Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/193



The explanations of this difficulty which have been jiven by interpreters both Jewish and Christian, ancient ind modern, are many, but for the most part are faretched and unsatisfactory. Some get over the difficulty ightly by the very simple method of correcting the text md substituting DM2TJN (adummim, " the red ") in the 7th /erse for DJf"OK (amutsim, " the strong "), which they regard is a scribal error. This, I might mention, had been done ilready by the translators of the ancient Syriac version. 3ut this solution of the difficulty, apart from other objecions, does not explain why the description " the strong"


 * hould be used as an additional epithet of the " grisled " in he 3rd verse, nor why the red, which in the vision was ieen first, should in the Angel's interpretation be spoken of is going forth last.

Another explanation already adopted in the Septuagint version, the Targum, Kimchi, etc., and by some Christian nterpreters, including Calvin and Koehler, is that amutsim Iocs not here mean " strong," but denotes a colour. They egard fox (amots] as a softened form of pon (Jiamuts), a vord found in Isa. Ixiii. I, and there signifying "red." But apart from the fact that it is impossible (as Keil )bserves) to see why so unusual a word should have been
 * hosen by the prophet in the 7th verse to describe the
 * olour " red," instead of the intelligible word adummim, vhich he had already used in the 3rd verse, there is no;atisfactory ground for identifying amots with hamuts.

Moreover, as Dr. Wright points out, there is a serious lifficulty in the way of this explanation, that the same vord would then be used in ver. 3 and in ver. 7 in two otally different significations in the first place as an idditional description of the " grisled," or " speckled," and n the latter to denote the " red."

Hengstenberg attempts to solve the difficulty in the bllowing manner: According to him there can be no loubt as to the meaning of the word amutsim; it can only