Q. The New King James Version Bible (NKJV) capitalizes personal pronouns that refer to God. The NKJV capitalizes the pronoun “Who” in Zechariah 11:17. This does not refer to God, and some even interpret it to mean the Antichrist. Why is “Who” capitalized here?
A. Yes, the New King James Bible capitalizes personal pronouns that refer to God (e.g. “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?” Psalm 13:1; “for He dried up her expectation” Zechariah 9:5). This problem in Zechariah 11:17 is an unfortunate unintended consequence of the intersection of two NKJV editorial choices – the choice to capitalize pronouns that refer to deity, and the choice to format some verses as poetry so that each “line/verse” begins with a capital letter.
The capitalization of pronouns in the NKJV (and some other translations) is an editorial or publishing choice. It is not matter of matching capitalization in inspired originals, but is rather a matter of interpretation and insertion made by the translators. The Hebrew and Greek do not distinguish such, so the translators have to make an educated guess. They probably get it right most of the time. However, rather than mostly getting it right, they could leave it alone in order for the readers under the leadership of the Holy Spirit to interpret whether or not it is a reference to God. The NKJV Preface describes their relevant (to this question) formatting in this way.
“...reverence for God in the present work is preserved by capitalizing pronouns including You, Your, and Yours, which refer to Him. Additionally, capitalization of these pronouns benefits the reader by clearly distinguishing divine and human persons referred to in a passage. Without such capitalization the distinction is often obscure, because the antecedent of a pronoun is not always clear in the English translation.” (“Preface,” Holy Bible, The New King James Version, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1982, p. iv)
“Poetry is structured as contemporary verse to reflect the poetic form and beauty of the passage in the original language.” (“Preface,” Holy Bible, The New King James Version, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1982, p. iv)
These two rules combine to confuse the reader in Zechariah 11:17. “Who” is significantly capitalized here in the NKJV Zechariah 11:17 simply because it is a word that begins the line of poetry. Its capitalization has nothing to do with the rule regarding capitalization of pronouns that refer to God. Nevertheless, it is ripe for confusion. A reader thinking of capitalized divine pronouns and recognizing “Who” as a pronoun may miss and misunderstand the reason for the capitalization of “Who” in this verse in the NKJV. (This style is also found in translations such as the LSB and NASB.)
Another thing that can exacerbate the problem is that some online sources do not keep the formatting found in the print edition of the NKJV.
If I copy the NKJV Zechariah 11:17 from the “NKJV only view” in Bible Gateway, it looks like this.
Who leaves the flock!
A sword shall be against his arm
And against his right eye;
His arm shall completely wither,
And his right eye shall be totally blinded.”
However, if I copy the NKJV Zechariah 11:17 from the “all English translations view” in Bible Gateway, it looks like this:
“Woe to the worthless shepherd, Who leaves the flock! A sword shall be against his arm And against his right eye; His arm shall completely wither, And his right eye shall be totally blinded.”
Some people make statements like this: “The capitalizing of pronouns that refer to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a way of honoring God and showing esteem.” With this rule, translators and writers become stricter than God himself, who did not inspire distinguished capitalized pronouns. God chose to inspire his words originally in Hebrew and Greek. Hebrew has no such thing as upper-case and lower-case letters. The Greek manuscripts have either all uncial/majuscule (upper-case) or all minuscule (lower-case) letters. God did not inspire his penmen to give any special attention to pronouns that refer to him. We would do well to follow God’s example rather than preferring our own traditions. Uzzah may have meant well when he reached to steady the ark, but how much better to obey rather than just mean well.
Note: I am not extremely familiar with the NKJV. I do not use it for reading and study. However, a random search did not reveal to me any instances when the “Who” and “Whose” pronouns referencing deity were ever capitalized, as it with “You” and “Yours,” “He” and “His,” etc.
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