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HAUPT: THE CORONATION OF ZEEUBBABEL 209
THE CORONATION OF ZERUBBABEL
Paul Haupt
Johns Hopkins University
In my paper The Inauguration of the Second Temple (JBL
33, 161) 1 I have shown that the offspring of David's loins, who
is to be placed on Judah 's throne, Ps. 132 : ll b , is Zerubbabel
whose birth (c. 538) is hailed in the second stanza of the patriotic
poem in Is. 9: 1-6 (JBL 35, 283, below). Ps. 132 was originally
not included in the collection of the Songs of the Return (ZAT
34, 145; JBL 33, 163) but seems to have been substituted for
Ps. 110 in which an enthusiastic follower of Zerubbabel expresses
the hope that this Davidic scion will restore the national inde-
pendence of Judah, shattering the great king, the head over the
vast earth, i. e. Darius Hystaspis (AJSL 23, 231, n. 33). In
the Achsemenian inscriptions the Persian kings repeatedly style
themselves sar qaqqari rapasti, and in the Visions of Zechariah
(4: 14; 6:5) Darius is called the lord of the whole earth (JBL
32, 112, n. 18). The Jewish priests were inclined to support
the Persian government, whereas the nationalists hoped that
Zerubbabel would rule over Judah as the legitimate king (Heb.
malM-gddq) . 2 The relations between the Davidic prince and the
Persianizing priests may have been strained, but the patriotic
poems of this period emphasize the fact that Zerubbabel is a
faithful follower of Jhvh (cf. Hag. 2 : 23 ; Zech. 4 : 6.9 ; 6 : 13 ;
Mic. 5:3; Pss. 20:4.7.8; 21:2.6.8; 110:1; 132:10). Ed.
Meyer, Der Papyrusfund von Elephantine (1912) pp. 1.96
says that Judaism is a creation of the Persian empire. The
Persian kings supported the Jewish theocracy (Ex. 19: 6). Nor
did Nebuchadnezzar suppress the religion of the Jews (EB 11
15, 386 a ).
For le-'olam after ue-attd kohen in Ps. 110 : 4 we must restore
1 For the abbreviations see vol. 36 of this Journal, p. 75.
2 ' Al-dibrati malM-oddq may have been an archaic legal formula. Cf.
also Mic. 54, n. 40; JAOS 38, 332, and my paper Zerubbabel and Melehize-
dek in JSOB 2, 78.
210 JOURNAL OP BIBLICAL LITERATURE
limini, at my right, as in Zech. 6 : 13 (JBL 32, 113). The read-
ing IS-' Slam is due to the 11- Slam at the end of the preceding
line in which the second hemistich Icis'aka le- Slam has been sup-
pressed (OLZ 12, 67, n. 1) . Both in Zech. 6 : 13 and Ps. 110 : 4
hohen, priest, seems to have been substituted for m'dlh, king, or
mosel, ruler (JBL 36, 140) just as in Zechariah's prediction of
the coronation of Zerubbabel the name of the Davidic scion has
been replaced by the name of the high priest Joshua. Joshua
has been inserted instead of Zerubbabel, not only in Zech. 6,
but also in Zech. 3 (JBL 32, 114). Also in Haggai (1: 1.12.14;
2 : 2.4) the name of the high priest Joshua represents a subse-
quent insertion. In Zech. 6 : 13 we may read malk instead of
hohen, and in Ps. 110 : 4 iimsol, thou wilt rule. Ps. 110 : 4 should
be read as follows :
tipyh 7ND3 any tfp jntrj
rjruf-^o 'rnm-ty *yvh ^tpan h/ini
He swore and will not revoke : Thy throne is for ever,
So thou shalt rule at my right hand as the rightful king.
Gen. 14 was written at the same period (at the beginning of
519 b. c.) for the encouragement of the adherents of the Davidic
scion : just as Abraham with his 318 servants was able to con-
quer King Chedorlaomer of Blam and the kings allied with him,
so Zerubbabel will be successful in his rebellion against the great
king of Persia (OLZ 18, 71; cf. also PSBA 40, 92). Elam is
named in Gen. 14 instead of Persia, because in the days of
Abraham Persia did not exist : Cyrus the Great is the first king
of Persia; he welded the Persian tribes into a single nation;
originally he was king of the Elamite district of Ansan (EB 11
7, 707 a ; 21, 206 b .253 a ). The term malki-gadq, rightful king,
was afterwards misinterpreted as a proper name {cf. ZAT 34,
142; WP 198, n. 15; JAOS 34, 418). The Melchizedek episode
in Gen. 14 is a subsequent insertion, added at a time when the
high priest had become the head of the Jewish nation after the
suppression of Zerubbabel's rebellion in the spring of 519.
