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
_Zechariah The Prophet_
The argument of this oracle might very naturally have been narrowed into a credential for the prophet himself as sent from God. About his reception as Jehovah’s messenger Zechariah shows a repeated anxiety. Four times he concludes a prediction with the words, _And ye shall know that Jehovah hath sent me_,[775] as if af…
538 wordsSECTION 122Footnotes:
[757] זֶכֶרְיָה; LXX. Ζαχαρίας. [758] i. 1: בֶּן־בֶרֶכְיָה בֶּן־עִדּוֹ. In i. 7: בֶּרֶכְיָהוּ בֶּן־עִדּוֹא. [759] Ezra v. 1, vi. 14: בַּר־עִדּוֹא. [760] Gen. xxiv. 47, cf. xxix. 5; 1 Kings xix. 16, cf. 2 Kings ix. 14, 20. [761] Isa. viii. 2: בֶּן־יְבֶרֶכְיָהוּ. This confusion, which existed in early Jewish and Chr…
584 wordsSECTION 123_The Visions Of Zechariah_
ZECHARIAH i. 7—vi. The Visions of Zechariah do not lack those large and simple views of religion which we have just seen to be the charm of his other prophecies. Indeed it is among the Visions that we find the most spiritual of all his utterances:[777] _Not by might, and not by force, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah o…
583 wordsSECTION 1241. The Influences Which Moulded The Visions.
The explanation of this change that has come over prophecy must be sought for in certain habits which the people formed in exile. During the Exile several causes conspired to develop among Hebrew writers the tempers both of symbolism and apocalypse. The chief of these was their separation from the realities of civic li…
804 wordsSECTION 1251. The Influences Which Moulded The Visions.
The force of these developments of Apocalypse, Angelology and the Ritual appears both in Ezekiel and in the exilic codification of the ritual which forms so large a part of the Pentateuch. Ezekiel carries Apocalypse far beyond the beginnings started by Zephaniah. He introduces, though not under the name of angels, supe…
341 wordsSECTION 1262. General Features Of The Visions.
It was beneath these influences that Zechariah grew up, and to them we may trace, not only numerous details of his Visions, but the whole of their involved symbolism. He was himself a priest and the son of a priest, born and bred in the very order to which we owe the codification of the ritual, and the development of t…
943 wordsSECTION 1273. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
We have now before us all the influences which led Zechariah to the main form and chief features of his Visions. For all the Visions there is one date, _in the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius_, that is January or February 519; and one Divine impulse, _the Word of…
859 wordsSECTION 1283. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
Two things are to be noted in this oracle. No political movement is indicated as the means of Jerusalem’s restoration: this is to be the effect of God’s free grace in returning to dwell in Jerusalem, which is the reward of the building of the Temple. And there is an interesting explanation of the motive for God’s new g…
726 wordsSECTION 1293. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
_And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! a man with a measuring rope in his hand. So I said, Whither art thou going? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem: to see how much its breadth and how much its length should be. And lo! the angel who talked with me came forward,[815] and another angel came forward to meet h…
678 wordsSECTION 1303. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
_For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts[821] to the nations that plunder you (for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye), that, lo! I am about to wave My hand over them, and they shall be plunder to their own servants, and ye shall know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me._ _Sing out and rejoice, O daughter of Zi…
884 wordsSECTION 1313. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
The theological significance of the Vision is as clear as its consequences in the subsequent theology and symbolism of Judaism. The uncleanness of Israel which infests their representative before God is not defined. Some[839] hold that it includes the guilt of Israel’s idolatry. But they have to go back to Ezekiel for …
946 wordsSECTION 1323. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
One thing is very remarkable. The two sources of revelation are the King and the Priest. The Prophet is not mentioned beside them. Nothing could prove more emphatically the sense in Israel that prophecy was exhausted. The appointment of so responsible a position for Zerubbabel demanded for him a special promise of gra…
844 wordsSECTION 1333. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
_And I turned and lifted my eyes and looked, and lo! a volume[860] flying. And he said unto me, What dost thou see? And I said, I see a volume flying, its length twenty cubits and its breadth ten. And he said unto me, This is the curse that is going out upon the face of all the land. For every thief is hereby purged aw…
652 wordsSECTION 1343. Exposition Of The Several Visions.
