Many nations look back to a golden age of power and prosperity, and forward to a future restoration of it. The Jews likewise never forgot the kingdom of David and Solomon, and saw no reason to despair of its return. As a matter of fact, the Hasmonean rule at its greatest extent was practically such a restoration. But conditions and people had radically changed between David and Alexander Jannai. In 1000 B.C.E. it was a mighty achievement for the small tribal confederation to have dominated its corner of the Levant, to have held in check the powerful coast cities of Philistia, to have been sought in alliance by Tyre and Egypt. In 100 B.C.E., men’s minds had long been accustomed to the rise and fall of great empires. Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Macedon, Egypt, Syria, Athens, and Sparta, and in the distant west Carthage and Rome, had at different times been lords of many lands. The Judean kingdom itself had arisen from the wreckage of such an empire. It was accordingly a different political ideal that filled the imagination of every nation at this time. To secure and maintain the independence of a few square miles of semi-arid soil between the Jordan and the Sea was no deed to puff men with inordinate pride, however difficult of actual accomplishment it was. As a step toward larger deeds, however, it was notable enough.
What was the larger deed, and how was it to be accomplished? However disproportionate it may seem to us, it was nothing else than the dominion over the whole world, to be accomplished by sudden and miraculous conversion of men’s souls for the most part, or by force of arms, if it should prove necessary. And, as was natural enough, it was in the ancient royal line, the stock of David, that the leader, the Anointed of God, was to be found.
The family of David, which was still important and powerful when Zechariah xii. was written (perhaps the fourth century B.C.E.), had evidently since fallen on evil days. It cannot, of course, have entirely disappeared, but no member of undoubted Davidic lineage arises to make political pretensions. It is even likely that, in the absence of adequate records, and with the loss of importance which the family suffered during the fourth and third centuries B.C.E., it had become impossible for anyone to prove descent from David.