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7 Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

8 I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.

The name "Iddō” is here (as in Ezr. v. 1, vi. 14, Neh. xii. 4, 16) spelt with a final ; but in i. 1 and in Chronicles it is without the final .

Constructions.

In mentioning the months, if the numeral required have an ordinal form, that form is used as (i. 1); but, if the numeral be higher than ten it has no ordinal form, and therefore there is no choice but to use the cardinal: hence we get "the eleventh month." (On the metheg see Excurs.

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II. A. 1.)

and

has the accent on the penultimate because it is a masc. nom.

with an additional final. But all fem. nouns

Verse 8.
Words.

(subst., adj., and part.) which end in have the acc. on the last syll.': thus

T

7 is a fem. noun meaning inheritance, but

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masc. noun = "a valley." The additional

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ending of the accusative case, though in many instances the force of the case is lost, and is simply the nominative. The Semitic case

endings were Nom. um, Oblique im, Acc. am, in Arab. they are still un, in, an, and after the def. article simply u, i, a. In Hebr. traces of these cases are found, e. g. of Nom. in o as the final of

(Gen.

i. 24), (Numb. xxiv. 3): the Oblique is i, as the final of *1797 and - (Ps. cx. 4), and of '" (Gen. xlix. 11), &c.: the Acc. in ôm used adverbially as

"in vain," ", âh
, &c. or in dh as

"suddenly," or in âm as

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(Numb. xxxiv. 5). The nom. and oblique case terminations have quite lost their force, it is only the accusatival ending which has (and that in

1 Such fem. forms as П (Ps. iii. 3) have the additional ¡.

5 Your fathers, where are they? | and the prophets, do they live for ever?

6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take

Verse 5.
Words.

hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the LORD of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.

D. This appears to us an instance of a slight loss of purity in the Hebr. of the Post-Captivity. Elsewhere we find for "where are they?" and nowhere, except in Job xv. 23 (where there is nothing at all following the word) do we find except followed by a suff. or subst. The other extant Biblical forms with a suffix are: "where art thou?" (Gen. iii. 9), and j

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הַלְעוֹלָם

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"where is he?" (Job xx. 7, &c.), or "where is," with a noun following (2 Kings xix. 13, Mich. vii. 10). On the ga'ya under the of and the of 17 see Excurs. 11. B. 2, and A. 7. In any but very incorrect editions there is also silluq placed under the second yūd, (compare at the beginning of ver. 4).

1 : 1°

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Yìchyú is the

thus: real Imperfect "did they keep on living?" comp. (1 Sam. xxii. 12) "did not they keep praising this man?"

הלא לזה יענו

Both LXX. and Syr. have (according to the interpunctuation) "Your fathers, where are they and the prophets? Will they live Versions. for ever?" But there is no reason why the interpunctuation should not be rejected, and both read "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, will they live for ever?" The order of the Hebr. words, apart from interpunctuation, shows that this is the collocation intended.

Remarks.

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Rabh1 (who brought the Mishnah and other traditions into Babylon, and was in a manner the founder of the Talmud Babli) interprets this verse as containing a saying of the Prophet which is objected to by the people. The prophet says "Your fathers, where are they? The people answer "It is trueenough that our fathers are dead—but are the prophets any more alive than they?' To which the Prophet replies "The prophets, indeed, are dead-but their words have come to pass " (T. B. Synhédrim 105 a). This is the only interpretation, which seems to us to give good sense, and it is certainly in accordance with the controversial, not to say colloquial, style of the Post-captivity Prophets. We are glad to see that Keil has adopted this interpretation. Another view of the matter is that Zechariah's words are equivalent to this: The light of prophecy is dying out: while ye have the light, walk as children of the light. But to us it appears, that to put the words "Do (or did) the prophets live for ever?" into the mouth of Zechariah, is to destroy utterly his argument.

1 Contemporary with Artaban IV. king of Persia, who died A.D. 226.

9 Then said I, O my lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be.

10 And the man that stood

among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the LORD hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.

the 25th, yet, when a particular day is mentioned, and then such an expression occurs as "in the evening," &c. (Ex. xii. 18), it denotes the evening of that day.—"in a certain hollow": the article is used in the (practically) indefinite sense, as in "a certain fugitive" han (Gen. xiv. 13), see my Fragment of T. B. P'sachim, p. 94, note 36. Halláylāk, on vikia. Bến hà dassim asher bammigulah, avapérov

they seem to have ההדסים For

LXX., etc.

