Abstract
Mark Boda’s commentary on Zechariah is a welcome addition to the New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT). Boda is well suited to author a commentary on the book of Zechariah, as much of his previous research focused on the Book of the Twelve, including his commentary on Haggai and Zechariah in the NIV Application Commentary. The more academic nature of the NICOT allows Boda to significantly expand on his previous commentary. Part of Boda’s expanded academic content in the current work is built upon his robust publication on the book of Zechariah in periodical literature over the past two decades.
The balance of the current volume is given to exegetical content over background and critical issues. Of the more than nine hundred pages of his commentary, Boda devotes only forty-four to the text, historical context, compositional history, and theological themes of Zechariah. Absent from this brief introduction is a separate section on the history of Zechariah research, although the extensive footnote material addresses this subject. Readers who desire information in these areas, however, need not be disappointed. Rather than front-loading his content in an introduction section, he deals with the critical issues to the book of Zechariah as he encounters them in the text as well as in “orientation” sections, which introduce each of his major divisions of Zechariah.
Boda recognizes the widely-accepted change between Zechariah 1–8 and 9–14 and, like the vast majority of Zechariah scholars, attributes the difference in each section of Zechariah to the presence of separate sources. Boda argues Zechariah 1–8 is connected with the ministry of the prophet Zechariah. He finds in Zechariah 9–14 evidence of three separate sources: the oracles promising restoration (chaps. 9–10), the oracles promising the defeat of Judah’s enemies and her subsequent restoration (chaps. 12–14), and the shepherd motif material interspersed throughout chapters 10–13 (p. 25). Boda understands the multiple sources in Zechariah to have come “together into one unified literary collection” early in the Persian period (p. 23). The emphasis Boda places on the composition of Zechariah throughout his commentary is that the text, while originating with diverse sources, is best interpreted as a single book with a coherent message (p. 28).
Boda reads Zechariah in a thoroughly intertextual manner. He sees in the text of Zechariah allusions to forms and language from earlier prophetic traditions, especially the traditions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (p. 40). Throughout the commentary, Boda challenges readers to see how Zechariah takes material that originates in one prophetic tradition and interprets it through the lens of a subsequent prophetic tradition. Such interpretation gives a unique perspective on well-known passages in Zechariah such as the oracle in 3:8–10. Boda identifies the “sprout” YHWH promises in 3:8 as originating in the tradition of Isaiah 3–4. Zechariah’s use of this language, however, is more in line with the Jeremianic interpretation of this tradition. Rather than “sprout” language referencing the restored Zion as in Isaiah, Zechariah’s interpretation lines up with Jeremiah’s “sprout” as a reference to the restored line of David (pp. 254–55). Such rich attention to inner-biblical allusion in the text of Zechariah results in thought-provoking interpretations of Zechariah’s message.
The focus on inner-biblical allusion in Boda’s commentary raises the issue of why Boda does not give more attention to discussing this methodology in his introduction. Less than two full pages are devoted to inner-biblical allusion as a methodology for interpreting Zechariah. Boda demonstrates in his exegesis how valuable interpretation of the prophetic text using this methodology can be. Readers would be well served if he would give additional guidance on the methods that undergird such rich interpretation.
The concise discussion of background and critical issues and robust exposition of the text of Zechariah makes Boda’s work a valuable contribution to a well-known commentary series that is valued by scholars and pastors alike. The Book of Zechariah gravitates to the more academic end of the series due to the extensive use of Hebrew and minimal discussion of application in the volume. One of the volume’s chief strengths is that it is thorough yet avoids repetition. Boda’s work spills over nine hundred pages, but readers will find that each of them is spent in the marrow of the text of Zechariah.