There was no high priest of Judah before the reign of Darius
Hystaspis (521-486). The object of the Melchizedek episode is
to inculcate the importance of the payment of the tithe to the
priesthood (cf. EB 3845, last line; 4907, 1. 2; 5104, 1. 2).
haupt: the coronation of zerubbabel 211
Ps. 110 exhibits the same (elegiac) meter (Mic. 22, n. 1) as
the other Songs of the Return, whereas Ps. 132 is composed of
lines with 3 + 3 beats (JAOS 27, 109; JBL 33, 169). The
priestly redactors may have considered Ps. 110 too revolutionary ;
therefore they substituted Ps. 132 which is more ecclesiastic.
Similarly the tetrastich Hag. 2, 20-23, which stood originally at
the end of c. 1, was suppressed and subsequently appended at
the end of the Book (JBL 32, 113, below). In both Psalms,
which may have been composed by the same patriotic poet, some
revolutionary statements have been eliminated : as stated above,
we must restore in Ps. 110 after the beginning of the second
pentastich, He swore and will not revoke, the hemistich thy
throne is for ever, and in Ps. 132 : 10 the original line Extend
his sceptre from Zion that he conquer his foes in war has been
replaced by a tame variant of v. 16 : Let thy priests he clothed
with right, let thy faithful shout for joy (JBL 33, 162).
The coronation of Zerubbabel, which is predicted in Zech.
6 : 11, where the priests have substituted the name of the high
priest Joshua, is glorified in Ps. 21. The poet says there in the
first triplet :
The wish of his heart Thou hast granted him,
not denied the request of his lips.
Thou 'It grant him blessings of goodness,
setting a crown of gold on his head.
The wish of his heart and the request of his lips were the corona-
tion as King of Judah (v. 5, he asked of Thee life, Thou hast
given him length of days, is a subsequent addition) . The same
desires were imputed 75 years later by Sanballat to Nehemiah
(Neh. 6:6). The Jewish priests, who sympathized with the
Persian government, were opposed to the restoration of the
Davidic kingdom. Their attitude is reflected in the Deutero-
nomistic chapter 1 S 8. Ezra told the people (Neh. 9 : 36) that
they were servants, and the land, which Jhvh gave to their
fathers, yielded its increase to the kings whom Jhvh had set over
them because of their sins. The poet therefore promises Zerub-
babel in the second section of Ps. 21 : 3 Thy hand will reach thy
3 Budde, Die sohonsten Psalmen (1915) p. 105, regards vv. 9-13 as a
later addition, and v. 14 as a liturgical conclusion.
212 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
foes, thy right hand will catch those who hate thee. This
refers not only to the Persians, but also to the Jews who supported
the Persian government, just as the Hellenizers in the days of
Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164) abetted the Syrians. Their
breed is to be swept from the land. The poet says : Though they
intended evil against thee, planned a plot, they will not pre-
vail. Jhvh will make Zerubbabel a blessing for ever, so that
future generations will say, Mayest thou be as blessed and suc-
cessful as Zerubbabel. But the hopes of the enthusiastic fol-
lowers of the Davidic scion were not realized : their patriotic
uprising was nipped in the bud, and their leader, it may be
supposed, was put to death, probably crucified (JBL 33, 161).
The Temple was not completed at that time, but the coronation
no doubt took place before the altar within the Temple court,
and the surrounding wall of the sacred precincts may have been
restored. The restoration of the Temple had been begun in the
fall of 520, and the coronation of Zerubbabel must have taken
place in the spring of 519. Some of the ancient gateways of the
Temple enclosure may have survived the destruction of Jerusalem
in 586, even if the doors were burned. The poet does not refer
to the delatot, but to the se'arim and petaMmS These venerable
witnesses of Judah's former glory need no longer be downcast,
they can lift up their head with pride, because there is to be a
Davidic prince again on the throne of Judah. The section in
which the poet apostrophizes the ancient gateways, through which
the glorious king is to enter, has been detached 5 and appended
to the religious poem in Ps. 24 the first two lines of which should
be prefixed to Ps. 8 (cf. JAOS 38, 329) . The answer to the ques-
tion Who is the king of glory 1 was originally not Jhvh, but our
prince, David's son, Zerubbabel, our king. For the lines prais-
ing his prowess (vv. 17.20 — Ps. 24:8.10) cf. the epithet
el-gioo6r[%m], leader of warriors, in the poem (Is. 9: 5) written
at the time of the birth of Zerubbabel (see my paper Magnificat
and Benedictus in AJP 40, 64-75).
