Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Notes on the Hebrew and Greek text of Zechariah 9:9-10

  

The last messianic promise in the Book of the Twelve, Zech 9:9-10, comprises a rather peculiar concept of leadership. It presents a royal leader without royal power: A saved (נושע) and humble king on a mere donkey. Consequently, these verses have met with mixed reactions throughout the history of their reception.

 

The Old Greek translation of Zechariah, which probably dates to the time of the Hasmonean kingdom, eliminates all the aspects of the Hebrew text which convey the impression of a passive or weak king (van der Kooij 2003; Pola 2009; Eidsvåg 2016, 161-184): instead of being saved (נושע), the king becomes a saviour (σωζων). Instead of God (והכרתי), the king himself destroys the enemy’s weaponry (και εξολεθρευσει). Instead of proclaiming peace to the nations (ודבר שלום לכוים), the king receives tribute: “wealth and peace from the nations” (και πληθος και ειρηνη εξ εθνων). In the Babylonian Talmud, likewise, the Persian King Shapur I articulates his contempt for the Jewish messiah and his donkey by offering him his horse (bSan 981): “You say that the Messiah will come upon a donkey: I will rather send him a white horse of mine.” (Martin Schott, “Messianism in Transition: Zech 9:9-10 between First and Second Zechariah,” in Transforming Authority: Concepts of Leadership in Prophetic and Chronistic Literature, ed. Katharina Pyschny and Sarah Schultz [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 518; Tübingen: De Gruyter, 2023], 85)

 

The Greek translator may have read the Hebrew ורב ושלום מהכוים instead of ודבר שלום (van der Kooij 2003, 59). The modification is based on transposition and substitution of similar-looking Hebrew consonants—an accepted exegetical device in rabbinic literature as well as in the Septuagint. For πληθος in the sense of “wealth,” see Zech 14:14. (Ibid., 85 n. 1)

 

As recently argued by G. M. Eldsvåg (2016, 160-184), the LXX reading is most probably secondary, and it is best understood as a revision from the Hasmonean period, emphasizing the king’s military role at the time when Judean kingship was being reestablished and strengthened through military activity. Hence, it appears that a rather complex text reflected in the MT has provoked various interpretations, trying in particular to simplify it, as in the case up to the present. (Hervé Gonzalez, “Zechariah 9-14 and the Transformations of Judean Royal Ideology during the Earl Hellenistic Period,” ibid., 101)