Septuagint: Haggai

Scriptural Research Institute

2020年8月 · Septuagint 45 巻 · Scriptural Research Institute

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The Book of Haggai is set in the year 421 BC, year 2 of King Darius II of the Persian Empire. Most scholars accept that Haggai was written shortly after 421 BC, however, it appears to have been written about Haggai, and not by him. Very little is known about him, as the era he lived in as part of the so-called missing years of Rabbinical history. His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2nd-century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still hedonistic, worshiping the Almighty God (El Shaddai), but still recognizing the existence of the Canaanite gods including Shamayim, who Josiah had banned a century earlier, and Eretz, the earth-goddess.

Based on the contents of Haggai's writing, his prophecy took place in 421 BC, when Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. This places Haggai's life at the end of the 'missing years' of Rabbinical history, which skips 164 years between 587 and 422 BC. In 351 BC, Ezra the Scribe and the Governor of Judea Nehemiah, formally ejected the Samaritan priesthood from the temple in Jerusalem, and rebuilt it. Ezra and Nehemiah, operating under the authority of the Persian King Artaxerxes III, threw the Samaritans out of Jerusalem, and declared they were not Israelites, then set about rebuilding the temple again.

The books of Ezra record that a king named Darius authorized the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the city's walls, and as this Darius lived after a king named Artaxerxes, who had stopped the rebuilding, it can only be Darius II, Artaxerxes I's son. Darius I was Artaxerxes I's grandfather, and Darius III was the final king of the Persian Empire, who had effectively lost control of Anatolia, Canaan, and Egypt before his second year when the reconstruction was authorized. Therefore, Darius III could not have authorized the rebuilding of the temple, as Alexander the Great was already in control of Judea but his second year. Moreover, the temple was recorded as being finished in the month of Adar in year 6 of this Darius, by which time Darius III was dead, and Alexander had been the king over the western half of the Persian Empire for four years.

Darius II's interest in the temple in Jerusalem had also been proven by the so-called Passover Letter, an ancient Aramaic letter discovered in Elephantine, Egypt, and dating to 418 BC, year 5 of Darius II. This letter was sent by High Priest Zerubbabel's son, Hananiah, to the Israelite temple in Elephantine, and explained that King Darius had ordered all Judahites to follow the Passover. The Passover Letter then explained what was required of the Judahites in Elephantine, as the Israelite priesthood in Elephantine apparently had never heard of Passover. A later letter from 407 BC, year 17 of King Darius II, has also survived among the Elephantine papyri, and mentions the High Priest Johanan of the temple in Jerusalem, who was also mentioned in the books of Ezra, supporting the essentially factual history recorded with the books.