Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/407



REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 391

read, " the sheep of slaughter " ; after which there follow the three Hebrew words, |NVn "3JJ 137, lachen aniyye hatson, which the Authorised Version has rendered, " Even you, O poor of the flock " ; and the Revised Version, " Verily, the poor of the flock " ; and the explanation usually given is that " the poor of the flock " is practically only another name for " the sheep of slaughter." But this is very unsatisfactory, for, first, the primary and natural meaning of the adverb i?^, lachen, is not " even " or " verily," but " therefore " ; and secondly, the designation " aniyye ha-am" " the poor of the people," or. as the word also means, " the needy," " the weak," " the afflicted," is almost invariably used in the Hebrew Bible of the pious or godly in the nation who are persecuted and oppressed by the godless of those whom the wicked in his pride " hotly pursue," or persecute, but who, knowing God to be their refuge, can look up to Him and say: " But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me." 1

Certainly in the iith verse the "aniyye katson" who " observed " the prophet, and knew that it was the word of Jehovah, must refer to the God-fearing portion of the nation. In brief, I believe that the sentence should be rendered, " therefore (on this account) the poor of the flock," 2 and that in these three words in the Hebrew there is summed up the result, or blessed fruit of the labours of the Good Shepherd. Not altogether in vain, or fruitless, would His self-sacrificing effort to save the lost sheep of the House of Israel prove. The mass would indeed prove obstinate,

1 Compare Ps. x. 2-9, xiv. 6, liii. 6, xxxv. 10, xxxvii. 14, xl. 17, Ixx. 5, Ixxii. 4, Ixxxvi. I, cix. 16-22 ; Isa. x. 2, xiv. 32, xli. 17 ; and many other places where J^, ant, is used.

2 The LXX has evidently made a great blunder over these sentences, for in ver. 7 it has for |Niin :; J?^ eZs rr\v KavaaviTiv, "in the land of Chanaan" (or Canaan), leaving out the word for " sheep" or " flock" altogether ; and in ver. II it has got ol Xavavaioi the Canaanites, or "merchants." And yet some modern scholars adopt these evident misreadings as the basis of emendations of their own of the Hebrew text as, for instance, Sir George Adam Smith, who has translated the sentence in ver. 7 "for the sheep merchants," and in ver. II, " the dealers of the sheep." But the Hebrew text in this place needs no emendation or alteration when properly understood.