The Twelve Prophets Volume II
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Preface
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THE first Part on the Twelve Prophets dealt with the three who
belonged to the Eighth Century: Amos, Hosea, and Micah. This second
Part includes the other nine books arranged in chronological order:
Zephaniah, Nahum, and Habakkuk, of the Seventh Century; Obadiah, of
the Exile; Haggai, Zechariah 1-8, "Malachi," and Joel, of the
Persian Period, 538-331; "Zechariah" 9-14, and the Book of Jonah, of
the Greek Period, which began in 332, the date of Alexander’s Syrian
campaign.
The same plan has been followed as in Part 1. A historical
introduction is offered to each period. To each prophet are given,
first a chapter of critical introduction, and then one or more
chapters of exposition. A complete translation has been furnished,
with critical and explanatory notes. All questions of date and of
text, and nearly all of interpretation, have been confined to the
introductions and the notes, so that those who consult the book only
for expository purposes will find the exposition unencumbered by the
discussion of technical points.
The necessity of including within one volume so many prophets,
scattered over more than three centuries, and each of them requiring
a separate introduction, has reduced the space available for the
practical application of their teaching to modern life. But this is
the less to be regretted, that the contents of the nine books before
us are not so applicable to our own day as we have found their
greater predecessors to be. On the other hand, however, they form a
more varied introduction to Old Testament Criticism, while, by the
long range of time which they cover, and the many stages of religion
to which they belong, they afford a wider view of the development of
prophecy. Let us look for a little at these two points.
1. To Old Testament Criticism these books furnish valuable
introduction-some of them, like Obadiah, Joel, and "Zechariah" 9-14,
by the great variety of opinion that has prevailed as to their dates
or their relation to other prophets with whom they have passages in
common; some, like Zechariah and "Malachi," by their relation to the
Law, in the light of modern theories of the origin of the latter;
and some, like Joel and Jonah, by the question whether we are to
read them as history, or as allegories of history, or as apocalypse.
That is to say, these nine books raise, besides the usual questions
of genuineness and integrity, every other possible problem of Old
Testament Criticism. It has, therefore, been necessary to make the
critical introductions full and detailed. The enormous differences
of opinion as to the dates of some must start the suspicion of
arbitrariness, unless there be included in each case a history of
the development of criticism, so as to exhibit to the English reader
the principles and the evidence of fact upon which that criticism is
based. I am convinced that what is chiefly required just now by the
devout student of the Bible is the opportunity to judge for himself
how far Old Testament Criticism is an adult science; with what
amount of reasonableness it has been prosecuted; how gradually its
conclusions have been reached, how jealously they have been
contested; and how far, amid the many varieties of opinion which
must always exist with reference to facts so ancient and questions
so obscure, there has been progress towards agreement upon the
leading problems. But, besides the accounts of past criticism given
in this book, the reader will find in each case an independent
attempt to arrive at a conclusion. This has not always been
successful. A number of points have been left in doubt; and even
where results have been stated with some degree of positiveness, the
reader need scarcely be warned (after what was said in the Preface
to Part 1) that many of these must necessarily be provisional. But,
in looking back from the close of this work upon the discussions
which it contains, I am more than ever convinced of the extreme
probability of most of the conclusions. Among these are the
following: that the correct interpretation of Habakkuk is to be
found in the direction of the position to which Budde’s ingenious
proposal has been carried with reference to Egypt; that the most of
Obadiah is to be dated from the sixth century; that "Malachi" is an
anonymous work from the eve of Ezra’s reforms; that Joel follows
"Malachi"; and that "Zechariah" 9-14, has been rightly assigned by
Stade to the early years of the Greek Period. I have ventured to
contest Kosters’ theory that there was no return of Jewish exiles
under Cyrus, and am the more disposed to believe his strong argument
inconclusive, not only upon a review of the reasons I have stated in
chapter 16, but on this ground also, that many of its chief
adherents in this country and Germany have so modified it as
virtually to give up its main contention. I think, too, there can be
little doubt as to the substantial authenticity of Zephaniah 2
(except the verses on Moab and Ammon) and Zep 3:1-13, of Hab 2:5
ff., and of the whole of Haggai; or as to the ungenuine character of
the lyric piece in Zechariah 2 and the intrusion of Malachi 2:11-13a
{Mal 2:11-13 a}. On these and smaller points the reader will find
full discussion at the proper places.
I may here add a word or two upon some of the critical conclusions
reached in Part I, which have been recently contested.
