Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Steve,

> SM: The context is a hard-to-understand prophecy, a divine puzzle or riddle.
> The meanings of each word as defined by the rest of the Tanach, along with
> NT & OT explanation, enable us to solve the puzzle. We should not interpret
> the passage in such a way that a Hebrew word means something different than
> what it means in the rest of the Tanach.
>  
HH: This is an artificial argument. A word can mean what a word can 
mean, even if it does not have that meaning elsewhere in the Tanach.

> I am familiar with the above interpretation. My interpretation is different:
> Zechariah 6:1-8 is explained by Revelation 6:1-8. The number and colors of
> the horses are the same. The 4th horse is 2 horses in one in both passages.
> When the strong horses go out over all the earth, that is the power of Sheol
> let loose, the start of the great tribulation, causing Zechariah to scream
> in anguish.
HH: That's possible, but I do not see the color of the horses being 
exactly the same; The fourth horse in Revelation is green, but the 
fourth one here is dappled or spotted. There is one horse of each color 
in Revelation but plural horses, probably a chariot of horses, here in 
Zechariah. So the idea in Revelation could be similar but not identical. 
The horses in Revelation may appear in chronological order, but the 
horses in Zechariah may all go at together. I don't understand what 
you're saying about two horses in one. The sterm "strong ones" at the 
end of Zech 6:3 may refer to all the horses, and Hades in Rev 6:8 is not 
said to have his own horse.

HH: Zechariah crying in anguish does not really seem to match the Lord 
saying that the horses have given His Spirit rest in the land of the 
north. Rest to His spirit is a good thing. It might not be a prophetic 
perfect but an accomplished act in Zechariah's time. Zechariah is 
awfully futuristic, so your interpretation is certainly possible. The 
function of the fourth set of horses in Zechariah may seem different 
than that of the fourth horse in Revelation, but perhaps it is not. And 
Babylon is judged in both books.

> SM: I agree with everything you say regarding the speaker. I believe the
> speaker in the 2nd 1/2 of verse 7 and verse 8 is God Himself. Thus I do not
> accept the common, "He called out to me" because that would mean that God
> cried out in anguish to Zechariah. "He summoned me" is also not possible
> because the Hiphil z`q summoning is always for an emergency, thus relating
> back to the consistent qal meaning.
HH: You may be too restrictive. The verb means summon, and the need here 
may be for the Lord to tell Zechariah something that He wants him to 
write down. He did write it down.

HH: I'd be glad to look at the tract, or you could post it to the list 
(edited or not).

Yours,
Harold Holmyard

>