Book Write-Up: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi

Anthony R. Petterson.  Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.  Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2015.  This book is part of the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series, which is edited by David W. Baker and Gordon J. Wenham.  See here to buy the book.

Anthony R. Petterson’s commentary on the biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi is a conservative Christian commentary.  Whereas more liberal scholars have maintained that Zechariah 1-8 and Zechariah 9-14 have different authorships, Petterson believes that they are by the same person (even if that person, Zechariah, was not the one who actually wrote them down), and Petterson tends to dismiss source criticism of the Book of Zechariah as rather speculative.  Whereas many liberal scholars have seen Haggai and Zechariah as works that predict an imminent apocalypse, a prediction that historically failed to materialize, Petterson maintains that this is not the case: that Haggai was not necessarily suggesting in Haggai 2:23 that his contemporary Zerubbabel would be the Messiah, and that a fulfillment in the future is consistent with certain prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah.  Some liberal scholars downplay or reject the notion that certain passages in Zechariah predict a Davidic Messiah: they say that the high priest Joshua in parts of the Book of Zechariah is crowned as king (which differs from expecting a Davidic king), and that the pierced one in Zechariah 12:10 is not necessarily the Davidic Messiah, notwithstanding what a number of Christians have claimed.  Petterson disagrees, as he looks closely at the passages themselves, while also setting them within the context of previous prophetic books, which, according to Petterson, Zechariah affirms and upholds.  For Petterson, the books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi not only talk about a Davidic Messiah, but they actually foreshadow, even predict, the work of Jesus Christ.  A number of liberal scholars would doubt that Satan in the Book of Zechariah is the archenemy of God that he would become, seeing Satan rather as a prosecuting attorney, or as part of the divine council; Petterson, by contrast, believes that seeing Satan as the archenemy of God in the Book of Zechariah makes sense, from a canonical perspective, and on the basis of what Satan in the Book of Zechariah does.

Did I find Petterson to be convincing?  His arguments definitely deserve consideration.  I do have questions about some of his scenarios, especially as he meshes the Books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi with Christianity.  Why would Haggai focus so much on rebuilding the physical temple because it is a significant aspect of God’s plan, if Jesus would be the new temple, anyway?  How would Jesus fit the literal picture in the Book of Zechariah of a man being wounded in eschatological battle, as enemies prepare to attack Jerusalem, when that is not exactly what happened to Jesus?  Taking these books literally, in my opinion, does not always mesh that well with Christianity.  Petterson sometimes reconciles these books with Christianity rather well—–as when he says that the rejection of Jesus is similar to the rejection of God and the prophet in the Book of Zechariah, a view that honors the Book of Zechariah’s literal meaning, while also deeming that relevant to Christianity.  Sometimes, Petterson’s attempt at reconciliation strikes me as a stretch, even if I find it intriguing: Petterson says that Matthew 24 may not be about the attack of Jerusalem, but rather the attack on Jesus, who embodies Jerusalem, and that this may solve the problem of Jesus wrongfully predicting the end of the world in Matthew 24:34.

Petterson does interact with scholarship and present the different views of what various verses mean, sifting through them and offering his own opinion.  Overall, he does this well.  There were items in the commentary that I found particularly interesting.  Petterson, for example, contrasts the Hebrew Bible’s approach to divorce with that of the Code of Hammurapi, and he also notes that the Book of Malachi is not the last book of the Hebrew Bible, in either the Septuagint or the Masoretic Text.  He still believes that it providentially came to be the last book of the Hebrew Bible, however, thus serving as a smooth transition between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  But he acknowledges facts that indicate that this was not always the case.

Not everything that Petterson argued convinced me, but I still give this commentary five stars because I found it to be meaty and informative.

Intervarsity Press sent me a complimentary review copy of this commentary, in exchange for an honest review.

Mark 11:23, Seneca, and Earthquakes

For my write-up today on Robert Grant's Miracle and Natural Law in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Thought, I'll focus on Grant's comments regarding Mark 11:23, which states (in the KJV): "For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith."

Grant reads Mark 11:23 in light of Zechariah 14:4, which states: "And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south."  Grant notes that the Hebrew word for "toward the west" is literally "to the sea".  Grant's point is that Jesus in Mark 11:23 is talking about the fulfillment of eschatological promises about the moving of mountains.  Presumably, in the same way that Jesus through his ministry was fulfilling eschatological promises in the Hebrew Bible about (say) the blind seeing, so likewise did Jesus believe that his disciples would carry out other eschatological promises through their faith.

Grant contrasts the attitude in Mark 11:23 with that of the first century Roman Stoic Seneca, who in Scientific Problems said: "Countless 'miracles' move and change the face of the earth in various places, bring down mountains, raise plains, swell valleys, raise up new islands in the deep.  It is worth while to investigate the causes from which these things happen.  You may ask, 'What will the value of their endeavor be?'  The greatest value of all, to know nature."

Grant believes that there is a difference between Seneca and Jesus: "The event, an earthquake, is presumably the same in each case.  Seneca sees in it an occasion for scientific investigation or philosophical speculation; Jesus looks forward to it as an event in which the hand of God will be revealed."

I guess one could then ask the question: Could an earthquake (not all earthquakes, but an earthquake) be both a sign caused by God, and also something natural, since God can use nature?  In my opinion, if an earthquake is the result of natural causes that build up, that somewhat undermines the notion that God is simply causing earthquakes by snapping his fingers.

Jesus' Death in Acts; Matthew----Jew or Gentile?

I finished Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, volume 1, and I have two:

1. S.G. Wilson states on pages 157-158: "...the soteriological significance of Jesus' death is never made explicit in the missionary speeches and is rarely apparent elsewhere in Luke-Acts. [T]he most that can be said is that 'Luke has taken over certain traditions regarding the meaning of the death of Jesus but he has not in any way developed them or drawn attention to them.' The longer reading in Luke 22:19-20 and the reference to the church as having 'been obtained by his own blood' in Acts 20:28 are not to be overlooked, and a practical theologia crucis, understood as a daily bearing of the cross modelled on the careers of Jesus and his apostles, is clearly a matter of some interest to Luke. Yet the failure of Luke to develop the positive notion of Jesus' death as an atonement, even though he is aware of it, means that there is little to counterbalance the negative emphasis on Jewish culpability. Of course, this is not necessarily a deliberate move on Luke's part, for it may well be that Paul's concentration on this theme makes him, rather than Luke, the exception in early Christianity, or that the atonement was an inner-church theme and not part of the missionary kerygma. The effect, however, whether intended or not, is that our attention is focused without distraction on the accusations against the Jews."

I found this interesting because some have argued that Luke does not believe in blood atonement and that the few passages that do refer to it are interpolations. Wilson sees those few passages as authentic, however, and he maintains that Luke knows of the notion that Jesus' death was for blood atonement but does not develop it. The result is that the Jews in Acts bear a significant amount of onus for Jesus' death, which is not even given much redeeming value in Acts. At the same time, Wilson does note that the Jews in Acts act according to the plan of God when they kill Jesus.

2. On pages 184-187, Benno Przybylski (which I will abbreviate as "BP") argues against G. Strecker's idea that a Gentile Christian was behind the final redaction of the Gospel of Matthew. Some of Strecker's arguments resemble those of John Meier and Michael Cook, who contend that Matthew was not a Jewish-Christian Gospel.

First, Strecker says that Matthew 5:43 reveals ignorance of the Jewish tradition, for it says that Jesus' audience has heard that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Strecker states that such a concept is not in the older rabbinic tradition. BP responds, however, that it "could easily reflect teaching similar to that of the Qumran sectarians as expressed in 1QS 1.10 or 9.21."

Second, Strecker says that Matthew is unaware of Hebrew parallelism, for Matthew 21:1-9 presents Jesus riding two animals in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, when Zechariah 9:9 is not saying that the king will ride on both an ass and also a colt. Rather, Zechariah 9:9 is using Hebrew parallelism (repeating a thought), which means that the ass and the colt both refer to one and the same animal. The argument that Matthew does not understand Hebrew parallelism is used by John Meier and Michael Cook. But I agree with BP: the rabbis themselves took parallelism literally at times, just like Matthew. For example, BP cites Psalm 28:5, which says that "He will break them down and not build them up". This looks like parallelism because a thought is being repeated. But the rabbis believed that God did not repeat himself superfluously, and so the Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael Shirata 6 held that Psalm 28:5 refers to two separate things rather than being a repetition of one idea: "He will break them down" relates to this world, and "and not build them up" pertains to the World to Come. See my post here for more information on Matthew 21 and Zechariah 9:9.