As the series of Visions opened with one of the universal providence of God, so they close with another of the same. The First Vision had postponed God’s overthrow of the nations till His own time, and this the Last Vision now describes as begun, the religious and moral needs of Israel having meanwhile been met by the …
782 wordsSECTION 135Footnotes:
_And the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying: Take from the Gôlah,[878] from Heldai[879] and from Tobiyah and from Yeda‛yah; and do thou go on the same day, yea, go thou to the house of Yosiyahu, son of Ṣephanyah, whither they have arrived from Babylon.[880] And thou shall take silver and gold, and make a crown, and set…
672 wordsSECTION 136Footnotes:
[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, o…
739 wordsSECTION 137Footnotes:
[836] Wellhausen takes the last words of ver. 5 with ver. 6, reads עָמַד and renders _And the Angel of Jehovah stood up or stepped forward_. But even if עָמַד 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…
339 wordsSECTION 138[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…
655 wordsSECTION 139[856] Lxx. _I_.
[874] Wellhausen, supplying ל before ארבע, renders _These go forth to the four winds of heaven after they have presented themselves_, etc. [875] Heb. _behind them_. [876] אמצים, the second epithet of the horses of the fourth chariot, ver. 3. See note there. [877] Or _anger to bear_, Heb. _rest_. [878] The collecti…
566 wordsSECTION 140_The Angels Of The Visions_
ZECHARIAH i. 7—vi. 8 Among the influences of the Exile which contributed the material of Zechariah’s Visions we included a considerable development of Israel’s belief in Angels. The general subject is in itself so large, and the Angels play so many parts in the Visions, that it is necessary to devote to them a separat…
853 wordsSECTION 141_The Angels Of The Visions_
Many of the features of Ezekiel’s Angels appear in those of Zechariah. _The four smiths_ or smiters of the four horns recall the six executioners of the wicked in Jerusalem.[903] Like Ezekiel’s Interpreter, they are called _Men_,[904] and like him one appears as Zechariah’s instructor and guide: _he who talked with me_…
762 wordsSECTION 142_The Angels Of The Visions_
The intercession of the Angel in the First Vision is also a step towards that identification of special Angels with different peoples which we find in the Book of Daniel. This tells us of heavenly princes not only for Israel—_Michael, your prince, the great prince which standeth up for the children of thy people_[916]—…
907 wordsSECTION 143Footnotes:
[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.…
511 wordsSECTION 144“_The Seed Of Peace_”
ZECHARIAH vii., viii. The Visions have revealed the removal of the guilt of the land, the restoration of Israel to their standing before God, the revival of the great national institutions, and God’s will to destroy the heathen forces of the world. With the Temple built, Israel should be again in the position which sh…
790 wordsSECTION 145“_The Seed Of Peace_”
[937]_Thus spake Jehovah of Hosts: Judge true judgment, and practise towards each other kindness and mercy; oppress neither widow nor orphan, stranger nor poor, and think not evil in your hearts towards one another. But they refused to hearken, and turned a rebellious shoulder,[938] and their ears they dulled from list…
794 wordsSECTION 146“_The Seed Of Peace_”
_And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came, saying:—_ 1. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: I am jealous for Zion with a great jealousy, and with great anger am I jealous for her._ 2. _Thus saith Jehovah: I am returned to Zion, and I dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the City of Troth,[942] and th…
651 wordsSECTION 147Footnotes:
10. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: In those days ten men, of all languages of the nations, shall take hold of the skirt of a Jew and say, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you._ [931] Cf. chap. vii. 3: _the priests which were of the house of Jehovah_. [932] Jer. xli. 2; 2 Kings xxv. 25. [933] Th…
470 wordsSECTION 148_The Book Of “Malachi”_
_Have we not all One Father? Why then are we unfaithful to each other?_ _The lips of a Priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the Angel of Jehovah of Hosts._ This book, the last in the arrangement of the prophetic canon, bears the title: _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah …
762 wordsSECTION 149_The Book Of “Malachi”_
The Temple has been finished,[961] and years enough have elapsed to disappoint those fervid hopes with which about 518 Zechariah expected its completion. The congregation has grown worldly and careless. In particular the priests are corrupt and partial in the administration of the Law.[962] There have been many marriag…
780 wordsSECTION 150_The Book Of “Malachi”_
