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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Zechariah 10:5 - 10:5
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Thus equipped for battle, Judah will annihilate its foes. Zec 10:5. “And they will be like heroes, treading street-mire in the battle: and will fight, for Jehovah is with them, and the riders upon horses are put to shame. Zec 10:6. And I shall strengthen the house of Judah, and grant salvation to the house of Joseph, and shall make them dwell; for I have had compassion upon them: and they will be as if I had not rejected them: for I am Jehovah their God, and will hear them. Zec 10:7. And Ephraim will be like a hero, and their heart will rejoice as if with wine: and their children will see it, and rejoice; their heart shall rejoice in Jehovah.” In Zec 10:5, bōsı̄m is a more precise definition of kegibbōrı̄m, and the house of Judah (Zec 10:3) is the subject of the sentence. They will be like heroes, namely, treading upon mire. Bōsı̄m is the kal participle used in an intransitive sense, since the form with o only occurs in verbs with an intransitive meaning, like bōsh, lōt, qōm; and būs in kal is construed in every other case with the accusative of the object: treading upon mire = treading or treading down mire. Consequently the object which they tread down or trample in pieces is expressed by בְּטִיט חוּצוֹת; and thus the arbitrary completion of the sentence by “everything that opposes them” (C. B. Mich. and Koehler) is set aside as untenable. Now, as “treading upon mire” cannot possibly express merely the firm tread of a courageous man (Hitzig), we must take the dirt of the streets as a figurative expression for the enemy, and the phrase “treading upon street-mire” as a bold figure denoting the trampling down of the enemy in the mire of the streets (Mic 7:10; 2Sa 22:43), analogous to their “treading down sling-stones,” Zec 9:15. For such heroic conflict will they be fitted by the help of Jehovah, that the enemy will be put to shame before them. The riders of the horses are mentioned for the purpose of individualizing the enemy, because the principal strength of the Asiatic rulers consisted in cavalry (see Dan 11:40). הוֹבִישׁ intransitive, as in Zec 9:5. This strength for a victorious conflict will not be confined to Judah, but Ephraim will also share it. The words, “and the house of Ephraim will I endow with salvation,” have been taken by Koehler as signifying “that Jehovah will deliver the house of Ephraim by granting the victory to the house of Judah in conflict with its own foes and those of Ephraim also;” but there is no ground for this. We may see from Zec 10:7, according to which Ephraim will also fight as a hero, as Judah will according to Zec 10:5, that הוֹשִׁיעַ does not mean merely to help or deliver, but to grant salvation, as in Zec 9:16. The circumstance, however, “that in the course of the chapter, at any rate from Zec 10:7 onwards, it is only Ephraim whose deliverance and restoration are spoken of,” proves nothing more than that Ephraim will receive the same salvation as Judah, but not that it will be delivered by the house of Judah. The abnormal form הוֹשְׁבוֹתִים is regarded by many, who follow Kimchi and Aben Ezra, as a forma composita from הוֹשַׁבְתִּים and הֲשִׁיבוֹתִי: “I make them dwell, and bring them back.” But this is precluded by the fact that the bringing back would necessarily precede the making to dwell, to say nothing of the circumstance that there is no analogy whatever for such a composition (cf. Jer 32:37). The form is rather to be explained from a confusion of the verbs עו and פי, and is the hiphil of יָשַׁב for הוֹשַׁבְתִּים (lxx, Maurer, Hengstenberg; comp. Olshausen, Grammat. p. 559), and not a hiphil of שׁוּב, in which a transition has taken place into the hiphil form of the verbs פו (Ewald, §196, b, Not. 1; Targ., Vulg., Hitzig, and Koehler). For “bringing back” affirms too little here. הוֹשַׁבְתִּים, “I make them dwell,” corresponds rather to “they shall be as if they had not been cast off,” without needing any further definition, since not only do we meet with יָשַׁב without anything else, in the sense of peaceful, happy dwelling (e.g., Mic 5:3), but here also the manner of dwelling is indicated in the appended clause כַּאֲשֶׁר לֹא־זְנַחְתִּים, “as before they were cast off” (cf. Eze 36:11). אֶעֱנֵם is also not to be taken as referring to the answering of the prayers, which Ephraim addressed to Jehovah out of its distress, out of its imprisonment (Koehler), but is to be taken in a much more general sense, as in Zec 13:9; Isa 58:9, and Hos 2:23. Ephraim, like Judah, will also become a hero, and rejoice as if with wine, i.e., fight joyfully like a hero strengthened with wine (cf. Psa 78:65-66). This rejoicing in conflict the sons will see, and exult in consequence; so that it will be a lasting joy.