Third, Strecker says that Matthew 12:11 contradicts Jewish law. Matthew 12:11 says that the Pharisees believed that one could pull his sheep out of a pit on the Sabbath. According to BP, "Strecker argues that according to rabbinic law the owner could feed the animal or even help it to help itself but he could not actually lift it out." But BP responds that Matthew may be going with a minority rabbinic opinion, or that popular practice was more liberal than the majority rabbinic view.

Completing Cook's Prophecy and Apocalypticism

I finished Stephen L. Cook's Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting. In my reading today, Cook talked about Zechariah 1-8, 9-14, and Joel. For Cook, all of these works are apocalyptic because they envision God (accompanied by cataclysm) intervening to end one order and to establish another. But these works serve agendas of the establishment Zadokite priesthood, as far as Cook is concerned, and this contradicts the argument of Paul Hanson and others that apocalyptic is from the marginalized and the powerless, not the establishment.

According to Cook, Zechariah 1-8 is about establishing a practical program that would precede the eschaton, much like the American Puritans tried to set up a godly society that would come before the second advent of Christ. My impression is that the aim of the program was to please God so that God would intervene and set up a paradise. For Cook, while Haggai had messianic expectations about the Davidid governor Zerubbabel, Zechariah did not, but its eschatological expectations were future-oriented. Perhaps Cook's point is that Zechariah 1-8 holds that God will replace Zerubbabel with the Davidic Messianic king, the same way that the Puritans expected Jesus Christ to supplant Governor John Winthrop, whom they nevertheless admired as an important element of God's work. Cook makes a similar argument on page 142, where he states that "the visions announce the present building of the mundane temple (Zech. 4:9), which is a type of the millennial temple (Zech. 6:12-13)." In this scenario, the present order prepares the way for the eschaton, which will still replace it with something better.

Unlike Hanson, Cook believes that Zechariah 9-14 is from the same community that created Zechariah 1-8, only Zechariah 9-14 was produced when the community was much more pessimistic. Cook disagrees with Hanson's argument that, in Zechariah 9-14, the noble clans of Judah (the visionaries) are set in contrast with the corrupt city of Jerusalem, for Zechariah 12:8-9 discusses the exaltation of Jerusalem, whereas Zechariah 14:15 may be about the destruction of Judah. Cook regards Zechariah 9-14 as pro-priestly and pro-Davidid, and yet he maintains that Zechariah 9-14 had problems with the governors, which was presaged in Zechariah 7. For Cook, Zechariah 9-14 anticipates God replacing the corrupt and oppressive governors with a righteous Davidic monarch. Apparently, in Cook's model, one influential group is attacking others who are influential.

Regarding the Book of Joel, Cook argues that it reflects an attempt to encourage post-exilic Israel to appease God cultically, in light of the coming eschaton, of which certain disasters (which Israel was then experiencing) are a sign. For Cook, that Joel is priestly is evident from its concern for the cult.

Cook does not regard the Zadokites as monolithic, however, for Ezekiel 40-48, Zechariah, and Joel have different ideas. For example, whereas Ezekiel 40-48 is exclusive in its restriction of certain cultic activities to the Zadokites, Zechariah envisions a day when all of Jerusalem will be holy. For Cook, there were a lot of Zadokites, and one should not expect all of them to have thought exactly the same way.

I would now like to touch on one last item. On page 157, Cook states that "The Zechariah group and the Persians...cooperated in support of the importance of the Davidide in restoration policy (see Ezra 1:8)." This interested me because I have wondered why the Persians would have tolerated pro-David material. Wouldn't they consider talk of a restored Davidic monarch to be subversive? Ezra 1:8 says that Cyrus the king of Persia counted out the articles of the Temple to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. The Persians tolerated Davidic princes, perhaps because they didn't feel threatened by allowing post-exilic Yehud to be governed in some capacity by the ones the Judahites were accustomed to having as rulers: the Davidids. Regarding the eschatological talk of a Davidic Messiah, maybe the Persians didn't mind letting the Yehudites dream a bit, as long as they contented themselves with waiting on God and didn't try to launch their own revolt against the Persians.

I think that this book is important because it contains information about a variety of apocalyptic movements as well as offers an alternative to Hanson's scenario. In my opinion, Cook convincingly demonstrates that the establishment can use apocalyptic. But I still think that Hanson makes good arguments about Third Isaiah, and how its contents indicate an anti-establishment orientation. There are a variety of people who can use apocalyptic, from the establishment and the marginalized.

Not Just a Belief of the Marginalized

I'm continuing my way through Stephen Cook's Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting. In my reading today, Cook does two things:

First, he looks at believers in apocalypticism throughout history---Native American and African tribes, Jewish Messianism in Europe, the Puritans, even Ronald Reagan---and he notices that there are many cases in which apocalyptic sentiments come from powerful elements of society, casting doubt on the scholarly claim that apocalypticism is solely a view held by the disenfranchised, or that it originated among people who felt powerless and marginalized. Why do the powerful embrace apocalypticism? Some believe that they must enact an agenda to prepare the way for the eschaton. Some become insecure as a result of revolutions or wars. Some (such as the Jainist aristocrats) are disgusted by their own social status. In the case of Ronald Reagan, perhaps he just found end-times prophecy to be interesting, an intriguing way for him to view the world. (Cook doesn't say this about Reagan, but that's my guess.) And, having grown up in an apocalyptic movement, and knowing people who experienced a more authoritarian version of it, I can add another reason: social control. Threatening people that God won't preserve them in the eschaton but will punish them unless they adhere to a particular authority structure can scare people into submission.

Second, Cook argues that Ezekiel 38-39 and Zechariah 1-8 are examples of apocalyptic from the establishment. Cook argues that both of these are apocalyptic, appealing to such factors as a belief in God's direct intervention to effect a new creation, and other things. Ezekiel 38-39 present God defeating Gog and Magog, and Zechariah 1-8 depict God's heavenly forces having some effect on the earth, as well as despairs about earthly effort (although Cook discusses apocalypticisms that acknowledge a human role, in warfare, for example). Cook contends against Paul Hanson's argument that Zechariah 1-8 is non-eschatological and primarily supports a practical program that exalts the Zadokites and the Davidids. Cook's view is probably that Zechariah 1-8 may have supported the Zadokites and the Davidids, but it had an apocalyptic view regarding God's direct intervention in the course of human events.

I have not yet read Cook's argument about Zechariah 1-8 being an establishment piece, but I doubt that he has to work too hard in supporting that point, since Zechariah 1-8 endorses Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the governor. Regarding Ezekiel 38-39, Cook argues that it is from the Ezekiel school, against those who say it was a later apocalyptic insertion into Ezekiel, and he maintains that it comes from a priestly perspective. Cook sees verbal and theological correspondences between Ezekiel 38-39 and the rest of Ezekiel, and he believes that Ezekiel 38-39 fits into Ezekiel quite well: within the book, Ezekiel 38-39 is about God protecting Israel from her enemies, after she has been restored from an exile that commenced when God delivered her into the hands of her enemies. Ezekiel 38-39 also manifests a priestly concern for the purity of the land of Israel after God's defeat of Gog and Magog.

But Cook's treatment of Ezekiel 38-39 is not just synchronic, for he does believe that the chapters contain stages. One stage marked apocalyptic intensity, and Cook says this occurred when restoration appeared to be an impending reality and the Zadokites had high hopes. A second stage was more realistic, if you will, and it projected the battle of Gog and Magog into a more distant future, while supporting practical attempts to deal with the present.

