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3. The Structure of Individual Sections of Zechariah 191
9.1-8 Israel reconquers territory of Assyria and Egypt
9.9-10 The victorious of the king
9.11-12 The return of the northern kingdom out of exile
9.13-15 The battle against the enemy (Judah and Ephraim)
9.16 'Positive'shepherd picture
9.17-10.1 'Positive' fertility/fruitfulness motif
10.2a 'Negative' fertility/fruitfulness motif
10.2b-3a 'Negative'shepherd picture
10.3b-5 The battle against the enemy (Judah)
10.6-10 The return of the northern kingdom out of exile
10.1 la Yahweh's victorious Epiphany
10.11 b-12 The might of Assyria and Egypt is destroyed and that of Israel is
strengthened
If my criticisms of other work have been valid, then this presentation
must be regarded as largely fanciful. The most serious defects are that:
1. It is based on labelling that is subjective, and at times, farfetched;
for example 10.2a has nothing to do with the kind of
'fertility/fruitfulness' pictured in 9.17-10.1; 9.9-10 may be
described correctly, but 10.1 la can only with great difficulty
be made to mean Yahweh's epiphany. 1
2. Verbal links are not sought, and they often do not exist,
between corresponding sections; for example the first and last
only have cnttf, and ~no in common; 9.9-10 shares no
vocabulary with 10.11 a.
3. The sections do not balance one another; for example 9.1-8
does not balance 10.11b-12. 2
4. Parallels between sections that are not put opposite one
another are not accounted for (see the investigation of 9.1-
11.3 below).
1. Otzen, Studien, pp. 251-52.
2. It is ironic that Otzen regards it as a virtue that he has not produced a scheme
with lines of equal length: 'Wir haben in unser Analyse ganz darauf verzichtet, eine
strenge Symmetric in dem Formalen zustande zu bringen; bei uns stehen recht kurz
und ziemlich lange Perikopen in Parallele (s. z.B. 9.1-8 gegeniiber 10.lib-12)'
(Studien, p. 221). It is not clear why this should add weight to his argument, since
one would naturally think that members of roughly equal size would balance each
other better. Perhaps he has in mind Lund's statement that, after 'analyzing carefully
Pss. 1-74. .. neither the length nor number of lines are [sic] essential to the strophe,
but only the order of the ideas' ('Chiasmus in the Psalms', p. 285). Or perhaps he
simply finds Lamarche's scheme suspiciously regular.