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 CHAPTER XIII

THE aim which we set before us in these "Notes" on Zechariah was by God s help to make this precious portion of Old Testament revelation intelligible, and spiritually profitable, to the ordinary intelligent English reader, and in doing so to avoid as much as possible minute critical points, and lengthy discussions of the questions of dates and authorship.

We might, therefore, have accepted the contention of the more " moderate " of the modern critical writers, that the contents and " religious " or spiritual value of these sacred oracles are independent of the question as to whether they were, or were not, actually composed by the person, or persons, and at the time " traditionally " attached to them and have proceeded at once to the exposition of chap. ix. But this contention is only partially true. The ethical and spiritual character of a writing is not altogether indepen dent of its authorship and the circumstances in which it originated ; and then, too, as far as these chapters are concerned, it is not a question merely as to what " religious " value we can find in them for ourselves, or for the pro fessed people of God at the present day. The true believer and disciple is anxious above all to understand the meaning of the divine oracles, which holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; and we are concerned here not only with the application, but with the interpreta tion of these chapters. Both Jews and Christians have always believed that they contain fore-announcements of great and solemn events, and that we have in them divine forecasts of things which were to transpire at a time, or times, which from the prophets then point of view, at any

rate, are contemplated as future.

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