Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Zechariah 6:8
Then cried he upon me, and spoke unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.
8. cried he upon me ] The word is used of a royal proclamation cried aloud through the city. Jon 3:7. Here the loud call of the Angel was probably intended to rouse the prophet’s attention to what was the chief point of the vision.
quieted my spirit ] Lit. have caused my spirit to rest, which was perturbed before with sore displeasure against my enemies (Zec 1:15), but is now at rest because the righteous retribution is completed. Others take “spirit” to be equivalent here, as it is elsewhere (Ecc 10:4; Pro 29:11, in which latter place, as here, the LXX have ), to anger. “ Have made my anger to rest on, i.e. have carried it thither and deposited it there, made it to rest upon them as its abode, as St John says of the unbelieving, ‘the wrath of God abideth on him.’ ” Pusey. See Eze 5:13; Eze 16:42.
Symbolical Action. Crowning of the High-priest, Zec 6:9-15. In another of the “divers manners” ( , Heb 1:1), which He was pleased to adopt, Almighty God now speaks by the prophet. The visions of the night give place to a literal transaction by day, which, however, repeats and confirms their message. Zechariah is directed to go to the house of Josiah in Jerusalem, and to take from certain Jews who were lodging there gold and silver, a portion of the offerings to the House of God, which they had brought from their brethren still in exile, Zec 6:9-10. Of this gold and silver he is to make a crown, and put it on the head of Joshua the High-priest, Zec 6:11. The significant action is to be accompanied by a prediction in the name of Jehovah, that in due time there shall “grow up the Branch,” who shall be the true builder of the temple of the Lord, who shall be both King and Priest, and in the exercise of those two offices the author and dispenser of peace, Zec 6:12-13. Meanwhile, in gracious remembrance both of those who have brought the offerings and of him who has received them into his house, the crown which has been placed on the High-priest’s head is to be hung up in the Temple at Jerusalem, Zec 6:14, where it will also be a silent prophecy of the day when not only Jewish exiles, but Gentiles also who are now “far off,” shall be builders in the spiritual temple. That event, when it comes to pass, will prove the divine mission of the prophet; but obedience on the part of those who hear the prophecy is the condition of their sharing in the blessings of its fulfilment, Zec 6:15.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Then God, or the Angel of the Lord – who speaks of what belonged to God alone, called me (probably loudly Jdg 4:10, Jdg 4:13; 2Sa 20:4-5), so as to command his attention to this which most immediately concerned his people.
These have quieted My spirit in the north country – Or rather, have made My anger to rest on, that is, have carried it thither and deposited it there, made it to rest upon them, as its abode, as John saith of the unbelieving, The wrath of God abideth on him Joh 3:36. Babylon had been the final antagonist and subduer of the people of God. It had at the outset destroyed the temple of God, and carried off its vessels to adorn idol-temples. Its empire closed on that night when it triumphed over God , using the vessels dedicated to Him, to the glorifying of their idols. In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldaeans slain. This final execution of Gods anger upon that their destroyer was the earnest of the rest to them; and in this the visions pause.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Have quieted my spirit in the north country.] They have fulfilled my judgments on Assyria and Chaldea. Nabopolassar and Cyrus first, against the Assyrians and Chaldeans; and Alexander next, against the Persians. On this vision Abp. Newcome remarks:-
The black horses seem to denote the Persian empire; which, by subduing the Chaldeans, and being about to inflict a second heavy chastisement on Babylon, quieted God’s spirit with respect to Chaldea; a country always spoken of as lying to the north of the Jews.
The white horses seem to be the Macedonian empire; which, like the Persian, overcame Chaldea.
The spotted bay horses seem to be the Roman empire. This description suits it because it was governed by kings, consuls, dictators, and emperors. It penetrated southward to Egypt and Africa. The Roman empire is mentioned twice, Zec 6:6-7, under each epithet given it, Zec 6:3.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Then, when the prophet had been informed about the former vision,
cried he; the Angel that talked with the prophet, i.e. the Lord Christ, spake aloud. and called to him.
These that go, or are gone, for he speaks of what was already past; it is likely he meaneth the red horses.
Toward the north country; into Babylon.
Have quieted my spirit; either by doing what I appointed them against the cruel Chaldeans, in revenge of my peoples injuries, or bringing my people back out of Babylon into Canaan.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. north . . . quieted . . . myspiritthat is, caused My anger to rest (Jud8:3, Margin; Ecc 10:4;Eze 5:13; Eze 16:42).Babylon alone of the four great world kingdoms had in Zechariah’stime been finally punished; therefore, in its case alone does God nowsay His anger is satisfied; the others had as yet to expiate theirsin; the fourth has still to do so.
