The Small Voice of the Day of Fasting

Leaving the question open

I went through several scholarly treatments and found nothing decisive. On reflection, the absence of anything decisive may be the most appropriate result this passage could produce.

5わが山の谷はふさがれる。裂けた山の谷が、そのかたわらに接触するからである。そして、あなたがたはユダの王ウジヤの世に、地震を避けて逃げたように逃げる。こうして、あなたがたの神、主はこられる、もろもろの聖者と共にこられる。

ゼカリヤ書 14:5（口語訳（日本語））

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.

• A by-product of sermon preparation, reworked into something readable.
• A direct look at the part of this text that rarely gets preached.

Another way to read it

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.（ハバクク書 1:6-8）

1And she made the purple and the scarlet, and she took it to the priest. And taking it, the priest blessed her and said, “Mary, the Lord God has magnified your name, and you'll be blessed among all the generations of the earth.”

ヤコブによる幼児福音書 12:1（Mattison 訳（英語））

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

（知られざる福音書（エゲルトン・パピルス2） 第2章）

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.

Before we start

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.（ピリポの福音書 7:54-55）

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.

• Notes from reading a canonical and a non-canonical text next to each other.
• How I finally made peace with a passage I avoided for years.
• What came into view when I set three translations side by side.

Another way to read it

Let me set the terms. This is not an argument about doctrinal correctness. It is one reader's account of what the text can be made to yield. I am going to leave the ending open on purpose.