IX.
On the date and genuineness of Zechariah 9-14, see Introduction. It has been urged as an argument for the earlier date of Zechariah 9:1-8, that this oracle speaks of several cities and kingdoms as independent, which had lost their independence before the period of the return from exile. Thus Damascus lost its independence when Tiglath-pileser overthrew Syria in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, and Hamath was subdued to the Assyrians in the time of Hezekiah. But since the reference to Tyre and Sidon is admitted by the objectors to afford no clear indication of the early date of the prophecy, we may reply simply that Jeremiah prophesied against Damascus and Hamath even after Nebuchadnezzar had overrun their territories (Jeremiah 49:23-37), and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:20) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 25:15-17) denounced judgments on the Philistines, so that it is not strange that a post-exilian prophet should speak in general terms of the disasters which would overtake these nations when the Medo-Persian empire should be overthrown by the Greeks. Moreover, in our note on Zechariah 9:2, we point out that the prophecies contained in Zechariah 9:10 received an accurate fulfilment in the invasion of Palestine by Alexander the Great (B.C. 333). As early as B.C. 499, when Sardis was burnt by the Ionians, an eventual struggle between “the sons of Greece” and “the sons of Zion” must have been foreseen. But these prophecies may have been delivered, even by Zechariah himself, at a still later date than this. (See Introduction.)