“For he is good;
his loyal love toward Israel is forever.”
All the people gave a loud 2 shout as they praised the Lord when the temple of the Lord was established. 3:12 Many of the priests, the Levites, and the leaders 3 – older people who had seen with their own eyes the former temple while it was still established 4 – were weeping loudly, 5 and many others raised their voice in a joyous shout.
4:7 “What are you, you great mountain? 6 Because of Zerubbabel you will become a level plain! And he will bring forth the temple 7 capstone with shoutings of ‘Grace! Grace!’ 8 because of this.”
1 tn Heb “they answered.”
2 tn Heb “great.”
3 tn Heb “the heads of the fathers.”
4 sn The temple had been destroyed some fifty years earlier by the Babylonians in 586
5 tn Heb “with a great voice.”
6 sn In context, the great mountain here must be viewed as a metaphor for the enormous task of rebuilding the temple and establishing the messianic kingdom (cf. TEV “Obstacles as great as mountains”).
7 tn The word “temple” has been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent (cf. NLT “final stone of the Temple”).
8 sn Grace is a fitting response to the idea that it was “not by strength and not by power” but by God’s gracious Spirit that the work could be done (cf. v. 6).