The Book of “Malachi” is an argument with the prophet’s contemporaries, not only with the wicked among them, who in forgetfulness of what Jehovah is corrupt the ritual, fail to give the Temple its dues, abuse justice, marry foreign wives,[983] divorce their own, and commit various other sins; but also with the pious, w…
940 wordsSECTION 151Footnotes:
[949] מלאכיה or מלאכיהו. 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…
655 wordsSECTION 152Footnotes:
[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 hist…
308 wordsSECTION 153_From Zechariah To “Malachi”_
Between the completion of the Temple in 516 and the arrival of Ezra in 458, we have almost no record of the little colony round Mount Zion. The Jewish chronicles devote to the period but a few verses of unsupported tradition.[987] After 517 we have nothing from Zechariah himself; and if any other prophet appeared durin…
926 wordsSECTION 154_From Zechariah To “Malachi”_
So the religious condition of Israel declined for nearly two generations, and then about 460 the Word of God, after long silence, broke once more through a prophet’s lips. We call this prophet “Malachi,” following the error of an editor of his book, who, finding it nameless, inferred or invented that name from its des…
738 wordsSECTION 155Footnotes:
In one other point the book is original, and that is in its attitude towards the heathen. Among the heathen, it boldly says, Jehovah is held in higher reverence than among His own people.[1001] In such a statement we can hardly fail to feel the influence upon Israel of their contact, often close and personal, with thei…
392 wordsSECTION 156_Prophecy Within The Law_
“MALACHI” i.—iv. Beneath this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of “Malachi.” They contain many things of perennial interest and validity: their truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to ourselves. But their chief significance is historical. They illustrate the development of prophecy …
846 wordsSECTION 157_Prophecy Within The Law_
The event to which “Malachi” appeals as evidence for God’s rejection of Edom is _the desolation_ of the latter’s ancient _heritage_, _and_ the abandonment of it to the _jackals of the desert_. Scholars used to think that these vague phrases referred to some act of the Persian kings: some removal of the Edomites from th…
721 wordsSECTION 158_Prophecy Within The Law_
This Majesty and this Holiness have been wronged, he says, by low thoughts of God’s altar, and by offering upon it, with untroubled conscience, cheap and blemished sacrifices. The people would have been ashamed to present such to their Persian governor: how can God be pleased with them? Better that sacrifice should cea…
964 wordsSECTION 159_Prophecy Within The Law_
Before we pass from this passage we must notice in it one very remarkable feature—perhaps the most original contribution which the Book of “Malachi” makes to the development of prophecy. In contrast to the irreverence of Israel and the wrong they do to Jehovah’s Holiness, He Himself asserts that not only is _His Name g…
804 wordsSECTION 160_Prophecy Within The Law_
3. THE PRIESTHOOD OF KNOWLEDGE (Chap. ii. 1-9). In the third section of his book “Malachi” addresses himself to the priests. He charges them not only with irreverence and slovenliness in their discharge of the Temple service—for this he appears to intend by the phrase _filth of your feasts_—but with the neglect of the…
815 wordsSECTION 161_Prophecy Within The Law_
_Have we not all One Father? Hath not One God created us? Why then are we unfaithful to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?...[1044] Ye cover with tears the altar of Jehovah, with weeping and with groaning, because respect is no longer had to the offering, and acceptable gifts are not taken from your ha…
334 wordsSECTION 1625. “Where Is The God Of Judgment?”
(Chap. ii. 17—iii. 5). In this section “Malachi” turns from the sinners of his people to those who weary Jehovah with the complaint that sin is successful, or, as they put it, _Every one that does evil is good in the eyes of Jehovah, and He delighteth in them_; and again, _Where is the God of Judgment?_ The answer is,…
826 wordsSECTION 1635. “Where Is The God Of Judgment?”
7. THE JUDGMENT TO COME (Chap. iii. 13-21 Heb., iii. 13—iv. 2 Eng.). This is another charge to the doubters among the pious remnant of Israel, who, seeing the success of the wicked, said it is vain to serve God. Deuteronomy was their Canon, and Deuteronomy said that if men sinned they decayed, if they were righteous …
857 wordsSECTION 164Footnotes:
_Remember the Torah of Moses, My servant, with which I charged him in Horeb for all Israel: statutes and judgments. Lo! I am sending to you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of Jehovah. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, …
650 wordsSECTION 165[1028] Lxx.
