Septuagint: Haggai

The Book of Haggai is set in the year 421 BC, year 2 of King Darius II of the Persian Empire. Most scholars accept that Haggai was written shortly after 421 BC, however, it appears to have been written about Haggai, and not by him. Very little is known about him, as the era he lived in was part of the so-called missing years of Rabbinical history. His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2ⁿᵈ century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still hedonistic, worshiping the God Shaddai, but still recognizing the existence of the Canaanite gods including Shamayim, who Josiah had banned a century earlier, and Eretz, the earth-goddess.

In the Septuagint’s 1ˢᵗ Ezra, Zerubbabel was listed as traveling to Jerusalem in the second year of the Persian king Darius II, which was 421 BC. This dating is confirmed by the so-called “Passover Letter” found among the Elephantine papyri, which is dated to 418 BC. Zerubbabel was listed as both the son of Shealtiel, and the son of Pediah in different texts. Shealtiel was the son of King Jehoiachin of Judah, who was captured as a hostage in the Seige of Jerusalem of 597 BC. Shealtiel became the second exilarch of the Judahites after his father died sometime between 562 and 557 BC. The Judahite Apocalypse of Erza was reportedly written by Shealtiel in 557 BC, who appears to have been the exilarch at the time.

Shealtiel had a brother named Pediah, however, Pediah and Zerubbabel appear to have been names reused by the family, as Zerubbabel the son of Pediah arrived in Jerusalem around 170 years after the Pedaiah, son of Jehoiachin appears to be referenced in the Jehoiachin’s Rations Tablets. The ratio tablets were discovered in an archeological dig in Babylon, and are dated to circa 592 BC. The tablets do not mention Pediah by name but do mention Iaa'úkinu and his five sons. This is accepted as a reference to Jehoiachin, and his five eldest sons, which includes Pedaiah, the fourth eldest. As Zerubbabel the son of Pediah was also listed as being a son, or descendent, of Shealtiel, this indicates that Zerubbabel the son of Pediah, and his father Pediah were descendants of Shealtiel.

In the Book of Haggai, Zerubbabel was the governor of the Persian province of Yehud Medinata who began rebuilding the temple in 421 BC, under King Darius. Darius II seized the throne of the Persian Empire in 423 BC, shortly after the death of King Artaxerxes I, who the books of Ezra claim stopped the work to rebuild the temple and city walls of Jerusalem. When Artaxerxes I died, his son Xerxes II briefly assumed the throne, however, he was assassinated by his brother Sogdianus after a month and a half, who then assumed the throne. Satrap (governor) Ochus of Hyrcania, who claimed to be Artaxerxes I’s bastard son, then led a revolt that overthrew Sogdianus within a year and assumed the throne name of Darius II in 423 BC.