimony of our Lord; or that we are taking away the whole force of the parallel which He drew. This is a question of interpretation, not of faith. We do not believe that our Lord had any thought of confirming or not confirming the historic character of the story. His purpose was purely one of exhortation, and we feel the grounds of that exhortation to be just as strong, when we have proven the Book of Jonah to be a parable. Christ is using an illustration: it surely matters not whether that illustration be drawn from the realms of fact or of poetry. Again and again in their discourses to the people do men use illustrations and enforcements drawn from traditions of the past. Do we, even when the historical value of these traditions is very ambiguous, give a single thought to the question of their historical character? We never think of it. It is enough for us that the tradition is popularly accepted and familiar. And we cannot deny to our Lord that which we claim for ourselves.[1497] Even conservative writers admit this. In his recent Introduction to Jonah Orelli says expressly: “It is not, indeed, proved with conclusive necessity that, if the resurrection of Jesus was a physical fact, Jonah’s abode in the fish’s belly must also be just as historical.”[1498]

Upon the general question of our Lord’s authority in matters of criticism, His own words with regard to personal questions may be appositely quoted: Man, who made Me a judge or divider over you? I am come not to judge ... but to save. Such matters our Lord surely leaves to ourselves, and we have to decide them by our reason, our common-sense and our loyalty to truth—of all of which He Himself is the creator, and of which we shall have to render to Him an account at the last. Let us remember this, and we shall use them with equal liberty and reverence. Bringing every thought into subjection to Christ is surely just using our knowledge, our reason, and every other intellectual gift which He has given us, with the accuracy and the courage of His own Spirit.

5. THE UNITY OF THE BOOK.

The next question is that of the Unity of the Book. Several attempts have been made to prove from discrepancies, some real and some alleged, that the book is a compilation of stories from several different hands. But these essays are too artificial to have obtained any adherence from critics; and the few real discrepancies of narrative from which they start are due, as we have seen, rather to the license of a writer of parable than to any difference of authorship.[1499]

In the question of the Unity of the Book, the Prayer or Psalm in chap. ii. offers a problem of its own, consisting as it does almost entirely of passages parallel to others in the Psalter. Besides a number of religious phrases, which are too general for us to say that one prayer has borrowed them from another,[1500] there are several unmistakeable repetitions of the Psalms.[1501]

And yet the Psalm of Jonah has strong features, which, so far as we know, are original to it. The horror of the great deep has nowhere in the Old Testament been described with such power or with such conciseness. So far, then, the Psalm is not a mere string of quotations, but a living unity. Did the author of the book himself insert it where it stands? Against this it has been urged that the Psalm is not the prayer of a man inside a fish, but of one who on dry land celebrates a deliverance from drowning, and that if the author of the narrative himself had inserted it, he would rather have done so after ver.11, which records the prophet’s escape from the fish.[1502] And a usual theory of the origin of the Psalm is that a later editor, having found the Psalm ready-made and in a collection where it was perhaps attributed to Jonah,[1503] inserted it after ver.2, which records that Jonah did pray from the belly of the fish, and inserted it there the more readily, because it seemed right for a book which had found its place among the Twelve Prophets to contribute, as all the others did, some actual discourse of the prophet whose name it bore.[1504] This, however, is not probable. Whether the original author found the Psalm ready to his hand or made it, there is a great deal to be said for the opinion of the earlier critics,[1505] that he himself inserted it, and just where it now stands. For, from the standpoint of the writer, Jonah was already saved, when he was taken up by the fish—saved from the deep into which he had been cast by the sailors, and the dangers of which the Psalm so vividly describes. However impossible it be for us to conceive of the compilation of a Psalm (even though full of quotations) by a man in Jonah’s position,[1506] it was consistent with the standpoint of a writer who had just affirmed that the fish was expressly appointed by Jehovah, in order to save his penitent servant from the sea. To argue that the Psalm is an intrusion is therefore not only unnecessary, but it betrays failure to appreciate the standpoint of the writer. Given the fish and the Divine purpose of the fish, the Psalm is intelligible and appears at its proper place. It were more reasonable indeed to argue that the fish itself is an insertion. Besides, as we shall see, the spirit of the Psalm is national; in conformity with the truth underlying the book, it is a Psalm of Israel as a whole.

If this be correct, we have the Book of Jonah as it came from the hands of its author. The text is in wonderfully good condition, due to the ease of the narrative and its late date. The Greek version exhibits the usual proportion of clerical errors and mistranslations,[1507] omissions[1508] and amplifications,[1509] with some variant readings[1510] and other changes that will be noted in the verses themselves.

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CHAPTER XXXV

THE GREAT REFUSAL

JONAH i

We have now laid clear the lines upon which the Book of Jonah was composed. Its purpose is to illustrate God’s grace to the heathen in face of His people’s refusal to fulfil their mission to them. The author was led to achieve this purpose by a parable, through which the prophet Jonah moves as the symbol of his recusant, exiled, redeemed and still hardened people. It is the Drama of Israel’s career, as the Servant of God, in the most pathetic moments of that career. A nation is stumbling on the highest road nation was ever called to tread.

Who is blind but My servant,

Or deaf as My messenger whom I have sent?

He that would read this Drama aright must remember what lies behind the Great Refusal which forms its tragedy. The cause of Israel’s recusancy was not only wilfulness or cowardly sloth, but the horror of a whole world given over to idolatry, the paralysing sense of its irresistible force, of its cruel persecutions endured for centuries, and of the long famine of Heaven’s justice. These it was which had filled Israel’s eyes too full of fever to see her duty. Only when we feel, as the writer himself felt, all this tragic background to his story are we able to appreciate the exquisite gleams which he flashes across it: the generous magnanimity of the heathen sailors, the repentance of the heathen city, and, lighting from above, God’s pity upon the dumb heathen multitudes.

The parable or drama divides itself into three parts: The Prophet’s Flight and Turning (chap. i.); The Great Fish and What it Means (chap. ii.); and The Repentance of the City (chaps. iii. and iv.).

The chief figure of the story is Jonah, son of Amittai, from Gath-hepher in Galilee, a prophet identified with that turn in Israel’s fortunes, by which she began to defeat her Syrian oppressors, and win back from them her own territories—a prophet, therefore, of revenge, and from the most bitter of the heathen wars. And the word of Jehovah came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Up, go to Niniveh, the Great City, and cry out against her, for her evil is come up before Me. But he arose to flee. It was not the length of the road, nor the danger of declaring Niniveh’s sin to her face, which turned him, but the instinct that God intended by him something else than Niniveh’s destruction; and this instinct sprang from his knowledge of God Himself. Ah now, Jehovah, was not my word, while I was yet upon mine own soil, at the time I made ready to flee to Tarshish, this—that I knew that Thou art a God gracious and tender and long-suffering, plenteous in love and relenting of evil?[1511] Jonah interpreted the Word which came to him by the Character which he knew to be behind the Word. This is a significant hint upon the method of revelation. It would be rash to say that, in imputing even to the historical Jonah the fear of God’s grace upon the heathen, our author were guilty of an anachronism.[1512] We have to do, however, with a greater than Jonah—the nation herself. Though perhaps Israel little reflected upon it, the instinct can never have been far away that some day the grace of Jehovah might reach the heathen too. Such an instinct, of course, must have been almost stifled by hatred born of heathen oppression, as well as by the intellectual scorn which Israel came to feel for heathen idolatries. But we may believe that it haunted even those dark periods in which revenge upon the Gentiles seemed most just, and their destruction the only means of establishing God’s kingdom in the world. We know that it moved uneasily even beneath the rigour of Jewish legalism. For its secret was that faith in the essential grace of God, which Israel gained very early and never lost, and which was the spring of every new conviction and every reform in her wonderful development. With a subtle appreciation of all this, our author imputes the instinct to Jonah from the outset. Jonah’s fear, that after all the heathen may be spared, reflects the restless apprehension even of the most exclusive of his people—an apprehension which by the time our book was written seemed to be still more justified by God’s long delay of doom upon the tyrants whom He had promised to overthrow.

But to the natural man in Israel the possibility of the heathen’s repentance was still so abhorrent, that he turned his back upon it. Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the face of Jehovah. In spite of recent arguments to the contrary, the most probable location of Tarshish is the generally accepted one, that it was a Phoenician colony at the other end of the Mediterranean. In any case it was far from the Holy Land; and by going there the prophet would put the sea between himself and his God. To the Hebrew imagination there could not be a flight more remote. Israel was essentially an inland people. They had come up out of the desert, and they had practically never yet touched the Mediterranean. They lived within sight of it, but from ten to twenty miles of foreign soil intervened between their mountains and its stormy coast. The Jews had no traffic upon the sea, nor (but for one sublime instance[1513] to the contrary) had their poets ever employed it except as a symbol of arrogance and restless rebellion against the will of God.[1514] It was all this popular feeling of the distance and strangeness of the sea which made our author choose it as the scene of the prophet’s flight from the face of Israel’s God. Jonah had to pass, too, through a foreign land to get to the coast: upon the sea he would only be among heathen. This was to be part of his conversion. He went down to Yapho, and found a ship going to Tarshish, and paid the fare thereof, and embarked on her to get away with her crew[1515] to Tarshish—away from the face of Jehovah.

The scenes which follow are very vivid: the sudden wind sweeping down from the very hills on which Jonah believed he had left his God; the tempest; the behaviour of the ship, so alive with effort that the story attributes to her the feelings of a living thing—she thought she must be broken; the despair of the mariners, driven from the unity of their common task to the hopeless diversity of their idolatry—they cried every man unto his own god; the jettisoning of the tackle of the ship to lighten her (as we should say, they let the masts go by the board); the worn-out prophet in the hull of the ship, sleeping like a stowaway; the group gathered on the heaving deck to cast the lot; the passenger’s confession, and the new fear which fell upon the sailors from it; the reverence with which these rude men ask the advice of him, in whose guilt they feel not the offence to themselves, but the sacredness to God; the awakening of the prophet’s better self by their generous deference to him; how he counsels to them his own sacrifice; their reluctance to yield to this, and their return to the oars with increased perseverance for his sake. But neither their generosity nor their efforts avail. The prophet again offers himself, and as their sacrifice he is thrown into the sea.

And Jehovah cast a wind[1516] on the sea, and there was a great tempest,[1517] and the ship threatened[1518] to break up. And the sailors were afraid, and cried every man unto his own god; and they cast the tackle of the ship into the sea, to lighten it from upon them. But Jonah had gone down to the bottom of the ship and lay fast asleep. And the captain of the ship[1519] came to him, and said to him, What art thou doing asleep? Up, call on thy God; peradventure the God will be gracious to us, that we perish not. And they said every man to his neighbour, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose sake is this evil come upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. And they said to him, Tell us now,[1520] what is thy business, and whence comest thou? what is thy land, and from what people art thou? And he said to them, A Hebrew am I, and a worshipper of the God of Heaven,[1521] who made the sea and the dry land. And the men feared greatly, and said to him, What is this thou hast done? (for they knew he was fleeing from the face of Jehovah, because he had told them). And they said to him, What are we to do to thee that the sea cease raging against us? For the sea was surging higher and higher. And he said, Take me and throw me into the sea; so shall the sea cease raging against you: for I am sure that it is on my account that this great tempest is risen upon you. And the men laboured[1522] with the oars to bring the ship to land, and they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. So they called on Jehovah and said, Jehovah, let us not perish, we pray Thee, for the life of this man, neither bring innocent blood upon us: for Thou art Jehovah, Thou doest as Thou pleasest. Then they took up Jonah and cast him into the sea, and the sea stilled from its raging. But the men were in great awe of Jehovah, and sacrificed to Him and vowed vows.

How very real it is and how very noble! We see the storm, and then we forget the storm in the joy of that generous contest between heathen and Hebrew. But the glory of the passage is the change in Jonah himself. It has been called his punishment and the conversion of the heathen. Rather it is his own conversion. He meets again not only God, but the truth from which he fled. He not only meets that truth, but he offers his life for it.

The art is consummate. The writer will first reduce the prophet and the heathen whom he abhors to the elements of their common humanity. As men have sometimes seen upon a mass of wreckage or on an ice-floe a number of wild animals, by nature foes to each other, reduced to peace through their common danger, so we descry the prophet and his natural enemies upon the strained and breaking ship. In the midst of the storm they are equally helpless, and they cast for all the lot which has no respect of persons. But from this the story passes quickly, to show how Jonah feels not only the human kinship of these heathen with himself, but their susceptibility to the knowledge of his God. They pray to Jehovah as the God of the sea and the dry land; while we may be sure that the prophet’s confession, and the story of his own relation to that God, forms as powerful an exhortation to repentance as any he could have preached in Niniveh. At least it produces the effects which he has dreaded. In these sailors he sees heathen turned to the fear of the Lord. All that he has fled to avoid happens there before his eyes and through his own mediation. The climax is reached, however, neither when Jonah feels his common humanity with the heathen nor when he discovers their awe of his God, but when in order to secure for them God’s sparing mercies he offers his own life instead. Take me up and cast me into the sea; so shall the sea cease from raging against you. After their pity for him has wrestled for a time with his honest entreaties, he becomes their sacrifice.

In all this story perhaps the most instructive passages are those which lay bare to us the method of God’s revelation. When we were children this was shown to us in pictures of angels bending from heaven to guide Isaiah’s pen, or to cry Jonah’s commission to him through a trumpet. And when we grew older, although we learned to dispense with that machinery, yet its infection remained, and our conception of the whole process was mechanical still. We thought of the prophets as of another order of things; we released them from our own laws of life and thought, and we paid the penalty by losing all interest in them. But the prophets were human, and their inspiration came through experience. The source of it, as this story shows, was God. Partly from His guidance of their nation, partly through close communion with Himself, they received new convictions of His character. Yet they did not receive these mechanically. They spake neither at the bidding of angels, nor like heathen prophets in trance or ecstasy, but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And the Spirit worked upon them first as the influence of God’s character,[1523] and second through the experience of life. God and life—these are all the postulates for revelation.

At first Jonah fled from the truth, at last he laid down his life for it. So God still forces us to the acceptance of new light and the performance of strange duties. Men turn from these, because of sloth or prejudice, but in the end they have to face them, and then at what a cost! In youth they shirk a self-denial to which in some storm of later life they have to bend with heavier, and often hopeless, hearts. For their narrow prejudices and refusals, God punishes them by bringing them into pain that stings, or into responsibility for others that shames, these out of them. The drama of life is thus intensified in interest and beauty; characters emerge heroic and sublime.

“But, oh the labour,
O prince, the pain!”

Sometimes the neglected duty is at last achieved only at the cost of a man’s breath; and the truth, which might have been the bride of his youth and his comrade through a long life, is recognised by him only in the features of Death.

---

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE GREAT FISH AND WHAT IT MEANS—THE PSALM

JONAH ii

At this point in the tale appears the Great Fish. And Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

After the very natural story which we have followed, this verse obtrudes itself with a shock of unreality and grotesqueness. What an anticlimax! say some; what a clumsy intrusion! So it is if Jonah be taken as an individual. But if we keep in mind that he stands here, not for himself, but for his nation, the difficulty and the grotesqueness disappear. It is Israel’s ill-will to the heathen, Israel’s refusal of her mission, Israel’s embarkation on the stormy sea of the world’s politics, which we have had described as Jonah’s. Upon her flight from God’s will there followed her Exile, and from her Exile, which was for a set period, she came back to her own land, a people still, and still God’s servant to the heathen. How was the author to express this national death and resurrection? In conformity with the popular language of his time, he had described Israel’s turning from God’s will by her embarkation on a stormy sea, always the symbol of the prophets for the tossing heathen world that was ready to engulf her; and now to express her exile and return he sought metaphors in the same rich poetry of the popular imagination.

To the Israelite who watched from his hills that stormy coast on which the waves hardly ever cease to break in their impotent restlessness, the sea was a symbol of arrogance and futile defiance to the will of God. The popular mythology of the Semites had filled it with turbulent monsters, snakes and dragons who wallowed like its own waves, helpless against the bounds set to them, or rose to wage war against the gods in heaven and the great lights which they had created; but a god slays them and casts their carcases for meat and drink to the thirsty people of the desert.[1524] It is a symbol of the perpetual war between light and darkness; the dragons are the clouds, the slayer the sun. A variant form, which approaches closely to that of Jonah’s great fish, is still found in Palestine. In May 1891 I witnessed at Hasbeya, on the western skirts of Hermon, an eclipse of the moon. When the shadow began to creep across her disc, there rose from the village a hideous din of drums, metal pots and planks of wood beaten together; guns were fired, and there was much shouting. I was told that this was done to terrify the great fish which was swallowing the moon, and to make him disgorge her.

Now these purely natural myths were applied by the prophets and poets of the Old Testament to the illustration, not only of Jehovah’s sovereignty over the storm and the night, but of His conquest of the heathen powers who had enslaved His people.[1525] Isaiah had heard in the sea the confusion and rage of the peoples against the bulwark which Jehovah set around Israel;[1526] but it is chiefly from the time of the Exile onward that the myths themselves, with their cruel monsters and the prey of these, are applied to the great heathen powers and their captive, Israel. One prophet explicitly describes the Exile of Israel as the swallowing of the nation by the monster, the Babylonian tyrant, whom God forces at last to disgorge its prey. Israel says:[1527] Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me[1528] and crushed me,[1528] ... he hath swallowed me up like the Dragon, filling his belly, from my delights he hath cast me out. But Jehovah replies:[1529] I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed.... My people, go ye out of the midst of her.

It has been justly remarked by Canon Cheyne that this passage may be considered as the intervening link between the original form of the myth and the application of it made in the story of Jonah.[1530] To this the objection might be offered that in the story of Jonah the great fish is not actually represented as the means of the prophet’s temporary destruction, like the monster in Jeremiah li., but rather as the vessel of his deliverance.[1531] This is true, yet it only means that our author has still further adapted the very plastic material offered him by this much transformed myth. But we do not depend for our proof upon the comparison of a single passage. Let the student of the Book of Jonah read carefully the many passages of the Old Testament, in which the sea or its monsters rage in vain against Jehovah, or are harnessed and led about by Him; or still more those passages in which His conquest of these monsters is made to figure His conquest of the heathen powers,[1532]—and the conclusion will appear irresistible that the story of the great fish and of Jonah the type of Israel is drawn from the same source. Such a solution of the problem has one great advantage. It relieves us of the grotesqueness which attaches to the literal conception of the story, and of the necessity of those painful efforts for accounting for a miracle which have distorted the common-sense and even the orthodoxy of so many commentators of the book.[1533] We are dealing, let us remember, with poetry—a poetry inspired by one of the most sublime truths of the Old Testament, but whose figures are drawn from the legends and myths of the people to whom it is addressed. To treat this as prose is not only to sin against the common-sense which God has given us, but against the simple and obvious intention of the author. It is blindness both to reason and to Scripture. These views are confirmed by an examination of the Psalm or Prayer which is put into Jonah’s mouth while he is yet in the fish. We have already seen what grounds there are for believing that the Psalm belongs to the author’s own plan, and from the beginning appeared just where it does now.[1534] But we may also point out how, in consistence with its context, this is a Psalm, not of an individual Israelite, but of the nation as a whole. It is largely drawn from the national liturgy.[1535] It is full of cries which we know, though they are expressed in the singular number, to have been used of the whole people, or at least of that pious portion of them, who were Israel indeed. True that in the original portion of the Psalm, and by far its most beautiful verses, we seem to have the description of a drowning man swept to the bottom of the sea. But even here, the colossal scenery and the magnificent hyperbole of the language suit not the experience of an individual, but the extremities of that vast gulf of exile into which a whole nation was plunged. It is a nation’s carcase which rolls upon those infernal tides that swirl among the roots of mountains and behind the barred gates of earth. Finally, vv. 9 and 10 are obviously a contrast, not between the individual prophet and the heathen, but between the true Israel, who in exile preserve their loyalty to Jehovah, and those Jews who, forsaking their covenant-love, lapse to idolatry. We find many parallels to this in exilic and post-exilic literature.

And Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the belly of the fish, and said:—

And Jehovah spake to the fish, and it threw up Jonah on the dry land.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE REPENTANCE OF THE CITY

JONAH iii

Having learned, through suffering, his moral kinship with the heathen, and having offered his life for some of them, Jonah receives a second command to go to Niniveh. He obeys, but with his prejudice as strong as though it had never been humbled, nor met by Gentile nobleness. The first part of his story appears to have no consequences in the second.[1538] But this is consistent with the writer’s purpose to treat Jonah as if he were Israel. For, upon their return from Exile, and in spite of all their new knowledge of themselves and the world, Israel continued to cherish their old grudge against the Gentiles.

And the word of Jehovah came to Jonah the second time, saying, Up, go to Niniveh, the great city, and call unto her with the call which I shall tell thee. And Jonah arose and went to Niniveh, as Jehovah said. Now Niniveh was a city great before God, three days’ journey through and through.[1539] And Jonah began by going through the city one day’s journey, and he cried and said, Forty[1540] days more and Niniveh shall be overturned.

Opposite to Mosul, the well-known emporium of trade on the right bank of the Upper Tigris, two high artificial mounds now lift themselves from the otherwise level plain. The more northerly takes the name of Kujundschik, or “little lamb,” after the Turkish village which couches pleasantly upon its north-eastern slope. The other is called in the popular dialect Nebi Yunus, “Prophet Jonah,” after a mosque dedicated to him, which used to be a Christian church; but the official name is Niniveh. These two mounds are bound to each other on the west by a broad brick wall, which extends beyond them both, and is connected north and south by other walls, with a circumference in all of about nine English miles. The interval, including the mounds, was covered with buildings, whose ruins still enable us to form some idea of what was for centuries the wonder of the world. Upon terraces and substructions of enormous breadth rose storied palaces, arsenals, barracks, libraries and temples. A lavish water system spread in all directions from canals with massive embankments and sluices. Gardens were lifted into mid-air, filled with rich plants and rare and beautiful animals. Alabaster, silver, gold and precious stones relieved the dull masses of brick and flashed sunlight from every frieze and battlement. The surrounding walls were so broad that chariots could roll abreast on them. The gates, and especially the river gates, were very massive.[1541] All this was Niniveh proper, whose glory the Hebrews envied and over whose fall more than one of their prophets exult. But this was not the Niniveh to which our author saw Jonah come. Beyond the walls were great suburbs,[1542] and beyond the suburbs other towns, league upon league of dwellings, so closely set upon the plain as to form one vast complex of population, which is known to Scripture as The Great City.[1543] To judge from the ruins which still cover the ground,[1544] the circumference must have been about sixty miles, or three days’ journey. It is these nameless leagues of common dwellings which roll before us in the story. None of those glories of Niniveh are mentioned, of which other prophets speak, but the only proofs offered to us of the city’s greatness are its extent and its population.[1545] Jonah is sent to three days, not of mighty buildings, but of homes and families, to the Niniveh, not of kings and their glories, but of men, women and children, besides much cattle. The palaces and temples he may pass in an hour or two, but from sunrise to sunset he treads the dim drab mazes where the people dwell.

When we open our hearts for heroic witness to the truth there rush upon them glowing memories of Moses before Pharaoh, of Elijah before Ahab, of Stephen before the Sanhedrim, of Paul upon Areopagus, of Galileo before the Inquisition, of Luther at the Diet. But it takes a greater heroism to face the people than a king, to convert a nation than to persuade a senate. Princes and assemblies of the wise stimulate the imagination; they drive to bay all the nobler passions of a solitary man. But there is nothing to help the heart, and therefore its courage is all the greater, which bears witness before those endless masses, in monotone of life and colour, that now paralyse the imagination like long stretches of sand when the sea is out, and again terrify it like the resistless rush of the flood beneath a hopeless evening sky.

It is, then, with an art most fitted to his high purpose that our author—unlike all other prophets, whose aim was different—presents to us, not the description of a great military power: king, nobles and armed battalions: but the vision of those monotonous millions. He strips his country’s foes of everything foreign, everything provocative of envy and hatred, and unfolds them to Israel only in their teeming humanity.[1546]

His next step is still more grand. For this teeming humanity he claims the universal human possibility of repentance—that and nothing more.

Under every form and character of human life, beneath all needs and all habits, deeper than despair and more native to man than sin itself, lies the power of the heart to turn. It was this and not hope that remained at the bottom of Pandora’s Box when every other gift had fled. For this is the indispensable secret of hope. It lies in every heart, needing indeed some dream of Divine mercy, however far and vague, to rouse it; but when roused, neither ignorance of God, nor pride, nor long obduracy of evil may withstand it. It takes command of the whole nature of a man, and speeds from heart to heart with a violence, that like pain and death spares neither age nor rank nor degree of culture. This primal human right is all our author claims for the men of Niniveh. He has been blamed for telling us an impossible thing, that a whole city should be converted at the call of a single stranger; and others have started up in his defence and quoted cases in which large Oriental populations have actually been stirred by the preaching of an alien in race and religion; and then it has been replied, “Granted the possibility, granted the fact in other cases, yet where in history have we any trace of this alleged conversion of all Niniveh?” and some scoff, “How could a Hebrew have made himself articulate in one day to those Assyrian multitudes?”

How long, O Lord, must Thy poetry suffer from those who can only treat it as prose? On whatever side they stand, sceptical or orthodox, they are equally pedants, quenchers of the spiritual, creators of unbelief.

Our author, let us once for all understand, makes no attempt to record an historical conversion of this vast heathen city. For its men he claims only the primary human possibility of repentance; expressing himself not in this general abstract way, but as Orientals, to whom an illustration is ever a proof, love to have it done—by story or parable. With magnificent reserve he has not gone further; but only told into the prejudiced faces of his people, that out there, beyond the Covenant, in the great world lying in darkness, there live, not beings created for ignorance and hostility to God, elect for destruction, but men with consciences and hearts, able to turn at His Word and to hope in His Mercy—that to the farthest ends of the world, and even on the high places of unrighteousness, Word and Mercy work just as they do within the Covenant.

The fashion in which the repentance of Niniveh is described is natural to the time of the writer. It is a national repentance, of course, and though swelling upwards from the people, it is confirmed and organised by the authorities: for we are still in the Old Dispensation, when the picture of a complete and thorough repentance could hardly be otherwise conceived. And the beasts are made to share its observance, as in the Orient they always shared and still share in funeral pomp and trappings.[1547] It may have been, in addition, a personal pleasure to our writer to record the part of the animals in the movement. See how, later on, he tells us that for their sake also God had pity upon Niniveh.

And the men of Niniveh believed upon God, and cried a fast, and from the greatest of them to the least of them they put on sackcloth. And word came to the king of Niniveh, and he rose off his throne, and cast his mantle from upon him, and dressed in sackcloth and sat in the dust. And he sent criers to say in Niniveh:—

By Order of the King and his Nobles, thus:—Man and Beast, Oxen and Sheep, shall not taste anything, neither eat nor drink water. But let them clothe themselves[1548] in sackcloth, both man and beast, and call upon God with power, and turn every man from his evil way and from every wrong which they have in hand. Who knoweth but that God may[1549] relent and turn from the fierceness of His wrath, that we perish not?[1550]

And God saw their doings, how they turned from their evil way; and God relented of the evil which He said He would do to them, and did it not.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

ISRAEL’S JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH

JONAH iv

Having illustrated the truth, that the Gentiles are capable of repentance unto life, the Book now describes the effect of their escape upon Jonah, and closes by revealing God’s full heart upon the matter.

Jonah is very angry that Niniveh has been spared. Is this (as some say) because his own word has not been fulfilled? In Israel there was an accepted rule that a prophet should be judged by the issue of his predictions: If thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which Jehovah hath not spoken?—when a prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken presumptuously, thou shalt have no reverence for him.[1551] Was it this that stung Jonah? Did he ask for death because men would say of him that when he predicted Niniveh’s overthrow he was false and had not God’s word? Of such fears there is no trace in the story. Jonah never doubts that his word came from Jehovah, nor dreads that other men will doubt. There is absolutely no hint of anxiety as to his professional reputation. But, on the contrary, Jonah says that from the first he had the foreboding, grounded upon his knowledge of God’s character, that Niniveh would be spared, and that it was from this issue he shrank and fled to go to Tarshish. In short he could not, either then or now, master his conviction that the heathen should be destroyed. His grief, though foolish, is not selfish. He is angry, not at the baffling of his word, but at God’s forbearance with the foes and tyrants of Israel.

Now, as in all else, so in this, Jonah is the type of his people. If we can judge from their literature after the Exile, they were not troubled by the nonfulfilment of prophecy, except as one item of what was the problem of their faith—the continued prosperity of the Gentiles. And this was not, what it appears to be in some Psalms, only an intellectual problem or an offence to their sense of justice. Nor could they meet it always, as some of their prophets did, with a supreme intellectual scorn of the heathen, and in the proud confidence that they themselves were the favourites of God. For the knowledge that God was infinitely gracious haunted their pride; and from the very heart of their faith arose a jealous fear that He would show His grace to others than themselves. To us it may be difficult to understand this temper. We have not been trained to believe ourselves an elect people; nor have we suffered at the hands of the heathen. Yet, at least, we have contemporaries and fellow-Christians among whom we may find still alive many of the feelings against which the Book of Jonah was written. Take the Oriental Churches of to-day. Centuries of oppression have created in them an awful hatred of the infidel, beneath whose power they are hardly suffered to live. The barest justice calls for the overthrow of their oppressors. That these share a common humanity with themselves is a sense they have nearly lost. For centuries they have had no spiritual intercourse with them; to try to convert a Mohammedan has been for twelve hundred years a capital crime. It is not wonderful that Eastern Christians should have long lost power to believe in the conversion of infidels, and to feel that anything is due but their destruction. The present writer once asked a cultured and devout layman of the Greek Church, Why then did God create so many Mohammedans? The answer came hot and fast: To fill up Hell! Analogous to this were the feelings of the Jews towards the peoples who had conquered and oppressed them. But the jealousy already alluded to aggravated these feelings to a rigour no Christian can ever share. What right had God to extend to their oppressors His love for a people who alone had witnessed and suffered for Him, to whom He had bound Himself by so many exclusive promises, whom He had called His Bride, His Darling, His Only One? And yet the more Israel dwelt upon that Love the more they were afraid of it. God had been so gracious and so long-suffering to themselves that they could not trust Him not to show these mercies to others. In which case, what was the use of their uniqueness and privilege? What worth was their living any more? Israel might as well perish.

It is this subtle story of Israel’s jealousy of Jehovah, and Jehovah’s gentle treatment of it, which we follow in the last chapter of the book. The chapter starts from Jonah’s confession of a fear of the results of God’s lovingkindness and from his persuasion that, as this spread to the heathen, the life of His servant spent in opposition to the heathen was a worthless life; and the chapter closes with God’s own vindication of His Love to His jealous prophet.

It was a great grief to Jonah, and he was angered; and he prayed to Jehovah and said: Ah now, Jehovah, while I was still upon mine own ground, at the time that I prepared to flee to Tarshish, was not this my word, that I knew Thee to be a God gracious and tender, long-suffering and plenteous in love, relenting of evil? And now, Jehovah, take, I pray Thee, my life from me, for for me death is better than life.

In this impatience of life as well as in some subsequent traits, the story of Jonah reflects that of Elijah. But the difference between the two prophets was this, that while Elijah was very jealous for Jehovah, Jonah was very jealous of Him. Jonah could not bear to see the love promised to Israel alone, and cherished by her, bestowed equally upon her heathen oppressors. And he behaved after the manner of jealousy and of the heart that thinks itself insulted. He withdrew, and sulked in solitude, and would take no responsibility nor further interest in his work. Such men are best treated by a caustic gentleness, a little humour, a little rallying, a leaving to nature, and a taking unawares in their own confessed prejudices. All these—I dare to think even the humour—are present in God’s treatment of Jonah. This is very natural and very beautiful. Twice the Divine Voice speaks with a soft sarcasm: Art thou very angry?[1552] Then Jonah’s affections, turned from man and God, are allowed their course with a bit of nature, the fresh and green companion of his solitude; and then when all his pity for this has been roused by its destruction, that very pity is employed to awaken his sympathy with God’s compassion for the great city, and he is shown how he has denied to God the same natural affection which he confesses to be so strong in himself. But why try further to expound so clear and obvious an argument?

