"The Horns That Scattered ": The Vision of Zechariah 2,1-4

Zechariah's vision of four "horns" (mJ'p) and four "craftsmen" (Cl'W,n) who are coming to terrify and cast them down in Zech 2,1-4 [ET 1,18-21] has suffered from a remarkable case of scholarly neglect. To be sure, the pericope is treated in commentaries and monographs, but as far as I have been able to determine there is only one article dedicated to it in the periodicalliterature, and it is abrief one at that. 1 This state of affairs is undoubtedly due to a large extent to the brevity of the passage, but given the vast number of publications dealing with Zechariah's night visions this lack of attention is striking nonetheless. The apparent lack of scholarly interest in Zech 2,1-4 is perhaps also due in part to the fact that the imagery of the vision is widely admitted as being incon• gruous, making its interpretation very uncertain.2 The primary elements of the pericope are capable of disparate explanations, and it is not easy to see how they coalesce into a coherent whole. For example, there is debate whether the "horns" themselves are to be understood as a symbol of political power, as a visionary de• piction of the "horns of the altar," as horned animals (thereby evoking an agrarian image), as demons, or as some combination of these. Inextricably linked with this exegetically central issue are questions of whether Cl'W,n denotes metalworkers or ploughmen and of the import of the verbs ,',ni1 and i1". 3 Such issues are inseparable, and one's interpretation of a single textual detail necessarily affects the others and, consequently, has an impact on one's reading of the vision as a whole. Given such interpretative "elasticity" regarding so many aspects of this short vision, it is perhaps not surprising that it has been largely avoided.4

1 R. Good, Zechariah's Second Night Vision (Zech 2,1-4), in: Bib 63 (1982) 56-59. The lack of attention is noted by E.]. C. Tigchelaar, Prophets of Old and the Day of the End: Zechariah, the Book of Watchers and Apocalyptic (OTS 35), Leiden 1996,48. 2 Cf., e. g., M. Love, The Evasive Text. -8 and the Frustrated Reader QSOT• Supp 296), Sheffield 1999, 127, 179f.; I. Willi-Plein, Haggai, Sacharja, Maleachi (ZBK 24/4), Zürich 2007, 67; K. Ristau, Rebuilding : Zechariah's Visions Within Visions, in: Exile and Restoration Revisited (FS P. A. Ackroyd) (Library of Second Temple Studies 73), London 2009, 195-214, 198. 3 On these and other questions see, inter alia, R. Good, Vision (n. 1) 58f.; D. Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1-8 (OTL), Philadelphia (PA) 1984, 165; H.-G. Schättler, Gott inmit• ten seines Volkes. Die Neuordnung des Gottesvolkes nach Sacharja 1-6 (TThSt 43), Trier 1987,62-64; E.j. C. Tigchelaar, Prophets (n. 1) 47-55; M. Boda, Terrifying the Horns: Per• sia and Babyion in Zechariah 1:7-6:15, in: CBQ 67 (2005) 22-41, 24-26; B. Curtis, Up the Steep and Stony Road. The in Social Location Trajectory Analysis (So• ciety of Biblical Literature Academia Biblica 25), Leiden 2006, 132f.; K. Ristau, Rebuilding (n.2) 198-200; M. Stead, The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1-8 (LHBOTS 506), London 2009,107. 4 The extensive treatment of Zech 2,1-4 by M. Love (The Evasive Text [no 2] 127-137, 179-196) is noteworthy in this regard. However, his discussion is in fact the exception which proves the rule: his interest is in performing a literary deconstruction of the mean- Rogland, The Vision of Zechariah 2,1-4 93

The present artide hopes to spur additional research into this brief vision by darifying one element of the Hebrew text which has received insufficient atten• tion thus far, specifically, ,itl~., ~tvJ-~~ itl'~-'D:l in v. 4. This dause is widely acknowledged as being grammatically difficult, and some adopt a text-critical so• lution to its problems. One of the more influential proposals has been that of Julius Wellhausen, who argued on the basis of Mal 2,9 (CI,.,Oitl CI:lJ'~ .,itl~ 'D:l ':l"'-T1~ "inasmuch as/because you do not keep my ways") that .,itl~ should be read instead of itl'~, resulting in ,itl~., ~tvJ-~~ .,itl~ 'D:l.5 Others, induding the recent Minor Prophets fascide of the Quinta, have rejected this emendation as unnecessary.6 The present study accepts the Masoretic Text as the most likely original reading of Zech 2,4 and will therefore seek to interpret this difficult dause without resorting to emendation. We will have cause to revisit this issue below, but it may first be noted that, with respect to the dause in question, scholars are virtually unanimous that the idiom "to lift the head" (itl~., ~.!VJ) conveys the idea of acting with boldness, as inJdg 8,28 Clitl~., T1~.!V~ 'DO' ~~, ~~.,tv' 'J~ 'JD~ f"O YJ:l', "And Midian was humbled before the sons of , and they did not lift up their heads again."7 The RSV's rendering of the expression in Zech 2,4 may fairly be considered as representative of the scholarly consensus: "These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man raised his head." Occasionally some more slightly nuanced shades of meaning have been suggested. For example, some argue that itl~., ~.!VJ "denotes the personal autonomy of individuals" or that it is a gesture of pride. 8 It is dear, however, that these represent only minor variations from the general consensus and do not substantially alter the overall sense of the text. 9 The chief area of disagreement with regard to the dause in question concerns the function and meaning of 'D:l. This is occasionally attested in the Hebrew and the Scrolls with a prepositional function, typically meaning ing of Zechariah 1-8, and hence the vision's ambiguity is perfecdy suited to pursuing this hermeneutical agenda. 5 J. Wellhausen, Die kleinen Propheten übersetzt, mit Noten, Berlin 21892,173; so also H. MitchelI, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and Jonah (lCC), Edinburgh 1912, 135f. 6 A. Gelston (ed.), The (BHQ 13), Stuttgart 2010,135"'; C. Mey• erslE. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 (AB 25B), Garden City (NJ) 1987, 140; R. Hanhart, Sacharja 1-8 (BKAT XIVI7.1), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1998, 98; M. Hallaschka, Haggai und Sacharja 1-8. Eine redaktions geschichtliche Untersuchung (BZAW 411), Berlin 2011, 168 n.145. 7 See, e. g., BDB 670; W. Geseniusl F. Buhl, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörter• buch über das Alte Testament, Leipzig 171921, 523; HALAT III, 684; DCH V, 760. 8 For the former, see C. MeyerslE. Meyers, Haggai (n. 6), 140, for the latter, see M. Cohen, Etude semantique des locutions ns) roJt - ns) )cet roJt et ns) (awon - ns) )cet (awon en hebreu biblique, in: ZAW 115 (2003) 54-72, 58-60. 9 As noted above (see n. 4), the discussion by M. Love is an exception, and he provides an extensive survey of many different lexical possibilities for interpreting the expression. In the end he is non-committal, though ironically I believe that he is the only one even to have considered the correct understanding of the expression, as I hope to demonstrate below.