1tn Aram “son.” According to Zech 1:1 he was actually the grandson of Iddo.

2tn Aram “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.

4tn Aram “arose and began.” For stylistic reasons this has been translated as a single concept.

5tn Aram “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.

8tn Aram “the eye of their God was on.” The idiom describes the attentive care that one exercises in behalf of the object of his concern.

9tn Aram “they did not stop them.”

10tn Aram “[could] go.” On this form see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 58, §169.

11tn Aram “and it was written in its midst.”

12tn Aram “all peace.”

13tn Aram “stones of rolling.” The reference is apparently to stones too large to carry.

14sn This great king of Israel would, of course, be Solomon.

15tn Aram “fathers.”

16tn Aram “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.”

20tn Aram “they were given.”

21tn Aram “upon its place.”

22tn Aram “from then and until now.”

23tn Aram “if upon the king it is good.”

24tn Aram “the house of the treasures of the king.”