But Jehovah said, Art thou so very angry? Jonah would not answer—how lifelike is his silence at this point!—but went out from the city and sat down before it,[1553] and made him there a booth and dwelt beneath it in the shade, till he should see what happened in the city. And Jehovah God prepared a gourd,[1554] and it grew up above Jonah to be a shadow over his head....[1555] And Jonah rejoiced in the gourd with a great joy. But as dawn came up the next day God prepared a worm, and this[1556] wounded the gourd, that it perished. And it came to pass, when the sun rose, that God prepared a dry east-wind,[1557] and the sun smote on Jonah’s head, so that he was faint, and begged for himself that he might die,[1558] saying, Better my dying than my living! And God said unto Jonah, Art thou so very angry about the gourd? And he said, I am very angry—even unto death! And Jehovah said: Thou carest for a gourd for which thou hast not travailed, nor hast thou brought it up, a thing that came in a night and in a night has perished.[1559] And shall I not care for Niniveh, the Great City,[1560] in which there are more than twelve times ten thousand human beings who know not their right hand from their left, besides much cattle?

God has vindicated His love to the jealousy of those who thought that it was theirs alone. And we are left with this grand vague vision of the immeasurable city, with its multitude of innocent children and cattle, and God’s compassion brooding over all.

INDEX OF PROPHETS

HABAKKUK, Introduction, 115;
Chaps. i.—ii. 4, 129;
ii. 5–20, 143;
iii., 149.
HAGGAI, Introduction, 225;
Chap. i., 236;
ii. 1–9, 241;
ii. 10–19, 244;
ii. 20–23, 250.
JOEL, Introduction, 375;
Chaps. i.—ii. 17, 398;
ii. 18–32, 418;
iii., 431.
JONAH, Introduction, 493;
Chap. i., 514;
ii., 523;
iii., 529;
iv., 536.
“MALACHI,” Introduction, 331;
Chap. i. 2–5, 349;
i. 6–14, 352;
ii. 1–9, 360;
ii. 10–16, 363;
ii. 17—iii. 5, 365;
iii. 6–12, 367;
iii. 13—iv. 2 (Eng.; iii. 13–21 Heb.), 369;
iv. 3–5 (Eng.; iii. 22–24 Heb.), 371.
NAHUM, Introduction, 77;
Chap. i., 90;
ii., iii., 96.

OBADIAH, Introduction, 163;
vv. 1–21, 173, 177.
ZECHARIAH (i.—viii.), Introduction, 255;
Chap. i. 1–6, 267;
i. 7–17, 283;
i. 18–21 (Eng.; ii. 1–4 Heb.), 286;
ii. 1–5 (Eng.; ii. 5–9 Heb.), 287;
iii., 292;
iv., 297;
v. 1–4, 301;
v. 5–11, 303;
vi. 1–8, 305;
vi. 9–15, 307;
vii., 320;
viii., 323.
“ZECHARIAH” (ix.—xiv.), Introduction, 449;
Chap. ix. 1–8, 463;
ix. 9–12, 466;
ix. 13–17, 467;
x. 1, 2, 469;
x. 3–12, 470;
xi. 1–3, 473;
xi. 4–17, 473;
xii. 1–7, 478;
xii. 8—xiii. 6, 481;
xiii. 7–9, 473, 477;
xiv., 485.
ZEPHANIAH, Introduction, 35;
Chaps. i.—ii. 3, 46;
ii. 4–15, 61;
iii. 1–13, 67;
iii. 14–20, 67, 73.

[1] Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1897

[2] See Vol. I., p.viii.

[3] Expositor’s Bible, Isaiah xl.—lxvi., Chap.II.

[4] It is uncertain whether Hezekiah was an Assyrian vassal during these years, as his successor Manasseh is recorded to have been in 676.

[5] 2 Kings xviii. 4.

[6] The exact date is quite uncertain; 695 is suggested on the chronological table prefixed to this volume, but it may have been 690 or 685.

[7] Cf. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, § 799.

[8] Stade (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, I., pp.627 f.) denies to Manasseh the reconstruction of the high places, the Baal altars and the Asheras, for he does not believe that Hezekiah had succeeded in destroying these. He takes 2Kings xxi. 3, which describes these reconstructions, as a late interpolation rendered necessary to reconcile the tradition that Hezekiah’s reforms had been quite in the spirit of Deuteronomy, with the fact that there were still high places in the land when Josiah began his reforms. Further, Stade takes the rest of 2 Kings xxi. 2b-7 as also an interpolation, but unlike verse3 an accurate account of Manasseh’s idolatrous institutions, because it is corroborated by the account of Josiah’s reforms, 2Kings xxiii. Stade also discusses this passage in Z.A.T.W., 1886, pp.186 ff.

[9] See Vol. I., p. 41. In addition to the reasons of the change given above, we must remember that we are now treating, not of Northern Israel, but of the more stern and sullen JudÆans.

[10] 2 Kings xxi., xxiii.

[11] Filled from mouth to mouth (2 Kings xxi. 16).

[12] Jer. ii. 30.

[13] We have already seen that there is no reason for that theory of so many critics which assigns to this period Micah. See Vol.I., p.370.

[14] 2 Kings xxi. 10 ff.

[15] Whether the parenthetical apostrophes to Jehovah as Maker of the heavens, their hosts and all the powers of nature (Amos iv. 13, v. 8, 9, ix. 5, 6), are also to be attributed to Manasseh’s reign is more doubtful. Yet the following facts are to be observed: that these passages are also (though to a less degree than v. 26 f.) parenthetic; that their language seems of a later cast than that of the time of Amos (see Vol. I., pp. 204, 205: though here evidence is adduced to show that the late features are probably post-exilic); and that Jehovah is expressly named as the Maker of certain of the stars. Similarly when Mohammed seeks to condemn the worship of the heavenly bodies, he insists that God is their Maker. Koran, Sur. 41, 37: “To the signs of His Omnipotence belong night and day, sun and moon; but do not pray to sun or moon, for God hath created them.” Sur. 53, 50: “Because He is the Lord of Sirius.” On the other side see Driver’s Joel and Amos (Cambridge Bible for Schools Series), 1897, pp.118 f., 189.

How deeply Manasseh had planted in Israel the worship of the heavenly host may be seen from the survival of the latter through all the reforms of Josiah and the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer.vii. 18, viii., xliv.; Ezek. viii. Cf. Stade, Gesch. des V. Israel, I., pp.629 ff.).

[16] The Jehovist and Elohist into the closely mortised JE. Stade indeed assigns to the period of Manasseh Israel’s first acquaintance with the Babylonian cosmogonies and myths which led to that reconstruction of them in the spirit of her own religion which we find in the Jehovistic portions of the beginning of Genesis (Gesch. des V. Isr., I., pp.630 ff.). But it may well be doubted (1) whether the reign of Manasseh affords time for this assimilation, and (2) whether it was likely that Assyrian and Babylonian theology could make so deep and lasting impression upon the purer faith of Israel at a time when the latter stood in such sharp hostility to all foreign influences and was so bitterly persecuted by the parties in Israel who had succumbed to these influences.

[17] Chaps. v.—xxvi., xxviii.

[18] 621 B.C.

[19] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.

[20] 2 Kings xxi. 23.

[21] But in his conquests of Hauran, Northern Arabia and the eastern neighbours of Judah, he had evidently sought to imitate the policy of Asarhaddon in 675 f., and secure firm ground in Palestine and Arabia for a subsequent attack upon Egypt. That this never came shows more than anything else could Assyria’s consciousness of growing weakness.

[22] The name of Josiah’s (????????????) mother was Jedidah (????????), daughter of Adaiah (???????) of Bo??ath in the Shephelah of Judah.

[23] 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.

[24] Zeph. i. 4: the LXX. reads names of Baal. See below, p.40, n.87.

[25] Ibid., 5.

[26] Ibid., 8–12.

[27] I. 102 ff.

[28] Herod., I. 105.

[29] The new name of Bethshan in the mouth of Esdraelon, viz. Scythopolis, is said to be derived from them (but see Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land, pp.363 f.); they conquered Askalon (Herod., I. 105).

[30] 2 Kings xvii. 6: and in the cities (LXX. mountains) of the Medes. The Heb. is ?????, Madai.

[31] Mentioned by Sargon.

[32] Sayce, Empires of the East, 239: cf. McCurdy, § 823 f.

[33] Herod., I. 103.

[34] Heb. Kasdim, ???????????; LXX. ?a?da???; Assyr. KaldÂa, Kaldu. The Hebrew form with s is regarded by many authorities as the original, from the Assyrian root kashadu, to conquer, and the Assyrian form with l to have arisen by the common change of sh through r into l. The form with s does not occur, however, in Assyrian, which also possesses the root kaladu, with the same meaning as kashadu. See Mr. Pinches’ articles on Chaldea and the Chaldeans in the new edition of Vol. I. of Smith’s Bible Dictionary.

[35] About 880 B.C. in the annals of Assurnatsirpal. See Chronological Table to Vol. I.

[36] No inscriptions of Asshur-itil-ilani have been found later than the first two years of his reign.

[37] Billerbeck-Jeremias, “Der Untergang Niniveh’s,” in Delitzsch and Haupt’s BeitrÄge zur Assyriologie, III., p.113.

[38] Nahum ii.

[39] See below, p.120.

[40] Abydenus (apud Euseb., Chron., I. 9) reports a marriage between Nebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar’s son, and the daughter of the Median king.

[41] 2 Kings xxiii. 29. The history is here very obscure. Necho, met at Megiddo by Josiah, and having slain him, appears to have spent a year or two in subjugating, and arranging for the government of, Syria (ibid., verses 33–35), and only reached the Euphrates in 605, when Nebuchadrezzar defeated him.

[42] The reverse view is taken by Wellhausen, who says (Israel u. JÜd. Gesch., pp.97 f.): “Der Pharaoh scheint ausgezogen zu sein um sich seinen Teil an der Erbschaft Ninives vorwegzunehmen, wÄhrend die Meder und ChaldÄer die Stadt belagerten.”

[43] See above, p.20, n.37.

[44] I. 106.

[45] A stele of Nabonidus discovered at Hilleh and now in the museum at Constantinople relates that in his third year, 553, the king restored at Harran the temple of Sin, the moon-god, which the Medes had destroyed fifty-four years before, i.e. 607. Whether the Medes did this before, during or after the siege of Niniveh is uncertain, but the approximate date of the siege, 608—606, is thus marvellously confirmed. The stele affirms that the Medes alone took Niniveh, but that they were called in by Marduk, the Babylonian god, to assist Nabopolassar and avenge the deportation of his image by Sennacherib to Niniveh. Messerschmidt (Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, I. 1896) argues that the Medes were summoned by the Babylonians while the latter were being sore pressed by the Assyrians. Winckler had already (Untersuch., pp.124 ff., 1889) urged that the Babylonians would refrain from taking an active part in the overthrow of Niniveh, in fear of incurring the guilt of sacrilege. Neither Messerschmidt’s paper, nor Scheil’s (who describes the stele in the Recueil des Travaux, XVIII. 1896), being accessible to me, I have written this note on the information supplied by Rev. C. H. W. Johns, of Cambridge, in the Expository Times, 1896, and by Prof. A. B. Davidson in App.I. to Nah., Hab. and Zeph.

[46] Berosus and Abydenus in Eusebius.

[47] This spelling (Jer. xlix. 28) is nearer the original than the alternative Hebrew Nebuchadnezzar. But the LXX. ?a????d???s??, and the ?a????d??s???? of Abydenus and Megasthenes and ?a???d??s???? of Strabo, have preserved the more correct vocalisation; for the original is Nabu-kudurri-u?ur = Nebo, defend the crown!

[48] But see below, pp.123 f.

[49] Below, pp.121 ff.

[50] 2 Kings xxii. 11–20. The genuineness of this passage is proved (as against Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, I.) by the promise which it gives to Josiah of a peaceful death. Had it been written after the battle of Megiddo, in which Josiah was slain, it could not have contained such a promise.

[51] Jer. vii. 4, viii. 8.

[52] vi. 1.

[53] All these reforms in 2 Kings xxiii.

[54] Jer. xxii. 15 f.

[55] Ibid., ver.16.

[56] We have no record of this, but a prince who so rashly flung himself in the way of Egypt would not hesitate to claim authority over Moab and Ammon.

[57] 2 Kings xxiii. 24. The question whether Necho came by land from Egypt or brought his troops in his fleet to Acre is hardly answered by the fact that Josiah went to Megiddo to meet him. But Megiddo on the whole tells more for the land than the sea. It is not on the path from Acre to the Euphrates; it is the key of the land-road from Egypt to the Euphrates. Josiah could have no hope of stopping Pharaoh on the broad levels of Philistia; but at Megiddo there was a narrow pass, and the only chance of arresting so large an army as it moved in detachments. Josiah’s tactics were therefore analogous to those of Saul, who also left his own territory and marched north to Esdraelon, to meet his foe—and death.

[58] A. B. Davidson, The Exile and the Restoration, p.8 (Bible Class Primers, ed. by Salmond; Edin., T. & T. Clark, 1897).

[59] 2 Kings xxiii. 33–35.

[60] Jer. xxii. 13–15.

[61] Jer. xi.

[62] xxv. 1 ff.

[63] xxxvi.

[64] 2 Kings xxiv. 1. In the chronological table appended to Kautzsch’s Bibel this verse and Jehoiakim’s submission are assigned to 602. But this allows too little time for Nebuchadrezzar to confirm his throne in Babylon and march to Palestine, and it is not corroborated by the record in the Book of Jeremiah of events in Judah in 604—602.

[65] Nebuchadrezzar did not die till 562.

[66] See Isaiah i.—xxxix. (Expositor’s Bible), pp. 223 f.

[67] See above, p.26, n.56.

[68] 2 Kings xxiv. 2.

[69] Jer. xxxvii. 30, but see 2 Kings xxiv. 6.

[70] So Josephus puts it (X. Antiq., vii. 1). Jehoiachin was unusually bewailed (Lam. iv. 20; Ezek. xvii. 22 ff.). He survived in captivity till the death of Nebuchadrezzar, whose successor Evil-Merodach in 561 took him from prison and gave him a place in his palace (2 Kings xxv. 27 ff.).

[71] i. 3b, 5b; ii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 last word, 14b; iii. 18, 19a, 20.

[72] i. 14b; ii. 1, 3; iii. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17.

[73] i. 3b, 5b; ii. 2, 6; iii. 5 (?).

[74] For details see translation below.

[75] i. 3, ???????????, only in Isa. iii. 6; 15, ?????, only in Job xxx. 3, xxxviii. 27—cf. Psalms lxxiii. 18, lxxiv. 3; ii. 8, ?????, Isa. xliii. 28—cf. li. 7; 9, ????, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; 15, ?????, Isa. xxii. 2, xxiii. 7, xxxii. 13—cf. xiii. 3, xxiv. 8; iii. 1, ?????, see next note but one; 3, ???? ???, Hab. i. 8; 11, ????? ?????, Isa. xiii. 3; 18, ????, Lam. i. 4, ?????.

[76] i. 11, ????? as the name of a part of Jerusalem, otherwise only Jer. xv. 19; ????? ???; 12, ??? in pt. Qal, and otherwise only Exod. xv. 8, Zech. xiv. 6, Job x. 10; 14, ????? (adj.), but the pointing may be wrong—cf. Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Isa. viii. 1, 3; ??? in Qal, elsewhere only once in Hi. Isa. xlii. 13; 17, ???? in sense of flesh, cf. Job xx. 23; 18, ????? if a noun (?); ii. 1, ??? in Qal and Hithpo, elsewhere only in Polel; 9, ???? ,????; 11, ???, to make lean, otherwise only in Isa. xvii. 4, to be lean; 14, ? ????? (?); iii. 1, ? ?????, pt. of ? ???? ;????, pt. Qal, in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16, it may be a noun; 4, ???? ?????; 6, ????; 9, ??? ???; 10, ???? ??????? (?); 15, ???? in sense to turn away; 18, ??? ???? (?).

[77] i. 8, etc., ??? ??, followed by person, but not by thing—cf. Jer. ix. 24, xxiii. 34, etc., Job xxxvi. 23, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Ezek. i. 2; 13, ?????, only in Hab. ii. 7, Isa. xlii., Jer. xxx. 16, 2 Kings xxi. 14; 17, ?????, Hi. of ???, only in 1 Kings viii. 37, and Deut., 2 Chron., Jer., Neh.; ii. 3, ????; 8 ??????, Isa. xliii. 28, li. 7 (fem. pl.); 9, ????, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; iii. 1, ?????, Ni, pt. = impure, Isa. lix. 3, Lam. iv. 14; ????, a pt. in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16; 3, ???? ???, Hab. i. 8—cf. Jer. v. 6, ??? ?????; 9, ????, Isa. xlix. 2, ???, Ezek. xx. 38, 1 Chron. vii. 40, ix. 22, xvi. 41, Neh. v. 18, Job xxxiii. 3, Eccles. iii. 18, ix. 1; 11, ????? ????, Isa. xiii. 3; 18, ??????, Lam. i. 4 has ??????.

[78] So Hitzig, Ewald, Pusey, Kuenen, Robertson Smith (Encyc. Brit.), Driver, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick, Budde, von Orelli, Cornill, Schwally, Davidson.

[79] So Delitzsch, Kleinert, and Schulz (Commentar Über den Proph. Zeph., 1892, p.7, quoted by KÖnig).

[80] So KÖnig.

[81] Jer. xxv.

[82] Jer. vii. 18.

[83] i. 3.

[84] Kleinert in his Commentary in Lange’s Bibelwerk, and Delitzsch in his article in Herzog’s Real-EncyclopÄdie², both offer a number of inconclusive arguments. These are drawn from the position of Zephaniah after Habakkuk, but, as we have seen, the order of the Twelve is not always chronological; from the supposition that Zephaniah i. 7, Silence before the Lord Jehovah, quotes Habakkuk ii. 20, Keep silence before Him, all the earth, but the phrase common to both is too general to be decisive, and if borrowed by one or other may just as well have been Zephaniah’s originally as Habakkuk’s; from the phrase remnant of Baal (i. 4), as if this were appropriate only after the Reform of 621, but it was quite as appropriate after the beginnings of reform six years earlier; from the condemnation of the sons of the king (i. 8), whom Delitzsch takes as Josiah’s sons, who before the great Reform were too young to be condemned, while later their characters did develop badly and judgment fell upon all of them, but sons of the king, even if that be the correct reading (LXX. house of the king), does not necessarily mean the reigning monarch’s children; and from the assertion that Deuteronomy is quoted in the first chapter of Zephaniah, and “so quoted as to show that the prophet needs only to put the people in mind of it as something supposed to be known,” but the verses cited in support of this (viz. 13, 15, 17: cf. Deut. xxviii. 30 and 29) are too general in their character to prove the assertion. See translation below.

[85] KÖnig has to deny the authenticity of this in order to make his case for the reign of Jehoiakim. But nearly all critics take the phrase as genuine.

[86] See above, p.15. For inconclusive reasons Schwally, Z.A.T.W., 1890, pp.215—217, prefers the Egyptians under Psamtik. See in answer Davidson, p.98.

[87] Not much stress can be laid upon the phrase I will cut off the remnant of Baal, ver.4, for, if the reading be correct, it may only mean the destruction of Baal-worship, and not the uprooting of what has been left over.

[88] See below, p.47, n.105.

[89] If 695 be the date of the accession of Manasseh, being then twelve, Amariah, Zephaniah’s great-grandfather, cannot have been more than ten, that is, born in 705. His son Gedaliah was probably not born before 689, his son Kushi probably not before 672, and his son Zephaniah probably not before 650.

[90] Z.A.T.W., 1890, Heft 1.

[91] Bacher, Z.A.T.W., 1891, 186; Cornill, Einleitung, 1891; Budde, Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 1893, 393 ff.; Davidson, Nah., Hab. and Zeph., 100 ff.

[92] Z.A.T.W., 1891, Heft 2.

[93] By especially Bacher, Cornill and Budde as above.

[94] See Budde and Davidson.

[95] The ideal of chap.i.—ii. 3, of the final security of a poor and lowly remnant of Israel, “necessarily implies that they shall no longer be threatened by hostility from without, and this condition is satisfied by the prophet’s view of the impending judgment on the ancient enemies of his nation,” i.e. those mentioned in ii. 4–15 (Robertson Smith, Encyc. Brit., art. “Zephaniah”).

[96] See, however, Davidson for some linguistic reasons for taking the two sections as one. Robertson Smith, also in 1888 (Encyc. Brit., art. “Zephaniah”), assumed (though not without pointing out the possibility of the addition of other pieces to the genuine prophecies of Zephaniah) that “a single leading motive runs through the whole” book, and “the first two chapters would be incomplete without the third, which moreover is certainly pre-exilic (vv.1–4) and presents specific points of contact with what precedes, as well as a general agreement in style and idea.”

[97] Schwally (234) thinks that the epithet ???? (ver.5) was first applied to Jehovah by the Second Isaiah (xlv. 21, lxiv. 2, xlii. 21), and became frequent from his time on. In disproof Budde (3398) quotes Exod. ix. 27, Jer. xii. 1, Lam. i. 18. Schwally also points to ????? as borrowed from Aramaic.

[98] Budde, p.395; Davidson, 103. Schwally (230 ff.) seeks to prove the unity of 9 and 10 with the context, but he has apparently mistaken the meaning of ver.8 (231). That surely does not mean that the nations are gathered in order to punish the godlessness of the Jews, but that they may themselves be punished.

[99] See Davidson, 103.

[100] Josiah, born c. 648, succeeded c. 639, was about eighteen in 630, and then appears to have begun his reforms.

[101] See above, pp.40 f., n.85.

[102] Jer. i. 5.

[103] See G. B. Gray, Hebrew Proper Names.

[104] Josiah.

[105] It is not usual in the O.T. to carry a man’s genealogy beyond his grandfather, except for some special purpose, or in order to include some ancestor of note. Also the name Hezekiah is very rare apart from the king. The number of names compounded with Jah or Jehovah is another proof that the line is a royal one. The omission of the phrase king of Judah after Hezekiah’s name proves nothing; it may have been of purpose because the phrase has to occur immediately again.

[106] It was not till 652 that a league was made between the Palestine princes and Psamtik I. against Assyria. This certainly would have been the most natural year for a child to be named Kushi. But that would set the birth of Zephaniah as late as 632, and his prophecy towards the end of Josiah’s reign, which we have seen to be improbable on other grounds.

[107] Jer. xxi. 1, xxix. 25, 29, xxxvii. 3, lii. 24 ff.; 2 Kings xxv. 18. The analogous Phoenician name ??????, Saphan-ba’al = “Baal protects or hides,” is found in No. 207 of the Phoenician inscriptions in the Corpus Inscr. Semiticarum.

[108] Chap.i. 15. With the above paragraph cf. Robertson Smith, Encyc. Brit., art. “Zephaniah.”

[109] Chap.i. 14b.

[110] In fact this forms one difficulty about the conclusion which we have reached as to the date. We saw that one reason against putting the Book of Zephaniah after the great Reforms of 621 was that it betrayed no sign of their effects. But it might justly be answered that, if Zephaniah prophesied before 621, his book ought to betray some sign of the approach of reform. Still the explanation given above is satisfactory.

[111] Chap.i. 12.

[112] So wine upon the lees is a generous wine according to Isa. xxv. 6.

[113] Jer. xlviii. 11.

[114] The text reads the ruins (???????????, unless we prefer with Wellhausen ???????????, the stumbling-blocks, i.e. idols) with the wicked, and I will cut off man (LXX. the lawless) from off the face of the ground. Some think the clause partly too redundant, partly too specific, to be original. But suppose we read ??????????????? (cf. Mal. ii. 8, Lam. i. 14 and passim: this is more probable than Schwally’s ????????????, op. cit., p.169), and for ??? the reading which probably the LXX. had before them, ???? ??? (Job xx. 29, xxvii. 13, Prov. xi. 7: cf. ??? ????? Prov. vi. 12) or ??? ?????? (cf. iii. 5), we get the rendering adopted in the translation above. Some think the whole passage an intrusion, yet it is surely probable that the earnest moral spirit of Zephaniah would aim at the wicked from the very outset of his prophecy.

[115] LXX. names, held by some to be the original reading (Schwally, etc.). In that case the phrase might have some allusion to the well-known promise in Deut., the place where I shall set My name. This is more natural than a reference to Hosea ii. 19, which is quoted by some.

[116] Some Greek codd. take Baal as fem., others as plur.

[117] So LXX.

[118] Heb. reads and them who bow themselves, who swear, by Jehovah. So LXX. B with and before who swear. But LXX. A omits and. LXX. Q omits them who bow themselves. Wellhausen keeps the clause with the exception of who swear, and so reads (to the end of verse) them who bow themselves to Jehovah and swear by Milcom.

[119] Or Molech = king. LXX. by their king. Other Greek versions: Moloch and Melchom. Vulg. Melchom.

[120] LXX. His.

[121] So LXX. Heb. sons.

[122] Is this some superstitious rite of the idol-worshippers as described in the case of Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 5? Or is it a phrase for breaking into a house, and so parallel to the second clause of the verse? Most interpreters prefer the latter. The idolatrous rites have been left behind. Schwally suggests the original order may have been: princes and sons of the king, who fill their lord’s house full of violence and deceit; and I will visit upon every one that leapeth over the threshold on that day, and upon all that wear foreign raiment.

[123] The Second or New Town: cf. 2 Kings xxii. 14, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22, which state that the prophetess Huldah lived there. Cf. Neh. iii. 9, 12, xi. 9.

[124] The hollow probably between the western and eastern hills, or the upper part of the Tyropoean (Orelli).

[125] Heb. people of Canaan.

[126] ????, found only here, from ???, to lift up, and in Isa. xl. 15 to weigh. Still it may have a wider meaning, all they that carry money (Davidson).

[127] See above, p.52.

[128] The Hebrew text and versions here add: And they shall build houses and not inhabit (Greek in them), and plant vineyards and not drink the wine thereof. But the phrase is a common one (Deut. xxviii. 30; Amos v. 11: cf. Micah vi. 15), and while likely to have been inserted by a later hand, is here superfluous, and mars the firmness and edge of Zephaniah’s threat.

[129] For ??? Wellhausen reads ????, pt. Pi; but ??? may be a verbal adj.; compare the phrase ??? ???, Isa. viii. 1.

[130] Dies IrÆ, Dies Illa!

[131] Heb. sho’ah u-mesho’ah. Lit. ruin (or devastation) and destruction.

[132] Some take this first clause of ver.18 as a gloss. See Schwally in loco.

[133] Read ?? for ??. So LXX., Syr., Wellhausen, Schwally.

[134] In vv. 1–3 of chap.ii., wrongly separated from chap.i.: see Davidson.

[135] Heb. ???????? ??????????????. A.V. Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together (???????? is to gather straw or sticks—cf. Arab. ?ash, to sweep up—and Nithp. of the Aram. is to assemble). Orelli: Crowd and crouch down. Ewald compares Aram. ?ash, late Heb. ???????, to grow old, which he believes originally meant to be withered, grey. Budde suggests ??? ??????, but, as Davidson remarks, it is not easy to see how this, if once extant, was altered to the present reading.

[136] ??????? is usually thought to have as its root meaning to be pale or colourless, i.e. either white or black (Journal of Phil., 14, 125), whence ??????, silver or the pale metal: hence in the Qal to long for, Job xiv. 15, Ps. xvii. 12; so Ni, Gen. xxxi. 30, Ps. lxxxiv. 3; and here to be ashamed. But the derivation of the name for silver is quite imaginary, and the colour of shame is red rather than white: cf. the mod. Arab. saying, “They are a people that cannot blush; they have no blood in their faces,” i.e. shameless. Indeed Schwally says (in loco), “Die Bedeutung fahl, blass ist unerweislich.” Hence (in spite of the meanings of the Aram. ??? both to lose colour and to be ashamed) a derivation for the Hebrew is more probably to be found in the root kasaf, to cut off. The Arab. ???, which in the classic tongue means to cut a thread or eclipse the sun, is in colloquial Arabic to give a rebuff, refuse a favour, disappoint, shame. In the forms inkasaf and itkasaf it means to receive a rebuff, be disappointed, then shy or timid, and kasÛf means shame, shyness (as well as eclipse of the sun). See Spiro’s Arabic-English Vocabulary. In Ps. lxxxiv. ???? is evidently used of unsatisfied longing (but see Cheyne), which is also the proper meaning of the parallel ??? (cf. other passages where ??? is used of still unfulfilled or rebuffed hopes: Job xix. 27, Ps. lxix. 4, cxix. 81, cxliii. 7). So in Ps. xvii. 4 ??? is used of a lion who is longing for, i.e. still disappointed in, his prey, and so in Job xiv. 15.

[137] LXX. p?? ???es?a? ??? ?? ????? (here in error reading ?? for ??) pa?ap??e??e???, p?? t?? ?pe??e?? ?f’ ??? ????? ?????? (last clause omitted by ?c.b). According to this the Hebrew text, which is obviously disarranged, may be restored to ???????? ?????????? ?????? ????? ???????? ????????? ???????? ?????? ????.

[138] This clause Wellhausen deletes. Cf. Hexaplar Syriac translation.

[139] LXX. take this also as imperative, do judgment, and so co-ordinate to the other clauses.

[140] See above, pp.41 ff.

[141] Some, however, think the prophet is speaking in prospect of the Chaldean invasion of a few years later. This is not so likely, because he pictures the overthrow of Niniveh as subsequent to the invasion of Philistia, while the Chaldeans accomplished the latter only after Niniveh had fallen.

[142] According to Herodotus.

[143] ver.7, LXX.

[144] The measure, as said above, is elegiac: alternate lines long with a rising, and short with a falling, cadence. There is a play upon the names, at least on the first and last—“Gazzah” or “‘Azzah ‘Azubah”—which in English we might reproduce by the use of Spenser’s word for “dreary”: For Gaza ghastful shall be. “‘E?ron te’a?er.” LXX. ???a??? ????????seta? (B), ????f?seta? (A). In the second line we have a slighter assonance, ‘Ashkelon lishemamah. In the third the verb is ????????????; Bacher (Z.A.T.W., 1891, 185 ff.) points out that ??????? is not used of cities, but of their populations or of individual men, and suggests (from Abulwalid) ??????, shall possess her, as “a plausible emendation.” Schwally (ibid., 260) prefers to alter to ?????????????, with the remark that this is not only a good parallel to ????, but suits the LXX. ????f?seta?.—On the expression by noon see Davidson, N. H. and Z., Appendix, Note 2, where he quotes a parallel expression, in the Senjerli inscription, of Asarhaddon: that he took Memphis by midday or in half a day (Schrader). This suits the use of the phrase in Jer. xv. 8, where it is parallel to suddenly.

[145] Canaan omitted by Wellhausen, who reads ???? for ?????. But as the metre requires a larger number of syllables in the first line of each couplet than in the second, Kena’an should probably remain. The difficulty is the use of Canaan as synonymous with Land of the Philistines. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is it expressly applied to the coast south of Carmel, though it is so used in the Egyptian inscriptions, and even in the Old Testament in a sense which covers this as well as other lowlying parts of Palestine.

[146] An odd long line, either the remains of two, or perhaps we should take the two previous lines as one, omitting Canaan.

[147] So LXX.: Hebrew text and the sea-coast shall become dwellings, cots (??????) of shepherds. But the pointing and meaning of ??? are both conjectural, and the sea-coast has probably fallen by mistake into this verse from the next. On Kereth and Kerethim as names for Philistia and the Philistines see Hist. Geog., p.171.

[148] LXX. adds of the sea. So Wellhausen, but unnecessarily and improbably for phonetic reasons, as sea has to be read in the next line.

[149] So Wellhausen, reading for ?????????? ???????.

[150] Some words must have fallen out, for first a short line is required here by the metre, and second the LXX. have some additional words, which, however, give us no help to what the lost line was: ?p? p??s?p?? ???? ???da.

[151] As stated above, there is no conclusive reason against the pre-exilic date of this expression.

[152] Cf. Isa. xvi. 6.

[153] LXX. My.

[154] Doubtful word, not occurring elsewhere.

[155] Heb. singular.

[156] LXX. omits the people of.

[157] LXX. maketh Himself manifest, ???? for ????.

[158] ?pa? ?e??e???. The passive of the verb means to grow lean (Isa. xvii. 4).

[159] ???? has probably here the sense which it has in a few other passages of the Old Testament, and in Arabic, of sacred place.

Many will share Schwally’s doubts (p.192) about the authenticity of ver.11; nor, as Wellhausen points out, does its prediction of the conversion of the heathen agree with ver.12, which devotes them to destruction. ver.12 follows naturally on to ver.7.

[160] Wellhausen reads His sword, to agree with the next verse. Perhaps ???? is an abbreviation for ??? ????.

[161] See Budde, Z.A.T.W., 1882, 25.