Completing Hanson's Dawn of Apocalyptic

I finished Paul Hanson's Dawn of Apocalyptic. I enjoyed my reading today because I felt that Hanson illuminated biblical texts as well as highlighted the diversity of Scripture, but in a manner that demonstrated the different ideologies in conflict, rather than merely pointing out discrepancies in the text. Hanson's focus in my reading today was on Second Zechariah (Zechariah 9-14), which he believes came from different hands and yet conveyed a visionary, anti-establishment mentality (except for the touches that the establishment added, here and there).

I blogged a couple of years ago about Zechariah 11-12 (see here and here), which contain passages that come into play in the New Testament. Zechariah 11 is about a bad shepherd, the rods of Unity and Favor being broken, the abandonment of the flock to slaughter, and the shepherd receiving thirty pieces of silver, which Matthew 27:9 applies to Judas betraying Jesus for the priests' payment of thirty pieces of silver. Hanson interprets Zechariah 11 as an attack on Ezekiel's prophecies (in Ezekiel 34 and 37) that a Davidid would arise, unite Northern and Southern Israel (note the unity), and shepherd the tribes under the favor of God. The Book of Ezekiel was a favorite of the post-exilic establishment, which sought to inaugurate Ezekiel's vision as much as it could. But Zechariah 11 was saying that people should not buy into Ezekiel's positive vision, for devastation would come. The flock would be slaughtered. For Hanson, Zechariah 11 was a reaction against Ezekiel by anti-establishment visionaries.

Hanson actually comments on the use of Zechariah 11 in Matthew 27:9. Hanson reads the Christian story in light of the message of Zechariah 11. Zechariah 11 concerned the corruption of the temple establishment, woes that would precede the glorious eschaton, and the appointment of a bad shepherd, who would play some role in God's redemptive purposes. And, in the New Testament, the temple establishment is corrupt, Jesus' sufferings must precede the glorious eschaton, and a villain, Judas Iscariot, plays some role in bringing that to pass. For Hanson, in this case, knowing the Hebrew Bible in light of its original context can actually illuminate the New Testament.

Zechariah 12:10 says that people will weep when they see the one whom they have pierced, and this passage comes into play in Revelation 1:7, which relates it to the second coming of Christ. Hanson interprets Zechariah 12:10 in light of the post-exilic persecuted visionaries, who (according to Zechariah 12) would be vindicated when God intervened and cleaned house. But, whereas Zechariah 12 envisions Jerusalemites repenting of their misdeeds against the visionaries, Zechariah 14 predicts devastation of the city. Hanson states that post-exilic apocalyptic became angrier and more vindictive over time.

But Zechariah 14 has some uplifting points, such as the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles by all of the nations after God's victory, which Hanson considers to be fitting within Zechariah 14, since the Feast of Tabernacles was about "God's enthronement as universal king" (only the focus in pre-exilic Israel was on agricultural fertility and God's victory over barrenness, whereas Zechariah 14 applied the concept to God's victory over sinners in Israel and elsewhere). Moreover, because Zechariah 14 was more concerned about who was righteous and who was wicked than ethnicity, it had a more universal outlook, as Gentiles were included in the worship of YHWH. And, like part of Third Isaiah, Zechariah 14 manifests an inclusive view on the priesthood (in contrast to the exclusive view of the Zadokites, which we encounter in Ezekiel 40-48), for Zechariah 14:20-21 describes all of the horses' bells being inscribed with "Holy to Yahweh", which was on the turban of the high priest (Exodus 28:36; 39:30), as well as says that every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD. Hanson affirms on page 388 that "the development toward a redefinition of 'holy nation' as including families of all the earth represents the new dimension carrying apocalyptic eschatology beyond its prophetic roots."

Another interesting point to note is the difference between Zechariah 14 and P. Whereas P presents God creating a reliable cycle that includes the sun and the moon, day and night, heat and cold, Zechariah 14:7 predicts a time of continuous light, even in the evening. According to Hanson, the idea here is that sinners have corrupted even nature, and so God will make a fresh start, with a new natural order.

Hanson has defined apocalyptic in terms of God's direct intervention into the course of human events, without reliance on human institutions. And yet, Zechariah 12:6 says that the clans of Judah will play a role in the defeat of Israel's enemies. How does Hanson account for that? On page 368, he states: "...this is not the instrumentality of classical prophecy, where an actual historical monarch or army carries out Yahweh's purposes. It is rather the instrumentality of late apocalyptic where Yahweh musters his cosmic hosts and includes some drawn from the ranks of his earthly community." Hanson's point seems to be that the primary actor here is the LORD, but that he uses some humans in his work (and, on page 320, this appears to be how Hanson treats Zechariah 9:9, which is about the king coming into Jerusalem on a donkey). For Hanson, the clans of Judah are the visionaries, and they are distinguished from Jerusalem, which they believe has become corrupt.

In a previous post, I talked about Hanson's theological approach to his narrative about the visionaries and the realists. Hanson believes that the ideal is to be concerned about the present world (like the realists), and yet to critique the status quo according to whether or not it pursues justice (like the visionaries). (That, for him, was also the way to address the spirit of protest that was occurring in the 1970's, which was when this book was written.) Hanson thinks that Isaiah exemplified such an ideal. I found this book to be interesting because it touched on the roots of apocalyptic (or at least one view of what they were): Some desire God's direct intervention because they feel that this world is hopelessly corrupt and incapable of reform. That was the mentality that I received in my religious background, Armstrongism (which Hanson actually criticizes in an Anchor Bible Dictionary article). I believe that the world is corrupt, but I also think that there are some policies that are more just than others.

Hanson on Second Zechariah

I'm continuing my way through Paul Hanson's Dawn of Apocalyptic. In my reading today, Hanson was talking about foreign nations in passages of Second Zechariah (Zechariah 9-14). God in Zechariah 9:1-8 sweeps through the nations and takes possession of them. And, when God in Zechariah 10:10-11 discusses restoring the Israelite exiles from Assyria and Egypt, Hanson does not think this refers to a specific historical conquest, but rather that these nations are being mentioned as Israel's traditional enemies. Perhaps Hanson believes that they are symbols for Israel's enemies, as he argues regarding Edom in Isaiah 63:1. Overall, Hanson does not appear to agree with those who look for some historical reference-points in Second Zechariah's prophecies (as in applying them to specific historical conquests), for these prophecies reflect apocalyptic eschatology: they maintain that God at some point will intervene and create a new order. For Hanson, apocalyptic eschatology despairs of institutions in history, which is why it desires God's direct intervention.

Another point Hanson makes is that Second Zechariah lambastes Israel's leaders, which he believes reflects the post-exilic struggle between realists and visionaries. On page 335, he states that "the prophetic genre of the taunt against the foreign nations is adopted and given a double ironic twist to form a sharp barb against Israel's leaders." Hanson acknowledges that there was criticism of oppression even in pre-exilic Israel. But my impression (on which I'm open to correction) is that he believes that the idea of a faithful minority in Israel being set in contrast with the Israelite establishment is distinctly post-exilic. On page 194, he states that the "dichotomy between the wicked leaders of the community and the oppressed minority of the faithful...is at the heart of the new salvation-judgment genre..."

I think that I Kings 19:18 presents a faithful remnant, and yet that passage is not apocalyptic, for it does not expect God to dramatically intervene to create a new order; rather, unlike apocalyptic, it expects God to work within existing historical structures---Jehu, Syria, etc. As far as classical prophecy goes, there is talk about a remnant, but the remnant is not exactly presented as faithful and righteous; rather, it simply consists of the people who are left after foreign invaders do their business. But I'm open to correction on this. So far, I'm persuaded by Hanson's characterization of apocalyptic as a belief in God's future dramatic intervention, apart from historical structures. And, while divisions within post-exilic Israel may have led to that, there were probably divisions within Israel before those days. Hanson talks about all sorts of disputes in the pre-exilic period, such as inner-priestly arguments. But Hanson may be right that there was something distinctive about the divisions in post-exilic Israel. A couple of times, he says that the divisions pertained to who was truly Israel. In Isaiah 63:16, for example, the speakers affirm that God is their father, even though Abraham and Israel do not acknowledge them.

