Texts in Conversation
Zechariah describes a king arriving humble and mounted on a colt, using language that recalls Judah’s blessing in Genesis where a ruler binds his foal to the vine. The reuse of this vocabulary and imagery suggests an intentional echo, linking the tribal promise of leadership in Genesis to Zechariah’s vision of a future king.
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Genesis 49:11
Hebrew Bible
9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah, from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches and lies down like a lion; like a lioness—who will rouse him? 10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him. 11 Binding his foal to the vine, and his colt to the choicest vine, he will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes will be red from wine, and his teeth white from milk. 13 Zebulun will live by the haven of the sea and become a haven for ships; his border will extend to Sidon.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Zechariah 9:9
Hebrew Bible
7 I will take away their blood from their mouth and their abominations from between their teeth;9 then those who survive will become a community of believers in our God, like a clan in Judah, and Ekron will be like the Jebusites. 8 Then I will surround my temple to protect it like a guard from anyone crossing back and forth; so no one will cross over against them anymore as an oppressor, for now I myself have seen it. 9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Look! Your king is coming to you: He is legitimate and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey—on a young donkey, the foal of a female donkey. 10 I will remove the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be removed. Then he will announce peace to the nations. His dominion will be from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. 11 Moreover, as for you, because of our covenant relationship secured with blood, I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... we should note that there is an awkward construction in Zechariah 9:9 in the reference to the king riding on a 'donkey' as well as a 'colt'. The writer seems to have put a lot of emphasis on the animal being mounted ... By taking it as an explanatory waw, then the coming king is represented as mounted on a 'colt' ... This clumsy expression alerts the readers to pay attention to the intertextual dimension in play. The words serve as catchwords, prompting the audience to search for the intertext. The words appear together in two other instances in the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 32:16 and 49:11; and of these only Genesis 49:11 involves a context related to its usage in Zechariah 9:9 - a ruler, presumably riding ... In addition, apart from Zechariah 9:9, the construct chain occurs only in Genesis 49:11. These verbal parallels alert the audience to Genesis 49:11 where the root ... also appears in verse 10. Based on these striking similarities, we register Genesis 49:11 as an intertext of Zechariah 9:9 ..."
Lee, Suk Yee
The Earlier Restoration Expectations of Second Zechariah: An Intertextual Analysis of Zechariah 9-10
(pp. 165-166) McMaster Divinity College, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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