Zechariah 13:3 - Exposition

When any shall yet prophesy; i.e. if any man shall pretend to have predictive powers conferred on him by God. There is here no intimation that true prophecy should cease, as Keil and Kohler suppose; the man is punished, not because he prophesies, but because "he speaketh lies." His father and his mother. The passage is grounded on the enactments in Deuteronomy 13:6-10 and Deuteronomy 18:20 , which commanded the death of a false prophet or of one who enticed others to Idolatry. Here the holy zeal of the parents should put the law in force. This was quite a different state of things from that which obtained in former times. The earlier prophets continually complain of the favour shown to these deceivers (comp. Isaiah 9:15 ; Jeremiah 5:31 ; Micah 2:11 ); and we never read of the legal punishment being inflicted after due investigation, the test being the nonfulfilment of the prediction ( Deuteronomy 18:22 ). In the new theocracy, so great is the recoil from such pretenders, that their nearest relations shall at once punish them with death without any previous legal process. Shall thrust him through. Stab, pierce him, put him to death, as in Deuteronomy 12:10 . The gospel deals more tenderly with heretics ( Luke 9:55 ). " Defendenda religio non est occidendo ," says Laetant. ('Div. Inst.,' 5.20), " sed moriendo; religio cogi non potest " (Wordsworth, in loc. ).