Zec6:9-15. NINTH VISION.THE CROWNINGOF JOSHUA.
The double crown is placed onJoshua’s head, symbolizing that the true priesthood and the kingdomshall be conferred on the one Messiah. Compare Heb 6:20;Heb 7:1-21, on Melchisedek,who similarly combined the kingdom and priesthood as type of Messiah.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying,…. That is, the Lord of the whole earth spoke to the prophet with a loud voice, and uttered the following words:
Behold, these that go toward the north country; meaning the Medes and Persians, which went towards Babylon:
have quieted my spirit in the north country; by executing the judgments of God upon the Chaldeans, and by helping, favouring, and delivering the people of the Jews; which were very agreeable to the will of God, and well pleasing in his sight, signified by the quieting or refreshing his Spirit.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
From this verse we learn that the chief object of the vision was — that the Jews might know that the dreadful tumults in Chaldea, which had in part happened, and were yet to take place, were not excited without a design, but that all things were regulated by God’s hidden counsel, and also that God had so disturbed and embarrassed the state of that empire, that the end of it might be looked for. There is therefore no reason for any one too anxiously to labor to understand the import of every part of the prophecy, since its general meaning is evident. But why does the angel expressly speak of the land of the south rather than of the land of the north, or of the whole world? Even because the eyes of all were fixed on that quarter; for Chaldea, we know, had been as it were the grave of the Church, whence the remnant had emerged, that there might be some people by whom God might be worshipped. The angel then invites the Jews here to consider the providence of God, so that they might know that whatever changes had taken place in that country, had proceeded from the hidden counsel of God.
The words, they have quieted my spirit, are understood by interpreters in two ways. Some think that God’s favor towards his people is here designated, as though he had said, that he was already pacified; but others, by the word spirit, understand the vengeance of God, because he had sufficiently poured forth his wrath on the Chaldeans; and both meanings are well adapted to the context. For it was no common solace to the Jews, that God had poured forth his wrath on the Babylonians until it was satiated, as when one ceases not to be angry until he has fulfilled his desire, and this mode of speaking often occurs in Scripture. I am therefore disposed to embrace the second explanation — that God began to be quieted after the second chariot had gone forth; for he was then reconciled to his chosen people, and their deliverance immediately followed. That the Jews might know that God would be propitious to them, he bids them to continue quiet and undisturbed in their minds, until these chariots had run their course through the whole of Chaldea; for what the angel now says would be fulfilled, even that the Spirit of God would be quieted, who seemed before to be disturbed, when he involved all things in darkness, even in Judea itself. (64)
(64) Grotius, Dathius, Newcome, and Henderson agree in the view given by Calvin, regarding “spirit” here in the sense of wrath or vengeance. See Jud 8:3; Isa 33:11. But Marckius and Blayney render it “wind,” as in verse 5, in the sense of judgment. The latter renders the sentence thus — “See those that went forth against the north country have caused my wind to rest on the north country;” and he adds, “So [ רוח ] is used in Jer 4:11; and [ הנוח ] signifies to cause to rest or abide, that is, to inflict. See Isa 30:32; Eze 5:13. And the same verb in Kal signifies to rest or settle upon, as a calamity doth. Exo 10:14.”— Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) Cried he upon me, means summoned me. (Comp. Who calls on Hamlet?Shakespeare, Hamlet, Acts 5, scenes 2, 3.)
