Note 885 — Chapter XXI

With this phrase, vouched for by both the Heb. and the Sept., the rest of the received text cannot be harmonised. There were two: one is the priest just mentioned who is to be at the right hand of the crowned. The received text makes this crowned one to be the high priest Joshua. But if there are two and the priest is only secondary, the crowned one must be Zerubbabel, whom Haggai has already designated as Messiah. Nor is it difficult to see why, in a later age, when the high priest was sovereign in Israel, Joshua’s name should have been inserted in place of Zerubbabel’s, and at the same time the phrase priest at his right hand, to which the LXX. testifies in harmony with the two of them, should have been altered to the reading of the received text, priest upon his throne. With the above agree Smend, A. T. Rel. Gesch., 343 n., and Nowack.