Zechariah 8:6

8:6 And,’ says the Lord who rules over all, ‘though such a thing may seem to be difficult in the opinion of the small community of those days, will it also appear difficult to me?’ asks the Lord who rules over all.

Zechariah 11:17

11:17 Woe to the worthless shepherd

who abandons the flock!

May a sword fall on his arm and his right eye!

May his arm wither completely away,

and his right eye become completely blind!”

Zechariah 1:18

Vision Two: The Four Horns

1:18 (2:1) ¹  Once again I looked and this time I saw four horns.

Zechariah 5:1

Vision Six: The Flying Scroll

5:1 Then I turned to look, and there was a flying scroll!

Zechariah 2:1

Vision Three: The Surveyor

2:1 (2:5) I looked again, and there was a man with a measuring line in his hand.

Zechariah 5:6

5:6 I asked, “What is it?” And he replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain ²  that is moving away from here.” Moreover, he said, “This is their ‘eye’ ³  throughout all the earth.”

Zechariah 5:5

Vision Seven: The Ephah

5:5 After this the angelic messenger ⁴  who had been speaking to me went out and said, “Look, see what is leaving.”

Zechariah 6:1

Vision Eight: The Chariots

6:1 Once more I looked, and this time I saw four chariots emerging from between two mountains of bronze. ⁵ 

Zechariah 9:1

The Coming of the True King

9:1 An oracle of the word of the Lord concerning the land of Hadrach, ⁶  with its focus on Damascus: ⁷ 

The eyes of all humanity, ⁸  especially of the tribes of Israel, are toward the Lord,

Zechariah 9:8

9:8 Then I will surround my temple ⁹  to protect it like a guard ¹⁰  from anyone crossing back and forth; so no one will cross over against them anymore as an oppressor, for now I myself have seen it.

Zechariah 11:12

11:12 Then I ¹¹  said to them, “If it seems good to you, pay me my wages, but if not, forget it.” So they weighed out my payment – thirty pieces of silver. ¹² 

Zechariah 2:8

2:8 For the Lord who rules over all says to me that for his own glory ¹³  he has sent me to the nations that plundered you – for anyone who touches you touches the pupil ¹⁴  of his ¹⁵  eye.

Zechariah 3:9

3:9 As for the stone ¹⁶  I have set before Joshua – on the one stone there are seven eyes. ¹⁷  I am about to engrave an inscription on it,’ says the Lord who rules over all, ‘to the effect that I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. ¹⁸ 

Zechariah 4:10

4:10 For who dares make light of small beginnings? These seven eyes ¹⁹  will joyfully look on the tin tablet ²⁰  in Zerubbabel’s hand. (These are the eyes of the Lord, which constantly range across the whole earth.)

Zechariah 5:9

5:9 Then I looked again and saw two women ²¹  going forth with the wind in their wings (they had wings like those of a stork) and they lifted up the basket between the earth and the sky.

Zechariah 12:4

12:4 In that day,” says the Lord, “I will strike every horse with confusion and its rider with madness. I will pay close attention to the house of Judah, but will strike all the horses ²²  of the nations ²³  with blindness.

Zechariah 14:12

14:12 But this will be the nature of the plague with which the Lord will strike all the nations that have fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will decay while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot away in their sockets, and their tongues will dissolve in their mouths.

[1:18]  ¹ sn This marks the beginning of ch. 2 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 1:18, the verse numbers through 2:13 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 1:18 ET = 2:1 HT, 1:19 ET = 2:2 HT, 1:20 ET = 2:3 HT, 1:21 ET = 2:4 HT, 2:1 ET = 2:5 HT, etc., through 2:13 ET = 2:17 HT. From 3:1 the verse numbers in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible are again the same.

[5:6]  ¹ tn Heb “[This is] the ephah.” An ephah was a liquid or solid measure of about a bushel (five gallons or just under twenty liters). By metonymy it refers here to a measuring container (probably a basket) of that quantity.

[5:6]  ² tc The LXX and Syriac read עֲוֹנָם (’avonam, “their iniquity,” so NRSV; NIV similar) for the MT עֵינָם (’enam, “their eye”), a reading that is consistent with the identification of the woman in v. 8 as wickedness, but one that is unnecessary. In 4:10 the “eye” represented divine omniscience and power; here it represents the demonic counterfeit.

[5:5]  ¹ tn See the note on the expression “angelic messenger” in 1:9.

[6:1]  ¹ tn Heb “two mountains, and the mountains [were] mountains of bronze.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[9:1]  ¹ sn The land of Hadrach was a northern region stretching from Aleppo in the north to Damascus in the south (cf. NLT “Aram”).

[9:1]  ² tn Heb “Damascus its resting place.” The 3rd person masculine singular suffix on “resting place” (מְנֻחָתוֹ, mÿnukhato), however, precludes “land” or even “Hadrach,” both of which are feminine, from being the antecedent. Most likely “word” (masculine) is the antecedent, i.e., the “word of the Lord” is finding its resting place, that is, its focus in or on Damascus.

