well. We may imagine the shepherd's instruments as consisting of a strong stick mounted with iron, with which he wounds the sheep, whereas the good shepherd keeps them in order with a thin staff and gentle strokes. We may also picture to ourselves a shepherd's bag full of holes, and containing nothing of any use to either shepherd or sheep. In any case Bochart's notion must be rejected, that "there is nothing in either the appearance, or attributes of the bad shepherd, to distinguish him from the good; his actions alone betray him." (Hieroz. i. 455).

Ver. 16. "For behold I raise up a shepherd in the land, those that perish he will not visit, the tender thing he will not seek out, nor heal that which is wounded; the strong he will not nourish, and the flesh of the fat one he will eat, and split their claws in pieces."

The foolish shepherd does the very opposite of what Christ the good shepherd is represented as doing in Is. xlii. 3, "The bruised reed he will not break, and the smoking flax will he not quench." Zechariah had also several passages from Jeremiah and Ezekiel in his mind. Compare Ezek. xxxiv. 3, 4, "Ye eat the fat and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill the fat one and ye feed not the flock; the weak ye strengthen not, the broken ye bind not up, ye bring not back that which has broken away, neither do you seek out that which is ready to perish;" and Jer. xxiii. 1, 2, "Woe be unto the shepherds which destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord; therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; ye have scattered my flock and driven them away, and have not visited them." The connection with these passages is not merely an outward one. By a just judgment of God the nation had been punished by means of bad rulers before the captivity. Jeremiah and Ezekiel had promised deliverance from them, and after the captivity,—namely in the time of Zechariah. this had actually taken place, when the nation was ruled in a truly paternal spirit by Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zechariah however, announces that at a future period the same cause will again produce the same effects, and that in a heightened degree. The word "for," at the commencement, may be explained on the supposition, that it assigns the reason, why a symbolical action had been enjoined.

according to the current הנער

opinion, means that which has burst or broken away; Gesenius and Maurer: "dispulsio, concr. dispulsum."

,נער

,נער But as

written in precisely the same way, is used to denote " the young" in every other passage in which it occurs, there is no reason to make an exception in this instance, but on the contrary there is every reason to assume, that the radical signification of tender and weak is the leading notion here, and to this the idea of seeking is very appropriate. We must imagine the tender one, which needs the greatest care of all the flock, as having been left behind. The verb "y, which is certainly also the root of ya, "a boy," does not suit well as the root of y with the meaning strayed, if we consider the sense in which it is generally used. Its only meaning is to shake. The form also is not suitable, as we may see at once from the fact that Hitzig proposes to change the vowel points, and alter the participle into a Niphal. But the occurrence of the masculine y in the midst of feminines is perfectly decisive. It is impossible to account for this, if we regard the word as part of the verb. On the other hand the noun y, according to the early usages of the language, for which Zechariah has a great preference, is employed for both genders (compare Gen. xxiv. 16 and Job i. 19). It is a matter of but little importance, that y is never used of animals, whether we consider the age in which Zechariah wrote, or the fact that the prophecy really relates to men. The two clauses relating to the weak and the strong are separated by Athnach. From its connection with the fat one it is better to explain as meaning, not that which stands still and cannot move from its place on account of hunger and exhaustion, but "that which stands upright." The analogy of the language is in favour of this, as does not mean to stand still, but to stand. The Septuagint rendering is rò λónλnpov; that of the Vulgate : id quod stat.' The words, "he will split their claws," do not refer to the extreme cruelty of the shepherds, as many commentators suppose, but to the avarice, which is no doubt accompanied by cruelty to the sheep. There is a climax intended; he will eat,

1 "It is opposed to that which lies down and is prostrate from disease. For as the sick and broken down stand in need of medicine, so do those that stand up and are well need food and sustenance, that their health may be preserved."-Bochart.

&c., he will even break the claws one from another, that not a shred of flesh may be lost.'

Ver. 17. "Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock, a sword over his arm and over his right eye! his arm will be entirely lamed, his right eye will become quite dim.”2

The arm and the right eye are mentioned as individual examples of the objects of punishment, and as the two parts of the body, which are most needed by a good shepherd for tending and guarding his flock, and most shamefully abused by a bad shepherd to the ruin of the sheep. The arm is the organ of strength, the right eye of prudence. An apparent difficulty is presented by the fact that two kinds of punishment are mentioned in connection with each member, and that the two are incompatible with each other. The sword is first of all threatened to both; then narams to the arm (Calvin, "the arm will dry up, i.e., its strength will so thoroughly depart that it will become like a rotten stick"), and dimness to the eye. But the punishments mentioned merely serve to particularise the general notion of punishment, and the prophet connects several together, to give greater distinctness to the magnitude of the punishments as well as of the crime. He was the better able to do this here, since the shepherd was not one individual, but many.

