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Then the prophets, Haggai. Ezra 5:1, 9 The great work resumed William Jones. The best commentary on these verses is the first chapter of Haggai. I. THE INCITERS TO THE WEST. 1. Want of interest in the work is implied. 2. Obligation to perform the work is implied. 3. Exhortations to resume the work were given. II. THE LEADERS IN THE WORK. "Then rose up Zerubbabel," etc. 1. They resumed the work readily. 2. They led the work appropriately. "Those that are in places of dignity and power, ought with their dignity to put honour upon and with their power to put life into every good work." 3. They led work influentially. The example of those who occupy high stations is — (1) Most conspicuous. (2) Most attractive. III. THE HELPERS IN THE WORK. "The prophets." They assisted by their — 1. Exhortations to vigorous prosecution of the work. 2. Assurances of the presence of God with them. 3. Promises of future blessings from God to them. IV. THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE OF THE WORK. " The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel," etc. "All holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed" from Him. "I will build My Church," said our Lord to Peter. All the inspiration, wisdom, etc., of the under-builders come from him. Learn — 1. The insidious nature of worldliness. 2. The value of faithful ministers. 3. The solemn obligation of men in eminent stations. ( William Jones. ) Hebrew prophets in unfavourable times W. F. Adeney, M. A. The Hebrew prophets came when the circumstances of society were least favourable. Like painters arising to adorn a dingy city, like poets singing of summer in the winter of discontent, like flowers in the wilderness, like wells in the desert, they brought life and strength and gladness to the helpless and despondent, because they came from God. The literary form of their work reflected the civilisation of their day, but there was on it a light that never shone on sea or shore, and this they knew to be the light of God. We never find a true religious revival springing from the spirit of the age. Such a revival always begins in one or two choice souls — in a Moses, a Samuel, a John the Baptist, a St. Bernard, a Jonathan-Edwards, a Wesley, a Newman. ( W. F. Adeney, M. A. ) At the same time came to them Tatntia. Ezra 5:3-5 The great work investigated and continued William Jones. THE SACRED WORK INVESTIGATED BY THE SECULAR AUTHORITIES. 1. The nature of the investigation. 2. The spirit of the investigation.The eye of the world is upon the work of the Church to-day. Let the members see to it that it shall be apparent to all unprejudiced persons that their work tends to promote truth and righteousness, purity and peace, piety and patriotism. II. THE SACRED WORE CARRIED ON THROUGH THE DIVINE BLESSING, "But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews," etc. This suggests — 1. The Divine interest in the work. 2. The Divine oversight of the work. 3. The Divine inspiration of the workers. 4. The Divine protection of the workers. ( William Jones. ) The copy of the letter that Tatnai. Ezra 5:6-17 The letter of the king concerning the work William Jones. This letter has three chief divisions. I. THE INQUISITION OF THE PERSIAN AUTHORITIES. II. THE REPLY OF THE JEWISH LEADERS. It presents the following aspects of the work. That it was — 1. Not a mere human enterprise, but a Divine commission. 2. Not an innovation, but a restoration. 3. Not in a spirit of presumption and pride, but of obedience and humility. 4. Not in opposition to, but. in conformity with, royal authority. 5. Not political, but religious in its character. III. THE APPEAL OF THE PERSIAN AUTHORITIES TO THE KING. Conclusion: Two things we may well admire and imitate. 1. The fairness of the Persian officials. 2. The faithfulness of the Jewish leaders. ( William Jones. ) We The supremacy of God William Jones. : — Consider : I. THE UNIVERSAL SUPREMACY OF GOD. 1. Its ground. (1) The perfections of His being. (2) All things were created by Him. (3) All things are sustained by Him. (4) The benefits He bestows upon us and especially our redemption by Christ. 2. Its extent. (1) Throughout heaven. (2) Throughout earth. (3) Throughout hell ( 2 Peter 2:4 ). II. THE GREAT OBLIGATION OF MEN TO OBEY HIM. Our obedience should be — 1. Complete. 2. Perpetual. 3. Hearty. 4. Joyous. III. THE EXALTED PRIVILEGE OF MEN. When the service of God is rightly estimated, it is regarded as a glory and rejoiced in as a privilege. ( William Jones. ) But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven. — Arguments against sinning William Jones. In this verse we have three weighty reasons against abstaining from sin. I. IT PROVOKES GOD. This will be more impressively realised if we reflect that He is a being of — 1. Infinite purity. 2. Infinite patience. II. IT DEPRIVES THE SINNER OF HIS PROTECTION. III. IT STRIPS THE SINNER OF POWER TO BATTLE WITH HIS FOES. Guilt robs a man of courage. The consciousness of right action in a righteous cause is the mightiest inspiration in conflict and the surest defence in peril. ( William Jones. ).

