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3. The Structure of Individual Sections of Zechariah 167
(often chiastic) and the units themselves are arranged in an elaborate
chiastic fashion:
A 9.1-8 Judgment and salvation of neighbouring peoples
B 9.9-10 Arrival and description of the king
C 9.11-10.1 WAR AND VICTORY OF ISRAEL
D 10.2-3a Presence of idols; judgment
C 10.3b-11.3 WAR AND VICTORY OF ISRAEL
B 11.4-17 The shepherd rejected by the people
C 12.1-9 WAR AND VICTORY OF ISRAEL
B 12.10-13.1 Yahweh's representative pierced;
mourning and purification
D 13.2-6 Suppression of idols and false prophets
B 13.7-9 Shepherd struck; people tested, purification
and return to God
C 14.1-15 WAR AND VICTORY OF ISRAEL
A 14.16-21 Judgment and salvation of all nations 1
If this represents the intention of the author/editor, as Lamarche
believes, then we have good reason to interpret the sections marked
'B' as referring to the same person: the shepherd-king, who is
Yahweh's representative, and who, through his own suffering, brings
about purification for the people. This is obviously very much in
harmony with the NT and traditional Christian teaching about the
messiah.
Lamarche's interpretation of the meaning of Zechariah 9-14 for its
own time is as follows: there was a historical individual, whose
contemporaries considered to be a possible messiah. After his death,
the author of Zechariah 9-14, who knew the 'suffering servant'
poems, continued in his messianic hope for a while. When he realized
that the dead prophet might not be the messiah, 'our prophet does not
limit himself to this perspective alone; he envisages also, after the
messiah's death, and the conversion of Israel, a dynastic messianism
(12.8) and a messianic salvation set up by Yahweh the King (14.8ff)'. 2
Lamarche's book was given a positive, if more or less cautious,
welcome by scholars who reviewed it, including Rowley and
Emerton. It has been accepted by Baldwin in her commentary, and
1. Zacharie 9-14, pp. 112-13, cf. Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi,
pp. 78-79.
2. Lamarche, Zacharie 9-14, p. 153