CHAP. XII. 1-XIII. 6.

A new scene opens here. The nation of the Lord, which is at war with all the nations of the earth, though weak in itself, is strong in the Lord, and is everywhere victorious (vers. 1-9). The Lord breaks the hard hearts of the inhabitants of Jerusa

1 Ewald and Hitzig adopt Tarnov's explanation, "he will tear their hoofs, by driving them on bad roads." But tearing or breaking in pieces points to a direct act. Compare the parallel passage in Micah iii. 3, where allusion is made to the breaking of bones by the voracious princes.

2 "In this verse the prophet teaches, that although God will justly inflict this severe punishment upon the Jews, yet the shepherds themselves will not escape with impunity; and thus he shows that, even in the midst of all this confusion and destruction, he will still remember his covenant."-Calvin.

lem, and gives them the grace of repentance; so that they repent, with bitter sorrow, of the sins which they have committed against Him (vers. 10-14). In Him they now find forgiveness for their sins (chap. xiii. 1), and this is followed by an earnest effort to attain to sanctification, and to remove everything of a wicked and ungodly nature in their life and conduct (vers. 2-6). The prophecy is divisible, therefore, into two parts, the victory of the people of God over the hostile heathen world (chap. xii. 1—9), and the conversion of the children of the kingdom.

Commentators are divided in opinion as to the period of fulfilment, and also as to the subject of chap. xii. 1-9. With regard to the former,-not to mention those who agree with Ewald in referring the prophecy to the Chaldean invasion, which took place before the time of the prophet,-there are many, with Grotius at their head, who imagine that the period of the Maccabees is here referred to. But the relation in which the present chapter stands to the preceding one, is a sufficient proof that this cannot be the case. The restoration of the people of God, depicted here, is evidently contrasted with their rejection mentioned in the previous chapter; and if the rejection took place after the coming of Christ, the restoration cannot belong to an earlier period. This is also confirmed by chap. xii. 10. The penitential and believing look, which is there described as being turned to the murdered Messiah, belongs to a later period than the Maccabean era, and points at once to the Messianic age, of which alone the forgiveness of sins and universal desire for holiness, referred to in chap. xiii., can possibly be signs, whether we regard them by themselves, or in connection with the parallel passages. Lastly, in the earlier prophecy relating to the Maccabean era, only one nation is mentioned as hostile to the covenant nation (chap. ix. 13),—namely the Greeks; but here, on the other hand, all the nations of the earth are represented as its foes.

The second difference relates to the subject of the prophecy in chap. xii. 1-9. The opinion is a very old one, that the Christian Church is referred to. Jerome speaks of it as relating to the Christian Church in general and particular, in contradistinction of the Jewish. "Some of the Jews," he says, "imagine that this prophecy was partly fulfilled in the period extending from Zerubbabel to Cneius Pompeius, who took Judæa and the

temple, of which occurrence an account has been written by Josephus. Others, again, suppose that it will be fulfilled, when Jerusalem has been restored at the end of the world, an event which the miserable race of the Jews anticipates along with its Eve, the foolish shepherd of whom we have read above.-Lastly, there are others, ourselves for example, who are called by the name of Christ, who regard it as being fulfilled every day in the Christian Church, and as destined to continue to be so to the end of the world." Cyril, Marck, and many others adopt the same opinion. That this explanation, in the form in which it is generally given, is inadmissible, cannot for a moment be doubted. The expounders of the prophets alone, not the prophets themselves, know anything of a spiritual, as distinguished from the outward Israel. It can only be adopted in a modified form, -viz., when the covenant nation is understood as meaning that portion of Israel, which welcomed and believed on the Messiah when he came, and which received the heathen nations into its bosom, instead of merely uniting with them as an independent body and on an equal footing, so as to form together one church. There would still be one view which might be adduced in opposition to this, namely, that the subject of the prophecy is not the Church of the New Testament generally, of which the first-fruits of Israel formed the kernel and stem, but the Church of the last days, when the whole of the people of the ancient covenant will have been delivered by the mercy of God from the sentence of hardness passed upon them, and will again be received into the kingdom of God, of which they are to form the centre. At first sight there is something very plausible in this view, which is supported by Vitringa (observv. s. 1. ii. c. 9, p. 172), C. B. Michaelis, Dathe, and others. The principal argument in its favour is founded upon chap. xii. 10 sqq. According to this passage, those who now receive the powerful assistance of the Lord, are those who formerly put him to death. With the national guilt, which is depicted in chap. xi. in connection with the punishment that follows, there is here contrasted national lamentation on account of it, and such strong expressions are employed to indicate its universality, that it cannot possibly relate to the few Israelites who turned to the Lord immediately after the crucifixion." But it is erroneously assumed