It will be seen from this catalogue of conclusions that the prevailing trend of recent criticism has been to assign “Zech.” ix.—xiv. to post-exilic times, and to a different author from chaps. i.—viii.; and that while a few critics maintain a date soon after the Return, the bulk are divided between the years following Alexander’s campaigns and the time of the Maccabean struggles.[1307]
There are, in fact, in recent years only two attempts to support the conservative position of Pusey and Hengstenberg that the whole book is a genuine work of Zechariah the son of Iddo. One of these is by C. H. H. Wright in his Bampton Lectures. The other is by George L. Robinson, now Professor at Toronto, in a reprint (1896) from the American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, which offers a valuable history of the discussion of the whole question from the days of Mede, with a careful argument of all the evidence on both sides. The very original conclusion is reached that the chapters reflect the history of the years 518—516 B.C.
In discussing the question, for which our treatment of other prophets has left us too little space, we need not open that part of it which lies between a pre-exilic and a post-exilic date. Recent criticism of all schools and at both extremes has tended to establish the latter upon reasons which we have already stated,[1308] and for further details of which the student may be referred to Stade’s and Eckardt’s investigations in the Zeitschrift für A. T. Wissenschaft and to Kirkpatrick’s impartial summary. There remain the questions of the unity of chaps. ix.—xiv.; their exact date or dates after the Exile, and as a consequence of this their relation to the authentic prophecies of Zechariah in chaps. i.—viii.
On the question of unity we take first chaps. ix.—xi., to which must be added (as by most critics since Ewald) xiii. 7–9, which has got out of its place as the natural continuation and conclusion of chap. xi.
Chap. ix. 1–8 predicts the overthrow of heathen neighbours of Israel, their possession by Jehovah and His safeguard of Jerusalem. Vv. 9–12 follow with a prediction of the Messianic King as the Prince of Peace; but then come vv. 13–17, with no mention of the King, but Jehovah appears alone as the hero of His people against the Greeks, and there is indeed sufficiency of war and blood. Chap. x. makes a new start: the people are warned to seek their blessings from Jehovah, and not from Teraphim and diviners, whom their false shepherds follow. Jehovah, visiting His flock, shall punish these, give proper rulers, make the people strong and gather in their exiles to fill Gilead and Lebanon. Chap. xi. opens with a burst of war on Lebanon and Bashan and the overthrow of the heathen (vv. 1–3), and follows with an allegory, in which the prophet first takes charge from Jehovah of the people as their shepherd, but is contemptuously treated by them (4–14), and then taking the guise of an evil shepherd represents what they must suffer from their next ruler (15–17). This tyrant, however, shall receive punishment, two-thirds of the nation shall be scattered, but the rest, further purified, shall be God’s own people (xiii. 7–9).
In the course of this prophesying there is no conclusive proof of a double authorship. The only passage which offers strong evidence for this is chap. ix. The verses predicting the peaceful coming of Messiah (9–12) do not accord in spirit with those which follow predicting the appearance of Jehovah with war and great shedding of blood. Nor is the difference altogether explained, as Stade thinks, by the similar order of events in chap. x., where Judah and Joseph are first represented as saved and brought back in ver. 6, and then we have the process of their redemption and return described in vv. 7 ff. Why did the same writer give statements of such very different temper as chap. ix. 9–12 and 13–17? Or, if these be from different hands, why were they ever put together? Otherwise there is no reason for breaking up chaps. ix.—xi., xiii. 7–9. Rubinkam, who separates ix. 1–10 by a hundred and fifty years from the rest; Bleek, who divides ix. from x.; and Staerk, who separates ix.—xi. 3 from the rest, have been answered by Robinson and others.[1309] On the ground of language, grammar and syntax, Eckardt has fully proved that ix.—xi. are from the same author of a late date, who, however, may have occasionally followed earlier models and even introduced their very phrases.[1310]
