242 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



s l av e a price that he is commanded to cast into the 

 treasury of the temple, for a prophet does not serve to 

 enrich himself, and it is God, not man, whom they reward 

 so meanly. Then he breaks his second staff, and Ephraim 

 and Judah are allies no longer. And now the prophet 

 must symbolise the foolish and worthless shepherd that 

 rules over the nation which rejects God s care, a shepherd 

 who has no care for the weak and suffering, but who 

 feasts on the flesh of the fatlings and breaks the hoofs 

 of the sheep by driving them on stony roads (not like 

 Jahveh s p-j$ ^p). The prophecy closes with a 

 denunciation of wrath against this wicked ruler. A 

 sword upon his arm and upon his right hand, his arm 

 shall be dried up and his right eye wholly extinguished. 



A single glance shows that in this prophecy it is ab 

 solutely impossible to separate between the question of 

 authorship and date and the exegesis of the passage. 

 If we are to follow an historical interpretation at ail- 

 that is, if we are to suppose that here, as elsewhere, the 

 prophet is speaking primarily to his own contemporaries 

 and from the circumstances of his own time or indeed, if 

 we are to interpret literally at all, the idea of authorship 

 by Zechariah is out of the question. 



a. This appears clearly from individual traits. (a) 

 Ephraim and Judah or Israel (or Joseph) and Judah 

 appear as distinct throughout. Certainly an allusion to 

 this distinction is not impossible in a prophet writing after 

 the captivity. Zechariah (viii. 13) writes: &quot;As ye have 

 been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and 

 house of Israel, so will I save you.&quot; (Zech. ii. 2, Mai. ii. n 

 quoted by Havernick are irrelevant here.) And Ezekiel 

 (xxxvii. 15 sq.) prophesies the restoration of Ephraim and 

 Judah and their reunion into one kingdom. And so in 

 our passage, though the use of the two names is much 

 more extended, it may fairly be said that where a restora 

 tion of Judah and Joseph is mentioned (Ezek. x. 6), there 

 is no instance against Zechariah as author. But quite 



