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52 Structure and the Book ofZechariah
a I am Yahweh
e and I will bring you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you
from their bondage
and I will redeem you...
f AND I WILL TAKE YOU TO ME FOR A PEOPLE
AND I WILL BE YOUR GOD
a I am Yahweh
e who brought you out from under the burdens
of the Egyptians
d and I will bring you to the land which I swore
to give to
b Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
and I will give it to you for a possession
a I am Yahweh
Having seen Magonet's analysis it seems to me that I missed the
build up of 'I will' verbs in the centre of the unit, and therefore
underestimated the emphasis placed on my section f. I shall, in future,
want to make clear the progression from 'bring out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians' (via 'deliver', 'redeem' and 'take') to the
central promise 'I will be your God'. The focus on Yahweh as the
mover in this series of promises is not allowed to be disturbed even by
the normal form of words: 'you shall be my people'. Yahweh says, 'I
will take you to me for a people'.
The interaction promised by the publishing of these essays together
turns out to be disappointing. The reactions are too polite and do not
address the question why the results obtained do not agree with each
other. Or if they do agree, despite appearances to the contrary, this is
not demonstrated.
Before attempting to sum up our conclusions we shall do two
things: (a) attempt a control experiment by testing out the scholarly
methods we seem to have encountered so far on a chapter made up of
verses randomly selected from the book of Isaiah, 'Isaiah 67'; and (b)
make some basic remarks about the probability that a particular
regular structure is accidental or 'intended'.