4 These terms do not denote a cataracta or portcullis (DB 2, 111b).
'Cf. the remarks on Hagg. 2: 20-23 in JBL 32, 113, below; also Eccl.
4, 1. 5; BL 96, n. 1. See also the abstract of my paper on Suppressed
Passages in the OT, printed in the Actes du Seizieme Congris International
des Orientalistes (Athens, 1912) p. 75.
HAUPT: THE CORONATION OP ZERUBBABEL 213
If we append the final section of Ps. 24, the poem consists of
three sections each of which comprises two triplets with 3 + 3
beats in each line. The first section is addressed to Jhvh ; the
second to Zerubbabel; the third, to the gateways of the Temple
enclosure. In the final triplet all listeners may have joined with
the singers.
This poem may be translated as follows :
Psalm 21
A i 2 aln Thy strength the king joys, Jhvh ;
in Thy help he greatly exults.
3 The wish of his heart Thou hast granted him,
not denied the request of his lips. { }/3
4 Thou It grant him blessings of goodness,
a golden crown Thou 'It set on his head.
ii 6 Through Thy help great is his glory,
Thou 'It lay on him splendor and majesty;
7 7Thou'lt make him a blessing for ay,s
Thou 'It gladden his face with joy.
8 For the king trusts in Jhvh,
through Elyon's grace he'll not totter, j Selah \
B iii 9 Thy hand will reach 4hy foes,
thy right hand will catch those who hate thee ;
10 Thou 'It place them in a fiery furnace,?
Jhvh in His wrath will devour them ^
11 Their fruit thou 'It sweep from the land,
their descendants from among men.
iv 12 Though they intended evil against thee,
planned a plot, they will not prevail ;
13 ^Thou'lt aim at their face with thy bowstring,
thou 'It make them turn their back.
14 Arise, Jhvh, in Thy strength,
that we may sing and chant Thy deeds. [Selah]
(a) 1 For the Liturgy. Psalm. Davidic
(0) 5 He asked of Thee life, Thou hast given him length of days.
( 7 ) 7 for (5) for ever and ay ( e ) 9 to all (j) 10 at the time of thy wrath
(jj)lOflre will consume them (#) 13 though
214 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
C v 15 Lift up your head, ye gateways !
lift yourselves up, ye ancient portals!
16 Let the king of glory enter !
who is the king of glory ?
17 Our prince, the strong, the valiant,
David's son, the valiant in battle.
vi 18 Lift up your head, ye gateways !
lift yourselves up, ye ancient portals !
19 Let the king of glory enter!
who, then, is the king of glory ?
20 Zerubbabel, the captain of the hosts,
our king is the king of glory. []
The ma after bisu'atekd in the first line is the emphatic -ma
which we find also in Prov. 30 : 13 and Ezek. 16 : 30 (Est . 49, 13 ;
G-B 16 401 b , B). In Assyrian this enclitic -ma is often appended
to suffixes; cf. JAOS 16, cix. Also the last word of the first
line is enclitic (cf. JBL 36, 251) : it was pronounced mod, not
me'od (cf. the remarks on son, shoe, and son, peace, in Est. 28 ;
JBL 35, 283; contrast 36, 257).— The word for request in v. 3
corresponds to the Assyrian eristu, desire; it should be read
arest, with s, not west (ZDMG 65, 561, 1. 28 ; cf. JBL. 36, 257).
In Arabic we have udrasa, to be greedy, to crave (syn. tdmi'a,
hdriga, jdsi'a) . In Ps. 61 : 5 we may adopt Hupf eld 's reading
drest, desire, or, more correctly, ierest, a form like gebert, con-
struct of gebira, instead of jsrmsdt, heritage. For initial Aleph
= u and i cf. ZA 2, 278 ;~ NBSS 203.— It is interesting that
both in Ps. 21 and in Gen. 14 God is called Elyon which is gener-
ally supposed to mean The Most High, but which may denote
Jhvh as a god of the mountains; this is also the connotation
of sadddi (GB 16 809 a ; ZDMG 69, 171, 1. 3).
Zerubbabel's throne was not very stable, but the poet assures
him in v. 8 that it will not totter. Olshausen's view that the
king looks back on a long successful reign is unwarranted.
Hitzig suggested that be-'ozzekd in w. 1.14 might allude to
Uzziah (779-740). He thought that both Pss. 21 and 22 were
composed in 811. He admitted, however, that tehaddehu in Ps.
21 : 7 and nit'oddd in Ps. 20 : 9 pointed to the post-Exilic period.
