What Does Zechariah 13:6 Mean?
And one will say to him, What are these wounds between your hands? And he will answer, Those with which I was struck in the house of those who love me.
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
And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both the wounds and the act of striking, so the mark keeps the blow inside it.
THE MEANING
You meet a body whose hands carry marks of injury, while the answer places that injury inside the house of friends. The verse leaves closeness and harm in the same frame, without making one cancel the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that a place called the house of friends cannot also hold violence.
THE ROOT
הַמַּכּוֹת
ham-makkōt
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
to strike, smite
The verse calls them הַמַּכּוֹת (ham-makkōt, “the blows/wounds”) and says הֻכֵּיתִי (hukkēti, “I was struck”): both come from נכה (n-k-h; nāḵāh, “to strike”). The mark and its making remain joined in the language, even while the answer locates the injury in the house of friends.
ALSO GROWS
nāḵāh: to strike, smite
נָכָה
This verb is the seed beneath “I was wounded”; the speaker’s condition retains the act that made it.
makkāh: a blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
The same root names a bodily blow and a wider affliction, keeping the force of the strike present in the word for its mark.
THE PATTERN
A body’s wound keeps the violence that made it visible in the story.
But he was pierced for our rebellion, and crushed for our crookedness. The straightening that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.For he hurts and binds up; he strikes, and his hands heal.Then he said to Thomas, Bring your finger here, and look at my hands, and bring your hand here, and thrust it into my side, and do not become unsteady, but be steady.THE THREAD
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man at my side, says the LORD of hosts; strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.The command translated “smite” is another form of נכה (n-k-h, “to strike”), the root inside “wounds” and “I was wounded” here. The next verse opens the question of the marks onto the act of striking and its scattering consequence.
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