"of Persia," Constantine or Charlemagne, Elizabeth or Cromwell. Each alike continues its appeal before that power, forecasting, even to the letter, the litigations by which Greek, Latin, and Armenian invoke the aid of the Sublime Porte in their disputes over the Holy Places on the very same soil. Each alike, and all their successors, deserve the rebuke which had been anticipated by the Great Prophet of the Captivity, when in his ideal glorification of Jerusalem he described that its walls should be built, not by its own children, but by the sons of strangers, and that its gates should not be rigidly closed, but should be open continually, and be shut neither day nor night.1 In these miserable accusations and counter-accusations carried on before the Princes who successively mounted the throne of Persia - the fierce Cam years were wasted.2 Cambyses, B.C. 529. Hystaspes, byses, the usurping Smerdis-twelve precious Darius At last the revolution, c. 522which raised the son of Hystaspes to power, 485. gave a new opening to the oppressed and bewildered community at Jerusalem. He, the second Founder of the Persian kingdom, was, as it were, a second Cyrus to them. And it is just at this moment that the scanty information afforded by the nameless Chronicler3 is suddenly illuminated by the appearance of the two Prophets who had taken, though in shreds and tatters, the mantle of prophecy which had fallen upon them from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Great Unknown. They stand side by side. One is far advanced in years, apparently belonging to that older generation which had wept over the contrast between the first and 1 Isa. lx. 10, 11. Comp. xlix. 20; lxxiii. 16; lxvi. 20, 21. 2 Ezra iv. 6-23. a Ezra v. 1, 4. "We," but not Ezra himself. second Temple - Haggai - who bore a name which no Haggai and Prophet had ever assumed before, but which Zechariah. henceforth seems to have become familiar the "Messenger, or Angel, of the Eternal." The other must have been quite young, being the grandson of one of the returning exiles. Zechariah belonged to the priestly tribe, and is thus remarkable as an example of the union of the two functions, which, being long so widely separated in ancient times, had in the last days of the Monarchy gradually become blended together. Unlike the uncertainty which attaches to the dates of the older Prophecies, we can trace the year, the month, the very day on which the utterances of these two seers were delivered. B.C. 521. B. C. 521, 5 It was in the second year of the new Persian king, and on the first day of the sixth month, and again on the one-and-twentieth day of the seventh September, month, that Haggai appeared before the chiefs of the nation, in the Temple court; in the eighth month Zechariah joined him; in the ninth month, on the four-and-twentieth day, Haggai delivered his two farewell messages, and then once more followed Zechariah, first in the eleventh month, 6 and again, after a longer interval, in the ninth November. month of the fourth year of the same reign. It is characteristic of the true prophetic spirit that, whilst the Chronicler and the Prophets are equally bent on the accomplishment of the same end-the rebuilding of the Temple - the only obstacle that the Chronicler sees is the opposition of external adversaries; the B.C. 520, B.C. 519, 1 Haggai i. 13. Compare Malachi i. 1 (Lecture XLV.). 2 Haggai i. 1, 15; ii. 1. 8 Zech. i. 1. 4 Haggai ii. 10. 5 Zech. i. 7. 6 Zech. vii. 1. chief obstacle that the Prophets indicate is the moral failure of their own fellow-citizens. Haggai. In each of the two Prophets the hope and the lesson is the same, but it comes in a different form. To the aged Haggai the recollection of the ancient1 Temple is always present, but he is convinced that, even if the present tranquillity of the world must needs be broken up, even if some violent convulsion should once again shake all nations, yet abundant treasures would flow into the Temple. If its own children should neglect it, the heathen whom they despised would come to the rescue. 3 2 He fiercely rebukes, not the captiousness of the Samaritans, but the apathy of his countrymen. There were those who, taking advantage of the long delay, counted with a curious casuistry the number of years that the Captivity ought to last; and, finding that two were still wanting to complete the mystic seventy, sheltered themselves behind this prophecy to indulge their own indifference and luxury. "The time is not come," they said, "the time for the Temple to be "built." "The time not come for this!" exclaimed the indignant Prophet. "Is it time for you to dwell "in your panelled houses, and the Temple to lie "waste?" There were those, too, who had been tenaciously holding back their contributions, and hoarding up the produce of their newly-acquired fields. With telling effect he pointed to the drought that had with 66 6 ered up corn, and vine, and olive, and fig, on hill and in valley, and broken the energy both of man and beast. There were those who, whilst carefully stinting the greater work of the Temple, prided themselves on the offerings which they brought to the freshly-consecrated1 altar, the only finished part of the sanctuary. He warned them that such niggardly selfishness vitiated the offering which they brought: High Heaven disdains the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more. In all these admonitions a profound meaning is wrapped up. It may be that there is but little of the poetic fire of the First or Second Isaiah. But there is a ponderous and simple dignity in the emphatic reiteration addressed alike to every class of the community -prince, priest, and people. Be strong, be strong, be strong. "Cleave, stick fast, to the work you have to "do." Or, again, Consider your ways, consider, consider, consider. It is the Hebrew phrase for the endeavor, characteristic of the gifted seers of all times, to compel their hearers to turn the inside of their hearts outward to their own view, to take the masks from off their consciences, to "see life steadily, and to see it "whole." Far more explicit and florid was the utterance of the younger prophet* who came to Haggai's assistance. Zechariah's ideal of the restored Jerusalem was not of the returning glory of the old time, but of a fresh 1 Haggai ii. 10-13. 2 Haggai ii. 4. the first part (i.-viii.) which is here dealt with. The latter part (ix.-xiii.) 3 Haggai i. 5, 7; ii. 15, 17. (See has no bearing on this period, and, Dr. Pusey.) 4 In speaking of Zechariah, it must be remembered that it is only in all probability, belongs to an earlier prophet (see Lecture XXXVII.). and prosperous community-peaceful old age carried to its utmost verge, and leaning in venerable Zechariah. security on its staff; the boys and girls, in child like mirth, playing in the streets; the unfinished walls not a cause for despondency, but a pledge that they were not needed in a city of which the sufficient defence was the wall of Divine Flame, and of which the population was to outgrow all such narrow bounds. And, as might be expected from one whose prime had been spent under Persian rule, his visions were all tinged with Persian imagery. He saw in his dreams "the seven lamps," or "the seven eyes as of the seven Princes who had admission to the throne of Darius-glancing from the Divine presence through the world. He saw the earth, as it now presented itself to the enlarged vision of those who had listened to the Wise Men of Chaldæa, its four corners growing into the four horns that toss and gore the lesser powers of the world; the celestial messengers1 riding on horses, red or dappled, hurrying through the myrtle-groves that then clothed the base of Olivet, or from the four quarters of the heavens, driving in chariots, each with its colored horses, to and fro, across the Persian Empire, as in the vast machinery of the posts for which it was celebrated, and bringing back the tidings of war and peace. But he, too, poured forth his invectives against the moral depravity which annulled the value of the ceremonial worship; he, too, held out the prospect of harvest and vintage, but only as the fitting reward of a nobler and less grovelling spirit; he, too, urged the 15. 1 Zech. i. 8-11; iv. 10; vi. 1-8. 2 Herod., viii. 98. Esther iii. 13, 8 Zech. i. 4; iv. 9, 10, 11; viii. 12. |