The LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land: With inherit and portion the prophet uses terms that were used about the division of the land among the twelve tribes at the time of the conquest. The word portion in Hebrew normally means a share that is allotted to someone, usually by God. Its use here is rather unusual, as it means the special share or allotment of the land that the LORD receives. Another way of expressing this is “Judah will be the special part of the land that will be the LORD’s” or “The LORD will receive the territory of Judah as his special share of the holy land.” Here Judah may refer to the people rather than the territory (compare Deut 32.9). So in some languages it will be useful to translate “The people of Judah will be the special people of the LORD in the holy land.”

Although the holy land is now a common way of referring to the land where the people of Israel lived after the conquest under Joshua, it occurs only here in the Hebrew Scriptures. It also comes in the Greek deuterocanonical books (Wisdom 12.3; 2 Maccabees 1.7). Holy land or “sacred land” (Good News Translation) means “his own land,” “the land that is set apart for him [the LORD].”

And will again choose Jerusalem: These words are repeated from 1.17. New English Bible and Good News Translation take the word again to apply to both halves of the verse, but this is unlikely as far as the Hebrew construction is concerned and it is not followed by Revised English Bible. Good News Translation expands choose Jerusalem to say “Jerusalem will be the city he loves most of all.” This is going too far, and translators should not follow the example of Good News Translation. In a number of languages it will be helpful to indicate what may be hinted at here and say, “he will again choose to live in Jerusalem.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Zechariah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .