1 Esdras

Introduction to 1 Esdras

§ 1. Preliminary Account of the Book.

THE first book of the Apocrypha stands in a class by itself in that it is, with the exception of one portion, a somewhat free Greek version of the biblical history from Josiah’s Passover (2 Chron. xxxv.) to the Reading of the Law by Ezra (Neh. viii.). It differs, however, in several important particulars both from the corresponding canonical passages and from the more literal Greek translation of them (also preserved in the Septuagint), and an adequate treatment of its text and contents belongs properly to the commentaries and handbooks on Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Consequently, in order to keep the Introduction and Notes within limits, it has seemed desirable to print the Revised Version of the ‘apocryphal’ and ‘canonical’ passages side by side, and to restrict all remarks to those points which appeared to be essential for the study of the relation between the texts and their significance for the period which they cover. Further reference to the commentaries and other works dealing with the period in question is therefore recommended.

The contents of 1 Esdras comprise:—

E i. = 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-xxxvi. 21. Josiah’s passover and death; the last kings of Judah to the fall of Jerusalem, 586 B.C.

ii, 1-15. = Ei. The decree of Cyrus permitting the rebuilding of the Temple and the return of Sheshbazzar with the temple-vessels and a band of exiles, 538-537.

ii, 16-30. = E iv. 7-24. The Samaritan opposition to the rebuilding in the reign of Artaxerxes, 495-425.

iii. ταν. 6. wanting in E. The successful oration of Zerubbabel, one of the bodyguard of Darius, in the second year of his reign (D. I, Hystaspes, 521-486), and the king’s decree permitting a return of exiles to rebuild the city and Temple; brief statement of the journey.

v. 7-73. = Ε ii. 1-iv. 5, 24 (v.6 is wanting). List of Zerubbabel’s band, the rebuilding of the Temple hindered by the Samaritans from the time of Cyrus to the second year of Darius (520).

vi.-vii. = E v.-vi. The successful rebuilding of the Temple through the intervention of Darius in 520, and its completion in 516.

viii. 1-ix. 36 = E vii—x. The decree of Artaxerxes in his seventh year (458), the return of Ezra and a body of exiles, the separation of the people from the foreign wives.

ix. 37-55 = N vii. 73-viii.13 a. The reading of the law by Ezra, placed in N /c. after the return of Nehemiah in the king’s twentieth year (444).

The outstanding features are:—

(1) The presence of the Artaxerxes record before the reign of Darius, whether after the return of Sheshbazzar (E ii. 16-30) or after the commencement of the rebuilding by Zerubbabel (E iv. 7-24), both of which are placed in the time of Cyrus.

(2) The inclusion of E iii. 1-v. 6, the story famous for the Praise of Truth and the well-known dictum ‘magna est veritas et praevalet’, and the decree of Darius (which excludes any prior return).

(3) The confusion caused by the presence of this section (E iii. 1-v. 6) in the history of the exiles who returned in the time of Cyrus (E ii. 1-15 = E 1) and at once commenced the work of rebuilding (E v. 7-73 = E ii.—iv.).

(4) The omission in E of N i.-vii. 72, with the result that the continuation of the story of Ezra (N viii.) is placed in immediate connexion with E vii.—x., whereas the canonical books leave a gap of twelve years between E vii.—x. and N i. seqq.

(5) Numerous readings in E of greater or less value, which are often important for the textual criticism of the MT, and sometimes affect the literary and historical problems of the sources.

E ceases abruptly; cf. the close of 2 Chron., ‘and let him go up’ (=E i. 3), also Mark xvi. 8. The R.V. rendering of ix. 55 implies that this is intentional (so Ewald, Bissell, Lupton, Bayer, and others). Hence it is often supposed that E is a self-contained work, written and compiled for some specific purpose, e.g. to influence Gentiles in favour of the Jews, or (Lupton) to prepare the way for the building of the temple of Onias at Alexandria, or simply, perhaps, to bring together narratives relating to the Temple; cf. the conclusion of £° ‘explicit Esdrae liber primus de templi restitutione’. But the feature may also be explained on the view that the book, which begins somewhat abruptly, is merely a fragment of a larger work (Michaelis, Eichhorn, Trendelenburg, Rodiger, Treuenfels, Howorth, Torrey, and others). This raises several interesting questions; in particular, ix. 38-55 belong in N viii. to the concluding chapters of Ezra’s history, and it is very noteworthy that Josephus finishes his account of Ezra before his introduction of Nehemiah—what was the original sequel of E? Moreover, not only was 1 used by this orthodox Jewish historian, the book was important enough to find a place in the Greek Bible, it was known to early Christian writers, and is referred to in terms which indicate that its canonicity and value were not doubtful (see § 2).

Now, the criticism of the O.T. has advanced sufficiently to prove that the biblical records E-N bristle with the most intricate and serious difficulties, the extent of which is manifest in the widely-differing conclusions that prevail. As can be seen from other sources (see § 4, iv. c), the history of the Persian period is plunged in obscurity, upon which some light has only recently been shed by contemporary records (Babylonian inscriptions, Jewish-Aramaic papyri from Upper Egypt). It can no longer be assumed that the MT necessarily represents a more trustworthy record of the age, and that / is necessarily arbitrary and methodless. Both share fundamental imperfections.. E, therefore, in any case deserves impartial consideration, and its problems involve those of E-N. These problems, owing to the absence of decisive and independent evidence, can be handled only provisionally; but enough is clear to permit the conclusion that / represents a text in some respects older than the present MT, to which, however, some attempt seems to have been made to conform it (cf. Ewald, 138 n. 6; Howorth, PSBA, xxiii. 306 seq.). From a comparison of both with Jos. and other sources (notably Daniel) it would further appear that E represents one of the efforts to give an account of a period, the true course of which was confused and forgotten, if not intentionally obscured; different attempts were made to remove difficulties and inconsistencies, and the desire to give greater prominence to the priestly Ezra than to the secular governor Nehemiah is probably responsible for the arrangement of the extant texts.

E-N and E (with Jos.) exhibit diverging views of the history. But E, even in its present incomplete form, overlaps with Chronicles-Ezra~Nehemiah, and since it provides a distinctly paraphrastic and free rendering of the MT, it seems probable that when it was superseded by the more literal Greek translation—of Theodotion (cf. the two Greek texts of Daniel)—this confused and self-contradictory book (or fragment) was preserved mainly on account of the excellent story of Zerubbabel (cf. Howorth, PS BA, xxiv. 167). To the Jews, both Zerubbabel and Nehemiah pale before the growing majesty of Ezra; to the early Christians, the Praise of Truth was a familiar passage, and Augustine (de (ἵν. Dez, xviii. 36) saw in it a prophecy of Christ. Dating, apparently, about the first century B.C.,’s view of history was familiar to Josephus and his readers, to the Hellenist Jews, and to the Christians. The form in E-N, with the omission of the story of Zerubbabel (and the chronological confusions which attend it), represents that of the Rabbinical schools, and subsequently (through Jerome) of the Christian Church. Through these vicissitudes E fell into unmerited neglect, and by this omission (apparently intentional) there was removed a story which could not fail to interest the Christians—for it is surely significant that although the two genealogies of Jesus are hopelessly inconsistent, the two lines of ancestry of ‘David’s greater Son’ converge in the person of Zerubbabel.

§ 2. Title and Standing.

The book is known as (1) Esdras A or 1 Esdras, so @®4, L, S, and English Bibles since the Geneva edition of 1560 (where the name ‘Ezra’ is reserved for the canonical book); or (2) as Esdras B or 2 Esdras, so @' (where 1 Es. = Ezra and Nehemiah); or (3) as 3 Esdras, so Latin Bibles since Jerome, the ‘Great Bible’ of 1539, and also the Anglican Article VI in the Prayer-book. The name 3 Paraletpomenon (i.e. Chronicles) is found in a Florentine Greek MS., cf. the title Sermones Dierum (the Heb. title of Chron.) Esdrae in Hilary’s list (H. B. Swete, Introd to O.T. in Greek, 210). It is also styled Tertius Neemiae by Franciscus Robles, 1532 (Lupton, 4). A convenient name for the book is the ‘Greek Ezra’, to distinguish it from the other and literal It is a significant fact that, as emphasized by Whiston in 1722, the Jewish historian Josephus

uses E for his account of King Josiah, follows its order of events, and is influenced by its language, although for the other books he employs the LXX. Equally significant is the appearance of E with the canonical E-N in the best Greek MSS., either before (84, and presumably δὲ) or after (G") these. It is quoted by several early Greek and Latin Fathers,’ and Augustine and Origen cite iv. 41 and 59 respectively from ‘Esdras’ without indicating that another than the canonical book is meant. Moreover, a Greek synopsis (Lag. 84) and a Syriac Catena (see on E ix. 55) treat E as 1 Esdras, and give the title 2 Esdras to N*. But Jerome meanwhile had condemned the two apocryphal books of Esdras with their ‘dreams’ (Praef. Esd. et Nev.), and his ruling was confirmed in due course by the Church. / is wanting in the early MSS. of the Vulgate, and it was rejected by the Council of Florence (1442). It is found in the Latin bibles of 1474, 1480, &c., but is regarded as apocryphal by De Lyra (1498), Karlstadt (1520), and Stephanus (1528). It is wanting in the Complutensian Polyglot (1514-17), and Luther ignored it—though not perhaps primarily (Bayer, 6 seq.) —for its triviality. There was even a belief that it did not exist in Greek (Torrey, 13 ἢ. 1). The Council of Trent rejected it in 1546, but it is printed in an appendix in small type in the Tridentine edition of the Vulgate. Although it appears as 1 Esdras in the 1587 edition of the Septuagint (Rome), it was omitted three years later from the Sixtine Vulgate (Rome, 1590). In spite of the occasional attention paid to it by a few scholars, E has since too often been overlooked and neglected, and has only recently come into deserved prominence through the persistence of Sir Henry H. Howorth from 1893 onwards (see further Torrey, 13 seqq.).

ΕΞ, on closer inspection, proves to be no free or less careful treatment of the Greek translation of the canonical books, as had been held by Keil, Zockler, Bissell, Konig (Zinleitung, § 97), and formerly Schürer (contrast his Gesch. Volk. [sr., 3rd ed., iii. 328). There is an overwhelming body of opinion that it is translated from a Semitic (Hebrew and Aramaic) original. There are, it is true, various readings, identical or apparently connected with the literal Greek translation, but they do not outweigh the many considerable and characteristic differences of rendering, the variations in the transliteration or translation of proper names, and the numerous readings in / which can be explained only from the MT (see especially Bayer, 156 seqq.). That E is an independent version older than the (δ of the canonical books was suggested by Grotius (1644, see PSBA, xxv. 139), Whiston (1722), Pohlmann (1859), Ewald (1864), Lagarde (1874), and others, and has since been more cogently shown by Howorth and Torrey. It is pointed out that the @ of E-N presents features characteristic of Theodotion’s translation (viz. transliteration of gentilics, and of difficult or uncertain words) and parallel to his translation of Daniel. The (of E, on the other hand, as Gwynn also noticed, finds parallels in the ‘Septuagint’ text of Daniel, especially the first six chapters. Moreover, the 5 of E claims to be made from the Septuagint, and it is very probable that E took the place of the (of E-N in Origen’s Hexapla. Volz, however, has properly drawn attention to the varying quality of the different sections of /,a feature which ‘excludes the supposition that the Greek version can have been produced ams ezuem Guss’. In general, all the evidence tends to show that E held a more authoritative position than has been usually conceded to it (in consequence of Jerome), but that its unevenness as a translation and the complexity of its contents make its true origin and structure a more intricate problem.⁴

§ 3. Text Versions, Date, Etc.

(a) Character of Translation. E,on account of its peculiar relationship to the O.T., cannot be studied textually apart from the versions based directly upon the MT (see more fully, Torrey 62-114). While the ὦ of E-N is un-Greek, literal and mechanical, E is the very reverse of servile, and its language both elegant and idiomatic. The vocabulary is extensive, containing several words that occur nowhere else in ‘Septuagint’ Greek, or only in other books of the Apocrypha, notably 2 Macc. (see Moulton’s list, 7A TW, xix. 232 seqq.). Semitic idioms are usually happily replaced by natural Grecisms. There is often a free treatment of the article, pronouns, and conjunctions; hypotaxis for the parataxis of MT; active verbs for passive. Condensation, paraphrase, and re-arrangement are frequent, and the translator has generally made the best of the original text, gliding over or concealing the difficulties. Sometimes he has misunderstood the original; but the rendering is carefully worded and thus presents an apparently plausible result (see e.g. i. 10-12, 38, 51). He manifests his intelligence when the skilful paronomasia ἄνεσιν καὶ ἄφεσιν (iv. 62), suggestive of a Greek composer, goes back none the less to a Semitic original (cf. Susanna, 54 seqq.), and the use of the name Sisinnes (vi, 3) in place of the MT Tattenai is typical of his care. 45, it is clear, was made to be read, it is a version rather than a translation, and its value for the criticism of the MT must not blind us to its imperfections (on which see Bayer, 11 seqq.). Consequently, a mean must be sought between a promiscuous and haphazard use of E and a whole-hearted though indiscriminate reliance upon its readings and paraphrases. The attempt must invariably be made to distinguish between the underlying text and the features which (as in the Septuagint elsewhere) are due to the translator alone, and the difficulty of this task in certain crucial cases is vital for the disentanglement of the problems of 1.1 .

(2) E and the MT. It is abundantly plain that . is not derived from the (5 (Theodotion) of the Canonical Books. Where there is agreement, the evidence points to accident or absence of intention, and is not strong enough to prove dependence (see the most recent study by Bayer, 156-61). In certain cases where they agree against the MT they sometimes are due to an easy misunderstanding, and sometimes point to a preferable reading; now and then the more literal version alone preserves an older text. It is highly significant that E is occasionally conflate, and presents simple doublets (e.g. ii. 25, vi. 29, ix. 8, 46), or more elaborate combinations made with some little care (e.g. v. 50, 58, 72 seq., vi. 5, 10, &c. [see Marq. 44-7]). This revision appears to have been made from the MT, and E vi. 25 actually presents the incorrect ‘new’ (ΠῚΠ) of the MT by the side of the correct ‘one’ (ΠΠ). Revision has also been made for the purpose of removing difficulties (so, probably v. 734, in view of the date in vi. 1), or of making identifications (Zerubbabel,\ vi. 18,27, 29). These adjustments, which are not found in Theodotion, seem to have been made first in the Greek version, and thus might appear to confirm the view that E is based upon an earlier Greek version (Ewald). The question of the underlying original, however, would still remain, and it is very important to notice that not only does E often presuppose a better text than the MT, but that some of the readings raise questions of literary structure and historical criticism. Consequently, E is not directly based either upon Theodotion’s literal translation or the extant MT; the marks of revision point rather to an attempt to adjust to the MT an earlier version which differed from it in some material respects, large (nos. I, 2, 4, on Ὁ. I above) and small (e.g. v. 39 seq., 47, vi. 28, vii. 1, ix. 20, 40)"

(c) MSS. and Versions. The GREEK MSS. fall into two main classes, (1) Lucianic (MSS. 19, 108), and (2) B,A, &c. The former stand in a class by themselves, reveal many signs of correction and improvement in order to agree with the MT, and can be used only with great caution (see Torrey, 106 seqq.). The latter comprise two main subdivisions, B and A. B is distinctly the inferior, but shows fewer traces of correction. For a full grouping of all the MSS., see the elaborate discussion by Moulton, ZATW, xix. 211 seqq. δὲ, it may be added, lacks E, but its subscription Εσδρας 8 (N xiii. 31) presupposes an ‘Esdras A.’

Two old LATIN translations were printed by Sabatier (204. Sacr. Lat. iii. 1041 seqq.), with a collation of MS. Sangermanensis—ZS (Cod. Colbertinus; no. 3703), and a later which in a revised form was used as the Vulgate. A summary from a Lucca MS. was edited by Lagarde, Sept. Stud. ii. 16 seqq. (3 Lag.). These differ from, and, on the whole, are purer than (δ.

The SYRIAC Peshitta is without Chron., Ezra, and Neh. E is the Syro-Hexapla of Paul of Tella, printed in Walton’s Polyglot and by Lagarde (210. Vet. Test. Apocr. Syr., 1861). It is explicitly said to be from the Septuagint, and the same is stated at the head of a collection of excerpts in the old Syriac Catena, British Museum, Add. 12168 (see on ix. 55). The variants of the latter and its selections from N are printed by Torrey, 5 seqq., and these selections, with a retranslation into Greek, collation, and complete introductory discussion by Gwynn (see p. 3n. 3). ἔθ has many points of contact with @', especially in 1. 1-9, but on the whole a relationship with (58. is more distinct.

The ETHIOPIC translation (ed. Dillmann, Vet. Test. Acth., Vol. V) represents the text of (8, 5, &c., in contrast to (ὅλ, and, according to Torrey (101), ‘is a valuable witness to the Hexaplar text. It must have been made with unusual care from a comparatively trustworthy codex.’

The Arabic translation awaits study (PSBA, xxiv. 169); the Armenian is valueless (Volz, § 2).

(4) Fosephus. The Jewish historian (first cent. A.D.), with his continuous history of the monarchy and post-exilic age, stands nearest (of extant compilations) to the chronicler in point of antiquity. He is a valuable exponent of the attempt to weave heterogeneous material into a readable and more or less consistent whole, and his greatest claim to attention lies in the evidence he furnishes for a comparative study of the traditions encircling the names and events of the period from Josiah to the Samaritan schism. Jos. is the earliest witness to E; the relationship is unmistakable as regards material and even language (Eichhorn, Zin/eit. Apokr. [1795], 347 seqq.; Treuenfels, Der Orient [1850-1]; H. Bloch, Quellen d. Fl. Fos. [1870], 69 seqq.). There are several points of agreement with (4 as against (5" (Thackeray, 762 4), and also with (δ᾽; Torrey (103) assigns the text an intermediate position. Unfortunately, Jos. is often extremely paraphrastic, and is therefore no safe guide for restoring the original of E. None the less, it is noteworthy that he is without the faults of E i. 29, 34 seq., he presupposes a text more complete and older than that in vi. 18, viii. 55, he uses a slightly different version of iii. (see Büchler, 64, 100), and, while obviously harmonizing in some places, elsewhere presents singular divergences or additions which do not appear to be arbitrary. In particular, his treatment of, the stories of E and N is highly suggestive (see appendix to note on ix. 55). Besides utilizing the canonical sources (Jer., Dan., Est.), he has had access (as in Est.) to other Jewish traditions (see on vii. 15), and possessed some acquaintance with external history (see p. 11, and oni. 25). But although Jos. is not a direct witness to E’s text—and G. Holscher has suggested that he made use of Alexander Polyhistor (Quellen d. Fos. [1904], 36, 43 seqq., 51)—he testifies to the authority of E’s history, and it is unnecessary to assume (Swete, Thackeray, Bayer, 140) that he used it simply because it was written in good Greek.

(6) Date and place. While Jos. is evidence for the earlier existence of 25, it is not certain that it then had precisely its present form. As a translation the linguistic features suggest that it belongs to the time of the old Greek translation of Daniel, and was perhaps due to the same translator (Torrey, 84 seq.). The date of the original is bound up with that of Chron.-Ez.-Neh., and must be some time after 333 B.C. The Persian period was past, and its history had become obscure, the identity of Darius and Apame (iv. 29) was forgotten, and the points of contact with Dan. and Est. (not necessarily in their present form), would suggest the late Greek age. The problem also involves the question whether iii. 1-v. 6 is a secondary insertion or part of the original compilation, and this naturally affects the discussion of the home of the book (see pp. 29, 32). Although the section seems to some scholars to point to the influence of Alexandrian thought and philosophy (Lupton, André, Thackeray, Volz), to others it is Palestinian (Zunz), or not necessarily Alexandrian (Torrey). The identification of Apame speaks for Egypt or Antioch; the knowledge of the topography of Jerusalem (v. 47, ix. 38) is not that of the compiler or translator but of his source, and therefore cannot be claimed to support a Palestinian home. Egypt is suggested by the free irony in iii., iv., the unveiled women (iv. 18), the references to navigation (iv. 15, 23), and piracy (v. 27), and elsewhere by the use of Coelesyria (see ii. 17). Thackeray (762 a) compares the ‘friends’ of the king (viii. 26; Ε ὦ σύμβουλοι) with the ‘first friends’ who were third in scale of the courtiers at Alexandria, and with ἂν φαίνηται σοι (ii. 21, not in E) the phrase ἐὰν φαίνηται in Aristeas and frequently in Egyptian papyri. In so far as these data point to Egypt one may recall the interest in history-writing among the Hellenists Demetrios, Eupolemos, Artapanos, Alexander Polyhistor and others.

(7) English versions. It may be added that the old Geneva Bible, according to Lupton (6), is ‘in some respects closer to the Greek than that of 1611’. Various improvements to the A.V. are suggested by Ball in the Variormm Apocrypha, and even the R.V. is not such an advance as might have been anticipated. Note, for example, the archaic ‘Artaxerxes his letters’ (ii. 30), ‘cousin’ (iii. 7), ‘Jewry’ (v. 7), and the gliding over of the obscurities of an imperfect in viii. 8, and especially in the concluding words, ix. 55.

§ 4. Problems of Literary and Historical Criticism.

I. The Period.

The problems of E and its relation to E-N involve that more complete and continuous series Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah which is united by sequence of contents and the recurrence throughout of similar features of language, interest, standpoint, and compilation. The ‘chronicler’s history’⁸ of the post-exilic period deals with the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), the return from exile under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the reorganization of the Jewish people, the restoration of the Temple and the furtherance of religious conditions, the separation from the Samaritans and other non-Israelite neighbours, and the inauguration of a church under the Mosaic Law. It is the period during which a considerable portion of the O.T., after passing through the hands of Judaean writers an a 5, was reaching its present form, and the sole consecutive canonical source for this period, the chronicler’s work, cannot be dated before the Greek age (333 B.C.). This source ignores all events between 586 and the decree of Cyrus, and omits other details which also refer to the period (see e.g. 2 Kings xxv. 22-30, Jer. xl.—xliv., lii, 283-34, Daniel, Esther). This feature, like the failure to record the history of (north) Israel after the fall of Samaria, cannot be wholly unintentional. Interest is concentrated upon exiles and reformers from Babylon, and upon their labours in rebuilding the Temple and in purifying religious and social conditions in the face of opposition within and without. A new and reformed Jewish community with its new Temple is linked historically with the old Judah of the Monarchy and the Temple of Solomon. The climax is reached partly in the great Covenant inaugurated by Ezra (N x) after the Introduction of the Law (444 B.C.), and partly in the Samaritan schism initiated by Nehemiah (N xiii.) But such are the gaps and the one-sided standpoints that the records cannot be said to give us objective history. We have, rather, specific representations of certain events of vast importance for post-exilic Judaism, and, just as the account of the settlement of the old Israelite tribes in the land of their ancestors is found to contain conflicting traditions and the gravest difficulties, so also here, the compilation as a whole is dominated by certain larger views which tend to obscure the contradictions and intricacies that arise in any critical study of the data. In both cases the method of criticism is similar, and unfortunately the evidence is frequently insufficient for any confident recovery of the actual events during that period which is of such profound importance for the study of the O.T.⁹

II. The Age of Cyrus and Darius.

(a) Paucity of trustworthy evidence. It is evident that the fall of Jerusalem could not have had the catastrophic effects that the traditional view assumes. We cannot picture Judah between 586 and 537 as half-empty.” Neither the number of deported Judaeans nor that of those who returned points to any depopulation, and even the events under Gedaliah’s governorship and the account of the flight of the survivors into Egypt indicate that the disasters ending in 586, when taken by themselves, had no ruinous consequences for the land. Subsequent history is ignored in Chron., but it is known that Jehoiachin in later years received some favour, and that Tyre had once more a king. The thread is resumed in E i.—vi. (E ii.—vii.), in the reigns of Cyrus and Darius, but the narratives contain serious difficulties and conflicting representations (ᾧ 6, 4) which are increased by the independent prophecies of Haggai and Zech. i.—vili. (see on £& ii. 1 seqq.). Not until we reach the time of Artaxerxes are the sources more extensive, and the light they throw upon preceding years renders the value of E ivi. extremely doubtful. That is to say, between 586 and 458 (E’s return), or rather 444 (N’s first visit to Jerusalem), there is a lengthy period of the greatest significanoe for the internal history leading up to Judaism and Samaritanism, and the only continuous source is both scanty and untrustworthy (see Marq., 67, Torrey, 156, and, partly, Meyer, 74).

(6) The evidence of the prophets. The prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, dated in the second year of Darius, 520, mention neither any previous important return nor any earlier attempt to rebuild the Temple. Zerubbabel now resumes dynastic history (Hag. ii. 23, contrast Jehoiachin, Jer. xxii. 24), and the high-priest Jeshua (grandson of Seraiah, 2 Kings xxv. 18-21), whose return in Dan. ix. 24-26 dates an epoch, is now officially installed. Yahweh had been angry seventy years (Zech. i. 12, cf. Jer. xxix. 10 seq., Dan. ix. 2); but is aroused and returns to Jerusalem (i. 16, 11. 10-13; contrast his departure in Ezek. x. 18 seq., xi. 23). He is jealous for Zion and full of wrath against her enemies; they shall be punished and his people shall enjoy increased happiness (i. 15, ii. 9). City and temple shall be rebuilt and the land re-inhabited (i. 16 seq., ii. 4, cf. vii. 7). The dispersed shall be rescued and again dwell in Jerusalem. The community in Babylon is bidden to escape to Zion (ii. 7, cf. Jer. li. 45). Babylon is threatened (vi. 1-8), and a passage which suggests that small bands of exiles might occasionally return heralds the forthcoming building of the temple (vi. 9-15). Haggai declares that the Temple is waste (i. 4, 9, Aa7éd, cf. the term in N ii. 3, 17) and he stirs the people to the work of rebuilding. The appeal is to the ‘remnant’ (i. 12, 14, ii. 2, cf. Zech. viii. 6), that is, not the Ne ΟΝ

40,000 of E ii., but those who had escaped deportation (cf. Zeph. ii. 7, 9, Jer. xlii. 2, 15, &c., see Jahn, p. xxxviii.). Zerubbabel is the one to rebuild and complete the undertaking (Zech. iv. 8-10, vi. 12 seqq.).

The people fetch wood and the work is begun on the twenty-fourth of the sixth month (Hag. i. 14 seq.); as q yet one stone had not been set upon another (ii. 15). The foundations are laid on the twenty-fourth of the ninth month (ii. To-19), and two years later, in 518, Zech. viii. 9 seqq. look back upon the happier period

᾿ which had thus been inaugurated. But the exilic fasts were still being celebrated (vii. 3-5), the return of the dispersed was still an event to be anticipated. From these data it is reasonable to infer—with an influential number of scholars—that ‘no considerable band of exiles can have returned—none that was able materially to influence the Jewish community’ (Cheyne, Zcy. Bid., 1481 n. 4).

(c) Objections. Various counter-arguments, influenced by the chronicler’s history in E—N, have been brought

forward (see p. 6 n. 1). Those based upon a representation of events which has perplexed a generation of scholars naturally tend to beg the question. For example, it is urged that the prophets address returned exiles and it was unnecessary to describe the people as such; that they do not say that the builders were not returned exiles; that only E iii. explain the events of 520-516 and subsequent history; that the Temple could not have been built by the native ‘heathen’ Judaeans; that the main stream of Jewish life had been diverted to Babylon and only the presence of a Babylonian ‘leaven’ explains the prophecies of Hag. and Zech. While some scholars recognize and seek to explain the silence of the prophets touching a return and rebuilding before 520, others contend that there are indeed references to these events. Some, observing the profound difference between the promises of the ‘Deutero—Isaiah’ (xl.-lv.) and the history in E iii. seq., are of opinion that, since ‘the reality was a bitter disenchantment,’ the disillusionment so great, the prophets naturally do not refer to the events. But others argue that unless these promises had been essentially fulfilled there would have been so fatal a falsification of popular expectation that the oracles of Is. xl. seqq. would scarcely have survived. It is obvious that the preservation of prophecies is hardly conditioned by their fulfilment, however partial, and the difference between the anticipations and the reality was surely sufficient, on the most conservative view, to throw Is. xl. seqq. into oblivion. Haggai, it is objected, ignores a future return and may well have ignored previous events—but his contemporary Zech. excludes a previous return, testifies to the continuation of the exile, and looks forward to a return. The argumentum e silentio is undoubtedly valid. Zech. (i. 2-6), in appealing to the people to repent, alludes to past experience, but does not refer to the return —which would have been the most immediate proof of the might of Yahweh. Was there a wish to put courage into the poor hearts of the returned exiles? There was one practical illustration of divine grace, but there is no allusion to it. In fact, the urgent supplication to Yahweh (1. 12) is unintelligible had a new era dawned as in E i.-iii.; one may note Daniel’s prayer for divine intervention (Dan. ix., cf. also N i.) and the prayers of E after his return (E ix. 8, N ix. 30 seq.). In point of fact, Zech. sees the punishment and misery of the past (vii.), and the ‘decalogue of promises’ belong to the future (viii.). Did the prophets intentionally refrain from mentioning the material help the exiles had received in the time of Cyrus, in order to emphasize the necessity of relying upon spiritual help? The very passage which has been quoted in support of this view refers to the small beginnings recently inaugurated by Zerubbabel (iv. 6, 9 seq.), and ignores E 1.--ἶν.

There is no explanation of the gap between 537 and 520; there is no hint of any hindrance, cessation, or of any more or less continuous rebuilding (see § 6 a): the people are negligent and remiss, and according to Haggai the distress caused by the failure of the rains was a punishment for not rebuilding the Temple (i, cf. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-10, Zech. xiv. 17). It hardly required a Babylonian exile to teach this. Haggai certainly refers to an altar (ii. 14, ‘there’), but this does not prove the accuracy of E iii. 3 or its context. A holy place is not necessarily deserted when the sanctuary is ruined, and Jer. xli. 5 already presupposes an altar; to contend that the existence of this altar throughout the exile ought to have been mentioned in the O.T. is unreasonable. Indeed, the references to priests and sacrifices (Hag. 11. ro-14, cf. Zech. vii. 3 5666.) go further and suggest that the cult of Yahweh was independent even of the existence of a Temple (cf. Sellin, Stud. 53 seq.; Torrey, 305). There is, moreover, no good reason for believing that native Judaeans would be ‘heathenish’, and that if they had rebuilt the Temple they would have been treated otherwise by the reformers E and Ν. If Jer. and Ezek. bear witness to low religious conditions, Hag., Mal., and Is. lvi.—Ixvi. indicate no great improvement after the return; and the degenerate community which all scholars recognize in the latter sources and which needed the reforms of E and N include—on the traditional view—the Babylonian ‘leaven.’ Yet the Judaeans and Samaritans felt themselves to be heirs of Israel and the latter could claim to worship Yahweh (2 Kings xvii. 32 seq., 41, Jer. xli. 5, Ezek. xxxiii. 24, E iv. 2). The fall of Jerusalem and the Exile do not exclude the presence—even among ‘the poorest of the land’—of men who might follow in the footsteps of the Rechabites (Jer. xxxv.), or of such seers as Amos, Hosea, Micah or Jeremiah; and considering the piety of the Jews in distant Elephantine (Sachau-papyri), there is clearly no necessity to deny the possibility of the continuous worship of Yahweh during the exile, or to demand after 538 the presence of a ‘leaven’ which nevertheless did not preclude the abuses confronting E, N, Mal., and the writers in Is. lvi. seqq. It is obviously impossible to start with presuppositions of what was orthodox Yahwism and what was heathenism whether in Elephantine or in Palestine (before or after 5 36). If, too, Meyer’s argument (177) is valid, that the Levitical family of Henadad (E iii. 9, wanting in E 11.) was indigenous, indigenous also was the family of Iddo to which Zech. belonged (see E vi. 1); and this scholar’s recognition of the prominence in and around Jerusalem of Calebite and other families who had never tasted exile (see § 5 δ) is extremely important for any estimate of the internal conditions. ‘The evidence of Hag. and Zech. outweighs other evidence which might appear to be contrary; hence one can hardly assume that the deliverance of Jeshua (Zech. iii. 2) necessarily refers to his return seventeen years previously, or that the a me Zerubbabel suggests that other Jews with him were necessarily begotten in Babylon’. Nor can decisive objections be based upon references in E vii.—x., N i. seqq. to an earlier return. That men (? exiles) should come and assist in the rebuilding of the Temple is a promise for the future in Zech. vi. 15. The references in E ix. 4, x. 6 seq. present their own peculiar difficulties on any view, and in all probability the story of E should come after N i.—vi. (see III.@). Ν i. 2 seq. are inconclusive: they may be used to support a theory (Kosters, 45, Berth., 47, Torrey, 301 ἢ. 27, Davies, 161), although Ryle (149), who maintains an independent, though strictly conservative position, refers the passage to the people who had escaped the exile—the passage, in any case, must be considered in the light of evidence for some disaster between the age of Zerubbabel and the return of N (see further, ὃ 5 7). It is to be remembered, also, that the belief in a great return under Cyrus (or Darius) might influence the description of subsequent events even as the complete Mosaic legislation appears at first sight to be confirmed by the form which the revised and redacted history has taken in the books that follow the Pentateuch.

(4) Summary. The account of a large return to rebuild the Temple, whether in the time of Cyrus or Darius, must be tested by the independent Hag. and Zech. Great weight is often laid upon the circumstantial list in E ii., and its genuineness has been upheld, particularly by Meyer (73, 98 seqq., 191 seqq.; note the criticisms of Kosters, 7%. 7: xxxi. 530-41); see below, p. 35. He, however, rejects in the main the rest of the Cyrus-history (49, 73, 99, 191, 193; Driver, Zi, 552), although the decree of Cyrus is in itself entirely plausible (Nikel, 31-7; Torrey, 144 ἢ. 12), and the list is closely bound up with the whole series E i—vi. His position appears inconsistent from any traditional standpoint (see Nikel, 42 seq., Davies, 14, 80 seq.), as well as from one more consistently critical, although his recognition that the list (which contains names recurring throughout E-N) is fundamental for the criticism of the post-exilic history is thoroughly sound. But the list stands or falls with its context, and when it is admitted that the success of the opposition in E iv. proves that the return has been exaggerated (see Sellin, Stud.¹¹; O. C. Whitehouse, /sazah, 11. 228; G. A. Smith, Jerus. 11. 298 seq.), or that the list has been re-edited (Holzhey, 15; Davies, 51), it is necessary to determine what details in Ei.-vi. may be regarded as even essentially accurate. The tolerance and kindness of Amil-Marduk (to Jehoiachin), Nabunaid (who sent back Merbaal to be king of Tyre), Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius¹² certainly allow the probability of the return of bands of exiles, even as the Sachau-papyri show how Cambyses might favour native Jewish communities. But E ivi. are so closely interconnected as a piece of history that if we accept—as we must—the testimony of Hag. and Zech., it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct from E the course of events. On the one hand, we gain new presuppositions regarding the internal conditions of the age. On the other, there is remarkable confusion in the traditions of Cyrus and Darius in E and E, E ii. is repeated in the history of the time of Artaxerxes, and a narrative of this later period is actually inserted in E i.-vi.; these combine with other features to extend the problems of E i.—vi. to those connected with the work of E and Ν.

III. The Work of Ezra and Nehemiah.

(a) Ezra. In the story of E there is considerable intricacy in the description of the separation from the heathen on the part of the ‘children of the captivity’ (i.e. E’s small band of exiles, or the congregation presumably formed in 536-- 516), and the inauguration of the new community, consisting of these and the elect of the ‘seed of Israel’. The whole story is closely interconnected, and much difficulty is caused by N i.-vii. which sever E vii—x. from N viii. seqq. by twelve years. There is, moreover, a very strong presumption that the Reading of the Law was originally described shortly after E’s arrival (cf. E ix.), and not (as in N viii.) after this lengthy interval, during which we hear nothing of him. Finally, on independent grounds there seems to be no place for E before the first visit, at all events, of N. It is indeed allowed that ‘it is impossible to decide upon the evidence at our disposal’ (ἃ. A. Smith, Expositor, July, 1906, p. 16), or that this later position of E is only a possibility (Wellhausen); but it seems very doubtful whether the story is trustworthy (H. P. Smith, Torrey, Jahn), and, even if it be historical, many agree that it cannot be placed before N i.-vi. (Berth., Buhl, Cheyne, Guthe, Hoonacker [esp. Rev. Bibl., x. 15 seqq.], Kennett, Kent, Kosters, Marq., Sellin, Wildeboer). See further the notes on E viii-x.

(2) Nehemiah. N was governor from the roth year of Artaxerxes (Jos. xi. 5 7, 25th of Xerxes) to the 32nd (N v. 14), i.e. 444-432, and we hear of a return to the king and a second visit (xiii. 4-6). But N xiii. is joined to xii. so closely as to imply that only on the occasion of the Eater visit were which will also explain the description of N’s social reforms (v.) amid the intrigues during the hurried rebuilding of the walls, where N looks back upon the period of his governorship (v.14). In fact, his strong position as reformer in v. seems more in harmony with that in xiii. than with the picture of suspicion and hostility represented in iv., vi., and this serious difficulty touching the course of N’s work (vii. 2 may hint at his departure) hampers every attempt to trace the history of his period. Consequently N, even with the elimination of the E-story, cannot be in its original form, as is clear also from the literary features of xi. and xii. (see also Torrey, 225 seq., 248 seq.).

