In Zerubbabel the people beheld once more a ruler of the Davidic race.
The characteristic features of the book are the importance assigned to the personality of Zerubbabel, who, though a living contemporary, is marked out as the Messiah; and the almost sacramental significance attached to the temple.
In the book of Zechariah Zerubbabel has already fallen into the background and the high priest is the leading figure of the Judean community.
So Haggai sees in Zerubbabel the representative of the 5 There is an obvious effort to preserve the continuity of tradition (a) in Ezra ii.
Nehemiah naturally gives us only his version, and the attitude of Haggai and Zechariah to Zerubbabel may illustrate the feeling of his partisans.