16 17 18 19 20 And unto the house of Judah. Fear ye not. in your gates. Neither imagine in your heart Every man evil against his neighbour: And love not a false oath, For all these are things Which I hate, saith Jehovah. And the word of Jehovah God of hosts came unto me, saying; Thus saith Jehovah God of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth month, And the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month, Shall be unto the house of Judah for joy and for gladness, And for chearful seasons. But love ye the truth and peace. Thus saith Jehovah God of hosts: Hebr. judge, *an oath of falsehood. 16. Determine-] Pronounce true, or righteous, judgment; and such as tends to produce peace among men, by deterring the litigious and punishing the evil doer. Syr. and three MSS. read : Determine truth, and judgment, and peace &c. See v. 19. But Ar. and 6. MS. Pachom. omit as the truth. "And determine the judgment of peace in your gates." 17. Neither-] The order in the Hebrew is, And every man evil against his neighbour Imagine not in your heart. See c vii. 10. Mr. Lowth has an important remark on these two verses; that the promises made to the Jews after the captivity were conditional. 19. fourth month] In which Jerusalem was taken. Jer, lii. 6. tenth month] In which the siege of Jerusalem was begun. Jer. lii. 4. For the two other months, see on c. vii. 3, 5. But love]." Therefore love ye truth and peace." Blaney. 21 22 23 It shall yet come to pass that [many] † people shall come, And the inhabitants of many cities: And the inhabitants of ouc city shall go Unto another, saying; Let us surely go to entreat the face of Jehovah, I will go also. And many people and mighty nations shall come Thus saith Jehovah God of hosts: That in those days ten men shall take hold, Saying; We will go with you: For we have heard that God is with you. + Hebr. peoples. † peoples. 20. It shall yet-] Nine MSS. and three ed. read ¶y: and Noldius agrees with the versions and Chald. in rendering y adhuc. But if we read Ty until, we must supply at the beginning of the verse, Do this, until &c. -many people] Many of the gentiles. 6. Ar. and one MS. add many. See v. 22. 21. to intreat the face] to supplicate the favour." Blaney. Idem ver. 22. And to seek]" And to seek Jehovah God of hosts will I go also." Blaney. 23. ten men] That is, many men. See on Micah v. 5. -take hold of the skirt] See Isai. iii. 6; iv. 1; 1 Sam. xv. 27; Bishop Lowth's note on the first passage, and Harmer ii. 32. It is a gesture naturally used to entreat assistance and protection. This and the three foregoing verses refer to the great accession of converts which the Jewish church received between the captivity and the coming of Christ, to the number of Christian disciples which the Jewish preachers made, and to the future conversions of which the restoration of the Jews will be an emi nent cause. -go with you] ó. Ar. Syr. read y with thee. CHAP. IX. 1 THE prophecy of the word of Jehovah: 1. The prophecy-] J. Mede, in his remarks on Matth. xxvii. 9, 10. Epist. xxxi, says. "It may seem the Evangelist would inform us that those latter chapters ascribed to Zachary (namely the 9, 10, 11, &c.) are indeed the prophecies of Jeremy; and that the Jews had not rightly attributed them. Certainly, if a man weigh the contents of some of them, they should in likelihood be of an elder date than the time of Zachary; namely, before the captivity: for the subjects of some of them were scarce in being after that time. And the chapter out of which St. Matthew quotes [c. xi.] may seem to have somewhat much unsuitable with Zachary's time; as, a prophecy of the destruction of the temple, then when he was to encourage them to build it. And how doth the sixth verse of that chapter suit with his time? There is no scripture saith they are Zachary's; but there is scripture saith they are Jeremy's, as this of the Evangelist. As for their being joined to the prophecies of Zachary, that proves no more they are his, than the like adjoining of Agur's proverbs to Solomon's proves they are therefore Solomon's; or that all the psalms are David's, because joined in one volume with David's Psalms." See more Epist. Ixi, "As for the titles in the tops of every page, it matters not: it is a later device. The Jews wrote in rolls or volumes, and the title was but once. If ought were added to the roll, ob similitudinem argumenti, or for some other reason, it had a new title, as that of Agur; or perhaps none, but was aμ." "It is certain that Jeremy's prophecies are digested in no order, but only as it seems they came to light in the scribe's hands. Hence sometimes all is ended with Zedekiah; then we are brought back to Jehoiakim, then to Zedekiah again &c. Whereby it seems they came not to light to be enrolled secundum ordinem temporis, nor all together, but as it happened in so distracted a time. And why might not some not be found till the return from captivity, and be approved by Zachary, and so put to his volume according to the time of their finding and approbation by him, and after that some other prophecies yet added of his?" See Wolf. cur. phil. Matth. xxvii. 8: Hammond on Hebr. viii. 9. Kidder. dem. Mess. part ii. c. iii. p. 75. 