Joel Marcus - No More Zealots in the House of the Lord - A Note on the History of Interpretation of Zechariah 14,21

8/12/2019 Joel Marcus - No More Zealots in the House of the Lord - A Note on the History of Interpretation of Zechariah 14,21

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Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: ./-

Novum Testamentum 55 (2013)22-30 brill.com/nt

No More Zealots in the House of the Lord

A Note on the History of Interpretation

of Zechariah 14:21

Joel MarcusDurham, NC

Abstract

The word in the house of the Lord ofin Zech 14:21b (there will no longer be a

hosts), has usually been interpreted either in an ethnic (Canaanite) or in a mercantile

sense (trader, merchant), and it is possible that in its original context it was a double

entendre. In later exegesis, the mercantile interpretation comes to predominate, but the

ethnic sense is never completely eclipsed. The New Testament allusions to the Zecharian

text reect both interpretations. On the one hand, the Markan and Johannine Jesus utilizesthe mercantile interpretation when he forbids the commerce in the Temple to continue(Mark 11:15-17; John 2:14-17). On the other hand, Mark also seems to reect the ethnic inter-

pretation, at least indirectly, since he seems to be responding to revolutionaries who used it

to justify their ethnic cleansing and military occupation of the Temple. But Mark, for his

own part, may have employed the sort of punning exegesis common in ancient Judaism to

interpret Zech 14:21b as a prophecy of the eschatological expulsion of these revolutionaries

from their Temple headquarters: on that day, there will no longer be (Zealots) in the

house of the Lord of Hosts.

Keywords

Zechariah 14; Canaanites; Mark; Zealots; Temple; eschaton

The book of Zechariah concludes with a famous chapter of eschatologicalprophecies (Zech 14:1-21). The nations will gather to make war on Jerusa-lem, but God will intervene decisively on her behalf, routing her enemiesand establishing his kingship on earth. The Mount of Olives will split, and

the holy ones (angels) will ght on Israels side. A miraculous transforma-tion of nature will follow: perpetual light will shine out, and living waters

will ow forth from the holy city. Israels enemies will be consumed by a


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No More Zealots in the House of the Lord 23

plague that will instantly rot their esh. All the surviving nations will jour-ney up to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel at the Feast of Tabernacles

(those that refuse will be stricken with drought and pestilence). The city ofpilgrimmage, and indeed the whole country, will attain an unheard-ofdegree of purity: not only priestly vessels, but every pot in Judah and Jeru-salem will become t to receive sacricial offferings. And, nally, as part ofthis general, escahtological sanctication, there will no longer be a inthe house of the Lord of hosts (Zech 14:21b).

But what is the meaning of ? Who exactly will be excluded from theeschatological temple? Most modern English versions render either

with Canaanite or a term such as trader or merchant. There are goodreasons for both translations. On the one hand, Canaanite is the usualmeaning of this term in the Hebrew Bible, and it ts the context in Zecha-riah 14, which speaks of an eschatological reversal whereby Israels massedenemies will be defeated and either converted to worship of Yahweh orannihilated. It is logical that, in this context, God should also eradicate theever-present threat of subversion by an alien culture. This threat is oftenepitomized in Israelite and Jewish literature by the term Canaanites,

which can function as a synecdoche for all non-Israelites living in Pales-tine. An ethnic nuance of Canaanites, therefore, makes sense in theZecharian context. On the other hand, in the Hebrew Bible the wordCanaanite frequently stands in for merchant or trader because of theCanaanites association with mercantile cities such as Tyre and Sidon andtheir involvement in trade and seafaring. It is probable that this usage ofCanaanite as a code for merchant is reected earlier in Zechariah itself(11:7), where the MTs awkward expression (therefore theafficted ones of the ock) should probably be emended to ,

which because of the context should be translated as to the merchants ofthe ock. It is possible that -in 14:21b was originally meant as a double entendre, containing both ethnic and economic nuances.

