2. The second section (ch. xii-xiv) is entitled "The burden of the word of Jehovah for Israel." IJut I.si-dcl is here ii^ed of the nation at large, not of Israel as distinct from Judah. Indeed, the prophecy whicii follows con- cerns Judah and Jerusalem. In this the prophet be- holds the near approach of troublous times, when .Jeru- salem should be iiard pressed by enemies. But in that day Jehovah shall come to save them : " the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of Jehovah" (xii, 8), and all the nations which gather themselves against Jerusalem shall be destroyed. At the same time, the deliverance shall not be from outward enemies alone. (Jod will pour out upon them a spirit of grace and sup- plications, so that they shall bewail their sinfulness with a mourning greater than that with which they be- wailed the beloved Josiah in the valley of Megiddo. So deep and so true shall be this repentance, so lively the aversion to all evil, that neither idol nor false proph- et shall again be seen in the land.' If a man shall pre- tend to prophesy, " his father and his mother that begat
him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth," lired by the same righteous indignation as I'hinehas was when he slew those who wrouglit folly in Israel (xii, 1-xiii, 0).
Thou follows a short apostrophe to the sword of the enemy to turn against the shepherds of the people ; and a further announcement of seardiing aiul purifying judgments; which, however, it must be acknowledged, is somewhat abrupt. Ewahl's suggestion that the pas- sage xiii, 7-9 is liere out of place, and should be trans- |)osed to the end of chap, xi, is certainly ingenious, and does not seem improbable.
The prophecy closes with a grand and stirring pict- ure. All nations are gathered together against .Jeru- salem, and seem already sure of their prey. Half of their cruel work has licen accomplished, wlien Jehovah himself appears on behalf of his people. At his coin- ing all nature is moved; the Mount of Olives on which his feet rest cleaves asinider; a mighty earthquake heaves the ground, and even the natural succrssion of day and night is broken. He goes forth to war against the adversaries of his people. He establishes his king- dom over all the earth. Jerusalem is safely inhabited, and becomes rich with the spoils of the nations. All na- tions that are still left shall come up to Jerusalem, as the great centre of religious worship, there to worship "the King, Jehovah of hosts," and the city from that day forward shall be a holy city.
II. Iiitflfjriti/. — Mede was the first to call this in ques- tion. The probability that the later chapters (from the 9th to the 14th) were by some other prophet seems first to have been suggested to him by the citation in Matthew. He says {Kpist. xxxi) :
" It may seem the evangelist would inform us that those hitter chapters iis(!ril)ed to Zachary (namely, 9th, 10th, lUh, etc.) are indeed the prophecies of Jcieniy, and that the Jews had not rightly attributed them. . . . Ceitaiiily, if a man weighs the contents of some of them, thev should in likelihood be of an elder d.ite than the time of Zachary— namely, before the Captivity — for the subjects of some of them were scarce iu being afier that time. And the chapter out of wliich St. Matthew quotes may seem to have somewhat mm-h unsuitable with Zaelinry's time; as, a proi)hecy of the destruction of the Temple, then when he was to encourage them to build il. And how doth the sixth verse of that chapter suit with his time? There is no scripture saith they are Zachary's ; but there is scripture saith they arc Jeremy's, as this of the evan- gelist."
He then observes fhat the mere fact of these being found in the same book as the prophecies of Zechariah does not prove that they were his; dift'erence of author- ship being allowable in the same way as in the collec- tion of Agur's Proverbs under one title with those of Solomon, and of Psalms by other authors with those of David. Even the absence of a fresh title is, he argues, no evidence against a change of author. "The Jews wrote in rolls or vohnnes, and the title was but once. If aught were added to the roll, oi stimUititdinem ai-r/n- menti, or for some other reason, it iiad a new title, as that of Agur; or perhaps none, but was civmvvhov" The utter disregard of anything like chronological order in the propliecies of Jeremiah, where "sometimes all is end- ed with Zedekiah; then we are brought iiack to Jehoi- akim, then to Zedekiah again" — makes it probai)le. he thinks, that they were only hastily and loosely put to- gether in those distracted times. Consequently, some of tliem might not have been discovered till after the return from the Captivity, when they were approved by Zechariah, and so came to be incorporated with his prophecies. Mede evidently rests his opinion, partly on tlie auliiority of Matthew, and partly on the con- tents of the later chapters, which he considers require a date earlier than the Exile. He says again (Kpist. xi) :