Have quieted my spirit.Spirit being used, as in Jdg. 8:3, in the sense of wrath. (For the phrase to quiet wrath, comp. Eze. 5:12; Eze. 16:42; Eze. 24:13. This is better than the interpretation, Have made my spirit to rest, i.e., caused my spirit of judgment (Isa. 4:4) to fall upon. (Comp. Isa. 56:1.) Many commentators have, without any warrant, drawn their interpretation of the colours of the horses in this vision from the Book of Revelation. According to them, red means war. black famine, white victory, grisled various chastisements. They identify the grisled with the bay of the English Version, or rather powerful ones (as they render the word in Zec. 6:3; Zec. 6:7), and say that the last mission was not received by the so-called red horses, but by the powerful ones (English Version, bay,) as the grisled are also called in Zec. 6:3, to indicate that the manifold judgments symbolised by the grisled horses will pass over the whole earth in all their force. But it is better to consider that the horses are represented as of different colours merely in order to give greater distinctness to the vision. (Comp. Zec. 1:8; Zec. 5:9.) For the commentators fail to discover any ethical or historical reason for famine and victory being especially sent to the north, and various chastisements to the south, or why (according to the unamended Hebrew text) the red (English Version), i.e., bay horses, should not have been sent out at all. According to the amended text, the bay horses seek, and obtain, permission to go through all the earth, signifying possibly that Israels Protector would defend His people, not only against their ancient enemies, but also against any who should rise up against them from any quarter whatever. The difficulty with the colours of the horses is supposed by Hitzig to have arisen from the carelessness of the writer; but we agree rather with Maurer, who attributes it to a blunder of an early copyist.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. The greatest enemy of the Jews were the Babylonians, or their successors, the Persians; while their power remained intact there was little hope for a complete restoration. In the first and second visions the prophet had been informed that judgment was about to fall upon that nation; here he is assured once more that the day of judgment is at hand. All the chariots are messengers of judgment, but only the one going toward the north is singled out for further comment.
Have quieted my spirit A prophetic perfect; the act is still future, but it is so certain that the prophet may speak of it as already accomplished. The spirit is the spirit of wrath (Ecc 10:4), which they are about to quiet, that is, to pacify, by the execution of the judgment (Eze 5:13; Eze 16:42).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Zec 6:8. Then cried he upon me,behold Then cried he unto me,behold, &c. “The black horses, denoting the Persian empire, have appeased my wrath by conquering the Babylonians, and by executing that vengeance upon them, which they deserved for their cruelty towards my people.” The word ruach, rendered spirit, often signifies anger. See Grotius and Houbigant.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Zec 6:8 Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.
Ver. 8. Then cried he upon me ] That I might the better observe it, since he spake it with such great vehemence.
Have pacified my spirit
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
cried. upon. Are almost obsolete idiom. To “cry upon” meant to call to, or appeal to, and is still used in this sense in Scotland. It comes to us through the Genevan Bible (1560), from the Great Bible (1539), and Coverdale (1534). It is the sense of the Hebrew z ‘ ak here. See Jdg 4:10, Jdg 4:13. Jon 3:7, &c.
quieted = caused [mine anger] to rest upon. This is the force of the Hebrew Hiphil.
spirit. Hebrew. ruach App-9. Put by Fig, Metonymy (of Cause), App-6, for the manifestation of it in feeling: here, anger, wrath, Compare Jdg 8:3,
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
quieted: Zec 1:15, Jdg 8:3, Jdg 15:7, Ecc 10:4, Isa 1:24, Isa 18:3, Isa 18:4, Isa 42:13-15, Isa 48:14, Isa 51:22, Isa 51:23, Jer 51:48, Jer 51:49, Eze 5:13, Eze 16:42, Eze 16:63, Rev 18:21, Rev 18:22
Reciprocal: Jos 7:26 – So the Lord 2Sa 21:14 – God Est 7:10 – Then was the king’s Eze 9:11 – I have Eze 21:17 – and I
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Zec 6:8. Quieted my spirit in the north country. This is a reference to the fact that the people of God were cured of idolatry by their stay in that country. When they came out of the captivity in that land they left their idolatry in it and that, “quieted the spirit of God; it satisfied Him with their reformation.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Zec 6:8. Then cried he unto me, Behold, these that go toward the north Namely, the black horses, denoting the Persian empire; have quieted my spirit in the north country That is, by conquering the Babylonians, and executing upon them the punishment which they deserved for their cruelty and other crimes, they have satisfied the wrath which I had conceived against that people. So the LXX., , they have caused my wrath to cease in the land of the north. Instead of these that go toward the north, it would be better to translate the words, those who have gone toward the north; because it is spoken of the Persians overturning the Babylonian empire, which happened before the prophet was favoured with this vision.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:8 Then he cried upon me, and spoke to me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my {k} spirit in the north country.