(c) The List N vii. N’s proposal to summon the people in order to augment Jerusalem (vii. 4 seqq.) is severed by part of the E-story (N viii—x.) from the list of inhabitants (xi.), other lists (xii, 1-26), the dedication of the walls and arrangements for the Temple officials (xii. 27-47), &c. His story is no longer autobiographical (contrast, however, xiii. 4-31) and fresh sources are to be recognized. Since the list found by him (vii. 5) is that of the return of Zerubbabel (FE ii.), it is often assumed that the sequel in xi. must also refer to this earlier period (Ewald, Smend, Stade, Meyer, &c.). But xi. differs so widely from vii. 6 seqq. that both cannot be authentic (Meyer, 189). It is more probable, however, that xi. belongs to the story of N and follows upon vii. 4, ‘though the narrative is hardly continued wo den ore’ (Driver, 551). Yet, on any theory, the presence of N vii. 6-73 is inexplicable, since it is difficult to see why even a compiler should quote an ancient list which excluded the more recent return of E (E viii. 1-14; cf. Holzhey, 37). If ‘a genealogical register was necessary’ (Davies), this would have been out-of-date, and although lapse of time and later adjustment might explain—on this view—the various differences between E ii. and N vii., there are far more significant differences in N x. 1-27, a list which is referred to N’s time. Now, its conclusion (N vii. 73 4) is the proper introduction to the Reading of the Law (viii.), which is in a more natural position between E viii. and ix., and Torrey (256 seqq., cf. Kent, 369) points out that N vii. 70-3 a, also, are more in harmony after the account of E’s return. Indeed, vii. 66-9 (the enumeration) and 61-5 (the expulsion of the impure in Zerubbabel’s time, see on E v. 38) would be useless for N’s purpose, and in fact H. P. Smith would place the entire list (from vii. 5) after E viii. 36 (393 n. 1; see, however, Torrey 259 ἢ. 9). Accordingly, through compilation and revision the account of N’s work, with its own chronological embarrassments, has been broken by a portion of the story of E, the first part of which is now found before. N i., while the list in vii. (vv. 5 a, 73 suggest a gathering of the people) records details which are not in keeping with the context, whereas in E ii. it is in a consistent context, albeit an unhistorical one. While the Reading of the Law (vii. 73 d-viii.) abruptly introduces E, the preceding material is partly (at least) connected with E’s return in E vii. seq., and partly belongs to the (unhistorical) account of Zerubbabel’s return. A considerable portion of the E-story is sundered from N viii. seqq., but the description of the separation from the heathen is confused and closely interrelated, and the list of those who had married strange women (see on E ix. 21-36) includes families who are not mentioned in E’s band (E viii. 1-14), but appear in the list of E ii., which in N vii. is connected with the return of E! Finally, this great list, though used for the time of Cyrus (or Darius, E v.) and treated in N vii.asa document of that period, reveals traces of the age of N himself, and of having been adjusted to the earlier context (see on 4 v. 24 seq., 40, 44 seq., 46 seq.). Hence it would seem that E ii. N vii. originally belonged to an account of a return in some record of the history of the times of N, E, and Artaxerxes. On its repetition, see p. 19 (§ 6).

(a) The Esra-story. The well-supported view that E came to Jerusalem after N i.—vi. implies some rearrangement of the material; and the suitability of N vii. (some portion) and viii. between E vii. seq. and ix. suggests, not that the /atéer part of the E-story has been removed from E x. and placed after N vi., but that the whole once stood after that chapter. The complexity of the list vii. (which overlaps with E viii.) still remains, and it is at this point in the book that the critical problems become most intricate. But it must be noticed that the E-story is certainly composite and not in its original form, and some of the confusion may have arisen when it was divided and part of it placed before N i.! If, moreover, the E-story stood after N vi. it may be observed that there is a certain relationship between the stories of E and N: the reference to the son of Eliashib, E x. 6, cf. N xiii. 4,28; the suitability of N xiii. 1-2, between E x.g and 10 (W. R. Smith; Berth., 89); the coincidence in the day of arrival of each (see E viii. 6); the twelve-years’ gap in the history of each, and the parallel features in their measures on behalf of temple, priests and people. E, however, is mentioned only incidentally in the story of N (xii. 36, doubtful, see the comm.), and it is impossible that the two laboured together. On the other hand, the Tirshatha is prominent at the Reading of the Law (N viii. 9) and the signing of the Covenant (x. 1), and also in the list, vii. (v. 65, the degradation of the priests; v. 70, gifts to the treasury); he is identified with N (see on E ix. 49), and N is equally prominent in his own story (especially v., xiii.). Ν᾽ was not the only governor in post-exilic a Ashe aa: τ Mal. i. 8), but it is noteworthy that the E-story, especially in the narrative-portions, shows no interest in either the governor or the high-priest; the story seems to be written from an independent standpoint, and is focussed upon the austere figure of E alone. The story represents a period of divine favour and royal clemency after the sufferings of Israel (Dan. ix., N i. presuppose an earlier situation); it obviously comes after the disappearance of Zerubbabel, but it cannot be placed before the introduction of N. There are independent arguments for the tradition of a return under N and religious reorganization (see § 5 0, 4, @), and this appears to be supplemented by the account of E. The latter describes the return of E and a representative community to a temple, but one sorely in need of replenishing (E vii. 15-27, viii. 36); to an ecclesiastical body (note E viii. 17), but a negligent one (N x. 32 8664.); to a community that worshipped Yahweh, but had fallen from the ideal. It can hardly be called an Autobiography (Meyer, 205) or a Memoir, and there is no evidence to prove it to be a mere invention or fiction. Rather is it based upon facts which link the energy of N with the subsequent appearance of an established orthodox Jewish Church. It may be regarded as an ideal description of the inauguration of Judaism, and the introduction of the ‘Book of the Law of Moses’ (the Pentateuch is probably meant) is a later parallel to the story of the (re-)discovery of the ‘Book of the Law’ (Deuteronomy) in the reign of Josiah; cf. also the chronicler’s accounts of Asa, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah (2 Chron. xiv. 4, xv. 3, 10-13, xvii. 7, 9, xxix. 10). It does not seem to have been written by the compiler of the series Chron.- E-N; it appears rather as a tradition of independent origin, written around the age of N, combined with the story of N and ultimately with the great post-exilic history of Jerusalem and the Temple.

IV. Interrelation of Data.

(a) Intricacy of parallels. The intricacy of the list E ii. N vii. for the history of Cyrus, Darius (E) and Artaxerxes does not stand alone. The close connexion in the narratives relating to Cyrus and Darius appears in E iii. 7 compared with E iv. 48, in iii. 1 with E v. 6, and in E iii. 2 with E v. 4-6. The Temple, according to Hag. and Zech., was not commenced before the time of Darius, in contrast to HE iii.; but the laments in E iii. 12 in the time of Cyrus curiously recall Hag. 11. 3 seqq. ‘The social and religious reorganization implied in E 11. 59, 62, vi. 21 finds a parallel in the reforms of E, and while E 11. 70, iii. 1, introduce the erection of the altar, the text in E v. 46 seq. presupposes a later period, and in fact these verses in N vii. 73, viii. 1, form the prelude to the Reading of the Law. The latter event is the sequel to the record of a return (N vii.) which in E ix. is that of E himself. ἘΣ iii. is unhistorical, and has probably been influenced by material relating to the time of N; thus Meyer (73, 99) points to N viii. 17 seq., and Jahn compares iii. ro-13 with N xii. 40-3. The account of the opposition in E iv. is untrustworthy, and there is a marked resemblance between the details and N iv., vi., enhanced by the insertion in E iv. 7-24 of a record of the time of Artaxerxes. This record attests a return of some importance, which, however, has yet to be identified, and while the decrees of Cyrus and Darius agree (cf. also Artaxerxes and E) in presenting several very similar features (Torrey, 125 seqq., 158; Bayer, 117 seqq.), the historical basis for any decree on the lines they take cannot be found in their reigns. For parallels in the stories of E and N see above, p. 9 (4). Such is the interrelation of the contents that it is hardly surprising that later sources should not infrequently combine Zerubbabel and Ezra (Lag. 18; Torrey, 49 ἢ. 17) and that both should be united with Jeshua in a return in the time of Darius (Lag. 84). Even N xii. 47 looks back and mentions together Zerubbabel and N (see Berth.); and if Hashabiah and Sherebiah in N xii. 24 may be identified with the names in E vii. 18 seq., Joiakim (son of Jeshua) and E appear to be correlated much in the same way that N xii. 12-26 seem to confuse the times of Joiakim, N and E (see also the view of Kosters, 91 seq.).

(4) Some modern views. The endeavour to recover the historical facts has led to very divergent conclusions among modern scholars. One favourite view has retained Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes in E iv., between Cyrus and Darius, by the simple device of changing the names or of assuming an alternative nomenclature. Equally popular has been the theory that Artaxerxes and Darius are to be identified with the second bearer of each name, and, indeed, this may have been the view of the compiler or writer (see Torrey, 38 seq., 178 seq.). Although this leaves an astonishing gap between Cyrus and Darius II, the belief that the Artaxerxes of the stories of N and E was the later king (404-359 B.C.) has found very weighty support (de Saulcy, Maspero, Hoonacker, and Howorth [partly], Marq., H. P. Smith [382], &c., see further Berth., 30; and PSBA, xxiii. 319 seqq.). It has also been proposed to identify the Cyrus of the narratives with Darius and Darius with Art. I, and so close is the interconnexion of events that N viii—x. has been placed in the time of Zerubbabel, and the whole of E-N (extending from 537 to 432) has been compressed within a few years (see H. Winckler, He/mholt’s World’s Hist. iii. 216 seq., and the summaries in Jampel, ii. 1 seq.). Others hold that Zer. first returned in the time of Darius, and that E iii. 8 seqq. properly belongs to that later period. Moreover, the historical and prophetical writings are necessarily co-ordinated, and thus Hag. and Zech. have appeared to some to be of or about the time of Cyrus, although if Darius be D. II they are brought down to (about) 423-404 (see Howorth, PSBA, xxiii. 324). So, also, the prophecies in 15. xl.—Ixvi., are subdivided and connected with the history of the times of Cyrus and Artaxerxes, although, under the influence of Me ee τοὺς

ji

eee

another theory of the history, the chapters are once more treated as virtually a whole, either relatively early (ας. 537-520; Sellin, Stud. 160; Rothstein) or relatively late (H. P. Smith, 371 ἢ. 1, 379 n. 3; Torrey, 288 n. 8, 314; Kennett). In contrast to these efforts to overcome the difficulties are the views of those scholars who do not admit the intricacies but continue to maintain the essential trustworthiness of E-N, the unhistorical character of Chron. itself being, nevertheless, almost unanimously realized. In so far as this is based upon the manner in which the narratives appear to be mutually confirmatory—cf. the conservative attitude to the criticism of the Pentateuch—and superficially, at least, consistent, it is necessary to observe that the chronicler’s history is singularly simple compared with the forms taken in E, or in Jos., or in the traditions that prevailed elsewhere in ancient times.

(c) Some ancient views. Jos., who is well-informed on the last Babylonian kings, asserts that the kingdom fell to Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede; the two were kinsmen and the latter, whose father was Astyages, had another name among the Greeks (x. 11, 2, 4). Cyrus, son of Cambyses, was the father of the better-known Cambyses; his mother, according to tradition, was the sister of Cyaxares and daughter of Astyages. Astyages, the last Median king, was the son of Cyaxares and was defeated by Cyrus. But this name is also given by Alexander Polyhistor and others to Cyaxares (c. 624-584), the founder of the Median empire, who took part with Nabopolassar in the attack upon Assyria."| When the father of Darius is called Ahasuerus (Dan. ix. 1; cf. the synopsis, Lag. 15, where he is born of Vashti), and the latter and Nebuchadrezzar capture Nineveh (Tobit xiv. 15), the names Ahasuerus and Cyaxares have evidently been confused (Rawlinson), The Ahasuerus of Esther was certainly placed soon after the deportation of Jehoiachin by Nebuchadrezzar (so ii. 5 seq.), but in Judith iv. 1-6 the last-mentioned reigns over the Medes at a time when the Jews had recently returned from captivity and the high-priest was one Joiakim. The historical foundation for Esther’s king can only be Xerxes, although Jos., LX.X, and early writers identify him with Artaxerxes. Jos., moreover, states that he was also called Cyrus——in Dan. v. 31, vi. 28, Darius the Mede becomes king after the fall of Babylonia and is followed by Cyrus—and gives the name Xerxes to the Artaxerxes of the stories of E and N. The difficulty of distinguishing the names would obviously be increased by the fact that Darius I was actually followed by Xerxes (485-465), and D. II (423-404) by Art. II (404-359), and that 1). 11 had a son Cyrus, famous for the unsuccessful expedition against his elder brother Art. II. Not to pursue the confusing details further, it is enough to notice that the later historians had behind them a series of events of vital importance. During a relatively brief period the power of Assyria was broken up, Scythians and Medes entered into W. Asiatic politics, a new Babylonian empire was restored only to fall before the Persian régime under Cyrus; a little more than a century later another Cyrus created a turmoil in W. Asia (400), and finally the Greeks, who had been gradually coming into closer touch with the Oriental world, established a new age under Alexander the Great. How soon history became enwrapped in legend is obvious from Herodotus and Xenophon (fifth century B.C.) and from Ctesias, who is even said to have drawn upon Persian records. Jos., for his part, endeavoured to reduce the confusion into some order; the Seder Olam (ch. xxx) ingeniously identifies all the Persian kings: Cyrus, Darius, Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes-—Dan. xi. 2 knows only of four—and the whole of the Persian age from the restoration of the Temple to the time of Alexander the Greek was even compressed into a few decades. ‘The appearance of simplicity in the chronicler’s history of the period is misleading; see further § 6 e.

§ 5. Data for Reconstruction.

The foregoing survey of the intricacies of E—N, the prevailing confusion in regard to the period, and the efforts made by ancient and modern writers to present the historical facts, will perhaps be convincing proof that the difficulties in E-N are genuine. They concern both E-N and E, and any attempt to discuss the origin and structure of E must form some preliminary conception of the underlying history. For this the story of N seems most fruitful.

