스가랴 11:7의 유대 사상

There are other prophetic allegories whose meaning is not given in a prophetic vision. The prophet learns it when he awakes from his sleep. Take, e.g., the staves which Zechariah took in a prophetic vision.

Still more strange is the following manner of calling the prophet’s attention to a certain object. He is shown a different object, the name of which has neither etymologically nor homonymously any relation to the first object, but the names of both contain the same letters, though in a different order, Take, e.g., the allegories of Zechariah (chap. 11:7, sqq.). He takes in a prophetic vision staves to lead the flock; he calls the one No‘am (pleasure), the other ḥobelim. He indicates thereby that the nation was at first in favour with God, who was their leader and guide. They rejoiced in the service of God, and found happiness in it, while God was pleased with them, and loved them, as it is said, “Thou hast avouched the Lord thy God,” etc., and “the Lord hath avouched thee,” etc. (Deut. 26:17, 18) They were guided and directed by Moses and the prophets that followed him. But later a change took place. They rejected the love of God, and God rejected them, appointing destroyers like Jeroboam and Manasse as their rulers. Accordingly, the word ḥobelim has the same meaning [viz., destroying] as the root ḥabal has in Meḥabbelim keramim, “destroying vineyards” (Song of Sol. 2:15). But the prophet found also in this name Ḥobelim the indication that the people despised God, and that God despised them. This is, however, not expressed by the word ḥabal, but by a transposition of the letters Ḥet, Bet, and Lamed, the meaning of despising and rejecting is obtained. Comp. “My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me” [baḥalah] (Zech. 11:8). The prophet had therefore to change the order of the fetters in ḥabal into that of Baḥal.

I will mention here an instance concerning which no person will entertain the least doubt. I will add a few more of the same kind, and these will show you how those passages must be understood which I do not cite. The following passage in Ezekiel (viii. 1, 3) is clear, and admits of no doubt: “I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, etc., and a spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem,” etc.: also the passage, “Thus I arose and went into the plain” (iii. 2, 3), refers to a prophetic vision: just as the words, “And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them” (Gen. 15:5) describe a vision. The same is the case with the words of Ezekiel (xxxvii. 1), “And set me down in the midst of the valley.” In the description of the vision in which Ezekiel is brought to Jerusalem, we read as follows: “And when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall; and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door” (ibid. 8:7-8), etc. It was thus in a vision that he was commanded to dig in the wall, to enter and to see what people were doing there, and it was in the same vision that he digged, entered through the hole, and saw certain things, as is related. just as all this forms part of a vision, the same may be said of the following passages: “And thou take unto thee a tile,” etc., “and lie thou also on thy left side,” etc.; “Take thou also wheat and barley,” etc., “and cause it to pass over thine head and upon thy beard” (chaps. iv. and v.) It was in a prophetic vision that he saw that he did all these actions which he was commanded to do. God forbid to assume that God would make his prophets appear an object of ridicule and sport in the eyes of the ignorant, and order them to perform foolish acts. We must also bear in mind that the command given to Ezekiel implied disobedience to the Law, for he, being a priest, would, in causing the razor to pass over every corner of the beard and of the head, have been guilty of transgressing two prohibitions in each case. But it was only done in a prophetic vision. Again, when it is said, “As my servant Isaiah went naked and barefoot” (Isa. 20:3), the prophet did so in a prophetic vision. Weak-minded persons believe that the prophet relates here what he was commanded to do, and what he actually did, and that he describes how he was commanded to dig in a wan on the Temple mount although he was in Babylon, and relates how he obeyed the command, for he says, “And I digged in the wall.” But it is distinctly stated that all this took place in a vision.