In later translations and interpretations of Zech 14:21, merchantbecomes the dominant nuance of -, but the ethnic meaning Canaanite refuses to die. Indeed, the earliest extant translation, that of the

Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers,Zechariah 9-14: A New Translation with Introduction

and Commentary(AB 25C; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 489-492. See Hos 12:7; Prov 31:24; Job 41:6; Zeph 1:11; Ezek 17:4.

Meyers and Meyers,Zechariah 9-14, 261-262.


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24 J. Marcus / Novum Testamentum 55 (2013)22-30

Septuagint, renders the term as (Canaanite). Aquila, on theother hand, reads (huckster or retail dealer), which Jerome

translates with mercator(trader or merchant). The Targum, likewise,renders with a term for merchant ( ). The Babylonian Talmud (b. Pes.50a) mentions both possibilities; the authoritative voice ofthe editor supports the meaning merchant (), but the ethnic nuanceCanaanite is given a hearing as well. The Talmud also cites a third opinion,

which comes from a fourth-century Babylonian amora, Jeremiah bar Abba,who punningly interprets (here is a poor person)i.e., inas

the eschaton there will no longer be a needy person in the temple courts.

This is a fanciful, homiletic exegesis, but the Canaanite option seemsto be taken seriously. In fact, as late as the twelfth century, the Spanishexegete Abraham ibn Ezra complains about scholars who still advocate it.

It is no surprise, then, that the New Testament displays an awareness ofboth the mercantile interpretation of Zech 14:21 and the Canaanite one.The former is strongly suggested by the account of Jesus demonstration inthe temple, especially in Mark and John (Mark 11:15-17; John 2:14-17). Thisgospel story ts well into the scenario suggested by Zechariah 14, since bothconcern an eschatological purication of the temple. In addition, theMarkan Jesus forbids that any , perhaps meaning pot, be carriedthrough the sacred precinctsa point perhaps echoing Zech 14:20-21a,

which concerns the purity of the pots in the temple precincts. But theclosest parallel comes in Mark 11:15 (cf. Matt 21:12), where Jesus evicts thebuyers of sacricial animals along with their sellers. His concern, then, isnot exploitative commerce (if it were, he would evict only the sellers), butcommerce tout court, a point the Johannine Jesus makes explicit: Stop

See Henk Jan de Jonge, The Cleansing of the Temple in Mark 11:15 and Zechariah 14:21,

in The Book of Zechariah and Its Inluence(ed. Christopher Tuckett; Aldershot UK/BurlingtonVT: Ashgate, 2003), 90; Adela Yarbro Collins,Mark: A Commentary(Hermeneia; Minneapolis:Augusburg Fortress, 2007) 529-530.

See Cecil Roth, The Cleansing of the Temple and Zechariah XIV 21, NovT 4 (1960)179-180. I have corrected his Aramaic on the basis of A. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic(Leiden:Brill, 1959-73) 3.499.

Roth, Cleansing, 178-180.

The exact connection, however, is not entirely clear. Roth, Cleansing, 177-178 points out

that Zech 14:20-21a says that all pots in Judah and Jerusalem will be holy enough to use in thetemple sacrices. The import of Mark 11:16, Roth concludes, is that regular Judahite bowls

may be moved into the temple but not out again, since they will then have been consecrated

to holy service. But this goes far beyond what either the Zecharian or the Markan text says.


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making my fathers house a house of commerce! ( John 2:16). This ban oncommerce in the temple can easily be seen as a fulllment of the mercan-

tile interpretation of Zech 14:21b.But the Canaanite interpretation of Zech 14:21 has also left a mark,

albeit an indirect one, on the tradition about Jesus temple action. As I haveargued in previous publications, the background to Marks gospel in gen-eral and his account of the temple action in particular lies in the Jewishrevolt against the Romans in 66-73 C.E. That revolt began when the revolu-tionaries suspended sacrice for the Emperor, the reception of gifts orsacrices from him and other Gentiles, and any other form of Gentile

access to or presence in the temple. Furthermore, they enforced theseinterdicts by occupying the sanctuary themselves (see Josephus,Bell.2.409,414; 5.562-564). They probably justied these radical steps by scriptural

