Zechariah 10:3 Komentář

The scope of this chapter is much the same with that of the foregoing chapter - to encourage the Jews that had returned with hopes that though they had been under divine rebukes for their negligence in rebuilding the temple, and were now surrounded with enemies and dangers, yet God would do them good, and make them prosperous at home and victorious abroad. Now, I. They are here directed to eye the great God in all events that concerned them, and, both in the evils they suffered and in the comforts they desired, to acknowledge his hand (Zac 10:1-4). II. They are encouraged to expect strength and success from him in all their struggles with the enemies of their church and state, and to hope that the issue would be glorious at last (Zac 10:5-12).

INTRODUCTION TO ZECHARIAH 10 This chapter is a prophecy of the conversion of the Jews in the latter day, when the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in, spoken of in the preceding chapter Zac 9:1. It begins with an exhortation to ask rain of the Lord; denounces wrath upon his enemies; and consists of various promises to his people. The exhortation to ask rain is in Zac 10:1 to which encouragement is given from its being of the Lord, from his willingness to grant it, and from the fruitfulness occasioned by it. The vanity of idols, and idolaters, who can not give it, is exposed; and the distress and confusion they were thrown into is observed, Zac 10:2. The anger of the Lord against the principal of them is declared; and his gracious visitation of the people of the Jews, whom he will honour and glorify, is taken notice of, Zac 10:3 from whom the Messiah sprung, than which a greater glory can not be enjoyed, Zac 10:4 and then follow various promises, relating to them; as of victory over their enemies, through the presence of the Lord with them, Zac 10:5 of strength and salvation to them, as owing to his free grace and mercy, Zac 10:6 of inward spiritual joy in them and theirs, Zac 10:7 of their effectual calling and spiritual increase, in consequence of redeeming grace, Zac 10:8 of their having a name and a place in Gospel churches, where they will remember the Lord, and live with their children, being converted, Zac 10:9 which conversion of theirs is represented in terms alluding to their deliverance from Egypt and Babylon, Zac 10:10 and the chapter is concluded with a promise of spiritual strength, so that they shall continue in their profession of faith in Christ, and persevere therein to the end, Zac 10:12.

Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds,.... The Targum interprets it of "kings"; as the "goats" of "princes", in the next clause; by whom, according to Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Abarbinel, are meant the kings of Greece; but rather the antichristian kings are designed, the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication with the whore of Rome, which is the cause of the anger of the Lord being kindled: or else ecclesiastical rulers are meant, the Romish clergy, the chief of them, as cardinals, archbishops, bishops, &c. who may fitly be represented by the shepherds of Israel in the times of the prophets for their name, professing to be of Israel, or to be Christians; and by them for their ignorance, covetousness, luxury, disregard to the flock, tyranny and cruelty over it, and murder of it; see Isa 56:10, against these the fire of God's wrath will be kindled, and with it will they be destroyed: and I punished the goats; not the Seleucidae, as the above Jewish writers; though they may with propriety be so called, since they were the successors of Alexander, signified by the he goat in Dan 8:5 rather the monks and friars, comparable to these for their filthiness and uncleanness; and because they pretend to be guides of the people, and to go before them, and yet use them ill, and push them with their horns of power; wherefore God will punish them, and kill those children of Jezebel with death, Rev 2:22, for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock, the house of Judah; by sending the Gospel to them, and his Spirit with it, to make it effectual to their conversion; which will be at the time that the antichristian hierarchy will be destroyed; then the Lord's flock, who have gone astray, shall be returned to the true Shepherd and Bishop of souls, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and shall be saved by him: a gracious visitation this will be! and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle; this denotes that the Jews, when converted, will be bold in their God; valiant for the truth on earth; courageously fight the good fight of faith, and be victorious over their enemies; and that they will be in great honour and esteem among the saints, though so mean and justly despicable now: the sense is, that as the horse shows its strength and courage in battle, so should they; see Job 39:19.

