Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <schmuel AT escape.com>]

Shalom b-Hebrew,

> Zechariah 6:12-13
> ============================================================
> King James Bible
>
> And speak unto him, saying,
> Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying,
> Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH;
>      and he shall grow up out of his place,
>      and he shall build the temple of the LORD:
>      Even he shall build the temple of the LORD;
>      and he shall bear the glory,
>      and shall sit and rule upon his throne;
>      and *he* shall be a priest upon his throne:
>  and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
>
> ========================================================


> Dear Schmuel,
> You are trying to reach a solution in which only one person
> is involved, and that person is both priest and king on the
> (single) throne. It won't work, because the verse continues
> "and a counsel of peace will be between the two of them."
> The writer has two separate and distinct people in mind.
> Liz Fried.

Schmuel

Hi Liz, nice to see you jump in :-)

Well, that is clearly one exegesis of the passage,..... :-)
We had one that leaned that way, vesting a new subject in the previous phrase,
and two in the opposite way.(he).. (while I am just a learner and listener)

What I have learned here on this passage I will summarize..

1) grammatically "he shall" and "there shall be" are essentially a wash...
       Neither is grammatically "correct" or "incorrect", that was my 
first real issue
       Any claim of "mistranslation" (which is where I came in, on another 
forum)
              is a false claim, except if they change the "upon/seated" or 
"shall be"

2) the five previous actions by the branch in sequence would mitigate for "he"

3) the plural in the subsequent verse is a similar argument for "they"

Neither (2) or (3) is conclusive...

==================================================
(3) requires two thrones, which seemingly is uncomfortable doctrinally 
(interpretively)
        for Orthodox Jews as well as well as Christians

This may explain why Soncino seems to deliberately err in translation...

**  and there shall be a priest **before** his throne  ** Soncino

We haven't checked ArtScroll/Stone yet, and wonder if they mistranslate 
similar ...
As Soncino and ArtScroll can be considered the two most important Jewish 
translations...

========================================================

And therefore, everybody looks for good harmonious logic, some with Messiah 
only,
some with typology including Messiah, and some trying to keep Messiah out 
to at
most a very vague "super-midrash" level... (we will ignore attempts to put 
the trinity in :-)

Even in rabbinics, the pat idea of Zerubbabel (Rashi c.1000) is strongly 
responded to
by Abarbanel (c 1500) as Zerubbabel he never ruled/throned in Jerusalem....

So it is hard to fulfill the passage in any way that satisfies all,
   there is a literalist view,eg..simply trying to apply to Zerubbabel and 
Joshua
   there is a Messianic view... with its different way to handle "both"
   or other ways like Marko's with YHWH having peace with the one he 
speaks to ..
                   (do I have that right ?)
=====
Interestingly Samson Levey (Jewish on the Targums) mentions an

"understanding between the political and the sacerdotal power,
which is usually identified with Elijah, but not specifically so here." ...

  leaving the interpretation fairly open ...
While he shows that the Targum translates the Branch as Messiah .. :-)

==============================================================

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Bayside, NY

schmuel AT escape.com

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