In our last few posts we’ve done a high level overview of Zechariah as well as briefly examined why it is commonly divided by scholars into First Zechariah and Second Zechariah.  That being said, my primary interest in Zechariah is how it is used in the New Testament, and how the context of citations might influence our understanding of what Early Christians were trying to communicate to us. I began reading Zechariah because it was cited in Matthew, and one of my major goals overall with this project is to get a better understanding of how Hebrew Scripture is used in the New Testament.  

I used this list of citations/allusions  as a reference for the project, and while I am fairly certain it is an incomplete list, I wasn’t able to find anything better.  If anybody out there knows of a reference tool that lets you find a complete list of citations/allusions of a given book of Hebrew Scripture in the New Testament, please let me know!  

Now let us turn our attention to the list that we do have.  As a methodological note, New Testament translations will be my own, for Zechariah I will cite both the NRSV translation and my own translation of the Septuagint version of the text (which will be abbreviated LXX).  

Our citations are as follows:

Zechariah 9:9

NRSV:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! 

Lo, your king comes to you;

Triumphant and victorious is he,

Humble and riding on a donkey,

On a colt, the foal of a donkey. 

LXX:

Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion!

Proclaim, daughter Jerusalem!

See you king comes to you, righteous [δίκαιος dikaios] and saving is this one

Gentle and riding upon a beast of burden and a young foal.

A variant form of this is cited (or paraphrased) in Matthew 9:9:

Speak to daughter Zion:

See you king comes to you

Gentle and riding upon a donkey

And upon a foal, the son of a beast of burden.

And a different variant is cited or paraphrased in John 12:15:

Fear not, daughter Zion!

See your king comes,

Seated upon the foal of a donkey.

It should be noted that all of the gospels have parallel passages in which Jesus enters Jerusalem riding a foal, using the word πῶλος pōlos, which means a colt or foal, but Mark and Luke cite a Psalm rather than Zechariah (John cites both).  Depending on how strictly you want to be in defining what counts as an allusion, it is plausibly the case that all of the Gospels refer to this verse in Zechariah, but only two of them go so far as to explicitly cite some version of the Hebrew Scripture itself.  

The other thing to point out here is that there is quite a bit of variation in text forms when you consider the NRSV (which is based off of a standard Hebrew text known as the Masoretic Text), the LXX, and the two citations from the Gospels.  There is a fair amount of variation in texts from manuscript to manuscript in the ancient world, but it is also possibly the case that the citation is from memory and accidentally mixes passages from multiple passages. For example, the annotations in my Greek New Testament point to both Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9 as sources for the passage in Mark, with the phrase “Speak to daughter Zion” coming from Isaiah and the remainder coming from Zechariah.  

This variation in text forms is very, very common in the Bible and ancient texts more generally, and is the result of several things.  The first is that manuscripts were copied by hand, and that travel was a slower and more laborious process in the ancient world than it is now, which structurally created a tendency to local variations in the texts because of regional variation in religious beliefs or practice as well as localized history of scribal errors.  But it is also the case that at the time the texts that now make up the Bible were being written, there was no finalized canon and so rather than their being an authoritative text that was standardized, many variant texts were accepted as equally valid.  There is also evidence that even within a single religious community, multiple variant forms of a single text were accepted as valid.  So we should not necessarily be bothered by this variation in text forms.

Zechariah 11:12-13

NRSV:

I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.  Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it into the treasury” – this lordly price at which I was valued by them.  So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the LORD.

LXX:

And I shall speak to them “If it is fine before you, give my standing wage or refuse.” And they set my wage as thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me “Place these into the furnace, and I shall evaluate if they are genuine, in the manner I have been proven for them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them into the house of the Lord into the furnace. 

This passage is alluded to in Matthew 26:14-16, where Judas goes to the high priests and asks what they will pay him to betray Jesus, with a wage of thirty pieces of silver being established. Interestingly, the parallel passages in Mark and Luke omit any mention of the size of the reward.¹ This passage is also explicitly cited in Matthew 27:9-10, which reads:

Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying “And I took the thirty pieces of silver, the price for the one having been priced, who they prized from the sons of Israel, and they gave these unto a field of potters, just as the Lord commanded to me. 

