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140 Structure and the Book ofZechariah
8 and he called out to me 1
and he said to me
See
the ]is* pK *?R D'JP have set my Spirit at rest
pax pio
There seems to be some corruption here. Rudolph's solution is probably
the neatest: he keeps rQ "itfR in v. 6, and assumes that the chariot
with red horses, named first in v. 2, together with a singular verb, is
described as going to the east. It is possible to keep the MT 'by
translating v. 3 '...dappled horses; [all] mighty ones'. Then v. 7
refers to all the horses as 'mighty ones'. 2 It is tempting to make the
text more regular, but it requires quite a lot of emendation, and there
are irregularities elsewhere in Zechariah. We must reckon with the
possibility that the changes in the pattern are deliberate. 3
Note that probably the most distinctive word in this section is D^nK,
which occurs nowhere else in Zechariah (except that the same root is
found in 12.5). It is further emphasized by its position as the last word
of the first section (vv. 1-3), and as the first word of the third section
(vv. 7-8). This is at least a possible purpose of the word in the text as
we have it, and gives reason to be cautious about emending it. 4
Let us ask about the other irregularities. Why, for example are the
red horses not mentioned again? A possible answer is that they are not
needed (since we can work out where they go from information given
about the others), and their omission puts into greater prominence the
horses who 'go forth to the north' and who bring the chapter to a
in the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps, however, it recalls the opening of the vision where the
focus was initially on the (feminine) chariots. Cf. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah, p. 327.
1. BDB, p. 277; 'he called me out/forth' would be a more natural grammatical
translation (cf. Judg. 4.10, 13; 2 Sam. 20.4-5) and the Meyers' adopt it (Haggai,
Zechariah, p. 328): 'the prophet is to be fully alert and ready to hear the statement
that follows'. Perhaps; though nothing in previous usage has prepared us for this
understanding. On the other hand, this type of address has not occurred before.
2. Rudolph, Haggai, pp. 122-23. The main reason for this is that the first word
of v. 6, "iitfR, indicates that something has dropped out of the text before it. See also
Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah, pp. 316, 320-22; Jeremias, Die Nachtgesichte,
pp. 126-30; W.D. McHardy, 'The Horses in Zechariah', in In Memoriam P Kahle
(ed. M. Black and G. Fohrer; BZAW, 103; Berlin: Topelmann, 1968), pp. 174-79.
3. Although we must admit here that the case for emendation seems stronger
than for retaining MT.
4. A line may still have been dropped out of the beginning of v. 6.