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 II. to Darius III., 425—331: the prophet Joel and perhaps several other anonymous fragments of prophecy.
* * * * *
Of these four sections we must now examine the first, for it forms the necessary introduction to our study of Haggai and Zechariah, and above all it raises a question almost greater than any of those we have just been discussing. The fact recorded by the Book of Ezra, and till a few years ago accepted without doubt by tradition and modern criticism, the first Return of Exiles from Babylon under Cyrus, has lately been altogether denied; and the builders of the Temple in 520 have been asserted to be, not returned exiles, but the remnant of Jews left in Judah by Nebuchadrezzar in 586. The importance of this for our interpretation of Haggai and Zechariah, who instigated the building of the Temple, is obvious: we must discuss the question in detail.
[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; 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.