Benson Commentary Ezra 5:1 Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. Ezra 5:1 . Haggai and Zechariah — Concerning these prophets, see the books which bear their names. They are both thought to have been born at Babylon during the captivity, and both with united zeal encouraged the people to go on with the work of the temple. Upon the accession of Darius to the throne, Haggai, in particular, by reproaching the people with their indolence and insensibility; by telling them that they were careful enough to lodge themselves very commodiously, while the house of the Lord lay buried in its ruins; and by putting them in mind that the calamities of drought and famine, wherewith God had afflicted them since their return, were owing to their neglect in repairing the temple, prevailed with them to set about the work in good earnest; so that, by virtue of these reproofs, as well as some encouragements which God occasionally authorized him to give them, they brought the whole to a conclusion in a short time. The son of Iddo — That is, the grandson; for Zechariah was the son of Barachiah. Prophesied unto the Jews — Commanding them from God to return to building the temple, with a promise of his favour and assistance. Ezra 5:2 Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them. Ezra 5:2 . Then rose up Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and began to build the house — It had been begun to be built long before, but from the first had gone on very slowly, and afterward had been quite intermitted, till those great men, excited by the prophets, set the work forward again. With them were the prophets of God helping them — Encouraging them by their presence, and by assuring them that God would be with them to protect them from their enemies, and give them success. It is supposed the work had been stopped about fifteen years. The first chapter of Haggai is the best comment on these two verses. Ezra 5:3 At the same time came to them Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and their companions, and said thus unto them, Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall? Ezra 5:3-4 . Tatnai and Shethar-boznai — These were probably new governors, or prefects, whom Darius had sent; for it was usual with new kings to change the governors of provinces. Who hath commanded you to build this house? — No sooner did the Spirit of God stir up the friends of the temple to appear for it, but the evil spirit stirred up its enemies to appear against it. While the people builded and ceiled their own houses, their enemies gave them no molestation, ( Haggai 1:4 ,) though the king’s order was to put a stop to the building of the city, Ezra 4:21 . But when they fell to work again at the temple, then the alarm was taken, and all heads were at work to hinder it. Then said we unto them — We Jews; What are the names, &c. — Certainly there ought to be no interrogation in this verse, but the words should be rendered, Then we told them accordingly (that is, according to what they asked) what were the names of the men that made this building; that is, who were the chief undertakers and encouragers of the work. For it appears, from Ezra 5:10 , that Tatnai and his companions inquired who were the chief promoters of the work, to which a true answer was immediately given. Ezra 5:4 Then said we unto them after this manner, What are the names of the men that make this building? Ezra 5:5 But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, that they could not cause them to cease, till the matter came to Darius: and then they returned answer by letter concerning this matter . Ezra 5:5 . But the eye of God was upon the elders, &c. — The peculiar favour, watchful providence, and powerful protection of God, giving them courage and resolution to go on with the work, notwithstanding the threats of their enemies; and so overruling the hearts and hands of their enemies, that they did not hinder them by force, as they might have done. While we are employed in God’s work, we are taken under his special protection, and his eye is upon us for good. Ezra 5:6 The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on this side the river, sent unto Darius the king: Ezra 5:7 They sent a letter unto him, wherein was written thus; Unto Darius the king, all peace. Ezra 5:8 Be it known unto the king, that we went into the province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls, and this work goeth fast on, and prospereth in their hands. Ezra 5:8 . To the house of the great God — Whom the Jews account the great God, the God of gods, esteeming all others to be but little, or rather false gods. And, indeed, thus far the greater part of the Samaritans agreed with them. Ezra 5:9 Then asked we those elders, and said unto them thus, Who commanded you to build this house, and to make up these walls? Ezra 5:10 We asked their names also, to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them. Ezra 5:11 And thus they returned us answer, saying, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago, which a great king of Israel builded and set up. Ezra 5:11 . We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth — The God we worship is not a local deity; and therefore we cannot be charged with making a faction, or forming a sect in building this temple to his honour. But we pay our homage to the God on whom the whole creation depends, and therefore ought to be protected and assisted by all, and hindered by none. It is the wisdom as well as duty of kings to countenance the servants of the God of heaven. And build the house that was builded — Or rather, rebuild the house that was first built many years ago. Ezra 5:12 But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. Ezra 5:12-14 . After that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven — It was to punish us for our sins, that we were, for a time, put out of the possession of this house, and not because the gods of the nations had prevailed against our God. But in the first year of Cyrus, &c. — We have the royal decree of Cyrus to justify us, and bear us out in what we do. And he not only permitted, but charged and commanded us, to build this house, and to build it in its place, ( Ezra 5:15 ,) the same place where it had stood before. And the vessels also, &c. — These also he delivered to one whom he intrusted with the care of them, and commanded him to restore them to their ancient place and use. And these we have to show in confirmation of what we allege. Ezra 5:13 But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon the same king Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God. Ezra 5:14 And the vessels also of gold and silver of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought them into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered unto one , whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor; Ezra 5:15 And said unto him, Take these vessels, go, carry them into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be builded in his place. Ezra 5:16 Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundation of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time even until now hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished. Ezra 5:16 . Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundation, &c. — The building was begun according to this order, as soon as ever we were returned, so that we have not forfeited the benefit of the order, for want of pursuing it in time; still it has been in building; but because we have met with opposition, it is not finished. But observe, they mention not the falsehood and malice of the former governors, nor make any complaint of that, (though they had cause enough,) to teach us not to render bitterness for bitterness; nor the most just reproach for that which is most unjust; but to think it enough if we can obtain fair treatment for the future, without an invidious repetition of former injuries. Let us learn hence, with meekness and fear to give a reason of the hope that is within us, 1 Peter 3:15 ; rightly to understand, and then readily to declare what we do in God’s service, and why we do it. Ezra 5:17 Now therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so , that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem, and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter. Ezra 5:17 . Now therefore, let there be search made, &c. — So they properly propose, that the real facts might be ascertained; in the king’s treasure-house — The house or place where the records of the kingdom were preserved very carefully, as rich treasures are wont to be. Thus these Samaritans seem to have given a fair representation of the cause of the Jews to the king, telling him only what was done namely, that they were rearing the temple, as persons that intended to worship, and not what was not done, that they were fortifying the city, as if they intended war; as those Samaritans that had written to Artaxerxes had falsely represented. It is probable, if their case had been as fairly stated to the former king (see the foregoing chapter) as it was now to Darius: he would not have ordered the work to be hindered. God’s people could not be persecuted if they were not belied. Let but the cause of God and truth be fairly stated and heard, and it will keep its ground. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ezra 5:1 Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. -6 ZECHARIAH THE PROPHET Zechariah 1:1-6 ; Ezra 5:1 ; Ezra 6:14 ZECHARIAH is one of the prophets whose personality as distinguished from their message exerts some degree of fascination on the student. This is not due, however, as in the case of Hosea or Jeremiah, to the facts of his life, for of these we know extremely little; but to certain conflicting symptoms of character which appear through his prophecies. His name was a very common one in Israel, Zekher-Yah, " Jehovah remembers ." In his own book he is described as "the son of Berekh-Yah, the son of Iddo," and in the Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra as "the son of Iddo." Some have explained this difference by supposing that Berekhyah was the actual father of the prophet, but that either he died early, leaving Zechariah to the care of the grandfather, or else that he was a man of no note, and Iddo was more naturally mentioned as the head of the family. There are several instances in the Old Testament of men being called the sons of their grandfathers; { Genesis 24:47 , cf. 1 Kings 19:16 , cf. 2 Kings 9:14 ; 2 Kings 9:20 } as in these cases the grandfather was the reputed founder of the house, so in that of Zechariah Iddo was the head of his family when it came out of Babylon and was anew planted in Jerusalem. Others, however, have contested the genuineness of the words " Song of Solomon of Berekh-Yah, " and have traced their insertion to a confusion of the prophet with Zechariah son of Yebherekh-Yahu, the contemporary of Isaiah. This is precarious, while the other hypothesis is a very natural one. Whichever be correct, the prophet Zechariah was a member of the priestly family of Iddo, that came up to Jerusalem from Babylon under Cyrus. { Nehemiah 12:4 } The Book of Nehemiah adds that in the high-priesthood of Yoyakim, the son of Joshua, the head of the house of Iddo was a Zechariah. If this be our prophet, then he was probably a young man in 520, and had come up as a child in the caravans from Babylon. The Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra { Ezra 5:1 ; Ezra 6:14 } assigns to Zechariah a share with Haggai in the work of instigating Zerubbabel and Jeshua to begin the Temple. None of his oracles is dated previous to the beginning of the work in August, 520, but we have seen that among those undated there are one or two which by referring to the building of the Temple as still future may contain some relics of that first stage of his ministry. From November, 520, we have the first of his dated oracles; his Visions followed in January, 519, and his last recorded prophesying in December, 518. These are all the certain events of Zechariah’s history. But in the well-attested prophecies he has left we discover, besides some obvious traits of character, certain problems of style and expression which suggest a personality of more than usual interest. Loyalty to the great voices of old, the temper which appeals to the experience, rather than to the dogmas, of the past, the gift of plain speech to his own