But the Piel of xadu, to rejoice, is used also in Assyrian: he
HAUPT: THE CORONATION OF ZERTJBBABEL 215
cheered my heart (lit. liver) is uxaddi kabitti. Hitzig
pointed out that the foes in v. 9 were not necessarily foreign
foes; he deemed it better to refer especially v. 11 to internal
enemies. According to De Wette-Baur (1856) Ewald
believed that the king might be Josiah (640-609) or even a later
ruler, but in the third edition of his Psalmen (1866) p. 85 he
was inclined to refer this poem to Jeroboam II (783-743).
Grsetz referred Ps. 20 to Josiah, 6 and Ps. 21 to Hezekiah (727-
699). Kittel (1914) p. 80 T thinks that Ps. 20 originated in the
period between Hezekiah and Josiah. Cheyne was inclined to
refer both Pss. 20 and 21 to the Maccabee Simon (142-135).
Duhm regards Ps. 20 as a Sadducean psalm glorifying Alex-
ander Jannams (103-76). Wellhausen, Skizzen 6, 169 (1899)
says that Pss. 20 and 21 are undoubtedly post-Exilic, whereas
Budde (1915) 3 thinks that it is as clear as noonday that Ps. 20
is pre-Exilic. Sellin, Serubbabel (1898) p. 190 correctly
referred Pss. 20 and 21 to Zerubbabel, but he assigned also Pss.
45 and 72, which glorify Alexander Balas (ZA 30, 94) and
Ptolemy Philadelphus (JBL 33, 170) to the same period,
whereas he regarded Ps. 110 as Maccabean (cf. op. cit. pp. 192.
194). According to Schultz (1888) both Pss. 20 and 21 are
Davidic.
Duhm says that tasit (v. 4) is naturlich preterite, but it is,
of course, future. — The suffix -ka at the end of v. 7 is due to
dittography. — For timga in the second hemistich of v. 9 we may
substitute tassig. Kautzsch and Kittel read timhac, and
Duhm: tabo; cf. the remarks on misldht, JBL 35, 288. — For
ke-tannwr (v. 10) we must read be-tannur; Eeuss rendered:
in eine feurige Esse stossest du sie. — Natu (v. 12) is unobjection-
able ; Lat. intendere means to stretch out, stretch toward, direct
toward (c/. Gen. 39:21; Is. 66: 12; Ezr. 7:28; 9:9). Livy
says crimen in aliquem intendere. It is certainly not necessary
to read himtu, they brought, from metd (Dan. 4: 25) = Ethiop.
amge'u, although we find in Arabic dntd for dmtd (ZDMG 40,
6 A translation of Ps. 20 is given below, in the paper on Assyr. dagalu,
to look for, in the OT.
7 On the same page Kittel writes Bosla' -na for MM' anna, evidently
regarding the & of the emphatic imperative MM' a as a Path furtive. The
imperative is either MM' or MM' a. Cf . ZAT 28, 69.148 ; also Proverbs
(SBOT) 67, 44.
216 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
736). Heb. natd corresponds to Ethiop. mattdua; cf. below,
conclusion of the paper on the Tophet Gate. Wildeboer 's ren-
dering pour out (ZAT 17, 180) is gratuitous. — In v. 13 the two
hemistichs must be transposed, and for sakm we must read
sikmam, preceded by le-hafnot (cf. JBL 36, 252). Similarly
iedassene in Ps. 20 : 4 is haplography for the emphatic iedas-
senennd, He will incinerate it. 6 The omission of the suffix in
sikmam is due to haplography, while the plural i in be-metareka
is dittography of the r (cf. Mic. 74, <o; JBL 34, 59, 1. 13; 36,
251). Reuss rendered correctly: Du wirst machen, dass sie
den Bucken kehren, but this requires the addition of the suffix
to sakm and the insertion of le-hafnot (cf. 1 S 10:8). For
penehem at the end of v. 13 we may read panemo; cf . Ps. 11 : 7
and piridmo at the beginning of v. 11. We may read also
zar'dmo in v. 11, sikmamo in v. 13, and ieballe' emo in v. 10; the
omission of the final -o in the last two cases may be due to
haplography. — K% at the beginning of v. 13 is due to vertical
dittography, as is also the ki before tesitehu at the beginning of
v. 7. — The le before the gloss kol in v. 9 should be omitted and
prefixed to '61dm ua-'dd at the end of v. 5, which is a misplaced
gloss to la-' ad in v. 7. — For paneka in the gloss le- et paneka we
must read appekd; cf. be-ipm appo in Ps. 110 : 5 (AJSL 23, 232).