[162] Heb. reads a nation, and Wellhausen translates ein buntes Gemisch von Volk. LXX. beasts of the earth.

[163] ???, a water-bird according to Deut. xiv. 17, Lev. xi. 18, mostly taken as pelican; so R.V. A.V. cormorant. ?????? has usually been taken from ???, to draw together, therefore hedgehog or porcupine. But the other animals mentioned here are birds, and it is birds which would naturally roost on capitals. Therefore bittern is the better rendering (Hitzig, Cheyne). The name is onomatopoeic. Cf. Eng. butter-dump. LXX. translates chameleons and hedgehogs.

[164] Heb.: a voice shall sing in the window, desolation on the threshold, for He shall uncover the cedar-work. LXX. ?a? ????a f???se? ?? t??? d?????as?? a?t??, ???a?e? ?? t??? p???s?? a?t??, d??t? ??d??? t? ???st?a a?t??: Wild beasts shall sound in her excavations, ravens in her porches, because (the) cedar is her height. For ???, voice, Wellhausen reads ???, owl, and with the LXX. ???, raven, for ???, desolation. The last two words are left untranslated above. ??????? occurs only here and is usually taken to mean cedar-work; but it might be pointed her cedar. ???, he, or one, has stripped the cedar-work.

[165] See above, pp.17, 18.

[166] At the battle of Karkar, 854.

[167] Under Tiglath-Pileser in 734.

[168] See above, pp.43-45.

[169] Heb. the city the oppressor. The two participles in the first clause are not predicates to the noun and adjective of the second (Schwally), but vocatives, though without the article, after ????.

[170] LXX. wolves of Arabia.

[171] The verb left untranslated, ????, is quite uncertain in meaning. ??? is a root common to the Semitic languages and seems to mean originally to cut off, while the noun ??? is a bone. In Num. xxiv. 8 the Piel of the verb used with another word for bone means to gnaw, munch. (The only other passage where it is used, Ezek. xxiii. 34, is corrupt.) So some take it here: they do not gnaw bones till morning, i.e. devour all at once; but this is awkward, and Schwally (198) has proposed to omit the negative, they do gnaw bones till morning, yet in that case surely the impf. and not the perf. tense would have been used. The LXX. render they do not leave over, and it has been attempted, though inconclusively, to derive this meaning from that of cutting off, i.e. laying aside (the Arabic Form II. means, however, to leave behind). Another line of meaning perhaps promises more. In Aram. the verb means to be the cause of anything, to bring about, and perhaps contains the idea of deciding (Levy sub voce compares ?????, cerno); in Arab. it means, among other things, to commit a crime, be guilty, but in mod. Arabic to fine. Now it is to be noticed that here the expression is used of judges, and it may be there is an intentional play upon the double possibility of meaning in the root.

[172] Ezek. xxii. 26: Her priests have done violence to My Law and have profaned My holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and profane, between the clean and the unclean. Cf. Jer. ii. 8.

[173] Schwally by altering the accents: morning by morning He giveth forth His judgment: no day does He fail.

[174] On this ver.6 see above, p.44. It is doubtful.

[175] Or discipline.

[176] Wellhausen: that which I have commanded her. Cf. Job xxxvi. 23; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23; Ezra i. 2.

[177] So LXX., reading ?????????? for the Heb. ?????????, her dwelling.

[178] A frequent phrase of Jeremiah’s.

[179] ?????, decree, ordinance, decision.

[180] Heb. My anger. LXX. omits.

[181] That is to say, the prophet returns to that general judgment of the whole earth, with which in his first discourse he had already threatened Judah. He threatens her with it again in this eighth verse, because, as he has said in the preceding ones, all other warnings have failed. The eighth verse therefore follows naturally upon the seventh, just as naturally as in Amos iv. ver.12, introduced by the same ????? as here, follows its predecessors. The next two verses of the text, however, describe an opposite result: instead of the destruction of the heathen, they picture their conversion, and it is only in the eleventh verse that we return to the main subject of the passage, Judah herself, who is represented (in harmony with the close of Zephaniah’s first discourse) as reduced to a righteous and pious remnant. Vv. 9 and 10 are therefore obviously a later insertion, and we pass to the eleventh verse. Vv. 9 and 10: For then (this has no meaning after ver.8) will I give to the peoples a pure lip (elliptic phrase: turn to the peoples a pure lip—i.e. turn their evil lip into a pure lip: pure = picked out, select, excellent, cf. Isa. xlix. 2), that they may all of them call upon the name of the Lord, that they may serve Him with one consent (Heb. shoulder, LXX. yoke). From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia—there follows a very obscure phrase, ??????? ????????????, suppliants (?) of the daughter of My dispersed, but Ewald of the daughter of Phut—they shall bring Mine offering.

[182] Wellhausen despair.

[183] Heb. the jubilant ones of thine arrogance.

[184] See vv. 4, 5, 11.

[185] Heb. the.

[186] ??????????????. But Wellhausen reads ??????????????, thine adversaries: cf. Job ix. 15.

[187] Reading ???????? (with LXX., Wellhausen and Schwally) for ????????? of the Hebrew text, fear.

[188] Lit. hero, mighty man.

[189] Heb. will be silent in, ?????????, but not in harmony with the next clause. LXX. and Syr. render will make new, which translates ?????????, a form that does not elsewhere occur, though that is no objection to finding it in Zephaniah, or ?????????. Hitzig: He makes new things in His love. Buhl: He renews His love. Schwally suggests ????, He rejoices in His love.

[190] LXX. In the days of thy festival, which it takes with the previous verse. The Heb. construction is ungrammatical, though not unprecedented—the construct state before a preposition. Besides ???? is obscure in meaning. It is a Ni. pt. for ???? from ???, to be sad: cf. the Pi. in Lam. iii. 33. But the Hiphil ???? in 2 Sam. xx. 13, followed (as here) by ??, means to thrust away from, and that is probably the sense here.

[191] LXX. thine oppressed in acc. governed by the preceding verb, which in LXX. begins the verse.

[192] The Heb., ????????, burden of, is unintelligible. Wellhausen proposes ???????? ????????.

[193] This rendering is only a venture in the almost impossible task of restoring the text of the clause. As it stands the Heb. runs, Behold, I am about to do, or deal, with thine oppressors (which Hitzig and Ewald accept). Schwally points ??????????? (active) as a passive, ???????????, thine oppressed. LXX. has ?d?? ??? p??? ?? s?? ??e?e? s??, i.e. it read ??????? ??????????. Following its suggestion we might read ???????? ??????????, and so get the above translation.

[194] Micah iv. 6.

[195] This rendering (Ewald’s) is doubtful. The verse concludes with in the whole earth their shame. But ?????????? may be a gloss. LXX. take it as a verb with the next verse.

[196] LXX. do good to you; perhaps ???? for ????.

[197] So Heb. literally, but the construction is very awkward. Perhaps we should read in that time I will gather you.

[198] Before your eyes, i.e. in your lifetime. It is doubtful whether ver.20 is original to the passage. For it is simply a variation on ver.19, and it has more than one impossible reading: see previous note, and for ??????? read ??????.

[199] In the English version, but in the Hebrew chap.ii. vv. 1 and 3; for the Hebrew text divides chap.i. from chap.ii. differently from the English, which follows the Greek. The Hebrew begins chap.ii. with what in the English and Greek is the fifteenth verse of chap.i.: Behold, upon the mountains, etc.

[200] In the English text, but in the Hebrew with the omission of vv. 1 and 3: see previous note.

[201] Other meanings have been suggested, but are impossible.

[202] So it lies on Billerbeck’s map in Delitzsch and Haupt’s BeitrÄge zur Assyr.,III. Smith’s Bible Dictionary puts it at only 2 m. N. of Mosul.

[203] Layard, Niniveh and its Remains, I. 233, 3rd ed., 1849.

[204] Bohn’s Early Travels in Palestine, p.102.

[205] Just as they show Jonah’s tomb at Niniveh itself.

[206] See above, p.18.

[207] Just as in Micah’s case Jerome calls his birthplace Moresheth by the adjective Morasthi, so with equal carelessness he calls El?osh by the adjective with the article Ha-el?oshi, the El?oshite. Jerome’s words are: “Quum Elcese usque hodie in Galilea viculus sit, parvus quidem et vix ruinis veterum Ædificiorum indicans vestigia, sed tamen notus JudÆis et mihi quoque a circumducente monstratus” (in Prol. ad Prophetiam Nachumi). In the Onomasticon Jerome gives the name as Elcese, Eusebius as ???es?, but without defining the position.

[208] This Elkese has been identified, though not conclusively, with the modern El Kauze near Ramieh, some seven miles W. of Tibnin.

[209] Cf. Kuenen, § 75, n.5; Davidson, p.12 (2).

Capernaum, which the Textus Receptus gives as ?ape??a??, but most authorities as ?afa??a?? and the Peshitto as Kaphar Nahum, obviously means Village of Nahum, and both Hitzig and Knobel looked for El?Ôsh in it. See Hist. Geog., p.456.

Against the Galilean origin of Nahum it is usual to appeal to John vii. 52: Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet; but this is not decisive, for Jonah came out of Galilee.

[210] Though perhaps falsely.

[211] This occurs in the Syriac translation of the Old Testament by Paul of Tella, 617 A.D., in which the notices of Epiphanius (Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus A.D. 367) or Pseudepiphanius are attached to their respective prophets. It was first communicated to the Z.D.P.V., I. 122 ff., by Dr. Nestle: cf. Hist. Geog., p.231, n.1. The previously known readings of the passage were either geographically impossible, as “He came from Elkesei beyond Jordan, towards Begabar of the tribe of Simeon” (so in Paris edition, 1622, of the works of St. Epiphanius, Vol. II., p.147: cf. Migne, Patr. Gr., XLIII. 409); or based on a misreading of the title of the book: “Nahum son of Elkesaios was of Jesbe of the tribe of Simeon”; or indefinable: “Nahum was of Elkesem beyond Betabarem of the tribe of Simeon”; these last two from recensions of Epiphanius published in 1855 by Tischendorf (quoted by Davidson, p.13). In the St?????? t?? ??´ ???f?t?? ?a? ?sa???, attributed to Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem, who died 428 of 433 (Migne, Patrologia Gr., XCIII. 1357), it is said that Nahum was ?p? ???ese?? (Helcesin) p??a? t?? t??a?e?? ?? f???? S?e??; to which has been added a note from Theophylact, ???asa? p??a? t?? ???d???? e?? ???a??.

[212] Ad Nahum i. I (Migne, Patr. Gr., LXXI. 780): ??? d? a?t? p??t?? p?? t?? ???da??? ???a?.

[213] The selection Bashan, Carmel and Lebanon (i. 4), does not prove northern authorship.

[214] ????????? may be (1) a theophoric name = ?osh is God; and ?osh might then be the Edomite deity ???? whose name is spelt with a Shin on the Assyrian monuments (Baethgen, BeitrÄge z. Semit. Religionsgeschichte, p.11; Schrader, K.A.T.², pp.150, 613), and who is probably the same as the Arab deity ?ais (Baethgen, id., p.108); and this would suit a position in the south of Judah, in which region we find the majority of place-names compounded with ??. Or else (2) the ? is prosthetic, as in the place-names ????? on the Phoenician coast, ????? in Southern Canaan, ?????, etc. In this case we might find its equivalent in the form ?????? (cf. ???? ?????); but no such form is now extant or recorded at any previous period. The form LÂ?is would not suit. On Bir el ?Ûs see Robinson, B.R., III., p.14, and GuÉrin, JudÉe, III., p.341. Bir el ?Ûs means Well of the Bow, or, according to GuÉrin, of the Arch, from ruins that stand by it. The position, east of Beit-Jibrin, is unsuitable; for the early Christian texts quoted in the previous note fix it beyond, presumably south or south-west of Beit-Jibrin, and in the tribe of Simeon. The error “tribe of Simeon” does not matter, for the same fathers place Bethzecharias, the alleged birthplace of Habakkuk, there.

[215] Einleitung, 1st ed.

[216] Who seems to have owed the hint to a quotation by Delitzsch on Psalm ix. from G. Frohnmeyer to the effect that there were traces of “alphabetic” verses in chap, i., at least in vv. 3–7. See Bickell’s BeitrÄge zur Semit. Metrik, Separatabdruck, Wien, 1894.

[217] Z.A.T.W., 1893, pp.223 ff.

[218] Cf. Ezra ii. 42; Neh. vii. 45; 2 Sam. xvii. 27.

[219] ver.1 is title; 2 begins with ?; then ? is found in ?????, 3b; ? in ????, 4; ? is wanting—Bickell proposes to substitute a New-Hebrew word ???, Gunkel ???, for ????, 4b; ? in ????, 5b; ? by removing ???? of ver.6a to the end of the clause (and reading it there ?????), and so leaving ???? as the first word; ? in ???? in 6b; ? in ???, 7a; ? by eliding ? from ????, 7b; ? in ??? , 8; ? is wanting, though Gunkel seeks to supply it by taking 9c, beginning ??, with 9b, before 9a; ? begins 9a.

[220] See below in the translation.

[221] As thus: 9a, 11b, 12 (but unintelligible), 10, 13, 14, ii. 1, 3.

[222] See above on Zephaniah, pp.49 ff.

[223] Cornill, in the 2nd ed. of his Einleitung, has accepted Gunkel’s and Bickell’s main contentions.

[224] iii. 8–10.

[225] The description of the fall of No-Amon precludes the older view almost universally held before the discovery of Assurbanipal’s destruction of Thebes, viz. that Nahum prophesied in the days of Hezekiah or in the earlier years of Manasseh (Lightfoot, Pusey, NÄgelsbach, etc.).

[226] So Schrader, Volck in Herz. Real. Enc., and others.

[227] It is favoured by Winckler, A.T. Untersuch., pp.127 f.

[228] Above, pp.15 f.; 19, 22 ff.

[229] This in answer to Jeremias in Delitzsch’s and Haupt’s BeitrÄge zur Assyriologie, III.96.

[230] I. 103.

[231] Hitzig’s other reason, that the besiegers of Niniveh are described by Nahum in ii. 3 ff. as single, which was true of the siege in 625 c., but not of that of 607—6, when the Chaldeans joined the Medes, is disposed of by the proof on p.22 above, that even in 607—6 the Medes carried on the siege alone.

[232] Page 17.

[233] In commenting on chap.i. 9; p.156 of Kleine Propheten.

[234] The phrase which is so often appealed to by both sides, i. 9, Jehovah maketh a complete end, not twice shall trouble arise, is really inconclusive. Hitzig maintains that if Nahum had written this after the first and before the second siege of Niniveh he would have had to say, “not thrice shall trouble arise.” This is not conclusive: the prophet is looking only at the future and thinking of it—not twice again shall trouble arise; and if there were really two sieges of Niniveh, would the words not twice have been suffered to remain, if they had been a confident prediction before the first siege? Besides, the meaning of the phrase is not certain; it may be only a general statement corresponding to what seems a general statement in the first clause of the verse. Kuenen and others refer the trouble not to that which is about to afflict Assyria, but to the long slavery and slaughter which Judah has suffered at Assyria’s hands. Davidson leaves it ambiguous.

[235] Technical military terms: ii. 2, ?????; 4, ???? (?); 4, ?????; 6, ????; iii. 3, ???? (?). Probably foreign terms: ii. 8, ???; iii. 17, ??????. Certainly foreign: iii. 17, ??????.

[236] Above, pp.78 ff., 85 ff.

[237] See above, pp.81 ff.

[238] ver.3, if the reading be correct.

[239] Gunkel amends to in mercy to make the parallel exact. But see above, p.82.

[240] Gunkel’s emendation is quite unnecessary here.

[241] See above, p.83.

[242] So LXX. Heb. = for a stronghold in the day of trouble.

[243] Thrusts into, Wellhausen, reading ???? or ??? for ????. LXX. darkness shall pursue.

[244] Heb. and R.V. drenched as with their drink. LXX. like a tangled yew. The text is corrupt.

[245] The superfluous word ??? at the end of ver.10 Wellhausen reads as ??? at the beginning of ver.11.

[246] Usually taken as Sennacherib.

[247] The Hebrew is given by the R.V. though they be in full strength and likewise many. LXX. Thus saith Jehovah ruling over many waters, reading ??? ??? ???? and omitting the first ???. Similarly Syr. Thus saith Jehovah of the heads of many waters, ?? ???? ??? ????. Wellhausen, substituting ??? for the first ???, translates, Let the great waters be ever so full, they will yet all ...? (misprint here) and vanish. For ??? read ???? with LXX., borrowing ? from next word.

[248] Lit. and I will afflict thee, I will not afflict thee again. This rendering implies that Niniveh is the object. The A.V., though I have afflicted thee I will afflict thee no more, refers to Israel.

[249] Omit ver.13 and run 14 on to 12. For the curious alternation now occurs: Assyria in one verse, Judah in the other. Assyria: i. 12, 14, ii. 2 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 1), 4 ff. Judah: i. 13, ii. 1 (Heb.; Eng. i. 15), 3 (Heb.; Eng. 2). Remove these latter, as Wellhausen does, and the verses on Assyria remain a connected and orderly whole. So in the text above.

[250] Syr. make it thy sepulchre. The Hebrew left untranslated above might be rendered for thou art vile. Bickell amends into dunghills. Lightfoot, Chron. Temp. et Ord. Text V.T. in Collected Works, I. 109, takes this as a prediction of Sennacherib’s murder in the temple, an interpretation which demands a date for Nahum under either Hezekiah or Manasseh. So Pusey also, p.357.

[251] LXX. destruction ??????, for ?????.

[252] Davidson: restoreth the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel, but when was the latter restored?

[253] See above, pp.22 ff.

[254] The authorities are very full. First there is M. Botta’s huge work Monument de Ninive, Paris, 5 vols., 1845. Then must be mentioned the work of which we availed ourselves in describing Babylon in Isaiah xl.—lxvi., Expositor’s Bible, pp.52 ff.: “Memoirs by Commander James Felix Jones, I.N.,” in Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, No. XLIII., New Series, 1857. It is good to find that the careful and able observations of Commander Jones, too much neglected in his own country, have had justice done them by the German Colonel Billerbeck in the work about to be cited. Then there is the invaluable Niniveh and its Remains, by Layard. There are also the works of Rawlinson and George Smith. And recently Colonel Billerbeck, founding on these and other works, has published an admirable monograph (lavishly illustrated by maps and pictures), not only upon the military state of Assyria proper and of Niniveh at this period, but upon the whole subject of Assyrian fortification and art of besieging, as well as upon the course of the Median invasions. It forms the larger part of an article to which Dr. Alfred Jeremias contributes an introduction, and reconstruction with notes of chaps. ii. and iii. of the Book of Nahum: “Der Untergang Niniveh’s und die Weissagungschrift des Nahum von El?osh,” in Vol. III. of BeitrÄge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, edited by Friedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt, with the support of Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S.A.: Leipzig, 1895.

[255] Pages 20 f.

[256] Colonel Billerbeck (p.115) thinks that the south-east frontier at this time lay more to the north, near the Greater Zab.

[257] First excavated by M. Botta, 1842–1845. See also George Smith, Assyr. Disc., pp.98f.

[258] iii. 12.

[259] iii. 14.

[260] See Jones and Billerbeck.

[261] Delitzsch places the ??? ????? of Gen. x. 11, the “ribit Nina” of the inscriptions, on the north-east of Niniveh.

[262] ii. 4 Eng., 5 Heb.

[263] ii. 3 Eng., 4 Heb.

[264] Ibid. LXX.

[265] iii. 2.

[266] iii. 3.

[267] It is the waters of the Tigris that the tradition avers to have broken the wall; but the Tigris itself runs in a bed too low for this: it can only have been the Choser. See both Jones and Billerbeck.

[268] ii. 6.

[269] If the above conception of chaps. ii. and iii. be correct, then there is no need for such a re-arrangement of these verses as has been proposed by Jeremias and Billerbeck. In order to produce a continuous narrative of the progress of the siege, they bring forward iii. 12–15 (describing the fall of the fortresses and gates of the land and the call to the defence of the city), and place it immediately after ii. 2, 4 (the description of the invader) and ii. 5–11 (the appearance of chariots in the suburbs of the city, the opening of the floodgates, the flight and the spoiling of the city). But if they believe that the original gave an orderly account of the progress of the siege, why do they not bring forward also iii. 2 f., which describe the arrival of the foe under the city walls? The truth appears to be as stated above. We have really two poems against Niniveh, chap.ii. and chap.iii. They do not give an orderly description of the siege, but exult over Niniveh’s imminent downfall, with gleams scattered here and there of how this is to happen. Of these “impressions” of the coming siege there are three, and in the order in which we now have them they occur very naturally: ii. 5 ff., iii. 2 f., and iii. 12 ff.

[270] ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. See above, pp.94 f.

[271] ii. 13, iii. 5.

[272] See above, Vol. I., Chap. IV., especially pp.54 ff.

[273] ii. 8.

[274] Isaiah xl.—lxvi. (Expositor’s Bible), pp.197 ff.

[275] Read ?????? with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade’s WÖrterbuch, sub ?????) for ??????, Breaker in pieces. In Jer. li. 20 Babylon is also called by Jehovah His ??????, Hammer or Maul.

[276] Keep watch, Wellhausen.

[277] This may be a military call to attention, the converse of “Stand at ease!”

[278] Heb. literally: brace up thy power exceedingly.

[279] Heb. singular.

[280] Rev. ix. 17. Purple or red was the favourite colour of the Medes. The Assyrians also loved red.

[281] Read ???? for ????.

[282] ?????, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur elsewhere. LXX. ???a?; Vulg. habenÆ. Some have thought that it means scythes—cf. the Arabic falad, “to cut”—but the earliest notice of chariots armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish literature they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias, op. cit., p.97, where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum are applicable to the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian monuments, from which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf. ibid., p.167, n.***. But from the parallelism of the verse it is more probable that ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots were covered with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p.167).

[283] So LXX., reading ????? for ????? of Heb. text, that means fir-trees. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose with Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were meant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls by engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be the cavalry and chariots in the open that are here described.

[284] Or broad places or suburbs. See above, pp.100 f.

[285] See above, p.106, end of n.282.

[286] Heb. They stumble in their goings. Davidson holds this is more probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the besiegers. See next note.

[287] ????????. Partic. of the verb to cover, hence covering thing: whether mantlet (on the side of the besiegers) or bulwark (on the side of the besieged: cf. ??????, Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain. Billerbeck says, if it be an article of defence, we can read ver.5 as illustrating the vanity of the hurried defence, when the elements themselves break in vv. 6 and 7 (p.101: cf. p.176, n.*).

[288] Sluices (Jeremias) or bridge-gates (Wellhausen)?

[289] Or breaks into motion, i.e. flight.

[290] ?????, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of ??? and has been taken to mean it is determined, she (Niniveh) is taken captive. Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: it is settled. LXX. ?p?stas?? = ???. Vulg. miles (as if some form of ????). Hitzig points it ??????, the lizard, Wellhausen the toad. But this noun is masculine (Lev. xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other ??????, fem., the litter or palanquin (Isa. lxvi. 20): “in lieu of anything better one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the woman or lady, just as in Arab. ??a’inah means a woman’s litter and then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of ???????, the beauty. The Targ. has ?????, the queen. From as early as at least 1527 (Latina Interpretatio Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of scholars as a proper name, Hu??ab. So Ewald and others. It may be an Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is corrupt.

Mr. Paul Ruben (Academy, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead of ?????, is brought forth, to read ?????, and to translate it by analogy of the Assyrian “etellu,” fem. “etellitu” = great or exalted, The Lady. The line would then run Hu??ab, the lady, is stripped. (With ????? Cheyne, Academy, June 21st, 1896, compares ?????, which, he suggests, is “Yahwe is great” or “is lord.”)

[291] Heb. ?????? ???? for ???? ??? ???, from days she was. A.V. is of old. R.V. hath been of old, and Marg. from the days that she hath been. LXX. her waters, ????????. On waters fleeing, cf. Ps. civ. 7.

[292] Bu?ah, umebu?ah, umebulla?ah. Ewald: desert and desolation and devastation. The adj. are feminine.

[293] Literally: and the faces of all them gather lividness.

[294] For ???? Wellhausen reads ????, cave or hold.

[295] LXX., reading ???? for ????.

[296] Heb. her chariots. LXX. and Syr. suggest thy mass or multitude, ????. Davidson suggests thy lair, ?????.

[297] Literally and the chariot dancing, but the word, merakedah, has a rattle in it.

[298] Doubtful, ???????. LXX. ??aa????t??.

[299] Jeremias (104) shows how the Assyrians did this to female captives.

[300] Jer. xlvi. 25: I will punish Amon at No. Ezek. xxx. 14–16: . . . judgments in No. . . . I will cut off No-Amon (Heb. and A.V. multitude of No, reading ????; so also LXX. t? p????? for ????) . . . and No shall be broken up. It is Thebes, the Egyptian name of which was Nu-Amen. The god Amen had his temple there: Herod. I. 182, II. 42. Nahum refers to Assurbanipal’s account of the fall of Thebes. See above, p.11.

[301] ??????. Pl. of the word for Nile.

[302] Arabs still call the Nile the sea.

[303] So LXX., reading ????? for Heb. ??????.

[304] So LXX.; Heb. thee.

[305] Heb. be drunken.

[306] I.e. against, because of.

[307] Jer. l. 37, li. 30.

[308] Heb. and LXX. add devour thee like the locust, probably a gloss.

[309] Cf. Jer. ix. 33. Some take it of the locusts stripping the skin which confines their wings: Davidson.

[310] ??????. A.V. thy crowned ones; but perhaps like its neighbouran Assyrian word, meaning we know not what. Wellhausen reads ?????, LXX. ? s???t?? s?? (applied in Deut. xxiii. 3 and Zech. ix. 6 to the offspring of a mixed marriage between an Israelite and a Gentile), deine Mischlinge: a term of contempt for the floating foreign or semi-foreign population which filled Niniveh and was ready to fly at sight of danger. Similarly Wellhausen takes the second term, ????. This, which occurs also in Jer. li. 27, appears to be some kind of official. In Assyrian dupsar is scribe, which may, like Heb. ????, have been applied to any high official. See Schrader, K.A.T., Eng. Tr., I. 141, II. 118. See also Fried. Delitzsch, Wo lag Parad., p.142. The name and office were ancient. Such Babylonian officials are mentioned in the Tell el Amarna letters as present at the Egyptian court.

[311] Heb. day of cold.

[312] ?????, dwell, is the Heb. reading. But LXX. ????, ?????se?. Sleep must be taken in the sense of death: cf. Jer. li. 39, 57; Isa. xiv. 18.

[313] Except one or two critics who place it in Manasseh’s reign. See below.

[314] See next note.

[315] So Pusey. Delitzsch in his commentary on Habakkuk, 1843, preferred Josiah’s reign, but in his O. T. Hist. of Redemption, 1881, p.226, Manasseh’s. Volck (in Herzog, Real Encyc.,² art. “Habakkuk,” 1879), assuming that Habakkuk is quoted both by Zephaniah (see above, p.39, n.) and Jeremiah, places him before these. Sinker (The Psalm of Habakkuk: see below, p.127, n.342) deems “the prophecy, taken as a whole,” to bring “before us the threat of the Chaldean invasion, the horrors that follow in its train,” etc., with a vision of the day “when the Chaldean host itself, its work done, falls beneath a mightier foe.” He fixes the date either in the concluding years of Manasseh’s reign, or the opening years of that of Josiah (Preface, 1–4).

[316] Pages 53, 49. Kirkpatrick (Smith’s Dict. of the Bible,² art. “Habakkuk,” 1893) puts it not later than the sixth year of Jehoiakim.

[317] Einl. in das A. T.

[318] BeitrÄge zur Jesaiakritik, 1890, pp.197 f.

[319] See Further Note on p.128.

[320] Studien u. Kritiken for 1893.

[321] Cf. the opening of § 30 in the first edition of his Einleitung with that of § 34 in the third and fourth editions.

[322] Budde’s explanation of this is, that to the later editors of the book, long after the Babylonian destruction of Jews, it was incredible that the Chaldean should be represented as the deliverer of Israel, and so the account of him was placed where, while his call to punish Israel for her sins was not emphasised, he should be pictured as destined to doom; and so the prophecy originally referring to the Assyrian was read of him. “This is possible,” says Davidson, “if it be true criticism is not without its romance.”

[323] This in opposition to Budde’s statement that the description of the Chaldeans in i.5–11 “ist eine phantastische Schilderung” (p.387).

[324] It is, however, a serious question whether it would be possible in 615 to describe the Chaldeans as a nation that traversed the breadth of the earth to occupy dwelling-places that were not his own (i. 6). This suits better after the battle of Carchemish.

[325] See above, p.121, n.322.

[326] See above, pp.114 ff.

[327] Pages 49 and 50.

[328] See above, pp.118 f.

[329] Wellhausen in 1873 (see p.661); Giesebrecht in 1890; Budde in 1892, before he had seen the opinions of either of the others (see Stud. und Krit., 1893, p.386, n.2).

[330] Cornill quotes a rearrangement of chaps, i., ii., by Rothstein, who takes i. 2–4, 12 a, 13, ii. 1–3, 4, 5 a, i. 6–10, 14, 15 a, ii. 6 b, 7, 9, 10 a b , 11, 15, 16, 19, 18, as an oracle against Jehoiakim and the godless in Israel about 605, which during the Exile was worked up into the present oracle against Babylon. Cornill esteems it “too complicated.” Budde (Expositor, 1895, pp.372 ff.) and Nowack hold it untenable.

[331] As of course was universally supposed according to either of the other two interpretations given above.

[332] Z.A.T.W., 1884, p.154.

[333] Cf. Isa. v. 8 ff. (x. 1–4), etc.

[334] So LXX.

[335] Cf. Davidson, p.56, and Budde, p.391, who allows 9–11 and 15–17.

[336] E.g. Isa. xl. 18 ff., xliv. 9 ff., xlvi. 5 ff., etc. On this ground it is condemned by Stade, Kuenen and Budde. Davidson finds this not a serious difficulty, for, he points out, Habakkuk anticipates several later lines of thought.

[337] See above, p.39, n.84.

[338] A. T. Religionsgeschichte, p.229, n.2.

[339] Cf. the ascription by the LXX. of Psalms cxlvi.-cl. to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.

[340] Cf. Kuenen, who conceives it to have been taken from a post-exilic collection of Psalms. See also Cheyne, The Origin of the Psalter: “exilic or more probably post-exilic” (p.125). “The most natural position for it is in the Persian period. It was doubtless appended to Habakkuk, for the same reason for which Isa. lxiii. 7—lxiv. was attached to the great prophecy of Restoration, viz. that the earlier national troubles seemed to the Jewish Church to be typical of its own sore troubles after the Return. … The lovely closing verses of Hab. iii. are also in a tone congenial to the later religion” (p.156). Much less certain is the assertion that the language is imitative and artificial (ibid.); while the statement that in ver.3—cf. with Deut. xxxiii. 2—we have an instance of the effort to avoid the personal name of the Deity (p.287) is disproved by the use of the latter in ver.2 and other verses.

[341] ??? ??, ver.13, cannot be taken as a proof of lateness; read probably ????? ??.

[342] Pusey, Ewald, KÖnig, Sinker (The Psalm of Habakkuk, Cambridge, 1890), Kirkpatrick (Smith’s Bible Dict., art. “Habakkuk”), Von Orelli.

[343] ????????? (the Greek ?a???, LXX. version of the title of this book, and again the inscription to Bel and the Dragon, suggests the pointing ?????????; Epiph., De Vitis Proph.—see next note—spells it ?a???), from ???, to embrace. Jerome: “He is called ‘embrace’ either because of his love to the Lord, or because he wrestles with God.” Luther: “Habakkuk means one who comforts and holds up his people as one embraces a weeping person.”

[344] See above, pp.126 ff. The title to the Greek version of Bel and the Dragon bears that the latter was taken from the prophecy of Hambakoum, son of Jesus, of the tribe of Levi. Further details are offered in the De Vitis Prophetarum of (Pseud-) Epiphanius, Epiph. Opera, ed. Paris, 1622, Vol. II., p.147, according to which Habakkuk belonged to ?e??????, which is probably ?e??a?a??a? of 1 Macc. vi. 32, the modern Beit-Zakaryeh, a little to the north of Hebron, and placed by this notice, as Nahum’s Elkosh is placed, in the tribe of Simeon. His grave was shown in the neighbouring Keilah. The notice further alleges that when Nebuchadrezzar came up to Jerusalem Habakkuk fled to Ostracine, where he travelled in the country of the Ishmaelites; but he returned after the fall of Jerusalem, and died in 538, two years before the return of the exiles. Bel and the Dragon tells an extraordinary story of his miraculous carriage of food to Daniel in the lions’ den soon after Cyrus had taken Babylon.