More supporters have been found for a division of authorship between chaps. ix.—xi., xiii. 7–9, and chaps. xii.—xiv. (less xiii. 7–9). Chap. xii. opens with a title of its own. A strange element is introduced into the historical relation. Jerusalem is assaulted not by the heathen only, but by Judah, who, however, turns on finding that Jehovah fights for Jerusalem, and is saved by Jehovah before Jerusalem in order that the latter may not boast over it (xii. 1–9). A spirit of grace and supplication is poured upon the guilty city, a fountain opened for uncleanness, idols abolished, and the prophets, who are put on a level with them, abolished too, where they do not disown their profession (xii. 10—xiii. 6). Another assault of the heathen on Jerusalem is described, half of the people being taken captive. Jehovah appears, and by a great earthquake saves the rest. The land is transformed. And then the prophet goes back to the defeat of the heathen assault on the city, in which Judah is again described as taking part; and the surviving heathen are converted, or, if they refuse to be, punished by the withholding of rain. Jerusalem is holy to the Lord (xiv.). In all this there is more that differs from chaps. ix.—xi., xiii. 7–9, than the strange opposition of Judah and Jerusalem. Ephraim, or Joseph, is not mentioned, nor any return of exiles, nor punishment of the shepherds, nor coming of the Messiah,[1311] the latter’s place being taken by Jehovah. But in answer to this we may remember that the Messiah, after being described in ix. 9–12, is immediately lost behind the warlike coming of Jehovah. Both sections speak of idolatry, and of the heathen, their punishment and conversion, and do so in the same apocalyptic style. Nor does the language of the two differ in any decisive fashion. On the contrary, as Eckardt[1312] and Kuiper have shown, the language is on the whole an argument for unity of authorship.[1313] There is, then, nothing conclusive against the position, which Stade so clearly laid down and strongly fortified, that chaps. ix.—xiv. are from the same hand, although, as he admits, this cannot be proved with absolute certainty. So also Cheyne: “With perhaps one or two exceptions, chaps. ix.—xi. and xii.—xiv. are so closely welded together that even analysis is impossible.”[1314]
The next questions we have to decide are whether chaps. ix.—xiv. offer any evidence of being by Zechariah, the author of chaps. i.—viii., and if not to what other post-exilic date they may be assigned.
It must be admitted that in language and in style the two parts of the Book of Zechariah have features in common. But that these have been exaggerated by defenders of the unity there can be no doubt. We cannot infer anything from the fact[1315] that both parts contain specimens of clumsy diction, of the repetition of the same word, of phrases (not the same phrases) unused by other writers;[1316] or that each is lavish in vocatives; or that each is variable in his spelling. Resemblances of that kind they share with other books: some of them are due to the fact that both sections are post-exilic. On the other hand, as Eckardt has clearly shown, there exists a still greater number of differences between the two sections, both in language and in style.[1317] Not only do characteristic words occur in each which are not found in the other, not only do chaps. ix.—xiv. contain many more Aramaisms than chaps. i.—viii., and therefore symptoms of a later date; but both parts use the same words with more or less different meanings, and apply different terms to the same objects. There are also differences of grammar, of favourite formulas, and of other features of the phraseology, which, if there be any need, complete the proof of a distinction of dialect so great as to require to account for it distinction of authorship.
The same impression is sustained by the contrast of the historical circumstances reflected in each of the two sections. Zech. i.—viii. were written during the building of the Temple. There is no echo of the latter in “Zech.” ix.—xiv. Zech. i.—viii. picture the whole earth as at peace, which was true at least of all Syria: they portend no danger to Jerusalem from the heathen, but describe her peace and fruitful expansion in terms most suitable to the circumstances imposed upon her by the solid and clement policy of the earlier Persian kings. This is all changed in “Zech.” ix.—xiv. The nations are restless; a siege of Jerusalem is imminent, and her salvation is to be assured only by much war and a terrible shedding of blood. We know exactly how Israel fared and felt in the early sections of the Persian period: her interests in the politics of the world, her feelings towards her governors and her whole attitude to the heathen were not at that time those which are reflected in “Zech.” ix.—xiv.