Scholar: Zechariah 12:10

by OldSoul 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • OldSoul
    OldSoul

    Scholar,

    Please explain the meaning of the original Hebrew in this text:

    (Zechariah 12:10)
    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.

    I'll give you some hints to get you started:

    (1) Jehovah/Yahweh was speaking

    (2) The New World Translation rendered the Hebrew "ayth" as "the One" with a capital "O" signifying the deity, where the King James version translated it "me".

    Why do your celebrated WT scholars teach that this verse applies to Jesus but not to Jehovah?

    OldSoul

  • ozziepost
    ozziepost

    OldSoul: You're sure keeping the "scholar" busy!!

  • OldSoul
    OldSoul

    bttt, so Scholar will see it.

  • scholar
    scholar

    Old Soul

    The expression "to the One whom" applies to Jesus and not to Jehovah because it is quoted by John in his Gospel 19:37 where Jesus fulfills this prophecy. Numerous theories have been advanced in order to identify 'the One' but the Palestinian and the Babylonian Talmuds refer tis expression to the Messiah in line with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. In addition Revelation 1:7 makes a similar reference to Jesus.

    Regarding the Hebrew a marginal note in two Hebrew manuscripts reads 'to him' or'to the one whom'. Other versions show a similar rendering.

    scholar JW

  • Hellrider
    Hellrider

    Interesting. Can`t wait to see what Leolaia and Narkissos has to say about that one. IF this is supposed to be the Messiah speaking, that would be the one and only place in the OT where the Messiah/Jesus (The Word?) speaks, when it is the deity who is speaking, no? How strange...

  • ozziepost
    ozziepost

    Hellrider:

    I don't think it's the only place in the OT.

  • Hellrider
    Hellrider

    I haven`t been reading the OT in a long time, I`ve just started rereading the NT. It`s usually God (YHWH) speaking in the OT. Where are the other places the Messiah/jesus/the Word speaks in the OT?

  • OldSoul
    OldSoul

    If you read the context of Zechariah 12:10, it is clearly YHWH speaking. When he says "self," i.e. "ayth," he is referring to himself. Scholar knows this is a theological problem for the CCoJW, because Jesus is NEVER the "One" with a capital "O" anywhere else in the OT.

    The same translation of the same word occurs at:

    Leviticus 22:31-33"And YOU must keep my commandments and do them. I am Jehovah. And YOU must not profane my holy name, and I must be sanctified in the midst of the sons of Israel. I am Jehovah who is sanctifying YOU, the One bringing YOU out of the land of Egypt to prove myself God to YOU. I am Jehovah."
    Deuteronomy 10:20-22"Jehovah your God you should fear. Him you should serve, and to him you should cling, and by his name you should make sworn statements. He is the One for you to praise, and he is your God, who has done with you these great and fear-inspiring things that your eyes have seen. With seventy souls your forefathers went down into Egypt, and now Jehovah your God has constituted you like the stars of the heavens for multitude."
    2 Kings 17:36"But Jehovah, who brought YOU up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched-out arm, is the One whom YOU should fear, and to him YOU should bow down, and to him YOU should sacrifice."

    There are many others, when translated with a capital "O" the word unfailingly and without exception is contextually in reference to YHWH. But, for some reason (we all know why), the celebrated WT scholars chose to ignore their constant application of their translation of this word with the capital "O" as referring to Jehovah and instead, in this singular case, applied it to Jesus.

    Why, Scholar?

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    Old Soul....The first person pronoun is 'ly "to, toward me", not 't which is a direct object marker ('ty is an object pronoun) or preposition "with". The MT text is: w-bhytw "and they will look" 'ly "to me" 't 'shr-dqrw "whom/on account of whom || they pierced"; cf. the JPSB rendering, "They shall look unto me because they have thrust him through". The sense of 't 'shr as something other than "whom" appears in the LXX which uses anti "instead of, because of" to express the idea that the divine "me" and the one being pierced are separate persons: epiblepsontai pros me, anth' hón katórkhésanto "and they shall look to me, instead of || because of the one they have mocked" (katórkhésanto "they danced insultingly" occurs instead of the expected exekentésan "they pierced" because of a scribal error in the Hebrew between dqrw and rqdw). The Greek version of Aquila is also painfully literal of the Hebrew and also disambiguates the two persons: epiblepsontai pros me, sun hó exekentésan "they shall look towards me, with the one whom they pierced". The context strongly favors the disidentification of the divine "me" and the pierced one because of the pronoun shift in the rest of the verse: "They will look to me ('ly) on account of the one they have pierced, they will mourn for him (`lyw) as for an only son, and weep for him (`lyw) as people weep for a firstborn child" (Zechariah 12:10). The text is ambiguous as to whom the "they" and "him" refers to, but I believe the best sense can be gained from understanding the "they" as the "clans of Judah" (cf. v. 10: "they will mourn for him", v. 12 "the country will mourn clan by clan") and the "him" as referring to a generic "one they have pierced", which refers back to v. 6: "When that day comes I mean to make the clans of Judah like a brazier burning in a pile of wood, like a flaming torch to stubble; and they will consume the peoples round them right and left". This refers to the holy war between Judah and the Gentiles in the preceding verses ("All the nations of the earth will mass against her," v. 3). Contextually, the mourning is best understood as by the Jews for all those whom they had killed, mourning each dead person "as people weep for a firstborn child".

    The text in John 19:37 (opsontai eis hón exekentésan "they will look to the one they have pierced") modifies the Zechariah passage in two important ways. First of all it interprets the 't 'shr as eis hón "(in)to whom" rather than sun hó "with whom" or anth' hón "instead of whom, because of whom" which distinguish the one being looked at from the one who was pierced. This rendering follows that of Theodotion rather closely: kai epiblepsontai pros me, eis hón exekentésan "and they will look towards me, to the one they have pierced". Here the translator has conflated the two persons. But the author of John takes this one step further by omitting the pros me, making the one being looked at explicitly the one being pierced. The application of this verse by John ignores all sorts of contextual facts as well. The ones who "pierced" Jesus in John are Gentile soldiers, whereas in Zechariah the people who killed the "pierced one(s)" are those from the clans of Judah. In Zechariah the "looking" and "mourning" occur at a time after an eschatological war between the Jews and the Gentiles (which not the case in John).

  • OldSoul
    OldSoul

    Leolaia,

    Thank you for the clarification and for your research skills. So, as I understand what you wrote (and I do not claim to be a scholar by any stretch, so I may not have understood at all), there is no method under which "ayth" could be translated to exclude looking to the one speaking, contextually YHWH. It could only be translated to qualify the cause of the looking to YHWH. Did I understand that correctly?

    If so, then the celebrated WT scholars used their understanding of John to validate mistranslating Zechariah, instead of allowing the proper translation of Zechariah inform their understanding of John. Which was to be the eventual point of this discussion and, it seems, your research has supported that view. Although I freely admit I may be incorrectly understanding your post.

    A short "upshot," practical effect, synopsis would help.

    Respectfully,
    OldSoul

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