(Verse 3 and following) My anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the goats; for the Lord of hosts will visit his flock, the house of Judah, and make them like his majestic horse in battle. From him comes the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the bow of battle; from him every oppressor comes forth together, and they shall be like mighty warriors trampling the mud of the streets in battle. They will fight, for the Lord is with them. (Septuagint: My anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the lambs; and the Lord God Almighty will visit his flock, the house of Judah, and make them like his majestic horse in battle. From him he looked upon, and from him he set, and from him the bow in wrath will come forth; from him every one who brings forth together, and they shall be like warriors trampling the mud of the streets in battle, and they shall be prepared, for the Lord is with them.) And in this place there are two explanations of the Jews. For some believe that everything will be accomplished in the coming of Christ: others believe that it has already been accomplished under the Maccabees. And this is the explanation of what the Lord promises: The Lord is angry with the shepherds, rulers, and priests, and with the goats, and he visited the people, according to what is written: My people have become lost sheep, the shepherds have driven them away (Jer. L, 6), so that the disciples would be punished for the fault of their masters: not by the injustice of the judge, who renders the sins of the fathers onto the children; but because, when they sinned, the people applauded them together: and at that time, the Lord visited his goats, or the fattest lambs, and made them, according to the Septuagint, dry with drought. But afterwards the Almighty Lord visited his flock, the house of Judah: for he raised up Judas Maccabaeus, and others with him, against the leaders of Antioch, and he set them up like horses of his glory in battle, that is, those who were born of his lineage: for they oppressed the Macedonians for a long time. And what follows: From him comes the cornerstone, from him comes the peg, from him comes the bow of battle, from him comes every tax collector together, which metaphorically they understand, interpreting the cornerstone as royal power, because it encompasses the very walls. And from it, he says, comes the staff, that is, the priesthood. Read Isaiah, in which Eliakim is depicted in the temple of God as a staff (Isa. XXII). From it comes the bow of battle, the strong for war: from it also comes every exactor, which in Hebrew is written as Noges (), and Aquila interprets it as εἰσπράσσων: so that not only the strong and good, but also others unworthy of their own kind. For Judas Maccabeus and all who were leaders of his people from his lineage were angles; for they held the people in royal power, and they were the staffs themselves, and as bows of battle, because they were the strongest men, not only to arrange the army and battle line, but also to be the first to leap into battle. We can gather from this that: From him will come every exactor together (for whom the seventy were transferred): From him will come everyone who brings out together, and this means: There will be no dignity in the army that is not determined by his judgment. And there will be mighty men, trampling the Macedonians like mud on the roads in battle: they will indeed be mighty, and they will fight, because the Lord is with them. Our people refer these things to the time of persecution, because frequently even the people are handed over to the adversaries for the fault of the priests: and yet the Almighty Lord visits afterwards his flock, the house of Judah, who confesses God both in words and in heart: and he makes them like a horse of his glory in war, of which the saints say: Mount your horses, and your riding is salvation (Hab. 3:8). He himself will be both the bow and the fury of the Lord, of which it is said: I will make my arrows drunk with blood (Deut. XXXII, 42) . And again: My arrows will consume them. Concerning this bow and these arrows, we read in the seventh Psalm (Vers. 13, 14) : He stretched out his bow and prepared it; and in it he prepared vessels of death, he made his arrows burn like fire. And they will trample on their adversaries, crowned in martyrdom, and they will say: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, from whom shall I fear? When those who do me harm draw near to devour my flesh, my enemies who trouble me shall stumble and fall. Even if armies camp against me, my heart shall not fear. Even if battle arises against me, in this I will trust. (Psalm 27:1-3) When will this saying be fulfilled: one of you will chase a thousand, and two will put ten thousand to flight? (Deuteronomy 32)

Observe, you who are our beloved sons, how merciful yet righteous the Lord our God is, how gracious and kind to humankind. And yet most certainly “he will not acquit the guilty,” though he welcomes returning sinners and revives them, leaving no room for suspicion to such as wish to judge sternly and to reject offenders entirely, and to refuse to grant them exhortations which might bring them to repentance. In contradiction to such, God by Isaiah says to the bishops, “Comfort you, comfort you my people, you priests; speak comfortably to Jerusalem.” It therefore behooves you, upon hearing those words of his, to encourage those who have offended, and lead them to repentance, and afford them hope, and not vainly to suppose that you shall be partakers of their offenses on account of such your love to them. Receive the penitent with alacrity and rejoice over them, and with mercy and bowels of compassion judge the sinners. For if a person was walking by the side of a river and ready to stumble, and you should push him and thrust him into the river instead of offering him your hand for his assistance, you would be guilty of the murder of your brother.… You ought rather to lend your helping hand as he was ready to fall, lest he perish without remedy, that both the people may take warning and the offender may not utterly perish. It is your duty, O bishop, neither to overlook the sins of the people nor to reject those who are penitent, that you may not unskillfully destroy the Lord’s flock or dishonor his new name which is stamped upon his people, and you yourself be reproached as those ancient pastors were, of whom God speaks thus to Jeremiah: “Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard; they have polluted my heritage.” And in another passage, “My anger is waxed hot against the shepherds, and against the lambs shall I have indignation.”

