" The second of these, in autumn,
is similar to that of the Priestly Code, only that it falls on
the first and new year on the tenth, while in the latter, on the
contrary, new year is observed on the first and the atonement on
the tenth; the ritual is also much simpler. Zechariah towards
the end of the sixth century looks back upon two regular fast
days, in the fifth and the seventh month, as having been in
observance for seventy years, that is, from the beginning of the
exile (vii. 5), and to these he adds (viii. 19) two others in the
fourth and in the tenth. They refer, according to the very probable
explanation of C. B. Michaelis, to the historical days of calamity
which preceded the exile. On the ninth day of the fourth month
Jerusalem was taken (Jeremiah xxxix. 2); on the seventh of the fifth
the city and the temple were burnt (2Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh
month Gedaliah was murdered, and all that remained of the Jewish state
annihilated (Jeremiah xli.); in the tenth the siege of the city by
Nebuchadnezzar was begun (2Kings xxv. 1). Zechariah also still
knows nothing of the great day of atonement in Leviticus xvi.
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