Haggai and Zechariah 1-8

A Commentary

David L. Petersen

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 1984
• Print ISBN:
  9780664221669
• eBook ISBN:
  9781611645026
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

This book, a volume in the Old Testament Library series, explores the books of Haggai and Zechariah.

The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

ZECHARIAH 1–8

INTRODUCTION

In this commentary I follow the critical judgment of scholars over the years who have discerned a fundamental division between Zechariah 1–8 and 9–14.¹ Such a division makes possible the creation of this volume in which two prophets are examined—Haggai and Zechariah—who were active at approximately the same time, ca. 520 B.C.E., and a second and subsequent work that focuses on anonymous, deuteroprophetic literature, namely, Zechariah 9–14 and Malachi, literature that does not stand rooted in one specific historical context.²

The general, historical, and social background for the books of Haggai and Zechariah have already been presented. Hence, we may address ourselves in this section to the particularity of an individual prophet, Zechariah, and the literature attributed to him.

1. The Person

Concerning the person Zechariah, little can be said. Presuming that Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo (Zech. 1:1) is the same person as Zechariah son of Iddo (Neh. 12:16), we know that Zechariah was a member of a priestly house, i.e., that of Iddo. What this says about Zechariah’s behavior is difficult to infer. He was known to be familiar with ritual matters (Zech. 7:2–3). Some scholars have argued that Zechariah had been in exile, and that he had direct knowledge of the plight of those in captivity, and, moreover, that he had assimilated imagery from his Mesopotamian environs.³ Though it is difficult to argue with great conviction that Zechariah had been in exile, his genealogy at least points to a connection between him and the group of Israelites who had lived in the diaspora.

As was the case with Haggai, the name of the prophet Zechariah resonates with his task. The name means “Yahweh has remembered.” It is a conservative name, evoking a sense of continuity with earlier Israelite tradition. Such a name suggests that Yahweh remembers what he did for and with Israel at an earlier period. And it presumes that he will act again in a similar manner.

According to the chronological data provided by the book’s editor, Zechariah’s activity continued for a period longer than that of Haggai. The earliest date, preserved in Zech. 1:1, places the beginning of his prophetic activity in Darius’ second year, the eighth month; the final date, in Zech. 7:1, places further activity in Darius’ fourth year, the fourth day of the ninth month. On the basis of these dates alone, we learn that the editors of this book thought Zechariah functioned as a prophet for a period of at least two years. Whether ch. 8, or any other material in the book, suggests a later date, is moot. In any case, nothing in the book implies that Zechariah experienced, at least in his role as prophet, the completion of the temple in 515 B.C.E.

2. The Book

If little may be said about Zechariah, we are on firmer ground when we treat the book itself. It is made up of two types of literature; visions and oracles. Moreover, the book has been given a structure by the presence of date formulae in 1:1; 1:7; and 7:1. Using these formulae as organizational markers, one may argue that the book is made up of three basic sections, an introduction (1:1–6), a block of reports of visions, replete with oracular responses (1:7–6:15), and a concluding block of prophetic speeches organized around Zechariah in the role of oracle giver.

Prologue

In the first section, the person responsible for the final form of the book has provided an introduction that, among other things, establishes the credentials of Zechariah. Then, in a pastiche of prophetic discourse, the audience is reminded of the inappropriate way in which Israel had responded to earlier prophets. Israel rejected the prophets’ words and expired. This earlier generation had, however, recognized the justice in the way in which they had been treated. They returned. This word, šûb, “return,” has geographic as well as religious and ethical implications for Zechariah’s hearers, and it is a word originally at home in oracles of salvation. This prologue to the book conveys hope. Just as the fathers turned, so now the current generation may (re)turn.

The Visions

Once this stage is set, the visions, the core of the book, ensue. Visions are, of course, nothing new in the prophetic corpus.⁴ Vision reports are preserved in the literature of earlier classical prophets (e.g., Amos 7:1–9; 8:1–3; Isa. 6; Jer. 1:11–19; Ezek. 1:1; 8:2), and in narratives about so-called preclassical prophets (e.g., I Kings 22). The notion of a prophet receiving all his information through the visionary experience is even attested in the introductions to Amos (1:1), Isaiah (1:1), and Obadiah (1:1). Hence Zechariah stands in a venerable tradition when reporting visions as one element in the performance of his prophetic role.⁵

One basic issue must be addressed before we may consider the overall significance of these vision reports, that of the visions’ coherence. The basic purport of the date formula and vision introduction in Zech. 1:7–8 and the absence of other such markers until Zech. 7:1 is that all the visions were received within a single night. Were this the case, we might well expect that all the visions would cohere.

