1tnAram “son.” According to Zech 1:1 he was actually the grandson of Iddo.
2tnAram “and Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo the prophet.”
3map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
4tnAram “arose and began.” For stylistic reasons this has been translated as a single concept.
5tnAram “who placed to you a command?” So also v. 9.
6tn The exact meaning of the Aramaic word אֻשַּׁרְנָא (’ussarna’) here and in v. 9 is uncertain (BDB 1083 s.v.). The LXX and Vulgate understand it to mean “wall.” Here it is used in collocation with בַּיְתָא (bayta’, “house” as the temple of God), while in 5:3, 9 it is used in parallelism with this term. It might be related to the Assyrian noun ashurru (“wall”) or ashru (“sanctuary”; so BDB). F. Rosenthal, who translates the word “furnishings,” thinks that it probably enters Aramaic from Persian (Grammar, 62-63, §189).
7tc The translation reads with one medieval Hebrew MS, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta אֲמַרוּ (’amaru, “they said”) rather than the reading אֲמַרְנָא (’amarna’, “we said”) of the MT.
8tnAram “the eye of their God was on.” The idiom describes the attentive care that one exercises in behalf of the object of his concern.
9tnAram “they did not stop them.”
10tnAram “[could] go.” On this form see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 58, §169.
11tnAram “and it was written in its midst.”
12tnAram “all peace.”
13tnAram “stones of rolling.” The reference is apparently to stones too large to carry.
14sn This great king of Israel would, of course, be Solomon.
15tnAram “fathers.”
16tnAram “hand” (singular).
17sn A reference to the catastrophic events of 586 b.c.
18sn Cyrus was actually a Persian king, but when he conquered Babylon in 539 b.c. he apparently appropriated to himself the additional title “king of Babylon.” The Syriac Peshitta substitutes “Persia” for “Babylon” here, but this is probably a hyper-correction.
19tn Or “temple.”
20tnAram “they were given.”
21tnAram “upon its place.”
22tnAram “from then and until now.”
23tnAram “if upon the king it is good.”
24tnAram “the house of the treasures of the king.”