(a) The Samaritans. N’s age was one of intermarriage and close intercourse between the Jews, Samaritans, and other neighbours (vi. 18, xiii. 3, 4, 23, 24, 28). The elliptical repulse of the Samaritans in N ii. 20 implies that they, as in E iv. 2 seq., had some claim ‘to a share in the fortunes of Jerusalem’ (Ryle, 171), and that they ‘would have had no quarrel with the Jews if they had been permitted to unite with the latter in their undertakings and privileges’ (Davies, 177). These details, the character of the intermarriages, the efforts to compromise with N (vi. 2-4), the close relationship presupposed by the subsequent bitterness after the schism, the fact that Samaritanism was virtually a sister-sect of Judaism—these preclude the present position of E’s return and marriage-reforms and make it extremely doubtful whether there had as yet been any serious Samaritan hostility. They also suggest that the records of E-N have been written and revised under the influence of a bitter anti-Samaritan feeling, the date of which can hardly be placed before N xiii. Indeed, it is not improbable that the Samaritan schism should be placed (with Jos. xi. 7 seq.) at the close of the Persian period (see further Marq., 57 seq.; Jahn, 173 seqq.; Torrey, 321 seqq., 331 seq.).

(6) Place of Es. iv. 7-23. This undated record of the reign of Artaxerxes, in spite of some 1 See Ency. Brit., with ed., on these names.

internal difficulties (see criticisms in Berth., 18 seq., Nikel, 182), probably illustrates the story of N when ‘Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear’ (vi. 19).’ It points to some new reconstruction of the city by returned exiles—evidently after an earlier disaster—and requires the assumption that the story of N is focussed upon the governor alone and that N and his military escort (ii. 9, cf. E v. 2, contrast ib. viii. 51 seq.) brought back a band of exiles (so Jos.); see below (d). Against this the objection has been brought that N, in spite of the royal command (E iv. 21 seq.), continued to build and actually did complete the walls. On the other hand, the walls were already practically finished (vi. 1, vii. 1, see Ryle, 219), and some time would necessarily elapse before letters could reach Artaxerxes and his reply come to hand (cf. the situation in E v. 5). The king does not order the walls to be destroyed or weakened; N naturally had other building operations to attend to in addition to the walls, and these may well have been stopped ‘by force and power’ (E iv. 23). The letter to Artaxerxes urges that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would be detrimental to the security of the province (iv. 13, 19 seq.), and disloyalty was the strongest charge brought against the governor (N ii. 19, vi. 6-7). In fact, N vii. 2 seq. may suggest that the perturbed governor left his brother in charge of the city while he visited the king—his leave had been limited (ii. 6)—and although the sequence of events is admittedly obscure there is a distinct gap between his position in N i.-iv., vi. and that as represented in xiii. (cf. v.). The formal steps of the Samaritans in E iv. 7 seqq. (similarly the satrap in E v. seq.) stand in contrast to the confusing account of the hostility in N iv., vi. against one who had come armed with royal authority, and undue weight must not be laid upon the present form of the N-story (see above [a]). All in all, the evidence does not exclude the helpful conjecture that E iv. 7-23 illustrate the troubles of N at that stage where the continuation of the book (after vi. 19) is almost inextricably complex.

(c) The semi-Edomite population. In the list of those who helped to rebuild the wall (N iii.) it is noteworthy (1) that very few of the names can be at all plausibly identified with the families who apparently returned with either Zerubbabel or Ezra (Kosters, 47), and (2) that some of the names have Calebite affinities.» The list is evidence for the poverty of the Babylonian section of population and for the prominence of the Judaeans, who include both the natives and those Calebite and allied groups who moved up from the south of Judah some time after 586. The presence of the latter is only to be expected, and the fact, pointed out by Meyer himself in 1896, is obviously fundamental for the criticism of the book of Ezra (see Kosters, 71. 7. xxxi. 536).° In this Calebite or semi-Edomite Judah—and to call these groups ‘half heathen’ (with Nikel, 56, 64) is to beg the question—we may find a starting-point for our conception of the district from the time of their immigration northwards to the date of the far-reaching reorganization associated with the names of N and E. Further, the list of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in N xi. recurs, though with variations, in 1 Chron. ix., where it represents the compiler’s conception of the post-exilic population after the captivity. According to his perspective of history, there was an old Israel which included a Judah of Calebite and Jerahmeelite origin (1 Chron. ii. and iv.) and some later stage which corresponds closely with N xi. N xi., however, differs widely from the lists in E ii. and viii. and ignores the return of Zerubbabel and Ezra. Its disagreement is hardly a proof that these lists are authentic; what is significant is the agreement between the Judaean clans Perez, Shelah and the semi-Edomite Zerah in N xi, and the mixed genealogies in 1 Chron.ii. and iv. The chronicler, it will be observed, knows of no earlier Judah; his evidence in ii., iv. is (in his view) pre-Davidic, and it agrees with this that his lists of the Levitical orders of David’s time illustrate the close bond uniting these ecclesiastical bodies with people of south Palestinian and Edomite affinity.¹⁴

(4) A decree and a return. The introduction to the Jerusalem list reads like the sequel to the account of some return (N xi. 3, 1 Chron. ix. 2; cf. E ii. 70, N vii. 73, and see Ewald, 159 n. 2). The list itself, after dealing with priests, Levites, &c., proceeds to refer to those who dwelt in the country, and it is noteworthy that N xi. 23 seq. have in view the fulfilment of some royal decree touching the singers (cf. 75 iv. 54 seq., E vii. 24). The singers, also, are subsequently collected from the Netophathite and other villages which they had built at some unspecified period (xii. 28 seq.; the exiles were assembled in Jerusalem after their return and settlement in the Zerubbabel-story (E ii. 70, iii. 1). Thus, the difficult and much revised narratives of N’s work, between vi. and xiii., are connected with the list of the return in vii., with the return of E (see p. 9c), and with some return associated with the figure of N himself. G. A. Smith observes that the reforms of N ‘are best explained through his reinforcement by just so large a number of Babylonian Jews under just such a leader as E’ (Expos., July, 1906, p. 7 seq.). On the other hand, there is insufficient historical evidence for the presence of E and his band, and the above details strongly suggest that there was an account of some other return in connexion with the activity of N, although it is still impossible to reconstruct the course of N’s work (see § 4, III. δ).

(e) The Temple. The history after the rise of the Davidic Zerubbabel is a blank which can be filled only by conjecture (see e.g. Ewald; Sellin, Sex.; Nikel, 142-6, and others). The situation in Jerusalem at the return of N cannot be explained by the disasters at the fall of Jerusalem about 140 years previously. The city was in great affliction and reproach, and N’s grief, confession, and prayer recall E’s behaviour at the tidings of the heathen marriages. The ruins of Jerusalem were extensive (N i. 3, ii. 3, 8, 13, iii., cf. Ecclus. xlix. 13), and it is disputed whether the ὀξγαλ (ii. 8) refers to the fortress on the north side of the Temple (G. A. Smith, Ferws., ii. 347 seq., 461), or the Temple itself (cf. 1 Chron. xxix. 1 and see Jahn, pp. iv, 93). According to 2 Macc. i. 18, N built both the Temple and the Altar, and Jos. (independently) asserts that he received permission to build the walls of the city and to finish the Temple. An old Latin synopsis (Lag. 18 seq.) states that E restored the foundations of Zerubbabel’s temple, and an old Greek summary of ‘Second Esdras’ refers to N as a builder of the Temple (Lag. 84, 1.27: αὐτὸς ἠξίωσε περὶ τῆς οἰκοδομῆς τοῦ ἱεροῦ). These can scarcely all be based upon the references to the Temple in the Artaxerxes-record in E ii, 18, 20. It is at least noteworthy that, both in E and E, compilers have placed this episode in the history of the Temple, and the different readings in E iv. 12, 14, might be due to the alternative position of the story (see below, § 6 (c)) after the account of the opposition in the time of Cyrus." Moreover, the mention of the ‘decree of Cyrus,and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia’ (E vi. 14, see E vii. 4) is unintelligible—for even a gloss or interpolation must express some plausible belief—unless there was a tradition associating Artaxerxes with the building of the Temple. Again, in view of the parallels between E iv. and N ii. iv., vi., in the account of the Samaritan opposition, it is surely significant that the abrupt allusion in N ii. 20 to the repudiation of the Samaritans can only be explained in the light of E iv. 3, where the building of the Temple is concerned.¹⁸ Finally, the E-story represents a period of favour during which the Temple had been restored or repaired through God’s mercy and the clemency of Persia (E ix. 8 seq.). This brief ‘moment’ (τ. 8) cannot date back from the decree of Cyrus and the work of Zerubbabel, rather must one read the whole situation—the strengthening of a neglectful community, the furthering of a poor temple—as a supplement to the disorganization and confusion in the story of N’s measures. Hence, it may be concluded that there is sufficient evidence for some tradition of a rebuilding of the Temple and of a return in the time of N.

(7) The recent disaster. The disaster which explains N’s grief, anxiety, and energetic labours may probably be ascribed in part at least to Edom. Friendly or neutral relations between Judah (and its semi-Edomite population, see c) and the ‘brother’ Edom appear to have continued at a relatively late period, until for some reason Edom is denounced for its unbrotherly conduct.¹⁹ The origin of the enmity is generally connected with the fall of Jerusalem in 586. But it cannot be found in “ἴῃς time of Jehoiakim (the conjecture ‘Edom’ for ‘Aram’ in 2 Kings xxiv. 2 is against Jer. xxxv. 11), or of Zedekiah (when Edom was among the allies of Judah; Jer. xxvii., Ezek. xvii. 11 seqq.); the Chaldeans alone destroyed the Temple, and Jews had even taken refuge in Edom and elsewhere (Jer.xl. 11). The very explicit statement that the Edomites burned the Temple ‘when Judaea was made desolate by the Chaldeans’, and occupied Judaean territory (2 iv. 45, 50), points to the reality of a tradition which, however, has been connected with the events of 586. The various allusions to Edom (Obad., Ezek. xxv. 12, xxxv. 10, 12, xxxvi. 5, Lam. iv., Ps. cxxxvii. 7), though possibly referring to different periods, cannot be based upon the history of the Chaldean invasion. The very circumstantial references to Edomite aggression (2 iv. 50, Ezek. xxxv. 10, xxxvi. 3, 5) have led to the view that the Jewish exiles recovered their land through Persian aid. This, however, finds no support in the history of either Cyrus or Darius. But may it not be later (Nikel, 57 n. 1), before the prophecy of Mal. i. 2-5, and between the times of Zerubbabel and N?? If so, it is tempting to associate the relatively simple and unadorned decree attributed to Darius in E iv. 48-56 (which points to a return to rebuild the Temple after a period of Edomite hostility) with the situation that underlies the narratives of N, cf. d above.

(9) Summary. The internal difficulties of E~N are exceedingly complex owing to the numerous untrustworthy features, the remarkable and suspicious parallels, and the intricacies of rearrangement, adjustment, and revision. The sources throw little (if any) light on the period before the return of N, and traditions originally associated with him or his age appear to underlie the rest. His story forms the starting-point for the problems of E—N, but it has too many serious difficulties for any confident theory of the order of events. Yet it seems clear that in N’s time there had not as yet been any previous Samaritan hostility of any extent, any separation from the ‘heathen’, any important return of exiles. It is not improbable that in the time of Zerubbabel there was a monarchy of some size (cf. Sellin, Sev., 89), and it is interesting to notice that the Samaritan opposition in the time of Artaxerxes is aimed especially at the apparent political pretensions of N (ii. 19, vi. 6-8, cf. E iv. 13). The population in and around Jerusalem consisted partly of the old indigenous stock and partly of the southern groups of Edomite affinity who moved northwards after 586. This semi-Edomite people had suffered from a disaster, due, in some measure, to the ‘brother’ Edomites who had burned the Temple and occupied Jewish territory, and to repair the lamentable conditions was the object of N’s return. The southern groups in question are only to be expected after 1 Chron. ii. and iv., and the history in Chron, seems to reveal some traces of their perspective: their presence in the Levitical bodies, the stories of the reconstruction of Temple and cult, and the traditions of invasions of hostile southern peoples. On independent grounds it is probable that other traces of the presence and prominence of these groups may be observed elsewhere, and we may notice that the O.T. preserves the tradition of the high reputation of the eponymous Caleb, the ‘servant of Yahweh’, and that late traditions even ascribe a southern origin to some of the prophets.

In the chronicler’s compilation the rise of the new Jewish Church and the opposition of the Samaritans are dated at the commencement of the Persian age, and in the light of this the later history was meant to be read, even as other writers presuppose the patriarchal ancestors of pre- Mosaic days or the elaborate Levitical ritual associated with Moses and Aaron. Although this view shapes the compilation, the study of the age of Artaxerxes throws a different light upon its value. There are persistent and independent traditions of some return in his reign, and of some reconstruction of the people. Subsequent to the situation represented in N iii. (see c above) a new community was formed, and since it would be composed of elements of exilic (Babylonian) and non-exilic ancestry, some of the names of the latter class (found e.g. in N iii.) might naturally recur in (the later) lists referring to earlier periods (for such names, see Nikel, 154 seqq.). From 1 Chron. ii. and iv., and from the place of Caleb and Jerahmeel among the ‘sons’ of Perez—Gen. xxxviii seems to record his superiority over the rival and semi-Edomite Zerah—it is obvious that there has been a genealogical readjustment of the groups of southern origin. Moreover, elsewhere, the specific traditions of such groups as these have been revised or mutilated, and it is probable that all these features may be connected with the intricate development of the priestly and Levitical figures, suggestive of rival representations and compromise.’

