[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.