Text

[1]

Ask rain from the LORD

Ask for rain from the Lord each hour

In the season of the spring rain,

Early and late!

From the LORD who makes the storm clouds,

The Lord shall make apparitions,

Who gives showers of rain to you,

And winter rain shall give to them,

The vegetation in the field to everyone.

Each plant in the field. 

[2] For the teraphim utter nonsense,

For the speakers, they spoke troubles 

And the diviners tell false dreams,

And the diviners false visions

And give empty consolation.

And they were speaking lying dreams 

And comforting with worthless things

Therefore the people wander like sheep;

Because of this they shall be removed as sheep 

They suffer for lack of a shepherd.

And they shall be harmed, for there was not healing.

[3] My anger is hot against the shepherds,

My wrath has been provoked against the shepherds,

And I will punish the leaders;

And I shall have care for the lambs;

For the LORD of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah,

And the Lord Almighty shall oversee his little flock, the house of Judah,

And will make them like his proud war-horse.

And shall arrange them as his comely horse in battle. 

[4] Out of them shall come the cornerstone,

And he shall look out from it,

Out of them the tent peg,

And he shall arrange from it,

Out of them the battle bow,

And from it a bow in wrath

Out of them every commander.

And from it shall go out everyone who would march forth in it.

[5] Together they shall be like warriors in battle,

And they shall be as warriors,

Trampling the foe in the mud of the streets;

Walking over mud in the streets in battle

They shall fight, for the LORD is with them,

And they shall battle, for the Lord is with them,

And they shall put to shame the riders on horses. 

And they shall put to shame the riders of horses. 

Notes on Text

For the most part my treatment Zechariah 10 will be somewhat less detailed than Zechariah 9, just because my primary concern here is the the influence Zechariah has on the New Testament, and Zechariah 10 is not cited in the New Testament, with that being said, a theme which is continued in later chapters is introduced in this passage.  The first verse is a fairly generic passage about God providing rain, and serves as a bridge between the end of Zechariah 9, which is describing a utopian bounty provided by God, and the beginning of chapter 10.  In Zechariah 10:1 we are instructed to directly ask God, and then in verse 2 we are warned against relying on teraphim/speakers/diviners, who give false dreams, empty consolation, etc.  The LXX and NRSV diverge somewhat in their treatment of these false prophets, in the NRSV, the passage reads:

Therefore the people wander like sheep;

They suffer for lack of a shepherd.

My anger is hot against the shepherds,

And I will punish the leaders;

In the LXX the same passage reads:

Because of this they shall be removed as sheep

And they shall be harmed, for there was not healing.

My wrath has been provoked against the shepherds,

And I shall have care for the lambs;

In the LXX, this passage seems to be describing the exile as a punishment for these false prophecies, and God’s wrath is turned against the shepherds.  It is possible to interpret the shepherds as the foreign aristocracies who deported the people of Judah into exile, but it is also possible to read these shepherds as the aristocracy of Judah itself, and the NRSV version of the text lends itself better to that interpretation.  As we shall see in later chapters, this image of the bad shepherd is a recurring motif in Zechariah, and it is cited in surprising ways in the New Testament.  

The remainder of this passage is a fairly standard set of poetry, describing God’s care for the house of Judah, and promising that they shall flourish and triumph in battle.