The only other matter of Introduction to the prophet Haggai is his name. The precise form[635] is not elsewhere found in the Old Testament; but one of the clans of the tribe of Gad is called Haggi,[636] and the letters H G I occur as the consonants of a name on a Phœnician inscription.[637] Some[638] have taken Haggai to be a contraction of Haggiyah, the name of a Levitical family,[639] but although the final _yod_ of some proper names stands for Jehovah, we cannot certainly conclude that it is so in this case. Others[640] see in Haggai a probable contraction for Hagariah,[641] as Zaccai, the original of Zacchæus, is a contraction of Zechariah.[642] A more general opinion[643] takes the termination as adjectival,[644] and the root to be “hag,” _feast_ or _festival_.[645] In that case Haggai would mean _festal_, and it has been supposed that the name would be given to him from his birth on the day of some feast. It is impossible to decide with certainty among these alternatives. M. Andrée,[646] who accepts the meaning _festal_, ventures the hypothesis that, like “Malachi,” Haggai is a symbolic title given by a later hand to the anonymous writer of the book, because of the coincidence of his various prophecies with solemn festivals.[647] But the name is too often and too naturally introduced into the book to present any analogy to that of “Malachi”; and the hypothesis may be dismissed as improbable and unnatural. Nothing more is known of Haggai than his name and the facts given in his book. But as with the other prophets whom we have treated, so with this one, Jewish and Christian legends have been very busy. Other functions have been ascribed to him; a sketch of his biography has been invented. According to the Rabbis he was one of the men of the Great Synagogue, and with Zechariah and “Malachi” transmitted to that mythical body the tradition of the older prophets.[648] He was the author of several ceremonial regulations, and with Zechariah and “Malachi” introduced into the alphabet the terminal forms of the five elongated letters.[649] The Christian Fathers narrate that he was of the tribe of Levi,[650] that with Zechariah he prophesied in exile of the Return,[651] and was still young when he arrived in Jerusalem,[652] where he died and was buried. A strange legend, founded on the doubtful verse which styles him _the messenger of Jehovah_, gave out that Haggai, as well as for similar reasons “Malachi” and John the Baptist, were not men, but angels in human shape.[653] With Zechariah Haggai appears on the titles of Psalms cxxxvii., cxlv.-cxlviii. in the Septuagint; cxi., cxlv., cxlvi. in the Vulgate; and cxxv., cxxvi. and cxlv.-cxlviii. in the Peshitto.[654] “In the Temple at Jerusalem he was the first who chanted the Hallelujah, ... wherefore we say: Hallelujah, which is the hymn of Haggai and Zechariah.”[655] All these testimonies are, of course, devoid of value.