Palm Sunday 2011

At church this morning, we celebrated Palm Sunday. I learned that the donkey has a cross on its back (see here). I also learned that "Hosanna" means "Save"---and I could figure out why it meant that: In Hebrew, it's the hiphil imperative of yasha with a na ("please") attached to it. The pastor made the point that many of the Jews of Jesus' day wanted a political salvation---in which they'd possess Jerusalem and be independent of Roman oppression---but Jesus was offering a spiritual salvation. The Jews were not expecting a Messiah who would humble himself, suffer, and die for their sins.

There is a certain coziness that comes from knowing that God loves me and forgives me and that I am his child, and that I can hope for a rich eternal future, regardless of what my present external situations may be. But I can understand why there were many Jews who wanted political liberation---with all of the poverty and the taxes that they had to pay to Rome. One of the texts that we read today was Zechariah 9:9, which was about the king of Israel humbly coming to Jerusalem on a donkey. But so much of the chapter is about God walloping Israel's national enemies, and creating a concrete (not merely a spiritual) state of peace. I was wondering at church this morning where the king's humility in riding on a donkey fit into that, and I remembered that I discussed that issue a while back in my post here.

But I still admire Jesus for rising above political grievances and showing a higher way. He brought different people together, people who ordinarily hated each other---such as Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax-collector.

Zechariah 12:10: Who Is the Pierced One?

Zechariah 12:10 has a variety of translations and interpretations.

1. Let's look at the King James Version:

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."

According to this translation, the person who is pierced is the one identified as "me." According to interpreters, this "me" could be God, who endured continual indignity from the Israelites. According to this view, Israel feels bad about her past treatment of God, particularly after God is nice enough to restore her and defeat her enemies. Or "me" may refer to the prophet, who experienced persecution in Israel. Once his message is fulfilled, however, his Israelite persecutors change their tune.

2. The Jewish Publication Society offers another translation:

"But I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion; and they shall lament to me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first-born" (NJPS).

In this translation, "me" is not the one who is pierced, but the piercing happens to someone else.

The New Revised Standard Version takes this one step further:

"And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn."

The NRSV removes "me" altogether. And, according to the Biblical Hebraica Stuttgartensia, there is a variant of the text that does precisely that.

So who is the pierced person in this scenario? Ehud ben Zvi offers the following comments in the Jewish Study Bible:

"The Hebrew is ambiguous, because it may refer to a person or a group whom they have pierced...[I]t is more likely that it refers to an individual or group within the nations. For an understanding of the verse as pointing to the Messiah from the House of Joseph, see b. Sukkah 52a. Radak reads the text differently; for him it describes such a salvation that if even one person of Israel were killed in the battle, they will be astonished."

According to ben Zvi, the object of mourning in Zechariah 12:10 can be individual or collective. Many Jewish interpreters have applied it to the Messiah of the House of Joseph, a Messiah of Israel who will get killed in God's battle against the nations. He is distinct from the Messiah of the House of David, the one who will rule Israel in the Messianic Age.

Or, for Radak, the pierced one can refer to the Israelite casualties in the battle against the Gentiles. But these interpretations distinguish the "they" who mourn from the "they" who pierce. This is possible, but Zechariah 12:10 doesn't explicitly mention the Gentiles fighting back against the Israelites and piercing them.

And then there are other interesting interpretations. In b. Sukkah 52a, the text that ben Zvi cites, another candidate for the pierced one is the evil inclination within humans. Rabbi Judah explains:

" In the time to come, the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring the Evil Inclination and slay it in the presence of the righteous and the wicked. To the righteous it will have the appearance of a towering hill, and to the wicked it will have the appearance of a hair thread. Both the former and the latter will weep; the righteous will weep saying, 'How were we able to overcome such a towering hill!' The wicked also will weep saying, 'How is it that we were unable to conquer this hair thread!'" (translation is from my Judaic Classics Library).

So, in this view, God will kill the inclination within humans to sin. Some will marvel that they were ever able to conquer what seemed to be insurmountable temptations, while others will regret that they caved into sin too easily.

And then there is the view that the pierced one of Zechariah 12:10 is Jesus Christ (see John 19:37; Revelation 1:7). This gets played out in a few different ways. Some believe that Zechariah 12:10 began to be fulfilled in Luke 23:48 and Acts 2. In Luke 23:48, many people at the crucifixion smote their breasts, probably in repentance for their role in Jesus' death. And, in Acts 2, Jews who were involved in Jesus' crucifixion (either directly, or through Israel's overall rejection of him) repented in his name and received baptism.

Another scenario is that people will mourn at Christ's return. Ellen White, the founder of Seventh-Day Adventism, posits in The Great Controversy that God will resurrect the very people involved in Jesus' crucifixion (e.g., Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas, etc.) right at the Second Coming, allowing them to see the triumph of the one they killed. And many dispensationalists apply Zechariah 12:10 to Israel's conversion to Christ at his return.

But I have a question about applying Zechariah 12:10 to the Messiah, the son of David: Doesn't Zechariah 12 say that the House of David will mourn for the one who is pierced? My impression (which could be wrong) is that Zechariah distinguishes the pierced one from the Davidic line.

I have another interpretation: Could the Israelites be weeping for all of the Gentiles they killed in the eschatological battle? In Zechariah 12:8-9, God talks about making even the weakest Jerusalemites like David and slaying the Gentiles who attack God's city. Perhaps the pierced ones are those very Gentiles. God may want Israel to mourn for them in recognition of their (the Gentiles') humanity. In this view, God did not want to kill the Gentiles, but he had to do so because of their aggression against God's people.

In Zechariah 14, we read of the Gentiles coming to Jerusalem to worship God, so God may want to impress upon the Israelites that he loves everyone, Israelite and Gentile. If the Israelites are to accept the Gentiles who come to Jerusalem, then they must honor their humanity. And one way for that to happen is for them to realize that the people they killed in battle were human beings, with their own thoughts, feelings, dreams, and people who cared about them. The Gentiles' deaths may have been necessary, but they were still tragic.

Midrash Avkir and b. Sanhedrin 39b, both Jewish sources, have a story about the Red Sea. When the Egyptians drowned, the angels wanted to sing for joy, but God stopped them. "The works of my hands are drowning in the sea, and you would utter song in my presence?" (translated by William Braude). According to this midrash, God loves even the people he has to destroy. And the point of Zechariah 12:10 may be that God will enable the Israelites to see their enemies as God sees them.

Zechariah 11:4-17: Who's the Shepherd?

In Zechariah 11:4-17, God gives Zechariah an assignment: he is to play a shepherd who ditches his flock. Zechariah gets upset at three of his shepherd co-workers, so he decides to abandon the flock to slaughter. He breaks two staffs, called Unity and Favor. Breaking the staff of Favor represents annulling the covenant with the peoples, and breaking Unity symbolizes dissolving the family ties between Israel and Judah. When the shepherd goes to get his wages, he receives thirty pieces of silver, which is the price of a slave (Exodus 21:32). The price is called "lordly" and "goodly," depending on the translation that you use (here, the NRSV and KJV, respectively), but that is probably sarcasm.

So who's the shepherd supposed to represent? Who is Zechariah playing in this skit? Most commentators say that the shepherd is God. And that interpretation is reasonable, for v 6 says:

"For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor, and each into the hand of the king; and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand."

Zechariah seems to be imitating God in the sense that he abandons the flock, as God says he (God) will do.

But there are things about this interpretation that don't sit well with me. Why would God get upset at being paid thirty pieces of silver? The shepherd left his flock. He's a bad shepherd! He doesn't deserve more money.

Vv 4-5 say: "Thus said the LORD my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, 'Blessed be the LORD, for I have become rich'; and their own shepherds have no pity on them" (NRSV).

God stresses that the people who buy the sheep go unpunished. Is he saying that they should be punished? Do I detect some moral outrage here? That would fit what God says elsewhere about bad shepherds (Jeremiah 12:10-11; 23:1-8; Ezekiel 34). As a matter of fact, look at what Zechariah (or, more precisely, Second Zechariah) states about shepherds and the flock of Judah--in the previous chapter: "My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the LORD of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like his proud war-horse." God cares about his flock. Much of Zechariah 10 is about God's compassion for Israel. Is he the type who would ditch his people and expect a good payment as a reward?

