Zechariah 2:8-9

2:8 For the Lord who rules over all says to me that for his own glory 1  he has sent me to the nations that plundered you – for anyone who touches you touches the pupil 2  of his 3  eye. 2:9 “I am about to punish them 4  in such a way,” he says, “that they will be looted by their own slaves.” Then you will know that the Lord who rules over all has sent me.

Zechariah 10:10

10:10 I will bring them back from Egypt and gather them from Assyria. 5  I will bring them to the lands of Gilead and Lebanon, for there will not be enough room for them in their own land.

Zechariah 11:5

11:5 Those who buy them 6  slaughter them and are not held guilty; those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich.’ Their own shepherds have no compassion for them.

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 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”).

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.

4 tn Heb “I will wave my hand over them” (so NASB); NIV, NRSV “raise my hand against them.”

5 sn I will bring them back from Egypt…from Assyria. The gathering of God’s people to their land in eschatological times will be like a reenactment of the exodus, but this time they will come from all over the world (cf. Isa 40:3-5; 43:1-7, 14-21; 48:20-22; 51:9-11).

6 sn The expression those who buy them appears to be a reference to the foreign nations to whom Israel’s own kings “sold” their subjects. Far from being good shepherds, then, they were evil and profiteering. The whole section (vv. 4-14) refers to the past when the Lord, the Good Shepherd, had in vain tried to lead his people to salvation and life.