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.

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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