But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.
But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an farmer - the detection of one of the false prophets dramatically represented. He is seized by some zealous vindicator of the law, and in fear cries out "I am no prophet."
For Man_1:-1 :e., one. The Hebrew may mean Adam - i:e., our first parent was my pattern from my youth; I followed his agricultural (or pastoral, or both) occupations.
Taught me to keep cattle from my youth. As "keeping cattle" is not the same as to be "an farmer," and it would be no proof that a man was "an farmer" to say, "I was taught to keep cattle from my youth;" translate х hiqnaniy (H7069)], rather, 'Has used (or 'appropriated') me as a servant'-namely, in husbandry. х Qaanaah (H7069), to acquire gain: whence hiqnaah, to employ one to acquire gain: to force a man to be one's field servant] (Maurer), However, husbandry and keeping cattle might be regarded as jointly the occupation of the person questioned: then Amos 7:14, "herdman" ("I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer (or cultivator) of sycamore fruit"), will accord with the English version. A Hebrew kindred word х miqneh (H4735)] means cattle. Both occupations, the respondent implies, are inconsistent with my being a "prophet."
Verse 6 And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? The interrogator still suspects him: "If so, if you have never pretended to be a prophet, whence come those wounds?" The Hebrew х beeyn (H996) yaadeykaa (H3027)] is rather, 'between thine hands.' The hands were naturally held up to ward off the blows, and so were "thrust through" (Zechariah 13:3) "between" the bones of the hand. Stoning was the usual punishment; "thrusting through" was also a fit retribution on one who tried to "thrust Israel away" from the Lord (Deuteronomy 13:10); and perfects the type of Messiah, condemned as a false prophet, and pierced with "wounds between his hands." Thus the transition to the direct prophecy of Him (Zechariah 13:7) is natural, which it would not be if He were not indirectly and in type alluded to here first.
Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends - an implied admission that he had pretended to prophecy, and that his friends had wounded him for it in zeal for God (Zechariah 13:3). The Holy Spirit in Zechariah alludes indirectly to Messiah, the antitype, wounded by those whom He came to befriend, who ought to have been His "friends," who were His kinsmen (cf. Zechariah 13:3, as to the false prophet's friends, with Mark 3:21, "His friend [margin, 'kinsmen,' hoi (G3588) par' (G3844) autou (G847)] went out to lay hold on Him," John 7:5; "His own," John 1:11; the Jews, "of whom as concerning the flesh, he came," Romans 9:5), but who "pierced" and "wounded" Him by the agency of the Romans (Zechariah 12:10).