[345] See above, pp.119 ff.

[346] Heb. saw.

[347] Text uncertain. Perhaps we should read, Why make me look upon sorrow and trouble? why fill mine eyes with violence and wrong? Strife is come before me, and quarrel arises.

[348] Never gets away, to use a colloquial expression.

[349] Here vv. 5–11 come in the original.

[350] ver.12b: We shall not die (many Jewish authorities read Thou shalt not die). O Jehovah, for judgment hast Thou set him, and, O my Rock, for punishment hast Thou appointed him.

[351] Wellhausen: on the robbery of robbers.

[352] LXX. devoureth the righteous.

[353] Literally Thou hast made men.

[354] Wellhausen: cf. Jer. xviii. 1, xix. 1.

[355] So Giesebrecht (see above, p.119, n.318), reading ????? ???? ???? for ?????? ???? ????, shall he therefore empty his net?

[356] Wellhausen, reading ???? for ????: should he therefore be emptying his net continually, and slaughtering the nations without pity?

[357] ????. But Wellhausen takes it as from ??? and = ward or watch-tower. So Nowack.

[358] So Heb. and LXX.; but Syr. he: so Wellhausen, what answer He returns to my plea.

[359] Bredenkamp (Stud. u. Krit., 1889, pp.161 ff.) suggests that the writing on the tablets begins here and goes on to ver.5a. Budde (Z.A.T.W., 1889, pp.155 f.) takes the ?? which opens it as simply equivalent to the Greek ?t?, introducing, like our marks of quotation, the writing itself.

[360] ????????: cf. Psalm xxvii. 12. Bredenkamp emends to ?????????.

[361] Not be late, or past its fixed time.

[362] So literally the Heb. ????????, i.e. arrogant, false: cf. the colloquial expression swollen-head = conceit, as opposed to level-headed. Bredenkamp, Stud. u. Krit., 1889, 121, reads ????????? for ?????? ????????. Wellhausen suggests ?????? ???????, Lo, the sinner, in contrast to ???? of next clause. Nowack prefers this.

[363] LXX. wrongly my.

[364] LXX. p?dt??, faith, and so in N. T.

[365] Chap.i. 5–11.

[366] So to bring out the assonance, reading ????????????? ?????????.

[367] So LXX.

[368] Or Chaldeans; on the name and people see above, p.19.

[369] Heb. singular.

[370] Omit ?????? (evidently a dittography) and the lame ???? which is omitted by LXX. and was probably inserted to afford a verb for the second ?????.

[371] Heb. sing., and so in all the clauses here except the next.

[372] A problematical rendering. ???? is found only here, and probably means direction. Hitzig translates desire, effort, striving. ?????, towards the front or forward; but elsewhere it means only eastward: ????, the east wind. Cf. Judg. v. 21, ??? ?????? ??? ?????, a river of spates or rushes is the river Kishon (Hist. Geog., p.395). Perhaps we should change ?????? to a singular suffix, as in the clauses before and after, and this would leave ? to form with ????? a participle from ????? (cf. Amos ix. 10).

[373] Or their spirit changes, or they change like the wind (Wellhausen suggests ????). GrÄtz reads ???? and ????????, he renews his strength.

[374] Von Orelli. For ???? Wellhausen proposes ????????, and sets.

[375] The wicked of chap.i. 4 must, as we have seen, be the same as the wicked of chap.i. 13—a heathen oppressor of the righteous, i.e. the people of God.

[376] i. 3.

[377] i. 4.

[378] i. 13–17.

[379] Amos iii. 6. See Vol. I., p. 90.

[380] See above, pp.119 ff.

[381] Its proper place in Budde’s re-arrangement is after chap.ii. 4.

[382] Above, p.134, n.362.

[383] ???????? instead of ????????.

[384] Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. 11.

[385] ????????.

[386] Exod. xvii. 12.

[387] 2 Chron. xix. 9.

[388] Hosea ii. 22 (Heb.).

[389] Prov. xiv. 5.

[390] Isa. xi. 5.

[391] Prov. xii. 17: cf. Jer. ix. 2.

[392] Prov. xii. 22, xxviii. 30.

[393] Heb. x. 37, 38.

[394] See above, pp.125 f.

[395] See above, pp.125 f. Nowack (1897) agrees that Cornill’s and others’ conclusion that vv. 9–20 are not Habakkuk’s is too sweeping. He takes the first, second and fourth of the taunt-songs as authentic, but assigns the third (vv. 12–14) and the fifth (18–20) to another hand. He deems the refrain, 8b and 17b, to be a gloss, and puts 19 before 18. Driver, Introd., 6th ed., holds to the authenticity of all the verses.

[396] The text reads, For also wine is treacherous, under which we might be tempted to suspect some such original as, As wine is treacherous, so (next line) the proud fellow, etc. (or, as Davidson suggests, Like wine is the treacherous dealer), were it not that the word wine appears neither in the Greek nor in the Syrian version. Wellhausen suggests that ????, wine, is a corruption of ???, with which the verse, like vv. 6b, 9, 12, 15, 19, may have originally begun, but according to 6a the taunt-songs, opening with ???, start first in 6b. Bredenkamp proposes ??????? ????????.

[397] The text is ????, a verb not elsewhere found in the Old Testament, and conjectured by our translators to mean keepeth at home, because the noun allied to it means homestead or resting-place. The Syriac gives is not satisfied, and Wellhausen proposes to read ???? with that sense. See Davidson’s note on the verse.

[398] A.V. thick clay, which is reached by breaking up the word ?????, pledge or debt, into ??, thick cloud, and ???, clay.

[399] Literally thy biters, ?????, but ???, biting, is interest or usury, and the Hiphil of ??? is to exact interest.

[400] LXX. sing., Heb. pl.

[401] These words occur again in ver.17. Wellhausen thinks they suit neither here nor there. But they suit all the taunt-songs, and some suppose that they formed the refrain to each of these.

[402] Dynasty or people?

[403] So LXX.; Heb. cutting off.

[404] The grammatical construction is obscure, if the text be correct. There is no mistaking the meaning.

[405] ????, not elsewhere found in the O.T., is in Rabbinic Hebrew both cross-beam and lath.

[406] Micah iii. 10.

[407] Jer. xxii. 13.

[408] Literally fire.

[409] Jer. li. 58: which original?

[410] After Wellhausen’s suggestion to read ??? ???? instead of the text ???? ????, adding, or mixing, thy wrath.

[411] So LXX. Q.; Heb. their.

[412] Read ???? (cf. Nahum ii. 4; Zech. xii. 2). The text is ????, not found elsewhere, which has been conjectured to mean uncover the foreskin. And there is some ground for this, as parallel to his nakedness in the previous clause. Wellhausen also removes the first clause to the end of the verse: Drink also thou and reel; there comes to thee the cup in Jehovah’s right hand, and thou wilt glut thyself with shame instead of honour.

[413] So R.V. for ??????, which A.V. has taken as two words—?? for which cf. Jer. xxv. 27, where however the text is probably corrupt, and ????. With this confusion cf. above, ver.6, ?????.

[414] Read with LXX. ???? for ????? of the text.

[415] See above, ver. 8.

[416] ?????????

[417] Above, pp.126 ff.

[418] ??? nowhere in the Old Testament means wrath, but either roar and noise of thunder (Job xxxvii. 2) and of horsehoofs (xxxix. 24), or the raging of the wicked (iii. 17) or the commotion of fear (iii. 26; Isa. xiv. 3).

[419]

Deut. xxxiii. 2, slightly altered after the LXX. South: some form of ???? must be read to bring the line into parallel with the others; ????, Teman, is from the same root.

Judges v. 4, 5.

[420] Exod. xv.

[421] In this case ver.17 would be the only one that offered any reason for suspicion that it was an intrusion.

[422] ????, lit. Prayer, but used for Psalm: cf. Psalm cii. 1.

[423] Sinker takes with this the first two words of next line: I have trembled, O LORD, at Thy work.

[424] ????, Imp. Niph., after LXX. ???s??s?. The Hebrew has ?????????, Hi., make known. The LXX. had a text of these verses which reduplicated them, and it has translated them very badly.

[425] ?????, turmoil, noise, as in Job: a meaning that offers a better parallel to in the midst of the years than wrath, which the word also means. Davidson, however, thinks it more natural to understand the wrath manifest at the coming of Jehovah to judgment. So Sinker.

[426] Vulg. ab Austro, from the South.

[427] LXX. adds ?atas???? das???, which seems the translation of a clause, perhaps a gloss, containing the name of Mount Se‘ir, as in the parallel descriptions of a theophany, Deut. xxiii. 2, Judg. v. 4. See Sinker, p.45.

[428] Wellhausen, reading ??? for ???, translates He made them, etc.

[429] So LXX. Heb. and measures the earth.

[430] This is the only way of rendering the verse so as not to make it seem superfluous: so rendered it sums up and clenches the theophany from ver.3 onwards; and a new strophe now begins. There is therefore no need to omit the verse, as Wellhausen does.

[431] LXX. ?????pe?; but these are Kush, and the parallelism requires a tribe in Arabia. Calvin rejects the meaning Ethiopian on the same ground, but takes the reference as to King Kushan in Judg. iii. 8, 10, on account of the parallelism with Midian. The Midianite wife whom Moses married is called the Kushite (Num. xii. 1). Hommel (Anc. Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments, p.315 and n.1) appears to take Zerah the Kushite of 2 Chron. xiv. 9 ff. as a prince of Kush in Central Arabia. But the narrative which makes him deliver his invasion of Judah at Mareshah surely confirms the usual opinion that he and his host were Ethiopians coming up from Egypt.

[432] For ???????, is it with streams, read ??????, is it with hills: because hills have already been mentioned, and rivers occur in the next clause, and are separated by the same disjunctive particle, ???, which separates the sea in the third clause from them. The whole phrase might be rendered, Is it with hills Thou art angry, O Jehovah?

[433] Questionable: the verb ???????, Ni. of a supposed ????, does not elsewhere occur, and is only conjectured from the noun ???????, nakedness, and ???????, stripping. LXX. has ??te???? ???te??a?, and Wellhausen reads, after 2 Sam. xxiii. 18, ?????? ?????????, Thou bringest into action Thy bow.

[434] ????????? ??????? ?????, literally sworn are staves or rods of speech. A.V.: according to the oaths of the tribes, even Thy word. LXX. (omitting ????????? and adding ????) ?p? s??pt?a, ???e? ??????. These words “form a riddle which all the ingenuity of scholars has not been able to solve. Delitzsch calculates that a hundred translations of them have been offered” (Davidson). In parallel to previous clause about a bow, we ought to expect ????, staves, though it is not elsewhere used for shafts or arrows. ?????? may have been ???????????, Thou satest. The Cod. Barb. reads: ????tasa? ???da? t?? fa??t??? a?t??, Thou hast satiated the shafts of his quiver. Sinker: sworn are the punishments of the solemn decree, and relevantly compares Isa. xi. 4, the rod of His mouth; xxx. 32, rod of doom. Ewald: sevenfold shafts of war. But cf. Psalm cxviii. 12.

[435] Uncertain, but a more natural result of cleaving than the rivers Thou cleavest into dry land (Davidson and Wellhausen).

[436] But Ewald takes this as of the Red Sea floods sweeping on the Egyptians.

[437] ??? ????? ??? = he lifts up his hands on high. But the LXX. read ?????, fa?tas?a? a?t??, and took ??? with the next verse. The reading ????? (for ??????) is indeed nonsense, but suggests an emendation to ?????, his shout or wail: cf. Amos vi. 7, Jer. xvi. 5.

[438] Reading for ????? ???, required by the acc. following. Thine anointed, lit. Thy Messiah, according to Isa. xl. ff. the whole people.

[439] Heb. ????, foundation. LXX. bonds. Some suggest laying bare from the foundation to the neck, but this is mixed unless neck happened to be a technical name for a part of a building: cf. Isa. viii. 8, xxx. 28.

[440] Heb. his spears or staves; his own (Von Orelli). LXX. ?? ??st?se?: see Sinker, pp.56 ff. Princes: ??????? only here. Hitzig: his brave ones. Ewald, Wellhausen, Davidson: his princes. Delitzsch: his hosts. LXX. ?efa??? d??ast??.

[441] So Heb. literally. A very difficult line. On LXX. see Sinker, pp.60 f.

[442] For ?????, heap (so A.V.), read some part of ???, to foam. LXX. ta??ss??ta?: cf. Psalm xlvi. 4.

[443] So LXX. ? (some codd.), softening the original belly.

[444] Or my lips quiver aloud—????, vocally (Von Orelli).

[445] By the Hebrew the bones were felt, as a modern man feels his nerves: Psalms xxxii., li.; Job.

[446] For ???, for which LXX. gives ? ???? ??, read ????, my steps; and for ????, LXX. ?ta?????, ?????.

[447] ???????. LXX. ??apa?s?a?, I will rest. A.V.: that I might rest in the day of trouble. Others: I will wait for. Wellhausen suggests ???????? (Isa. l. 24), I will take comfort. Sinker takes ??? as the simple relative: I who will wait patiently for the day of doom. Von Orelli takes it as the conjunction because.

[448] ??????????, it invades, brings up troops on them, only in Gen. xlix. 19 and here. Wellhausen: which invades us. Sinker: for the coming up against the people of him who shall assail it.

[449] ????; but LXX. ????, ?? ?a?p?f???se?, bear no fruit.

[450] For ??? Wellhausen reads ?????. LXX. ??e??pe?.

[451] De Civitate Dei, XVIII. 32.

[452] So he paraphrases in the midst of the years.

[453] From the prayer with which Calvin concludes his exposition of Habakkuk.

[454] ?????????, ‘Obadyah, the later form of ???????????, ‘Obadyahu (a name occurring thrice before the Exile: Ahab’s steward who hid the prophets of the Lord, 1 Kings xviii. 3–7, 16; of a man in David’s house, 1 Chron. xxvii. 19; a Levite in Josiah’s reign, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12), is the name of several of the Jews who returned from exile: Ezra viii. 9, the son of Jehi’el (in 1 Esdras viii. ?ad?a?); Neh. x. 6, a priest, probably the same as the Obadiah in xii. 25, a porter, and the ????????, the singer, in xi. 17, who is called ????????? in 1 Chron. ix. 16. Another ‘Obadyah is given in the eleventh generation from Saul, 1 Chron. viii. 38, ix. 44; another in the royal line in the time of the Exile, iii. 21; a man of Issachar, vii. 3; a Gadite under David, xii. 9; a prince under Jehoshaphat sent to teach in the cities of Judah, 2 Chron. xvii. 7. With the Massoretic points ????????? means worshipper of Jehovah: cf. Obed-Edom, and so in the Greek form, ?de???, of Cod. B. But other Codd., A, ? and ?, give ?d??? or ?de???, and this, with the alternative Hebrew form ???????? of Neh. xi. 17, suggests rather ????? ???, servant of Jehovah. The name as given in the title is probably intended to be that of an historical individual, as in the titles of all the other books; but which, or if any, of the above mentioned it is impossible to say. Note, however, that it is the later post-exilic form of the name that is used, in spite of the book occurring among the pre-exilic prophets. Some, less probably, take the name Obadyah to be symbolic of the prophetic character of the writer.

[455] 889 B.C. Hofmann, Keil, etc.; and soon after 312, Hitzig.

[456] Cf. the extraordinary tirade of Pusey in his Introd. to Obadiah.

[457] The first in his Commentary on Die ZwÖlf Kleine Propheten; the other in his Einleitung.

[458] Caspari (Der Proph. Ob. ausgelegt 1842), Ewald, Graf, Pusey, Driver, Giesebrecht, Wildeboer and KÖnig. Cf. Jer. xlix. 9 with Ob. 5; Jer. xlix. 14 ff. with Ob. 1–4. The opening of Ob. 1 ff. is held to be more in its place than where it occurs in the middle of Jeremiah’s passage. The language of Obadiah is “terser and more forcible. Jeremiah seems to expand Obadiah, and parts of Jeremiah which have no parallel in Obadiah are like Obadiah’s own style” (Driver). This strong argument is enforced in detail by Pusey: “Out of the sixteen verses of which the prophecy of Jeremiah against Edom consists, four are identical with those of Obadiah; a fifth embodies a verse of Obadiah’s; of the eleven which remain ten have some turns of expression or idioms, more or fewer, which occur in Jeremiah, either in these prophecies against foreign nations, or in his prophecies generally. Now it would be wholly improbable that a prophet, selecting verses out of the prophecy of Jeremiah, should have selected precisely those which contain none of Jeremiah’s characteristic expressions; whereas it perfectly fits in with the supposition that Jeremiah interwove verses of Obadiah with his own prophecy, that in verses so interwoven there is not one expression which occurs elsewhere in Jeremiah.” Similarly Nowack, Comm., 1897.

[459] 2 Chron. xx.

[460] 2 Chron. xxi. 14–17.

[461] So Delitzsch, Keil, Volck in Herzog’s Real. Ency. II., Orelli and Kirkpatrick. Delitzsch indeed suggests that the prophet may have been Obadiah the prince appointed by Jehoshaphat to teach in the cities of Judah. See above, p.163, n.454.

[462] Driver, Introd.

[463] Jer. xlix. 9 and 16 appear to be more original than Ob. 3 and 2b. Notice the presence in Jer. xlix. 16 of ?????? which Obadiah omits.

[464] 2 Kings xiv. 22; xvi. 6, Revised Version margin.

[465] Einl.³ pp.185 f.: “In any case Obadiah 1–9 are older than the fourth year of Jehoiakim.”

[466] “That the verses Obadiah 10 ff. refer to this event [the sack of Jerusalem] will always remain the most natural supposition, for the description which they give so completely suits that time that it is not possible to take any other explanation into consideration.”

[467] Edom paid tribute to Sennacherib in 701, and to Asarhaddon (681—669). According to 2 Kings xxiv. 2 Nebuchadrezzar sent Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites [for ??? read ???] against Jehoiakim, who had broken his oath to Babylonia.

[468] For Edom’s alliances with Arab tribes cf. Gen. xxv. 13 with xxxvi. 3, 12, etc.

[469] Ezek. xxv. 4, 5, 10.

[470] Diod. Sic. XIX. 94. A little earlier they are described as in possession of Iturea, on the south-east slopes of Anti-Lebanon (Arrian II. 20, 4).

[471] Psalm lxxxiii. 8.

[472] i. 1–5.

[473] E.g. in the New Testament: Mark iii. 8.

[474] So too Nowack, 1897.

[475] Deut. ii. 5, 8, 12.

[476] Ezek. xxxv., esp. 2 and 15.

[477] iv. 21: yet Uz fails in LXX., and some take ??? to refer to the Holy Land itself. Buhl, Gesch. der Edomiter, 73.

[478] It can hardly be supposed that Edom’s treacherous allies were Assyrians or Babylonians, for even if the phrase “men of thy covenant” could be applied to those to whom Edom was tributary, the Assyrian or Babylonian method of dealing with conquered peoples is described by saying that they took them off into captivity, not that they sent them to the border.

[479] So even Cornill, Einl.³

[480] This in answer to Wellhausen on the verse.

[481] See below, p.175, n.6.

[482] Calvin, while refusing in his introduction to Obadiah to fix a date (except in so far as he thinks it impossible for the book to be earlier than Isaiah), implies throughout his commentary on the book that it was addressed to Edom while the Jews were in exile. See his remarks on vv. 18–20.

[483] There is a mistranslation in ver.18: ????? is rendered by p???f????.

[484] This is no doubt from the later writer, who before he gives the new word of Jehovah with regard to Edom, quotes the earlier prophecy, marked above by quotation marks. In no other way can we explain the immediate following of the words “Thus hath the Lord spoken” with “We have heard a report,” etc.

[485] ‘Sela,’ the name of the Edomite capital, Petra.

[486] The parenthesis is not in Jer. xlix. 9; Nowack omits it. If spoilers occurs in Heb. before by night: delete.

[487] Antithetic to thieves and spoilers by night, as the sending of the people to their border is antithetic to the thieves taking only what they wanted.

[488] ????, thy bread, which here follows, is not found in the LXX., and is probably an error due to a mechanical repetition of the letters of the previous word.

[489] Again perhaps a quotation from an earlier prophecy: Nowack counts it from another hand. Mark the sudden change to the future.

[490] Heb. so that.

[491] With LXX. transfer this expression from the end of the ninth to the beginning of the tenth verse.

[492] “When thou didst stand on the opposite side.”—Calvin.

[493] Plural; LXX. and Qeri.

[494] Sudden change to imperative. The English versions render, Thou shouldest not have looked on, etc.

[495] Cf. Ps. cxxxvii. 7, the day of Jerusalem.

[496] The day of his strangeness = aliena fortuna.

[497] With laughter. Wellhausen and Nowack suspect ver.13 as an intrusion.

[498] ?????? does not elsewhere occur. It means cleaving, and the LXX. render it by d?e????, i.e. pass between mountains. The Arabic forms from the same root suggest the sense of a band of men standing apart from the main body on the watch for stragglers (cf. ???, in ver.11). Calvin, “the going forth”; GrÄtz ???, breach, but see Nowack.

[499] Wellhausen proposes to put the last two clauses immediately after ver.14.

[500] The prophet seems here to turn to address his own countrymen: the drinking will therefore take the meaning of suffering God’s chastising wrath. Others, like Calvin, take it in the opposite sense, and apply it to Edom: “as ye have exulted,” etc.

[501] Reel—for ???? we ought (with Wellhausen) probably to read ????: cf. Lam.iv.2. Some codd. of LXX. omit all the nations … continuously, drink and reel. But ?c.aA and Q have all the nations shall drink wine.

[502] So LXX. Heb. their heritages.

[503] That is the reverse of the conditions after the Jews went into exile, for then the Edomites came up on the Negeb and the Philistines on the Shephelah.

[504] I.e. of Judah, the rest of the country outside the Negeb and Shephelah. The reading is after the LXX.

[505] Whereas the pagan inhabitants of these places came upon the hill-country of JudÆa during the Exile.

[506] An unusual form of the word. Ewald would read coast. The verse is obscure.

[507] So LXX.

[508] The Jews themselves thought this to be Spain: so Onkelos, who translates ???? by ???????????? = Hispania. Hence the origin of the name Sephardim Jews. The supposition that it is Sparta need hardly be noticed. Our decision must lie between two other regions—the one in Asia Minor, the other in S.W. Media. First, in the ancient Persian inscriptions there thrice occurs (great Behistun inscription, I. 15; inscription of Darius, II. 12, 13; and inscription of Darius from Na?sh-i-Rustam) Çparda. It is connected with Janua or Ionia and Katapatuka or Cappadocia (Schrader, Cun. Inscr. and O. T., Germ. ed., p.446; Eng., Vol. II., p.145); and Sayce shows that, called Shaparda on a late cuneiform inscription of 275 B.C., it must have lain in Bithynia or Galatia (Higher Criticism and Monuments, p.483). Darius made it a satrapy. It is clear, as Cheyne says (Founders of O. T. Criticism, p.312), that those who on other grounds are convinced of the post-exilic origin of this part of Obadiah, of its origin in the Persian period, will identify Sepharad with this Çparda, which both he and Sayce do. But to those of us who hold that this part of Obadiah is from the time of the Babylonian exile, as we have sought to prove above on pp.171 f., then Sepharad cannot be Çparda, for Nebuchadrezzar did not subdue Asia Minor and cannot have transported Jews there. Are we then forced to give up our theory of the date of Obadiah 10–21 in the Babylonian exile? By no means. For, second, the inscriptions of Sargon, king of Assyria (721—705 B.C.), mention a Shaparda, in S.W. Media towards Babylonia, a name phonetically correspondent to ???? (Schrader, l.c.), and the identification of the two is regarded as “exceedingly probable” by Fried. Delitzsch (Wo lag das Paradies? p.249). But even if this should be shown to be impossible, and if the identification Sepharad = Çparda be proved, that would not oblige us to alter our opinion as to the date of the whole of Obadiah 10–21, for it is possible that later additions, including Sepharad, have been made to the passage.

[509] Amos i. 11. See Vol. I., p. 129.

[510] John Hyrcanus, about 130 B.C.

[511] Irby and Mangles’ Travels: cf. Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria, and Doughty, Arabia Deserta, I.

[512] Obadiah 3.

[513] Amos i.: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 5.

[514] Obadiah 10.

[515] C. I. S., II. i. 183 ff.

[516] Obadiah 6.

[517] Verse 6.

[518] See the details in Vol. I., pp. 129 f.

[519] Heb. xii. 16.

[520] We even know the names of some of these deities from the theophorous names of Edomites: e.g. Baal-chanan (Gen. xxxvi. 38), Hadad (ib. 35; 1 Kings xi. 14 ff.); Malikram, ?ausmalaka, ?ausgabri (on Assyrian inscriptions: Schrader, K.A.T.² 150, 613); ??sada???, ??sa???, ??s?????, ??s?ata??? (Rev. archÉol. 1870, I. pp.109 ff., 170 ff.), ??st?a??? (Jos., XV. Ant. vii. 9). See Baethgen, BeitrÄge zur Semit. Rel. Gesch., pp.10 ff.

[521] Obadiah 8: cf. Jer. xlix. 7.

[522] Obadiah 11, 12: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 12 f.

[523] 1–5 or 6. See above, pp.167, 171 f.

[524] Verse 7.

[525] See above, p.171.

[526] The chief authorities for this period are as follows:—A. Ancient: the inscriptions of Nabonidus, last native King of Babylon, Cyrus and Darius I.; the Hebrew writings which were composed in, or record the history of, the period; the Greek historians Herodotus, fragments of Ctesias in Diodorus Sic. etc., of Abydenus in Eusebius, Berosus. B. Modern: Meyer’s and Duncker’s Histories of Antiquity; art. “Ancient Persia” in Encycl. Brit., by NÖldeke and Gutschmid; Sayce, Anc. Empires; the works of Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and Kosters given on p.192 [n.531]; recent histories of Israel, e.g. Stade’s, Wellhausen’s and Klostermann’s; P. Hay Hunter, After the Exile, a Hundred Years of Jewish History and Literature, 2 Vols., Edin. 1890; W. Fairweather, From the Exile to the Advent, Edin. 1895. On Ezra and Nehemiah see especially Ryle’s Commentary in the Cambridge Bible for Schools, and Bertheau-Ryssel’s in Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch: cf. also Charles C. Torrey, The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah, in the Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W., II., 1896.

[527] Ezra iv. 5–7, etc., vi. 1–14, etc.

[528] Havet, Revue des Deux Mondes, XCIV. 799 ff. (art. La ModernitÉ des ProphÈtes); Imbert (in defence of the historical character of the Book of Ezra), Le Temple Reconstruit par Zorobabel, extrait du MusÉon, 1888–9 (this I have not seen); Sir Henry Howorth in the Academy for 1893—see especially pp.320 ff.

[529] Another French writer, BellangÉ, in the MusÉon for 1890, quoted by Kuenen (Ges. Abhandl., p.213), goes further, and places Ezra and Nehemiah under the third Artaxerxes, Ochus (358—338).

[530] Ezra iv. 6—v.

[531] Kuenen, De Chronologie van het Perzische Tijdvak der Joodsche Geschiedenis, 1890, translated by Budde in Kuenen’s Gesammelte Abhandlungen, pp.212 ff.; Van Hoonacker, Zorobabel et le Second Temple (1892); Kosters, Het Herstel van Israel, in Het Perzische Tijdvak, 1894, translated by Basedow, Die Wiederherstellung Israels im Persischen Zeitalter, 1896.

[532] Hag. ii. 3.

[533] Zech. i. 12.

[534] Ezra iv. 5.

[535] Ezra ii. 2, iv. 1 ff., v. 2.

[536] As Kuenen shows, p.226, nothing can be deduced from Ezra vi. 14.

[537] P. 227; in answer to De Saulcy, Étude Chronologique des Livres d’Esdras et de NÉhÉmie (1868), Sept SiÈcles de l’Histoire JudaÏque (1874). De Saulcy’s case rests on the account of Josephus (XI. Ant. vii. 2–8: cf. ix. 1), the untrustworthy character of which and its confusion of two distant eras Kuenen has no difficulty in showing.

[538] When Nehemiah came to Jerusalem Eliyashib was high priest, and he was grandson of Jeshua, who was high priest in 520, or seventy-five years before; but between 520 and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes II. lie one hundred and thirty-six years. And again, the Artaxerxes of Ezra iv. 8–23, under whom the walls of Jerusalem were begun, was the immediate follower of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and therefore Artaxerxes I., and Van Hoonacker has shown that he must be the same as the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah.

[539] Kosters, p.43.

[540] vii. 1–8.

[541] Neh. xii. 36, viii., x.

[542] Vernes, PrÉcis d’Histoire Juive depuis les Origines jusqu’À l’Époque Persane (1889), pp.579 ff. (not seen); more recently also Charles C. Torrey of Andover, The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah, in the Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W., II., 1896.

[543] Pages 113 ff.

[544] Page 237.

[545] The failure of his too hasty and impetuous attempts at so wholesale a measure as the banishment of the heathen wives; or his return to Babylon, having accomplished his end. See Ryle, Ezra and Nehemiah, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools, Introd., pp.xl. f.

[546] 42,360, besides their servants, is the total sum given in Ezra ii. 64; but the detailed figures in Ezra amount only to 29,818, those in Nehemiah to 31,089, and those in 1 Esdras to 30,143 (other MSS. 30,678). See Ryle on Ezra ii. 64.

[547] Ezra i. 8.

[548] Ezra v. 14.

[549] Ib. 16.

[550] Ezra ii. 63.

[551] ???????? ?????????????: Ezra iii. 2, like Ezra i. 1–8, from the Compiler of Ezra-Nehemiah.

[552] ?????????? ???????????????????.

[553] Ezra ii. 2.

[554] Hag. i. 14, ii. 2, 21, and perhaps by Nehemiah (vii. 65–70). Nehemiah himself is styled both Pe?ah (xiv. 20) and Tirshatha (viii. 9, x. 1).

[555] As Daniel and his three friends had also Babylonian names.

[556] Ezra ii. 63.

[557] Cf. Ryle, xxxi ff.; and on Ezra i. 8, ii. 63.

[558] Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, II. 98 ff.: cf. Kuenen, Gesammelte Abhandl., 220.

[559] Ezra i. 8.

[560] Ezra i. compared with ii. 1.

[561] Some think to find this in 1 Esdras v. 1–6, where it is said that Darius, a name they take to be an error for that of Cyrus, brought up the exiles with an escort of a thousand cavalry, starting in the first month of the second year of the king’s reign. This passage, however, is not beyond suspicion as a gloss (see Ryle on Ezra i. 11), and even if genuine may be intended to describe a second contingent of exiles despatched by Darius I. in his second year, 520. The names given include that of Jesua, son of Josedec, and instead of Zerubbabel’s, that of his son Joacim.

[562] Ezra iii. 3–7.

[563] Ib. 8–13.

[564] Ezra iv. 7.

[565] See above, p.193.

[566] iv. 24.

[567] Ezra iv. 24—vi. 15.

[568] There are in the main two classes of such attempts. (a) Some have suggested that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and Artaxerxes mentioned in Ezra iv. 6 and 7 ff. are not the successors of Darius I. who bore these names, but titles of his predecessors Cambyses and the Pseudo-Smerdis (see above, p.190). This view has been disposed of by Kuenen, Ges. Abhandl., pp.224 ff., and by Ryle, pp.65 ff. (b) The attempt to prove that the Darius under whom the Temple was built was not Darius I. (521—485), the predecessor of Xerxes I. and Artaxerxes I. (485—424), but their successor once removed, Darius II., Nothus (423—404). So, in defence of the Book of Ezra, Imbert. For his theory and the answer to it see above, pp.191 f.

[569] See above, pp.192 ff.

[570] For his work see above, p.192, n.531. I regret that neither Wellhausen’s answer to it, nor Kosters’ reply to Wellhausen, was accessible to me in preparing this chapter. Nor did I read Mr. Torrey’s resume of Wellhausen’s answer, or Wellhausen’s notes to the second edition of his Isr. u. JÜd. Geschichte, till the chapter was written. Previous to Kosters, the Return under Cyrus had been called in question only by the very arbitrary French scholar M. Vernes in 1889–90.

[571] ii. 6 ff. Eng., 10 ff. Heb.