The promise of prosperity and plenty in the close of the preceding chapter leads the prophet to suggest, next, the means of obtaining them; supplication to Jehovah, and not to idols, whose worship had already proved a fertile source of calamities, Zac 10:1-3. The rest of the chapter (like the preceding) promises to the Jews a restoration to their own land under rulers and governors, victory over their enemies, and much increase and prosperity; and this in a manner so miraculous, that it is described, Zac 10:4-12, by allusions to the deliverance from Egypt.

Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds - Bad kings and bad priests. I will punish the goats; these were the wicked priests, who were shepherds by their office, and goats by the impurity of their lives. As his goodly horse in the battle - The honorable war horse, or the horse that carried the general's equipage. In the unaccountable variation of interpreters on these chapters, this, among other things, is thought to be spoken of Matthias, and Judas Maccabeus, who assembled the people from all quarters, as a shepherd gathers his sheep together; and led them against the sons of Greece, the Seleucidae Greeks. Others refer every thing here to times before the captivity.

PRAYER AND PROMISE. (Zac 10:1-12) Ask . . . rain--on which the abundance of "corn" promised by the Lord (Zac 9:17) depends. Jehovah alone can give it, and will give it on being asked (Jer 10:13; Jer 14:22). rain in . . . time of . . . latter rain--that is, the latter rain in its due time, namely, in spring, about February or March (Job 29:23; Joe 2:23). The latter rain ripened the grain, as the former rain in October tended to fructify the seed. Including all temporal blessings; these again being types of spiritual ones. Though God has begun to bless us, we are not to relax our prayers. The former rain of conversion may have been given, but we must also ask for the latter rain of ripened sanctification. Though at Pentecost there was a former rain on the Jewish Church, a latter rain is still to be looked for, when the full harvest of the nation's conversion shall be gathered in to God. The spirit of prayer in the Church is an index at once of her piety, and of the spiritual blessings she may expect from God. When the Church is full of prayer, God pours out a full blessing. bright clouds--rather, "lightnings," the precursors of rain [MAURER]. showers of rain--literally, "rain of heavy rain." In Job 37:6 the same words occur in inverted order [HENDERSON]. grass--a general term, including both corn for men and grass for cattle.

against the shepherds--the civil rulers of Israel and Judah who abetted idolatry. punished--literally, "visited upon." The same word "visited," without the upon, is presently after used in a good sense to heighten the contrast. goats--he-goats. As "shepherds" described what they ought to have been, so "he-goats" describes what they were, the emblem of headstrong wantonness and offensive lust (Isa 14:9, Margin; Eze 34:17; Dan 8:5; Mat 25:33). The he-goats head the flock. They who are first in crime will be first in punishment. visited--in mercy (Luk 1:68). as his goodly horse--In Zac 9:13 they were represented under the image of bows and arrows, here under that of their commander-in-chief, Jehovah's battle horse (Sol 1:9). God can make His people, timid though they be as sheep, courageous as the charger. The general rode on the most beautiful and richly caparisoned, and had his horse tended with the greatest care. Jehovah might cast off the Jews for their vileness, but He regards His election or adoption of them: whence He calls them here "His flock," and therefore saves them.

Complete Redemption of the People of God. - This chapter contains no new promise, but simply a further expansion of the previous section, the condition on which salvation is to be obtained being mentioned in the introduction (Zac 10:1 and Zac 10:2); whilst subsequently, more especially from Zac 10:6 onwards, the participation of Ephraim in the salvation in prospect is more elaborately treated of. The question in dispute among the commentators, viz., whether Zac 10:1 and Zac 10:2 are to be connected with the previous chapter, so as to form the conclusion, or whether they form the commencement of a new address, or new turn in the address, is to be answered thus: The prayer for rain (Zac 10:1) is indeed occasioned by the concluding thought in Zac 9:17, but it is not to be connected with the preceding chapter as though it were an integral part of it, inasmuch as the second hemistich of Zac 10:2 can only be separated with violence from Zac 10:3. The close connection between Zac 10:2 and Zac 10:3 shows that Zac 10:1 commences a new train of thought, for which preparation is made, however, by Zac 9:17.

