HAGERSTOWN, a city and township of Maryland, United States, capital of Washington county, is situated near the west bank of Antietam creek, 20 miles from its confluence with the Potomac river, and at the junction point of three railways, 86 miles W.N.W. by rail from Baltimore. It is a well-built town with very few wooden houses, and possesses a fine new court-house, a male and a female academy, and a national aud a state bank. It depends for its prosperity chiefly on agriculture, and has flour-mills, bone-mills, machine shops, and a tannery, and considerable trada in agricultural produce. The population in 1850 was 3834; in 1860, 4132; and in 1870, 5779, of whom 869 were coloured.
HAG-FISH, Glutinous Hag, or Borez (Myacine), a marine fish which forms with the lampreys one of the lowest orders of vertebrates (Cydostomata). Similar in form to a lamprey, it is usually found within the body of dead cod or haddock, on the flesh of which it feeds after having buried itself in the abdomen. When caught, it secretes a thick glutinous slime in such quantity that it is commjnly believed to have the power of converting water into glue. It is occasionally found in the North Atlantic and other temperate seas of the globe.
HAGGAI, the tenth in order of the minor prophets. The name Haggai (^D, Greek Ayyatos, whence Aggeus in the English version of the Apocrypha) is usually held to be an adjective meaning festive. But Wellhausen[1] is pro bably right in taking the word as a contraction for Hagariah (Jehovah hath girded], just as Zaccai (Zacchteus) is known to be a contraction of Zechariah (cf. Derenbourg, His- toire de la Palestine, pp. 95, 150).
The book of Haggai contains four short prophecies delivered between the first day of the sixth month and the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month that is, between September an! December of the second year of Darius the king. The king in question must be Darius Hystaspis, who came to the throne 521 b.c. Scaliger, Drusius, and other older writers think of Darius Nothus (acc. 424b.c.) ; but this is impossible, since in chap. ii. 3 Haggai speaks of old men as still alive who had seen the first temple in its splendour before 587b.c.[2] The language of the prophet suggests the probability that he was himself one of those whose memories reached across the seventy years of the captivity, and that his prophetic work began in extreme old age. This supposition agrees well with the shortnsss of the period covered by his book, and with the fact that Zechariah, who bigan to prophecy in the same autumn and was associated with Haggai s labours (Ezra v. 1), afterwards appears as the leading prophet in Jerusalem (Zech. vii. 1-4). We know nothing further of the personal history of Haggai from the Bible. Later traditions may be read in Carpzov s Introductio, pars 3, cap. xvi. On the mention of Haggai in the titles of several psalms in the Septuagint (Psalms cxxxvii., cxlv.-cxlviii.) and other versions, see Koehler s Weissagungen Haygai s, p. 32. These titles are without value, and moreover vary in MSS. Eusebius did not find them in the Hexaplar Septuagint.[3]
In his first prophecy (i. 1-11) Haggai addresses Zerub- babel and Joshua, rebuking the people for leaving the temple unbuilt while they are busy in providing panelled houses for themselves. The prevalent famine and distress are due to God s indignation at such remissness. Let them build the house, and God will take pleasure in it and delivered in the following month, Haggai forbids the people to be disheartened by the apparent meanness of the new temple. The silver and gold are the Lord s. He will soon shake all nations and bring their choicest gifts to adorn His house. Its glory shall be greater than that of the former temple, and in this place He will give peace. A third prophecy (ii. 10-19) contains a promise, enforced by a figure drawn from the priestly ritual, that God will remove famine and bless the land from the day of the foundation of the temple onwards. Finally, in ii. 20-23, Zerubbabel is assured of God s special love and protection in the impend ing catastrophe of kingdoms and nations to which the prophet had formerly pointed as preceding the glorification of God s house on Zion. In thus looking forward to a shaking of all nations Haggai agrees with earlier prophecies, especially Isa. xxiv.-xxvii., while his picture of the glory and peace of the new Zion and its temple is drawn from the great anonymous prophet who penned Isa. Ix. and Ixvi. The characteristic features of the book are the importance assigned to the personality of Zerubbabel and the almost sacramental significance attached to the temple. The hopes fixed on Zerubbabel, the chosen of the Lord, dear to Him as His signet ring (cf. Jer. xxii. 24), are a last echo in Old Testament prophecy of the theocratic importance of the house of David. In the book of Zechariah Zerubbabel has already fallen into the background aud the high priest is the leading figure of the Judean community.[4] The stem of David is superseded by the house of Zadok, the kingship has yielded to the priesthood, and the extinction of national hopes gives new importance to that strict organization of the hierarchy for which Ezekiel had prepared the way by his sentence of disfranchisement against the non-Zadokite priests.
between Haggai aud the prophets before the captivity, his post-exile standpoint is characteristically marked in the central importance which he attaches to the temple. The prophets who spoke under the shadow of the first temple held quite another language.[5] To Isaiah and Jeremiah the religion of Israel and the holiness of Jerusalem have little to do with the edifice of the temple. The city is holy because it is the seat of Jehovah s sovereignty on earth, exerted in His dealings with and for the state of Judah and the kingdom of David. The proof that Jehovah s throne is in Jerusalem lies in the history of what He has done for His people, or, if a visible pledge is needed, it must be sought not in the temple but, in accord ance vvitli antique ideas, in the ark (Jer. iii. 16) or in the altar with its sacred flame (Isa. xxix. 1; xxxi. 9).[6] But, in the desolation of Jerusalem, the extinction of the political life with which all religion had till then been inseparably bound up gave a new meaning to the old prophetic doctrine that the service of Jehovah is the true vocation of Israel a new significance to the ruined temple and all its ordinances of worship. " The holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised Thee" (Isa. Ixiv. 11) was a chief thought of the sorrowing exiles (Lamentations, passim), and to one anonymous writer the Lord s vengeance on Babylon appears eminently as vengeance for His temple (Jer. 1. 28). The
great prophet of the captivity the author of Isa. xl.-
- ↑ In Bleek s Einleitung, 4th ed. , p. 434.
- ↑ Darius Nothus was thought of because Ezra iv. 6-23 seems to require an Artaxerxes before him. But it is now generally admitted that these verses refer to the building of the wall of Jerusalem, and in chronological order should follow chaps, v., vi. The Eabbinieal com mentators with their usual ignorance on points of history make Darius the son of Ahasuerus and Esther.
- ↑ See the cote on Pa. cxlv. i. in Field s Hexapla. acknowledge the honour paid to Him. The rebuke took effect, and the people began to work at the temple, strengthened by the prophet s assurance that the Lord was with them (i. 12-15). In a second prophecy (ii. 1-9)
- ↑ After the foundation of the temple Zerubbabel disappears from his tory and lives only in legend, which continued to busy itself with his story, as we see from the apocryphal book of Esdras (cf. Dereubourg, Hist, de la Palestine, chap. i.).
- ↑ Compare for example Jer. vii.
- ↑ Haggai (ii. 14) attaches no value to altar and sacrifice so long as the temple is unbuilt.
