With the Books of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi (a Jewish tradition says that the Prophetic office died out in Israel with the third book), we come to the last of the Minor Prophets and also to the last, post-exilic period of prophecy.

  The capture of Babylon in 539 B.C. by Cyrus the Great brought its empire to an end and brought a change in the fortunes of its subject peoples, among them the Jews. In 538 Cyrus issued a decree allowing, almost pressing them to return home  (2 Chr. 36:22; Ezr 1:1-4), or as the Cyrus Cylinder , a cuneiform tablet recording events in his reign , puts it: “The gods who dwelt in them I returned to their places and caused them to settle in their eternal shrines. All their people I assembled and returned them to their dwellings.”

  During the Exile, the Edomites to the south, the Philistines and Phoenicians on the coast, and the Samaritans to the north had encroached on the former Kingdom of Judah which had shrunk to the area pf twenty by twenty-five miles on the arrival of the first group of exiles in 537. The return was to be a gradual process; however the rebuilding of the Temple began almost immediately. Opposition from hostile neighbors, especially the Samaritans who considered themselves worshippers of Yahweh and whose offer of help had been refused, and the general poverty of the people led to the project petering out after the Altar of Holocausts was built and the foundations of the building laid. This is the background of the Books of Haggai and Zechariah.

  The Book of Haggai is considered the work of the prophet himself, although it is written in the third person, perhaps to give it greater gravity. We know very little about Haggai, except that he was among those returning from Babylon, possibly as late as 521. If Chapter 2 verse 3 implies that he remembered Solomon’s Temple, he must have been an old man at the time of his prophecies and at the dedication of the Second Temple in 516, which according to tradition he lived to see.

  His book rebukes the apathy of the people towards the rebuilding of the Temple and predicts a Messianic age to come.  Composed of four prophetic utterances uttered between August-September  and November-December, 520, it urges resuming work on the Temple; foretells that the new Temple, now much inferior to Solomon’s, will one day surpass it in splendor; promises that as long as it is not built the people will suffer misfortune; predicts the overthrow of the heathen nations  and the divine favor to be bestowed on Zerubbabel, the governor of Jerusalem who is of Davidic lineage (and an ancestor of St. Joseph – Matt. 1:12-13; Luke 3:27). 

  Zechariah, a priest who returned from Babylon about the same time, joined Haggai in his call for the restoration of the Temple. The introduction to his book is dated October-November, 520, but his ministry extended to November-December, 518, two years after the last of Haggai’s prophecies.

  The Book of Zechariah develops the messianic significance of the restored Temple and of the leadership of Zerubbabel to a greater degree than the Book of Haggai, although in Zechariah the high priest Joshua shares with Zerubbabel the leadership of the messianic community. Perhaps because of his priesthood, Zechariah is also concerned that the liturgy in the restored Temple be the outgrowth of holiness of life rather than a matter of mere religious conformity.

  The Book of Zechariah is divided into two very different parts. Chapters 1-8 consist of a call to conversion; a series of eight visions related to the Temple and the conversion and prosperity of the people; the coronation of Zerubbabel; a brief resume of past history and a discussion of the messianic age to come, both the result of a question on the yearly fast commemorating the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C. The eight visions, the four horsemen, the four horns and the four blacksmiths, the angel and the measuring line, the lampstand, the flying bushel basket, and the four chariots – are interpret for the prophet by an angel. Rabbinical scholars believed this to be a sign that the gift of prophecy was already waning in Israel.

  Chapters 9-14 differ in style, content, and historical context. Although the first eight chapters are almost all entirely prose, much of this section, which has an apocalyptic flavor, is poetry. The prophecies are not dated and are attributed to Zechariah who is not mentioned. There seems to be a direct reference to the Greeks among the enemies of Israel in 9:13. For these and other reasons most scripture scholars believe these chapters to date at earliest from the time of Alexander the Great. Although its presentation is not systematic, the messianic theme predominates, and for this reason the New Testament alludes frequently to this section of the book, e.g. the account of Christès  entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matt. 21:4-5; John 19:37).

  The Book of Malachi dates from around 445 B.C. and its author is unknown. The name Malachi, the Hebrew for “my messenger“ (3:1), was probably given to it by an editor. Some scripture scholars believe Chapters9-11 and 12-14 of Zephaniah and the Book of Malachi were originally three separate, anonymous books concluding the Minor Prophets, and that to make the sacred number of twelve the first two were added to Zephaniah and the third, given the name of Malachi, was left as a separate book.

  Malachi is dialectic in style, made up of six passages  that are similar in construction. Yahweh, through his prophet, makes a statement which is disputed by his hearers and then is developed into an exhortation. It is some sixty years or so since the restoration of the Temple and the people have grown lax because the messianic prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah have not been fulfilled. In his exhortations the prophet asks his hearers to rededicate their lives to Yahweh and to restore the Temple ritual, emphasizing like his predecessors the inner commitment without which ritual is an empty sham.

   Part one of the book reprimands the priests for this neglect of the liturgy, foretelling a pure oblation from the rising of the sun to its going down, and inveighs against mixed marriages and divorce. Part two is messianic, predicting the Day of Yahweh when the Lord will come to His Temple, His way prepared by a forerunner, and will usher in a time of blessing and prosperity for those faithful to Him.

  There is a Jewish tradition that Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were prophets to the Great Synagogue, the assembly of Jewish leaders who established the pattern of worship which is still followed in the synagogues today, and who gave the Hebrew Bible its basic canon of books.

  This Episode No. 44 concludes the updated Guide to Reading the Bible series by Father Fred Power, S.J.  published  originally in the former Canadian Messenger magazine.