PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2
Smith, George Adam · 165,161 words · 239 reading sections
Footnotes:
Since this chapter was in print Nowack’s _Die Kleinen Propheten_ in the “Handkommentar z. A. T.” has been published. He recognises emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans, chap. i. 5-11, is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and the other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits …
706 wordsSECTION 62Footnotes:
[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…
329 wordsSECTION 63_The Prophet As Sceptic_
HABAKKUK i.—ii. 4 Of the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that is personal save his name—to our ears his somewhat odd name. It is the intensive form of a root which means to caress or embrace. More probably it was given to him as a child, than afterwards assumed as a symbol of his clinging to God.[343] Tradition says…
757 wordsSECTION 64_The Prophet As Sceptic_
_The Oracle which Habakkuk the Prophet Received by Vision._[346] _How long, O Jehovah, have I called and Thou hearest not? I cry to Thee, Wrong! and Thou sendest no help. Why make me look upon sorrow, And fill mine eyes with trouble? Violence and wrong are before me, Strife comes and quarrel arises.[347] So the…
773 wordsSECTION 65_The Prophet As Sceptic_
_Art not Thou of old, O LORD, my God, my Holy One, Purer of eyes than to behold evil, And incapable of looking upon wrong?_ His despair is that which comes only from eager and persevering habits of prayer:— _How long, O LORD, have I called and Thou hearest not! I cry to Thee of wrong and Thou givest no help!_ His…
806 wordsSECTION 66_The Prophet As Sceptic_
_Lo, swollen, not level, is his soul within him; But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness._ We have already seen[382] that the text of the first line of this couplet is uncertain. Yet the meaning is obvious, partly in the words themselves, and partly by their implied contrast with the second line. The soul of…
673 wordsSECTION 67Footnotes:
[343] חֲבַקּוּק (the Greek Ἁμβακουμ, LXX. version of the title of this book, and again the inscription to _Bel and the Dragon_, suggests the pointing חַבַּקוּק; Epiph., _De Vitis Proph._—see next note—spells it Ἁββακουμ), from חבק, _to embrace_. Jerome: “He is called ‘embrace’ either because of his love to the Lord, o…
654 wordsSECTION 68Footnotes:
[369] Heb. singular. [370] Omit ופרשיו (evidently a dittography) and the lame יבאו which is omitted by LXX. and was probably inserted to afford a verb for the second פרשיו. [371] Heb. sing., and so in all the clauses here except the next. [372] A problematical rendering. מגמה is found only here, and probably means _…
315 wordsSECTION 69_Tyranny Is Suicide_
HABAKKUK ii. 5-20 In the style of his master Isaiah, Habakkuk follows up his _Vision_ with a series of lyrics on the same subject: chap. ii. 5-20. They are taunt-songs, the most of them beginning with _Woe unto_, addressed to the heathen oppressor. Perhaps they were all at first of equal length, and it has been sugges…
422 wordsSECTION 70INTRODUCTION TO THE TAUNT-SONGS (ii. 5-6_a_).
_For ...[396] treacherous, An arrogant fellow, and is not ...[397] Who opens his desire wide as Sheol; He is like death, unsatisfied; And hath swept to himself all the nations, And gathered to him all peoples. Shall not these, all of them, take up a proverb upon him, And a taunt-song against him? and say:—_ FIR…
429 wordsSECTION 71Footnotes:
[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 t…
553 wordsSECTION 72“_In The Midst Of The Years_”
HABAKKUK iii. We have seen the impossibility of deciding the age of the ode which is attributed to Habakkuk in the third chapter of his book.[417] But this is only one of the many problems raised by that brilliant poem. Much of its text is corrupt, and the meaning of many single words is uncertain. As in most Hebrew p…
809 wordsSECTION 73Psalm[422] Of Habakkuk The Prophet.
_LORD, I have heard the report of Thee; I stand in awe![423] LORD, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make Thee known;[424] In turmoil[425] remember mercy!_ _God comes from Teman,[426] The Holy from Mount Paran.[427] He covers the heavens with His glory, And filled with His pra…
935 wordsSECTION 74Psalm[422] Of Habakkuk The Prophet.