Joel Marcus, The Jewish War and the Sitz Im Leben of Mark,JBL111 (1992) 448-451; JoelMarcus, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYB 27/27A; NewHaven/London: Yale University Press, 2000-2009) 2.782-784. In these works, I draw on Roth,

Cleansing and Mark C. Black, The Rejected and Slain Messiah Who is Coming with theAngels: The Messianic Exegesis of Zechariah 9-14 in the Passion Narratives(Ph.D. diss., Emory

University, 1990) 153-156. On these measures, see Daniel R. Schwartz, On Sacrice by Gentiles in the Temple

of Jerusalem, in Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tbingen:J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1992) 102-116.

See Helmut Schwier,Tempel und Tempelzerstrung: Untersuchungen zu den theologischenund ideologischen Faktoren im ersten jdisch-rmischen Krieg (66-74 n. Chr.) (NTOA 11;Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989) 119-120, 124-125. A similar exclusionary attitude

is evident in some of the Qumran scrolls; see 4QFlor (4Q174) 1:3-4, which bans Ammonites,

Moabites, bastards, foreigners, and proselytes from Gods house, and cf. Adela Yarbro

Collins, Jesus Action in Herods Temple, in Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient

Religion and Philosophy Presented to Hans Dieter Betz on His 70th Birthday(ed. Adela YarbroCollins and Margaret M. Mitchell; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 56-57 on the sanctuary

envisaged by the Temple Scroll, which has no place for a Court of the Gentiles. See also

Acts 21:28-29, where Pauls supposed act of bringing Greeks () into the temple isseen as a delement.

The Zealots ban on any sort of Gentile presence in the temple was an intensication of

the already stringent provision against Gentiles going beyond the Court of the Gentiles; cf.

Roth, Cleansing, 178, and Schwier, who refer to Josephus,Bell.5.194; 6.124-26;Ant.15.417, aswell as the archaeological inscriptions banning further Gentile passage, on which see

E. Stern, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land( Jerusalem:

Israel Exploration Society & Carta, 1993) 2.744. On restriction of non-Jews to the Court of theGentiles, see further E.P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE-66 CE (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Trinity Press International, 1992) 61, 72-76 and Collins, Jesus Action,

53-55. Collins points out that the Court of the Gentiles was created by Herod the Greats


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prooftexting, and the most appropriate scripture would have been Zech14:21b, which speaks of clearing the temple of Canaanitesa term that,

as we have seen, can function as a synecdoche for Gentile presence ingeneral. Indeed, language similar to that of Zech 14:21b is present when

Josephus says that, in the middle of the Zealot coup, the Jewish elite warnedabout dire consequences if Jews henceforth were to be the only people toallow no alien the right of sacrice or worship [in their temple]. And thecoins struck during the rst and second years of the revolt may also containan allusion to Zech 14:20-21, since they feature the legend (Jerusalem is holy) or(Jerusalem the holy) on the obverse

and a picture of a cultic vessel on the reverse. The combination of thetheme of the eschatological holiness of Jerusalem with the imagery of acultic vessel is reminiscent of Zech 14:20-21.

Mark shows himself to be aware of the exclusionary policy of the Zealots,and perhaps of its background in exegesis of Zech 14:21b, when in 11:17he has Jesus muster two other scriptural passages to justify his clearing ofthe temple: Has it not been written, My house shall be called a houseof prayer for all nations [Isa 56:7]? But you have made it a den of brigands[ Jer 7:11]. Given that brigands is Josephus most frequent epithet forthe revolutionaries, and that the Markan scriptural citations contrast

expansion of the temple in the late rst century B.C.E., although Sanders notes that inbiblical times there appears to have been no impediment to Gentiles bringing sacrices in

the same way as Israelites did (see Num 15:14-16). By the late third or early second century

B.C.E., however, it was agreed that Gentiles, along with impure Israelites, could not enter

the temple enclosure (Sanders, 72, citing Josephus,Ant.12.145-46). For the Zealots as scriptural exegetes, see Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into

the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D.(Edinburgh: T. & T.Clark, 1989 [orig. 1961]) passim. One of their proof texts was almost certainly Ps 69:10, Zeal

for your house has consumed me (my trans.). Not coincidentally, the Johannine Jesus

musters this same verse to justify his temple action (John 2:17). John, like Mark, may begrafting features of the Zealots temple occupation onto his tale of Jesus earlier temple

action.