times, a wistful anxiety about his reception as a prophet, { Zechariah 2:13 ; Zechariah 4:9 ; Zechariah 6:15 } combined with the absence of all ambition to be original or anything but the clear voice of the lessons of the past and of the conscience of today these are the qualities which characterize Zechariah’s orations to the people. But how to reconcile them with the strained art and obscure truths of the Visions-it is this which invests with interest the study of his personality. We have proved that the obscurity and redundancy of the Visions cannot all have been due to himself. Later hands have exaggerated the repetitions and raveled the processes of the original. But these gradual blemishes have not grown from nothing: the original style must have been sufficiently involved to provoke the interpolations of the scribes, and it certainly contained all the weird and shifting apparitions which we find so hard to make clear to ourselves. The problem, therefore, remains-how one who had gift of speech, so straight and clear, came to torture and tangle his style; how one who presented with all plainness the main issues of his people’s history found it laid upon him to invent, for the further expression of these, symbols so labored and intricate. We begin with the oracle which opens his book and illustrates those simple characteristics of the man that contrast so sharply with the temper of his Visions. "In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Jehovah came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berekhyah, son of Iddo, saying: Jehovah was very wroth with your fathers." "And thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Turn ye to Me-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts-that I may turn to you, saith Jehovah of Hosts! Be not like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying: ‘Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Turn now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds,’ but they hearkened not, and paid no attention to Me-oracle of Jehovah. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for ever? But, My words and My statutes, with which I charged My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? till these turned and said, As Jehovah of Hosts did purpose to do unto us, according to our deeds and according to our ways, so hath He dealt with us." It is a sign of the new age which we have reached, that its prophet should appeal to the older prophets with as much solemnity as they did to Moses himself. The history which led to the Exile has become to Israel as classic and sacred as her great days of deliverance from Egypt and of conquest in Canaan. But still more significant is what Zechariah seeks from that past; this we must carefully discover, if we would appreciate with exactness his rank as a prophet. The development of religion may be said to consist of a struggle between two tempers, both of which indeed appeal to the past, but from very opposite motives. The one proves its devotion to the older prophets by adopting the exact formulas of their doctrine, counts these sacred to the letter, and would enforce them in detail upon the minds and circumstances of the new generation. It conceives that truth has been promulgated once for all in forms as enduring, as the principles they contain. It fences ancient rites, cherishes old customs and institutions, and when these are questioned it becomes alarmed and even savage. The other temper is no whit behind this one in its devotion to the past, but it seeks the ancient prophets not so much for what they have said as for what they have been, not for what they enforced but for what they encountered, suffered, and confessed. It asks not for dogmas, but for experience and testimony. He who can thus read the past and interpret it to his own day-he is the prophet. In his reading he finds nothing so clear, nothing so tragic, nothing so convincing as the working of the Word of God. He beholds how this came to men, haunted them and was entreated by them. He sees that it was their great opportunity, which being rejected became their judgment. He finds abused justice vindicated, proud wrong punished, and all God’s neglected commonplaces achieving in time their triumph. He reads how men came to see this, and to confess their guilt. He is haunted by the remorse of generations who know how they might have obeyed the Divine call, but willfully did not. And though they have perished, and the prophets have died and their formulas are no more applicable, the victorious Word itself still lives and cries to men with the terrible emphasis of their fathers’ experience. All this is the vision of the true prophet, and it was the vision of Zechariah. His generation was one whose chief temptation was to adopt towards the past the other attitude we have described. In their feebleness what could the poor remnant of Israel do but cling servilely to the former greatness? The vindication of the Exile had stamped the Divine authority of the earlier prophets. The habits, which the life in Babylon had perfected, of arranging and codifying the literature of the past, and of employing it, in place of altar and ritual, in the stated service of God, had canonized Scripture and provoked men to the worship of its very letter. Had the real prophet not again been raised, these habits might have too early produced the belief that the Word of God was exhausted, and must have fastened upon the feeble life of Israel that mass of stiff and stark dogmas, the literal application of which Christ afterwards found crushing the liberty and the force of religion. Zechariah prevented this-for a time. He himself was mighty in the Scriptures of the past: no man in Israel makes larger use of them. But he employs them as witnesses, not as dogmas; he finds in them not authority, but experience. He reads their testimony