It is probable that much of our sense of the staleness of the years comes from their prosperity. The dull feeling that time is mere routine is fastened upon our hearts by nothing more firmly than by the constant round of fruitful seasons—that fortification of comfort, that regularity of material supplies, which modern …
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[417] Above, pp. 126 ff. [418] רגז 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] _Jehovah from Sinai hath come, And risen from Se‘ir upon th…
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[434] שְׁבֻעוֹת מַטּוֹת אֹמֶר, literally _sworn are staves_ or _rods of speech_. A.V.: according _to the oaths of the tribes_, even Thy _word_. LXX. (omitting שְׁבֻעוֹת and adding יהוה) ἐπὶ σκῆπτρα, λέγει κύριος. These words “form a riddle which all the ingenuity of scholars has not been able to solve. Delitzsch calcu…
593 wordsSECTION 77_The Book Of Obadiah_
_And Saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be Jehovah’s._ The Book of Obadiah is the smallest among the prophets, and the smallest in all the Old Testament. Yet there is none which better illustrates many of the main problems of Old Testament criticism. It raises, indeed, no d…
732 wordsSECTION 78_The Book Of Obadiah_
The supporters of a pre-exilic origin for the _whole_ Book of Obadiah have to explain vv. 11-14, which appear to reflect Edom’s conduct at the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586, and they do so in two ways. Pusey takes the verses as predictive of Nebuchadrezzar’s siege. Orelli and others believe that they suit …
670 wordsSECTION 79_The Book Of Obadiah_
Our criticism of this theory may start from the seventh verse of Obadiah: _To the border they have sent thee, all the men of thy covenant have betrayed thee, they have overpowered thee, the men of thy peace._ On our present knowledge of the history of Edom it is impossible to assign the first of these clauses to any pe…
691 wordsSECTION 80The Vision Of Obadiah.
The result of our inquiry is that the Book of Obadiah was written at that time by a prophet in exile, who was filled by the same hatred of Edom as filled another exile, who in Babylon wrote Psalm cxxxvii.; and that, like so many of the exilic writers, he started from an earlier prophecy against Edom, already used by Je…
737 wordsSECTION 81Footnotes:
_And the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and the Shephelah the Philistines,[503] and the Mountain[504] shall possess Ephraim and the field of Samaria,[505] and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. And the exiles of this host[506] of the children of Israel shall possess(?) the land[507] of the Canaanites unto Sarephath, and t…
669 wordsSECTION 82Footnotes:
[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, _Intr…
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[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. […
676 wordsSECTION 84Obadiah 1-21
If the Book of Obadiah presents us with some of the most difficult questions of criticism, it raises besides one of the hardest ethical problems in all the vexed history of Israel. Israel’s fate has been to work out their calling in the world through antipathies rather than by sympathies, but of all the antipathies wh…
751 wordsSECTION 85Obadiah 1-21
On this rich fortress-land the Edomites enjoyed a civilisation far above that of the tribes who swarmed upon the surrounding deserts; and at the same time they were cut off from the lands of those Syrian nations who were their equals in culture and descent. When Edom looked out of himself, he looked _down_ and _across_…
692 wordsSECTION 86Obadiah 1-21
But of such a national character Israel was in all points, save that of cunning, essentially the reverse. Who had such a passion for the ideal? Who such a hunger for the future, such hopes or such visions? Never more than in the day of their prostration, when Jerusalem and the sanctuary fell in ruins, did they feel and…
735 wordsSECTION 87_Israel Under The Persians_ (539—331 B.C.)
[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 …
957 wordsSECTION 88_Israel Under The Persians_ (539—331 B.C.)
* * * * * Unfortunately the Jewish records for this time are both fragmentary and confused; they touch the general history of the world only at intervals, and give rise to a number of difficult questions, some of which are insoluble. The clearest and only consecutive line of data through the period is the list of the …
809 wordsSECTION 89_Israel Under The Persians_ (539—331 B.C.)
But if this be so, then there falls away a great part of the argument for placing the building of the walls of Jerusalem and the labours of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes II. (404—358) instead of Artaxerxes I. It is true that some who accept the building of the Temple under Darius I. nevertheless put Ezra and Nehem…
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2. From the Completion of the Temple under Darius I. to the arrival of Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I., 516—458: sometimes called the period of silence, but probably yielding the Book of “Malachi.” 3. The Work of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes I., Longimanus, 458—425. 4. The Rest of the Period, Xerxes I…
703 wordsSECTION 91(536—516 B. C.)