(k) By punishing the Chaldeans my anger ceased, and you were delivered.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The Lord then called out to Zechariah that the horses that had gone out into the north had appeased His wrath in the land of the north. This probably represents judgment on Babylonia specifically, but it probably hints at the total destruction of all enemies of Israel. Babylon had fallen to the Persians 20 years earlier, in 539 B.C.
|
Zechariah’s Eight Night Visions |
|
Number |
Reference |
Subject |
Lesson |
|
1 |
Zec 1:7-17 |
The horseman among the myrtle trees |
Yahweh’s sovereignty over Israel’s restoration |
|
2 |
Zec 1:18-21 |
The four horns and the four smiths |
The triumph of Israel over her enemies |
|
3 |
Zechariah 2 |
The surveyor |
Preparations for Israel’s future restoration |
|
4 |
Zechariah 3 |
The cleansing and restoration of Joshua |
The renewal of Israel’s priestly ministry |
|
5 |
Zechariah 4 |
The gold lampstand and the two olive trees |
Israel’s testimony under Messiah as priest and king |
|
6 |
Zec 5:1-4 |
The flying scroll |
Judgment on Israel for covenant disobedience |
|
7 |
Zec 5:5-11 |
The woman in the basket |
The return of evil to Babylon |
|
8 |
Zec 6:1-8 |
The four chariots |
Judgment on Israel’s enemies |
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
– Zec 6:8
THE ANGELS OF THE VISIONS
Zec 1:7 – Zec 6:8
AMONG the influences of the Exile which contributed the material of Zechariahs Visions we included a considerable development of Israels belief in Angels. The general subject is in itself so large, and the Angels play so many parts in the Visions, that it is necessary to devote to them a separate chapter.
From the earliest times the Hebrews had conceived their Divine King to be surrounded by a court of ministers, who besides celebrating His glory went forth from His presence to execute His will upon earth. In this latter capacity they were called Messengers, Maleakim, which the Greeks translated Angeloi, and so gave us our Angels. The origin of this conception is wrapped in obscurity. It may have been partly due to a belief, shared by all early peoples, in the existence of superhuman beings inferior to the gods, but even without this it must have sprung up in the natural tendency to provide the royal deity of a people with a court, an army and servants. In the pious minds of early Israel there must have been a kind of necessity to believe and develop this-a necessity imposed firstly by the belief in Jehovahs residence as confined to one spot, Sinai or Jerusalem, from which He Himself went forth only upon great occasions to the deliverance of His people as a whole; and secondly by the unwillingness to conceive of His personal appearance in missions of a menial nature, or to represent Him in the human form in which, according to primitive ideas, He could alone hold converse with men.
It can easily be understood how a religion, which was above all a religion of revelation, should accept such popular conceptions in its constant record of the appearance of God and His Word in human life. Accordingly, in the earliest documents of the Hebrews, we find angels who bring to Israel the blessings, curses, and commands of Jehovah. Apart from this duty and their human appearance, these beings are not conceived to be endowed either with character or, if we may judge by their namelessness with individuality. They are the Word of God personified. Acting as Gods mouthpiece, they are merged in Him, and so completely that they often speak of themselves by the Divine I. {Jdg 6:12 ff.}
“The function of an Angel so overshadows his personality that the Old Testament does not ask who or what this Angel is, but what he does. And the answer to the last question is that he represents God to man so directly and fully that when he speaks or acts God Himself is felt to speak or act.” Besides the carriage of the Divine Word, angels bring back to their Lord report of all that happens: kings are said, in popular language, to be “as wise as the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all the things that are in the earth.” {2Sa 14:20} They are also employed in the deliverance and discipline of His people. {Exo 14:19-20; Exo 12:23, etc.; Jos 5:13} By them come the pestilence, and the restraint of those who set themselves against Gods will.
Now the prophets before the Exile had so spiritual a conception of God, worked so immediately from His presence, and above all were so convinced of His personal and practical interest in the affairs of His people, that they felt no room for Angels between Him and their hearts, and they do not employ Angels, except when Isaiah in his inaugural vision penetrates to the heavenly palace and court of the Most High. {Zec 6:2-6} Even when Amos sees a plummet laid to the walls of Jerusalem, it is by the hands of Jehovah himself, and we have not encountered an Angel in the mediation of the Word to any of the prophets whom we have already studied. But Angels reappear, though not under the name, in the visions of Ezekiel, the first prophet of the Exile. They are in human form, and he calls them “Men.” Some execute Gods wrath upon Jerusalem (Eze 9:1-11), and one, whose appearance is as the appearance of brass, acts as the interpreter of Gods will to the prophet, and instructs him in the details of the building of City and Temple. {Eze 40:3 ff.} When the glory of Jehovah appears and Jehovah Himself speaks to the prophet out of the Temple, this “Man” stands by the prophet, {Eze 43:6} distinct from the Deity, and afterwards continues his work of explanation. “Therefore,” as Dr. Davidson remarks, “it is not the sense of distance to which God is removed that causes Ezekiel to create these intermediaries.” The necessity for them rather arises from the same natural feeling which we have suggested as giving rise to the earliest conceptions of Angels: the unwillingness, namely, to engage the Person of God Himself in the subordinate task of explaining the details of the Temple. Note, too, how the Divine Voice, which speaks to Ezekiel out of the Temple, blends and becomes one with the “Man” standing at his side. Ezekiels Angel-interpreter is simply one function of the Word of God.
