Page:A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and Jonah.djvu/45

Rh his grandson. In other words, the Chronicler, for the purpose of enriching his narrative, here introduces incidents that had nothing to do with the temple, and happened, if they are authentic, many years after it was completed. They may be of value for the period to which they belong, but they have no place in an introduction to the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah.

The Chronicler, then, has no reliable information concerning the Jews, or their condition and relations, for the period from the first year after the fall of Babylon to the second of the reign of Darius. The annals of Persia are almost as completely silent with reference to them and their country. Their neighbours generally, as vassals of Babylon, had promptly submitted to Cyrus. Gaza, probably at the instigation of the king of Egypt, hesitated; but it, like the Phœnician cities, finally accepted the new order. A show of force may have been necessary, but soon, so far as Palestine was concerned, the king was free to devote his energies to a war with the Scythians by which, although it cost him his life, he greatly extended and firmly established, in the north and east, the boundaries of his empire.

The death of Cyrus took place in 530 or 529 B.C. By this time a considerable number of Jews must have returned to