Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/281



AN EXAMINATION OF MODERN CRITICISM 265

Literature of the Old Testament. The author (Canon Driver) is esteemed as one of the more " moderate " of this school. Like many others, he divides chaps, xii. xiv. from chaps, ix. xi., but he follows those of the German rational istic school, who ascribe a post-exilic origin to the second half of Zechariah, though he denies Zechariah s authorship. These are his words on the last three chapters :

" As regards the occasion of the prophecy it is impossible to do more than speculate. It is conceivable that in the post-exilic period where our history is a blank (B.C. 518 458; 432-300) the family of David assumed importance in Jerusalem, and supplied some of the leading judges and administrators, and that they had been implicated with the people of the capital in some deed of blood (xii. 1014), on the ground of which the prophet depicts Jehovah s appearance in judgment. In the heathen invaders of xii.- xiv. he perhaps has not in view any actual expected foe, but pictures an imaginary assault of nations, like Ezekiel (c. 3839), from which he represents Jerusalem, though not without severe losses, as delivered. In other features the prophecy appears to be one of those (cf. Isa. xxiv. xxvii.) in which not merely the figurative, but the imaginative, element is larger than is generally the case, especially in the pre-exilic prophets. But even when allowance has been made for this, many details in the prophecy remain per plexing, and probably no entirely satisfactory explanation of it is now attainable." The italics are Canon Driver s.

We refrain from characterising the remarks which ascribe the origin of some of the sublimest prophecies in the Old Testament in reference to the last things to the exercise of the " imaginative " faculty of the writers, but let us, for lack of space, look at one point only. The first reference, which is so easily disposed of with a stroke of the pen, is chap. xii. 10-14. Now this passage begins with the words : " And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication ; and they shall look unto Me Whom they have pierced : and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and