Beyond the corruptions due to these causes, the text of Zechariah i.—viii. has not suffered more than that of our other prophets. There are one or two clerical errors;[753] an occasional preposition or person of a verb needs to be amended. Here and there the text has been disarranged;[754] and as already noticed, there has been one serious alteration of the original.[755]
From the foregoing paragraphs it must be apparent what help and hindrance in the reconstruction of the text is furnished by the Septuagint. A list of its variant readings and of its mistranslations is appended.[756]
[723] i. 12, vii. 5: reckoning in round numbers from 590, midway between the two Exiles of 597 and 586, that brings us to about 520, the second year of Darius.
[724] ii. 6 (Eng., Heb. 10). On the question whether the Book of Zechariah gives no evidence of a previous Return from Babylon see above, pp. 208 ff.
[743] Though the expression _I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven_ seems to imply the Exile before any return.
[744] For the bearing of this on Kosters’ theory of the Return see pp. 211 f.
[746] Outside the Visions the prophecies contain these echoes or repetitions of earlier writers: chap. i. 1-6 quotes the constant refrain of prophetic preaching before the Exile, and in chap. vii. 7-14 (ver. 8 must be deleted) is given a summary of that preaching; in chap. viii. ver. 3 echoes Isa. i. 21, 26, _city of troth_, and Jer. xxxi. 23, _mountain of holiness_ (there is really no connection, as Kuenen holds, between ver. 4 and Isa. lxv. 20; it would create more interesting questions as to the date of the latter if there were); ver. 8 is based on Hosea ii. 15 Heb., 19 Eng., and Jer. xxxi. 33; ver. 12 is based on Hosea ii. 21 f. (Heb. 23 f.); with ver. 13 compare Jer. xlii. 18, _a curse_; vv. 21 ff. with Isa. ii. 3 and Micah iv. 2.
[747] _E.g._ vii. 5, צַמְתֻּנִי אָנִי for צַמְתֶּם לִי: cf. Ewald, _Syntax_, § 315_b_. The curious use of the acc. in the following verse is perhaps only apparent; part of the text may have fallen out.
[748] Though there are not wanting, of course, echoes here as in the other prophecies of older writings, _e.g._ i. 12, 17.
[749] לאמר, _saying_, ii. 8 (Gr. ii. 4); iv. 5, _And the angel who spoke with me said_; i. 17, cf. vi. 5. _All_ is inserted in i. 11, iii. 9; _lord_ in ii. 2; _of hosts_ (after _Jehovah_) viii. 17; and there are other instances of palpable expansion, _e.g._ i. 6, 8, ii. 4 bis, 6, viii. 19.