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The mysterious Hebrew word שׂרקים in Zechariah 1:8

Summary

Chia examines שׂרקים, a horse-colour word in Zechariah 1:8. It raises two puzzles. First, the verse's colour list (red, שׂרקים, white) does not line up with the horse lists in Zechariah 6:2–3 and 6:6–7, which include black and dappled horses but never this term. Second, the word's meaning was apparently obscure even to ancient translators, as Gelston notes in BHQ.

Using textual criticism, the author first reviews three earlier scholarly fixes that harmonise chapter 1 with chapter 6, and then the ancient versions: Aquila, LXX, Vulgate, Peshitta and Targum. He argues that harmonising never resolves every mismatch at once, so cross-chapter comparison should be dropped. Instead, the Semitic witnesses (Peshitta, Targum, and the Masoretic text) each treat the word as a separate colour. By contrast, the Greek and Latin renderings look confused. He then uses the word's other biblical uses, its cognates and the standard lexica to settle on reddish brown.

The study matters for Bible translation, where English versions variously say brown, sorrel or speckled.

Key points

  • The paper counts five occurrences of the form in the Hebrew Bible:
    • three relate to vines or grapes (Is 5:2, 16:8; Jr 2:22);
    • one is a place name (Jdg 16:4);
    • only Zch 1:8 uses it for a colour.
  • Three earlier proposals are rejected because each leaves some mismatch unexplained:
    • replacing the word with "black" (Marti, Duhm, Sellin and others);
    • adding "black" next to it (Wellhausen, Horst, the BHS apparatus);
    • equating it with "dappled" (McComiskey).
  • The ancient versions disagree in different ways:
    • Aquila, known for extremely literal rendering, gives ξανθοί.
    • LXX splits the single word into two adjectives (ψαροί and ποικίλοι).
    • The Vulgate uses one word, varii, for two different Hebrew terms.
    • The Peshitta and Targum each have a dedicated term of their own.
  • The author disputes Gelston's claim that the Vulgate and Peshitta simply borrowed from the LXX.
  • The final colour is inferred in two steps:
    • The grape contexts suggest a red base.
    • Since "red" already appears in the same verse, the word must denote a different shade, consistent with Arabic/Ethiopic links to sunrise colour and the "sorrel" glosses in BDB, HALOT and Holladay.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. When a translator splits one source word into two target words, or merges two distinct source words into one, the paper reads that as a sign the meaning was not understood, not as evidence of what it means. — For Mova (learn): when witness parsers or LLM teacher tiers produce one-to-many or many-to-one label mappings for a token, mark that span as uncertain instead of accepting it as silver data.
  • I2. The paper relies on the principle that the harder reading is more likely original, because copyists and translators tend to smooth out difficulties. — For Mova (learn): guard against teachers that normalise rare constructions; a corrected label that makes the text more ordinary should require extra evidence before replacing the odd original.
  • I3. The author rejects any fix that removes one inconsistency while leaving another unexplained, and demands a single account covering all the mismatches. — For Mova (learn): a self-induced repair rule should be accepted only if it handles the whole set of related errors without leaving residue, checked against negative controls.
  • I4. Witnesses are weighted by their known habits (Aquila's word-for-word consistency) and by how closely related their language is (Semitic versions over Greek and Latin). — For Mova (tree): in UD dialect conversion or cross-treebank voting, give more weight to sources with a documented consistent annotation style and closer linguistic kinship.
  • I5. The sense is narrowed by contrast within a list: since "red" already occupies one slot in the same enumeration, the next item must name a distinct shade. — For Mova (world): co-listed entities in a coordination can be assumed mutually distinct, which helps pick finer WordNet senses for an ambiguous member.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

Fields: Linguistics & languages

Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.4102/ve.v44i1.2764

@inproceedings{chia2023mysterious,
  title = {{The mysterious Hebrew word שׂרקים in Zechariah 1:8}},
  author = {Chia, Philip S.},
  booktitle = {Verbum et Ecclesia 44},
  year = {2023},
  doi = {10.4102/ve.v44i1.2764},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v44i1.2764}
}

References

29 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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  10. Botterweck, G.J. & Helmer, R., 1974, Theological dictionary of the Old Testament, transl. E.G. David, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI. find
  11. Klein, G.L., 2008, Zechariah (The new American commentary, v. 21B), B & H Pub. Group, Nashville, TN. find
  12. Brown, F., Driver, S.R., Briggs, C.A., James, S. & Wilhelm, G., 1996, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English lexicon: With an appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the numbering system from Strong’s exhaustive concordance of the Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA. find
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  21. Riesller, P., 1911, Die kleinen Propheten oder das Zwölfprohetenburch, Rottenburg. find
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