Vv 16-17 are interesting: "For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs. Oh, my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be completely withered, his right eye utterly blinded!"

One can interpret this to mean that Israel has lightly esteemed God as their shepherd, and so God will send them a bad shepherd who doesn't care about her. That makes some sense. But v 17 calls a shepherd who deserts his flock "worthless." Does God condemn himself when he says that, assuming that he is the shepherd who deserts his flock in vv 4-14?

Could vv 4-14 refer to a bad shepherd, which means a bad leader of Israel? Such a shepherd doesn't care about his flock. He competes with other shepherds for power and prestige. He doesn't care about the unity between Israel and Judah. The bad shepherd is not concerned about the covenant, which includes his responsibility before God to shepherd Israel.

That fits much of Israel's history. Shepherds competed against each other for power, as Northern Israel had a lot of dynasties, assassinations, and power plays. The actions of Israel's leaders led to disunity between Northern Israel and Judah. Rehoboam's stubborn hunger for power influenced Northern Israel to secede, and Jeroboam resorted to idolatry to keep North and South separated.

Such a shepherd does so poor of a job, that thirty pieces of silver are too generous of a payment for him.

I will admit that v 6 makes my interpretation somewhat problematic. My argument relates vv 4-14 to Israel's bad leaders throughout history, not to God, whereas v 6 says that God will ditch the flock. But maybe that just means that God will punish Israel and her bad shepherds, not that he himself lacks concern for his flock. After all, divine punishment sets the stage for Israel to receive good shepherds, for a change.

Is Zechariah 14:4 Conditional?

Zechariah 14:4 says the following:

"On that day [God's] feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward" (NRSV).

For a lot of Christians, Zechariah 14:4 is discussing the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

But ex-Seventh Day Adventist pastor Sydney Cleveland offers a different interpretation. He states in his commentary regarding the verse:

"ON THAT DAY = The book of Zechariah was written 520 years before Christ's first coming. Thus logic indicates the Lord would not skip over the importance of Christ's first coming -- the central point of all history -- to communicate information about Christ's Second Coming. Thus we understand Zechariah to be speaking here about events associated with Christ's first coming. What follows in this prophecy is what would have occurred at His first coming had the Jews accepted Jesus as their Messiah. Instead, when the nations gathered around Jerusalem in 70 A.D. as prophesied in Zechariah 14:2-3, Jerusalem was destroyed because God's saving presence had left the nation of Israel (see notes on Matthew 23:38-39)."

Zechariah 14 mentions all these good things that will happen to Israel, along with all these bad things that will happen to her enemies. According to the passage, God will break the power of Israel's enemies when they attempt to attack her. He will destroy many of them, and the rest he will forcefully convert to the worship of YHWH. All of the surviving Gentile nations will have to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, or they will receive no rain. For Egypt, which doesn't depend on rain because of the Nile, the punishment will be different. For Pastor Cleveland, this is what would have occurred had Israel received Jesus Christ at his first coming.

According to Pastor Cleveland, because of her rejection of Christ, Israel got instead the scenario predicted in Zechariah 13:8: "In the whole land, says the LORD, two-thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one-third shall be left alive." Cleveland states the following about this verse:

"TWO-THIRDS = Fulfillment began in the Jewish war under Vespasian and Titus to suppress the Bar Chochba rebellion, and continued through the following centuries."

Actually, the Bar Chochba rebellion occurred after Vespasian and Titus, but I understand Pastor Cleveland's overall point: He views Zechariah 13:8 and 14:4 as alternatives. If Israel accepts Christ at his first coming, she gets Zechariah 14 (the defeat and conversion of her enemies). If she rejects Christ, she gets Zechariah 13:8 (the Gentile slaughter of two-thirds of Jerusalem). Historically, much of Israel rejected Christ, and so the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Pastor Cleveland treats Jerusalem's horrible experience in 70 C.E. and thereafter as the fulfillment of Zechariah 13:8.

My problem is that I do not see Zechariah 13:8 and 14:4 as alternatives, but rather as two parts of the same story. God will allow the Gentiles to kill two-thirds of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, while he will preserve one-third. That one-third will be a faithful remnant that will cry out to God amidst much refinement and testing. Then, God will fight Israel's enemies and set into motion the paradisaical conditions of Zechariah 14.

Let's take a look at Zechariah 14:2-3:

"For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle."

God lets the Gentiles have his way with Jerusalem, then God fights the Gentiles. The oppression and deliverance of Jerusalem are two parts of the same story, not alternatives to one another.

But Pastor Cleveland is not getting his interpretation from nowhere. If Israel had accepted Christ at his first coming, would God have set up the paradisaical conditions described by the prophets? There are New Testament passages that seem to indicate this. Jesus says in Luke 13:34-35:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"

That passage seems to say the Jerusalem did not have to be destroyed. She could have embraced her shepherd, and then the house wouldn't have been desolate. Does the gathering of the children refer to the ingathering of the Jewish exiles and the deliverance of Jerusalem out of Gentile hands, themes that are prominent in the Hebrew prophets? Possibly so.

Another telling passage is Acts 3:19-21. There, Peter tells several Jews:

"Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old."

If Israel had accepted Jesus in the first century, would the Second Coming of Christ have occurred then and there? It appears so.

So Pastor Cleveland's overall scenario appears to be biblical, but I disagree with his application of it to Zechariah 13-14.

Zechariah 9:11: Blood, Part III

Zechariah 9:11 states, "As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit" (NRSV).

From a historical-critical standpoint, which seeks to interpret the Bible in light of its original context, what does "blood of the covenant" mean? How would Zechariah's original audience have understood that phrase?

There is only one other place in the Hebrew Bible that uses it, and that is Exodus 24:8. In Exodus 24, the Israelites agree to observe whatever God tells them to do. Moses builds an altar at the foot of the mountain, and the Israelites offer peace offerings on it. Moses dashes half of the animals' blood onto the altar, while he splashes the rest on the Israelite people. Moses says, "See the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words."

But I have a problem with interpreting the blood of the covenant in Zechariah 9:11 in light of Exodus 24:8. The reason is that Zechariah 9:11 seems to express God's unconditional commitment to Israel. God's message to Israel appears to be, "You have sinned, but I am bound by the blood of the covenant to set you free from your affliction." But the covenant of Exodus 24 does not strike me as unconditional, but rather as conditional, in the sense that it makes God's treatment of Israel contingent upon her obedience.

The Sinai covenant is broken when Israel disobeys. In the Anchor Bible Dictionary's article on "Covenant," George Mendenhall and Gary A. Herion say that the sprinkling of blood in Exodus 24 "was a symbolic action in which the people were identified with the sacrificed animal, so that the fate of the latter is presented as the fate to be expected by the people if they violated their sacred promise (i.e., it is a form of self-curse)." But why would the blood of the covenant bind God to Israel's well-being (as it does in Zechariah 9:11), if it represents a self-curse? In the Hebrew Bible's theology, Israel broke the covenant and was getting the punishment that she deserved. Why would the blood of the covenant encourage God to free Israel from the bottomless pit, if it represented a covenant that was conditional on Israel's obedience in the first place (and that Israel broke)?

Could the "blood of the covenant" in Zechariah 9:11 refer to the covenant of Genesis 15? There, God makes with Abraham an unconditional covenant. In a lot of covenants, both parties would walk between the pieces of a slain animal, demonstrating their intent to follow its stipulations. Sometimes, only the lesser person would walk between the pieces to commit his subservience to his superior. But, in Genesis 15, only God walks between the pieces, indicating that he would preserve the covenant regardless of what Israel did. Because of Genesis 15, God's commitment to Israel is unconditional.

And there are times when God's covenant with Abraham is invoked to save sinful Israel's life. In Exodus 32:13, Moses is pleading for Israel after the Golden Calf incident. God wants to wipe her off the face of the earth, but Moses reminds God of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This (among other factors) influences God to relent from destroying her. God's covenant with Abraham is a guarantee of Israel's permanent survival.

