What Does Zechariah 14:15 Mean?
So is the striking of the horse, the mule, the camel, the donkey, and every beast in those camps, like this striking.
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 so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague.THE KEY
The repeated word “plague” binds the animals to the same blow already falling on the people.
THE MEANING
Every animal in the camps falls within the reach of the same plague named in the surrounding scene. Horses, mules, camels, asses, and all the beasts bear the blow too; its reach extends through the whole encampment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the blow falls only on people: the verse includes every animal in the camps.
THE ROOT
מַגֵּפָה
maggephah
GROWS FROM
נ־ג־ף
To strike or smite; a blow that strikes down.
The word translated “plague” grows from a root meaning “to strike.” Zechariah 14:12 uses that same root for both “plague” and “smite,” linking the affliction named here with the act of striking.
ALSO GROWS
nagaph: To strike or smite.
נָגַף
In Zechariah 14:12, this verb shares its root with “plague,” showing the action and the affliction as one word family.
negeph: A blow, calamity, or plague.
נֶגֶף
This related noun makes the root’s concrete sense visible: maggephah is a strike that has fallen.
THE PATTERN
Sweeping divine action can reach nonhuman life, in both devastation and preservation.
Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon your cattle that are in the field, upon the horses, upon the donkeys, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep. There shall be a very heavy plague.Your alignment is like the mountains of God; your judgments are a great deep. O LORD, you deliver humankind and beast.And the third part of the created things in the sea that have living souls dies; and the third part of the ships is wrecked.THE THREAD
This is the striking with which the LORD strikes all the nations that fought against Jerusalem; their flesh dissolves while they stand upon their feet, their eyes melt in their sockets, and their tongue dissolves in their mouth.The English calls the noun “plague” and the verb “smite,” but both come from נָגַף (nagaph, “to strike or smite”). That verse names the blow as an action; this one names it as a plague reaching even the animals.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us