E-N is written from the standpoint of a reorganized community which admitted no relationship with the semi-Edomite or native Judaean groups. The Babylonian exiles piqued themselves on their superiority to the Judaeans, who none the less could boast of their father Abraham—the hero of the Calebite city of Hebron (Ezek. xxxiii. 24). To the exiles from Babylon and thence (ΕἾ ii.) to the old Judah which fell in 586, the community persistently attributed its origin. The Jews of the post-exilic theocracy laid most weight upon an ancestry from the deportation by Nebuchadrezzar, even as the old Israel ignored the large indigenous and mixed element in Palestine, and descent was claimed from the immigrant tribes from Egypt and thence from the pre-Mosaic sons of Israel. Different disasters were focussed upon 586, and traditions of return and rebuilding were concentrated upon the return of Zerubbabel. Consequently, by thus passing over the native groups, whether akin or not to the hated Edomites, the mixed origin of the Jews was rendered less con-especially, 328 n. 53). Both Jews and Samaritans were of mingled ancestry, but the latter could at all events claim to have been associated with the land longer than the former. The question of kinship between the two divisions was, as we see from Jos. (ix. 14 3, xi. 8 6, xii. 5 5), always a debatable one, and the knowledge of past history would only increase the bitter enmity at the rise of the rival cult on Mt. Gerizim. But the chronicler’s compilation very carefully conceals the course of events and upholds for Judah alone the sole right to be the legitimate descendant of the ancient confederation of Israel.²⁴ §

§ 6. Structure of the Sources.

It may often be possible to point out conflicting data, to indicate traditions which seem to be older or more original, and to arrive at positive or negative conclusions regarding the underlying facts; but the endeavour to trace the literary growth of complex sources which are certainly the result of intricate reshaping and revision is a delicate problem of literary criticism and distinct from the historical criticism of the period they describe.

(a) The Sheshbazzar-Cyrus Tradition. The story of Zerubbabel and the first return of the Jews in the time of Darius (E iii. 1—v. 6) is the pivot upon which the problems turn. Our starting-point is the Aramaic section E v. seq., where Darius confirms and extends a decree of Cyrus, who had ordered the rebuilding of the Temple and had sent back the vessels with Sheshbazzar (v. 13~15). This tradition is supported by E i., which refers also to Mithredath the treasurer who apparently was once mentioned in E v. (see on E vi. 18). But E i. is written in a different style and in Hebrew; it gives a highly-coloured form of the decree (note the parallels with the story of E, Marq. 56, Torrey, 157 seq.), and tends to minimize the importance of Cyrus by emphasizing the direct influence of Yahweh (contrast the initiative of Darius in E iv., E vi. 8-11; see also on E vii. 1). Consequently, E v.seq., which have various marks of incompleteness (see on E vi. 7 seq., 23), presuppose an account of Cyrus and the return of Sheshbazzar (probably also in Aramaic), some part of which at least has been replaced by E i. Further, Sheshbazzar returned to build the Temple, but instead of any account of his work, Jeshua and Zerubbabel are abruptly introduced in the great list, Ε ii. 2. These two erect the altar (iii. 2), and (mentioned in the inverse order) commence the rebuilding (iii. 8-10), repulse the ‘adversaries’ (iv. 2 seq.), and subsequently, in the time of Darius, are encouraged by the prophets to begin operations (v. 2, note the repetition of the ancestry). Zer., as in E iii. 1-v. 6, is the leading figure, whereas the Shesh. tradition in v. seq. refers to the ‘elders’ (E v. 5, 9, vi. 8, 14; in vi. 7 (65 omits the unnamed governor, see Berth., 19). From the point of view of historical criticism Shesh. and Zer. are two distinct individuals, but it seems obvious that the compiler of FE 1. ν!. regarded them as the same, although it was left for ancient and modern harmonists to make the identification. And in fact it is implied and made in E vi. 18, 27, 29, after the introduction of Zer. in 111. seq., but naturally not in / ii. 1-15 (ΞΞΕ 1.); yet in E, strangely enough, it is nowhere made, although the return of Shesh. in E i. 11 evidently corresponds to the appearance of Zer. in ii. 2 (|| E v. 8 immediately after the Zer. story). Hence Jos. is obliged to harmonize (xi. I ὃ 14, 3 § § 32). Moreover, it is noteworthy that the Aramaic sources (v. 3-vi. 12) do not clearly indicate that the Jewish builders were exiles (contrast E iv. 12), and that there is no explicit reference in E v. 15 to any return of exiles under Sheshbazzar; on the other hand, the conflate text of E vi. 5. ὃ ‘Clearly alludes to the Jews as being of the Captivity (cf. vii. 6, 10), and E ii. 15 shows more distinctly than E i. 11 that exiles returned with Shesh. That there is a gap after this verse has often been suspected. Accordingly, there are two important features: (1) the Shesh. tradition has been mutilated and otherwise adjusted in order to give the greater prominence to Zer. and Azs return, and (2) while it is not certain that Shesh. was originally the leader of a band of exiles, the text in E partly identifies him with the more illustrious Zer., and partly seems to treat his return as that of the ‘captivity’ also. Finally, the Shesh. tradition is that of a continuous building of the Temple since the time of Cyrus (E v. 16). This may be supported by E iv. 4, 5, which refer to unceasing troubles and intrigues, and by v. 6, where the accusation in the reign of Ahasuerus means, in this context, that the Temple was still under construction. On the other hand, the presence of the Artaxerxes-episode would imply that the work was definitely brought to a stop (see iv. 21-24), and with this agrees the statement in v. 2 that Zer. and Jeshua, encouraged by the prophets, ‘rose up... and degan to build the house of God’. Since the presence of these conflicting views can hardly be original, the Artaxerxes-episode and the cessation of the building may probably be regarded as foreign to the Shesh. tradition. Hence, although E does not present E’s remarkable done his best to remedy— it contains, on closer inspection, a very singular combination of conflicting traditions of the Temple, and of Shesh. and Zer.

eS (6) The Zerubbabel-Darius tradition. Since Jewish tradition has it that Darius was the son of Ahasuerus the Mede (Dan. ix. 1), and the Ahasuerus in Esth. was called Artaxerxes (although, historically, Xerxes must be meant), and since the sequence Art.-Darius is true of Art. I-Dar. II (or even of Art. III-Dar. III), compilers might be justified in placing the story of the opposition before a tradition of Darius, whether in E ii. 16 seqq,, iii, or E iv. 7-24, v. But it is not easy to decide which of the two is the earlier position. The cessation of the building of the Temple would be intelligible before E iv., which really describes a new era in the history, and would equally agree with the commencement of work mentioned in E v. 2. In either case it leads up to Zerubbabel. But whereas in E it forms a necessary link between Cyrus and Darius, in E it breaks the connexion (iv. 5, v. 1) and conflicts with the Shesh. tradition. The assumption that E gives the older position of the episode may be suggested by the fact that its text presents some features distinctly sounder than that in E iv. (note, however, the textual relation of Chron. to Sam.-Kings). On the other hand, in E v. 66 seqq. (E iv. 1 seqq.) the compiler has made use of iv. 1-5, 24, and it is possible that he found iv. (6?) 7-24 before him, but naturally omitted the passage he had already used. In any case, iv. 1-5 is obviously most closely connected with the preceding chapters, and since these presuppose certain material found only in E iii. 1-v. 6, E’s account of Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel in the time of Cyrus thus presupposes data in E of the time of Darius! The simplest explanation of these intricacies is that the MT has suffered by excision (see Torrey, 27 seq.), and it remains to determine whether the material in question originally belonged to the Darius period (as in E) or to that of Cyrus (as in E). Torrey alone has discussed this problem, and he has presented a complete, clever, and attractive hypothesis. He treats the Darius-Zer. story in E iii. 1-iv. 42 as an interpolation in the history of Cyrus, rejects or emends all that is impossible in such a context, and regards E ii. 16 seqq. as a transposition from E iv. made by the interpolator (see p. 32). But this leaves the complexity of E ivi. untouched. It treats as redactional certain passages that have by no means that appearance (viz. / iv. 43-7a, 57-61), and if E iv. 7-24 was deliberately borrowed, it is strange that no effort was made to form a reasonable link between ii. 15 and 16, as Jos. has done. The compiler used 2 ii. 16 seqq. to link Cyrus and Darius, but this theory assumes that for no apparent reason whatsoever a story of Darius has been introduced into the Cyrus-history and combined with it by (redactional?) material, which is partly of considerable independent value, and partly introduces a vez tradition of Cyrus (iv. 44, 57) in conflict with all other evidence. The story, moreover, would hardly have been used in Jewish history unless it was associated with Zerubbabel, Darius, and the return of the Jews; hence its presence, general character, independence, and the confusion arising from the attempt to unite it with other traditions plead for the view (also held by Howorth and Bayer) that it is original.

(c) Result of combination. On this alternative theory, then, E preserves a Zer.-Darius nucleus corresponding to a Shesh.-Cyrus nucleus in E, and it seems probable that the intricacies in E and E have arisen from the endeavour to combine and compromise. 25 iii. 1-v. 6 commence like an independent story, presupposes no prelude, and quite excludes any current story of Cyrus. iv. 44, 57, it is true, refer to his inability to fulfil a vow, but this has neither any foundation in history nor support in extant tradition, and appears to be an early effort to connect the section with Cyrus. Thenceforth we apparently have the building-up of narratives. The Artaxerxes episode was taken from a source relating to the time of N (§ 56), and the sequel of the story, the list v. 7 seqq., also has a Nehemian background. The connexion between v. 1-6 and 7 seqq. is not close (note repetition 4, 7a, the preliminary vv. 5 and 7), and it is possible that iii. 1-v. 6 once had another sequel, or that there has been later adjustment. In any case, the references to Cyrus (iv. 44, 57), the treatment of the Shesh. tradition, and the fact that / ii. 1-15 are not in their original form, unite to show that there has been much revision, the stages in which cannot be traced. The list itself, partly connected with E’s return in N vii., has been applied to the return of Zer., and then treated (in N) by the compiler of Ε-Ν as a quotation from the earlier period. It presents a materially older text, and its immediate continuation in E v. 47 seqq. (FE iii.) is also based upon N viii. 1, and describes events in which one may recognize the influence of other passages in N (Meyer, 73, 99; Marq., 58 seq.; Volz, § 9). But the material is adjusted to Zerubbabel and Cyrus, with the result that while E v. 8 (the introduction of Zer.) is explained by the preceding story, and v. 47 (the date) by v. 6; v. 55 has in view iv. 48 (Darius), but its context is of the time of Cyrus (note the harmonizing efforts of Jos., xi. 4 I, 3 seq.).

Haggai and Zech., in the second year of Darius, know of no return or earlier rebuilding. So far this agrees with the Zer. story, which, however, while excluding any earlier rebuilding, describes the first return of the Jews. The Shesh. story throws back the commencement of the temple, but in E does not clearly point to any return (contrast E). In so far as Darius is concerned, these stories are mutually contradictory, and neither is supported by the prophets, and in so far as the fortunes of the temple are concerned, it is possible that a compromise was found in the belief that the work was brought to a stop and that the building was ve-commenced in the time of Darius. This explains the motive of the Artaxerxes episode, and if the references to the Temple in E ii. 18, 20 are reliable, their absence in E iv. 12, 14 may be due to its new position. Further, if ea a ΨΡ ΨΥ E v. 1 once had (as in E vi. 1) the precise date, this would be in order after iv. 5 (see Berth., 19), but might naturally be omitted after the insertion of iv. (6) 7-24; and since also the retention of the date in E vi. 1 would be unnecessary after v. 73 (=E iv. 24), the present unintelligible wording of the latter verse may be due to intentional alteration and not to corruption of the text. Thus, E partly presents material in an older text and form than E, partly shows signs of revision (apparently in the Greek), either to harmonize details or to conform with the MT, and partly is influenced by the form of E, whose imperfections it shares. The root of the problem lies in the two nuclei: Zerubbabel-Darius, Sheshbazzar-Cyrus-Darius, and in the endeavour to co-ordinate them; but in addition to the complexity touching Cyrus and Darius, it is obvious that the present form of the narratives cannot be viewed apart from the literary treatment of the events of the time of Artaxerxes.