So is the "blood of the covenant" in Zechariah 9:11 the blood of the slain animals in Genesis 15? I have two problems with that, both of which overlap. First, Genesis 15 does not use the phrase "blood of the covenant." And, second, Genesis 15 does not really emphasize blood. Exodus 24, however, has Moses splashing it on the people in a covenant ratification ceremony. So, in my opinion, there is a greater likelihood that Zechariah 9:11's "blood of the covenant" equals the blood of the covenant in Exodus 24:8.

But how can this be, if the Sinai covenant is conditional? Here are three possibilities:

1. The blood in Exodus 24 atoned for Israel's sins. In Hebrews 9:18-23, the author treats the blood of the covenant as a purificatory agent, as if it is connected with the forgiveness of sins. Perhaps that idea existed as early as Zechariah 9. Zechariah 9:11 may be saying that God will forgive Israel because of the atoning power of the covenant blood.

2. In Zechariah 9:11, maybe God is looking back with favor at Israel's eagerness to obey him in Exodus 24. Exodus 24:8 associates the blood of the covenant with "these words," which are probably Israel's vow to obey God in everything that he says. In this scenario, God is thinking back to a simpler time, when Israel actually loved him, and that moves him to give her another chance. God does reminisce in such a manner elsewhere in the prophets (Jeremiah 2:2; Hosea 2:14).

3. The blood sealed the covenant between God and Israel, meaning that they had to be committed to each other, no matter what. David Sperling says in his article on "Blood" in the Anchor Bible Dictionary:

"Of special interest therefore is the pericope of Exod 24:4–9 in which Moses concludes a covenant between Yahweh and Israel. He sacrifices twelve bulls and dashes part of their blood on the altar and part of it on the people. The blood is termed 'blood of the covenant' (cf. Zech 9:11; Matt 26:28; 1 Cor 11:25). As is evident elsewhere in the Bible, covenants were concluded in order to create quasi-familial relations. Parties bound by covenant regularly employed family terminology. The role of blood was to create an artificial tie of consanguinity...It will be recalled that in Hebrew one refers to a biological relative or a spouse as one’s 'bone and flesh' (Gen 2:23; 29:14; 2 Sam 19:13, 14) or simply as 'flesh' (Lev 21:2). But it was not feasible physically to mingle the bone and flesh of persons who wished to effect ceremonially a social or political kinship."

Did the blood of Exodus 24 create a familial bond between God and Israel, such that God became committed to Israel as if she were his own kin? In the laws of the Hebrew Bible, being someone's relative carried certain obligations. People sought out their relatives' murderers, and they had to help their kin amidst financial difficulty (Numbers 35:18; Leviticus 25:25). Perhaps God obligated himself to Israel when Moses sprinkled blood upon them. The covenant was sealed, and God was intent on doing his part.

Zechariah 9:11: Blood, Part II

Zechariah 9:11 says, "As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit" (NRSV).

What was the "blood of the covenant"? Many Christian commentators argue that the blood of the covenant in Zechariah 9:11 is the blood that Jesus Christ shed on the cross. There are at least two variations of this interpretation:

1. Christ's blood was applied retroactively to Zechariah's post-exilic audience. When I lived in New York, I didn't have a television, so I listened to Christian radio while I was doing my homework. One person I heard was Harold Camping, a figure who believes we are in the tribulation now and that Christians should stop going to church. He also predicted that Christ would come back in 1994, which didn't happen. But I tried to call his program at various times, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. On a few occasions, when Brother Camping could have taken my call (since I heard a ring tone), he'd start talking about his ministry in India. I realized then that I'd might as well hang up and try another time.

Anyway, I asked Brother Camping about people who were righteous before Christ's death. I specifically mentioned Luke 1:6, which says that Zechariah the priest and his wife, Elizabeth "were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord." "How was this possible, if we are all sinners apart from Christ?" I asked. Camping responded that the righteousness of Zechariah and Elizabeth was imputed, not practical, meaning that God treated them as righteous even though they really were not. When God saw them, he looked at the righteousness of Christ that covered their sins. And how was this possible before Christ's death (or even his birth, in this case)? Camping said that Christ was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), so his death accomplished a salvific purpose even in Old Testament times.

I had problems with Camping's reasoning, since Luke 1:6 says Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous because of their obedience to God's commandments, not their acceptance of Christ as their personal Savior. But I've heard Camping's argument in many Christian circles. For a lot of Christians, the Old Testament saints had faith in the Christ to come, whereas the saints of today trust Christ's work in the past (specifically on the cross). And this position may have some biblical support, since Hebrews 4:2 says that the Gospel was preached to Old Testament Israel.

So one view is that the blood of Christ was effective in Old Testament times, including the time of Zechariah.

2. One can also argue that Zechariah 9:11 is prophetic, in the sense that it predicts Israel's end-time restoration on account of Christ's blood. This would work within both a replacement theology and also a dispensational model. Replacement theologians, who claim that the church is the new Israel, would argue that Christians are prisoners set free by the blood of the new covenant. That was how they became spiritual Israelites, in the replacement theology view. Dispensationalists, who hold that God still has a covenant with physical Israel, could contend that God will one day save the Jewish people, who will eventually accept Christ and his blood atonement on their behalf. In this scenario, God will save and restore the Jewish people through the blood of Christ, which is the blood of the covenant.

The New Testament may indeed understand Zechariah 9:11 as Christ's blood, for Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, and Hebrews 10:29 call the blood of Christ "blood of the covenant."

But several people have problems with applying Zechariah 9:11 to Christ. First, there are Jews who do not believe in Jesus. They do not apply the Hebrew Bible to Christ, so they have other ways of understanding Zechariah 9:11. And, second, there are many scholars who maintain that the biblical writings should be interpreted in light of their original contexts, or what they meant to those who first heard them. Consequently, they have a dim view of projecting later Christian ideas onto the Hebrew Bible, since its original audience would not have been aware of them.

Many conservatives accuse such scholars of anti-supernaturalism. For them, liberal scholars reject an application of the Hebrew Bible to Christ because they do not believe that the Bible is God's word. If the Bible is God's word, conservatives contend, then Zechariah 9:11 can apply to the blood of Christ, since God is able to talk about the future. But, for conservatives, liberal scholars see biblical writings solely as the works of human beings, who cannot predict the future. Consequently, liberal scholars limit the boundaries of biblical interpretation to the writings' original historical contexts. Conservatives hold that the liberal view is the product of an anti-supernatural bias.

But is this true? Even if the Bible is God's word, wouldn't God speak to his audiences in terms that they can understand, in a manner that makes sense to them in their own context? Looking at the text in light of ideas that were familiar to its original audience can coexist with a high view of the Bible's inspiration.

Yet, at the same time, there are New Testament passages suggesting that the Old Testament prophets (not to mention their audiences) did not fully understand what they were writing (I Peter 1:10-12). There are plenty of statements in the New Testament that the work of Christ and the inclusion of the Gentiles fulfill Old Testament prophecy (Romans 1:2; Acts 15:16-17), yet they are also called "mysteries" of which pre-Christian people were completely unaware (Ephesians 3:2-6; Colossians 1:26-27). How could the prophets talk about things of which they were unaware? The New Testament seems to say that they did not fully comprehend their own writings (which were actually the writings of God); after all, one can best understand a prediction after it has reached fulfillment, whereas, before that, it can appear rather nebulous. Moreover, for Paul, one can properly understand the Old Testament only in light of Christ, while those who do not believe in Jesus approach the Hebrew Bible with a veil that hinders their full comprehension (II Corinthians 3).

So did God try to make sense to the people of Old Testament times? According to certain New Testament authors (if my understanding of them is correct), not necessarily.

What ramifications does this have for Zechariah 9:11? It presents the passage as saying: "Look, Israel, I will deliver you because of the blood of the covenant. You do not fully understand what that means right now, but be on the lookout for that dimension of my plan. It will come!"

Personally, I try to be open to a variety of possibilities. I have no problem with reading the Hebrew Bible in light of what I, as a Christian, believe is God's ultimate plan. But I also have problems with the notion that God would speak to his people in an incomprehensible fashion.

I prefer a Christian reading that is also faithful to the literal sense of the Old Testament. Consequently, I like the view that the blood of Christ will lead to the deliverance of physical Israel (see Romans 11), since that embraces Christianity while maintaining the Old Testament story of Israel's physical restoration.

