Note 881 — Chapter XXI

The Hebrew text here has Joshua son of Jehosadak, the high priest, but there is good reason to suppose that the crown was meant for Zerubbabel, but that the name of Joshua was inserted instead in a later age, when the high priest was also the king—see below, note. For these reasons Ewald had previously supposed that the whole verse was genuine, but that there had fallen out of it the words and on the head of Zerubbabel. Ewald found a proof of this in the plural form עטרות, which he rendered crowns. (So also Wildeboer, A. T. Litteratur, p. 297.) But עטרות is to be rendered crown; see ver. 11, where it is followed by a singular verb. The plural form refers to the several circlets of which it was woven.