Zechariah 13:6

And [one] shall say unto him, What [are] these wounds in thine hands?.... That is, if thou art not a prophet, what is the meaning of these wounds in thine hands?

But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth. But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an farmer - the detection of one of the false prophets dramatically represented.

This verse continueth the account of the reclaimed prophet, and supposeth, what is usual, that some will inquire what was the meaning of the marks or impressions on his hands, whether they were not such as appropriated him to an idol, or declared him a professed diviner. Then he shall answer, plainly and fully, Not such as you imagine, but those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends; the scars of the wounds my stubbornness deserved, and the love of my friends gave me under a severe discipline, to recover me from mining myself and others by impostures and lies.

Zechariah 13:6 And [one] shall say unto him, What [are] these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, [Those] with which I was wounded [in] the house of my friends.Ver. 6. And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands?] Jerome here supposeth the false prophet crucified for his false doctrine, and thereupon thus questioned. This is better than that of the Popish interpreters, who will needs have it to be meant of Christ, and of his wounds on the cross, as a deceiver of the people, Oπλανος, Matthew 27:63, that deceiver to our very faces (Eustath.). Lucian the atheist villanously termeth him εσκολοπισμενονσοφιστην, the crucified deceiver; but the text is clear that the person here spoken to, and returning an answer, is the false prophet, now a true convert; as appeareth by his fruits, which he bears quick and thick; being like Aaron’ s rod, soon changed from a withered stick into a flourishing tree. Ashamed he is at heart of his former falsities; and as in heart, so in habit he is altered; for he will no longer wear a rough garment, the garb of prophets in those days, to deceive, as the Capuchins and other orders of friars, or rather liars, at this day, 2 Kings 1:8 Isaiah 20:2 Matthew 3:4. He abrenounceth and abjureth, quasi conceptis verbis, his former profession of a prophet or chief speaker among others. I am no prophet] But a plain husbandman, or a shepherd; that is all I can truly pretend to. And lastly, in this verse, having passed through the Church’ s discipline as a seducer, he shall do as Joshua advised Achan, Give glory to the Lord my son, and confess thy sin, Joshua 7:19; he shall approve of the Church’ s severity used for his correction, though he should go maimed or marked for it to his dying day. In point of seducement (saith Mr Cotton, descanting upon this text), if a man upon conviction shall see the wickedness of his way, and humble his soul before God, and give satisfaction to the Church and State where he shall be convinced, on such conviction and repentance we find liberty to pardon, but yet stigmatize him. But what reason had the convocation held at Oxford to set a brand of ignominy upon the cheeks of those outlandish divines that came to assist them, because they pleased them not in the point of priests’ marriage, which they defended? Or Bishop Laud for his Stigmata Landis on renowned Mr Prinne, for his constancy to the truth? How much better his predecessors, Stephen Langton, who crucified that pseudo Christ, who showed marks of wounds in his hands, feet, and sides, A.D. 1206, and Odo Severus, who burnt King Edwin’ s concubine (whom he most doted on) in the forehead with a hot iron, and banished her into Ireland, A. D. 934.

(6) In.—Better, between—i.e., on the hands and up the arms. His interrogator accuses him of having cut himself in idolatrous worship (1 Kings 18:28). The meaning of the latter part of the verse depends on the interpretation put on “my friends,” or “my lovers.” Some suppose these to be his false gods, and that he confesses with shame that he had so cut himself in idolatrous worship; but the passive verb is against this explanation. Others, better, suppose him to reply that they are the stripes he has received in loving chastisement in the house of his parents or relatives. In any case, he is anxious to disavow any pretence to prophecy.—Throughout these passages “that day” extends over a considerable period, the limits of which are hidden even from the prophet himself.

Verse 6. What are these wounds in thine hands?] Marks which he had received in honour of his idols. But he shall excuse himself by stating that he had received these marks in his own family; when, most probably, they had been dedicated to some of those idols. See Clarke on Isaiah 44:5. I do not think that these words are spoken at all concerning Jesus Christ. I have heard them quoted in this way; but I cannot hear such an application of them without horror. In quoting from the Old Testament in reference to the New, we cannot be too cautious. We may wound the truth instead of honouring it.

6. wounds in thine hands] Lit. between thy hands; i.e. probably, on thy breast: between thine arms, R. V. Comp. “between his arms,” i.e. in his back, 2 Kings 9:24; “between your eyes,” i.e. on your foreheads, Deuteronomy 11:18. The interrogator, in his zeal against false prophets, is still unsatisfied, and detecting wounds, or scars, on the breast of the quondam false prophet, charges them upon him as proofs of his guilt, because he regards them either as self-inflicted in the service of idols (1 Kings 18:28), or as given him by his parents, from whose righteous indignation he had escaped wounded, when they went about to kill him (Zechariah 13:3). in the house of my friends] If this be a confession of guilt, we must understand it to mean that the accused person now admits the charge brought against him in the second of the two forms suggested in the last note: “Yes, it is true that I did play the false prophet, and this is the merited punishment which those who loved me inflicted on me.” “Hæc vulnera et has accepi plagas parentum meorum judicio condemnatus, et eorum qui me non oderant sed amabant. Et in tantum, fugato mendacio, veritas obtinebit, ut etiam ipse, qui suo punitus est vitio, recte perpessum se esse fateatur.” Hieron. The “lovers” cannot mean the false gods or idols, in whose service it might have been supposed that he had been wounded. Such gods or idols are indeed appropriately called the “lovers,” or paramours, of the Jewish Church as a whole, which is regarded as the bride or spouse of Jehovah (Hosea 2:7; Hosea 2:10; Hosea 2:12; Ezekiel 16:33; Ezekiel 16:36-37); but the figure is quite inadmissible in the case of an individual prophet. Those who do not regard this clause of the verse as a confession of guilt see in it either an allusion to the loving though severe discipline of youth, or an evasive answer which is purposely indefinite and obscure. The reference which Dr Pusey and others have seen in this verse to our Lord and to the prints of the nails in His hands is in a high degree forced and arbitrary. It cannot possibly be reconciled with the preceding context, with which the verse intimately coheres. “Quidam hoc traxerunt ad Christum,” writes Calvin, “quia dicit Zacharias manibus inflicta esse vulnera; sed illud est nimis frivolum, quia satis constat sermonem prosequi de falsis doctoribus, qui abusi fuerant Dei nomine ad tempus.”

And one shall say unto him, What are those wounds in thy hands?

Zechariah 13:5-6 indicate with what vehemence everyone will deny that he is a prophet He shall say — The subject is not everyone of Zec 13:4, but the indefinite one, “one shall say”=it shall be said