Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Zechariah 10:8
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
In order to remove all doubt as to the realization of this promise, the deliverance of Ephraim is described still more minutely in Zac 10:8-12. Zac 10:8. "I will hiss to them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they will multiply as they have multiplied. Zac 10:9. And I will sow them among the nations: and in the far-off lands will they remember me; and will live with their sons, and return. Zac 10:10. And I will bring them back out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Asshur, and bring them into the land of Gilead and of Lebanon; and room will not be found for them." That these verses do not treat of a fresh (second) dispersion of Ephraim, or represent the carrying away as still in the future (Hitzig), is evident from the words themselves, when correctly interpreted. Not only are the enticing and gathering together ( Zac 10:8) mentioned before the sowing or dispersing ( Zac 10:9), but they are both expressed by similar verbal forms (אשׁרקה and אזרעם); and the misinterpretation is thereby precluded, that events occurring at different times are referred to. We must also observe the voluntative form אשׁרקה, "I will (not I shall) hiss to them, i.e., entice them" (shâraq being used for alluring, as in Isa 5:26 and Isa 7:18), as well as the absence of a copula. They both show that the intention here is simply to explain with greater clearness what is announced in Zac 10:6, Zac 10:7. The perfect פּדיתים is prophetic, like רחמתּים in Zac 10:6. The further promise, "they will multiply," etc., cannot be taken as referring either merely to the multiplication of Israel in exile (Hengst., Koehler, etc.), or merely to the future multiplication after the gathering together. According to the position in which the words stand between אקבּצם and אזרעם, they must embrace both the multiplication during the dispersion, and the multiplication after the gathering together. The perfect כּמו רבוּ points to the increase which Israel experienced in the olden time under the oppression of Egypt ( Exo 1:7, Exo 1:12). This increase, which is also promised in Eze 36:10-11, is effected by God's sowing them broadcast among the nations. זרע does not mean to scatter, but to sow, to sow broadcast (see at Hos 2:23). Consequently the reference cannot be to a dispersion of Israel inflicted as a punishment. The sowing denotes the multiplication (cf. Jer 31:27), and is not to be interpreted, as Neumann and Kliefoth suppose, as signifying that the Ephraimites are to be scattered as seed-corn among the heathen, to spread the knowledge of Jehovah among the nations. This thought is quite foreign to the context; and even in the words, "in far-off lands will they remember me," it is neither expressed nor implied. These words are to be connected with what follows: Because they remember the Lord in far-off lands, they will live, and return with their children. In Zac 10:10 the gathering together and leading back of Israel are more minutely described, and indeed as taking place out of the land of Asshur and out of Egypt. The fact that these two lands are mentioned, upon which modern critics have principally founded their arguments in favour of the origin of this prophecy before the captivity, cannot be explained "from the circumstance that in the time of Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser many Ephraimites had fled to Egypt" (Koehler and others); for history knows nothing of this, and the supposition is merely a loophole for escaping from a difficulty. Such passages…
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