9. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: There shall yet come peoples and citizens of great cities; and the citizens of one city[948] will go to another city, saying: “Let us go to propitiate Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of Hosts!” “I will go too!” And many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of Hosts in Jerusalem and to propitiate Jehovah._ 10. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: In those days ten men, of all languages of the nations, shall take hold of the skirt of a Jew and say, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you._ FOOTNOTES: [931] Cf. chap. vii. 3: _the priests which were of the house of Jehovah_. [932] Jer. xli. 2; 2 Kings xxv. 25. [933] The Hebrew text is difficult if not impossible to construe: _For Bethel sent Sar’eser_ (without sign of accusative) _and Regem-Melekh and his men_. Wellhausen points out that Sar’eser is a defective name, requiring the name or title of deity in front of it, and Marti proposes to find this in the last syllable of Bethel, and to read ’El-sar’eser. It is tempting to find in the first syllable of Bethel the remnant of the phrase _to the house of Jehovah_. [934] To stroke the face of. [935] The fifth month Jerusalem fell, the seventh month Gedaliah was murdered: Jer. lii. 12 f.; 2 Kings xxv. 8 f., 25. [936] So LXX. Heb. has acc. sign before _words_, perhaps implying _Is it not rather necessary to do the words?_ etc. [937] Omit here ver. 8, _And the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, saying_. It is obviously a gloss by a scribe who did not notice that the כה אמר of ver. 9 is God’s statement by the former prophets. [938] Cf. the phrase _with one shoulder_, _i.e._ unanimously. [939] So Heb. and LXX.; but perhaps we ought to point _and I whirled them away_, taking the clause with the next. [940] See above, pp. 271 f. [941] Cf. especially Isa. xl. ff. [942] Isa. i. 26. [943] Not merely _My people_ (Wellhausen), but their return shall constitute them a people once more. The quotation is from Hosea ii. 25. [944] So LXX. [945] _But he that made wages made them to put them into a bag with holes_, Haggai i. 6. [946] Read כי אזרעה השלום for כי זרע השלום of the text, _for the seed of peace_. The LXX. makes זרע a verb. Cf. Hosea ii. 23 ff., which the next clauses show to be in the mind of our prophet. Klostermann and Nowack prefer זַרְעָהּ שָׁלוֹם, _her_ (the remnant’s) _seed shall be peace_. [947] In the tenth month the siege of Jerusalem had begun (2 Kings xxv. 1); on the ninth of the fourth month Jerusalem was taken (Jer. xxxix. 2); on the seventh of the fifth City and Temple were burnt down (2 Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh month Gedaliah was assassinated and the poor relics of a Jewish state swept from the land (Jer. xli.). See above, pp. 30 ff. [948] LXX. _the citizens of five cities will go to one_. “_MALACHI_” _Have we not all One Father? Why then are we unfaithful to each other?_