Cf. above, p. 23*. Cf. the way in which Matthew translates Marks phrase ,

(a Greek, a Syrophoenician by origin; Mark 7:26) with the single

word (Canaanite; Matt 15:22).

; J.W. 2.414 (trans.

Thackeray, LCL alt.). On these coins and their inscriptions, see Yaakov Meshorer,Ancient Jewish Coinage(DixHills NY: Amphora Books, 1982) 2.96-113; Schwier, Tempel, 128. See Marcus, Jewish War, 449-450.


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brigandine usurpation with Gods intention that the temple should bea house of prayer for all nations, there is a clear connection between the

Markan citations and the exclusionary, anti-Gentile policy of the temple-occupying Zealots. In Marks eyes, however, the Zealots, far from removingpollution from the temple through the anti-Gentile policy inspired by Zech14:21b, themselves deled the sacred precincts by occupying and stainingthem with blood, thereby creating the abomination of desolation proph-esied by Daniel (cf. Mark 13:14). And the further detail that the Markan

Jesus, in his temple cleansing, does not allow anyone to carry a through the temple, may have an anti-Zealot nuance as well, since

can mean not only pot or utensil but also weapon. The Markan Jesus,then, attacks the mercantile desecration of the temple in the early thirtiesof the rst century, but also prophetically rebukes the Zealotic desecrationof it in the late sixties, close to Marks own time.

So far the rudiments of my argument have been presented in prior pub-lications by myself and others. But now I would like to suggest an addi-tional wrinkle: opponents of the Zealot occupation of the temple, such asMark and Josephus, may well have used Zech 14:21b as a proof text them-selves. This is because, aside from the mercantile and Canaanite interpre-tations of

in that passage, a third alternative is possible, in which theword is deliberately misread as the Hebrew or, more likely, the /

Palestinian Aramaic ,/ to which is particularly close insound. This reading, like that of R. Jeremiah in b. Pes.50a, relies on a ver-bal pun, of the sort that is frequently employed in Jewish exegesis, from theQumranpesharim to the method of the rabbis, in which the readeris instructed, Dont read it that way (usually the Masoretic reading), butthis way. The proposed anti-revolutionary reading, similarly, asks the

See e.g. Gen 27:3; Deut 1:41; cf. Marcus, Jewish War, 783.

On the form , see Hans Peter Rger, Zum Problem der Sprache Jesu,ZNW59(1968) 118, who points out that in Matt 10:4//Mark 3:18 suggests derivation fromthis form, which is found in Tg. Ps.-J.Exod 20:5; Deut 5:9; 6:15; andFrg. Tg.Deut 4:24; cf.Gustaf Dalman, Die Worte Jesu: Mit Bercksichtigung des nachkanonischen jdischenScrifttums und der aramischen Sprache errtert(Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1930) 40 and Hengel,

Zealots, 69-70. On this rabbinic method, see Rimon Kasher, The Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic

Literature, in Mikra: Text, Translation, and Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Biblein Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. Martin Jan Mulder; CRINT; Philadelphia:Fortress, 1988) 572-573. For analogous methods at Qumran, see Michael Fishbane, Authority

and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran, in Mikra: Text, Translation, and Reading and


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reader not to vocalize the crucial word in Zech 14:21b as orbut as, so that the verse now says that, on that day of eschatological

advent, There will no longer be a Zealot(or:Zealots) in the house of theLord of hosts.