Many of the features of Ezekiels Angels appear in those of Zechariah. “The four smiths” or smiters of the four horns recall the six executioners of the wicked in Jerusalem. {Zec 1:18 Eze 9:1 ff.} Like Ezekiels Interpreter, they are called “Men,” and like him one appears as Zechariahs instructor and guide: “he who talked with me.” But while Zechariah calls these beings “Men,” he also gives them the ancient name, which Ezekiel had not used, of Maleakim, “messengers, angels.” The Instructor is “the Angel who talked with me.” In the First Vision, “the Man riding the brown horse, the Man that stood among the myrtles, is the Angel of Jehovah that stood among the myrtles.” {Zec 1:8; Zec 1:10-11} The Interpreter is also called “the Angel of Jehovah,” and if our text of the First Vision be correct, the two of them are curiously mingled, as if both were functions of the same Word of God, and in personality not to be distinguished from each other. The Reporting Angel among the myrtles takes up the duty of the Interpreting Angel and explains the Vision to the prophet. In the Fourth Vision this dissolving view is carried further, and the Angel of Jehovah is interchangeable with Jehovah Himself; just as in the Vision of Ezekiel the Divine Voice from the Glory and the Man standing beside the prophet are curiously mingled. Again in the Fourth Vision we hear of those “who stand in the presence of Jehovah,” {Zec 3:6-7} and in the Eighth of executant angels coming out from His presence with commissions upon the whole earth. {Zec 6:5}
In the Visions of Zechariah, then, as in the earlier books, we see the Lord of all the earth, surrounded by a court of angels, whom He sends forth in human form to interpret His Word and execute His will, and in their doing of this there is the same indistinctness of individuality, the same predominance of function over personality. As with Ezekiel, one stands out more clearly than the rest, to be the prophets interpreter, whom, as in the earlier visions of angels, Zechariah calls “my lord,” {Zec 1:9, etc.} but even he melts into the figures of the rest. These are the old and borrowed elements in Zechariahs doctrine of Angels. But he has added to them in several important particulars, which make his Visions an intermediate stage between the Book of Ezekiel and the very intricate angelology of later Judaism.
In the first place Zechariah is the earliest prophet who introduces orders and ranks among the angels. In his Fourth Vision the Angel of Jehovah is the Divine Judge “before whom” Joshua appears with the Adversary. He also has others standing “before him” to execute his sentences. In the Third Vision, again, the Interpreting Angel does dot communicate directly with Jehovah, but receives his words from another Angel who has come forth. {Zec 2:3-4} All these are symptoms, that even with a prophet, who so keenly felt as Zechariah did the ethical directness of Gods word and its pervasiveness through public life, there had yet begun to increase those feelings of Gods sublimity and awfulness, which in the later thought of Israel lifted Him to so far a distance from men, and created so complex a host of intermediaries, human and superhuman, between the worshipping heart and the Throne of Grace. We can best estimate the difference in this respect between Zechariah and the earlier prophets whom we have studied by remarking that his characteristic phrase “talked with me,” literally “spake in” or “by me,” which he uses of the Interpreting Angel, is used by Habakkuk of God Himself. {Hab 2:1; cf. also Num 12:6-9} To the same awful impressions of the Godhead is perhaps due the first appearance of the Angel as intercessor. Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah themselves directly interceded with God for the people; but with Zechariah it is the Interpreting Angel who intercedes, and who in return receives the Divine comfort. In this angelic function, the first of its kind in Scripture, we see the small and explicable beginnings of a belief destined to assume enormous dimensions in the development of the Churchs worship. The supplication of Angels, the faith in their intercession and in the prevailing prayers of the righteous dead, which has been so egregiously multiplied in certain sections of Christendom, may be traced to the same increasing sense of the distance and awfulness of God, but is to be corrected by the faith Christ has taught us of the nearness of our Father in Heaven, and of His immediate care of His every human child.
