390 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
from Zechariah s own visions, in that they are for the most part exhibited to the eye, and Zechariah s own part is simply to inquire their meaning and to learn it, and to receive further revelation. In one case only (chap. iii. 5) he himself interposes in the action of the vision ; but this, too, as asking that it might be done, not as himself doing it. Here (in chap, xi.) he is himself the actor, yet as representing Another, Who alone could cut off shepherds, abandon the people to mutual destruction, annulling the covenant which He had made." 1 Maimonides, then, seems to say rightly : " This, I fed the flock of the slaughter, to the end of the narrative, where he is said to have asked for his hire, to have received it, and to have cast it into the Temple, to the treasurer all this Zechariah saw in prophetic vision. For the command which he received, and the act which he is said to have done, took place in prophetic vision or dream. This," he adds, " is beyond controversy, as all know who are able to distinguish the possible from the impossible."
Let us bear in mind also that, as has been well observed by an old writer, the actions of the prophets are not always to be understood as actions, but as predictions as, for instance, when God commands Isaiah to " make the heart of the people fat and their ears heavy " ; 2 or when He says that He appointed Jeremiah over the nations, to root out, and to break down, and to destroy, and to over throw, and to build, and to plant " ; 3 or when He com manded the same prophet to cause the nations to drink the cup whereby they should be bereft of their senses. 4 Neither Isaiah nor Jeremiah actually did this, but foretold in advance in this manner what would be. So it is here.
But to proceed to the exposition. And, first, I will deal with what I believe to be a parenthetical sentence in the 7th verse, which occurs again in the iith verse, and which has greatly puzzled the commentators, and of which all sorts of explanations have been given : " So I fed," we
1 Pusey. - isa. vi. IO.
a Jer. i. 10. < Jer. xxv. 15-27.