[572] His chief grounds for this analysis are (1) that in v. 1–5 the Jews are said to have begun to build the Temple in the second year of Darius, while in v. 16 the foundation-stone is said to have been laid under Cyrus; (2) the frequent want of connection throughout the passage; (3) an alleged doublet: in v. 17—vi. 1 search is said to have been made for the edict of Cyrus in Babylon, while in vi. 2 the edict is said to have been found in Ecbatana. But (1) and (3) are capable of very obvious explanations, and (2) is far from conclusive.—The remainder of the Aramaic text, iv. 8–24, Kosters seeks to prove is by the Chronicler or Compiler himself. As Torrey (op. cit., p.11) has shown, this “is as unlikely as possible.” At the most he may have made additions to the Aramaic document.

[573] Ezra v. 16.

[574] Above, pp.201 f.

[575] Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1. According to Kosters, the statement of the Aramaic document about the rebuilding of the Temple is therefore a pious invention of a literal fulfilment of prophecy. To this opinion Cheyne adheres (Introd. to the Book of Isaiah, 1895, p.xxxviii), and adds the further assumption that the Chronicler, being “shocked at the ascription to Cyrus (for the JudÆan builders have no credit given them) of what must, he thought, have been at least equally due to the zeal of the exiles,” invented his story in the earlier chapters of Ezra as to the part the exiles themselves took in the rebuilding. It will be noticed that these assumptions have precisely the value of such. They are merely the imputation of motives, more or less probable to the writers of certain statements, and may therefore be fairly met by probabilities from the other side. But of this more later on.

[576] This is the usual opinion of critics, who yet hold it to be genuine—e.g. Ryle.

[577] He seeks to argue that a List of Exiles returned under Cyrus in 536 could be of no use for Nehemiah’s purpose to obtain in 445 a census of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; but surely, if in his efforts to make a census Nehemiah discovered the existence of such a List, it was natural for him to give it as the basis of his inquiry, or (because the List—see above, p.203—contains elements from Nehemiah’s own time) to enlarge it and bring it down to date. But Dr. Kosters thinks also that, as Nehemiah would never have broken the connection of his memoirs with such a List, the latter must have been inserted by the Compiler, who at this point grew weary of the discursiveness of the memoirs, broke from them, and then—inserted this lengthy List! This is simply incredible—that he should seek to atone for the diffuseness of Nehemiah’s memoirs by the intrusion of a very long catalogue which had no relevance to the point at which he broke them off.

[578] Hag. i. 2, 12; ii. 14.

[579] Hag. i. 12, 14; ii. 2; Zech. viii. 6, 11, 12.

[580] Hag. ii. 4; Zech. vii. 5.

[581] Zech. ii. 16; viii. 13, 15.

[582] It is used in Hag. i. 12, 14, ii. 2, only after the mention of the leaders; see, however, Pusey’s note 9 to Hag. i. 12; while in Zech. viii. 6, 11, 18, it might be argued that it was employed in such a way as to cover not only Jews who had never left their land, but all Jews as well who were left of ancient Israel.

[583] Compare Cheyne, Introduction to the Book of Isaiah, 1895, xxxv. ff., who says that in the main points Kosters’ conclusions “appear so inevitable” that he has “constantly presupposed them” in dealing with chaps. lvi.—lxvi. of Isaiah; and Torrey, op. cit., 1896, p.53: “Kosters has demonstrated, from the testimony of Haggai and Zechariah, that Zerubbabel and Jeshua were not returned exiles; and furthermore, that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah knew nothing of an important return of exiles from Babylonia.” Cf. also Wildeboer, Litteratur des A. T., pp.291ff.

[584] iv. 4.

[585] Of course it is always possible that, if there had been no great Return from Babylon under Cyrus, the community at Jerusalem in 520 had not heard of the prophecies of the Second Isaiah.

[586] This argument, it is true, does not fully account for the curious fact that Haggai and Zechariah never call the Jewish community at Jerusalem by a name significant of their return from exile. But in reference to this it ought to be noted that even the Aramaic document in the Book of Ezra which records the Return under Cyrus does not call the builders of the Temple by any name which implies that they have come up from exile, but styles them simply the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem (Ezra v. 1), in contrast to the Jews who were in foreign lands.

[587] Indeed, why does he ignore the whole Exile itself if no return from it has taken place?

[588] Zech. ii. 10–17 Heb., 6–13 Eng.

[589] E.g. Stade, Kuenen (op. cit., p.216). So, too, Klostermann, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, MÜnchen, 1896. Wellhausen, in the second edition of his Gesch., does not admit that the List is one of exiles returned under Cyrus (p.155, n.).

[590] ix. 4; x. 6, 7.

[591] Op. cit., p.216, where he also quotes the testimony of the Book of Daniel (ix. 25).

[592] Since writing the above I have seen the relevant notes to the second edition of Wellhausen’s Gesch., pp.155 and 160. “The refounding of Jerusalem and the Temple cannot have started from the Jews left behind in Palestine.” “The remnant left in the land would have restored the old popular cultus of the high places. Instead of that we find even before Ezra the legitimate cultus and the hierocracy in Jerusalem: in the Temple-service proper Ezra discovers nothing to reform. Without the leaven of the GÔlah the Judaism of Palestine is in its origin incomprehensible.”

[593] The inscription of Cyrus is sometimes quoted to this effect: cf. P. Hay Hunter, op. cit., I. 35. But it would seem that the statement of Cyrus is limited to the restoration of Assyrian idols and their worshippers to Assur and Akkad. Still, what he did in this case furnishes a strong argument for the probability of his having done the same in the case of the Jews.

[594] See above, p.206, and especially n.575.

[595] Even Cheyne, after accepting Kosters’ conclusions as in the main points inevitable (op. cit., p.xxxv), considers (p.xxxviii) that “the earnestness of Haggai and Zechariah (who cannot have stood alone) implies the existence of a higher religious element at Jerusalem long before 432 B.C. Whence came this higher element but from its natural home among the more cultured Jews in Babylonia?”

[596] Ezra iii. 8–13.

[597] Schrader, “Ueber die Dauer des Tempelbaues,” in Stud. u. Krit., 1879, 460 ff.; Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, II. 115 ff.; Kuenen, op. cit., p.222; Kosters, op. cit., Chap.I., § 1. To this opinion others have adhered: KÖnig (Einleit. in das A. T.), Ryssel (op. cit.) and Marti (2nd edition of Kayser’s Theol. des A. T., p.200). Schrader (p.563) argues that Ezra iii. 8–13 was not founded on a historical document, but is an imitation of Neh. vii. 73—viii.; and Stade that the Aramaic document in Ezra which ascribes the laying of the foundation-stone to Sheshbazzar, the legate of Cyrus, was not earlier than 430.

[598] Ryle, op. cit., p.xxx.

[599] Stade, Wellhausen, etc. See below, Chap.XVIII. on Hag. ii. 18.

[600] See above, pp.210 f.

[601] Ezra iv. 24, v. 1.

[602] Ezra v. 6.

[603] Ib. 13.

[604] Ib. 16.

[605] Gesch., II., p.123.

[606] See above, p.213.

[607] Ezra iv. 1–4. “That the relation of Ezra iv. 1–4 is historical seems to be established against objections which have been taken to it by the reference to Esarhaddon, which A.v.Gutschmid has vindicated by an ingenious historical combination with the aid of the Assyrian monuments (Neue BeitrÄge, p.145).”—Robertson Smith, art. “Haggai,” Encyc. Brit.

[608] Cf. Hist. Geog., pp.317 ff.

[609] Ezra iv.

[610] There was a sharp skirmish at Rabbath-Ammon the night we spent there, and at least one Circassian was shot.

[611] “Sheshbazzar presumably having taken up his task with the usual conscientiousness of an Oriental governor, that is having done nothing though the work was nominally in hand all along (Ezra v. 16).”—Robertson Smith, art. “Haggai,” Encyc. Brit.

[612] See below, Chap.XVIII.

[613] Herod., I. 130, III. 127.

[614] 1 Chron. iii. 19 makes him a son of Pedaiah, brother of She’altÎ’el, son of Jehoiachin, the king who was carried away by Nebuchadrezzar in 597 and remained captive till 561, when King Evil-Merodach set him in honour. It has been supposed that, She’altÎ’el dying childless, Pedaiah by levirate marriage with his widow became father of Zerubbabel.

[615] In the English Bible the division corresponds to that of the Hebrew, which gives fifteen verses to chap.i. The LXX. takes the fifteenth verse along with ver.1 of chap.ii.

[616] ii. 9, 14: see on these passages, n.685, n.700.

[617] Besides the general works on the text of the Twelve Prophets, already cited, M. Tony AndrÉe has published État Critique du Texte d’AggÉe: Quatre Tableaux Comparatifs (Paris, 1893), which is also included in his general introduction and commentary on the prophet, quoted below.

[618] Robertson Smith (Encyc. Brit., art. “Haggai,” 1880) does not even mention authenticity. “Without doubt from Haggai himself” (Kuenen). “The Book of Haggai is without doubt to be dated, according to its whole extant contents, from the prophet Haggai, whose work fell in the year 520” (KÖnig). So Driver, Kirkpatrick, Cornill, etc.

[619] Z.A.T.W., 1887, 215 f.

[620] So also Wellhausen.

[621] Which occurs only in the LXX.

[622] See note on that verse [n.694].

[623] Cf. Wildeboer, Litter. des A. T., 294.

[624] Le ProphÈte AggÉe, Introduction Critique et Commentaire. Paris, Fischbacher, 1893.

[625] Page 151.

[626] Below, p.249.

[627] i. 10, 11.

[628] ii. 17.

[629] They follow drought in Amos iv. 9; and in the other passages where they occur—Deut. xxviii. 22; 1 Kings viii. 37; 2 Chron. vi. 28—they are mentioned in a list of possible plagues after famine, or pestilence, or fevers, all of which, with the doubtful exception of fevers, followed drought.

[630] Above, p.216; below, p.248, n.708.

[631] Some of M. AndrÉe’s alleged differences need not be discussed at all, e.g. that between ???? and ????. But here are the others. He asserts that while chap.i. calls oil and wine “yi?har and tÎrÔsh,” chap.ii. (10) 11–19 calls them “yayin and shemen.” But he overlooks the fact that the former pair of names, meaning the newly pressed oil and wine, suit their connection, in which the fruits of the earth are being catalogued, i. 11, while the latter pair, meaning the finished wine and oil, equally suit their connection, in which articles of food are being catalogued, ii. 12. Equally futile is the distinction drawn between i. 9, which speaks of bringing the crops to the house, or as we should say home, and ii. 19, which speaks of seed being in the barn. Again, what is to be said of a critic who adduces in evidence of distinction of authorship the fact that i. 6 employs the verb labhash, to clothe, while ii. 12 uses beged for garment, and who actually puts in brackets the root bagad, as if it anywhere in the Old Testament meant to clothe! Again, AndrÉe remarks that while ii. (10) 11–19 does not employ the epithet Jehovah of Hosts, but only Jehovah, the rest of the book frequently uses the former; but he omits to observe that the rest of the book, besides using Jehovah of Hosts, often uses the name Jehovah alone [the phrase in ii. (10) 11–19 is ??? ????, and occurs twice ii. 14, 17; but the rest of the book has also ??? ????, ii. 4; and besides ??? ????, i. 1, ii. 1, ii. 20; ??? ????, i. 8; and ???? ????? and ???? ????, i. 12]. Again, AndrÉe observes that while the rest of the book designates Israel always by ?? and the heathen by ???, chap.ii. (10) 11–19, in ver.14, uses both terms of Israel. Yet in this latter case ??? is used only in parallel to ??, as frequently in other parts of the Old Testament. Again, that while in the rest of the book Haggai is called the prophet (the doubtful i. 13 may be omitted), he is simply named in ii. (10) 11–19, means nothing, for the name here occurs only in introducing his contribution to a conversation, in recording which it was natural to omit titles. Similarly insignificant is the fact that while the rest of the book mentions only the High Priest, chap.ii. (10) 11–19 talks only of the priests: because here again each is suitable to the connection.—Two or three of AndrÉe’s alleged grounds (such as that from the names for wine and oil and that from labhash and beged) are enough to discredit his whole case.

[632] ii. 15, 18.

[633] In this opinion, stated first by Eichhorn, most critics agree.

[634] Marcus Dods, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, 1879, in Handbooks for Bible Classes: Edin., T. & T. Clark.

[635] ??????, Greek ???a???.

[636] ??????, Gen. xlvi. 16, Num. xxvi. 15; Greek ???e?, ???e??. The feminine ???????, Haggith, was the name of one of David’s wives: 2 Sam. iii. 4.

[637] No. 67 of the Phoenician inscriptions in C. I. S.

[638] Hiller, Onom. Sacrum, TÜb., 1706 (quoted by AndrÉe), and Pusey.

[639] ?????????, see 1 Chron. vi. 15; Greek ????a, Lu. ??a?a.

[640] KÖhler, Nachexil. Proph., I. 2; Wellhausen in fourth edition of Bleek’s Einleitung; Robertson Smith, Encyc. Brit., art. “Haggai.”

[641] ????? = Jehovah hath girded.

[642] Derenbourg, Hist. de la Palestine, pp.95, 150.

[643] Jerome, Gesenius, and most moderns.

[644] As in the names ?????? ,????????? ,???????????, etc.

[645] The radical double g of which appears in composition.

[646] Op. cit., p.8.

[647] i. 1, the new moon; ii. 1, the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles; ii. 18, the foundation of the Temple (?).

[648] Baba-bathra, 15a, etc.

[649] Megilla, 2b.

[650] Hesychius: see above, p.80, n.

[651] Augustine, Enarratio in Psalm cxlvii.

[652] Pseud-Epiphanius, De Vitis Prophetarum.

[653] Jerome on Hag. i. 13.

[654] Eusebius did not find these titles in the Hexaplar Septuagint. See Field’s Hexaplar on Psalm cxlv. 1. The titles are of course wholly without authority.

[655] Pseud-Epiphanius, as above.

[656] So Ewald, Wildeboer (p.295) and others.

[657] See above, pp.210-18, and emphasise specially the facts that the most pronounced adherents of Kosters’ theory seek to qualify his absolute negation of a Return under Cyrus, by the admission that some Jews did return; and that even Stade, who agrees in the main with Schrader that no attempt was made by the Jews to begin building the Temple till 520, admits the probability of a stone being laid by Sheshbazzar about 536.

[658] See above, pp.218 ff.

[659] Hag. i. 4.

[660] Art. “Haggai,” Encyc. Brit.

[661] Heb. Daryavesh.

[662] Heb. by the hand of.

[663] See above, pp.199 f. and 221.

[664] See below, pp.258, 279, 292 ff.

[665] Heb. saying.

[666] For ??? ???????? = not the time of coming read with Hitzig and Wellhausen ??? ????? ???, not now is come; for ????? cf. Ezek. xxiii. 4, Psalm lxxiv. 6.

[667] The emphasis may be due only to the awkward grammatical construction.

[668] ??????, from ???, to cover with planks of cedar, 2 Kings vi. 9: cf. iii. 7.

[669] Heb. set your hearts (see Vol. I., pp.258, 275, 321, 323) upon your ways; but your ways cannot mean here, as elsewhere, your conduct, but obviously from what follows the ways you have been led, the way things have gone with you—the barren seasons and little income.

[670] The Hebrew and Versions here insert set your hearts upon your ways, obviously a mere clerical repetition from ver.5.

[671] For ???? ???? read with the LXX. ???? ???? or ????.

[672] The ????? here inserted in the Hebrew text is unparsable, not found in the LXX. and probably a clerical error by dittography from the preceding ?????.

[673] Heb. heavens are shut from dew. But perhaps the ? of ??? should be deleted. So Wellhausen. There is no instance of an intransitive Qal of ???.

[674] Query?

[675] Vol. I., 162 ff.

[676] See above, p.277.

[677] The LXX. wrongly takes this last verse of chap.i. as the first half of the first verse of chap.ii.

[678] Lev. xxiii. 34, 36, 40–42.

[679] By the hand of.

[680] ????? ??????? ??????? ????????????. Literally, is not the like of it as nothing in your eyes? But that can hardly be the meaning. It might be equivalent to is it not, as it stands, as nothing in your eyes? But the fact is that in Hebrew construction of a simple, unemphasised comparison, the comparing particle ? stands before both objects compared: as, for instance, in the phrase (Gen.xliv.18) ???? ??????? ??????????, thou art as Pharaoh.

[681] Literally: be strong.

[682] It is difficult to say whether high priest belongs to the text or not.

[683] Here occurs the anacolouthic clause, introduced by an acc. without a verb, which is not found in the LXX. and is probably a gloss (see above, p.241): The promise which I made with you in your going forth from Egypt.

[684] Hebrew has singular, costly thing or desirableness, ???????? (fem, for neut.), but the verb shall come is in the plural, and the LXX. has ta ???e?t?, the choice things. See below, next page [243].

[685] The LXX. add a parallel clause ?a? e?????? f???? e?? pe??p???s?? pa?t? t? ?t????t? t?? ??ast?sa? t?? ?a?? t??t??, which would read in Hebrew ?????????? ?????? ????????? ?????????????? ???????? ???????? ??????. On ???? Wellhausen cites 1 Chron. xi. 8, = restore or revive.

[686] = ???????? longing, 2 Chron. xxi. 2, and object of longing, Dan. xi. 37. It is the feminine or neuter, and might be rendered as a collective, desirable things. Pusey cites Cicero’s address to his wife: Valete, mea desideria, valete (Ep. ad Famil., xiv. 2 fin.).

[687] ??????? plural feminine of pass. part., as in Gen. xxvii. 15, where it is an adjective, but used as a noun = precious things, Dan. xi. 38, 43, which use meets the objection of Pusey, in loco, where he wrongly maintains that precious things, if intended, must have been expressed by ??????????.

[688] ??e? t? ???e?t? p??t?? t?? ?????. Theodore of Mopsuestia takes it as elect persons of all nations, to which a few moderns adhere.

[689] Augustini Contra Donatistas post Collationem, cap.xx. 30 (Migne, Latin Patrology, XLIII., p.671).

[690] Calvin, Comm. in Haggai, ii. 6–9.

[691] Deut. xvii. 8 ff.: ??????? ????????? ?????? ????????. Compare the expression ??????? ??????, in 2 Chron. xv. 3, and the duties of the teaching priests assigned by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xvii. 7–9) to the days of Jehoshaphat.

[692] Note that it is not the Torah, but a Torah.

[693] The nearest passage to the deliverance of the priests to Haggai is Lev. vi. 20, 21 (Heb.), 27, 28 (Eng.). This is part of the Priestly Code not promulgated till 445 B.C., but based, of course, on long extant custom, some of it very ancient. Everything that touches the flesh (of the sin-offering, which is holy) shall be holy—?????????, the verb used by the priests in their answer to Haggai—and when any of its blood has been sprinkled on a garment, that whereon it was sprinkled shall be washed in a holy place. The earthen vessel wherein it has been boiled shall be broken, and if it has been boiled in a brazen vessel, this shall be scoured and rinsed with water.

[694] So several old edd. and many codd., and adopted by Baer (see his note in loco) in his text. But most of the edd. of the Massoretic text read ??? after Cod. Hill. For the importance of the question see above, p.227.

[695] Torah.

[696] ?????? ??????.

[697] There does not appear to be the contrast between indirect contact with a holy thing and direct contact with a polluted which Wellhausen says there is. In either case the articles whose character is in question stand second from the source of holiness and pollution—the holy flesh and the corpse.

[698] See above, p.245, n.693.

[699] Pusey, in loco.

[700] The LXX. have here found inserted three other clauses: ??e?e? t?? ???t?? a?t?? t?? ????????, ?d?????s??ta? ?p? p??s?p?? p???? a?t??, ?a? ??se?te ?? p??a?? ???????ta?. The first clause is a misreading (Wellhausen), ????? ????????? ?????? for ????? ?????????? ??????, because ye take a bribe, and goes well with the third clause, modified from Amos v. 10: ???????? ???????? ????????, they hate him who reproves in the gate. These may have been inserted into the Hebrew text by some one puzzled to know what the source of the people’s pollution was, and who absurdly found it in sins which in Haggai’s time it was impossible to impute to them. The middle clause, ?????????? ???????? ??????????, they vex themselves with their labours, is suitable to the sense of the Hebrew text of the verse, as Wellhausen points out, but besides gives a connection with what follows.

[701] From this day and onward.

[702] Heb. literally since they were. A.V. since those days were.

[703] Winevat, ?????, is distinguished from winepress, ??, in Josh. ix. 13, and is translated by the Greek ?p??????? Mark xii. I, ????? Matt. xxi. 33, dug a pit for the winepress; but the name is applied sometimes to the whole winepress—Hosea ix. 2 etc., Job xxiv. 11, to tread the winepress. The word translated measures, as in LXX. et??t??, is ???????, and that is properly the vat in which the grapes were trodden (Isa. lxiii. 3), but here it can scarcely mean fifty vatfuls, but must refer to some smaller measure—cask?

[704] See above, pp.228 f., n.625.

[705] The words omitted cannot be construed in the Hebrew, ?????????????? ?????, literally and not you (acc.) to Me. Hitzig, etc., propose to read ??????? and render there was none with you who turned to Me. Others propose ????????, as if none of you turned to Me. Others retain ??????? and render as for you. The versions LXX. Syr., Vulg. ye will not return or did not return to Me, reading perhaps for ??? ????????? ,???? ???????, which is found in Amos iv. 9, of which the rest of the verse is an echo. Wellhausen deletes the whole verse as a gloss. It is certainly suspicious, and remarkable in that the LXX. text has already introduced two citations from Amos. See above on ver.14.

[706] Heb. from this day backwards.

[707] The date Wellhausen thinks was added by a later hand.

[708] This is the ambiguous clause on different interpretations of which so much has been founded: ????????????? ????????????? ??????????????. Does this clause, in simple parallel to the previous one, describe the day on which the prophet was speaking, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, the terminus a quo of the people’s retrospect? In that case Haggai regards the foundation-stone of the Temple as laid on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month 520 B.C., and does not know, or at least ignores, any previous laying of a foundation-stone. So Kuenen, Kosters, AndrÉe, etc. Or does ??? signify up to the time the foundation-stone was laid, and state a terminus ad quem for the people’s retrospect? So Ewald and others, who therefore find in the verse a proof that Haggai knew of an earlier laying of the foundation-stone. But that ??? is ever used for ??? cannot be proved, and indeed is disproved by Jer. vii. 7, where it occurs in contrast to ???. Van Hoonacker finds the same, but in a more subtle translation of ???. ??, he says, is never used except of a date distant from the speaker or writer of it; ??? (if I understand him aright) refers therefore to a date previous to Haggai to which the people’s thoughts are directed by the ? and then brought back from it to the date at which he was speaking by means of the ??: “la prÉposition ? signifie la direction de l’esprit vers une Époque du passÉ d’oÙ il est ramenÉ par la prÉposition ??.” But surely ?? can be used (as indeed Haggai has just used it) to signify extension backwards from the standpoint of the speaker; and although in the passages cited by Van Hoonacker of the use of ??? it always refers to a past date—Deut. ix. 7, Judg. xix. 30, 2 Sam. vi. 11, Jer. vii. 7 and 25—still, as it is there nothing but a pleonastic form for ??, it surely might be employed as ?? is sometimes employed for departure from the present backwards. Nor in any case is it used to express what Van Hoonacker seeks to draw from it here, the idea of direction of the mind to a past event and then an immediate return from that. Had Haggai wished to express that idea he would have phrased it thus: ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??? (as Kosters remarks). Besides, as Kosters has pointed out (pp.7 ff. of the Germ. trans. of Het Herstel, etc.), even if Van Hoonacker’s translation of ??? were correct, the context would show that it might refer only to a laying of the foundation-stone since Haggai’s first address to the people, and therefore the question of an earlier foundation-stone under Cyrus would remain unsolved. Consequently Haggai ii. 18 cannot be quoted as a proof of the latter. See above, p.216.

[709] Meaning there is none.

[710] ???? or ????? for ?????, after LXX. ?a? e? ?t?.

[711] The twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, according to chap.i. 15.

[712] See above, p.228.

[713]

[714] Only in xxxiv. 24, xxxvii. 22, 24.

[715] ?????: cf. Skinner, Ezekiel (Expositor’s Bible Series), pp. 447 ff., who, however, attributes the diminution of the importance of the civil head in Israel, not to the feeling that he would henceforth always be subject to a foreign emperor, but to the conviction that in the future he will be “overshadowed by the personal presence of Jehovah in the midst of His people.”

[716] See above, p.227.

[717] LXX. enlarges: and the sea and the dry land.

[718] Heb. sing. collect. LXX. plural.

[719] Again a sing. coll.

[720] See above, pp.225 ff.

[721] Below, p.308.

[722] Ezra v. 1, vi. 14.

[723] i. 12, vii. 5: reckoning in round numbers from 590, midway between the two Exiles of 597 and 586, that brings us to about 520, the second year of Darius.

[724] ii. 6 (Eng., Heb. 10). On the question whether the Book of Zechariah gives no evidence of a previous Return from Babylon see above, pp.208 ff.

[725] viii. 7, etc.

[726] viii. 4, 5.

[727] iii. 1–10, iv. 6–10, vi. 11 ff.

[728] viii. 9, 10.

[729] i. 1–6.

[730] i. 7–17.

[731] iv. 6–10.

[732] i. 7–21 (Eng., Heb. i. 7—ii. 4).

[733] iv. 6 ff.

[734] iii., iv.

[735] i. 16.

[736] v.

[737] vii. 3.

[738] vii. 1–7, viii. 18, 19.

[739] viii. 20–23.

[740] viii. 16, 17.

[741] viii. 20–23.

[742] ii. 10 f. Heb., 6 f. LXX. and Eng.

[743] Though the expression I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven seems to imply the Exile before any return.

[744] For the bearing of this on Kosters’ theory of the Return see pp.211f.

[745] See below, p.300.

[746] Outside the Visions the prophecies contain these echoes or repetitions of earlier writers: chap.i. 1–6 quotes the constant refrain of prophetic preaching before the Exile, and in chap.vii. 7–14 (ver.8 must be deleted) is given a summary of that preaching; in chap. viii. ver.3 echoes Isa. i. 21, 26, city of troth, and Jer. xxxi. 23, mountain of holiness (there is really no connection, as Kuenen holds, between ver.4 and Isa. lxv. 20; it would create more interesting questions as to the date of the latter if there were); ver.8 is based on Hosea ii. 15 Heb., 19 Eng., and Jer. xxxi. 33; ver.12 is based on Hosea ii. 21 f. (Heb. 23 f.); with ver.13 compare Jer. xlii. 18, a curse; vv. 21 ff. with Isa. ii. 3 and Micah iv. 2.

[747] E.g. vii. 5, ?????????? ????? for ???????? ???: cf. Ewald, Syntax, § 315b. The curious use of the acc. in the following verse is perhaps only apparent; part of the text may have fallen out.

[748] Though there are not wanting, of course, echoes here as in the other prophecies of older writings, e.g. i. 12, 17.

[749] ????, saying, ii. 8 (Gr. ii. 4); iv. 5, And the angel who spoke with me said; i. 17, cf. vi. 5. All is inserted in i. 11, iii. 9; lord in ii. 2; of hosts (after Jehovah) viii. 17; and there are other instances of palpable expansion, e.g. i. 6, 8, ii. 4 bis, 6, viii. 19.

[750] E.g. ii. 2, iv. 2, 13, v. 9, vi. 12 bis, vii. 8: cf. also vi.13.

[751] i. 8 ff., iii. 4 ff.: cf. also vi. 3 with vv. 6 f.

[752] E.g. (but this is outside the Visions) the very flagrant misunderstanding to which the insertion of vii.8 is due.

[753] v. 6, ???? for ???? as in LXX., and the last words of v. 11; perhaps vi. 10; and almost certainly vii.2a.

[754] Chap.iv. On 6a, 10b-14 should immediately follow, and 6b-10a come after 14.

[755] vi. 11 ff. See below, pp.308 f.

[756] Chief variants: i. 8, 10; ii. 15; iii. 4; iv. 7, 12; v. 1, 3, 4, 9; vi. 10, 13; vii. 3; viii. 8, 9, 12, 20. Obvious mistranslations or misreadings: ii. 9, 10, 15, 17; iii. 4; iv. 7, 10; v. 1, 4, 9; vi. 10, cf. 14; vii.3.

[757] ?????????; LXX. ?a?a??a?.

[758] i. 1: ?????????????? ???????????. In i. 7: ???????????? ????????????.

[759] Ezra v. 1, vi. 14: ????????????.

[760] Gen. xxiv. 47, cf. xxix. 5; 1 Kings xix. 16, cf. 2 Kings ix. 14, 20.

[761] Isa. viii. 2: ??????????????????. This confusion, which existed in early Jewish and Christian times, Knobel, Von Ortenberg, Bleek, Wellhausen and others take to be due to the effort to find a second Zechariah for the authorship of chaps. ix. ff.

[762] So Vatke, KÖnig and many others. Marti prefers it (Der Prophet Sacharja, p.58). See also Ryle on Ezra v. 1.

[763] Neh. xii. 4.

[764] Ib. 16.

[765] This is not proved, as Pusey, KÖnig (Einl., p.364) and others think, by ?????, or young man, of the Third Vision (ii. 8 Heb., ii. 4 LXX. and Eng.). Cf. Wright, Zechariah and his Prophecies, p.xvi.

[766] v. 1, vi. 14.

[767] Above, p.260.

[768] More than this we do not know of Zechariah. The Jewish and Christian traditions of him are as unfounded as those of other prophets. According to the Jews he was, of course, a member of the mythical Great Synagogue. See above on Haggai, pp.232 f. As in the case of the prophets we have already treated, the Christian traditions of Zechariah are found in (Pseud-)Epiphanius, De Vitis Prophetarum, Dorotheus, and Hesychius, as quoted above, p.80. They amount to this, that Zechariah, after predicting in Babylon the birth of Zerubbabel, and to Cyrus his victory over Croesus and his treatment of the Jews, came in his old age to Jerusalem, prophesied, died and was buried near Beit-Jibrin—another instance of the curious relegation by Christian tradition of the birth and burial places of so many of the prophets to that neighbourhood. Compare Beit-Zakharya, 12 miles from Beit-Jibrin. Hesychius says he was born in Gilead. Dorotheus confuses him, as the Jews did, with Zechariah of Isa. viii. 1. See above, p.265, n.761.

Zechariah was certainly not the Zechariah whom our Lord describes as slain between the Temple and the Altar (Matt. xxiii. 35; Luke xi. 51). In the former passage alone is this Zechariah called the son of Barachiah. In the Evang. Nazar. Jerome read the son of Yehoyada. Both readings may be insertions. According to 2 Chron. xxiv. 21, in the reign of Joash, Zechariah, the son of Yehoyada the priest, was stoned in the court of the Temple, and according to Josephus (IV. Wars, v. 4), in the year 68 A.D. Zechariah son of Baruch was assassinated in the Temple by two zealots. The latter murder may, as Marti remarks (pp.58 f.), have led to the insertion of Barachiah into Matt. xxiii. 35.

[769] ii. 13, 15; iv. 9; vi. 15.

[770] LXX. ?dd?. See above, p.264.

[771] Heb. angered with anger; Gr. with great anger.

[772] As in LXX.

[773] LXX. has misunderstood and expanded this verse.

[774] It is to be noticed that Zechariah appeals to the Torah of the prophets, and does not mention any Torah of the priests. Cf. Smend, A. T. Rel. Gesch., pp.176 f.

[775] Page 267, n.769.

[776] This picture is given in one of the Visions: the Third.

[777] iv. 6. Unless this be taken as an earlier prophecy. See above, p.260.

[778] ii. 9, 10 Heb., 5, 6 LXX. and Eng.

[779] See above, p.214, where this is stated as an argument against Kosters’ theory that there was no Return from Babylon in the reign of Cyrus.

[780] Vv. 17 and 19.

[781] See Zechariah’s Fifth Vision.

[782] xliv. 1 ff.

[783] xlv. 22.

[784] xliv. 23, 24.

[785] Its origin was the Exile, whether its date be before or after the First Return under Cyrus in 537 B.C.

[786] Fourth Vision, chap.iii.

[787] vi. 9–15.

[788] See ver.11. [p.380]

[789] ii. 20–23.

[790] iii. 8.

[791] ?????? ????????? ????. The verb (Piel) originally means to make weak or flaccid (the Kal means to be sick), and so to soften or weaken by flattery. 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings xiii. 6, etc.