Again, Josephan passages come close to this posited misreading of Zech14:21. InJ.W. 4.262, the high priest denounces the occupation of the templeby the brigands, which has led to a situation in which the spot where the

world prostrated itself in worship, and which was honored by aliens fromthe ends of the earth who have heard of its fame, is trampled on by thesebeasts engendered in this very place. The true delement of the temple,

then, is not the Gentile presence in its outer courts but the revolutionarypresence in its inner ones. InJ.W.4.158-159, similarly, Josephus describesthe Jewish elites exhortation to the people to delay no longer to pun-ish these wreckers of liberty and purge the sanctuary of its bloodstainedpolluters. Wreckers of liberty is polemical against the Zealots under-standing of themselveds as freedom ghters. I would suggest that purgethe sanctuary of its . . . polluters is polemical as well: the Zealots claimed,on the basis of Zech 14:21b, to be cleansing the sanctuary by removingthe foreigners from its midst, but according to Josephus they were actu-ally polluting it with shed blood; and hence the real purier would be the

Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity(ed. Martin JanMulder; CRINT; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 374-375. For a New Testament passage that

may have originated with an type of exegesis of a biblical verse, see Joel Marcus,

Rivers of Living Water from Jesus Belly ( John 7:38),JBL117 (1998) 328-330.

. Cf.Ant.11.87, in which Josephussays that the Jewish elite granted pagans the right of in the temple. On these

passages, see Schwartz, Sacrice by Gentiles, 108-109.

Cf. Otto Michel and Otto Bauernfeind,Flavius Josephus: De bello Judaico / Der jdischeKrieg. Griechisch und Deutsch(Mnchen: Ksel, 1962-69) 2.1.217 n. 68, who point out that, byusing the terminology about the Zealots trampling the sanctuary, Josephus is implicitly

likening them to the pagans who had deled the temple since the time of Antiochus

Epiphanes.

. . .

.

Cf. Josephus himself,Ant.18.23, on the almost unconquerable love of liberty ( ) of the adherents of the Fourth Philosophy, as well as the coins from

the second and third years of the revolt, which carry the inscription or

(the liberation of Zion; see Meshorer, Coinage, 2.109, 113).


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one who evicted the Zealots from the temple. The Josephan paragraphgoes on say that the elite vehemently upbraided the people for their apa-

thy and incited them against the Zealots; for so these miscreants calledthemselves, as though they were zealous in the cause of virtue and notfor vice in its basest and most extravagent forms. Thus, in the same para-graph in which Josephus explains (or explains away) the Zealots name,he also records their opponents ambition to purge them from the temple.

All this would t in with a polemical, anti-Zealot understanding of Zech14:21b, whereby the delement to be removed is not the = = CanaaniteGentile but the ., i.e., Zealot or Zealotsor

One might object that Canaanite, which begins with a

in Hebrew andAramaic, would be rendered with a in Greek, whereas Zealot, which

begins with a , would be rendered with a , so the pun would not work.My reply is twofold: 1) this form of punning exegesis does not rely on identi-cal sounds, but on close ones, and 2) there is often a blurring of the bound-ary between and when they are transliterated into Greek. Althoughthe general rule, as stated by the Blass/Debrunner/Funk grammar, is that is rendered by and by , the grammar acknowledges exceptions;, for example, renders ,(.(Capernaum; Mark 1:21 etcand renders

(you have forsaken me, Mark 15:34//Matt27:46). In these cases, contrary to the BDF rule, is rendered by and

A similar reversal of Zealot polemic is present inJ.W.2.414, in which the revolutionariesoppponents say that, by disallowing aliens to perform sacrice or make obeisance, the

revolutionaries are introducing strange worship ( ) into the temple. This is

a translation of the standard Hebrew term for idolatry, , and almost certainly

rebuts the Zealots claim to be purging the sanctuary of the same; cf. Steve Mason, ed.,

Judean War 2 (Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary; Leiden/Boston: Brill,2008) 317 n. 2607: The phrase ( ) is cleverly ironic, given the issue: since Judean

worship has always accepted the support of strangers, by not accepting these they are

innovating a strange, alien form of worship (though they do so under the guise of protectingJudean tradition from what is alien).