to the ever-living presence of God’s Word with men. And seeing that, though the old forms and figures have perished with the hearts which shaped them, the Word itself in its bare truth has vindicated its life by fulfillment in history, he knows that it lives still, and hurls it upon his people, not in the forms published by this or that prophet of long ago, but in its essence and direct from God Himself, as His Word for today and now. "The fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But My words and My statutes, with which I charged My servants the prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Be ye not like your fathers, but turn ye to Me that I may turn to you." The argument of this oracle might very naturally have been narrowed into a credential for the prophet himself as sent from God. About his reception as Jehovah’s messenger Zechariah shows a repeated anxiety. Four times he concludes a prediction with the words. "And ye shall know that Jehovah hath sent me," as if after his first utterances he had encountered that suspicion and unbelief which a prophet never failed to suffer from his contemporaries. But in this oracle there is no trace of such personal anxiety. The oracle is pervaded only with the desire to prove the ancient Word of God as still alive, and to drive it home in its own sheer force. Like the greatest of his order Zechariah appears with the call to repent: "Turn ye to Me-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts-that I may turn to you." This is the pivot on which history has turned, the one condition on which God has been able to help men. Wherever it is read as the conclusion of all the past, wherever it is proclaimed as the conscience of the present, there the true prophet is found and the Word of God has been spoken. This same possession by the ethical spirit reappears, as we shall see, in Zechariah’s orations to the people after the anxieties of building are over and the completion of the Temple is in sight. In these he affirms again that the whole essence of God’s Word by the older prophets has been moral-to judge true judgment, to practice mercy, to defend the widow and orphan, the stranger and poor, and to think no evil of one another. For the sad fasts of the Exile Zechariah enjoins gladness, with the duty of truth and the hope of peace. Again and again he enforces sincerity and the love without dissimulation. His ideals for Jerusalem are very high, including the conversion of the nations to her God. But warlike ambitions have vanished from them, and his pictures of her future condition are homely and practical. Jerusalem shall be no more a fortress, but spread village-wise without walls. Full families, unlike the present colony with its few children and its men worn out in middle life by harassing warfare with enemies and a sullen nature; streets rife with children playing and old folk sitting in the sun; the return of the exiles; happy harvests and spring-times of peace; solid gain of labor for every man, with no raiding neighbors to harass, nor the mutual envies of peasants in their selfish struggle with famine. It is a simple, hearty, practical man whom such prophesying reveals, the spirit of him bent on justice and love, and yearning for the un-harassed labor of the field and for happy homes. No prophet has more beautiful sympathies, a more direct word of righteousness, or a braver heart. "Fast not, but love truth and peace. Truth and wholesome justice set ye up in your gates. Be not afraid; strengthen your hands! Old men and women-shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand for the fullness of their years; the city’s streets shall be rife with boys and girls at play." THE MISSION OF PROPHECY Ezra 5:1-2 THE work of building the temple at Jerusalem, which had been but nominally commenced in the reign of Cyrus, when it was suddenly arrested before the death of that king, and which had not been touched throughout the reigns of the two succeeding kings, Cambyses and Pseudo-Bardes, was taken up in earnest in the second year of Darius, the son of Hystaspes (B.C. 521). The disorders of the empire were then favourable to local liberty. Cambyses committed suicide during a revolt of his army on the march to meet the Pretender who had assumed the name of his murdered brother, Bardes. Seven months later the usurper was assassinated in his palace by some of the Persian nobles. Darius, who was one of the conspirators, ascended the throne in the midst of confusion and while the empire seemed to be falling to pieces. Elam, the old home of the house of Cyrus, revolted; Syria revolted; Babylon revolted twice, and was twice taken by siege. For a time the king’s writ could not run in Palestine. But it was not on account of these political changes that the Jews returned to their work. The relaxing of the supreme authority had left them more than ever at the mercy of their unfriendly neighbours. The generous disposition of Darius might have led them to regard him as a second Cyrus, and his religion might have encouraged them to hope that he would be favourable to them, for Darius was a monotheist, a worshipper of Ormazd. But they recommenced their work without making any appeal to the Great King and without receiving any permission from him, and they did this when he was far too busy fighting for his throne to attend to the troubles of a small, distant city. We must look in another direction for the impetus which started the Jews again upon their work. Here we come upon one of the most striking facts in the history of Israel, nay, one of the greatest phenomena in the spiritual experience. of mankind. The voice of prophecy was heard among the ruins of Jerusalem. The Cassandra-like notes of Jeremiah had died away more than half a century before. Then Ezekiel had seen his fantastic visions, "a captive by the river of Chebar," and the Second