[792] First Vision, chap.i. 11.

[793] Second Vision, ii. 1–4 Heb., i. 18–21 LXX. and Eng.

[794] Eighth Vision, chap.vi. 1–8.

[795] xxi. 36 Heb., 31 Eng.: skilful to destroy.

[796] See next chapter [XXII].

[797] Jer. xxv. 12; Hag. ii. 7.

[798] Myrtles were once common in the Holy Land, and have been recently found (Hasselquist, Travels). For their prevalence near Jerusalem see Neh. viii. 15. They do not appear to have any symbolic value in the Vision.

[799] For a less probable explanation see above, p.282.

[800] See pp.311, 313, etc.

[801] Ewald omits riding a brown horse, as “marring the lucidity of the description, and added from a misconception by an early hand.” But we must not expect lucidity in a phantasmagoria like this.

[802] ???????, Me?ullah, either shadow from ???, or for ????????, ravine, or else a proper name. The LXX., which uniformly for ?????????, myrtles, reads ????, mountains, renders ??? ????? by t?? ?atas????. Ewald and Hitzig read ????????, Arab, mizhallah, shadowing or tent.

[803] Heb. ?????, only here. For this LXX. gives two kinds, ?a? ?a??? ?a? p???????, and dappled and piebald. Wright gives a full treatment of the question, pp.531 ff. He points out that the cognate word in Arabic means sorrel, or yellowish red.

[804] Who stood among the myrtles omitted by Nowack.

[805] Isa. xxxvii. 29; Jer. xlviii. 11; Psalm cxxiii. 4; Zeph. i. 12.

[806] Or for.

[807] Who talked with me omitted by Nowack.

[808] Heb. helped for evil, or till it became a calamity.

[809] Marcus Dods, Hag., Zech. and Mal., p.71. Orelli: “In distinction from Daniel, Zechariah is fond of a simultaneous survey, not the presenting of a succession.”

[810] For the symbolism of iron horns see Micah iv. 13, and compare Orelli’s note, in which it is pointed out that the destroyers must be smiths as in Isa. xliv. 12, workmen of iron, and not as in LXX. carpenters.

[811] Wellhausen and Nowack delete Israel and Jerusalem; the latter does not occur in Codd. A, Q, of Septuagint.

[812] Wellhausen reads, after Mal. ii. 9, ??? ???, so that it lifted not its head; but in that case we should not find ??????, but ?????????.

[813] ?????, but LXX. read ?????, and either that or some verb of cutting must be read.

[814] The Hebrew, literally comes forth, is the technical term throughout the Visions for the entrance of the figures upon the stage of vision.

[815] LXX. ?st??e?, stood up: adopted by Nowack.

[816] Psalm xxiv.

[817] Isa. xvii. 12–14.

[818] Psalm cxxii. 3.

[819] Some codd. read with the four winds. LXX. from the four winds will I gather you (s????? ???), and this is adopted by Wellhausen and Nowack. But it is probably a later change intended to adapt the poem to its new context.

[820] Dweller of the daughter of Babel. But ??, daughter, is mere dittography of the termination of the preceding word.

[821] A curious phrase here occurs in the Heb. and versions, After glory hath He sent me, which we are probably right in omitting. In any case it is a parenthesis, and ought to go not with sent me but with saith Jehovah of Hosts.

[822] So LXX. Heb. to me.

[823] Cf. Zeph. i. 7; Hab. ii. 20. “Among the Arabians, after the slaughter of the sacrificial victim, the participants stood for some time in silence about the altar. That was the moment in which the Deity approached in order to take His share in the sacrifice.” (Smend, A. T. Rel. Gesch., p.124).

[824] Cf. vv. 1 and 2.

[825] See below, p.318.

[826] In this Vision the verb to stand before is used in two technical senses: (a) of the appearance of plaintiff and defendant before their judge (vv. 1 and 3); (b) of servants before their masters (vv. 4 and 7).

[827] See below, p.294, n.835.

[828] Isa. iv. 2, xi. 1; Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15; Isa. liii. 2. Stade (Gesch. des Volkes Isr., II. 125), followed by Marti (Der Proph. Sach., 85 n.), suspects the clause I will bring in My Servant the Branch as a later interpolation, entangling the construction and finding in this section no further justification.

[829] Or Adversary; see p.317.

[830] To Satan him: slander, or accuse, him.

[831] That is the Angel of Jehovah, which Wellhausen and Nowack read; but see below, p.314.

[832] This clause interrupts the Angel’s speech to the servants. Wellh. and Nowack omit it. ????? cf. 2 Sam. xii. 13; Job vii. 21.

[833] So LXX. Heb. has a degraded grammatical form, clothe thyself which has obviously been made to suit the intrusion of the previous clause, and is therefore an argument against the authenticity of the latter.

[834] LXX. omits I said and reads Let them put as another imperative, Do ye put, following on the two of the previous verse. Wellhausen adopts this (reading ???? for ?????). Though it is difficult to see how ???? dropped out of the text if once there, it is equally so to understand why if not original it was inserted. The whole passage has been tampered with. If we accept the Massoretic text, then we have a sympathetic interference in the vision of the dreamer himself which is very natural; and he speaks, as is proper, not in the direct, but indirect, imperative, Let them put.

[835] ??????, the headdress of rich women (Isa. iii. 23), as of eminent men (Job xxix. 14), means something wound round and round the head (cf. the use of ??? to form like a ball in Isa. xxii. 18, and the use of ???? (to wind) to express the putting on of the headdress (Ezek. xvi. 10, etc.)). Hence turban seems to be the proper rendering. Another form from the same root, ?????, is the name of the headdress of the Prince of Israel (Ezek. xxi. 31); and in the Priestly Codex of the Pentateuch the headdress of the high priest (Exod. xxviii. 37, etc.).

[836] Wellhausen takes the last words of ver.5 with ver.6, reads ????? and renders And the Angel of Jehovah stood up or stepped forward. But even if ????? be read, the order of the words would require translation in the pluperfect, which would come to the same as the original text. And if Wellhausen’s proposal were correct the words Angel of Jehovah in ver.6 would be superfluous.

[837] Read ?????????? (Smend, A. T. Rel. Gesch., p.324, n.2).

[838] Or facets.

[839] E.g. Marti, Der Prophet Sacharja, p.83.

[840] Hitzig, Wright and many others. On the place of this stone in the legends of Judaism see Wright, pp.75f.

[841] Ewald, Marcus Dods.

[842] Von Orelli, Volck.

[843] Bredenkamp.

[844] Wellhausen, in loco, and Smend, A. T. Rel. Gesch., 345.

[845] So Marti, p.88.

[846] 1 Kings vii. 49.

[847] 1 Macc. i. 21; iv. 49, 50. Josephus, XIV. Ant. iv. 4.

[848] LXX. Heb. has seven sevens of pipes.

[849] Wellhausen reads its right and deletes the bowl.

[850] ????. ??? is not only to answer, but to take part in a conversation, whether by starting or continuing it. LXX. rightly ?p???t?sa.

[851] Heb. saying.

[852] In the Hebrew text, followed by the ancient and modern versions, including the English Bible, there here follows 6b-10a, the Word to Zerubbabel. They obviously disturb the narrative of the Vision, and Wellhausen has rightly transferred them to the end of it, where they come in as naturally as the word of hope to Joshua comes in at the end of the preceding Vision. Take them away, and, as can be seen above, ver.10b follows quite naturally upon 6a.

[853] Heb. gold. So LXX.

[854] Wellhausen omits the whole of this second question (ver.12) as intruded and unnecessary. So also Smend as a doublet on ver.11 (A. T. Rel. Gesch., 343 n.). So also Nowack.

[855] Heb. saying.

[856] LXX. I.

[857] Or Fair, fair is it! Nowack.

[858] The stone, the leaden. Marti, St. u. Kr., 1892, p.213 n., takes the leaden for a gloss, and reads simply the stone, i.e. the top-stone; but the plummet is the last thing laid to the building to test the straightness of the top-stone.

[859] A. T. Rel. Gesch., 312 n.

[860] ???? roll or volume. LXX. d??pa???, sickle, ??????.

[861] A group of difficult expressions. The verb ?????? is Ni. of a root which originally had the physical meaning to clean out of a place, and this Ni. is so used of a plundered town in Isa. iii. 26. But its more usual meaning is to be spoken free from guilt (Psalm xix. 14, etc.). Most commentators take it here in the physical sense, Hitzig quoting the use of ?a?a???? in Mark vii. 19. ????? ??????? are variously rendered. ??? is mostly understood as locative, hence, i.e. from the land just mentioned, but some take it with steal (Hitzig), some with cleaned out (Ewald, Orelli, etc.). ??????? is rendered like it—the flying roll (Ewald, Orelli), which cannot be, since the roll flies upon the face of the land, and the sinner is to be purged out of it; or in accordance with the roll or its curse (Jerome, KÖhler). But Wellhausen reads ????? ??????, and takes ?????? in its usual meaning and in the past tense, and renders Every thief has for long remained unpunished; and so in the next clause. So, too, Nowack. LXX. Every thief shall be condemned to death, ??? ?a??t?? ??d???seta?.

[862] Heb. lodge, pass the night: cf. Zeph. ii. 14 (above, p.65), pelican and bittern shall roost upon the capitals.

[863] Smend sees a continuation of Ezekiel’s idea of the guilt of man overtaking him (iii. 20, xxxiv.). Here God’s curse does all.

[864] This follows from the shape of the disc that fits into it. Seven gallons are seven-eighths of the English bushel: that in use in Canada and the United States is somewhat smaller.

[865] Ewald.

[866] Upon the stage of vision.

[867] For Heb. ?????? read ?????? with LXX.

[868] By inserting ???? after ?? in ver.5, and deleting ?????? … ????? in ver.6, Wellhausen secures the more concise text: And see what this bushel is that comes forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, That is the evil of the people in the whole land. But to reduce the redundancies of the Visions is to delete the most characteristic feature of their style. Besides, Wellhausen’s result gives no sense. The prophet would not be asked to see what a bushel is: the angel is there to tell him this. So Wellhausen in his translation has to omit the ?? of ver.5, while telling us in his note to replace ????? after it. His emendation is, therefore, to be rejected. Nowack, however, accepts it.

[869] LXX. Heb. this.

[870] In the last clause the verbal forms are obscure if not corrupt. LXX. ?a? ?t??asa? ?a? ??s??s?? a?t? ??e? = ???????? ??????????? ????; but see Ewald, Syntax, 131 d.

[871] Wellhausen suggests that in the direction assigned to the white horses, ?????? (ver.6), which we have rendered westward, we might read ??? ????, land of the east; and that from ver.7 the west has probably fallen out after they go forth.

[872] Heb. I turned again and.

[873] Hebrew reads ?????????, strong; LXX. ?a???, dappled, and for the previous ?????????, spotted or dappled, it reads p???????, piebald. Perhaps we should read ????? (cf. Isa. lxiii. 1), dark red or sorrel, with grey spots. So Ewald and Orelli. Wright keeps strong.

[874] Wellhausen, supplying ? before ????, renders These go forth to the four winds of heaven after they have presented themselves, etc.

[875] Heb. behind them.

[876] ?????, the second epithet of the horses of the fourth chariot, ver.3. See note there [n.873].

[877] Or anger to bear, Heb. rest.

[878] The collective name for the Jews in exile.

[879] LXX. pa?? t?? ?????t??, ????????; but since an accusative is wanted to express the articles taken, Hitzig proposes to read ??????????, My precious things. The LXX. reads the other two names ?a? pa?? t?? ???s??? a?t?? ?a? pa?? t?? ?pe?????t?? a?t??.

[880] The construction of ver.10 is very clumsy; above it is rendered literally. Wellhausen proposes to delete and do thou go ... to the house of, and take Yosiyahu’s name as simply a fourth with the others, reading the last clause who have come from Babylon. This is to cut, not disentangle, the knot.

[881] The Hebrew text here has Joshua son of Jehosadak, the high priest, but there is good reason to suppose that the crown was meant for Zerubbabel, but that the name of Joshua was inserted instead in a later age, when the high priest was also the king—see below, note. For these reasons Ewald had previously supposed that the whole verse was genuine, but that there had fallen out of it the words and on the head of Zerubbabel. Ewald found a proof of this in the plural form ?????, which he rendered crowns. (So also Wildeboer, A. T. Litteratur, p.297.) But ????? is to be rendered crown; see ver.11, where it is followed by a singular verb. The plural form refers to the several circlets of which it was woven.

[882] Some critics omit the repetition.

[883] So Wellhausen proposes to insert. The name was at least understood in the original text.

[884] So LXX. Heb. on his throne.

[885] With this phrase, vouched for by both the Heb. and the Sept., the rest of the received text cannot be harmonised. There were two: one is the priest just mentioned who is to be at the right hand of the crowned. The received text makes this crowned one to be the high priest Joshua. But if there are two and the priest is only secondary, the crowned one must be Zerubbabel, whom Haggai has already designated as Messiah. Nor is it difficult to see why, in a later age, when the high priest was sovereign in Israel, Joshua’s name should have been inserted in place of Zerubbabel’s, and at the same time the phrase priest at his right hand, to which the LXX. testifies in harmony with the two of them, should have been altered to the reading of the received text, priest upon his throne. With the above agree Smend, A. T. Rel. Gesch., 343 n., and Nowack.

[886] Heb. ?????, Helem, but the reading Heldai, ????, is proved by the previous occurrence of the name and by the LXX. reading here, t??? ?p?????s??, i.e. from root ???, to last.

[887] ??, but Wellhausen and others take it as abbreviation or misreading for the name of Yosiyahu (see ver.10).

[888] Here the verse and paragraph break suddenly off in the middle of a sentence. On the passage see Smend, 343 and 345.

[889] So Robertson Smith, art. “Angels” in the Encyc. Brit., 9th ed.

[890] So already in Deborah’s Song, Judg. v. 23, and throughout both J and E.

[891] Cf. especially Gen. xxxii. 29.

[892] Judg. vi. 12 ff.

[893] Robertson Smith, as above.

[894] 2 Sam. xiv. 20.

[895] Exod. xiv. 19 (?), xxiii. 20, etc.; Josh. v. 13.

[896] 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17; 2 Kings xix. 35; Exod. xii. 23. In Eccles. v. 6 this destroying angel is the minister of God: cf. Psalm lxxviii. 49b, hurtful angels—Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, p.157.

[897] Balaam: Num. xxii. 23, 31.

[898] vi. 2–6.

[899] Vol. I., p. 114.

[900] ix.

[901] xl. 3 ff.

[902] xliii. 6.

[903] Zech. i. 18 ff.; Ezek. ix. 1 ff.

[904] Zech. i. 8: so even in the Book of Daniel we have the man Gabriel—ix. 21.

[905] i. 9, 19; ii. 3; iv. 1, 4, 5; v. 5, 10; vi. 4. But see above, pp.261 f.

[906] i. 8, 10, 11.

[907] iii. 1 compared with 2.

[908] iii. 6, 7.

[909] vi. 5.

[910] i. 9, etc.

[911] iii. 1. Stand before is here used forensically: cf. the N.T. phrases to stand before God, Rev. xx. 12; before the judgment-seat of Christ, Rom. xiv. 10; and be acquitted, Luke xxi. 36.

[912] iii. 4. Here the phrase is used domestically of servants in the presence of their master. See above, p.293, n.826.

[913] ii. 3, 4.

[914] Hab. ii. 1: cf. also Num. xii. 6–9.

[915] First Vision, i. 12.

[916] x. 21, xii. 1.

[917] Isa. xxiv. 21.

[918] Book of Daniel x., xii.; Tobit xii. 15; Book of Enoch passim; Jude 9; Rev. viii.2, etc.

[919] Psalm lxxviii. 49. See above, p.312, n.896.

[920] Amos iii. 6.

[921] 1 Kings xxii. 20 ff.

[922] 2 Sam. xxiv. 1; 1 Chron. xxi. 1. Though here difference of age between the two documents may have caused the difference of view.

[923] There are two forms of the verb, ????, satan, and ????, satam, the latter apparently the older.

[924] Num. xxii. 22, 32.

[925] 1 Sam. xxix. 4; 2 Sam. xix. 23 Heb., 22 Eng.; 1 Kings v. 18, xi. 14, etc.

[926] Zech. iii. 1 ff.; Job i. 6 ff.

[927] 1 Chron. xxi. 1.

[928] i. 6b.

[929] See Davidson in Cambridge Bible for Schools on Job i. 6–12, especially on ver.9: “The Satan of this book may show the beginnings of a personal malevolence against man, but he is still rigidly subordinated to Heaven, and in all he does subserves its interests. His function is as the minister of God to try the sincerity of man; hence when his work of trial is over he is no more found, and no place is given him among the dramatis personÆ of the poem.”

[930] Cheyne, The Origin of the Psalter, p.272. Read carefully on this point the very important remarks on pp.270 ff. and 281 f.

[931] Cf. chap.vii. 3: the priests which were of the house of Jehovah.

[932] Jer. xli. 2; 2 Kings xxv. 25.

[933] The Hebrew text is difficult if not impossible to construe: For Bethel sent Sar’eser (without sign of accusative) and Regem-Melekh and his men. Wellhausen points out that Sar’eser is a defective name, requiring the name or title of deity in front of it, and Marti proposes to find this in the last syllable of Bethel, and to read ’El-sar’eser. It is tempting to find in the first syllable of Bethel the remnant of the phrase to the house of Jehovah.

[934] To stroke the face of.

[935] The fifth month Jerusalem fell, the seventh month Gedaliah was murdered: Jer. lii. 12 f.; 2 Kings xxv. 8 f., 25.

[936] So LXX. Heb. has acc. sign before words, perhaps implying Is it not rather necessary to do the words? etc.

[937] Omit here ver.8, And the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, saying. It is obviously a gloss by a scribe who did not notice that the ?? ??? of ver.9 is God’s statement by the former prophets.

[938] Cf. the phrase with one shoulder, i.e. unanimously.

[939] So Heb. and LXX.; but perhaps we ought to point and I whirled them away, taking the clause with the next.

[940] See above, pp.271 f.

[941] Cf. especially Isa. xl. ff.

[942] Isa. i. 26.

[943] Not merely My people (Wellhausen), but their return shall constitute them a people once more. The quotation is from Hosea ii. 25.

[944] So LXX.

[945] But he that made wages made them to put them into a bag with holes, Haggai i. 6.

[946] Read ?? ????? ????? for ?? ??? ????? of the text, for the seed of peace. The LXX. makes ??? a verb. Cf. Hosea ii. 23 ff., which the next clauses show to be in the mind of our prophet. Klostermann and Nowack prefer ???????? ???????, her (the remnant’s) seed shall be peace.

[947] In the tenth month the siege of Jerusalem had begun (2 Kings xxv. 1); on the ninth of the fourth month Jerusalem was taken (Jer. xxxix. 2); on the seventh of the fifth City and Temple were burnt down (2 Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh month Gedaliah was assassinated and the poor relics of a Jewish state swept from the land (Jer. xli.). See above, pp.30 ff.

[948] LXX. the citizens of five cities will go to one.

[949] ?????? or ???????. To judge from the analogy of other cases of the same formation (e.g. Abiyah = Jehovah is Father, and not Father of Jehovah), this name, if ever extant, could not have borne the meaning, which Robertson Smith, Cornill, Kirkpatrick, etc., suppose it must have done, of Angel of Jehovah. These scholars, it should be added, oppose, for various reasons, the theory that it is a proper name.

[950] Cf. the suggested meaning of Haggai, Festus. Above, p.231.

[951] And added the words, lay it to your hearts: ?? ?e??? ??????? a?t?? ??s?e d? ?p? t?? ?a?d?a? ???. Bachmann (A. T. Untersuch., Berlin, 1894, pp.109 ff.) takes this added clause as a translation of ????????? ??????, and suggests that it may be a corruption of an original ???????? ?????, and his name was Kaleb. But the reading ????????? ?????? is not the exact equivalent of the Greek phrase.

[952] ????????? ??????????? ???????? ??????? ???????.

[953] See Stade, Z.A.T.W., 1881, p.14; 1882, p.308; Cornill, Einleitung, 4th ed., pp.207 f.

[954] So (besides Calvin, who takes it as a title) even Hengstenberg in his Christology of the O. T., Ewald, Kuenen, Reuss, Stade, Rob. Smith, Cornill, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick (probably), Wildeboer, Nowack. On the other side Hitzig, Vatke, NÄgelsbach and Volck (in Herzog), Von Orelli, Pusey and Robertson hold it to be a personal name—Pusey with this qualification, “that the prophet may have framed it for himself,” similarly Orelli. They support their opinion by the fact that even the LXX. entitle the book ?a?a??a?; that the word was regarded as a proper name in the early Church, and that it is a possible name for a Hebrew. In opposition to the hypothesis that it was borrowed from chap.iii. 1, Hitzig suggests the converse that in the latter the prophet plays upon his own name. None of these critics, however, meets the objections to the name drawn from the peculiar character of the title and its relations to Zech. ix. 1, xii. 1. The supposed name of the prophet gave rise to the legend supported by many of the Fathers that Malachi, like Haggai and John the Baptist, was an incarnate angel. This is stated and condemned by Jerome, Comm. ad Hag. i. 13, but held by Origen, Tertullian and others. The existence of such an opinion is itself proof for the impersonal character of the name. As in the case of the rest of the prophets, Christian tradition furnishes the prophet with the outline of a biography. See (Pseud-)Epiphanius and other writers quoted above, p.232.

[955] iii. 16 ff.

[956] See above on Obadiah, p.169, and below on the passage itself.

[957] i. 2–5.

[958] i. 8.

[959] i. 11: the verbs here are to be taken in the present, not as in A.V. in the future, tense.

[960] Passim: especially iii. 13 ff., 24.

[961] i. 10; iii. 1, 10.

[962] ii. 1–9.

[963] ii. 10–16.

[964] iii. 7–12.

[965] See above, pp.195 f.

[966] i. 2.

[967] ii. 10.

[968] ii. 17—iii. 12; iii. 22 f., Eng. iv. The above sentences are from Robertson Smith, art. “Malachi,” Encyc. Brit., 9th ed.

[969] Above, p.332, n.952.

[970] “Mal.” i. 8; Neh. v.

[971] Deut. xii. 11, xxvi. 12; “Mal.” iii. 8, 10; Num. xviii. 21 ff. (P).

[972] Vatke (contemporaneous with Nehemiah), Schrader, Keil, Kuenen (perhaps in second governorship of Nehemiah, but see above, p.335, for a decisive reason against this), KÖhler, Driver, Von Orelli (between Nehemiah’s first and second visit), Kirkpatrick, Robertson.

[973] Deut. xii. 11. In P terÛmah is a due paid to priests as distinct from Levites.

[974] ii. 4–8: cf. Deut. xxxiii. 8.

[975] i. 8; Deut. xv. 21.

[976] i. 14; Lev. iii. 1, 6.

[977] iii. 5; Deut. v. 11 ff., xviii. 10, xxiv. 17 ff.; Lev. xix. 31, 33 f., xx. 6.

[978] iii. 22 Heb., iv. 4 Eng. Law of Moses and Moses My servant are found only in the Deuteronomistic portions of the Hexateuch and historical books and here. In P Sinai is the Mount of the Law. To the above may be added segullah, iii. 17, which is found in the Pentateuch only outside P and in Psalm cxxxv. 4. All these resemblances between “Malachi” and Deuteronomy and “Malachi’s” divergences from P are given in Robertson Smith’s Old Test. in the Jewish Church, 2nd ed., 425 ff.: cf. 444 ff.

[979] Lev. xvii.—xxvi. From this and Ezekiel he received the conception of the profanation of the sanctuary by the sins of the people—ii. 11: cf. also ii. 2, iii. 3, 4, for traces of Ezekiel’s influence.

[980] ii. 6 ff.

[981] See below, pp.340, 363, 365.

[982] Herzfeld, Bleek, Stade, Kautzsch (probably), Wellhausen (Gesch., p.125), Nowack before the arrival of Ezra, Cornill either soon before or soon after 458, Robertson Smith either before or soon after 445. Hitzig at first put it before 458, but was afterwards moved to date it after 358, as he took the overthrow of the Edomites described in chap.i. 2–5 to be due to a campaign in that year by Artaxerxes Ochus (cf. Euseb., Chron., II. 221).

[983] But see below, pp.340, 365.

[984] Z.A.T.W., 1887, 210 ff.

[985] i. 11, for ???? ded??asta?; perhaps ii. 12, ?? for ??; perhaps iii. 8 ff., for ??? ???; 16, for ?? ta?ta.

[986] i. 11 ff.; ii. 3, and perhaps 12, 15.

[987] Ezra iv. 6–23.

[988] This is recorded in the Aramean document which has been incorporated in our Book of Ezra, and there is no reason to doubt its reality. In that document we have already found, in spite of its comparatively late date, much that is accurate history. See above, p.212. And it is clear that, the Temple being finished, the Jews must have drawn upon themselves the same religious envy of the Samaritans which had previously delayed the construction of the Temple. To meet it, what more natural than that the Jews should have attempted to raise the walls of their city? It is almost impossible to believe that they who had achieved the construction of the Temple in 516 should not, in the next fifty years, make some effort to raise their fallen walls. And indeed Nehemiah’s account of his own work almost necessarily implies that they had done so, for what he did after 445 was not to build new walls, but rather to repair shattered ones.

[989] See above, p.335, n.970, and below, p.354, on “Mal.” i. 8.

[990] Cf. Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, II., pp.128–138, the best account of this period.

[991] “Mal.” iii. 14.

[992] “Mal.” i. 2, 6; iii. 8 f.

[993] Id. i. 7 f., 12–14.

[994] Id. i. 6 f., ii.

[995] Id. ii, 10.

[996] “Mal.” ii. 10–16.

[997] For proof of this see above, pp.331 f.

[998] “Mal.” iii. 16.

[999] iii. 2, 19 ff. Heb., iv. 1 ff. Eng.

[1000] iii. 6.

[1001] i. 11.

[1002] See above, p.343.

[1003] See above, Chapter XIV. on “Edom and Israel.”

[1004] Heb. xii. 16.

[1005] Romans ix. 13. The citation is from the LXX.: t?? ?a?? ???p?sa, t?? d? ?sa? ??s?sa.

[1006] This was mainly after the beginning of exile. Shortly before that Deut. xxiii. 7 says: Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother.

[1007] So even so recently as 1888, Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, II., p.112.

[1008] See above, p.169. This interpretation is there said to be Wellhausen’s; but Cheyne, in a note contributed to the Z.A.T.W., 1894, p.142, points out that GrÄtz, in an article “Die AnfÄnge der NabatÄer-Herrschaft” in the Monatschrift fÜr Wissenschaft u. Geschichte des Judenthums, 1875, pp.60–66, had already explained “Mal.” i. 1–5 as describing the conquest of Edom by the Nabateans. This is adopted by Buhl in his Gesch. der Edomiter, p.79.

[1009] The verb in the feminine indicates that the population of Edom is meant.

[1010] i. 6.

[1011] Psalm ciii. 9. In Psalm lxxiii. 15 believers are called His children; but elsewhere sonship is claimed only for the king—ii. 7, lxxxix. 27 f.

[1012] Hosea xi. 1 ff. (though even here the idea of discipline is present) and Isa. lxiii. 16.

[1013] iii. 4.

[1014] Isa. lxiv. 8, cf. Deut. xxxii. 11 where the discipline of Israel by Jehovah, shaking them out of their desert circumstance and tempting them to their great career in Palestine, is likened to the father-eagle’s training of his new-fledged brood to fly: A.V. mother-eagle.

[1015] Cf. Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter, p.305, n.O.

[1016] Vol. I., Chap.IX.

[1017] Or used polluted things with respect to Thee. For similar construction see Zech. vii. 5: ??????. This in answer to Wellhausen, who, on the ground that the phrase gives ??? a wrong object and destroys the connection, deletes it. Further he takes ????, not in the sense of pollution, but as equivalent to ????, despised.

[1018] Obviously in their hearts = thinking.

[1019] LXX. is there no harm?

[1020] Pacify the face of, as in Zechariah.

[1021] So LXX. Heb. is great, but the phrase is probably written by mistake from the instance further on: is glorified could scarcely have been used in the very literal version of the LXX. unless it had been found in the original.

[1022] ????, here to be taken in the sense it bears in Arabic of sacred place. See on Zeph. ii. 11: above, p.64, n.159.

[1023] Wellhausen deletes ??? as a gloss on ????, and the vau before ????.

[1024] Heb. say.

[1025] Heb. also has ????, found besides only in Keri of Isa. lvii. 19. But Robertson Smith (O.T.J.C., 2, p.444) is probably right in considering this an error for ????, which has kept its place after the correction was inserted.

[1026] This clause is obscure, and comes in awkwardly before that which follows it. Wellhausen omits.

[1027] ???????. Wellhausen emends ???????????? borrowing the first three letters from the previous word. LXX. ??p??ata.

[1028] LXX.

[1029] Cf. Lev. iii. 1, 6.

[1030] Quoted by Pusey, in loco.

[1031] See Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter, 292 and 305 f.

[1032] Isaiah i.—xxxix. (Expositor’s Bible), p.188.

[1033] See most admirable remarks on this subject in Archdeacon Wilson’s Essays and Addresses, No. III. “The Need of giving Higher Biblical Teaching, and Instruction on the Fundamental Questions of Religion and Christianity.” London: Macmillan, 1887.

[1034] Doubtful. LXX. adds ?a? d?es?ed?s? t?? e?????a? ??? ??? ??? ?sta? ?? ???: obvious redundancy, if not mere dittography.

[1035] An obscure phrase, ??????? ?????? ????? ???????????, Behold, I rebuke you the seed. LXX. Behold, I separate from you the arm or shoulder, reading ?????? for ????? and perhaps ??????? for ??????, both of which readings Wellhausen adopts, and Ewald the former. The reference may be to the arm of the priest raised in blessing. Orelli reads seed = posterity. It may mean the whole seed or class or kind of the priests. The next clause tempts one to suppose that ??????? contains the verb of this one, as if scattering something.

[1036] Heb. ???????? ??????? ??????, and one shall bear you to it. Hitzig: filth shall be cast on them, and they on the filth.

[1037] Others would render My covenant being with Levi. Wellhausen: for My covenant was with Levi. But this new Charge or covenant seems contrasted with a former covenant in the next verse.

[1038] Num. xxv. 12.

[1039] This sentence is a literal translation of the Hebrew. With other punctuation Wellhausen renders My covenant was with him, life and peace I gave them to him, fear...

[1040] Or peace, ???????.

[1041] Or revelation, Torah.

[1042] ???????????: cf. Amos iv.

[1043] See above, p.344.

[1044] Here occur the two verses and a clause, 11–13a, upon the foreign marriages, which seem to be an intrusion.

[1045] See Vol. I., p.259.

[1046] Heb. literally: And not one did, and a remnant of spirit was his; which (1) A.V. renders: And did not he make one? Yet he had the residue of the spirit, which Pusey accepts and applies to Adam and Eve, interpreting the second clause as the breath of life, by which Adam became a living soul (Gen. ii. 7). In Gen. i. 27 Adam and Eve are called one. In that case the meaning would be that the law of marriage was prior to that of divorce, as in the words of our Lord, Matt. xix. 4–6. (2) The Hebrew might be rendered, Not one has done this who had any spirit left in him. So Hitzig and Orelli. In that case the following clauses of the verse are referred to Abraham. “But what about the One?” (LXX. insert ye say after But)—the one who did put away his wife. Answer: He was seeking a Divine seed. The objection to this interpretation is that Abraham did not cast off the wife of his youth, Sarah, but the foreigner Hagar. (3) Ewald made a very different proposal: And has not One created them, and all the Spirit (cf. Zeph. i. 4) is His? And what doth the One seek? A Divine seed. So Reinke. Similarly Kirkpatrick (Doct. of the Proph., p.502): And did not One make[you both]? And why [did]the One [do so]? Seeking a goodly seed. (4) Wellhausen goes further along the same line. Reading ??? for ???, and ????? for ????, and ??? for ??, he translates: Hath not the same God created and sustained your (? our) breath? And what does He desire? A seed of God.

[1047] Literally: let none be unfaithful to the wife of thy youth, a curious instance of the Hebrew habit of mixing the pronominal references. Wellhausen’s emendation is unnecessary.

[1048] See Gesenius and Ewald for Arabic analogies for the use of clothing = wife.

[1049] See above, p.340.

[1050] Wellhausen omits.

[1051] Heb. ??? ???????, caller and answerer. But LXX. read ??, witness (see iii. 5), though it pointed it differently.

