[988] This is recorded in the Aramean document which has been incorporated in our Book of Ezra, and there is no reason to doubt its reality. In that document we have already found, in spite of its comparatively late date, much that is accurate history. See above, p. 212. And it is clear that, the Temple being finished, the Jews must have drawn upon themselves the same religious envy of the Samaritans which had previously delayed the construction of the Temple. To meet it, what more natural than that the Jews should have attempted to raise the walls of their city? It is almost impossible to believe that they who had achieved the construction of the Temple in 516 should not, in the next fifty years, make some effort to raise their fallen walls. And indeed Nehemiah’s account of his own work almost necessarily implies that they had done so, for what he did after 445 was not to build new walls, but rather to repair shattered ones. [989] See above, p. 335, n. 970, and below, p. 354, on “Mal.” i. 8. [990] Cf. Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, II., pp. 128-138, the best account of this period. [991] “Mal.” iii. 14. [992] “Mal.” i. 2, 6; iii. 8 f. [993] _Id._ i. 7 f., 12-14. [994] _Id._ i. 6 f., ii. [995] _Id._ ii, 10. [996] “Mal.” ii. 10-16. [997] For proof of this see above, pp. 331 f. [998] “Mal.” iii. 16. [999] iii. 2, 19 ff. Heb., iv. 1 ff. Eng. [1000] iii. 6. [1001] i. 11. CHAPTER XXVI _PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW_ “MALACHI” i.—iv. Beneath this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of “Malachi.” They contain many things of perennial interest and validity: their truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to ourselves. But their chief significance is historical. They illustrate the development of prophecy _within_ the Law. Not _under_ the Law, be it observed. For if one thing be more clear than another about “Malachi’s” teaching, it is that the spirit of prophecy is not yet crushed by the legalism which finally killed it within Israel. “Malachi” observes and enforces the demands of the Deuteronomic law under which his people had lived since the Return from Exile. But he traces each of these to some spiritual principle, to some essential of religion in the character of Israel’s God, which is either doubted or neglected by his contemporaries in their lax performance of the Law. That is why we may entitle his book Prophecy within the Law. * * * * * The essential principles of the religion of Israel which had been shaken or obscured by the delinquency of the people during the half-century after the rebuilding of the Temple were three—the distinctive Love of Jehovah for His people, His Holiness, and His Righteousness. The Book of “Malachi” takes up each of these in turn, and proves or enforces it according as the people have formally doubted it or in their carelessness done it despite.