Throwing down the horns

Throwing down the horns March 30, 2010

Zechariah 1:21 (Hebrew 2:4) has a neat, sort-a-chiastic structure.  In answer to Zechariah’s question, Yahweh (v. 20) says that the craftsmen come to bring down the horns of the Gentiles.

A. These are horns

B. Which scatter Judah

C. So that a man does not lift his head

A’. These [craftsmen] are coming to terrify and to thrown down the horns of the nations

C’. Which lift up a horn

B’. To scatter Judah

There are a couple of striking things to note about this structure.

First, the corresponding C sections employ the same verb.  Nations have lifted their horns in triumph over Judah, and that triumph has been so great than no man of Judah lifts his own head.  What’s intriguing about the structure is that cause and effect are reversed; C states the effect, while C’ states the cause.  C’ leaves open the conclusion of the craftsmen’s work: If they do throw down the horns of the nations, then, presumably, Judah’s head will be raised.  That’s implied, but the text leaves the conclusion open.

Similarly, the B and B’ are left open.  We expect the scattering of Judah to be reversed by regathering by the end of the vision, but it isn’t.   In the last word of the vision, the problem remains intact.  Perhaps this is intended to reach ahead to the later visions, which do reverse Judah’s scattering with promise of a full return.  Perhaps too the text subtly hints that the restoration envisioned is not in fact a reversal of scattering, but rather another and more purposeful scattering – a scattering that might begin with “Go ye therefore . . . .”

Finally, there is yet another open slot in the structure.  Instead of putting the fall of the horns at the end of the verse, it occurs in the middle.  That leaves the A’ slot empty.  I suspect that is intended to portray how thoroughly the horns have been pulverized and thrown down.  They are so thoroughly defeated that we come to the end of the text and they simply are not there anymore; they’ve disappeared like chaff on the wind.


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