[1052] 13a, But secondly ye do this, is the obvious addition of the editor in order to connect his intrusion with what follows.

[1053] See above, pp.311, 313 f.

[1054] Delete silver: the longer LXX. text shows how easily it was added.

[1055] Made an end of, reading the verb as Piel (Orelli). LXX. refrain from. Your sins are understood, the sins which have always characterised the people. LXX. connects the opening of the next verse with this, and with a different reading of the first word translates from the sins of your fathers.

[1056] Heb. ???, only here and Prov. xxii. 32. LXX. read ???, supplant, cheat, which Wellhausen adopts.

[1057] ?????????, the heave offering, the tax or tribute given to the sanctuary or priests and associates with the tithes, as here in Deut. xii. 11, to be eaten by the offerer (ib. 17), but in Ezekiel by the priests (xliv. 30); taken by the people and the Levites to the Temple treasury for the priests (Neh. x. 38, xii. 44): corn, wine and oil. In the Priestly Writing it signifies the part of each sacrifice which was the priests’ due. Ezekiel also uses it of the part of the Holy Land that fell to the prince and priests.

[1058] ????? in its later meaning: cf. Job xxiv. 5; Prov. xxxi. 15.

[1059] I.e. locust.

[1060] A dew of lights. See Isaiah i.—xxxix. (Expositor’s Bible), pp. 448 f.

[1061] So LXX.; Heb. then.

[1062] Ezek. xiii. 9.

[1063] ???, to think, plan, has much the same meaning as here in Isa. xiii. 17, xxxiii. 8, liii. 3.

[1064] Heb. when I am doing; but in the sense in which the word is used of Jehovah’s decisive and final doing, Psalms xx., xxxii., etc.

[1065] Hab. i. 8.

[1066] See note to Amos vi. 4: Vol. I., p.174, n. 326.

[1067] Or dust.

[1068] See above, Chap.XIII.

[1069] See Vol.I. The Assyria of “Zech.” x. 11 is Syria. See below.

[1070] The two exceptions, Nahum and Habakkuk, are not relevant to this question. Their dates are fixed by their references to Assyria and Babylon.

[1071] See Rob. Smith, art. “Joel,” Encyc. Brit.

[1072] So obvious is this alternative that all critics may be said to grant it, except KÖnig (Einl.), on whose reasons for placing Joel in the end of the seventh century see below, p.386, n.1130. Kessner (Das Zeitalter der Proph. Joel, 1888) deems the date unprovable.

[1073] See The Religion of Israel, Vol. I., pp.86 f.

[1074] The O.T. and its Contents, p.105.

[1075] Lex Mosaica, pp.422, 450.

[1076] See especially Ewald on Joel in his Prophets of the O.T., and Kirkpatrick’s very fair argument in Doctrine of the Prophets, pp.57 ff.

[1077] On Joel’s picture of the Day of Jehovah Ewald says: “We have it here in its first simple and clear form, nor has it become a subject of ridicule as in Amos.”

[1078] i. 9, 13, 16, ii. 14.

[1079] So Ewald.

[1080] 2 Kings xi. 4–21.

[1081] 1 Kings xiv. 25 f.: cf. Joel iii. 17b, 19.

[1082] 2 Kings viii. 20–22: cf. Joel iii. 19.

[1083] 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17, xxii. 1: cf. Joel iii. 4–6.

[1084] Amos i.: cf. Joel iii. 4–6.

[1085] 2 Chron. xx., especially 26: cf. Joel iii. 2.

[1086] Joel iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) 16; Amos i. 2. For a list of the various periods to which Joel has been assigned by supporters of this early date see Kuenen, § 68.

[1087] The reference of Egypt in iii. 19 to Shishak’s invasion appears particularly weak.

[1088] Cf. Robertson, O. T. and its Contents, 105, and Kirkpatrick’s cautious, though convinced, statement of the reasons for an early date.

[1089] iii. 6 (Heb. iv. 6).

[1090] Amos i. 9.

[1091] Bibl. Theol., I., p.462; Einl., pp.675 ff.

[1092] Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol., X., Heft 4.

[1093] Theol. der Proph., pp.275 ff.

[1094] Theol. Tijd., 1876, pp.362 ff. (not seen).

[1095] Onderz., § 68.

[1096] Expositor, 1888, Jan.—June, pp.198 ff.

[1097] See Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, xx.; Driver, Introd., in the sixth edition of which, 1897, he supports the late date of Joel more strongly than in the first edition, 1892.

[1098] Wellhausen allowed the theory of the early date of Joel to stand in his edition of Bleek’s Einleitung, but adopts the late date in his own Kleine Propheten.

[1099] Die Prophetie des Joels u. ihre Ausleger, 1879.

[1100] Encyc. Brit., art. “Joel,” 1881.

[1101] Gesch., II. 207.

[1102] Theol. Tijdschr., 1885, p.151; Comm., 1885 (neither seen).

[1103] “Sprachcharakter u. Abfassungszeit des B. Joels” in Z.A.T.W., 1889, pp.89 ff.

[1104] Minor Prophets.

[1105] Bibel.

[1106] Einleit.

[1107] Litteratur des A. T.

[1108] Expositor, September 1893.

[1109] Comm., 1897.

[1110] iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 1. For this may only mean turn again the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem.

[1111] iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 2. The supporters of a pre-exilic date either passed this over or understood it of incursions by the heathen into Israel’s territories in the ninth century. It is, however, too universal to suit these.

[1112] iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 5.

[1113] Kautzsch dates after Artaxerxes Ochus, and c. 350.

[1114] Ezekiel (xxvii. 13, 19) is the first to give the name Javan, i.e. ?a???, or Ionian (earlier writers name Egypt, Edom, Arabia and Phoenicia as the great slave-markets: Amos i.; Isa. xi. 11; Deut. xxviii. 68); and Greeks are also mentioned in Isa. lxvi. 19 (a post-exilic passage); Zech. ix. 13; Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2; 1 Chron. i. 5, 7, and Gen. x. 2. See below, Chap.XXXI.

[1115] ??? ?????? instead of ??? ???, just as the Chronicler gives ??? ?????? for ??? ???: see Wildeboer, p.348, and Matthes, quoted by Holzinger, p.94.

[1116] Movers, PhÖn. Alterthum., II. 1, pp.70 sqq.: which reference I owe to R. Smith’s art. in the Encyc. Brit.

[1117] With these might be taken the use of ??? (ii. 16) in its sense of a gathering for public worship. The word itself was old in Hebrew, but as time went on it came more and more to mean the convocation of the nation for worship or deliberation. Holzinger, pp.105 f.

[1118] Cf. Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11. Also Acts xxvi. 7: t? d?de??f???? ??? ?? ??te?e?a ???ta ?a? ???a? ?at?e???. Also the passages in Jos., XIV. Ant. iv. 3, xvi. 2, in which Josephus mentions the horror caused by the interruption of the daily sacrifice by famine in the last siege of Jerusalem, and adds that it had happened in no previous siege of the city.

[1119] Cf. Jer. xiv. 12; Isa. lviii. 6; Zech. vii. 5, vi. 11, 19, with Neh. i. 4, ix. 1; Ezra viii. 21; Jonah iii. 5, 7; Esther iv. 3, 16, ix. 31; Dan. ix. 3.

[1120] The gathering of the Gentiles to judgment, Zeph. iii. 8 (see above, p.69) and Ezek. xxxviii. 22; the stream issuing from the Temple to fill the Wady ha-Shittim, Ezek. xlvii. 1 ff., cf. Zech. xiv. 8; the outpouring of the Spirit, Ezek. xxxix. 29.

[1121] Z.A.T.W., 1889, pp.89–136. Holzinger’s own conclusion is stated more emphatically than above.

[1122] For an exhaustive list the reader must be referred to Holzinger’s article (cf. Driver, Introd., sixth edition; Joel and Amos, p.24; G. B. Gray, Expositor, September 1893, p.212). But the following (a few of which are not given by Holzinger) are sufficient to prove the conclusion come to above: i. 2, iv. 4, ????? … ??—this is the form of the disjunctive interrogative in later O. T. writings, replacing the earlier ??? … ??; i. 8, ??? only here in O. T., but frequent in Aram.; 13, ???? in Ni. only from Jeremiah onwards, Qal only in two passages before Jeremiah and in a number after him; 18, ?????, if the correct reading, occurs only in the latest O. T. writings, the Qal only in these and Aram.; ii. 2, iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 20, ??? ???? first in Deut. xxxii. 7, and then exilic and post-exilic frequently; 8, ???, a late word, only in Job xxxiii. 18, xxxvi. 12, 2 Chron. xxiii. 10, xxxii. 5, Neh. iii. 15, iv. 11, 17; 20, ????, end, only in 2 Chron. xx. 16 and Eccles., Aram. of Daniel, and post Bibl. Aram. and Heb.; iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 4, ??? ??, cf. 2 Chron. xx. 11; 10, ???, see below on this verse; 11, ????, Aram.; 13, ????, in Hebrew to cook (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 5), and in other forms always with that meaning down to the Priestly Writing and “Zech.” ix.—xiv., is used here in the sense of ripen, which is frequent in Aram., but does not occur elsewhere in O. T. Besides, Joel uses for the first personal pronoun ???—ii.27 (bis), iv. 10, 17—which is by far the most usual form with later writers, and not ????, preferred by pre-exilic writers. (See below on the language of Jonah.)

[1123] G. B. Gray, Expositor, September 1893, pp.213 f. For the above conclusions ample proof is given in Mr. Gray’s detailed examination of the parallels: pp.214 ff.

[1124] Driver, Joel and Amos, p.27.

[1125] Scholz and Rosenzweig (not seen).

[1126] Hilgenfeld, Duhm, Oort. Driver puts it “most safely shortly after Haggai and Zechariah i.—viii., c. 500 B.C.”

[1127] Vernes, Robertson Smith, Kuenen, Matthes, Cornill, Nowack, etc.

[1128] Joel iii. 4 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 31); “Mal.” iv. 5.

[1129] iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) 17.

[1130] Perhaps this is the most convenient place to refer to KÖnig’s proposal to place Joel in the last years of Josiah. Some of his arguments (e.g. that Joel is placed among the first of the Twelve) we have already answered. He thinks that i. 17–20 suit the great drought in Josiah’s reign (Jer. xiv. 2–6), that the name given to the locusts, ??????, ii. 20, is due to Jeremiah’s enemy from the north, and that the phrases return with all your heart, ii. 12, and return to Jehovah your God, 13, imply a period of apostasy. None of these conclusions is necessary. The absence of reference to the high places finds an analogy in Isa. i. 13; the ???? is mentioned in Isa. i. 13: if Amos viii. 5 testifies to observance of the Sabbath, and Nahum ii. 1 to other festivals, who can say a pre-exilic prophet would not be interested in the meal and drink offerings? But surely no pre-exilic prophet would have so emphasised these as Joel has done. Nor is KÖnig’s explanation of iv. 2 as of the Assyrian and Egyptian invasion of Judah so probable as that which refers the verse to the Babylonian exile. Nor are KÖnig’s objections to a date after “Malachi” convincing. They are that a prophet near “Malachi’s” time must have specified as “Malachi” did the reasons for the repentance to which he summoned the people, while Joel gives none, but is quite general (ii. 13a). But the change of attitude may be accounted for by the covenant and Law of 444. “Malachi” i. 11 speaks of the Gentiles worshipping Jehovah, but not even in Jonah iii. 5 is any relation of the Gentiles to Jehovah predicated. Again, the greater exclusiveness of Ezra and his Law may be the cause. Joel, it is true, as KÖnig says, does not mention the Law, while “Malachi” does (ii. 8, etc.); but this was not necessary if the people had accepted it in 444. Professor Ryle (Canon of O.T., 106 n.) leaves the question of Joel’s date open.

[1131] Pages 333 f. n.

[1132] Vernes, Histoire des IdÉes Messianiques depuis Alexandre, pp.13 ff., had already asserted that chaps. i. and ii. must be by a different author from chaps. iii. and iv., because the former has to do wholly with the writer’s present, with which the latter has no connection whatever, but it is entirely eschatological. But in his MÉlanges de Crit. Relig., pp.218 ff., Vernes allows that his arguments are not conclusive, and that all four chapters may have come from the same hand.

[1133] I.e. Hitzig, Vatke, Ewald, Robertson Smith, Kuenen, Kirkpatrick, Driver, Davidson, Nowack, etc.

[1134] This allegorical interpretation was a favourite one with the early Christian Fathers: cf. Jerome.

[1135] Zeitschr. fÜr wissensch. Theologie, 1860, pp.412 ff.

[1136] Cambyses 525, Xerxes 484, Artaxerxes Ochus 460 and 458.

[1137] In Germany, among other representatives of this opinion, are Bertholdt (Einl.) and Hengstenberg (Christol., III. 352 ff.), the latter of whom saw in the four kinds of locusts the Assyrian-Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman tyrants of Israel.

[1138] ii. 17.

[1139] ii. 20.

[1140] i. 19, 20.

[1141] Plur. ii. 6.

[1142] ii. 20.

[1143] iii. (Heb. iv.) 1 f., 17.

[1144] i. 16.

[1145] i. 2 f.

[1146] i. 3.

[1147] i. 17 ff.

[1148] ii. 17, ii. 9 ff.

[1149] ???? ??

[1150] A. B. Davidson, Expos., 1888, pp.200 f.

[1151] ii. 4 ff.

[1152] Eng. ii. 28 ff., Heb. iii.

[1153] Eng. iii., Heb. iv.

[1154] Die Prophetie des Joel u. ihre Ausleger, 1879. The following summary and criticism of Merx’s views I take from an (unpublished) review of his work which I wrote in 1881.

[1155] For ?????????? etc. he reads ????????? etc.

[1156] “The proposal of Merx, to change the pointing so as to transform the perfects into futures, ... is an exegetical monstrosity.”—Robertson Smith, art. “Joel,” Encyc. Brit.

[1157] i. 16.

[1158] Even the comparison of the ravages of the locusts to burning by fire. But probably also Joel means that they were accompanied by drought and forest fires. See below.

[1159] ii. 20.

[1160] Arabia Deserta, p.307.

[1161] Arabia Deserta, p.335.

[1162] Id., 396.

[1163] Id., 335.

[1164] Barrow, South Africa, p.257, quoted by Pusey.

[1165] Impressions of South Africa, by James Bryce: Macmillans, 1897.

[1166] Volney, Voyage en Syrie, I. 277, quoted by Pusey.

[1167] Lebanon.

[1168] Abridged from Thomson’s The Land and the Book, ed. 1877, Northern Palestine, pp.416 ff.

[1169] From Driver’s abridgment (Joel and Amos, p.90) of an account in the Journ. of Sacred Lit., October 1865, pp.235 f.

[1170] Morier, A Second Journey through Persia, p.99, quoted by Pusey, from whose notes and Driver’s excursus upon locusts in Joel and Amos the following quotations have been borrowed.

[1171] Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, 1738, pp.236–8; Jackson’s Travels to Morocco.

[1172] Adansson, Voyage au SÉnegal, p.88.

[1173] ChÉnier, Recherches Historiques sur les Maures, III., p.496.

[1174] Burckhardt, Notes, II. 90.

[1175] Barrow, South Africa, p.257.

[1176] Journ. of Sac. Lit., October 1865.

[1177] Lichtenstein, Travels in South Africa.

[1178] Standard, December 25th, 1896.

[1179] Fr. Alvarez.

[1180] Barheb., Chron. Syr., p.784; Burckhardt, Notes, II. 90.

[1181] i. 20, 17.

[1182] i. 19.

[1183] i. 5.

[1184] Cf. i. 12, 13, and many verses in chap.ii.

[1185] Of Merx and others: see above, p.394.

[1186] See above, p.377.

[1187] See Vol. I., pp. 242, 245 f.

[1188] Jer. xiv.

[1189] Cf. Ezek. xlvi. 15 on the Thamid, and Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11: cf. p.382.

[1190] Acts xxvi. 7.

[1191] XIV. Antt. iv. 3, xvi. 2; VI. Wars ii. 1.

[1192] i. 9, 13.

[1193] i. 16.

[1194] ii. 14.

[1195] i. 8, 13.

[1196] ii. 12.

[1197] LXX. ?a?????

[1198] See above, pp.399 f.

[1199] ???? from ???, used in the O.T. only in Deut. xxviii. 38, to devour; but in post-biblical Hebrew to utterly destroy, bring to an end. Talmud Jerus.: Taanith III. 66d, “Why is the locust called ????? Because it brings everything to an end.”

[1200] A.V. cheek-teeth, R.V. jaw-teeth, or eye-teeth. “Possibly (from the Arabic) projectors”: Driver.

[1201] Heb. text inserts elders, which may be taken as vocative, or with the LXX. as accusative, but after the latter we should expect and. Wellhausen suggests its deletion, and Nowack regards it as an intrusion. For ???? Wellhausen reads ?????, be ye gathered.

[1202] Keshodh mishshaddhai (Isa. xiii. 6); Driver, as overpowering from the Overpowerer.

[1203] A.V. clods. ?????????: the meaning is doubtful, but the corresponding Arabic word means besom or shovel or (P.E.F.Q., 1891, p.111, with plate) hoe, and the Aram. shovel. See Driver’s note.

[1204] Reading, after the LXX. t? ?p???s?e? ?a?t??? (probably an error for ?? a?t???), ?? ????? ??? for the Massoretic ?? ????? ???? How the beasts sob! to which A.V. and Driver adhere.

[1205] Lit. press themselves in perplexity.

[1206] Reading, with Wellhausen and Nowack (“perhaps rightly,” Driver) ???? for ?????, are guilty or punished.

[1207] ????, usually rendered wilderness or desert, but literally place where the sheep are driven, land not cultivated. See Hist. Geog., p.656.

[1208] See on Amos iii. 6: Vol. I., p. 82.

[1209] Zeph. i. 15. See above, p.58.

[1210] ???? in Qal to spread abroad, but the passive is here to be taken in the same sense as the Ni. in Ezek. xvii. 21, dispersed. The figure is of dawn crushed by and struggling with a mass of cloud and mist, and expresses the gleams of white which so often break through a locust cloud. See above, p.404.

[1211] So travellers have described the effect of locusts. See above, p.403.

[1212] Ezek. xxxvi. 35.

[1213] Heb. in his own ways.

[1214] ??????, an impossible metaphor, so that most read ??????, a root found only in Micah vii. 3 (see Vol. I., p. 428), to twist or tangle; but Wellhausen reads ???????????, twist, Eccles. vii. 13.

[1215] Heb. highroad, as if defined and heaped up for him alone.

[1216] See above, p.401.

[1217] Zeph. i. 14; “Mal.” iii. 2.

[1218] So (and not elders) in contrast to children.

[1219] Canopy or pavilion, bridal tent.

[1220] ???? ??, which may mean either rule over them or mock them, but the parallelism decides for the latter.

[1221] A.V., adhering to the Massoretic text, in which the verbs are pointed for the past, has evidently understood them as instances of the prophetic perfect. But “this is grammatically indefensible”: Driver, in loco; see his Heb. Tenses, § 82, Obs. Calvin and others, who take the verbs of ver.18 as future, accept those of the next verse as past and with it begin the narrative. But if God’s answer to His people’s prayer be in the past, so must His jealousy and pity. All these verbs are in the same sequence of time. Merx proposes to change the vowel-points of the verbs and turn them into futures. But see above, p.395. ver.21 shows that Jehovah’s action is past, and Nowack points out the very unusual character of the construction that would follow from Merx’s emendation. Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Robertson Smith, Davidson, Robertson, Steiner, Wellhausen, Driver, Nowack, etc., all take the verbs in the past.

[1222] This is scarcely a name for the locusts, who, though they might reach Palestine from the N.E. under certain circumstances, came generally from E. and S.E. But see above, p.397: so Kuenen, Wellhausen, Nowack. W. R. Smith suggests the whole verse as an allegorising gloss. Hitzig thought of the locusts only, and rendered ?????? ? t?f??????, Acts xxvii. 14; but this is not proved.

[1223] I.e. the Dead Sea (Ezek. xlvii. 18; Zech. xiv. 8) and the Mediterranean.

[1224] The construction shows that the clause preceding this, ???? ????, is a gloss. So Driver. But Nowack gives the other clause as the gloss.

[1225] Nah. iii. 17; Exod. x. 19.

[1226] De Civitate Dei, III. 31.

[1227] I. 278, quoted by Pusey.

[1228] i. 17–20: see above, p.403.

[1229] Prophetic past: Driver.

[1230] Opinion is divided as to the meaning of this phrase: ????? = for righteousness. A.There are those who take it as having a moral reference; and (1) this is so emphatic to some that they render the word for early rain, ????, which also means teacher or revealer, in the latter significance. So (some of them applying it to the Messiah) Targum, Symmachus, the Vulgate, doctorem justitiÆ, some Jews, e.g. Rashi and Abarbanel, and some moderns, e.g. (at opposite extremes) Pusey and Merx. But, as Calvin points out (this is another instance of his sanity as an exegete, and refusal to be led by theological presuppositions: he says, “I do not love strained expositions”), this does not agree with the context, which speaks not of spiritual but wholly of physical blessings. (2) Some, who take ???? as early rain, give ????? the meaning for righteousness, ad justitiam, either in the sense that God will give the rain as a token of His own righteousness, or in order to restore or vindicate the people’s righteousness (so Davidson, Expositor, 1888, I., p.203, n.), in the frequent sense in which ???? is employed in Isa. xl. ff. (see Isaiah xl.—lxvi., Expositor’s Bible, pp.219 ff.). Cf. Hosea x. 13, ???; above, Vol. I., p.289, n.611. This of course is possible, especially in view of Israel having been made by their plagues a reproach among the heathen. Still, if Joel had intended this meaning, he would have applied the phrase, not to the early rain only, but to the whole series of blessings by which the people were restored to their standing before God. B. It seems, therefore, right to take ????? in a purely physical sense, of the measure or quality of the early rain. So even Calvin, rain according to what is just or fit; A.V. moderately (inexact); R.V. in just measure; Siegfried-Stade sufficient. The root-meaning of ??? is probably according to norm (cf. Isaiah xl.—lxvi., p.215), and in that case the meaning would be rain of normal quantity. This too suits the parallel in the next clause: as formerly. In Himyaritic the word is applied to good harvests. A man prays to God for ???? ?????? ????, full or good harvests and fruits: Corp. Inscr. Sem., Pars Quarta, Tomus I., No. 2, lin. 1–5; cf. the note.

[1231] Driver, in loco.

[1232] Heb. also repeats here early rain, but redundantly.

[1233] ??????, in the first. A.V. adds month. But LXX. and Syr. read ???????, which is probably the correct reading, as before or formerly.

[1234] i. 18.

[1235] Above, p.189.

[1236] Cf. Hist. Geog., Chap.XXI., especially p.463.

[1237] By Thorold Rogers, pp.80 ff.

[1238] E.g. the Quakers and the Independents. The Independents of the seventeenth century “were the founders of the Bank of England.”

[1239] All living things, Gen. vi. 17, 19, etc.; mankind, Isa. xl. 5, xlix. 26. See Driver’s note.

[1240] Next chapter.

[1241] Acts x. 45.

[1242] I am unable to feel Driver’s and Nowack’s arguments for a connection conclusive. The only reason Davidson gives is (p.204) that the judgment of the heathen is an essential element in the Day of Jehovah, a reason which does not make Joel’s authorship of the last chapter certain, but only possible.

[1243] The phrase of ver.1, when I turn again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, may be rendered when I restore the fortunes of Israel.

[1244] See above, p.386, especially n.1130.

[1245] xxxviii.

[1246] Some have unnecessarily thought of the Vale of Berakhah, in which Jehoshaphat defeated Moab, Ammon and Edom (2 Chron. xx.).

[1247] See above, p.381, nn.1114, 1115.

[1248] ver.6b.

[1249] Or turn again the fortunes.

[1250] Jehovah-judges. See above, p.432.

[1251] See above, Obadiah 11 and Nahum iii. 10.

[1252] ?????. Oort suggests ?????, for food.

[1253] GelilÔth, the plural feminine of Galilee—the circuit (of the Gentiles). Hist. Geog., p.413.

[1254] Scil. that I must repay.

[1255] LXX. they shall give them into captivity.

[1256] Technical use of ???, to go up to war.

[1257] ????, not found elsewhere, but supposed to mean gather. Cf. Zeph. ii. 1. Others read ????, hasten (Driver); Wellhausen ????.

[1258] ????, only here and in Jer. l. 16: other Heb. word for sickle ?ermesh (Deut. xvi.9, xxiii.26).

[1259] Driver, future.

[1260] Not the well-known scene of early Israel’s camp across Jordan, but it must be some dry and desert valley near Jerusalem (so most comm.). Nowack thinks of the Wadi el Sant on the way to Askalon, but this did not need watering and is called the Vale of Elah.

[1261] Merx applies this to the Jews of the Messianic era. LXX. read ????t?s? = ??????. So Syr. Cf. 2 Kings ix. 7.

Steiner: Shall I leave their blood unpunished? I will not leave it unpunished. Nowack deems this to be unlikely, and suggests, I will avenge their blood; I will not leave unpunished the shedders of it.

[1262] Heb. construction is found also in Hosea xii. 5.

[1263] Gen. x. 2, 4. ??? Javan, is ?a???, or ?a??, the older form of the name of the Ionians, the first of the Greek race with whom Eastern peoples came into contact. They are perhaps named on the Tell-el-Amarna tablets as “Yivana,” serving “in the country of Tyre” (c. 1400 B.C.); and on an inscription of Sargon (c. 709) Cyprus is called YÂvanu.

[1264] xxvii. 13.

[1265] Isaiah xl.—lxvi. (Expositor’s Bible), p. 108 f.

[1266] iii. 6 (Eng.; iv. 6 Heb.).

[1267] The sense of distance between the two peoples was mutual. Writing in the middle of the fifth century B.C., Herodotus has heard of the Jews only as a people that practise circumcision and were defeated by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo (II. 104, 159; on the latter passage see Hist. Geog., p.405 n.). He does not even know them by name. The fragment of Choerilos of Samos, from the end of the fifth century, which Josephus cites (Contra Apionem, I. 22) as a reference to the Jews, is probably of a people in Asia Minor. Even in the last half of the fourth century and before Alexander’s campaigns, Aristotle knows of the Dead Sea only by a vague report (Meteor., II. iii. 39). His pupil Theophrastus (d. 287) names and describes the Jews (Porphyr. de Abstinentia, II. 26; Eusebius, Prepar. Evang., IX. 2: cf. Josephus, C. Apion., I. 22); and another pupil, Clearchus of Soli, records the mention by Aristotle of a travelled Jew of Coele-Syria, but “Greek in soul as in tongue,” whom the great philosopher had met, and learned from him that the Jews were descended from the philosophers of India (quoted by Josephus, C. Apion., I. 22).

[1268] Jos., XI. Antt. iv. 5.

[1269] Hist. Geog., p.347.

[1270] Hist. Geog., pp.593 f.

[1271] See above, p.440, n.1267.

[1272] Hence the Seleucid era dates from 312.

[1273] Hist. Geog., 538.

[1274] Cf. Ewald, Hist. (Eng. Ed.), V. 226 f.

[1275] Asshur or Assyria fell in 607 (as we have seen), but her name was transferred to her successor Babylon (2 Kings xxiii. 29; Jer. ii. 18; Lam. v. 6), and even to Babylon’s successor Persia (Ezra vi. 22). When Seleucus secured what was virtually the old Assyrian Empire with large extensions to Phrygia on the west and the Punjaub on the east, the name would naturally be continued to his dominion, especially as his first capital was Babylon, from his capture of which in 312 the Seleucid era took its start. There is actual record of this. Brugsch (Gesch. Aeg., p.218) states that in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the PtolemÆan period the kingdom of the Seleucids is called Asharu (cf. Stade, Z.A.T.W., 1882, p.292, and Cheyne, Book of Psalms, p.253, and Introd. to Book of Isaiah, p.107, n.3). As the Seleucid kingdom shrank to this side of the Euphrates, it drew the name Assyria with it. But in Greek mouths this had long ago (cf. Herod.) been shortened to Syria: Herodotus also appears to have applied it only to the west of the Euphrates. Cf. Hist. Geog., pp.3 f.

[1276] XII. Antt. i.: cf. Con. Apion., I. 22.

[1277] See above, p.442. Eusebius, Chron. Arm., II. 225, assigns it to 320.

[1278] Cheyne, Introd. to Book of Isaiah, p.105.

[1279] Except in the passage ix. 10–12, which seems strangely out of place in the rest of ix.—xiv.

[1280] Works, 4th ed. 1677, pp.786 ff. (1632), 834. Mede died 1638.

[1281] Matt. xxvii. 9.

[1282] Demonstration of the Messias, 1700.

[1283] An Attempt towards an Improved Version of the Twelve Minor Prophets, 1785 (not seen). See also Wright on Archbishop Seeker.

[1284] Die Weissagungen, welche bei den Schriften des Proph. Sacharja beygebogen sind, Übersetzt, etc., Hamburg (not seen).

[1285] Einleitung in A. u. N. T. (not seen).

[1286] Isa. viii. 2. See above, p.265.

[1287] ix. 1.

[1288] See above, Chap.XXXI.

[1289] x. 10.

[1290] ix. 10, 13, etc.

[1291] Dan. u. Sacharja.

[1292] Page 503.

[1293] See Addenda, p.462.

[1294] Einl. in the beginning of the century.

[1295] Neue Exeg. krit. Aehrenlese z. A. T., 1864.

[1296] Einl., 1882, p.709.

[1297] Z.A.T.W., 1881, 1882. See further proof of the late character of language and style, and of the unity, by Eckardt, Z.A.T.W., 1893, pp.76 ff.

[1298] § 81, n.3, 10. See p.457, end of note 1310.

[1299] Jewish Quart. Review, 1889.

[1300] Einl.4

[1301] A. T. Litt.

[1302] Untersuchung Über die Komposition u. Abfassungszeit von Zach. 9–14, etc. Halle, 1891 (not seen).

[1303] 1892: quoted by Wildeboer.

[1304] 1893: quoted by Wildeboer.

[1305] Doctrine of the Prophets, 438 ff., in which the English reader will find a singularly lucid and fair treatment of the question. See, too, Wright.

[1306] Page 472, Note A.

[1307] Kautzsch—the Greek period.

[1308] Above, pp.451 f.

[1309] Robinson, pp.76 ff.

[1310] Z.A.T.W., 1893, 76 ff. See also the summaries of linguistic evidence given by Robinson. Kuenen finds in ix.—xi. the following pre-exilic elements: ix. 1–5, 8–10, 13a (?); x. 1 f., 10 f.; xi.4–14 or 17.

[1311] Kuenen.

[1312] See above, p.453, n.1297.

[1313] See also Robinson.

[1314] Jewish Quarterly Review, 1889, p.81.

[1315] As Robinson, e.g., does.

[1316] E.g. holy land, ii. 16, and Mount of Olives, xiv. 4.

[1317] Op. cit., 103–109: cf. Driver, Introd.6, 354.

[1318] Introd.6, p.354.

[1319] ix. 13.

[1320] ix. 1 f.

[1321] x. 11. See above, p.451.

[1322] See above, pp.331 ff., for proof of the original anonymity of the Book of “Malachi.”

[1323] Above, p.331.

[1324] So Staerk, who thinks Amos I. made use of vv. 1–5.

[1325] ix. 1, ???, mankind, in contrast to the tribes of Israel; 3, ????, gold; 5, ??? as passive, cf. xii. 6; ?????, Hi. of ??????, in passive sense only after Jeremiah (cf. above, p.412, on Joel); in 2 Sam. xix. 6, Hosea ii. 7, it is active.

[1326] See p.442.

[1327] ix. 1.

[1328] Heb. resting-place: cf. Zech. vi. 8, bring Mine anger to rest. This meets the objection of Bredenkamp and others, that ????? is otherwise used of Jehovah alone, in consequence of which they refer the suffix to Him.

[1329] The expression hath an eye is so unusual that Klostermann, Theo. Litt. Zeit., 1879, 566 (quoted by Nowack), proposes to read for ??? ???, Jehovah’s are the cities of the heathen. For ???, mankind, as = heathen cf. Jer. xxxii. 20.

[1330] So LXX.: Heb. also.

[1331] So LXX.: Heb. has verb in sing.

[1332] Cf. Nahum iii. 8; Isa. xxvi. 1.

[1333] Read ?????????.

[1334] Deut. xxiii. 3 (Heb., 2 Eng.).