Scholars studying dream behavior have, in fact, determined that a series of dreams—usually four to six in number—in one night is normal. Such dreams may focus on one theme or on related matters. Moreover, 70 to 80 percent of dreams reported are in color, as are Zechariah’s visions. Presuming a fundamental similarity between dreams and visions, a relation recognized by ancient Greeks (waking [hypar] and dream [onar] visions) as well as modem investigators, there would appear to be prima facie evidence to support the notion of a basic coherence within Zechariah’s visions.⁶

However, that these dreams or visions did occur in one experiential context or that they all cohere has not regularly been admitted by biblical scholars. For example, K. Galling has argued that it is possible to identify a distinct historical setting for each of the visions, and that these settings are not identical. Some visions reflect conditions in Babylon before Judahites returned to Syria-Palestine (Zech. 1:8–15; 2:1–4 [1:18–21E]; 2:5–9 [1–5E]; 6:1–8); others reflect conditions in Syria-Palestine after the return and just before the rebuilding of the temple (Zech. 4:1–6a, 10b–14; 5:1–4; 5:5–11).⁷

Such a mode of interpretation presumes that the significance of the visions lies primarily outside the visions themselves, i.e., in the historical impulse that produced them. This mode of interpretation entails problems similar to that of interpreting individual psalms from their putative moments of historical origin. That style of psalm exegesis has been firmly rejected and should, on similar grounds, be subject to question for the visions of Zechariah.

In a different vein, but still involving the question of the coherence of all the visions, some scholars have argued for the basic unity of the visions but have maintained that one vision, usually Zech. 3, the fourth vision, stands apart from the other vision reports. This judgment is often rendered because that vision differs in form from the other visions and because it seems to be more highly pragmatic than the other visions.⁸ In my judgment, Zech. 3 is an integral and original part of the visionary sequence, dealing as it does with a critical issue in the meta-restoration that Zechariah envisions, namely, the issue of how ritual purity may be engendered in a situation of radical defilement.

Galling and others are correct in perceiving that these visions of Zechariah entail not only a literary unity but also a progression.⁹ However, the unity and progression do not reflect historical reality per se.¹⁰ Rather the visions precede, and even enable, historical reality to take place. My own perspective is that the visions represent highly symbolic theological reflection on the process by means of which Judahite society might be (re)ordered and restored.

Zechariah’s visions stand somewhere between purely mundane concerns and a utopian vision of renewal. The visions are not concrete in the way in which Haggai concentrates on agricultural yield (Hag. 2:14–19) and on the preservation of capital (Hag. 1:6), and they are not concrete in the way in which Ezek. 40–48 provides detailed measurements for the restored temple compound. Nor are Zechariah’s visions utopian as are the expectations for wealth in Hag. 2:6–7 or as is Ezekiel’s vision of a society without religious error (Ezek. 43:7). Zechariah’s visions stand somewhere between utopian social vision and concrete physical and social detail.

The notion of “somewhere in between” is apt not only as a description of where these visions stand vis-à-vis other early postexilic literatures. This notion of “inbetweenness” also serves as an accurate indicator for the content of Zechariah’s visions. In the first vision, we are conveyed to a geography which is not really of this world and is not directly that of the divine dwelling. We are near the cosmic deep, overseeing the divine corral. But we see neither the deity nor any obvious location in this world. We are between worlds. In the second vision, Zechariah looks up and sees four horns, and then four artisans approaching them. These objects are this-worldly and yet somehow removed from this world—hovering above Zechariah in the night. On moving to the fourth vision, we are presented with a scene in which Joshua is cleansed in the divine council. And yet the council lacks the one element that is regularly present, the deity himself. It is not the divine council that we have come to expect on the basis of I Kings 22 or Isa. 6.¹¹ In the fifth vision, the most static vision of the cycle, Zechariah sees an object that we normally associate with the temple compound. And yet the temple lampstand has no obvious cultic context, and it is surrounded by strange olive-tree people. Finally, in the sixth and seventh visions, the prophet perceives objects, a flying scroll and an approaching ephah. Both are in midair. The soaring ’êphāh is, as the writer succinctly puts it, “between the earth and the heavens.”

A second feature present in the visions is motion.¹² Things are on the move. To be sure, not all the visions are filled with movement. But even the so-called static visions function to make movement possible in the visions that follow. The first vision, which provokes a lament by the mal’āk, receives a divine response to move beyond the lamentable status quo. Movement must and does follow. Artisans are on their way to destroy the nations responsible for Judah’s demise. An individual, probably angelic, moves out to do survey work on Jerusalem, onl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Select Bibliography
• Haggai
• Zechariah 1–8