Zechariah 13:5

But he shall say, I [am] no prophet,.... That he is not of the Romish clergy, or of any of their religious orders, having laid aside his habit: I [am] an husbandman; he shall put on the habit of a

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.

This verse is this reclaimed man’ s recantation, or renunciation of his former course, and his solemn promise to take up his own calling, and become a plain honest man, and live upon his labour, to which he was trained up from his youth, and is sorry he ever left it. This verse is this reclaimed man’ s recantation, or renunciation of his former course, and his solemn promise to take up his own calling, and become a plain honest man, and live upon his labour, to which he was trained up from his youth, and is sorry he ever left it.

Zechariah 13:5 But he shall say, I [am] no prophet, I [am] an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.Ver. 5. But he shall say, I am no prophet] Oυκειμιμοναχος, I am no monk, no clerk, I am not book learned, was the ignorant man’ s plea in Chrysostom’ s time, and so it is still to this day; though it serves not his turn. But here the like speech is taken up for a better purpose. Hoc etenim principium est resipiscentiae, saith Calvin here. Here begins their repentance, viz. in a free acknowledgment of their ignorance and utter unfitness for the office they had usurped. I am no prophet] As for self-respects, that my belly might be filled and my back fitted, Si ventri bene, si lateri (Horat.), I sinfully took upon me to be one, but I am a husbandman, and can better hold the plough than handle a text; feed and follow a flock of sheep than feed the flock of God (that have golden fleeces, precious souls), taking the oversight thereof, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. 1 Peter 5:2 For man taught me to keep cattle from my youth] q.d. Shepherdy and husbandry I have been ever trained up to, and can better therefore skill of than of preaching, which is certainly Ars artium et scientia scientiarum, the art of arts, the science of sciences, as one said; whereunto Melancthon addeth that it is the misery of miseries. And of the same mind was his colleague, Luther, when he said, A householder’ s pains is great, a magistrate’ s greater, but a minister’ s greatest of all; and afterward added, that if it were lawful to him to leave his calling, he could with more ease and pleasure dig for his living, or do any other hard labour, than undergo a pastoral charge. The mystery thereof is not an idle man’ s occupation, an easy trade, as some fondly conceit. The sweat of the brow is nothing to that of the brain; besides dangers on every hand for the work’ s sake, and armies of cares, that give neither rest nor respite, but are ready to overwhelm a man, επισυστασις, 2 Corinthians 11:28, agmen subinde irruens (Illyr.). This made Luther affirm that a minister labours more in a day many times than a husbandman doth in a month. Let no man, therefore, in taking up the ministry, dream of a delicacy; neither let slow bellies either invade it or hold it (as Popish asses and some impudent Alastores today do) to pick a living out of it. It was an honest complaint of a Popish writer, We, saith he, handle the Scripture, tantum ut nos pascat et vestiat, only that it may feed us and clothe us.

(5) Taught . . . cattle.—Better, acquired, or bought me. He pretends to be a purchased slave, kept hard at work, and therefore as having no time for professing inspiration. His meaning is very different from that of Amo 7:14.

Verse 5. But he shall say, I am no prophet] This must be the case of a false prophet or diviner, who had been obliged to give up his infamous practice, and become even a labourer in the land. But having been known to be such, he is questioned by the people to see if he still were addicted in heart to the same practices. He declares he is no prophet, neither true nor false; that he is now a husbandman, and was brought up a herdsman.

5. a husbandman] Lit. one tilling the ground, as Genesis 4:2. Comp. Amos 7:14, where however there is no repudiation as here of the prophetical office. taught me to keep cattle] or possessed me as a serf, or chattel: adscriptus glebœ. I have been made a bondman, R. V.

And he shall say - Repudiating his former claims, “I am a husbandman:” for a man hath taught me from my youth.” There was no room then for his having been a false prophet, since he had had from his

Zechariah 13:5-6 indicate with what vehemence everyone will deny that he is a prophet He shall say — The subject is not everyone of Zec 13:4, but the indefinite one, “one shall say”=it shall be said