Briggs' rendering in the time (of the setting) of thy face
(against them) is impossible. Also in Lam. 4: 16 we must read
appe (cf. ark appdim, slow to anger, and Prov. 30:33) instead
of pene; the two lines of this couplet must be transposed; the
acrostic line is v. 16 b .
The Hebrew text should be read as follows :
•v^-nwn -nrn~nn "ynwa rfoa b)y
6ii
:V}fl-nK nraco irnnn »-up rrqia irriT^n 7 7
{n^D}' jcdi^- 1 ?!! fvty norm nino ncpi i^n-o s
8 Cf . JVafe. 27, below. Similarly we must read in Zeph. 1 : 14 qarob
u-memahhir-mod, the last word being enclitic.
HAUPT: THE CORONATION OP ZEEUBBABEL
217
raptor y'wn "p»o»
loifay 19 N3 rr\{V
7^k' *]T fcttfOD 9i"B
n3Nn pNo ions ii
ji^v-^a nsro i3tJ>n njp ypr ibj-'3 i' 2iv
:ian3i> n^arf? lo^irn* lo^s-ty pi3n "jTjroa is
[rf?D] qjiinj rrpji rrvtpn ' "]^3 rnrr rran 14
jnarfto "n3J ip-|3
m33n -f?9 nr-Nin-»9
iii 1
i' -n33n ^p wa;i i«
-113:11 rw Wtw 17
1 1 1
D3 wi ony& Mtw is vi
1 ' -1133,1 -pS tfOyi 19
N3Vn nb*' l ?33-)r 20
iOD'o 1 i"ik ib-nnnj -]bd hm 0"p e ((3) in 1 ? iidjd hsjb 1 ? i («)
o is(e) mth3tim(rj) iasDV3io(j) bjs («) pyi dSi^S) 5 (5) '31(1)
Cheyne (1888) said of this poem : The tone adopted toward the
king reminds us of expressions in the Assyrian royal psalms.
Gnnkel, Ausgewahlte Psalmen (1911) p. 40 has cited a number
of Assyrian and Egyptian parallels in his interpretation of Ps.
20. Ps. 21 would read in Assyrian as follows (cf. JBL 31, 123.
125) :
2 alama ina-dananika sarru-ixddi ina-litikd-ma ma'adis ires
3 Cummerat libbisn tusaksidsu eristi saptdsu ld-taprusfi{}
4 yKirbdti tdbdti tusamxarsu-ma agi-xurdgi resasu tuppar
6 Ina-litika tanittusu surbdt melamme u-salummatu elisu-tardmi
7 Kiribta ana-mati-mad tasdkansu zimasu ina-xiddti tunammar \k%nu"
8 Assu-sarru ana-lama ittakal-ma ina-remi sa-il-sadi ul-uktammas. — Su-
9 Qdtuka dbekae imdgi-ma imittulca za'ireka ikdsad
10 Ina-tinur isdti tanddi-siinuti-mat; lama ina-uggatiiu ibbatsunuti-rj
11 Nanndbsun istu-mdti tuxallaq u-zdrsun istu-mari amUuti
8 For sukinv,, participle muskinu, see my paper on Selah, reverential
prostration, in the Expository Times, vol. 22, p. 375a; contrast JBL 36,
146, below. Cf. also my paper The Son of Man in The Monist, January,
1919, p. 124, and the abstract in JAOS 37, 14.
218
JOURNAL OP BIBLICAL LITERATURE
12 Sa-elika limutta ikpudu-ma dabdbS ixsusu la-ultallatu
13 Eli-pdnisun qastaka tusalld-ma ekalisun arkdti usaxxaru [kinu
14 lama ina-dandnika isizd-ma epsStika nund 'ad-ma nusammar. — £u-
15 Bdbdni resekunu suqqU-ma
16 Sar tanitti Urub
17 Nasikuni dandannu qarradu
18 Bdbdni resekunu suqqtt-ma
19 Sar tanitti Urub
20 Zurub-Bdbili mumd'ir ummdni
niribeti ullati nasqa-ma
mannu-su Sar tanitti
mdr-Damidi le'i tamxari
neribeti ullati naUqd-ma
manna-ma su sar-tanitti
sarruni su sar-tanitti
(a) 1 ana dulli sa Hi. eamaru. sa Damidi
(/3) 5 Assu-baldti kdsa ugalli-ma ardk um$ taddinsu
(y) 7 assu (S) 5 ana mati-ma ana arkdt ume
(f)10 ina umi uggatika (rj) isdtu ikkalsunuti
(e) 9 kalisun
{$) 13 assu