But there is another option that I prefer even more: that Zechariah 9:11 refers to blood of the covenant which is not the blood of Christ, but still foreshadows it. And that is something that I will discuss in my next post. But I will be wrestling!

Zechariah 9:11: Blood, Part I

In Zechariah 9:11, we read, "As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit" (NRSV).

In Does God HAVE To?, I responded to the evangelical emphasis on blood atonement. I wrote the following: "I know that Hebrews 9:22 says that there's no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. But it's interesting that there is a lot of talk about forgiveness in the Hebrew Bible that does not even mention blood or sacrifices. The prophets focus mostly on repentance as the path to atonement--ceasing from evil and instead doing good. There's a lot about blood in other parts of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Leviticus), but, if every single writer of the Hebrew Bible was as preoccupied with blood atonement as evangelicals, then why doesn't it always come up? It sure comes up in every evangelical discussion of atonement that I have heard!"

After reading Zechariah 9:11, I wonder: Did the Israelites just assume that blood upheld their covenant relationship with God? Although I made an argument from silence in my above statement, I have a problem with that method of argumentation. I've heard professors say, for example, that Sinai had to be an exilic or post-exilic construction because it does not appear in pre-exilic writings. Their assumption seems to be that pre-exilic authors would have mentioned it with frequency if they knew about it. But my problem with this argument is that the pre-exilic authors (e.g., many of the prophets) mention a lot of things incidentally. We wouldn't know that the prophets were aware of Moses, Joseph, Jacob, and Abraham apart from a few stray references, and, even then, they don't give a lot of details about their stories. They most likely assumed that their audience was simply aware of them.

The same may apply to Zechariah 9:11: Faith in the blood of the covenant could have been such a part of Israel's cultural repertoire, that the prophets did not see a need to mention it all of the time. They just assumed it. They did focus on repentance as the path to restoration, however, because they felt that Israel needed a nudge (or, more accurately, a push) to repent.

The blood of the covenant may have been an important factor that guaranteed Israel's eternal survival. In Jeremiah 30:11, God tells Israel that he will make an end of several Gentile nations, while Israel will always exist, regardless of her sin. At the same time, Israel would not get off scott free, for God would chasten her. For the prophets, repentance helped Israel's life run a lot more smoothly, since the result of her sin was exile and devastation. But her obedience was not really what guaranteed her eternal life. What did that was the blood of the covenant, something that the other nations did not possess.

My conclusion is that, even in the prophets, blood may be a significant factor in atonement, in the sense that it secured Israel's life. So evangelicals have a point when they highlight the importance of blood.

To Fight or Not to Fight?

In Zechariah 9:10, we read, "He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth" (NRSV). "He" may refer to God or the new king of Israel, who enters Jerusalem on a donkey.

So Zechariah is saying that Israel will not fight after the Messiah comes, right? Not so fast! V 14 says, "For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will arouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword." Zechariah 10:4 states regarding Judah, "Out of them shall come the cornerstone, out of them the tent peg, out of them the battle bow, out of them every commander." Zechariah 12:6 has, "On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot on a pile of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem." And v 8 contains this profound promise: "On that day the LORD will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD, at their head."

So Zechariah says the the Israelites will have no weapons, yet they will directly participate in God's war against their enemies. Is this a contradiction?

I encountered this problem before I read Zechariah, when I was doing my Micah quiet times. In Micah 5:10, we read, "In that day, says the LORD, I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots." The verse seems to refer to Israel's chariots, for God also promises to end her strongholds, witchcraft, and idolatry. Israel depended on these things rather than God for her security, so God affirms that he will take them away.

Yet, Micah also portrays Israel as actively defending herself at her restoration, even pursuing aggression when necessary. Vv 5-6 says that, if the Assyrians dare to tread on Israelite soil, Israel will raise up seven shepherds and eight princes to rule Assyria with the sword. And vv 8-9 liken the remnant of Israel to a fierce lion who will cut off her enemies.

How can one reconcile this apparent contradiction? I can think of two ways.

1. God will enable Israel to defeat her enemies without horses and chariots. The Israelites will be as they were in the Conquest of Canaan, when the Canaanite nations, not the Israelites, were the ones with the horses and fancy chariots (Deuteronomy 20:1; Joshua 11:4-6; 17:18). But the Israelites had God, and so they defeated Canaan without the advanced war equipment of the day.

Many commentators (e.g., John Gill, Keil-Delitzsch) assert that several prophecies were fulfilled under the Maccabees in the second century B.C.E. For example, Obadiah talks about the Israelites defeating Edom, and Judah Maccabee accomplished this, according to I Maccabees 5:3. Also, the Maccabees whipped Greece, as Zechariah 9:14 predicts. As far as I know, the invasion of Assyria (Micah 5:5-6) didn't happen. But other events did. Yet, did the Maccabees defeat their enemies without horses and chariots?

I'm not an expert on Second Temple history, but I will say one thing: When I searched under "cavalry," "horses," and "horsemen" on BibleWorks, the references to them in the books of Maccabees applied predominantly to Israel's enemies. The exception is I Maccabees 16:4, which concerns a time after the Maccabean revolt. The focus of Maccabees seems to be that the Jews defeated their oppressors against overwhelming odds, since the Seleucids had numerous horses and chariots. Did the Maccabees win without these instruments of war?

My interpretation may work for Micah, but it doesn't fit Zechariah very well. Zechariah 10:4 mentions the Judeans successfully using the battle bow against their enemies, whereas Zechariah 9:10 states that God will cut off the bow from Israel. So does Israel have a bow or not, in Zechariah's view? That brings me to my next interpretation:

2. God does different things at different times. In this scenario, Israel defeats her enemies with the bow and other weapons, and, after that happens, God removes the weapons from Israel. This scenario may work. Zechariah 9:10 is about the Israelite king's reign of peace, which appears to be the goal of his disarmament program. Once war has occurred, there is no longer a reason for weapons. This interpretation assumes, however, that Zechariah 9-10 is not presenting all of its events in chronological order. The parts about God using Israel as a weapon and Judah defeating her enemies with a bow come after Zechariah 9:10, the passage that mentions the king cutting off Israel's weaponry. Perhaps Zechariah 9-10 offers various musings that are designed to encourage the Israelites.

This interpretation works with Micah 5, on some level. V 9 says that Israel will defeat her enemies, and v 10 affirms that, "in that day," God will cut off Israel's chariots and horses. That seems to indicate that, once Israel wins her battles, God will remove the things that she relied on instead of him.

But that puzzles me. If God wanted to show Israel that she should rely on him alone, which appears to be the message of Micah 5:10-15, then why would he allow her to defeat her enemies with weapons? That doesn't make much sense. If God desires to get his point across, then shouldn't he defeat Israel's enemies all by himself, or have Israel fight them without weaponry?

But here's a possibility: Maybe Israel only succeeds with weapons up to a point. In Micah 5:15, after God promises to remove Israel's chariots and horses, strongholds, witchcraft, and idolatry, he says that he will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey. But didn't Israel already defeat the Gentiles? What is there left for God to do? Perhaps Israel beat the Gentiles up to a certain point, but God needed to finish the job himself. So Israel fights for herself, but, ultimately, she needs God.

Zechariah 9:9, Part II

Zechariah 9:9 says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (NRSV).

So why does Zechariah present the king coming into Jerusalem on a donkey?

At school, I have heard a couple of times that a donkey was a sign of royalty in the ancient Near East. According to this view, the king is demonstrating his royal status when he enters Jerusalem on a donkey.

I have a problem with this view because the passage seems to connect riding on a donkey with humility. In addition, the Keil-Delitzsch commentary argues that a donkey was not always a sign of royalty; rather, its status declined over the years. The commentary states:

"[I]t is also a fact that in the East, and more especially among the Israelites, it was only in the earlier times, when they possessed no horses as yet, that distinguished persons rode upon asses (Jdg 5:10; Jdg 10:4; Jdg 12:14; 2Sa 17:23; 2Sa 19:27), whereas in the time of David the royal princes and kings kept mules for riding instead of asses (2Sa 13:29; 2Sa 18:9; 1Ki 1:33; 38:44); and from the time of Solomon downwards, when the breeding of horses was introduced, not another instance occurs of a royal person riding upon an ass, although asses and mules are still constantly used in the East for riding and as beasts of burden[.]"

