_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 it on the head of....[881] And say to him: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Lo! a man called Branch; from his roots shall a branch come, and he shall build the Temple of Jehovah. Yea, he shall build Jehovah’s Temple,[882] and he shall wear the royal majesty and sit and rule upon his throne, and Joshua[883] shall be priest on his right hand,[884] and there will be a counsel of peace between the two of them.[885] And the crown shall be for Heldai[886] and Tobiyah and Yeda‛yah, and for the courtesy[887] of the son of Ṣephanyah, for a memorial in the Temple of Jehovah. And the far-away shall come and build at the Temple of Jehovah, and ye shall know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me to you; and it shall be if ye hearken lo the voice of Jehovah your God...._[888]
[777] iv. 6. Unless this be taken as an earlier prophecy. See above, p. 260.
[778] ii. 9, 10 Heb., 5, 6 LXX. and Eng.
[779] See above, p. 214, where this is stated as an argument against Kosters’ theory that there was no Return from Babylon in the reign of Cyrus.
[780] Vv. 17 and 19.
[781] See Zechariah’s Fifth Vision.
[782] xliv. 1 ff.
[783] xlv. 22.
[784] xliv. 23, 24.
[785] Its origin was the Exile, whether its date be before or after the First Return under Cyrus in 537 B.C.
[786] Fourth Vision, chap. iii.
[787] vi. 9-15.
[788] See ver. 11.
[789] ii. 20-23.
[790] iii. 8.
[791] חִלָּה אֶת־פְּנֵי יהוה. The verb (Piel) originally means _to make weak_ or _flaccid_ (the Kal means _to be sick_), and so _to soften_ or _weaken by flattery_. 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings xiii. 6, etc.
[792] First Vision, chap. i. 11.
[793] Second Vision, ii. 1-4 Heb., i. 18-21 LXX. and Eng.
[794] Eighth Vision, chap. vi. 1-8.
[795] xxi. 36 Heb., 31 Eng.: _skilful to destroy_.
[796] See next chapter.
[797] Jer. xxv. 12; Hag. ii. 7.
[798] Myrtles were once common in the Holy Land, and have been recently found (Hasselquist, _Travels_). For their prevalence near Jerusalem see Neh. viii. 15. They do not appear to have any symbolic value in the Vision.
[799] For a less probable explanation see above, p. 282.
[800] See pp. 311, 313, etc.
[801] Ewald omits _riding a brown horse_, as “marring the lucidity of the description, and added from a misconception by an early hand.” But we must not expect lucidity in a phantasmagoria like this.
[802] מְצֻלָה, Meṣullah, either _shadow_ from צלל, or for מְצוּלָה, _ravine_, or else a proper name. The LXX., which uniformly for הֲדַסִּים, _myrtles_, reads הרים, _mountains_, renders אשר במצלה by τῶν κατασκίων. Ewald and Hitzig read מְצִלָּה, Arab, mizhallah, _shadowing_ or _tent_.
[803] Heb. שרקים, only here. For this LXX. gives two kinds, καὶ ψαροὶ καὶ ποικίλοι, _and dappled and piebald_. Wright gives a full treatment of the question, pp. 531 ff. He points out that the cognate word in Arabic means sorrel, or yellowish red.
[804] _Who stood among the myrtles_ omitted by Nowack.
[805] Isa. xxxvii. 29; Jer. xlviii. 11; Psalm cxxiii. 4; Zeph. i. 12.
[806] Or _for_.
[807] _Who talked with me_ omitted by Nowack.
[808] Heb. _helped for evil_, or _till it became a calamity_.
[809] Marcus Dods, _Hag., Zech. and Mal._, p. 71. Orelli: “In distinction from Daniel, Zechariah is fond of a simultaneous survey, not the presenting of a succession.”