τῶν ὀρέων τῶν κατασκιών. read, a plur. of "mountain,” which occurs often in the constr. (e.g. Ps. 1. 10), and also with suffixes (e. g. Deut. viii. 9). Some have supposed that they may have read, which they translate op in Is. xlv. 2. Either solution supposes to have been read for D. Others have suggested that the LXX. merely translated conjecturally, and imagined that "mountains" must be the meaning here, because of the mention of "the two mountains" in vi. 1. For the colours of the horses we have (1) "dummím vppoí; (2) s'ruqqím yapoi "starling-grey" kaì Toiкíλoι; (3) l'bhāním devкoί. In chap. vi. they are as follows: (1) as here, both in Hebr. and LXX. ; (2) sh ̊chōrím “black” LXX. μéλaves; (3) as here, both in Hebr. and LXX.; and then there is (4) D'YON D'T LXX. Toikido yapo. Whence it would appear

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that the LXX., being unable to understand s'ruqqim, rendered it Vapoi κai TоIKíλoɩ in order to give four colours as in chap. vi. We may note here that the colours in Rev. vi. are λevko's (lābhán); πvppòs (ādóm); péλas (shachór); and xλwpos "pale" (the equivalent, probably, of bāród). For hàh dassím Aq. and Symm. give correctly Tov pvpovewvwv.

Verse 9.
Words.

Strong Vav with the Imperfect has the power of drawing back the accent from the ultimate to the penultimate, when no quiescent sh va or dagesh forte intervenes between the two syllables. Consequently (since we cannot have a long vowel in a closed syllable) the last vowel must be shortened. Thus becomes But in the case of a pausal accent it remains in its original place, thus: (ver. 10)'. In the 1st pers. sing. the accent is not

1 See further in notes on ch. v. 5.

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1.

D'aș wan (Ex. xiii. 4-Deut. Ni-śa-an-nu. xvi. 1).

¡p'? (Neh. ii. 1, Esth. iii. 7).

30.

March-April.

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5.

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A-bu.

(Non-biblical).

30.

July-August.

"The eighth month." (Rt. in cogn. in sense to

.15 .Neh. vi) אֱלוּל

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29.

August-Sept.

(Non-biblical).

30.

Sept.-Oct.

29.

Oct.-Nov.

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12p (Neh. i. 1, Zech. vii. 1).

30.

Nov.-Dec.

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"The month after (Non-biblical).

30.

It will be observed that in an ordinary year the months consist alternately of 30 and 29 days. A month containing 30 days is called “full," one containing 29 days is called "defective."

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7 Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

8 I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.

The name "Iddō” is here (as in Ezr. v. 1, vi. 14, Neh. xii. 4, 16) spelt with a final ; but in i. 1 and in Chronicles it is without the final .

Constructions.

In mentioning the months, if the numeral required have an ordinal form, that form is used as (i. 1); but, if the numeral be higher than ten it has no ordinal form, and therefore there is no choice but to use the cardinal: hence we get "the eleventh month." (On the metheg see Excurs.

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II. A. 1.)

and

has the accent on the penultimate because it is a masc. nom.

with an additional final. But all fem. nouns

Verse 8.
Words.

(subst., adj., and part.) which end in have the acc. on the last syll.': thus

7 is a fem. noun meaning inheritance, but

נחלד

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ending of the accusative case, though in many instances the force of is simply the nominative. The Semitic caseOblique im, Acc. am, in Arab. they are still un, article simply u, i, a. In Hebr. traces of of Nom. in o as the final of

the case is lost, and
endings were Nom. um,
in, an, and after the def.
these cases are found, e. g.

(Gen.

i. 24), (Numb. xxiv. 3): the Oblique is, as the final of

and

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(Ps. cx. 4), and of " (Gen. xlix. 11), &c.: the

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(Numb. xxxiv. 5). The nom. and oblique case terminations have quite lost their force, it is only the accusatival ending which has (and that in

1 Such fem. forms as Ллýì” (Ps. iii. 3) have the additional ¡.

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