(4) The Ezra-story. The narratives involved are an account of N’s work, partly autobiographical, but now in a much revised and intricate form, which is divided by the E-story, also not from one hand, and itself split into two. These have suffered various changes and adjustments in the course of being combined with each other and with the great history of the ‘chronicler’. On both literary and historical grounds we may postulate a stage when the whole of the E-story was found after the first appearance of N (p. 9 d). To suppose that N viii—x. also once stood before N i. (Torrey, 265 seq.) only increases the difficulties. ἘΞ appears relatively late in tradition, but continues to grow in reputation. He is absent from both Ben Sira xlix. 12 seq. and 2 Macc. i. seq., and here N is particularly prominent; but N’s prominence, though in agreement with all the evidence, has not been made so obvious in the E-story (see § 4. III. d). Moreover, the effort has apparently been made to give greater significance to E by placing the most important part of his mission—the Reading of the Law (and the sequel, the Covenant)—in the account of the completion of the walls of Jerusalem, and also by introducing the rest of the story before N’s arrival. E has gone further, and in ix. 37 seqq. has read part of N viii. after E x. Now, although E presents in some cases a better text, it is noteworthy that in reproducing N viii. and the introductory vii. 734, the compiler has also unnecessarily removed v. 73a, which can hardly stand after E ix. 36 = E x. 44 (cf. Volz, 1492). This deliberate transference perhaps explains the text in vv. 38, 49, and suggests that E’s recension is here based upon the MT, with the E-story divided as at present. Consequently, both E and E-N share that complicated treatment of the purification of Israel which seems to have arisen when the story of E was rearranged. It is uncertain how 25, if more complete, would have continued. There is indeed some evidence, perhaps not of great value, for an account of E’s passover, suggesting that some portion of the story has been lost (see on ix. 55). However, if the whole of the present story had been placed before N i., both N i.—vi., xi.—xiii. and E vii—x., N viii—x. (or in any rearranged form) would still be in a confused, and certainly not original shape. The one source which actually effects this transposition is Jos., who finishes the life of E before dealing with N. His treatment is brief and paraphrastic, but it seems to be extremely significant that he does not point to the existence of the story of N in either the form or the sequence which it now has. To reconstruct the continuation of E is to make the overlapping with N more conspicuous; this is clear from the synopses cited below on p. 58, and it is interesting to notice that an old Syriac catena, which follows f;, endeavours to readjust to N—it passes from / ix. 1-10 to 466-47 (= N viii. 6) and thence to N i. 1-4, and places the Reading of the Law (N viii.) in the context it now has in the MT. 4, it is evident, does not enable us to go behind the MT, but, together with Jos., it tends to show that the MT is the late outcome of a very intricate literary development.

(e) The Compilation. At the stage when the stories of E and N were shaped in their present form, and when the traditions of the time of Artaxerxes had been used directly or indirectly for the age of Cyrus and Darius, we reach the complete historical work Chron.-E-—N., and the structure of E-N really involves close attention to that of Chron. itself. Here it must suffice to observe that both Chron. and E-N furnish evidence representing different stages in the vicissitudes of the priests and Levites (see on E viii. 28), and it is noteworthy that there are several traces of textual variation and confusion where these are concerned (see, e.g., i. 5 seqq., 10, 15, v. 56, vii. 9, viii. 42, ix. 43 seqq.). It is also significant of the relative lateness of E-N that the age at which the Levites serve agrees with secondary passages in Chron. (see on v. 58), and that an apparent anti-Aaronite bias has found its way into both (see on vii. 10-12). Perhaps the most important feature in the compilation is the presence of gaps (e.g. before E v. 1, N i.), the more striking when we observe that the chronicler has ignored pertinent material in Kings, Jer., Daniel, and Esther. The book of Daniel was familiar in the Greek age and later (cf. 1 Macc. ii. 59 seq., and, for the Targums, Prot. Realency., iii. 107 seq.), a Sh ee a

and was used by Jos. The story in E iii. seq. has literary points of contact with both Dan. and Est. (Marq. 66, 68, 72; Torrey, 47 seq.; Bayer, 110 seqq.), and the former of these records traditions of the Temple-vessels (see on ii. 10).!' The sacrilegious use of the holy objects by Belshazzar was followed by the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians, and forthwith Darius the Mede, son of Ahasuerus, became king (v. 31, ix. 1). He was led to proclaim the God of Daniel (vi. 25-7), and to the first year of his reign is ascribed the prayer of Daniel (ix.). Here, the seventy years of desolation foretold by Jeremiah are complete, and Daniel prays on behalf of the Jews in Jerusalem and afar off, and on behalf of the ruined sanctuary. The tradition—irrespective of its present setting—is so far in harmony with E iii. seq., the story of Zerubbabel in the second year of Darius (cf. Büchler, 7 seq.), where, as in Daniel’s prayer, an earlier return is excluded. It is difficult not to believe that these traditions are related, and it is noteworthy that while the references to Cyrus in the story of Zerubbabel appear to be due to later revision, Cyrus, according to Dan. vi. 28, x. 1, reigned after Darius. Thus, not only is it more intelligible that the Cyrus tradition is relatively the later, and probably grew out of the Darius tradition, than the reverse, but a tradition evidently once prevailed which placed Darius before Cyrus.

But it was also known that Cyrus preceded Darius, and in Bel and the Dragon he follows after Astyages (see above, p. 11) and—like Darius in Dan. vii—becomes convinced of Daniel’s God. This correct sequence is that represented by Jos. and the ‘chronicler’, with one important difference, that while the former does his best to combine all the varying traditions of Cyrus and Darius, the present MT ignores Dan. and E iii. 1-v. 6 and the complications these would introduce into the history. Accuracy of sequence does not necessarily prove greater antiquity of source. It depends upon accuracy of information, and if Jos. (xi. 2) knows that Cambyses and not Artaxerxes (ii. 16 seqq.) reigned before Darius, he is confused in his treatment of Xerxes and Artaxerxes, and while the chronicler wrongly retains these two between Cyrus and Darius, he has, however, avoided the incorrect sequence of the latter two in Daniel. The traditions of this period (§ 4 IV. c.) combine in an inextricable manner trustworthy and untrustworthy data with the result that mere mechanical rearrangement of material or correction of names is inadequate for the recovery of the historical facts. Whether or no there was a continuous chronicle of the Kings of Media and Persia (Est. x. 2), if a compiler of Jewish history followed the tradition which also appears in Dan., Darius the Mede reigned before Cyrus, and Darius, after E iii. seq., was the first to permit the Jews to return. On the other hand, Cyrus was really the first king, and it is easy to understand the endeavours to adjust the traditions. It may not be possible to trace all the steps in the process, nevertheless, E’s recension is a valuable witness to the efforts made to effect a compromise, and it is significant that while all the evidence points to the relative lateness of the Cyrus tradition in the form it now has in ΑΕ ii. 1-15 or E i., the immediate prelude in Ζ i. represents a text materially older in some respects (though more corrupt in others) than the corresponding 2 Chron. xxxv. seq.

(7) Conclusion. In the nature of the case, any explanation of the structure of H and E—N must be a provisional one. At all events, Bayer’s view (93 seq., 102, 139), that E is a secondary and deliberate self-contained compilation dealing with the Temple, is inadequate, in that it accounts for only a small proportion of the textual features. Howorth, whose merit it has been to force the attention of biblical students to the importance of E, undoubtedly goes too far in championing the textual and historical value of E. As regards its text, used by Jahn with a certain lack of discrimination and by Bayer somewhat unduly underestimated, Torrey and Volz support an intermediate position, pointing out the general relative superiority of MT. Torrey justly observes, also, that as a history E is not in its original form, and he has proposed a hypothesis of its relationship with E-N which he works out with much skill and thoroughness (18 seqq., 30 seqq., 255 seqq.). He starts from the chronicler’s history in almost its present form (dated c. third cent. B.C.), and assumes two important changes: (1) the transference of N vii. 70-x. 39 from their ‘original’ position between E viii. and ix. to the place where they now stand, and (2) the interpolation of the story E iii. 1-iv. 42, in the history of Cyrus, with redactional expansion, alteration, &c., and with the transposition of the Artaxerxes episode from E iv. 6-24 to 2 ii. 16-30. Subsequently, two rival forms arose: one (A) with the retransposition of N vii. 7 3-x. 40, this time between E x. and N i.; the other (B) with the excision of the Story of the Three Youths (Z£ iii. seq.) together with a part of the ‘original’ history. The latter is represented by the MT; the former, after being translated into Greek, survives only in the fragmentary E, which is defined as ‘simply a piece taken without change out of the middle of a faithful Greek translation of the chronicler’s History of Israel in the form which was generally recognized as authentic in the last century B.C.’ (18). This hypothesis is complicated (see Bayer’s criticisms,143 seq.), though not unduly so. On the other hand, there are objections to the view that * It is disputed whether E iii. seq. is later than these (Bayer, 128 seq.), or earlier (Torrey); in any case the

canonical books, whatever their date, may well incorporate or be based upon older traditions.

the Story of the Three Youths is an interpolation in the alleged original Cyrus-history, viz. in E i., EL iv. 47-56, iv. 62-v. 6, E ii. seqq. (see p. 16), and to the assumption that the place of the E-story before N i. is the earlier (see p. 17). Further, although E is obviously imperfect, to restore a complete work in which it should correspond to E in the chronicler’s series necessitates the belief that Jos., the only early source which places the E-story before N, is witness to the MT form of the stories of both E and N, and this cannot be said to be certain (see p. 57 seq.). The latter part of E presupposes the present structure of E vii—x.,N ... vii. 73-viii. 13 . whereas the first half presents older traits in i., ii. 16 seqq. (the position of the Artaxerxes episode), iii. 1-v. 6 (the Zerubbabel story), v. 7-70 (the background of the list, E ii.), and v. 71 (the immediate sequel, the prelude to the work of the returned exiles). Finally, the criticism of E inevitably raises the problem of the entire series Chron.-E-—N, which at one stage was a literary whole, and consequently we cannot take the chronicler’s history as a fixed starting-point. Asa matter of fact, apart from the literary questions arising out of Chronicles alone, it seems that the books were regarded by the Rabbis with some suspicion (Curtis and Madsen, Chron. 2), and now stand after E-N ‘as if it were an afterthought to admit them to equal authority’ (W. R. Smith, Old Test. Few. Church, 182). It is not improbable that this severance involved some subsequent alteration and revision (cf. Marq., 29). Moreover, the recurrence of 1 Chron. ix., N xi., in a single work hardly looks like an original feature; like the more remarkable repetition of the list E ii., N vii. (see Jampel, i. 306; Howorth, PSBA, xxvi. 26; Holzhey, 37 n. 2) the feature seems to point to the combination of sources which were primarily distinct.

All the data suggest that E and E-N represent concurrent forms which have influenced each other in the earlier stages of their growth. They are rivals, and neither can be said to be wholly older or more historical than the other. The endeavour was made to correct E to agree with the MT—and @" is a conspicuous example of the extent to which the revisers could go—and the presence of such efforts and in particular the doublets (see § 3 4) are of essential importance in indicating that E’s text does not precisely represent a Heb.-Aram. work, and that when all allowance is made for correction and revision of the Greek, problems of the underlying original text still remain. But it was impossible to make any very satisfactory adjustment, E diverged too seriously from the MT, which had cut the chronological knot by the excision of the story of Zerubbabel, and we may suppose that this facilitated the desire for the more literal translation of Theodotion (p. 3 seq.).

§ 7. Value.

Although our O.T. has lost the story of Zerubbabel and the Praise of Truth, there is no doubt that —there is something ‘unbiblical’ in the orations. In the course of the growth of the O.T., compilers and revisers have not unfrequently obscured or omitted that to which they took exception, and some light is thus often thrown upon other phases of contemporary Palestinian or Jewish thought. While the orations themselves remind us of the old ‘Wisdom’ literature (Proverbs, Ben Sira, Wisdom), their combination with narrative will recall the interesting story of Ahikar. E remains ‘apocryphal’ in so far as it was deliberately rejected by Jewish and Christian schools. It had indeed found a place in the Bible of the Greek-speaking Jews, and was familiar to Jews and Christians, either indirectly through Jos., or directly as a separate work. To the Christians the prominence of Zerubbabel must have been of no little interest (see § 1, end). But the value of / does not lie merely in this story. The book (or fragment) furnishes useful evidence for the criticism of the text and contents of the canonical passages, and illustrates methods of compilation and revision, swing of traditions, and play of motives. It clearly indicates the importance of the comparison of related traditions as apart from the ultimate question of the underlying facts, and shows, in conjunction with Jos., how a relatively straightforward account of history as in E-N may be the last stage in the effort to cut the knots formed by imperfect compilation. In its final form, the MT, the result of ‘Rabbinical redaction 29), is ascribed by Howorth to the School of Jamnia in the time of Rabbi Akiba (PSPA,

xxvi. 25), and although it is difficult to find decisive arguments in favour of this conjecture—or against it—it is not impossible that the chronicler’s history, as it now reads, may be dated about the beginning of the Christian era. It is significant that it is wanting in the Syriac Peshitta. Such a view, it should be observed, no more expresses an opinion on the dates of the component sources or sections than it would were the work in question a composite and much edited portion of Mishnah or Midrash.

§ 8. Select Bibliography and Abbreviations.

A, 8, B = Codices of the Greek version.

André, L. E, T. = Les Apocryphes de [A. T. (1903).

