CHAPTER XVIII
THE OPENED FOUNTAIN AND ITS
CLEANSING POWER
(CHAPTER XIH. 1-6)
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In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. And it shall come to
pass in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the
idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered : and also I will
cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. And it shall
come to pass that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother
that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live ; for thou speakest lies
in the name of Jehovah : and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he prophesieth ; neither shall they wear a hairy mantle to deceive : but he shall say, I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground ; for I have been a bondman from my youth. And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds between thine arms ? Then shall he answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.
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CHAPTER XVIII
THE first six verses of the I3th chapter stand in
closest connection with the great prophecy in the
i 2th chapter.
There the prophet depicts in the last verses the great
national repentance and sorrow of Israel over Him " whom
they have pierced," as the result of the pouring out upon
them of the spirit of grace and supplication. Here we see
how that same blessed Spirit, who shall have wrought in
them this godly penitential sorrow on account of their
great national sin, shall also bring them into the experi
ence of forgiveness, and open their eyes to the provision
God has made for their justification and cleansing.
" In that day " the goal of prophetic vision in relation
to the nation, the great " day " of Israel s national atone
ment when " the iniquity of that land shall be removed
in one day," l and when a whole nation shall, as it were, " be born at once," z " sJtall a fountain be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness."
The word employed here for " fountain " is ">ipc>, maqor, which, according to its etymological meaning, describes a place " dug " out, 3 and perhaps originally standing for " well," or artificially made " cistern," came to mean spring or fountain. It is the substantive used in Ps. xxxvi. 9 : " For with Tltee is the fountain of life " ; and in Jer. ii. I 3 and xvii. 13 it is used as the figure of Jehovah Himself, " tfie Fountain of living ivaters"
Here in Zech. xiii., however, it is not primarily as the
1 Zech. iii. 9. * Isa. Ixvi. 8.
8 From the verb "flp, qur, "to bore," "dig," or "scoop out."
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460 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
source of life and refreshment, but as the means of puri
fication from sin and moral uncleanness, that the figure of
the fountain is introduced.
The background of the figurative language in this
prophetic scripture are the Divine appointments in the
Levitical ritual. The primary allusion may be to the
water used for the purification of the Levites on their con
secration, which is called nstan ", mei hattath, literally, " sin water " or " water of expiation." l
It is this Levitical ordinance which was very probably
also in the mind of the priestly prophet Ezekiel in his
great prophecy concerning Israel s future in chap, xxxvi. : " And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you"
In our passage in Zechariah, however, the figure is a
much stronger one. Instead of water being sprinkled upon
the defiled, a fountain of cleansing water is opened, in
which the guilty may wash and be clean. But the words
le-hattath u-leniddah " for sin and for uncleanness "-
seem almost an echo of Num. xix. 9, where these two words
are used. The ashes of the red heifer, we read, shall be
laid up in a clean place without the camp, " lemai niddah, hattath hi " literally, " for water of purification, a means of removing sin it is."