The same possession by the ethical spirit reappears, as we shall see, in Zechariah’s orations to the people after the anxieties of building are over and the completion of the Temple is in sight. In these he affirms again that the whole essence of God’s Word by the older prophets has been moral—to judge true judgment, to practise mercy, to defend the widow and orphan, the stranger and poor, and to think no evil of one another. For the sad fasts of the Exile Zechariah enjoins gladness, with the duty of truth and the hope of peace. Again and again he enforces sincerity and the love without dissimulation. His ideals for Jerusalem are very high, including the conversion of the nations to her God. But warlike ambitions have vanished from them, and his pictures of her future condition are homely and practical. Jerusalem shall be no more a fortress, but spread village-wise without walls.[776] Full families, unlike the present colony with its few children and its men worn out in middle life by harassing warfare with enemies and a sullen nature; streets rife with children playing and old folk sitting in the sun; the return of the exiles; happy harvests and springtimes of peace; solid gain of labour for every man, with no raiding neighbours to harass, nor the mutual envies of peasants in their selfish struggle with famine. It is a simple, hearty, practical man whom such prophesying reveals, the spirit of him bent on justice and love, and yearning for the unharassed labour of the field and for happy homes. No prophet has more beautiful sympathies, a more direct word of righteousness, or a braver heart. _Fast not, but love truth and peace. Truth and wholesome justice set ye up in your gates. Be not afraid; strengthen your hands! Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand for the fulness of their years; the city’s streets shall be rife with boys and girls at play._ FOOTNOTES: [757]‎ זֶכֶרְיָה; LXX. Ζαχαρίας. [758] i. 1: בֶּן־בֶרֶכְיָה בֶּן־עִדּוֹ. In i. 7: בֶּרֶכְיָהוּ בֶּן־עִדּוֹא. [759] Ezra v. 1, vi. 14: בַּר־עִדּוֹא. [760] Gen. xxiv. 47, cf. xxix. 5; 1 Kings xix. 16, cf. 2 Kings ix. 14, 20. [761] Isa. viii. 2: בֶּן־יְבֶרֶכְיָהוּ. This confusion, which existed in early Jewish and Christian times, Knobel, Von Ortenberg, Bleek, Wellhausen and others take to be due to the effort to find a second Zechariah for the authorship of chaps. ix. ff. [762] So Vatke, König and many others. Marti prefers it (_Der Prophet Sacharja_, p. 58). See also Ryle on Ezra v. 1. [763] Neh. xii. 4. [764] _Ib._ 16. [765] This is not proved, as Pusey, König (_Einl._, p. 364) and others think, by נַעַר, or young man, of the Third Vision (ii. 8 Heb., ii. 4 LXX. and Eng.). Cf. Wright, _Zechariah and his Prophecies_, p. xvi. [766] v. 1, vi. 14. [767] Above, p. 260.