This is essentially the argument of Hengel,Zealots, 69-70, who points to the Lukan namefor one of Jesus disciples, Simon the Zealot ( : Acts 1:13; Luke 6:15). The same

man is called in Mark 3:18//Matt 10:4. Hengel argues that is

derived from ., st. abs , the Zealot. So far, I agree. But Hengel goes too far when

he goes on to argue that [o]ther attempted interpretations, such as the man from Cana or

the Canaanite are unconvincing, because Canaanite would inevitably be rendered with, as in the LXX and Matt 15:22.

BDF 39. Cf. Klaus Beyer,Die aramischen Texte vom Toten Meer: Samt den Inschriftenaus Palstina, dem Testament Levis aus der Kairoer Genisa, der Fastenrolle und den alten


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by . Moreover, one of the most famous Aramaic names in the New Testa-ment, Peters epithet (, is rendered in Greek as (e.g. Gal 2:11

again an instance of for

. Similarly, and

are often confused, eitherinadvertently or deliberately, and the interchange of the one for the otheris attested in and related methods of punning exegesis.

I have not found a smoking gunan instance in which someonedeliberately confuses -or a related word, or uses this confu withsion to turn Zech 14:21b against the Zealot party. If such a rhetorical moveoccurred, it happened in the background to the polemics of Mark and Jose-phus, not in their foreground. But it seems to me that this sort of polemic

would almost inevitably have arisen in the charged atmosphere of the six-ties, given the Zealots apparent deployment of the Zecharian verse andthe strong opposition they provoked amongst the elite, who saw authorita-tive biblical exegesis as one of their self-imposed tasks. The moment waseeting; a greater disaster than the Zealots occupation of the sanctuaryloomed, namely the temples destruction, and it was this catastrophe thatsubsequently preoccupied Jewish theologians and exegetes to the exclu-sion of almost all else from the war years. The Zealotic interpretation ofZech 14:21b, and even more so the anti-Zealotic one, disappeared virtually

without a trace. This note claims to have rediscovered them.

talmudischen Zitaten: Aramaistische Einleitung, Text, bersetzung, Deutung, Grammatik/Wrterbuch, Deutsch-aramische Wortliste, Register(Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,1984) 126, who notes that the Zenon Papyri, from the middle of the third century B.C.E.,

show as the transliteration for .

Cf. Marcus Jastrow,A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, andthe Midrashic Literature(New York: Judaica, 1982 [orig. 1886-1903]) 657: the rendering of the

Greek letter kappa in Aramaic is

(see e.g. Lam. Rab. to 1:1

[

]). On confusion between and in the ancient versions of the OT, see Emanuel Tov,

Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992) 251; see alsob. Erub.53b, in which a stupid Galilean is denounced for conating his laryngeals, including and,.For a classic example of deliberate confusion of the two letters for homiletical purposes

seeGen. Rab.20:12, in which (garments of skin) from Gen 3:21 is misread as (garments of light); for examples of interchange of the two letters in al tiqriexegesis in rabbinic literature, see b. Ber.32a andGen. Rab.(Vilna) 2:3. See also(to the house of his exile) in 1QpHab 11:5-6, which may be a double entendre for

(desiring to strip him; see F.F. Bruce, Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts[Exegetica 3;

Den Haag: van Keulen, 1959] 14). Already in the Hebrew Bible, Hos 12:9 puns on the linkbetween Jacobs wealth ( ) and his iniquity (; see Michael Fishbane,Biblical Interpretationin Ancient Israel[Oxford: Clarendon, 1985] 378). In ancient Greek transliterations, neithernor ;([is usually expressed (see BDF 39[3 , for example, becomes .

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Joel Marcus - No More Zealots in the House of the Lord - A Note on the History of Interpretation of Zechariah 14,21