The NRSV version of Zechariah has an interesting annotation on the word “treasury” each time it appears in its passage, which reads “Syr: Heb it to the potter,” indicating that the English translation relies on a Syriac manuscript which reads “treasury,” rather than the surviving Hebrew manuscripts, which read “to the potter.” Compare this to the LXX text, which has the silver cast into a furnace, which is explicitly to test the genuineness of the coins but implicitly to purify them by fire.  Matthew’s citation clearly follows the Hebrew text more closely than the Greek.  

Zechariah 12:10

NRSV:

And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps for a firstborn.

LXX:

And I shall pour out upon the house of David and upon the the dwellings of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and mercy, and they shall look upon me since they have celebrated a triumph and they will beat their breasts in grief upon this one, mourning as one beloved, and they shall be distressed with grief as upon a firstborn. 

John 19:37 reads “And again another writing says “they shall look unto the one who they have pierced,” thus favoring the Hebrew text form.  The context in which this citation appears is: Jesus has already died on the cross, and rather than breaking his legs, a soldier stabs his side, causing blood and water to pour out.  The author of John then cites one Scripture reading “His bones will not be broken” and then this passage from Zechariah, presumably to support that argument that Hebrew Scripture predicted Jesus’ crucifixion.  

This is also cited in Revelation 1:7, which reads:

See he comes with the clouds

And every eye will see him

And whoever pierced him

and all the tribes of earth shall beat their breasts in grief.

This poetic section is actually several different citations lumped into a single new text, which is used to support the expectation of the apocalyptic return of Jesus. 

Zechariah 13:7

NRSV:

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, 

Against the man who is my associate,”

Says the LORD of hosts.

Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered;

I will turn my hand against the little ones.

LXX:

“Sword, raise up against my shepherd,

And upon a man who is my citizen,” says the Lord Almighty.

Strike the shepherd and force out the sheep, 

And I will bring my hand against the shepherd.

This passage is cited in Matthew 26:3:

Then Jesus says to them: all of you shall err against me in this night, for it is written: Strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall scatter”

And also Mark 14:27:

And Jesus says to them that you all will err, because it has been written: Strike the shepherd and the sheep shall scatter.

n both instances this verse is quoted during the Passover feast, prior to Jesus and his disciples departure for the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus eventual capture by the high priests, and is used to foretell this capture.  

Closing Thoughts

This is likely a non-exhaustive list of citations and allusions to Zechariah in the New Testament, and it should also be noted that Zechariah borrows language from other prophetic books, so that it is possible to read multiple allusions into a single New Testament passage.  The fact that the author of Matthew erroneously claims to be citing Jeremiah in 27:9 should give you some idea of the similarities in language among the various prophets, but also the fact that New Testament authors were often quoting Scripture from memory or using forms of Hebrew Scripture that vary from the accepted Hebrew manuscript tradition as it currently exists. Although the citations most closely follow the Hebrew text forms, particularly for citations of Zechariah 9:9, New Testament authors are clearly paraphrasing or using variant text forms.  

Accordingly, as we proceed to examine Zechariah more closely, priority will be given to the Hebrew text (as translated in the NRSV), but it is also worth comparing the Hebrew text to the LXX.  In particular, the LXX forms sometimes use more consistent language and imagery than the Hebrew version, which possibly indicates that the Hebrew text was corrupted somewhere in the transmission of manuscripts,² or possibly indicates that the Hebrew text is an older version of the text and the LXX text has edited an obscure original text to make it more clearly reflect the editors’ understanding of its meaning.  In either instance, the LXX can potentially illuminate layers of meaning that might otherwise remain hidden.

Going forward, I will look pretty closely at Zechariah so that these individual verses are understood within their original context, and then will look at how they seem to be used by New Testament authors.  As we shall see, there are some places where this approach will clarify subtext used by the New Testament authors, and in other places a deeper understanding of Zechariah will complicate our understanding of what New Testament authors meant.  

Footnotes

[1]  Mark 14:10-11 reads “And Judas Iscariot who was one of the twelve departed to the high priests so that he would betray him [Jesus] to them. And hearing they rejoiced and promised to give him silver.  And he searches for how to opportunely betray him.” <back to top>

[2] It is apparently the case that in Hebrew, where vowels are omitted, it is quite easy to confuse one word for another word, and this confusion sometimes leads to instances in which the meaning of verse becomes obscure or confusing, which is what I mean by “corrupted.” <back to top>