What Does Zechariah 11:6 Mean?
For I will no longer pity those who settle the land, declares the LORD. Behold, I will turn each man over into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king, and they will strike the land, and I will not snatch them out of their hand.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD: but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour’s hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.THE KEY
The verse uses one word for handing people into others’ hands and another for rescuing them out, and says the rescue will not come.
THE MEANING
The verse shows the terrible edge of withdrawn restraint: people are placed into a neighbor’s and a king’s hands, and the land is struck. No hand intervenes to pull them out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that being handed into danger is always followed by rescue; here, the text says it is not.
THE ROOT
מַסְגִּיר
masgir
GROWS FROM
סגר
To close, shut, or enclose.
“deliver into the hand” in this verse is masgir. The first “deliver” is מַסְגִּיר (masgir, “hand over”), from סגר (sagar, “close or shut”). The handoff carries the image of closing people into the power of their neighbor and king.
ALSO GROWS
sagar: Shut or close.
סָגַר
In Genesis 7:16, the LORD “shut” Noah in; the same root’s image of closing around someone illuminates this verse’s handoff into others’ power.
hisgir: Hand over or deliver up.
הִסְגִּיר
This causative form makes the root’s closing image a transfer into someone else’s control.
אַצִּיל
atsil
GROWS FROM
נצל
To snatch away or rescue; in some forms, to strip away.
The final “deliver” is אַצִּיל (atsil, “I will rescue”), from נצל (natsal, “snatch away or rescue”). The verse sets a handoff into danger beside the act of pulling someone free, then says that extraction will not happen.
ALSO GROWS
hitzil: Rescue or deliver from danger.
הִצִּיל
This is the extracting sense denied by the verse: pulling someone out of another’s hand.
wayenatselu: They stripped or plundered.
וַיְנַצְּלוּ
In Exodus 12:36, the same root describes stripping away what another holds, echoing rescue as forceful removal from a grip.
אֶחְמֹל
echmol
GROWS FROM
חמל
To spare or have compassion on.
חמל (chamal, “spare or have compassion”) joins pity to restraint from harm. When that sparing ends, the verse describes more than a feeling withdrawn: it describes people no longer being spared.
ALSO GROWS
vattachmol: She had compassion.
וַתַּחְמֹל
In Exodus 2:6, Pharaoh’s daughter’s compassion for the child is expressed with this root, showing its connection to sparing a life.
lo tachmol: You shall not spare.
לֹא תַחְמֹל
Deuteronomy 13:8 uses the same root for withholding the act of sparing; Zechariah says that sparing itself has ceased.
THE PATTERN
When restraint is withdrawn, people are handed over to powers that can carry harm forward.
And the LORD's anger burned hot against Israel, and he gave them into the hands of those who stripped them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before the faces of their enemies.He gave them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them.Therefore God gave them over in the cravings of their hearts into uncleanness, for their bodies to be made weightless among themselves.THE THREAD
You shall not hand over to his master the servant who has escaped from his master to you.Here “deliver” is תַּסְגִּיר (tasgir, “hand over”), from סגר (sagar, “close or shut”), the same root as the handoff in Zechariah. Deuteronomy refuses to close an escaped servant back into a master’s power; Zechariah shows the root turned toward surrender into another hand.
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