The student will find strong grounds offered by Canon Driver in his
"Joel and Amos" for the authenticity of those passages in Amos
which, following other critics, I regarded or suspected as not
authentic. It makes one diffident in one’s opinions when Canon
Driver supports Professors Kuenen and Robertson Smith on the other
side. But on a survey of the case I am unable to feel that even they
have removed what they admit to be "forcible" objections to the
authorship by Amos of the passages in question. They seem to me to
have established not more than a possibility that the passages are
authentic; and on the whole I still feel that the probability is in
the other direction. If I am right, then I think that the date of
the apostrophes to Jehovah’s creative power which occur in the Book
of Amos, and the reference to astral deities in Amo 5:27, may be
that which I have suggested. Some critics have charged me with
inconsistency in denying the authenticity of the epilogue to Amos
while defending that of the epilogue to Hosea. The two cases, as my
arguments proved, are entirely different. Nor do I see any reason to
change the conclusions of Part 1 upon the questions of the
authenticity of various parts of Micah.
The text of the nine prophets treated in this book has presented
even more difficulties than that of the three treated in Part I and
these difficulties must be my apology for the delay of this work.
2. But the critical and textual value of our nine books is far
exceeded by the historical. Each exhibits a development of Hebrew
prophecy of the greatest interest. From this point of view, indeed,
the book might be entitled "The Passing of the Prophet." For
throughout our nine books we see the spirit and the style of the
classic prophecy of Israel gradually dissolving into other forms of
religious thought and feeling. The clear start from the facts of the
prophet’s day, the ancient truths about Jehovah and Israel, and the
direct appeal to the conscience of the prophet’s contemporaries, are
not always given, or when given are mingled, colored, and warped by
other religious interests, both present and future, which are even
powerful enough to shake the ethical absolutism of the older
prophets. With Nahum and Obadiah the ethical is entirely missed in
the presence of the claims-and we cannot deny that they were natural
claims-of the long-suffering nation’s hour of revenge upon her
heathen tyrants. With Zephaniah prophecy, still austerely ethical,
passes under the shadow of apocalypse; and the future is solved, not
upon purely historical lines, but by the intervention of
"supernatural" elements. With Habakkuk the ideals of the older
prophets encounter the shock of the facts of experience: we have the
prophet as skeptic. Upon the other margin of the Exile, Haggai and
Zechariah (1-8), although they are as practical as any of their
predecessors, exhibit the influence of the exilic developments of
ritual, angelology, and apocalypse. God appears further off from
Zechariah than from the prophets of the eighth century, and in need
of mediators, human and superhuman. With Zechariah the priest has
displaced the prophet, and it is very remarkable that no place is
found for the latter beside the two sons of oil, the political and
priestly heads of the community, who, according to the Fifth Vision,
stand in the presence of God and between them feed the religious
life of Israel. Nearly sixty years later "Malachi" exhibits the
working of prophecy within the Law, and begins to employ the
didactic style of the later Rabbinism. Joel starts, like any older
prophet, from the facts of his own day, but these hurry him at once
into apocalypse; he calls, as thoroughly as any of his predecessors,
to repentance, but under the imminence of the Day of the Lord, with
its "supernatural" terrors, he mentions no special sin and enforces
no single virtue. The civic and personal ethics of the earlier
prophets are absent. In the Greek Period, the oracles now numbered
from the ninth to the fourteenth chapters of the Book of Zechariah
repeat to aggravation the exulting revenge of Nahum and Obadiah,
without the strong style or the hold upon history which the former
exhibits, and show us prophecy still further enwrapped in
apocalypse. But in the Book of Jonah, though it is parable and not
history, we see a great recovery and expansion of the best elements
of prophecy. God’s character and Israel’s true mission to the world
are revealed in the spirit of Hosea and of the Seer of the Exile,
with much of the tenderness, the insight, the analysis of character,
and even the humor of classic prophecy. These qualities raise the
Book of Jonah, though it is probably the latest of our Twelve, to
the highest rank among them. No book is more worthy to stand by the
side of Isaiah 40-55; none is nearer in spirit to the New Testament.
All this gives unity to the study of prophets so far separate in
time, and so very distinct in character, from each other. From
Zephaniah to Jonah, or over a period of three centuries, they
illustrate the dissolution of Prophecy and its passage into other
forms of religion.
The scholars to whom every worker in this field is indebted are
named throughout the book. I regret that Nowack’s recent commentary
on the Minor Prophets (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) reached me
too late for use (except in footnotes) upon the earlier of the nine
prophets. |
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