¹ tn As a case of dittography, the MT repeats “and they were scattered” at the end of the verse.

¹ tn Heb “when you have fugitives from the sword among the nations, when you are scattered among the lands.”

¹ tn The verb means “to be scattered; to be dispersed”; here the imperfect takes a deliberative nuance in a rhetorical question.

¹ tn The word actually means “to spread,” but with lightning as the object, “to scatter” appears to fit the context better.

¹ tn Heb “was scattered.” The rare verb נָפַץ (nafats, “to scatter”) appears to be a bi-form of the more common verb פּוּץ (puts, “to scatter”) which figures prominently in the story of the dispersion of humankind in chap. 11. And the form here, נָפְצָה (naf^etsah), could be repointed as נָפוֹצָה (nafotsah), the Niphal of פּוּץ.

³ tn Grk “to the twelve tribes in the Diaspora.” The Greek term διασπορά (diaspora, “dispersion”) refers to Jews not living in Palestine but “dispersed” or scattered among the Gentiles.

⁴ tn The words “will be scattered” are supplied in the translation for clarity based on the parallelism with “will be poured out” in the previous line.

³ sn 2 Kgs 25:5 and Jer 52:8 mention that the soldiers all scattered from him. That is why the text focuses on Zedekiah here.

² tn Heb “and to cause their offspring to fall.” Some emend the verb to “scatter” to form tighter parallelism with the following line (cf. NRSV “disperse”).

¹ tn The verb was used for scattering lightning (Job 37:11). God is challenging Job to unleash his power and judge wickedness in the world.

¹ tn The “driving winds” reflects the Hebrew “from the scatterers.” This refers to the north winds that bring the cold air and the ice and snow and hard rains.

¹ tn Heb “a scatterer.” The Hebrew term מֵפִיץ (mefits, “scatterer”) is either a collective singular referring to the Babylonian army or a singular of number referring to the Babylonian commander. Singular forms occur elsewhere in the vision of the fall of Nineveh (2:1-10), used in reference to the Babylonian commander (Nah 2:3, 5)

¹ sn Despite the NT use of this text to speak of the scattering of the disciples following Jesus’ crucifixion (Matt 26:31; Mark 14:27), the immediate context of Zechariah suggests that unfaithful shepherds (kings) will be punished by the Lord precisely so their flocks (disobedient Israel) can be scattered (cf. Zech 11:6, 8, 9, 16). It is likely that Jesus drew on this passage merely to make the point that whenever shepherds are incapacitated, sheep will scatter. Thus he was not identifying himself with the shepherd in this text (the shepherd in the Zechariah text is a character who is portrayed negatively).

⁵ sn All. Given that the Jerusalem church is still active after this and that the Hellenists are the focus of Acts 6-8, it is possible to argue that only the Hellenistic Christians were forced to scatter.

⁴ sn The Jewish people dispersed (Grk “He is not going to the Diaspora”). The Greek term diaspora (“dispersion”) originally meant those Jews not living in Palestine, but dispersed or scattered among the Gentiles.

⁴ sn What is the kingdom of God like? Unlike Mark 4 or Matt 13, where the kingdom parables tend to be all in one location in the narrative, Luke scatters his examples throughout the Gospel.

¹ tn The word “sheep” is supplied for clarification. As in Mic 4:6-7, the exiles are here pictured as injured and scattered sheep whom the divine shepherd rescues from danger.

¹ tn Heb “Go and proclaim these words to the north.” The translation assumes that the message is directed toward the exiles of northern Israel who have been scattered in the provinces of Assyria to the north.

⁴ sn The wording of v. 1 echoes the prayer in Num 10:35: “Spring into action, Lord. Then your enemies will be scattered and your adversaries will run from you.”

¹ tc The LXX reads “I said I would scatter them.” This reading is followed by a number of English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT, CEV).