[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…
812 wordsSECTION 92(536—516 B. C.)
Another section from the Compiler’s hand states that the returned Jews set to work upon the Temple _in the second month of the second year_ of their Return, presumably 536 B.C., laying the foundation-stone with due pomp, and amid the excitement of the whole people.[563] Whereupon certain _adversaries_, by whom the Comp…
688 wordsSECTION 93(536—516 B. C.)
1. Is the Book of Ezra, then, right or wrong in asserting that there was a great return of Jews, headed by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, about the year 536, and that it was they who in 520—516 rebuilt the Temple? The argument that in recounting these events the Book of Ezra is unhistorical has been fully stated by Professor …
787 wordsSECTION 94(536—516 B. C.)
We turn now to Dr. Kosters’ treatment of the so-called List of the Returned Exiles. He holds this List to have been, not only borrowed for its place in Ezra ii. from Nehemiah vii.,[576] but even interpolated in the latter. His reasons for this latter conclusion are very improbable, as will be seen from the appended not…
875 wordsSECTION 95(536—516 B. C.)
Another fact should be marked. If Haggai is silent about any return from exile in the past, he is equally silent about any in the future. If for him no return had yet taken place, would he not have been likely to predict it as certain to happen?[587] At least his silence on the subject proves how absolutely he confined…
740 wordsSECTION 96(536—516 B. C.)
Moreover, we have another, and to the mind of the present writer an almost conclusive argument, that the Jews addressed by Haggai and Zechariah were Jews returned from Babylon. Neither prophet ever charges his people with idolatry; neither prophet so much as mentions idols. This is natural if the congregation addressed…
927 wordsSECTION 97(536—516 B. C.)
And indeed, is it not in itself very probable that some early attempt was made by the exiles returned under Cyrus to rebuild the house of Jehovah? Cyrus had been predicted by the Second Isaiah not only as the redeemer of God’s people, but with equal explicitness as the builder of the Temple; and all the argument which …
751 wordsSECTION 98Footnotes:
The death of a cruel monarch is always in the East an occasion for the revival of shattered hopes, and the events which accompanied the suicide of Cambyses in 522 were particularly fraught with the possibilities of political change. Cambyses’ throne had been usurped by one Gaumata, who pretended to be Smerdis or Barada…
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[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 _…
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[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 testim…
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[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-…
253 wordsSECTION 102_The Book Of Haggai_
_Go up into the mountain, and fetch wood, and build the House._ The Book of Haggai contains thirty-eight verses, which have been divided between two chapters.[615] The text is, for the prophets, a comparatively sound one. The Greek version affords a number of corrections, but has also the usual amount of misunderstand…
676 wordsSECTION 103_The Book Of Haggai_
Recently M. Tony Andrée, _privat-docent_ in the University of Geneva, has issued a large work on Haggai,[624] in which he has sought to prove that the _third_ section of the book, chap. ii. (10) 11-19, is from the hand of another writer than the rest. He admits[625] that in neither form, nor style, nor language is ther…
683 wordsSECTION 104_The Book Of Haggai_
The only other matter of Introduction to the prophet Haggai is his name. The precise form[635] is not elsewhere found in the Old Testament; but one of the clans of the tribe of Gad is called Haggi,[636] and the letters H G I occur as the consonants of a name on a Phœnician inscription.[637] Some[638] have taken Haggai …
565 wordsSECTION 105Footnotes:
[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, pp. 243, n. 685, 246, n. 700. [617] Besides the general works on the text of the Twelve Prophets, …
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[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] חַגַּי Greek Ἀγγαῖος. [636] חַגִּי, Gen. xlvi. 16, Num. xxvi. 15; Greek Ἁγγει, Ἁγγεις. The feminine חַגִּית, …
274 wordsSECTION 107_Haggai And The Building Of The Temple_
HAGGAI i., ii. We have seen that the most probable solution of the problems presented to us by the inadequate and confused records of the time is that a considerable number of Jewish exiles returned from Jerusalem to Babylon about 537, upon the permission of Cyrus, and that the Satrap whom he sent with them not only a…
