If one asks him is expressed with better English style as “If someone…” (Revised English Bible, Good News Translation, New International Version, New Living Translation) or “if anyone…” (New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible).
What are these wounds on your back?: The word wounds is somewhat ambiguous, as it may refer either to fresh wounds (compare New Jerusalem Bible “gashes”) or to healed ones (compare New English Bible/ Revised English Bible “scars”). In languages where a choice has to be made, probably “scars” is better, as there is nothing to suggest that the wounds are newly inflicted. According to Meyers & Meyers, the intended meaning is “bruises” rather than wounds, but no major version translates this way.
On your back translates a Hebrew expression that is literally “between your hands.” It is often compared with a similar expression in 2 Kgs 9.24, which is literally “between his arms” (Revised Standard Version “between the shoulders”). There the context indicates that this means “in the back” (Good News Translation). Here translators are divided, with only Revised Standard Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh saying on your back. Most have “on/in your chest” (Good News Translation, New Revised Standard Version, New English Bible/ Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New Living Translation; compare Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, Bible en français courant). A few sit on the fence, saying “on your body” (Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, Beck, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente), but this seems too timid an option to be recommended. In this context the questioner clearly suspects that the wounds are self-inflicted, like those of the prophets of Baal in 1 Kgs 18.28. If this is so, it seems more likely that they would be on the chest, and translators are therefore advised to accept this interpretation. It is usually assumed that the chest and back of the suspected false prophet would be visible when he was stripped for work in the fields.
The wounds I received in the house of my friends: The same term should be used for wounds as was used in the previous sentence. This statement as a whole is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. The ambiguity lies in the Hebrew word that Revised Standard Version and most other modern versions render as friends. It is a participle form of the verb “to love,” and is rendered as “lovers” in New English Bible. In several of its other occurrences, the word means “lovers” in a symbolic sense, and refers to unfaithfulness by the LORD’s people when they worship false gods, who are regarded as lovers (see Ezek 16.33; Hos 2.5, 7, 10). A few scholars think the word means “those who love me” and refers to family members, as in verse 3. This understanding may be behind the New American Bible translation “dear ones.” In the first case, the speaker is admitting past participation in pagan practices, and in the second he is admitting being punished by his family, presumably again for pagan practices. The problem with both these interpretations is that they would make the sentence a confession of involvement with false prophecy, whereas the context requires it to be a denial of such involvement.
Therefore it seems simpler to take the ambiguous Hebrew word to mean just friends (with Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, Good News Translation, New International Version, and others). In this case the speaker seems to be claiming that his wounds are the result of a quarrel in a friend’s house, presumably a drunken brawl (compare Pro 23.35). Good News Translation states this clearly as “I got them at a friend’s house.” Translators may also say, for example, “I got these wounds [or, scars] in a fight at my friend’s house.”
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 .