To this there is appended in Zac 10:3. the promise that Jehovah will take possession of His flock, and redeem it out of the oppression of the evil shepherds. Zac 10:3. "My wrath is kindled upon the shepherds, and the goats shall I punish; for Jehovah of hosts visits His flock, the house of Judah, and makes it like His state-horse in the war. Zac 10:4. From Him will be corner-stone, from Him the nail, from Him the war-bow; from Him will every ruler go forth at once." When Israel lost its own shepherds, it came under the tyranny of bad shepherds. These were the heathen governors and tyrants. Against these the wrath of Jehovah is kindled, and He will punish them. There is no material difference between רעים, shepherds, and עתּוּדים, leading goats. ‛Attūdı̄m also signifies rulers, as in Isa 14:9. The reason assigned why the evil shepherds are to be punished, is that Jehovah visits His flock. The perfect pâqad is used prophetically of what God has resolved to do, and will actually carry out; and pâqad c. acc. pers. means to visit, i.e., to assume the care of, as distinguished from pâqad with 'al pers., to visit in the sense of to punish (see at Zep 2:7). The house of Judah only is mentioned in Zac 10:3, not in distinction from Ephraim, however (cf. Zac 10:6), but as the stem and kernel of the covenant nation, with which Ephraim is to be united once more. The care of God for Judah will not be limited to its liberation from the oppression of the bad shepherds; but Jehovah will also make Judah into a victorious people. This is the meaning of the figure "like a state-horse," i.e., a splendid and richly ornamented war-horse, such as a king is accustomed to ride. This figure is not more striking than the description of Judah and Ephraim as a bow and arrow (Zac 9:13). This equipment of Judah as a warlike power overcoming its foes is described in Zac 10:4, namely in 4a, in figures taken from the firmness and furnishing of a house with everything requisite, and in 4b, etc., in literal words. The verb יצא of the fourth clause cannot be taken as the verb belonging to the ממּנּוּ in the first three clauses, because יצא is neither applicable to pinnâh nor to yâthēd. We have therefore to supply יהיה. From (out of) Him will be pinnâh, corner, here corner-stone, as in Isa 28:16, upon which the whole building stands firmly, and will be built securely, - a suitable figure for the firm, stately foundation which Judah is to receive. To this is added yâthēd, the plug. This figure is to be explained from the arrangement of eastern houses, in which the inner walls are provided with a row of large nails or plugs for hanging the house utensils upon. The plug, therefore, is a suitable figure for the supports or upholders of the whole political constitution, and even in Isa 22:23 was transferred to persons. The war-bow stands synecdochically for weapons of war and the military power. It is a disputed point, however, whether the suffix in mimmennū (out of him) refers to Judah or Jehovah. But the opinion of Hitzig and others, that it refers to Jehovah, is overthrown by the expression יצא ממּנּוּ in the last clause. For even if we could say, Judah will receive its firm foundation, its internal fortification, and its military strength from Jehovah, the expression, "Every military commander will go out or come forth out of Jehovah," is unheard-of and unscriptural. It is not affirmed in the Old Testament even of the Messiah that He goes forth out of God, although His "goings forth" are from eternity (Mic 5:1), and He Himself is called El gibbōr (Isa 9:5). Still less can this be affirmed of every ruler (kol-mōgēs) of Judah. In this clause, therefore, mimmennū must refer to Judah, and consequently it must be taken in the same way in the first three clauses. On יצא מן, see Mic 5:1. Nōgēs, an oppressor or taskmaster, is not applied to a leader or ruler in a good sense even here, any more than in Isa 3:12 and Isa 60:17 (see the comm. on these passages). The fact that negus in Ethiopic is the name given to the king (Koehler), proves nothing in relation to Hebrew usage. The word has the subordinate idea of oppressor, or despotic ruler, in this instance also; but the idea of harshness refers not to the covenant nation, but to its enemies (Hengstenberg), and the words are used in antithesis to Zac 9:8. Whereas there the promise is given to the nation of Israel that it will not fall under the power of the nōgēs any more, it is here assured that it is to attain to the position of a nōgēs in relation to its foes (Kliefoth). כּל־נוגשׂ is strengthened by יחדּו: every oppressor together, which Judah will require in opposition to its foes.