An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 187: Some stuff that looks like the Gospels if you squint, and take it out of context (Zechariah 11-14)
Zechariah 11-14
Some stuff that looks like the Gospels if you squint, and take it out of context.
The rest is to do with false prophets, with parents urged to kill their own child if he begins to prophesy. Again there’s a tantalising element of Christ mythology in the verse “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends” which brings to mind stigmata. However, in context here this person with the wounded hands is not cast as any kind of saviour figure, but as one of the false prophets, so perhaps signals are a bit mixed.
Some stuff that looks like the Gospels if you squint, and take it out of context.
Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores
Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through
the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as
literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP
And now:
Zechariah 11
“And I will feed
the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of
the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the
other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.”
Zechariah’s puzzling metaphors and use of language
continues. Who or what is the “flock of
slaughter”? What does that even mean? A flock that is facing slaughter? Or
is it that the full phrase “I will feed
the flock of slaughter” supposed to mean that the flock (i.e. the people, I
think that much is clear at least) will be fed “of” slaughter – i.e. that they
will be slaughtered. That makes the most sense in context, as the following
verses talk of death and fire; “I will
deliver the men every one into his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his
king: and they shall smite the land”. It sounds like the usual predictions
of Assyrian predations to me, for which the blame is put on the worshippers of
false idols for angering God.
The staves, named “Beauty” and “Bonds” are broken by, I
think, God (possibly Zechariah), and represent a breaking of the covenant,
leading to suffering for the Israelites. But they pay a price of thirty pieces
of silver (hmm, a significant sounding number…) which is “cast […] to the potter in the house of the LORD”, although what he
does with them, we don’t find out. Nor what the price is actually for. A
representative cost, I would assume. God would have no need of money, and if
Zechariah is anything like all the other OT prophets he’d be pretty disdainful
of it too.
(Note added as I’m editing this after completing the
Bible – the reference to the “potter in the house of the Lord” must surely be
connected to the “potter’s field” associated with Judas’ death. But, really, if
that’s the case it’s a really stretched
attempt to make it fit.)
Zechariah 12
“Behold, I will
make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they
shall be in the siege both against Judah and against
Jerusalem.”
Here we have God promising a kind of deliverance for Jerusalem.
The words imply the lifting of a siege, wherein the horses and riders of the
enemies besieging Jerusalem will be driven mad or stunned, whilst the governors
of Judah become like fire and destroy their enemies. As written this has a very
physical feel to it, although I guess it could be written as a more allegorical
tale of the success of orthodox worship over oppressors and enemies.
It ends with a promise that the Israelites will be sorry
for turning away from Yahweh, but there’s one verse that I can see has probably
been taken otherwise: “And I will pour
upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of
grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced,
and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in
bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
It appears here that God is referring to Himself in the
third person – “they shall mourn for him”
meaning God, but the whole aspect about the “only son” who has been pierced; well, you can see how elements of
that can bleed into the mythology of Christ.
Zechariah 13
“In that day there
shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.”
I have trouble with Zechariah, and many of these prophets
in general, of keeping straight the order of their prophecies. Here, for
example, it seems like we should be looking at a time of restoration after the
return from Exile – a fountain in Jerusalem to wash away sin (real, metaphor,
both, your choice), but later on the chapter promises that two thirds of the
land will be “cut off” and only a
third will survive, but be like purified silver (the old smelting metaphor
again).
The rest is to do with false prophets, with parents urged to kill their own child if he begins to prophesy. Again there’s a tantalising element of Christ mythology in the verse “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends” which brings to mind stigmata. However, in context here this person with the wounded hands is not cast as any kind of saviour figure, but as one of the false prophets, so perhaps signals are a bit mixed.
Zechariah 14
“Behold, the day of
the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.”
The “day of the
Lord” described in the quote above is the capture of Jerusalem where “the city shall be taken, and the houses
rifled, and the women ravished”, which doesn’t seem like the actions of a
very kind and loving God. But still, we gloss over this because at the end of
this chapter Jerusalem rises triumphant, with enemy nations suffering a
flesh-rotting plague; “Their flesh shall
consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume
away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth”
and all the world coming to pay homage to God at Jerusalem, otherwise they will
be inflicted with drought.
And that’s it for Zechariah. I don’t know if I’m getting
prophet-fatigue after so many variations on the same theme, or if Zechariah’s
style is particularly obscure, but I found this one very hard to get to grips
with. There’s jumping around in the timeline, strange euphemisms and allegories
and on top of that, the usual doom and destruction that I’ve come to expect.
Probably it doesn’t help that he’s three times as long as most of the books in
this section as well. There are lots of bits and pieces here that sound like elements of the life of Jesus, but putting them in context here rather than take them individually as prophecy, it's seems apparent that none of them really apply to any kind of Messiah figure. Zechariah's language is so obscure, however, that I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't been interpreted as some kind of symbolic allegory full of "secret wisdom".
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