46 MAARTEN J.J. MENKEN some help. The substitution of patajw for an imperative is quite ¥ conceivable in a slightly interpretive translation: God commanding the sword to strike the shepherd is not very far from, or is even tantamount to, God himself striking the shepherd 18. Besides, the sword as the addressee of the imperative “strike” has disappeared from the brief quotation, so the change of verbal form makes the OT text more comprehensible 19. Now the idea that God strikes Je- sus, or, to put it otherwise, that the will of God is realized in Jesus’ passion and death, is widespread in the NT. We find it in Mark’s Gospel, in Jesus’ passion predictions (8,31; 9,31; 10,33-34) specifically, and in his words in Gethsemane: that the will of the Father should be done and that he has to accept the cup of suffering (14,36.39), that he has to be given into the hands of sinners (14,41), and that in this way the Scriptures are fulfilled (14,49). However, the idea is not limited to Mark; one meets it also in, for instance, Luke’s own material with its interest in the divine deı, “it is necessary”, of Jesus’ passion and death (13,33; 17,25; ˜ 22,37 ; 24,7.26.44.46), in the Johannine tradition (John 3,14.16; 12,34 ; 1John 4,9-10), and in Paul (Rom 5,8; 8,3.32). So patajw, “I ¥ will strike”, at the beginning of the quotation may well be due to early Christian interpretation of Zech 13,7. The change into patajw is probably not only a question of ¥ interpretive translation but also of ancient exegesis in the tech- nical sense. There are a few OT passages in which it is explicitly said that God strikes his elect one. According to Isa 53,4, “we” considered the servant of the Lord as one “afflicted, struck by God and humiliated” 20. In Hebrew, there is a verbal relationship with Zech 13,7: hkm, here translated as “struck”, comes from the same verb hkn as the imperative Èh, “strike”. In the LXX, there are no verbal agreements between Isa 53,4 and Zech 13,7; the LXX has even eliminated the idea of the servant being struck by God. Closer to Zech 13,7 is the other OT passage according to Cf. J. MARCUS, Mark 8-16 (Anchor Yale Bible 27A; New Haven, CT 18 2009) 969; WATTS, “Mark”, 232. So C.A. HAM, The Coming King and the Rejected Shepherd. Matthew’s 19 Reading of Zechariah’s Messianic Hope (NT Monographs 4; Sheffield 2005) 70, 78, 81-82. The rest of the chapter speaks in other images of God striking his ser- 20 vant ; see esp. v. 10.