Zerubbabel is called the son of Shealtiel: some think that son is put here for grandson, and that his father’s name was passed over. But this seems not probable. They quote from the Chronicles a passage in which his father’s name is said to be Pedaiah: but we know that it was often the case among that people, that a person had two names. I therefore regard Zerubbabel to have been the son of Shealtiel. He is said to have been the governor [פחה]; it is a word current in several languages, Chaldee, Persic, etc. Parkhurst derives it from [פה], to extend. Theod. Aq. and Syn. render it ἡγούμενον, governor. He is called Sheshbazzar in Ezra 5:14; and Cyrus is said to have made him [פחה], governor or deputy. It is the name of a person endued with authority by a sovereign. Zerubbabel, [זרבבל], has been derived from [זר], a stranger, and [בבנ], Babylon, a stranger or sojourner at Babylon. It deserves to be noticed, that the civil governor is put here before the chief priest; and we find from Ezra that it was to the civil governor that Cyrus delivered the holy vessels of the temple. See Ezra 5:14.—Ed. of Judah; for it was necessary that some governing power should continue in that tribe, though the royal authority was taken away, and all sovereignty and supreme power extinguished. It was yet God’s purpose that some vestiges of power should remain, according to what had been predicted by the patriarch Jacob,