Zechariah 13:6

wounds in thine hands Lit. between thy hands; i.e. probably, on thy breast: between thine arms, R. V. Comp. "between his arms," i.e. in his back, 2 Kings 9:24; "between your eyes," i.e. on your foreheads, Deuteronomy 11:18. The interrogator, in his zeal against false prophets, is still unsatisfied, and detecting wounds, or scars, on the breast of the quondam false prophet, charges them upon him as proofs of his guilt, because he regards them either as self-inflicted in the service of idols (1 Kings 18:28), or as given him by his parents, from whose righteous indignation he had escaped wounded, when they went about to kill him (Zechariah 13:3).

in the house of my friends If this be a confession of guilt, we must understand it to mean that the accused person now admits the charge brought against him in the second of the two forms suggested in the last note: "Yes, it is true that I did play the false prophet, and this is the merited punishment which those who loved me inflicted on me." "Hæc vulnera et has accepi plagas parentum meorum judicio condemnatus, et eorum qui me non oderant sed amabant. Et in tantum, fugato mendacio, veritas obtinebit, ut etiam ipse, qui suo punitus est vitio, recte perpessum se esse fateatur." Hieron. The "lovers" cannot mean the false gods or idols, in whose service it might have been supposed that he had been wounded. Such gods or idols are indeed appropriately called the "lovers," or paramours, of the Jewish Church as a whole, which is regarded as the bride or spouse of Jehovah (Hosea 2:7; Hosea 2:10; Hosea 2:12; Ezekiel 16:33; Ezekiel 16:36-37); but the figure is quite inadmissible in the case of an individual prophet. Those who do not regard this clause of the verse as a confession of guilt see in it either an allusion to the loving though severe discipline of youth, or an evasive answer which is purposely indefinite and obscure.

The reference which Dr Pusey and others have seen in this verse to our Lord and to the prints of the nails in His hands is in a high degree forced and arbitrary. It cannot possibly be reconciled with the preceding context, with which the verse intimately coheres. "Quidam hoc traxerunt ad Christum," writes Calvin, "quia dicit Zacharias manibus inflicta esse vulnera; sed illud est nimis frivolum, quia satis constat sermonem prosequi de falsis doctoribus, qui abusi fuerant Dei nomine ad tempus."