Ball, C. J. = The Variorum Apocrypha (1896).

Bayer, E. = ‘Das dritte Buch Esdras und sein Verhiltnis zu den Büchern Esra-Nehemia’, in Biblische Studien, ed.

; Bardenhewer, vol. xvi. (1911).

Bertholet, A. = Die Bücher Esra und Nehemia (1902).

Büchler, A. = ‘Das apokryphische Esrabuch’, 276 W, J; a (1897), 1-16, 49-66, 97-103.

Charles, R. H. = ‘Third Book of Ezra’, Ency. Brit. 11th ed., vol. x. 104-6.

Cheyne, T. K. = Introduction to the Book of Isaiah (1895). Jewish Religious Life after the Exile (1898). See also sub Kosters.

Davies, T. W. = ‘Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther’, 716 Century Bible (1909).

Driver, 8. R. = Introd. to the Lit. of the O.T. (1909).

E = Ezra (the book or man).

ἔπειτ Esdras.

E Bi, = Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899-1903).

Ew. = Ewald, H., History of Israel, 2nd ed. (1880), vol. v.

E = Greek version.

(ἃ Chron., GE, &c. (or Chron. E, Ἐκ, &c.) = Greek version of Chronicles, Ezra, &c.

GrB4N- — Codices of the Greek.

Guthe, H. = 7 Esdras, in Kautzsch, Die Apok. τε. Pseudepig. d. A. T. (1898). See also SBOT.

Holzhey, C. = Bücher Ezra u. Nehemia (1902).;

Hoonacker, A. van = Wéhémie et Esdras (1890). Zerubabel et le second Temple (1892). Nouvelles Etudes sur la Restauration juive (1896). Articles in Revue Bibligue, 1901, January, April.

Howorth, Sir Henry H. = Academy, 1893, January-July (passim), Transactions of Oriental Congress, London, ii. 69-85 (1893). Proceedings of Soc. of Bibl. Archaeology, 1901-10 (passim).

Jahn, C. = Die Bücher Esra (A u. B) u. Nehemja (1909).

Jampel, 8. = ‘Die Wiederherstellung Israels unter den Achameniden’, 776 1777, xlvi. and xlvii. (1902-3); here cited as i. and ii.

Jos. = Josephus, ed. Niese.

Kennett, R. H. =‘Hist. of the Jew. Church from Nebuchadnezzar to Alexander’, Cambridge Biblical Essays (ed. Swete, 1909), 91-135. Journal of Theological Studies, 1905, January, 161-86; 1906, July, 481-500.

Kent, C. F. = Jsrael’s Historical and Biographical Narratives (1905).

Kosters, W. H. = Die Wiederherstellung Israels in der persischen Periode (Germ, ed., by Basedow, 1895). i Th. T. = Articles in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, xxix. (1895), 549 seqq.; xxx. (1896), 489 seqq., 580 seqq.; xxxi. (1897), 518 seqq. 35 E Bi. = Articles ‘Cyrus’, ‘Ezra’, ‘Ezra-Nehemiah’, ‘Nehemiah’ (with additions by T. K. Cheyne), in E δὲ.

Ι, = Lucian’s recension of the Greek version.

2, LU Lag. = Latin Versions, see above, § 3 ὦ

Lag. = Lagarde, P. de, Septuaginta-Studien, ii. (1892).

Lupton, J. H. = 1 Esdras in The Apocrypha, ed. H. Wace (1888).

Meyer, E. = Die Entstehung des Judentums (1896). Lsr. = Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstamme (1906), by E. Meyer and B. Luther.

MT = Massoretic Text.

N = Nehemiah (the book or man).

Nestle, E. = MWarginalien u. Materialien (1893), 23 seqq.

Nikel, J. = ‘Die Wiederherstellung des jiid. Gemeinwesens nach den bab. Exil’, in Bib/ische Studien, ed. Bardenhewer, vol. v (1900).

PSBA = Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.

Ryle, H. E. = ‘Ezra and Nehemiah’ in the Cambridge Bible (1901).

E = Syriac version.’ ᾿

SBOT is 7) = The Sacred Books of the O.7., ed. P. Haupt: ‘Ezra and Nehemiah’, by H. Guthe (and, pp. 56-71, L. W. Batten).

Sellin, E., Sex. = Serubbabel (1898). Stud. = Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte d. jiid. Gemeinde, vol. ii. (1901).

Smend, R. = Die Listen der Bücher Esra τ. Nehemia (1881).

Smith, G. A.=In The Expositor, 1906, June-August.

Smith, H. P. = O.7. History (1903).

Th. T. = Theologisch Tijdschrift.

Thackeray, H. St. J. = Art. ‘Esdras’, Hastings’ Dict. Bible, i. 7 58-63.

Torrey, C. C. = Ezra Studies (Chicago, 1910). 9 Comp. Comp. = ‘Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah’, Beiheft zur ZATW, 1896.

Trendelenburg = ‘Apokr. Ezra’, Eichhorn, A//gem. Bibl. d. bibl. Litt. (1787), 178-232.

Treuenfels = Articles in Dex Orient (ed. J. First), 1850-1.

Volz, P. =‘The Greek Ezra’, E δ. vol. iv, cols. 1488-94.

Wellhausen, J. = ‘Die Rückkehr der Juden a us clem bab. Exil’, in Machrichten d. Gottinger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, 1895, pp. 166 seqq. Review of E. Meyer, Entstehung u.s.w., in the Gott, Gel. Anzeigen, 1897, pp. 89 seqq.

Notes

1. For the abbreviations E, E, N, &c., see below, p. 19 seq. translation of the canonical books.?
2. 0) A late Midrash (Jellinek, ii. 54-7) makes Zerubbabel the centre of ‘a short apocalypse on the certainty of the ultimate appearance of the Messiah son of David, on his precursor the Messiah son of Joseph, and on their friends and foes’ (Ew. 128).
3. On the title 6 ἱερεύς in Ge (to distinguish E from 2 or 4 Esdras of the Apocrypha ἢ), see Nestle, 29.
4. e.g. Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius; see Pohlmann, 263 seqq., and the tables in André, 22 seqq.
5. Augustine, also, in a list of canonical books (de doctr. Christ. ii, 8) enumerates two books of Ezra ‘of which our 1 Esd. was certainly one’ (Volz). See, on the other hand, Bayer, 4.
6. 8 See Howorth, PSBA, xxiii. 156 seqq., xxiv. 164 seqq., xxix. 31 seqq., xxxiii. 26 seqq.; Torrey, ib. xxv. 139 seqq., and his Ezra Studies, Chap. 1; J. Gwynn, Dict. Christ. Biog., ‘Theodotion’, and Extracts from the Syro-Hex. Version of the LXX (London, 1909), xx. seqq.
7. On the general features of E’s version, see further Moulton, 226; Thackeray, 7602; Torrey, 83 seq. For the textual value of E see, in addition to the commentaries on E-N, the discussions by Rice: (Bzdlische Zeitschrift, v. 146 seqq.) and Bayer.
8. By ‘chronicler’ is meant the hand which, by writing, compiling, or revising, brought the three consecutive books into practically their present form. Owing to the complexity of the compilation the term may not be an adequate one, but there seems no reason to doubt that there has been a single editorial process at some stage in the literary 6: (the objections of Jampel, i. 108, 112, 115 seqq., and Davies, 16 are unnecessary). In any case, historical criticism cannot start from the untrustworthiness of Chronicles, and minimize the extent of the ‘chronicler’ in E-N (Davies, 16 seq.), or exaggerate it (Torrey, 145 Seqq., on the E-story), or assume that all other records are necessarily relatively superior (so apparently Meyer, Ex/stehung). See below, pp. 17-19.
9. Modern criticism is influenced by the radical conclusions of W. H. Kosters and the forcible defence by E. Meyer (Entstehung) whose own position, however, is in many respects opposed to the purely traditional; see 5. R. Driver, Lit. 552 (and on the introductory literary questions, ib. 544 seqq.). A striking advance has recently been made by Torrey (Ezra Studies), to whose work the present writer gratefully records his indebtedness, and since reasons are given in these pages for adopting certain radical conclusions of Kosters, Torrey, and others, it may be well to refer readers to the writings (see § 8) of Davies, Driver, Holzhey, Jampel, Nikel, Ryle, and G. A. Smith, for the arguments adduced in support of a generally consistent traditional position.
10. See Wellhausen, GGN, 1895, p. 185 seq.; Kosters, 72. 7. xxix. 560; G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. 268; Torrey, 290 seq., 297 seqq.; Kennett, Journ. Theol. Stud., 1905, pp. 172 seqq. 4 the walls dedicated, although the ceremony is ostensibly the immediate sequel of their completion, two months after his jirsz visit (vi.).2. This must be due to defective compilation (cf. Nikel, 196 n. 1),
11. For the external evidence see Berth., 26 seq.; Jampel, i. 502 seqq., ii. 11 seqq.
12. Rawlinson and Klostermann (so Davies, 267), Howorth (P.SBA, xxv. 18 seq.), ὦ. A. Smith (op. cit. 10-12), R. H. Kennett (Camb. Bibl. Essays, 120); the dates N vi. 15, vii. 73, ix. 1 were evidently meant—by the compiler— to be consecutive. That the walls were actually completed in 52 days may be ‘hardly credible’ (Ew. 157 n. 5); Jos. (§ 179) allows 2 years and 4 months (hardly an invention, Ew.), and dates the completion in the ninth month cf. 2 Macc. i. 18) of the 28th year of Xerxes.
13. For the interrelation between the now sundered portions see p. 47, and cf. JE in Ex. xxiii. seqq. and Num. x. 29-36, xi.; and also the contents of 2 Sam. v.-vill., xxi.—xxiv. cf. the Levites in 1 Chron. ix. 16), and the explicit references to the rest of Israel and their cities (xi. 20, 25), before the assembling at the dedication of the walls (xii. 27), recall the situation before
14. H. P. Smith, 348; Kent, 3 58; see also the remarks of Sellin, Sev., 53 seqq., Stud. 16-35. With Tobiah, cf. the Aram. form Tabeel, E iv. 7 (Hoonacker, Rev. Bibl. x. 183 ἢ. 6; Sellin, Stud. Ba 2 sere gS
15. See for (2) Meyer, Znz., 114-19, 147, 167, 177 seq., 181, 183, and his /svaeliten, 352 n. 5, 399, 492, 409, 429 0. 5, 430. See also on E v. 26.
16. Cf. also H. Guthe, 2. Bi. 2249; T. K. Cheyne, ib. 3385; H. P. Smith, Ast. 354 n.1; R. Kittel, Chron. 14, 16; Jahn, 99; Kennett, Essays, 117, 123; Torrey, 328, ἢ, 53; E. L. Curtis and A. A. Madsen, Chron. 89, 98, 104.
17. See also E. Meyer and B. Luther, /svae/., 442 seqq., for evidence connecting Judah and the Edomites; in their opinion, however, the data, found in literature relating to pre-monarchical times, refer to pre-Davidic conditions,
18. See also Sellin, Sev. 56 n. 1, 58; Stud. 18 seq.; Grünhut, Zin/ettung (cited by Jampel, i. 205) 018
19. Parallel traditions elsewhere explain each other, cf. Ex. xvii. 6 with Num. xx. 8; Ex. xvii. 10 with Num. xiv. 40, 44; Ex. xxxiii. with Num. xi.
20. Mal. i. 2-5; see Kennett, Assays, 117.
21. See the discussions of Ewald, 80 seqq., 88; Herzfeld, Gesch. (1847) i. 475 seq.; Smend, 22, 24; Stade, Gesch. ii. 112; F. Buhl, Gesch. ad. Edomiter (1893), 77. spicuous. The significance of this has been well pointed out by Torrey (155, 236 seq., 321 seqq., and,
22. Some later Edomite invasion has been inferred by J. Ley, 77. Jesaza (1893), 150; T. K. Cheyne, Jntrod. /s., 210 seq.; Κὶ Be. col. 2701; H. Winckler, Keidlinschr.u.d. A. T, 295; R. H. Kennett, Journ. Theol. Stud., 1906, p. 487. Note also the earlier views of Kuenen and Sellin (Sev., 82) that Is. lxiii. 18, lxiv. 10 seq., point to another destruction of the Temple after 516. ἢ Note the tradition in 2 Macc. ii. 1 3 that N collected writings and ‘letters of kings about sacred gifts’.
23. Habakkuk and Zephaniah of Simeon, Obadiah an Edomite proselyte, Nahum of Elkosh. ἢ See further Ency. Grit, 11th ed., artt. ‘Genesis’ (xi. 584 seq.); ‘Jews’ (xv. 387, 389-91); ‘Levites’ (xvi. 513 seq.); * Palestine’ (xx. 615 seq.), and art. ‘Edomites’ in Hastings’ Dict. of Rel. and ἊΝ a: Suet) confusion of the sequence of events in the reigns of Cyrus and Darius—a confusion which Jos. has
24. In so far as the foregoing paragraphs bear upon the prophetical writings, it must be remembered that the dates of the latter depend upon our knowledge of the historical conditions in the light of which they are to be explained.

By S. A. Cook