Isaiah had sounded his trumpet-blast in the East, summoning the exiles to a great hope; but as yet no prophet had appeared among the pilgrims on their return to Jerusalem. We cannot account for the sudden outburst of prophecy. It is a work of the Spirit that breathes like the wind, coming we know not how. We can hear its sound; we can perceive the fact. But we cannot trace its origin, or determine its issues. It is born in mystery and it passes into mystery. If it is true that " poeta nascitur, non fit, " much more must we affirm that the prophet is no creature of human culture. He may be cultivated after God has made him; he cannot be manufactured by any human machinery. No "School of the Prophets" ever made a true prophet. Many of the prophets never came near any such institution; some of them distinctly repudiated the professional "order." The lower prophets with which the Northern Kingdom once swarmed were just dervishes who sang and danced and worked themselves into a frenzy before the altars on the high places; these men were quite different from the truly inspired messengers of God. Their craft could be taught, and their sacred colleges recruited to any extent from the ranks of fanaticism. But the rare, austere souls that spoke with the authority of the Most High came in a totally different manner. When there was no prophet and when visions were rare men could only wait for God to send the hoped-for guide; they could not call him into existence. The appearance of an inspired soul is always one of the marvels of history. Great men of the second rank may be the features of their age. But it is given to the few of the very first order to be independent of their age, to confront it and oppose it if need be, perhaps to turn its current and shape its course. The two prophets who now proclaimed their message in Jerusalem appeared at a time of deep depression. They were not borne on the crest of a wave of a religious revival, as its spokesmen to give it utterance. Pagan orators and artists flourished in an Augustan age. The Hebrew prophets came when the circumstances of society were least favourable. Like painters arising to adorn a dingy city, like poets singing of summer in the winter of discontent, like flowers in the wilderness, like wells in the desert, they brought life and strength and gladness to the helpless and despondent, because they came from God. The literary form of their work reflected the civilisation of their day, but there was on it a light that never shone on sea or shore, and this they knew to be the light of God. We never find a true religious revival springing from the spirit of the age. Such a revival always begins in one or two choice souls-in a Moses, a Samuel, a John the Baptist, a St. Bernard, a Jonathan Edwards, a Wesley, a Newman. Therefore it is vain for weary watchers to scan the horizon for signs of the times in the hope that some general improvement of society or some widespread awakening of the Church will usher in a better future. This is no reason for discouragement, however. It rather warns us not to despise the day of small things. When once the spring of living water breaks out, though it flows at first in a little brook, there is hope that it may swell into a great river. The situation is the more remarkable since the first of the two prophets was an old man, who even seems to have known the first temple before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. { Haggai 1:10 ; Haggai 2:9 } Haggai is called simply "the prophet," perhaps because his father’s name was not known, but more likely because he himself had attained so much eminence that the title was given to him par excellence . Still this may only apply to the descriptions of him in the age of the chronicler. There is no indication that he prophesied in his earlier days. He was probably one of the captives who had been carried away to Babylon in his childhood, and who had returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem. Yet all this time and during the first year of his return, as far as we know, he was silent. At length, in extreme old age, he burst out into inspired utterance-one of Joel’s old men who were to dream dreams, { Joel 2:28 } like John the Evangelist, whose greatest work dates from his last years, and Milton, who wrote his great epic when affliction seemed to have ended his lifework. He must have been brooding over the bitter disappointment in which the enthusiasm of the returned captives had been quenched. It could not be God’s will that they should be thus mocked and deceived in their best hopes. True faith is not a will-o’-the-wisp that lands its followers in a dreary swamp. The hope of Israel is no mirage. For God is faithful. Therefore the despair of the Jews must be wrong. We have a few fragments of the utterances of Haggai preserved for us in the Old Testament Canon. They are so brief and bald and abrupt as to suggest the opinion that they are but notes of his discourses, mere outlines of what he really said. As they are preserved for us they certainly convey no idea of wealth of poetic imagination or richness of oratorical colouring. But Haggai may have possessed none of these qualities, and yet his words may have had a peculiar force of their own. He is a reflective man. The long meditation of years has taught him the value of thoughtfulness. The burden of his message is "Consider your ways." { Haggai 1:5 ; Haggai 1:7 } In short, incisive utterances he arrests attention and urges consideration. But the outcome of all he has to say is to cheer the drooping spirits of his fellow-citizens, and urge on the rebuilding of the temple with confident promises of its great future. For the most part his inspiration is simple, but it is searching, and we perceive the triumphant hopefulness of the true prophet in the promise that the latter glory of the house of God shall be greater than the former. { Haggai 2:9 } Haggai began to prophesy on the first day of the sixth month of the second year of Darius. { Haggai 1:1 } So effective were his words that Zerubbabel and his companions were at once roused from the lethargy of despair, and within three weeks the masons and carpenters were again at work on the temple. { Haggai 2:1 . seq.