2d. ed. fol. Dr. Owen on the Septuagint Version: p. 57. Randolph's texts cited in the N. T. n. 28. Kidder's words are: "This is certain, that such things are contained in these chapters as agree well with the time of On the land of Hadrach, and on Damascus, § shall it rest: § Hebr. shall be the resting thereof. Jeremiah, but by no means with that of Zechariah." He quotes c. ix. 5. x. 11. and he supposes that, c. xiv. 5, there is a reference to a recent fact. In MS. 195, Bibl. Kenn. this chapter is divided from c. viii. by the breadth of one line: but between the preceding chapters there is not so great a distance. In the English bibles, the chronological date to c. viii. is, Before Christ 518; but to c. ix, Before Christ cir. 587; which latter is the year in which Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians. But, c. ii. 4, Zechariah is calledy a young man. The eight first chapters appear by the introductory parts to be the prophecies of Zechariah, stand in connection with each other, are pertinent to the time when they were delivered, are uniform in style and manner, and constitute a regular whole. But the last six chapters are not expressly assigned to Zechariah; are unconnected with those which precede; the three first of them are unsuitable in many parts to the time when Zechariah lived; all of them have a more adorned and poetical turn of composition than the eight first chapters; [see præl. Hebr. 282.] and they manifestly break the unity of the prophetical book. I conclude from internal marks in c. ix, x, xi, that these three chapters were written much earlier than the time of Je remiah, and before the captivity of the ten tribes. Israel is mentioned c. ix. 1. xi. 14: [But that this argument is inconclusive, see Mal. ii. 11.] Ephraim, c. ix. 10. 13. x. 7: and Assyria, c. x. 10, 11. Other remarks will be made in the notes. They seem to suit Hosea's age and manner. But whoever wrote them, their divine authority is established by the two quotations from them in the New Testament. C. ix. 9. xi. 12, 13. The xiith xiiith and xivth chapters form a distinct prophecy, and were written after the death of Josiah; c. xii. 11; but whether before or after the captivity, and by what prophet, is uncertain. Though I incline to think that the author lived before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. See on c. xiii. 2-6. They are twice quoted in the New Testament. C. xii. 10. xiii. 7. -Hadrach] A name for the valley of Damascus. Boch. geogr. l. ii. c. vi. The name of a place near Damascus, according to some Jewish Rabbies. Calmet's comm. --shall it rest] God's anger rests on those whom he punishes. Ezek. v. 13. xvi. 42. xxiv. 13. And his rod, or his arm, (For the eye of Jehovah is over man, rests on his enemies. Ps. cxxv. 3. Isai. xxx. 32. The punctuation and rendering are suggested by Taylor: conc. voc. m. "The authority of Matt. xxvi. 9. is alledged in proof of the following chapters being the prophecies of Jeremiah. But is it not possible, nay is it not much more probable, that the word may have been written by mistake, by some transcribers of Matthew's gospel, than that those of the Jewish church, who settled the canon of scripture, (of whom Zechariah himself is supposed to have been one) should have been so grossly ignorant of the right author of these chapters as to place them under a wrong name? It is certainly a more natural solution of the difficulty to admit an error in the prophets name in Matthew, than to suppose that prophecies of such noble import should be ascribed to a wrong author. But it is urged that many things are mentioned in these chapters which by no means correspond with the time in which the prophet Zechariah prophesied; as when events are foretold which had actually taken place. It may be questioned whether these prophecies which have been construed as having a reference to past transactions, may not terminate in others of a later period, and some perhaps which are yet to come. It is also urged, That these last chapters are not agreeable to the scope of Zechariah's commission. See c. xi. The first eight chapters are delivered in the 2d and 4th years of Darius; to the latter there is no date. Darius is supposed to have reigned thirty-six years; and the Jews have a tradition that the three prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, did not die before the last year of that king's reign. Admitting then that Zechariah prophesied again toward the close of his life, he may well be supposed to have published at this period what would not altogether have accorded with the period and purport of his first commission. And as there is good reason to believe this was the case; so we may very easy conclude that it is of him our Saviour spake, as slain between the temple and the altar. Matth. xxiii. 35. For he is mentioned as the son of Barachiah, and comes in at the close of that series of prophets who were put to death for the faithful discharge of their duty. That he was become obnoxious to his countrymen may be collected from chap. xi. 8. "Lastly upon the same supposition the allowed difference of style and manner may be accounted for, not only as arising from the diversity of the subject, but from the different age of the author; who may well be thought to have written with more dignity in his advanced years, than when he was but a youth as |