[1025] Heb. also has ניבו, 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 נבזה, which has kept its place after the correction was inserted. [1026] This clause is obscure, and comes in awkwardly before that which follows it. We…
726 wordsSECTION 166[1028] Lxx.
[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…
400 wordsSECTION 1671. The Date Of The Book.
_The Day of Jehovah is great and very awful, and who may abide it?_ _But now the oracle of Jehovah—Turn ye to Me with all your heart, and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to Jehovah your God, for gracious and merciful is He, long-suffering and abo…
968 wordsSECTION 1681. The Date Of The Book.
These reasons are not all equally cogent,[1087] and even the strongest of them do not prove more than the possibility of an early date for Joel.[1088] Nor do they meet every historical difficulty. The minority of Joash, upon which they converge, fell at a time when Aram was not only prominent to the thoughts of Israel,…
838 wordsSECTION 1691. The Date Of The Book.
These evidences for a late date are supported, on the whole, by the language of the book. Of this Merx furnishes many details, and by a careful examination, which makes due allowance for the poetic form of the book and for possible glosses, Holzinger has shown that there are symptoms in vocabulary, grammar and syntax w…
812 wordsSECTION 1701. The Date Of The Book.
One solution, which has lately been offered for the problems of date presented by the Book of Joel, deserves some notice. In his German translation of Driver’s _Introduction to the Old Testament_,[1131] Rothstein questions the integrity of the prophecy, and alleges reasons for dividing it into two sections. Chaps. i. a…
680 wordsSECTION 1711. The Date Of The Book.
A large and growing majority of critics of all schools[1133] hold that Joel starts, like other prophets, from the facts of experience. His locusts, though described with poetic hyperbole—for are they not the vanguard of the awful Day of God’s judgment?—are real locusts; their plague has just been felt by his contempora…
702 wordsSECTION 1721. The Date Of The Book.
For, in the first place, Pusey’s theory implies that the prophecy is addressed to a future generation, who shall be alive when the predicted invasions of heathen come upon the land. Whereas Joel obviously addresses his own contemporaries. The prophet and his hearers are one. _Before our eyes_, he says, _the food has be…
1,108 wordsSECTION 1731. The Date Of The Book.
Merx has traced Joel’s relations to other prophets, and reflection of a late date in Israel’s history, with care and ingenuity; but his treatment of the text and exegesis of the prophet’s meaning are alike forced and fanciful. In face of the support which the Massoretic reading of the hinge of the book, chap. ii. 1…
553 wordsSECTION 174Footnotes:
Joel’s style is fluent and clear, both when he is describing the locusts, in which part of his book he is most original, and when he is predicting, in apocalyptic language largely borrowed from earlier prophets, the Day of Jehovah. To the ease of understanding him we may attribute the sound state of the text and its fr…
652 wordsSECTION 175Footnotes:
[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 …
755 wordsSECTION 176Footnotes:
[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…
651 wordsSECTION 177_The Locusts And The Day Of The Lord_
[1146] i. 3. [1147] i. 17 ff. [1148] ii. 17, ii. 9 ff. [1149] למשל בם [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 tak…
793 wordsSECTION 178_The Locusts And The Day Of The Lord_
“It is a strange sight, beautiful if you can forget the destruction it brings with it. The whole air, to twelve or even eighteen feet above the ground, is filled with the insects, reddish brown in body, with bright, gauzy wings. When the sun’s rays catch them it is like the sea sparkling with light. When you see them a…
809 wordsSECTION 179_The Locusts And The Day Of The Lord_
These extracts prove to us what little need Joel had of hyperbole in order to read his locusts as signs of the Day of Jehovah; especially if we keep in mind that locusts are worst in very hot summers, and often accompany an absolute drought along with its consequence of prairie and forest fires. Some have thought that,…
1,000 wordsSECTION 180_The Locusts And The Day Of The Lord_
The thing is true, and permanently valid. Only the great natural processes can break up the systems of dogma and ritual in which we make ourselves comfortable and formal, and drive us out into God’s open air of reality. In the crash of nature’s forces even our particular sins are forgotten, and we feel, as in the immed…
774 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.