[1335] The prepositions refer to the half-breeds. Ezekiel uses the term to eat upon the blood, i.e. meat eaten without being ritually slain and consecrated, for illegal sacrifices (xxxiii. 35: cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 32 f.; Lev. xix. 26, xvii. 11–14).

[1336] ?????????? for ?????????; but to be amended to ????????, 1 Sam. xiv. 12, a military post. Ewald reads ????????, rampart. LXX. ???st?a = ????????.

[1337] ix. 10, ??????, cf. Dan. xi. 4; ???? ??? only in late writings (unless Deut. xxxiii. 17 be early)—see Eckardt, p.80; 12, ?????? is ?pa? ?e??e???; the last clause of 12 is based on Isa. lxi. 7. If our interpretation of ???? and ???? be right, they are also symptoms of a late date.

[1338] ????? (ver.9): the passive participle.

[1339] Cf. Isaiah xl.—lxvi. (Expositor’s Bible), p. 219.

[1340] Why chariot from Ephraim and horse from Jerusalem is explained in Hist. Geog., pp.329–331.

[1341] See above.

[1342] Symbol of peace as the horse was of war.

[1343] Son of she-asses.

[1344] Mass.: LXX. He.

[1345] Heb. blood of thy covenant, but the suffix refers to the whole phrase (Duhm, Theol. der Proph., p.143). The covenant is Jehovah’s; the blood, that which the people shed in sacrifice to ratify the covenant.

[1346] Heb. adds there is no water in it, but this is either a gloss, or perhaps an attempt to make sense out of a dittography of ????, or a corruption of none shall be ashamed.

[1347] Isa. lxi. 7.

[1348] Doctrine of the Prophets, Note A, p.472.

[1349] 14, on ???? see Eckardt; 15, ?????, Aramaism; ???? is late; 17, ??????, only here and Psalm lx. 6; ???, probably late.

[1350] So LXX.: Heb. reads, thy sons, O Javan.

[1351] LXX. ?? s??? t?? ?pe???? a?t??, in the tossing of His threat, ???? ???? (?) or ???? ????. It is natural to see here a reference to the Theophanies of Hab. iii. 3, Deut. xxxiii. (see above, pp.150 f.).

[1352] Perhaps ?????????, overcome them. LXX. ?ata?a??s??s??.

[1353] Heb. stones of a sling, ???? ???. Wellhausen and Nowack read sons, ???, but what then is ????

[1354] Reading ??? for Heb. ????, and roar.

[1355] Heb. like a flock of sheep His people, (but how is one to construe this with the context?) for (? like) stones of a diadem lifting themselves up (? shimmering) over His land. Wellhausen and Nowack delete for stones ... shimmering as a gloss. This would leave like a flock of sheep His people in His land, to which it is proposed to add He will feed. This gives good sense.

[1356] Wellhausen, reading ????, fem. suffix for neuter. Ewald and others He. Hitzig and others they, the people.

[1357] Of these cf. “Mal.” iii. 5; the late Jer. xliv. 8 ff.; Isa. lxv. 3–5; and, in the Priestly Law, Lev. xix.31, xx.6.

[1358] Z.A.T.W., I. 60. He compares this verse with 1 Sam. xv. 23. In Ezek. xxi. 26 they give oracles.

[1359] ????, lightning-flash, only here and in Job xxviii. 26, xxxviii. 25.

[1360] LXX. read: in season early rain and latter rain.

[1361] ????, used of a nomadic life in Jer. xxxi. 24 (23), and so it is possible that in a later stage of the language it had come to mean to wander or stray. But this is doubtful, and there may be a false reading, as appears from LXX. ????????sa?.

[1362] For ???? read ?????. The LXX. ??a????sa? read ?????.

[1363] There can therefore be none of that connection between the two pieces which Kirkpatrick assumes (p.454 and note 2).

[1364] ??? ??

[1365] ??? ??

[1366] See above, p.444.

[1367] x. 5, ???, Eckardt, p.82; 6, 12, ???????, Pi., cf. Eccles. x. 10, where it alone occurs besides here; 5, 11, ????? in passive sense.

[1368] As we should say, bell-wethers: cf. Isa. xiv. 9, also a late meaning.

[1369] So LXX., reading ??????? for ??????.

[1370] Corner-stone as name for a chief: cf. Judg. xx. 2; 1 Sam. xiv. 38; Isa. xix. 13. Stay or tent-pin, Isa. xxii. 23. From Him, others from them.

[1371] Read ????????????? and ??????? (Wellhausen).

[1372] Read ?????????????? for the Mass. ???????????????, and I will make them to dwell.

[1373] ?????? and ??????, ?????? and ????, keywords of Hosea i.—iii.

[1374] LXX.; sing. Heb.

[1375] Changing the Heb. points which make the verb future. See Nowack’s note.

[1376] With LXX. read ???????? for Mass. ???????.

[1377] See above, pp.451, 471.

[1378] So LXX.; Mass. sing.

[1379] Heb. ???, narrow sea: so LXX., but Wellhausen suggests ?????, which Nowack adopts.

[1380] ????? for ??????.

[1381] For ?????? read ??????, with LXX. and Syr.

[1382] Heb. adds here a difficult clause, for nobles are wasted. Probably a gloss.

[1383] After the ?erÎ.

[1384] I.e. rankness; applied to the thick vegetation in the larger bed of the stream: see Hist. Geog., p.484.

[1385] xi. 5, ?????????, Hiph., but intransitive, grow rich; 6, ?????; vv. 7, 10, ??? (?); 8, ???, Aram.; 13, ?????, Aram., Jer. xx. 5, Ezek. xxii. 25, Job xxviii. 10; in Esther ten, in Daniel four times (Eckardt); xiii. 7, ????, one of the marks of the affinity of the language of “Zech.” ix.—xiv. to that of the Priestly Code (cf. Lev. v. 21, xviii. 20, etc.), but in P it is concrete, here abstract; ?????; 8, ???, see Eckardt, p.85.

[1386] Jer. xxiii. 1–8; Ezek. xxxiv., xxxvii. 24 ff.: cf. Kirkpatrick p.462.

[1387] Exod. xxi. 32.

[1388] LXX. God of Hosts.

[1389] Read plural with LXX.

[1390] That is the late Hebrew name for the heathen: cf. ix. 1.

[1391] Heb. ???????, neighbour; read ???????.

[1392] Many take this verse as an intrusion. It certainly seems to add nothing to the sense and to interrupt the connection, which is clear when it is removed.

[1393] Heb. ????? ???????? ???????, wherefore the miserable of the flock, which makes no sense. But LXX. read e?? t?? ?a?a???t??, and this suggests the Heb. ??????, to the Canaanites, i.e. merchants, of the sheep: so in ver.11.

[1394] Lit. Bands.

[1395] The sense is here obscure. Is the text sound? In harmony with the context ???? ought to mean tribes of Israel. But every passage in the O.T. in which ???? might mean tribes has been shown to have a doubtful text: Deut. xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 3; Hosea x.14; Micah i.2.

[1396] See above, note 1393, on the same mis-read phrase in ver.7.

[1397] Heb. ?????????, the potter. LXX. ???e?t????? smelting furnace. Read ???????? by change of ? for ?: the two are often confounded; see n.1399.

[1398] Wellhausen and Nowack read thou hast been valued of them. But there is no need of this. The clause is a sarcastic parenthesis spoken by the prophet himself.

[1399] Again Heb. the potter, LXX. the smelting furnace, as above in ver.13. The additional clause House of God proves how right it is to read the treasury, and disposes of the idea that to throw to the potter was a proverb for throwing away.

[1400] Two codd. read Jerusalem, which Wellhausen and Nowack adopt.

[1401] Heb. ????????, the scattered. LXX. t?? ?s???p?se???.

[1402] ???????????, obscure: some translate the sound or stable.

[1403] Heb. and their hoofs he will tear (?).

[1404] For Heb. ????? read as in ver.15 ??????.

[1405] ????: only in Lev. and here.

[1406] ??. Perhaps we should read ??????, I smite, with Matt. xxvi. 31.

[1407] Some take this as a promise: turn My hand towards the little ones.

[1408] LXX. Heb. ?????, but the ? has fallen from the front of it.

[1409] See above, p.462.

[1410] xii. 2, ?????, a noun not found elsewhere in O. T. We found the verb in Nahum ii. 4 (see above, p.106), and probably in Hab. ii. 16 for ????? (see above, p.147, n.412): it is common in Aramean; other forms belong to later Hebrew (cf. Eckardt, p.85). 3, ???? is used in classic Heb. only of intentional cutting and tattooing of oneself; in the sense of wounding which it has here it is frequent in Aramean. 3 has besides ??? ?????, not found elsewhere. 4 has three nouns terminating in ???, two of them—?????, panic, and ?????, judicial blindness—in O. T. only found here and in Deut. xxviii. 28, the former also in Aramean. 7 ???? ?? is also cited by Eckardt as used only in Ezek. xix. 6, xxvi. 20, and four times in Psalms.

[1411] xii. 6, ?????.

[1412] The text reads against Judah, as if it with Jerusalem suffered the siege of the heathen. But (1) this makes an unconstruable clause, and (2) the context shows that Judah was against Jerusalem. Therefore Geiger (Urschrift, p.58) is right in deleting ??, and restoring to the clause both sense in itself and harmony with the context. It is easy to see why ?? was afterwards introduced. LXX. ?a? ?? t? ???da??.

[1413] Since Jerome, commentators have thought of a stone by throwing or lifting which men try their strength, what we call a “putting stone.” But is not the idea rather of one of the large stones half-buried in the earth which it is the effort of the husbandman to tear from its bed and carry out of his field before he ploughs it? Keil and Wright think of a heavy stone for building. This is not so likely.

[1414] ????, elsewhere only in Lev. xxi. 5, is there used of intentional cutting of oneself as a sign of mourning. Nowack takes the clause as a later intrusion; but there is no real reason for this.

[1415] Heb. upon Judah will I keep My eyes open to protect him, and this has analogies, Job xiv. 3, Jer. xxxii. 19. But the reading its eyes, which is made by inserting a ? that might easily have dropped out through confusion with the initial ? of the next word, has also analogies (Isa. xlii.7, etc.), and stands in better parallel to the next clause, as well as to the clauses describing the panic of the heathen.

[1416] Others read ???????, thousands, i.e. districts.

[1417] Heb. I will find me; LXX. e???s?e? ?a?t???.

[1418] Hebrew adds a gloss: in Jerusalem.

[1419] The population in time of war.

[1420] xii. 10, ???? ???, not earlier than Ezek. xxxix. 29, Joel iii. 1, 2 (Heb.); ???????, only in Job, Proverbs, Psalms and Daniel; ???, an intrans. Hiph.; xiii. 1, ????, fountain, before Jeremiah only in Hosea xiii. 15 (perhaps a late intrusion), but several times in post-exilic writings instead of pre-exilic ??? (Eckardt); ?????? only after Ezekiel; 3, cf. xii. 10, ???, chiefly, but not only, in post-exilic writings.

[1421] See especially xii. 12 ff., which is very suggestive of the Priestly Code.

[1422] Hist. Geog., Chap.XIX. On the name plain of Megiddo see especially notes, p.386.

[1423] 2 Chron. xxxv. 22 ff.

[1424] Another explanation offered by the Targum is the mourning for “Ahab son of Omri, slain by Hadad-Rimmon son of Tab-Rimmon.”

[1425] LXX. gives for Hadad-Rimmon only the second part, ????.

[1426] Ezek. viii. 14.

[1427] Baudissin, Studien z. Sem. Rel. Gesch., I. 295 ff.

[1428] Heb. Me; several codd. him: some read ????? to (him) whom they have pierced; but this would require the elision of the sign of the acc. before who. Wellhausen and others think something has fallen from the text.

[1429] See above, p.482.

[1430] LXX. S?e??.

[1431] Cf. Ezek. xxxvi. 25, xlvii. 1.

[1432] Read ??????? ????????? for the Mass. ??? ?????: so Wellhausen.

[1433] Heb. between.

[1434] But see below, p.490.

[1435] ?????: or belonging to Jehovah; or like the Lamed auctoris or Lamed when construed with passive verbs (see Oxford Heb.-Eng. Dictionary, pp.513 and 514, col. 1), from, by means of, Jehovah.

[1436] Heb.: and ye shall flee, the ravine of My mountains. The text is obviously corrupt, but it is difficult to see how it should be repaired. LXX., Targ. Symmachus and the Babylonian codd. (Baer, p.84) read ??????????, shall be closed, for ??????????, ye shall flee, and this is adopted by a number of critics (Bredenkamp, Wellhausen, Nowack). But it is hardly possible before the next clause, which says the valley extends to ’A?al.

[1437] Wellhausen suggests the ravine (???) of Hinnom.

[1438] ?????, place-name: cf. ?????, name of a family of Benjamin, viii. 37 f., ix. 43 f.; and ???? ???????, Micah i. 11. Some would read ?????, the adverb near by.

[1439] Amos i. 1.

[1440] LXX.

[1441] LXX.; Heb. thee.

[1442] Heb. Kethibh, ???????? ???????????, jewels (? hardly stars as some have sought to prove from Job xxxi. 26) grow dead or congealed. Heb. ?erÊ, jewels and frost, ???????????. LXX. ?a? ???? ?a? p????, ???????? ???????????, and cold and frost. Founding on this Wellhausen proposes to read ???? for ????, and renders, there shall be neither heat nor cold nor frost. So Nowack. But it is not easy to see how ???? ever got changed to ????.

[1443] Unique or the same?

[1444] Taken as a gloss by Wellhausen and Nowack.

[1445] ???????, the name for the Jordan Valley, the GhÔr (Hist. Geog., pp.482–484). It is employed, not because of its fertility, but because of its level character. Cf. Josephus’ name for it, “the Great Plain” (IV. Wars viii. 2; IV. Antt. vi. 1): also 1 Macc. v.52, xvi.11.

[1446] Geba “long the limit of Judah to the north, 2 Kings xxiii. 8” (Hist. Geog., pp.252, 291). Rimmon was on the southern border of Palestine (Josh. xv. 32, xix. 7), the present Umm er Rummamin N. of Beersheba (Rob., B. R.).

[1447] Or be inhabited as it stands.

[1448] Cf. “Mal.” iii. 24 (Heb.).

[1449] Ezek. xxxviii. 21.

[1450] So Wellhausen and Nowack.

[1451] So LXX. and Syr. The Heb. text inserts a not.

[1452] ????, in classic Heb. sin; but as in Num. xxxii. 23 and Isa. v. 18, the punishment that sin brings down.

[1453] Hosea xiv. 3.

[1454] ix. 10.

[1455] So Wellhausen.

[1456] ix. 10.

[1457] Heb. Canaanite. Cf. Christ’s action in cleansing the Temple of all dealers (Matt. xxi. 12–14).

[1458] Unless the Psalm were counted as such. See below, p.511.

[1459] Minus Ruth of course.

[1460] Cf. with Jonah i. 1, ???????, Josh. i. 1, 1 Sam. i. 1, 2 Sam. i. 1. The corrupt state of the text of Ezek. i. 1 does not permit us to adduce it also as a parallel.

[1461] See below, p.496.

[1462] See above, Vol. I., p.236.

[1463] Acts xi. 8.

[1464] Cf. Gittah-hepher, Josh. xix. 13, by some held to be El Meshhed, three miles north-east of Nazareth. The tomb of Jonah is pointed out there.

[1465] 2 Kings xiv. 25.

[1466] Cf. Kuenen, Einl., II. 417, 418.

[1467] iii. 3: ????, was.

[1468] See above, pp.21 ff., 96 ff.

[1469] Cf. George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, p.94; Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, p.141. Cf. previous note.

[1470] As, e.g., by Volck, article “Jona” in Herzog’s Real. Encycl.²: the use of ???? for ??????, as, e.g., in the very early Song of Deborah. But the same occurs in many late passages: Eccles. i. 7, 11, ii. 21, 22, etc.; Psalms cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxv.2, 8, cxxxvii.8, cxlvi.3.

[1471] A. Grammatical constructions:—i. 7, ????????????; 12, ??????????: that ??? has not altogether displaced ????? KÖnig (Einl., 378) thinks a proof of the date of Jonah in the early Aramaic period. iv. 6, the use of ??? for the accusative, cf. Jer. xl. 2, Ezra viii. 24: seldom in earlier Hebrew, 1 Sam. xxiii. 10, 2 Sam. iii. 30, especially when the object stands before the verb, Isa. xi. 9 (this may be late), 1 Sam. xxii. 7, Job v. 2; but continually in Aramaic, Dan. ii. 10, 12, 14, 24, etc. The first personal pronoun ??? (five times) occurs oftener than ???? (twice), just as in all exilic and post-exilic writings. The numerals ii. 1, iii. 3, precede the noun, as in earlier Hebrew.

B. Words:—??? in Pi. is a favourite term of our author, ii. 1, iv. 6, 8; is elsewhere in O.T. Hebrew found only in Dan. i. 5, 10, 18, 1 Chron. ix. 29, Psalm lxi. 8; but in O.T. Aramaic ??? Pi. ???? occurs in Ezra vii. 25, Dan. ii. 24, 49, iii. 12, etc. ?????, i. 5, is not elsewhere found in O.T., but is common in later Hebrew and in Aramaic. ?????, i. 6, to think, for the Heb. ???, cf. Psalm cxlvi. 4, but Aram. cf. Dan. vi. 4 and Targums. ??? in the sense to order or command, iii. 7, is found elsewhere in the O.T. only in the Aramaic passages Dan. iii. 10, Ezra vi. 1, etc. ????, iv. 11, for the earlier ???? occurs only in later Hebrew, Ezra ii. 64, Neh. vii. 66, 72, 1 Chron. xxix. 7 (Hosea viii. 12, Kethibh is suspected). ???, i. 11, 12, occurs only in Psalm cvii. 30, Prov. xxvi. 20. ???, iv. 10, instead of the usual ???. The expression God of Heaven, i. 9, occurs only in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Psalm cxxxvi. 26, Dan. ii. 18, 19, 44, and frequently in Ezra and Nehemiah.

[1472] In chap.iv. there are undoubted echoes of the story of Elijah’s depression in 1 Kings xix., though the alleged parallel between Jonah’s tree (iv. 8) and Elijah’s broom-bush seems to me forced. iv. 9 has been thought, though not conclusively, to depend on Gen. iv. 6, and the appearance of ???? ????? has been referred to its frequent use in Gen. ii. f. More important are the parallels with Joel: iii. 9 with Joel ii.14a, and the attributes of God in iv. 2 with Joel ii.13. But which of the two is the original?

[1473] Kleinert assigns the book to the Exile; Ewald to the fifth or sixth century; Driver to the fifth century (Introd.⁶, 301); Orelli to the last Chaldean or first Persian age; Vatke to the third century. These assign generally to after the Exile: Cheyne (Theol. Rev., XIV., p.218: cf. art. “Jonah” in the Encycl. Brit.), KÖnig (Einl.), Rob. Smith, Kuenen, Wildeboer, Budde, Cornill, Farrar, etc. Hitzig brings it down as far as the Maccabean age, which is impossible if the prophetic canon closed in 200 B.C., and seeks for its origin in Egypt, “that land of wonders,” on account of its fabulous character, and because of the description of the east wind as ??????? (iv. 8), and the name of the gourd, ??????, Egyptian kiki. But such a wind and such a plant were found outside Egypt as well. Nowack dates the book after Joel.

[1474] See above, Vol. I., p.5.

[1475] Below, pp.523 ff.

[1476] Contrast the treatment of foreign states by Elisha, Amos and Isaiah, etc.

[1477] Abridged from pp.3 and 4 of Kleinert’s Introduction to the Book of Jonah in Lange’s Series of Commentaries. Eng. ed., Vol. XVI.

[1478] KÖhler, Theol. Rev., Vol. XVI.; BÖhme, Z.A.T.W., 1887, pp.224 ff.

[1479] Indeed throughout the book the truths it enforces are always more pushed to the front than the facts.

[1480] Nearly all the critics who accept the late date of the book interpret it as parabolic. See also a powerful article by the late Dr. Dale in the Expositor, Fourth Series, Vol. VI., July 1892, pp.1 ff. Cf., too, C. H. H. Wright, Biblical Essays (1886), pp.34–98.

[1481] Marck (quoted by Kleinert) said: “Scriptum est magna parte historicum sed ita ut in historia ipsa lateat maximi vaticinii mysterium, atque ipse fatis suis, non minus quam effatis vatem se verum demonstret.” Hitzig curiously thinks that this is the reason why it has been placed in the Canon of the Prophets next to the unfulfilled prophecy of God against Edom. But by the date which Hitzig assigns to the book the prophecy against Edom was at least in a fair way to fulfilment. Riehm (Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 1862, pp.413 f.): “The practical intention of the book is to afford instruction concerning the proper attitude to prophetic warnings”; these, though genuine words of God, may be averted by repentance. Volck (art. “Jona” in Herzog’s Real. Encycl.²) gives the following. Jonah’s experience is characteristic of the whole prophetic profession. “We learn from it (1) that the prophet must perform what God commands him, however unusual it appears; (2) that even death cannot nullify his calling; (3) that the prophet has no right to the fulfilment of his prediction, but must place it in God’s hand.” Vatke (Einl., 688) maintains that the book was written in an apologetic interest, when Jews expounded the prophets and found this difficulty, that all their predictions had not been fulfilled. “The author obviously teaches: (1) since the prophet cannot withdraw from the Divine commission, he is also not responsible for the contents of his predictions; (2) the prophet often announces Divine purposes, which are not fulfilled, because God in His mercy takes back the threat, when repentance follows; (3) the honour of a prophet is not hurt when a threat is not fulfilled, and the inspiration remains unquestioned, although many predictions are not carried out.”

To all of which there is a conclusive answer, in the fact that, had the book been meant to explain or justify unfulfilled prophecy, the author would certainly not have chosen as an instance a judgment against Niniveh, because, by the time he wrote, all the early predictions of Niniveh’s fall had been fulfilled, we might say, to the very letter.

[1482] So even Kimchi; and in modern times De Wette, Delitzsch, Bleek, Reuss, Cheyne, Wright, KÖnig, Farrar, Orelli, etc. So virtually also Nowack. Ewald’s view is a little different. He thinks that the fundamental truth of the book is that “true fear and repentance bring salvation from Jehovah.”

[1483] Isa. xl. ff.

[1484] So virtually Kuenen, Einl., II., p.423; Smend, Lehrbuch der A. T. Religionsgeschichte, pp.408 f., and Nowack.

[1485] That the book is a historical allegory is a very old theory. Hermann v. d. Hardt (Ænigmata Prisci Orbis, 1723: cf. Jonas in Carcharia, Israel in Carcathio, 1718, quoted by Vatke, Einl., p.686) found in the book a political allegory of the history of Manasseh led into exile, and converted, while the last two chapters represent the history of Josiah. That the book was symbolic in some way of the conduct and fortunes of Israel was a view familiar in Great Britain during the first half of this century: see the Preface to the English translation of Calvin on Jonah (1847). Kleinert (in his commentary on Jonah in Lange’s Series, Vol. XVI. English translation, 1874) was one of the first to expound with details the symbolising of Israel in the prophet Jonah. Then came the article in the Theol. Review (XIV. 1877, pp.214 ff.) by Cheyne, following Bloch’s Studien z. Gesch. der Sammlung der althebrÄischen Litteratur (Breslau, 1876); but adding the explanation of the great fish from Hebrew mythology (see below). Von Orelli quotes Kleinert with approval in the main.

[1486] Isa. xlii. 19–24.

[1487] Jer. li. 34, 44 f.

[1488] That the Book of Jonah employs mythical elements is an opinion that has prevailed since the beginning of this century. But before Semitic mythology was so well known as it is now, these mythical elements were thought to have been derived from the Greek mythology. So Gesenius, De Wette, and even Knobel, but see especially F. C. Baur in Ilgen’s Zeitschrift for 1837, p.201. Kuenen (Einl., 424) and Cheyne (Theol. Rev., XIV.) rightly deny traces of any Greek influence on Jonah, and their denial is generally agreed in.

Kleinert (op. cit., p.10) points to the proper source in the native mythology of the Hebrews: “The sea-monster is by no means an unusual phenomenon in prophetic typology. It is the secular power appointed by God for the scourge of Israel and of the earth (Isa. xxvii. 1)”; and Cheyne (Theol. Rev., XIV., “Jonah: a Study in Jewish Folk-lore and Religion”) points out how Jer. li. 34, 44 f., forms the connecting link between the story of Jonah and the popular mythology.

[1489] Z.A.T.W., 1892, pp.40 ff.

[1490] 2 Chron. xxiv. 27.

[1491] Cf. Driver, Introduction, I., p.497.

[1492] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18.

[1493] See Robertson Smith, Old Test. in the Jewish Church, pp.140, 154.

[1494] See above, pp.499 f.

[1495] Cf. Smend, A. T. Religionsgeschichte, p.409, n.1.

[1496] Matt. xii. 40—For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights—is not repeated in Luke xi. 29, 30, which confines the sign to the preaching of repentance, and is suspected as an intrusion both for this and other reasons, e.g. that ver.40 is superfluous and does not fit in with ver.41, which gives the proper explanation of the sign; that Jonah, who came by his burial in the fish through neglect of his duty and not by martyrdom, could not therefore in this respect be a type of our Lord. On the other hand, ver.40 is not unlike another reference of our Lord to His resurrection, John ii. 19 ff. Yet, even if ver.40 be genuine, the vagueness of the parallel drawn in it between Jonah and our Lord surely makes for the opinion that in quoting Jonah our Lord was not concerned about quoting facts, but simply gave an illustration from a well-known tale. Matt. xvi. 4, where the sign of Jonah is again mentioned, does not explain the sign.

[1497] Take a case. Suppose we tell slothful people that theirs will be the fate of the man who buried his talent, is this to commit us to the belief that the personages of Christ’s parables actually existed? Or take the homiletic use of Shakespeare’s dramas—“as Macbeth did,” or “as Hamlet said.” Does it commit us to the historical reality of Macbeth or Hamlet? Any preacher among us would resent being bound by such an inference. And if we resent this for ourselves, how chary we should be about seeking to bind our Lord by it.

[1498] Eng. trans. of The Twelve Minor Prophets, p.172. Consult also Farrar’s judicious paragraphs on the subject: Minor Prophets, 234 f.

[1499] The two attempts which have been made to divide the Book of Jonah are those by KÖhler in the Theol. Rev., XVI. 139 ff., and by BÖhme in the Z.A.T.W., VII. 224 ff. KÖhler first insists on traits of an earlier age (rude conception of God, no sharp boundary drawn between heathens and the Hebrews, etc.), and then finds traces of a late revision: lacuna in i.2; hesitation in iii. 1, in the giving of the prophet’s commission, which is not pure Hebrew; change of three days to forty (cf. LXX.); mention of unnamed king and his edict, which is superfluous after the popular movement; beasts sharing in mourning; also in i. 5, 8, 9, 14, ii. 2, ??????, iii. 9, iv. 1–4, as disturbing context; also the building of a booth is superfluous, and only invented to account for Jonah remaining forty days instead of the original three; iv. 6, ????? ?? ?? ????? for an original ????????? ??? = to offer him shade; 7, the worm, ?????, due to a copyist’s change of the following ?????. Withdrawing these, KÖhler gets an account of the sparing of Niniveh on repentance following a sentence of doom, which, he says, reflects the position of the city of God in Jeremiah’s time, and was due to Jeremiah’s opponents, who said in answer to his sentence of doom: If Niniveh could avert her fate, why not Jerusalem? BÖhme’s conclusion, starting from the alleged contradictions in the story, is that no fewer than four hands have had to deal with it. A sufficient answer is given by Kuenen (Einl., 426 ff.), who, after analysing the dissection, says that its “improbability is immediately evident.” With regard to the inconsistencies which BÖhme alleges to exist in chap.iii. between ver.5 and vv. 6–9, Kuenen remarks that “all that is needed for their explanation is a little good-will”—a phrase applicable to many other difficulties raised with regard to other Old Testament books by critical attempts even more rational than those of BÖhme. Cornill characterises BÖhme’s hypothesis as absurd.

[1500] To Thy holy temple, vv. 5 and 8: cf. Psalm v. 8, etc. The waters have come round me to my very soul, ver.6: cf. Psalm lxix. 2. And Thou broughtest up my life, ver.7: cf. Psalm xxx. 4. When my soul fainted upon me, ver.8: cf. Psalm cxlii. 4, etc. With the voice of thanksgiving, ver.10: cf. Psalm xlii. 5. The reff. are to the Heb. text.

[1501] Cf. ver.3 with Psalm xviii. 7; ver.4 with Psalm xlii. 8; ver.5 with Psalm xxxi. 23; ver.9 with Psalm xxxi. 7, and ver.10 with Psalm l.14.

[1502] Budde, as above, p.42.

[1503] De Wette, Knobel, Kuenen.

[1504] Budde.

[1505] E.g. Hitzig.

[1506] Luther says of Jonah’s prayer, that “he did not speak with these exact words in the belly of the fish, nor placed them so orderly, but he shows how he took courage, and what sort of thoughts his heart had, when he stood in such a battle with death.” We recognise in this Psalm “the recollection of the confidence with which Jonah hoped towards God, that since he had been rescued in so wonderful a way from death in the waves, He would also bring him out of the night of his grave into the light of day.”

[1507] ii. 5, B has ?a?? for ?a??; i. 9, for ???? it reads ????, and takes the ? to be abbreviation for ????; ii. 7, for ???? it reads ???? and translates ??t????; iv. 11, for ??????? it reads ?????, and translates ?at?????s?.

[1508] i. 4, ?????, perhaps rightly omitted before following ????; i. 8, B omits the clause ???? to ???, probably rightly, for it is needless, though supplied by Codd. A, Q; iii. 9, one verb, eta???se?, for ???? ????, probably correctly, see below.

[1509] i. 2, ? ??a??? t?? ?a??a? for ????; ii. 3, t?? ?e?? ?? after ????; ii. 10, in obedience to another reading; iii. 2, t? ?p??s?e? after ?????; iii. 8, ????.

[1510] iii. 4, 8.

[1511] iv. 2.

[1512] For the grace of God had been the most formative influence in the early religion of Israel (see Vol. I., p.19), and Amos, only thirty years after Jonah, emphasised the moral equality of Israel and the Gentiles before the one God of righteousness. Given these two premisses of God’s essential grace and the moral responsibility of the heathen to Him, and the conclusion could never have been far away that in the end His essential grace must reach the heathen too. Indeed in sayings not later than the eighth century it is foretold that Israel shall become a blessing to the whole world. Our author, then, may have been guilty of no anachronism in imputing such a foreboding to Jonah.

[1513] Second Isaiah. See chap.lx.

[1514] See the author’s Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land, pp.131–134.

[1515] Heb. them.

[1516] So LXX.: Heb. a great wind.

[1517] Heb. on the sea.

[1518] Lit. reckoned or thought.

[1519] Heb. ropes.

[1520] The words for whose sake is this evil come upon us do not occur in LXX. and are unnecessary.

[1521] Wellhausen suspects this form of the Divine title.

[1522] Heb. dug.

[1523] I knew how Thou art a God gracious.

[1524] For the Babylonian myths see Sayce’s Hibbert Lectures; George Smith’s Assyrian Discoveries; and Gunkel, SchÖpfung u. Chaos.

[1525] Passages in which this class of myths are taken in a physical sense are Job iii. 8, vii. 12, xxvi. 12, 13, etc., etc.; and passages in which it is applied politically are Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Jer.li. 34, 44; Psalm lxxiv., etc. See Gunkel, SchÖpfung u. Chaos.

[1526] Chap.xvii. 12–14.

[1527] Jer. li. 34.

[1528] Heb. margin, LXX. and Syr.; Heb. text us.

[1529] Jer. li. 44, 45.

[1530] Cheyne, Theol. Rev., XIV. See above, p.503.

[1531] See above, p.511, on the Psalm of Jonah.

[1532] Above, p.525, n.1525.

[1533] It is very interesting to notice how many commentators (e.g. Pusey, and the English edition of Lange) who take the story in its individual meaning, and therefore as miraculous, immediately try to minimise the miracle by quoting stories of great fishes who have swallowed men, and even men in armour, whole, and in one case at least have vomited them up alive!

[1534] See above, pp.511 f.

[1535] See above, p.511, nn.1500, 1501.

[1536] The grammar, which usually expresses result, more literally runs, And Thou didst cast me; but after the preceding verse it must be taken not as expressing consequence but cause.

[1537] Read ????? for ????, and with the LXX. take the sentence interrogatively.