} Two months after Haggai had broken the long silence of prophecy in Jerusalem Zechariah appeared. He was of a very different stamp; he was one of the young men who see visions. Familiar with the imagery of Babylonian art, he wove its symbols into the pictures of his own exuberant fancy. Moreover, Zechariah was a priest. Thus, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he united the two rival tendencies which had confronted one another in marked antagonism during the earlier periods of the history of Israel. Henceforth the brief return of prophetism, its soft after-glow among the restored people, is in peaceable alliance with priestism. The last prophet, Malachi, even exhorts the Jews to pay the priests their dues of tithe. Zechariah, like Haggai, urges on the work of building the temple. Thus the chronicler’s brief note on the appearance of two prophets at Jerusalem, and the electrical effect of their message, is a striking illustration of the mission of prophecy. That mission has been strangely misapprehended by succeeding ages. Prophets have been treated as miraculous conjurers, whose principal business consisted in putting together elaborate puzzles, perfectly unintelligible to their contemporaries, which the curious of later times were to decipher by the light of events. The prophets themselves formed no such idle estimate of their work, nor did their contemporaries assign to them this quaint and useless role. Though these men were not the creatures of their times, they lived for their times. Haggai and Zechariah, as the chronicler emphatically puts it, "prophesied to the Jews that were in Jerusalem even unto them." The object of their message was immediate and quite practical-to stir up the despondent people and urge them to build the temple-and it was successful in accomplishing that end. As prophets of God they necessarily touched on eternal truths. They were not mere opportunists; their strength lay in the grasp of fundamental principles. This is why their teaching still lives, and is of lasting use for the Church in all ages. But in order to understand that teaching we must first of all read it in its original historical setting, and discover its direct bearing on contemporary needs. Now the question arises, In what way did these prophets of God help the temple-builders? The fragments of their utterances which we possess enable us to answer this question. Zerubbabel was a disappointing leader. Such a man was far below the expected Messiah, although high hopes may have been set upon him when he started at the head of the caravan of pilgrims from Babylon. Cyrus may have known him better, and with the instinct of a king in reading men may have entrusted the lead to the heir of the Jewish throne, because he saw there would be no possibility of a dangerous rebellion resulting from the act of confidence. Haggai’s encouragement to Zerubbabel to "be strong" is in a tone that suggests some weakness on the part of the Jewish leader. Both the prophets thought that he and his people were too easily discouraged. It was a part of the prophetic insight to look below the surface and discover the real secret of failure. The Jews set down their failure to adverse circumstances; the prophets attributed it to the character and conduct of the people and their leaders. Weak men commonly exercise their inactivity by reciting their difficulties, when stronger men would only regard those difficulties as furnishing an occasion for extra exertion. That is a most superficial view of history which regards it as wholly determined by circumstances. No great nation ever arose on such a principle. The Greeks who perished at Thermopylae within a few years of the times we are now considering are honoured by all the ages as heroes of patriotism just because they refused to bow to circumstances. Now the courage which patriots practised in pagan hands is urged upon the Jews by their prophets from higher considerations. They are to see that they are weak and cowardly when they sit in dumb despair, crushed by the weight of external opposition. They have made a mistake in putting their trust in princes. { Psalm 118:8-9 } They have relied too much on Zerubbabel and too little on God. The failure of the arm of flesh should send them back to the never-failing outstretched arm of the Almighty. Have we not met with the same mistaken discouragement and the same deceptive excuses for it in the work of the church, in missionary enterprises, in personal lives? Every door is shut against the servant of God but one, the door of prayer. Forgetting this, and losing sight of the key of faith that would unlock it, he sits, like Elijah by Kerith, the picture of abject wretchedness. His great enterprises are abandoned because he thinks the opposition to them is insuperable. He forgets that, though his own forces are small, he is the envoy of the King of kings, who will not suffer him to be worsted if only he appeals to Heaven for fresh supplies. A dead materialism lies like a leaden weight on the heart of the Church, and she has not faith enough to shake it off and claim her great inheritance in all the spiritual wealth of the unseen. Many a man cries, like Jacob, "All these things are against me," not perceiving that, even if they are, no number of "things" should be permitted to check the course of one who looks above and beyond what is seen, and therefore only temporal, to the eternal resources of God. This was the message of Zechariah to Zerubbabel; "Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the