Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT

by Sea Breeze 53 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  slimboyfat

  What AI programme are you using out of interest?
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  peacefulpete

  Zechariah is a bit awkwardly worded but the contextual meaning is clear. Yahweh has been 'pierced/pained/made to suffer deeply' by his people's sins. Yet he will show great compassion and pour upon them his 'spirit of favor/grace'. The people will subsequently look to him and repent and grieve their past actions, 'as a person grieves a firstborn son' aka deeply and heartfeltly. The simile describing the grief of repentance as the grief over a lost son, and the perceived blasphemous idea of Yahweh experiencing pain, led to some unintended interpretations. Interestingly, the pre-Christian Targum Jonathan (as preserved in a marginal note in Codex Reuchlinianus) already has incorporated the legendary Messiah Ben Joseph/Ephraim into this passage.

  "And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of prophecy and prayer; and after this the Messiah, son of Ephraim, will go out to fight with Gog, and Gog will slay him before the gate of Jerusalem. And they [Israel] shall look to me and shall inquire of me why the nations pierced the Messiah, son of Ephraim."

  Numerous subsequent references followed this idea. It is hardly then surprising that the Christian writers would do the same. The entire Christ/Jesus template was in place within late 2nd Temple Judaism. The Messiah ben Joseph is to be killed. The Messiah ben David however succeeds in vanquishing Israel's enemies and bringing new blessing. The creative part of Christianity was to identify a single character as both. At the same time the writer of John, by the selective quote is clearly interpreting it with a nuance, he sees the verse as also saying Yahweh was Jesus in a second power sense.
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  peacefulpete

  As I mentioned, another ancient interpretation was that the 'one who was pierced' was the collective nation of Israel that were killed......Standard Targum Jonathan:
  

  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.

  
  I should correct another error. I described the marginal gloss in the Codex Reuchlinianus as pre-Christian. The Targum is Pre-Christian, the marginal note is a later expansion of unknown age before the manuscript's writing. The roots of the Messiah Ben Joseph concept date to late 2nd Temple period but this gloss is not an example of that. Sorry. Rather the Targum understands the slain of Israel collectively as the one pierced. This shows the discomfort on the part of later pious Jews to suggest God feels pain and can be personally affected by the actions of humans. It probably was influenced by 2nd Isaiah's suffering servant.
  
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  peacefulpete

  Along similar lines the extant OG LXX versions made a change in which Yahweh was no longer stabbed but 'mocked'.

  : they shall look upon me, because they have mocked/insulted me, and they shall grieve/mourn for/because of him/it as for a beloved…”

  Theodotian corrected the LXX perhaps using a now lost Greek the Hebrew forms. The Qumran 4Q80 reflects the Hebrew as well.

  All said the issue arose from poorly worded use of a simile and the late pious belief that Yahweh could not be pained/stabbed by his people. The additional seemingly awkward shift from first person to third confused matters further.

  You may have noticed some translators have used "it" rather than 'him" as the referent in the latter half of the passage.

  And they have mourned over it, Like a mourning over the only one, And they have been in bitterness for/because of it, Like a bitterness over the first-born.

  This is a legitimate translation. Note that Hebrew had no neutral pronoun as English does, so the context must inform if the meaning is intended literally masculine or not. This IMO resolves some of the pronoun issue. If the people grieve 'because of it' rather than 'for him' it reads much better. Many have mistaken the simile of grieving 'as for the grieving over a lost son' as suggesting the pronoun ought to be understood as a personal referent and not to an event or experience. However, the point of the simile was the extent of the morning not the object of it. But as we know history went another way, the latter half of the passage was spun in Messianic ways.