So, seeing that the donkey became a sign of humility, why does Zechariah emphasize that the new king of Israel will enter Jerusalem riding one? I can think of at least three reasons:

1. The king is showing his desire to bring peace to Israel. Zechariah 9:10 stresses the king's role as an inaugurator of peace, and Christian commentators are quick to contend that the king of Zechariah will bring it through words rather than force. This allows them to view Zechariah 9:9-10 as a prophecy about Jesus, who preached peace and meekly laid down his life instead of leading an armed revolt against Rome.

The king of Zechariah 9 may very well influence the Israelites to stop hating one another. "This is a new beginning," I can envision him saying. "Accept me as king, put the past behind you, and let us unite."

But, if the king is to bring peace to the Gentiles, then he will probably use more than words, as far as Zechariah is concerned. V 13 talks about God using Judah and Ephraim as a weapon against Greece. Zechariah 10:3-7 portrays the Israelites with war-like imagery. Zechariah 9-10 seems to contain a theme that appears in other prophets: Israel will successfully fight her Gentile oppressors after her restoration. So the king who enters Jerusalem on a donkey is not completely anti-war, nor does he rely on words to the exclusion of force. Consequently, there may be others reasons for his animal of choice.

2. The king is showing that he's a better ruler than the others Israel has had. Israel had a lot of oppressive rulers, from her own ranks and also from the Gentiles. Samuel warned the Israelites that even an Israelite king could take their property and children whenever he wished (I Samuel 8). In Jeremiah 22, the prophet accuses the king of forcing Israelites to build his luxurious house for free, of murder, of oppression, and of violence. And Ezekiel 46:18 states that, after Israel's restoration, "The prince shall not take any of the inheritance of the people, thrusting them out of their holding; he shall give his sons their inheritance out of his own holding, so that none of my people shall be dispossessed of their holding."

So there was a clear prophetic concern about royal authoritarianism. For many prophets, the king's oppressive use of power was a contributing factor to Israel's fall and exile. For Zechariah, the king after the restoration would not fall into the same trap. He would not be a person of violence, oppression, exorbitance, and pride, but rather of peace and humility. And how would he demonstrate this before Israel? By riding into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey.

And Israel would also find rest in the message that she would have her own king, not an oppressive Gentile ruler. For years, the Israelites were controlled by Gentile powers, who stripped them of their dignity and subjected them to tribute, intimidation, mockery, and devastation. Even under the Persians, who gracefully allowed the Jews to rebuild their temple and city walls, the Jews still felt like slaves (Ezra 9:9; Nehemiah 9:36-37). They desperately desired an Israelite ruler who would sincerely care about their well-being. And Zechariah assured Israel that God would send her such a humble (yet effective) leader.

3. The king is demonstrating God's favor. The Israelites had just experienced God's wrath, as God had used Gentile oppressors as a weapon against Israel on account of her sins. But, after their restoration, God wanted to show his people that he was giving them a new beginning, one of happiness, peace, prosperity, and divine favor (Zechariah 9:15-27; 10:6). His message to them was that their affliction was a thing of the past. And how did God communicate this? He sent them a king in the most non-intimidating way possible: riding on a lowly donkey. He sought to sooth them after their intense punishment.

Many Christians appeal to Zechariah 9:9 for apologetic purposes. For them, the passage demonstrates the Messiahship of Jesus and the fulfillment of prophecy (and, consequently, the Bible's divine inspiration), since Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey years later.

Christians also find homiletical value in Jesus' fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, for Jesus demonstrated humility rather than pomp, pride, or a desire for acquisition. In The Great Controversy, Seventh-Day Adventist founder Ellen G. White tells about a painter in the Middle Ages who painted two pictures: one of the pope riding a noble steed with pomp and glory, and another of humble Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey. The goal of the painter was to challenge authority with the character and virtue of Jesus, something that many (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, etc.) have done throughout history. For many Christians, Jesus' act exemplified his meek and lowly character, in which the burdened can find rest for their souls (Matthew 11:29).

While these are important issues, my post focuses on something additional, which (in my opinion) often gets ignored: How does the king's riding on a donkey speak to Zechariah's original audience, within the context of Zechariah 9-14 itself? I'm sure there are plenty of scholarly evangelical commentaries that tackle this issue quite well, but I rarely hear it addressed in a lot of evangelical circles (e.g., church, Bible study groups, etc.). And they should work more at reading biblical passages in light of their immediate contexts, for doing so can uncover jewels about God's character. In the case of Zechariah 9:9, a contextual reading reveals God's encouragement to his restored people, in the midst of a difficult, discouraging time.

Zechariah 9:9, Part I

The New Revised Standard Version for Zechariah 9:9 says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

How was the new king of Israel triumphant and victorious? Was Jesus triumphant and victorious when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey?

In my opinion, "triumphant" and "victorious" are not the best ways to translate tzadiq and nosha, respectively. Tzadiq most often means "righteous," and nosha is a niphal of yasha, which means "save." Niphal is often a passive form, so nosha may mean "saved." So one can say that the king who enters Jerusalem in Zechariah 9:9 is righteous and saved.

The king is righteous, in contrast to many of the previous kings of Israel and Judah, who led their nation to disaster. His righteousness makes him a lover of peace, which is why he will command peace to the nations (Zechariah 9:10). So this is not a king who will lead his people to divine punishment, nor will he allow imperialistic powers to bully Israel unjustly. He is a righteous king.

How is the king "saved"? He may be "saved" in the sense that he is delivered from battle. Perhaps he participated in God's wrath on the nearby nations in Zechariah 9:1-8 (e.g., Syria, Tyre, and Philistia), and he returns to Israel as a survivor of those many battles. The nations were strong, and the battles were many, so there was a good chance that the king could die, but he didn't.

Can this apply to Jesus? Maybe the interpretation that I just laid out cannot, for Jesus did not fight Syria, Tyre, and Philistia. Is there another interpretation that can work? Well, according to W. Sibley Towner in my HarperCollins Study Bible, "Commentators point out that the conquest of the eastern Mediterranean by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E. followed a similar course" to that of the divine warrior in Zechariah 9:1-8. So perhaps Zechariah 9:1-8 was fulfilled by Alexander the Great. Years later, the king of Israel, Jesus, would come to Jerusalem seated on a donkey. And, years after that, he would return to command peace to the nations.

Maybe Zechariah 9 does not have to be fulfilled all at once. Perhaps Zechariah (or, more precisely, Second Zechariah, the scholarly term for Zechariah 9-14) was telling the post-exilic community God's overall plan for his people, which would reach fulfillment over several years. "But why would they care about what happens centuries down the road?" one may ask. Well, we often hear that Israelites in those days had a communal mindset rather than an individualistic one. God could punish sin down to the third and fourth generation, after all. So perhaps the Israelites of Second Zechariah's time would be interested in what happened to their descendants.

So how was Jesus "saved"? For this question, I cannot really come up with an interpretation that is faithful both to the context of Zechariah 9:9 and also the life of Jesus. But I can think of ways in which Jesus experienced deliverance before he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. He had survived Herod's massacre of infants (Matthew 2) and the attempt of the Pharisees to kill him (Luke 4:29-30). The Jewish leaders had wanted to arrest Jesus during his ministry, but they couldn't because his hour had not yet come (John 7:30). Jesus had also done his share of battling the forces of darkness, for he bound and plundered Satan (Matthew 12:29). God had preserved Jesus' life through many conflicts and battles. In a manner of speaking, Jesus was "saved" by the time he entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

Of course, Zechariah 9 doesn't say anything about Jesus' close calls, but perhaps we can juxtapose Zechariah 9 with the life of Christ to say this: Whatever evil may throw at God's anointed king, God will deliver him so that he will accomplish God's salvific purpose. Zechariah 9 is about God overthrowing evil and setting up his kingdom of peace. Whenever God tries to destroy evil, evil will fight back. But God's anointed one, Jesus, would survive the battle.