head stone with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it!" { Zechariah 4:6-7 } Here, then, is the secret of the sudden revival of activity on the part of the Jews after they had been sitting for years in dumb apathy, gazing hopelessly on the few stones that had been laid among the ruins of the old temple. It was not the returning favour of the court under Darius, it was not the fame of the house of David, it was not the priestly dignity of the family of Zadok that awakened the slumbering zeal of the Jews; the movement began in an unofficial source, and it passed to the people through unofficial channels. It commenced in the meditations of a cairn thinker; it was furthered by the visions of a rapt seer. This is a clear indication of the fact that the world is ruled by mind and spirit, not merely by force and authority. Thought and imagination lie at the springs of action. In the heart of it history is moulded by ideas. "Big battalions," "the sinews of war," "blood and iron," are phrases that suggest only the most external and therefore the most superficial causes. Beneath them are the ideas that govern all they represent. Further, the influence of the prophets shows that the ideas which have most vitality and vigor are moral and spiritual in character. All thoughts are influential in proportion as they take possession of the minds and hearts of men and women. There is power in conceptions of science, philosophy, politics, sociology. But the ideas that touch people to the quick, the ideas that stir the hidden depths of consciousness and rouse the slumbering energies of life, are those that make straight for the conscience. Thus the two prophets exposed the shame of indolence; they rallied their gloomy fellow-citizens by high appeals to the sense of right. Again, this influence was immensely strengthened by its relation to God. The prophets were more than moralists. The meditations of Marcus Aurelius could not touch any people as the considerations of the calm Haggai touched the Jews, for the older prophet, as well as the more rousing Zechariah, found the spell of his message in its revelation of God. He made the Jews perceive that they were not deserted by Jehovah; and directly they felt that God was with them in. their work the weak and timid citizens were able to quit them like men. The irresistible might of Cromwell’s Ironsides at Marston Moor came from the unwavering faith in their battle-cry, "The Lord of Hosts is with us!" General Gordon’s immeasurable courage is explained when we read his letters and diaries, and see how he regarded himself as simply an instrument through whom God wrought. Here, too, is the strong side of Calvinism. Then this impression of the power and presence of God in their destinies was deepened in the Jews by the manifest Divine authority with which the prophets spake. They prophesied "in the name of the God of Israel"-the one God of the people of both kingdoms now united in their representatives. Their "Thus saith the Lord" was the powder that drove the shot of their message through the toughest hide of apathy. Except to a Platonist, ideas are impossible apart from the mind that thinks them. Now the Jews, as well as their prophets, felt that the great ideas of prophecy could not be the products of pure human thinking. The sublime character, the moral force, the superb hopefulness of these ideas proclaimed their Divine origin. As it is the mission of the prophet to speak for God, so it is the voice of God in His inspired messenger that awakes the dead and gives strength to the weak. This ultimate source of prophecy accounts for its unique character of hopefulness, and that in turn makes it a powerful encouragement for the weak and depressed people to whom it is sent. Wordsworth tells us that we live by "admiration, love, and hope." If one of these three sources of vitality is lost, life itself shrinks and fades. The man whose hope has fled has no lustre in his eye, no accent in his voice, no elasticity in his tread; by his dull and listless attitude he declares that the life has gone out of him. But the ultimate end of prophecy is to lead up to a gospel, and the meaning of the word "gospel" is just that there is a message from God bringing hope to the despairing. By inspiring a new hope this message kindles a new life. Ezra 5:3 At the same time came to them Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and their companions, and said thus unto them, Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall? NEW DIFFICULTIES MET IN A NEW SPIRIT Ezra 5:3-17 ; Ezra 6:1-5 IT is in keeping with the character of his story of the returned Jews throughout, that no sooner has the chronicler let a ray of sunshine fall on his page-in his brief notice of the inspiriting mission of the two prophets-than he is compelled to plunge his narrative again into gloom. But he shows that there was now a new spirit in the Jews, so that they were prepared to meet opposition in a more manly fashion. If their jealous neighbours had been able to paralyse their efforts for years, it was only to be expected that a revival of energy in Jerusalem should provoke an increase of antagonism abroad, and doubtless the Jews were prepared for this. Still it was not a little alarming to learn that the infection of the anti-Jewish temper had spread over a wide area. The original opposition had come from the Samaritans. But in this later time the Jews were questioned by the Satrap of the whole district east of the Euphrates-"the governor beyond the river," { Ezra 5:3 } as the chronicler styles him, describing his territory as it would be regarded officially from the standpoint of Babylon. His Aramaic name, Tattenai, shows that he was not a Persian, but a native Syrian, appointed to his own province, according to the Persian custom. This man and one Shethar-boz