Text

[6] I will strengthen the house of Judah,

And I shall reinforce the house of Judah

And I will strengthen the house of Joseph.

And the house of Joseph I shall save

I will bring them back because I have compassion on them,

And I shall settle them because I have loved them

And they shall be as though I had not rejected them;

And they shall as though I have not turned away from them

For I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.

Because I am the Lord their god and I shall hearken to them.

[7] Then the people of Ephraim shall became like warriors,

And they shall be as warriors of Ephraim,

And their hearts shall be glad as with wine

And their heart shall be gladdened as in wine;

Their children shall see it and rejoice;

And their children shall see and be glad,

Their hearts shall exult in the LORD.

And their heart shall rejoice in the Lord.

Notes on Text

This passage seems to be describing a return from exile, with the implication that the exile was the result of God’s rejection and the return the result of his compassion.  Here we see some language that is reminiscent of the previous chapter (“their hearts shall be glad with wine” vs. “Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women”).  It is most interesting to consider this promise to love/have compassion as though they had not been rejected against Zechariah 9:2-3.  As we mentioned in the previous post, there is some ambiguity about who is being described by the bad shepherd motif, and there are a few possible readings, including:

• The aristocracies of the empires who had exiled the people from Judah are the bad shepherds
• The bad shepherds are the aristocracy of Judah

If this latter possibility is the correct one, it raises the question, why then is God having compassion and strengthening the house of Judah?  One argument that could be made is that the bad shepherds being described were the pre-exilic aristocracy, in which case the logic somewhat straightforwardly would be: bad shepherds mislead the people → the exile punishes this misdeed → the strength of Judah is restored after the punishment has concluded.  In the NRSV translation, the verbs describing this are mostly in the present or future tense: the teraphim utter, the people wander, God’s anger is hot, God will punish.  This set of translations suggest that if the bad shepherds are indeed the aristocracy of Judah, their misdeeds persist.  In the LXX, the verbs many verbs are past tense: the speakers spoke, the diviners were speaking, God’s wrath has been provoked.  But other verbs are in the future tense: they shall be removed like sheep, they shall be harmed, God shall have care for the lambs.  Here it is more ambiguous when the misdeeds are occurring.  There is an argument to be made that the phrase “And they shall be harmed, for there was not healing” is referring to the bad shepherds rather than the flock, which would imply that the misdeeds are in the recent past and the punishment is imminent for the shepherds.   But it is also ambiguous whether that phrase applies to the bad shepherds only.  

You, dear reader, might be wondering what this somewhat pedantic review of verb tenses in Zechariah 10:2-3 has to do with Zechariah 10:6-7! The thing that I find so interesting about this relationship is, Zechariah 10:6-7 is describing the return of God’s favor, but depending on how we read Zechariah 10:2-3, this returning favor might be wholly arbitrary, and returning to an aristocracy that persists in its misdeeds.  Remember, we saw in Zechariah 9 that God seems to promise the actively unpious into religious observance, and here it is possibly the case that his favor returns to those who persist in their misdeeds.  The distinction that is made between shepherds and little lambs is also an interesting one, inasmuch as it seems to promise a care for the humbler sort even despite the failures of their rulers. 

The reason that I find this all so interesting is that obviously it is the case for many forms of contemporary Christianity to view salvation as something that is only awarded to the right sort of people, who behave themselves well.  This strain of thinking I think underpins some of the more harmful Christian thinking about sexual morality, whether that be purity culture or condemnation of homosexuality.  Here, however, we see God promising to return his regard and renew his relationship with his chosen people, and it is ambiguous whether they actually deserve that behavior.