Recently M. Tony Andrée, _privat-docent_ in the University of Geneva, has issued a large work on Haggai,[624] in which he has sought to prove that the _third_ section of the book, chap. ii. (10) 11-19, is from the hand of another writer than the rest. He admits[625] that in neither form, nor style, nor language is there anything to prove this distinction, and that the ideas of all the sections suit perfectly the condition of the Jews in the time soon after the Return. But he considers that chap. ii. (10) 11-19 interrupts the connection between the sections upon either side of it; that the author is a legalist or casuist, while the author of the other sections is a man whose only ecclesiastical interest is the rebuilding of the Temple; that there are obvious contradictions between chap. ii. (10) 11-19 and the rest of the book; and that there is a difference of vocabulary. Let us consider each of these reasons.
The first, that chap. ii. (10) 11-19 interrupts the connection between the sections on either side of it, is true only in so far as it has a different subject from that which the latter have more or less in common. But the second of the latter, chap. ii. 20-23, treats only of a corollary of the first, chap. ii. 1-9, and that corollary may well have formed the subject of a separate oracle. Besides, as we shall see, chap. ii. 10-19 is a natural development of chap. i.[626] The contradictions alleged by M. Andrée are two. He points out that while chap. i. speaks only of a _drought_,[627] chap. ii. (10) 11-19 mentions[628] as the plagues on the crops shiddāphôn and yērākôn, generally rendered _blasting_ and _mildew_ in our English Bible, and bārād, or _hail_; and these he reckons to be plagues due not to drought but to excessive moisture. But shiddāphôn and yērākôn, which are always connected in the Old Testament and are words of doubtful meaning, are not referred to damp in any of the passages in which they occur, but, on the contrary, appear to be the consequences of drought.[629] The other contradiction alleged refers to the ambiguous verse ii. 18, on which we have already seen it difficult to base any conclusion, and which will be treated when we come to it in the course of translation.[630] Finally, the differences in language which M. Andrée cites are largely imaginary, and it is hard to understand how a responsible critic has come to cite, far more to emphasise them, as he has done. We may relegate the discussion of them to a note,[631] and need here only remark that there is among them but one of any significance: while the rest of the book calls the Temple _the House_ or _the House of Jehovah_ (or _of Jehovah of Hosts_), chap. ii. (10) 11-19 styles it _palace_, or temple, of Jehovah.[632] On such a difference between two comparatively brief passages it would be unreasonable to decide for a distinction of authorship.