[9:1]  ³ tc Though without manuscript and version support, many scholars suggest emendation here to clarify what, to them, is an unintelligible reading. Thus some propose עָדֵי אָרָם (’ade ’aram, “cities of Aram”; cf. NAB, NRSV) for עֵין אָדָם (’en ’adam, “eye of man”) or אֲדָמָה (’adamah, “ground”) for אָדָם (’adam, “man”), “(surface of) the earth.” It seems best, however, to see “eye” as collective and to understand the passage as saying that the attention of the whole earth will be upon the Lord (cf. NIV, NLT).

[9:8]  ¹ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[9:8]  ² tn Though a hapax legomenon, the מִצָּבָה (mitsavah) of the MT (from נָצַב, natsav, “take a stand”) is preferable to the suggestion מַצֵּבָה (matsevah, “pillar”) or even מִצָּבָא (mitsava’, “from” or “against the army”). The context favors the idea of the Lord as a protector.

[11:12]  ¹ sn The speaker (Zechariah) represents the Lord, who here is asking what his service as faithful shepherd has been worth in the opinion of his people Israel.

[11:12]  ² sn If taken at face value, thirty pieces (shekels) of silver was worth about two and a half years’ wages for a common laborer. The Code of Hammurabi prescribes a monthly wage for a laborer of one shekel. If this were the case in Israel, 30 shekels would be the wages for 2 1/2 years (R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, pp. 76, 204-5). For other examples of “thirty shekels” as a conventional payment, see K. Luke, “The Thirty Pieces of Silver (Zech. 11:12f.), Ind TS 19 (1982): 26-30. Luke, on the basis of Sumerian analogues, suggests that “thirty” came to be a term meaning anything of little or no value (p. 30). In this he follows Erica Reiner, “Thirty Pieces of Silver,” in Essays in Memory of E. A. Speiser, AOS 53, ed. William W. Hallo (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 1968), 186-90. Though the 30 shekels elsewhere in the OT may well be taken literally, the context of Zech. 11:12 may indeed support Reiner and Luke in seeing it as a pittance here, not worth considering (cf. Exod 21:32; Lev 27:4; Matt 26:15).

[2:8]  ¹ tn Heb “After glory has he sent me” (similar KJV, NASB). What is clearly in view is the role of Zechariah who, by faithful proclamation of the message, will glorify the Lord.

[2:8]  ² tn Heb “gate” (בָּבָה, bavah) of the eye, that is, pupil. The rendering of this term by KJV as “apple” has created a well-known idiom in the English language, “the apple of his eye” (so ASV, NIV). The pupil is one of the most vulnerable and valuable parts of the body, so for Judah to be considered the “pupil” of the Lord’s eye is to raise her value to an incalculable price (cf. NLT “my most precious possession”).

[2:8]  ³ tc A scribal emendation (tiqqun sopherim) has apparently altered an original “my eye” to “his eye” in order to allow the prophet to be the speaker throughout vv. 8-9. This alleviates the problem of the Lord saying, in effect, that he has sent himself on the mission to the nations.

[3:9]  ¹ sn The stone is also a metaphor for the Messiah, a foundation stone that, at first rejected (Ps 118:22-23; Isa 8:13-15), will become the chief cornerstone of the church (Eph 2:19-22).

[3:9]  ² tn Some understand the Hebrew term עַיִן (’ayin) here to refer to facets (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT) or “faces” (NCV, CEV “seven sides”) of the stone rather than some representation of organs of sight.

[3:9]  ³ sn Inscriptions were common on ancient Near Eastern cornerstones. This inscription speaks of the redemption achieved by the divine resident of the temple, the Messiah, who will in the day of the Lord bring salvation to all Israel (cf. Isa 66:7-9).

[4:10]  ¹ tn Heb “these seven.” Eyes are clearly intended in the ellipsis as v. 10b shows. As in 3:9 the idea is God’s omniscience. He who knows the end from the beginning rejoices at the completion of his purposes.

[4:10]  ² tn This term is traditionally translated “plumb line” (so NASB, NIV, NLT; cf. KJV, NRSV “plummet”), but it is more likely that the Hebrew בְּדִיל (bÿdil) is to be derived not from בָּדַל (badal), “to divide,” but from a root meaning “tin.” This finds support in the ancient Near Eastern custom of placing inscriptions on tin plates in dedicatory foundation deposits.

[5:9]  ¹ sn Here two women appear as the agents of the Lord because the whole scene is feminine in nature. The Hebrew word for “wickedness” in v. 8 (רִשְׁעָה) is grammatically feminine, so feminine imagery is appropriate throughout.

[12:4]  ¹ tn Heb “every horse.”

[12:4]  ² tn Or “peoples” (so NAB, NRSV).