The intercession of the Angel in the First Vision is also a step towards that identification of special Angels with different peoples which we find in the Book of Daniel. This tells us of heavenly princes not only for Israel-“Michael, your prince, the great prince which standeth up for the children of thy people” {Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1} -but for the heathen nations, a conception the first beginnings of which we see in a prophecy that was perhaps not far from being contemporaneous with Zechariah. {Isa 24:21} Zechariahs Vision of a hierarchy among the angels was also destined to further development. The head of the patrol among the myrtles, and the Judge-Angel before whom Joshua appears, are the first Archangels. We know how these were further specialized, and had even personalities and names given them by both Jewish and Christian writers.
Among the Angels described in the Old Testament, we have seen some charged with powers of hindrance and destruction-“a troop of angels of evil.” They too are the servants of God, who is the author of all evil as well as good, {Amo 3:6} and the instruments of His wrath. But the temptation of men is also part of His Providence. Where willful souls have to be misled, the spirit who does so, as in Ahabs case, comes from Jehovahs presence. {1Ki 22:20 ff.} All these spirits are just as devoid of character and personality as the rest of the angelic host. They work evil as mere instruments: neither malice nor falseness is attributed to themselves. They are not rebel nor fallen angels, but obedient to Jehovah. Nay, like Ezekiels and Zechariahs Angels of the Word, the Angel who tempts David to number the people is interchangeable with God Himself. Kindred to the duty of tempting men is that of discipline, in its forms both of restraining or accusing the guilty, and of vexing the righteous in order to test them. For both of these the same verb is used, “to satan,” in the general sense of “withstanding,” or antagonizing. The Angel of Jehovah stood in Balaams way “to satan him.” {Num 22:22; Num 22:32} The noun, “the Satan,” is used repeatedly of a human foe (1Sa 29:4; 2Sa 19:23 1Ki 5:18; 1Ki 11:14, etc.). But in two passages, of which Zechariahs Fourth Vision is one, and the other the Prologue to Job (Zec 3:1 ff., Job 1:6 ff.), the name is given to an Angel, one of “the sons of Elohim,” or Divine powers who receive their commission from Jehovah. The noun is not yet, what it afterwards became, {1Ch 21:1} a proper name; but has the definite article, “the Adversary” or “Accuser”-that is, the Angel to whom that function was assigned. With Zechariah his business is the official one of prosecutor in the supreme court of Jehovah, and when his work is done he disappears. Yet, before he does so, we see for the first time in connection with any angel a gleam of character. This is revealed by the Lords rebuke of him. There is something blameworthy in the accusation of Joshua: not indeed false witness, for Israels guilt is patent in the foul garments of their High Priest, but hardness or malice, that would seek to prevent the Divine grace. In the Book of Job “the Satan” is also a function, even here not a fallen or rebel angel, but one of Gods court, {Job 1:6} the instrument of discipline or chastisement. Yet, in that he himself suggests his cruelties and is represented as forward and officious in their infliction, a character is imputed to him even more clearly than in Zechariahs Vision. But the Satan still shares that identification with his function which we have seen to characterize all the angels of the Old Testament, and therefore he disappears from the drama so, soon as his place in its high argument is over.
In this description of the development of Israels doctrine of Angels, and of Zechariahs contributions to it, we have not touched upon the question whether the development was assisted by Israels contact with the Persian religion and with the system of Angels which the latter contains. For several reasons the question is a difficult one. But so far as present evidence goes, it makes for a negative answer. Scholars, who are in no way prejudiced against the theory of a large Persian influence upon Israel declare that the religion of Persia affected the Jewish doctrine of Angels “only in secondary points,” such as their “number and personality, and the existence of demons and evil spirits.” Our own discussion has shown us that Zechariahs Angels, in spite of the new features they introduce, are in substance one with the Angels of pre-exilic Israel. Even the Satan is primarily a function, and one of the servants of God. If he has developed an immoral character, this cannot be attributed to the influence of Persian belief in a Spirit of evil opposed to the Spirit of good in the universe, but may be explained by the native, or selfish, resentment of Israel against their prosecutor before the bar of Jehovah. Nor can we fail to remark that this character of evil appears in the Satan, not, as in the Persian religion, in general opposition to goodness, but as thwarting that saving grace which was so peculiarly Jehovahs own. And Jehovah said to the Satan, “Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan, yea, Jehovah who hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee! Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?”