CHAPTER XVII THE BOOK OF HAGGAI HE Book of Haggai contains thirty-eight verses, THE which have been divided between two chapters.1 The text is, for the prophets, a comparatively sound one. The Greek version affords a number of corrections, but has also the usual amount of misunderstandings, and, as in the case of other prophets, a few additions to the Hebrew text.2 These and the variations in the other ancient versions will be noted in the translation below. The book consists of four sections, each recounting a message from Jehovah to the Jews in Jerusalem in 520 B.C., the second year of Darius (Hystaspis), by the hand of the prophet Haggai. The first, chap. i., dated the first day of the sixth month, during our September, reproves the Jews for building their own cieled houses, while they say that the time for building Jehovah's house has not yet come; 1 In the English Bible the division corresponds to that of the Hebrew, which gives fifteen verses to chap. i. The LXX. takes the fifteenth verse along with ver. I of chap. ii. 2 ii. 9, 14 see on these passages, pp. 243, n. 1, 246, n. 4. Besides the general works on the text of the Twelve Prophets, already cited, M. Tony Andrée has published État Critique du Texte d'Aggee: Quatre Tableaux Comparatifs (Paris, 1893), which is also included in his general introduction and commentary on the prophet, quoted below. VOL. II. 225 15 affirms that this is the reason of their poverty and of a great drought which has afflicted them. A piece of narrative is added recounting how Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the heads of the community, were stirred by this word to lead the people to begin work on the Temple, on the twenty-fourth day of the same month. The second section, chap. ii. 1-9, contains a message, dated the twenty-first day of the seventh month, during our October, in which the builders are encouraged for their work. Jehovah is about to shake all nations, these shall contribute of their wealth, and the latter glory of the Temple be greater than the former. The third section, chap. ii. 10-19, contains a word of Jehovah which came to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, during our December. It is in the form of a parable based on certain ceremonial laws, according to which the touch of a holy thing does not sanctify so much as the touch of an unholy pollutes. Thus is the people polluted, and thus every work of their hands. Their sacrifices avail nought, and adversity has persisted: small increase of fruits, blasting, mildew and hail. But from this day God will bless. The fourth section, chap. ii. 20-23, is a second word from the Lord to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. It is for Zerubbabel, and declares that God will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the forces of many of the Gentiles by war. In that day Zerubbabel, the Lord's elect servant, shall be as a signet to the Lord. The authenticity of all these four sections was doubted by no one,' till ten years ago W. Böhme, 'Robertson Smith (Encyc. Brit., art. "Haggai," 1880) does not even mention authenticity. "Without doubt from Haggai himself" (Kuenen). "The Book of Haggai is without doubt to be dated, besides pointing out some useless repetitions of single words and phrases, cast suspicion on chap. i. 13, and questioned the whole of the fourth section, chap. ii. 20-23.1 With regard to chap. i. 13, it is indeed curious that Haggai should be described as the messenger of Jehovah; while the message itself, I am with you, seems superfluous here, and if the verse be omitted, ver. 14 runs on naturally to ver. 12.2 Böhme's reasons for disputing the authenticity of chap. ii. 20-23 are much less sufficient. He thinks he sees the hand of an editor in the phrase for a second time in ver. 20; notes the omission of the title "prophet "3 after Haggai's name, and the difference of the formula the word came to Haggai from that employed in the previous sections, by the hand of Haggai, and the repetition of ver. 66 in ver. 21; and otherwise concludes that the section is an insertion from a later hand. But the formula the word came to Haggai occurs also in ii. 10: the other points are trivial, and while it was most natural for Haggai the contemporary of Zerubbabel to entertain of the latter such hopes as the passage expresses, it is inconceivable that a later writer, who knew how they had not been fulfilled in Zerubbabel, should have invented them." Recently M. Tony Andrée, privat-docent in the University of Geneva, has issued a large work on Haggai, in which he has sought to prove that the third section of according to its whole extant contents, from the prophet Haggai, whose work fell in the year 520" (König). So Driver, Kirkpatrick, Cornill, etc. 1 Z.A.T.W., 1887, 215 f. 2 So also Wellhausen. 3 Which occurs only in the LXX. • See note on that verse. 5 Cf. Wildeboer, Litter. des A. T., 294. Le Prophète Aggee, Introduction Critique et Commentaire. Paris, Fischbacher, 1893. |