792 wordsSECTION 108_Haggai And The Building Of The Temple_
Nor does Haggai deserve blame that he interpreted the duty as the material building of the Temple. This was no mere ecclesiastical function. Without the Temple the continuity of Israel’s religion could not be maintained. An independent state, with the full courses of civic life, was then impossible. The ethical spirit,…
788 wordsSECTION 109_Haggai And The Building Of The Temple_
The straight appeal to the conscience of the Jews had an immediate effect. Within three weeks they began work on the Temple. _And Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el, and Jehoshua‘, son of Jehoṣadaḳ, the high priest, and all the rest of the people, hearkened to the voice of Jehovah their God, and to the words of Haggai the…
706 wordsSECTION 110_Haggai And The Building Of The Temple_
From the earliest times this passage, by the majority of the Christian Church, has been interpreted of the coming of Christ. The Vulgate renders ver. 7_b_, _Et veniet Desideratus cunctis gentibus_, and so a large number of the Latin Fathers, who are followed by Luther, _Der Trost aller Heiden_, and by our own Authorise…
987 wordsSECTION 111_Haggai And The Building Of The Temple_
This then is the substance of the whole message. On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, somewhere in our December, the Jews had been discouraged that their attempts to build the Temple, begun three months before,[711] had not turned the tide of their misfortunes and produced prosperity in their agriculture. Hagga…
810 wordsSECTION 112Footnotes:
* * * * * Haggai’s place in the succession of prophecy ought now to be clear to us. The meagreness of his words and their crabbed style, his occupation with the construction of the Temple, his unfulfilled hope in Zerubbabel, his silence on the great inheritance of truth delivered by his predecessors, and the absence f…
658 wordsSECTION 113Footnotes:
[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_, חֶמְדַּת (fem, for neut.), but t…
791 wordsSECTION 114Footnotes:
[701] From this day and onward. [702] Heb. literally _since they were_. A.V. _since those days were_. [703] Winevat, יֶקֶב, is distinguished from winepress, גת, in Josh. ix. 13, and is translated by the Greek ὑπολήνιον Mark xii. I, ληνόν Matt. xxi. 33, _dug a pit for the winepress_; but the name is applied sometimes …
792 wordsSECTION 115_The Book Of Zechariah (I.-Viii.)_
[709] Meaning _there is none_. [710] ועוד or וְעֹד for וְעַד, after LXX. καὶ εἰ ἔτι. [711] The twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, according to chap. i. 15. [712] See above, p. 228. [713] “For I believe the devil’s voice Sinks deeper in our ear, Than any whisper sent from heaven, However sweet and clear.” […
761 wordsSECTION 116_The Book Of Zechariah (I.-Viii.)_
III. Chap. vi. 9-15.—A Word of Jehovah, undated (unless it is to be taken as of the same date as the Visions to which it is attached), giving directions as to the gifts sent to the community at Jerusalem from the Babylonian Jews. A crown is to be made from the silver and gold, and, according to the text, placed upo…
919 wordsSECTION 117_The Book Of Zechariah (I.-Viii.)_
These features leave no room for doubt that the great bulk of the first eight chapters of the Book of Zechariah are by the prophet himself, and from the years to which he assigns them, November 520 to December 518. The point requires no argument. There are, however, three passages which provoke further examination—two…
816 wordsSECTION 118Footnotes:
Beyond the corruptions due to these causes, the text of Zechariah i.—viii. has not suffered more than that of our other prophets. There are one or two clerical errors;[753] an occasional preposition or person of a verb needs to be amended. Here and there the text has been disarranged;[754] and as already noticed, there…
655 wordsSECTION 119_Zechariah The Prophet_
[754] Chap. iv. On 6_a_, 10_b_-14 should immediately follow, and 6_b_-10_a_ 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, …
803 wordsSECTION 120_Zechariah The Prophet_
We begin with the oracle, which opens his book and illustrates those simple characteristics of the man that contrast so sharply with the temper of his Visions. _In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Jehovah came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berekhyah, son of Iddo,[770] saying: Jehovah was …
960 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.