07_Biblica_AN_Rogland_Layout 1 01/04/14 12:05 Pagina 122 122 MAX ROGLAND Such a reading, I would submit, provides a rationale for the advance of the heavenly emissaries, which would otherwise be left entirely unex- plained in the vision. This is not a minor point: as observed above, one of the problems with the traditional interpretation of the pericope is that it fails to provide a clear reason for the mission of the heavenly emissaries in the first place. As typically understood, the vision simply describes their movements (vv. 6-7) and provides the final report concerning the northern patrol (v. 8), without explaining why YHWH’s spirit/wrath needed to be “set at rest” anyway. With this proposed understanding of v. 5’s #rah-lk !wda-l[ bcythm in mind, let us now turn to the consideration of Hb-rva in v. 6. Of the feminine nouns occurring in the pericope, hbkrm is most often understood to be the antecedent of the pronominal suffix rather than #ra or xwr. The analysis of v. 5 proposed here opens up yet another interpretative possibility, however. It must be noted that biblical Hebrew expresses the neuter with the feminine gender, rather than the masculine 25. If v. 5 refers to an antagonistic stance to- wards the Lord, as argued above, then it would be fitting to understand this notion of rebellion to be the antecedent of the feminine pronominal suffix. Instead of the syntagm -b acy expressing “to go out with” an object, in this case it would express the idea of “to go out against” an object, as in Ruth 1,13 “for the hand of YHWH has gone out against me (hwhy-dy yb hacy yk)”. We could therefore translate Hb-rva in v. 6 as, “against which (viz., rebellion) the black horses are going out to the northland”. Drawing together the preceding observations, then, I would propose that Zech 6,5-6 should be rendered as follows: twxr [bra hla yla rmayw $almh ![yw `#rah-lk !wda-l[ bcythm twacwy ~ymvh Wac.y" ~ynblhw !wpc #ra-la ~yacyO ~yrxvh ~yswsh Hb-rva `!myth #ra-la Wac.y" ~ydrbhw ~hyrxa-la And the angel answered and said to me, “These, the four winds of heaven, are going forth on account of rebellion (lit., “the taking of a stand”) against the Lord of all the earth, against which the black horses are going towards the north, and the white ones have gone out behind them, and the dappled ones have gone toward the south country”. This interpretation is not only text-critically preferable as preserving the MT’s more difficult reading, but is also able to account for the gram- mar of #rah-lk !wda-l[ bcythm (v. 5) and Hb-rva (v. 6), as well as for the semantics of l[ bcyth. What is more, it substantially improves the 25 See JOÜON – MURAOKA, Grammar, § 152 a-b.