Day #265

Sermon - Audio
Zechariah 8-14 - Audio
Zechariah 8-14 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

8

The messages of judgment in chapter 7 are now balanced by messages of blessing. The chapter is an extended *golden age prophecy that pictures an ideal society blessed by God. When we move to interpreting the details, we can legitimately begin with the prophet’s immediate situation and see in the vision a *hyperbolic and symbolic picture of the returned exiles setting up life in restored Jerusalem. But once again, the imagery and vocabulary bring to mind the blessings of the messianic kingdom that Christ brought during his life, death, and resurrection and, further, the coming glory of eternity (pictured as finding its center in Jerusalem as the place of salvation for the world). A good way to assimilate the chapter is to compile a running list of the categories and specific pictures that make up the good life that is pictured. The rhetorical form in which the visions are packaged is the formula “Thus says the Lord” or “The word of the Lord came to me, saying . . .” - ESVLB-

v3 - The Lord says that Jerusalem will be restored.

v4-5 - The picture of Jerusalem being restored comes with people coming to full age and children free to play in the streets. No fear of man.

v8 - A familiar phrase is used: "They shall be my people, and I will be there God"

v9-17 - Again, the covenantal promise of Israel being a blessing to the nations is reiterated.

God's ideal for a restored/blessed city = Speak Truth to one another, Promote justice in your city, Promote peace among the people, Pursue righteousness, Love and honor God.

v18-19 - Fasting in anticipation of this moment will turn into a time of celebration (feasts). It is in light of the coming celebration that we take heed of God's direction.

v20-22 - Many nations will be influenced by God's people. They will exalt Him.

9

Vision of a coming king [ chapter 9 ]. The motif of a coming golden age carries over from chapter 8, as does the messianic content of the vision. The book of Zechariah as a whole combines priestly and kingly motifs. The priestly motif has dominated thus far, but with chapter 9 the kingly motif is established. The structure of the material is fluid, but we can discern the following general outline: God’s promise to protect Judah from its enemies (vv. 1–8); the triumphant arrival of Zion’s gentle king to save his precious people (vv. 9–17). The mode is poetic and symbolic; the fulfillment is messianic. -ESVLB-

v1 - Most likely, this burden (cities mentioned) is fulfilled by the armies of Alexander the Great when he conquered these regions/cities.

v5-8 - The Philistines (opposition of God) will be conquered as well.

*Once again, God uses a godless people to do His work. - Alexander (Greeks)

v9 - Sound familiar? John 12 maybe? Riding the donkey shows the humility the Messiah is coming with. Also, Triumphal Entry - Matt 21

v11-17 - Judah is liberated and blessed.

Thought - The idea is that the Lord Himself leads the battle. Both the Bible and the Koran have the idea of the holy war - which Islam calls Jihad - but there is a huge difference between the idea of the holy war in the Bible and in Islam. Jesus alone carries out the Biblical holy war - never His people. In Islam, the Jihad is the responsibility of every good Muslim.

10

With the king’s having arrived, the prophet now turns to an expanded vision of the blessings of his rule. On a good day, the returned exiles might have seen the details as a hyperbolic and *metaphoric account of their life in the old land, but the more obvious application of the details is messianic and eschatological. The affective or emotional level of meaning is important in OT golden age prophecies, so we need to be receptive to the feelings and mood that this material awakens in us. -ESVLB-

v2 - Shepherd is a common OT metaphor for the king (see esp. Jer 2:8; 3:15; 10:21; 23:1–2; 50:6; Ezek 34).

v6-12 - The Restoration of the Flock. God will care for the remnant of both Judah and Ephraim, restoring them as his people after the exile.

11

The messianic thread continues in this chapter, but changes are introduced as well. The format of visions gives way to an *allegorical narrative involving shepherds and sheep. After a lead-in announcing doom (vv. 1–3), the prophet pictures himself as undertaking the task of being a good shepherd to the flock of the Lord. The unfolding action is mysterious, but we are helped in piecing together the main action if we realize that the story that is told is a rejection story: the prophet, in his role as good shepherd, fails to be accepted by the flock and therefore abandons his attempt to shepherd the flock. There is a messianic dimension to these prophecies: the good shepherd is Christ; the rejection of the good shepherd is a metaphoric picture of what happened to Christ during his earthly life, including his atoning death; the shepherd’s rejection of the sheep and annulment of the covenant (vv. 8–11) is God’s temporary withdrawal of blessing from his wayward people, as when Israel and Judah were carried into captivity; the annulling of brotherhood between Judah and Israel (v. 14) refers to the division of the kingdom. -ESVLB-

v1-3 - Judah's leaders (shepherds) will be made low.

v1-17 - The readers of this literary subunit learn much about the worthless shepherds and their fate. Building upon common ancient Near Eastern and biblical imagery, these shepherds are political leaders, but significantly their identity is never revealed, nor even hinted at, so as to allow and even encourage multiple interpretations. -JSB-

4-17 - A Sign-act: The Shepherd Rescues His Flock but Is Rejected. Zechariah himself acts out the role of a shepherd whom the sheep come to detest, and who then leaves the flock to a worthless shepherd. -ESVSB-

12-13

We need to acknowledge at the outset of the concluding unit of the book of Zechariah that the oracles of redemption in biblical prophecy employ a metaphoric and symbolic mode that is open-ended in its potential applications. Language and imagery are often identical for the following three types of prophecy: (1) predictions of military and political events that are on the verge of happening; (2) predictions of an intermediate future from the time perspective of the prophet that were fulfilled with the coming of Christ; (3) eschatological, apocalyptic visions of the end of history and the ushering in of eternity. Often our intuition tells us that it is one of these rather than the others (or simultaneously with the others), but we may find it difficult to prove beyond doubt that our identification is true. A further consideration is that if certain lavish promises of restoration and blessing were not fulfilled in the history of Israel or Judah, we can probably take that as warrant to give those visions a messianic and/or eschatological interpretation. With those ground rules before us, we can probably see in these two chapters symbolic renditions of (1) the blessings of salvation in Christ (e.g., 12:10; 13:1) and (2) premonitions of events surrounding God’s final conquest of evil and establishing of his kingdom in the eschaton. Again, we need to allow the poetic medium to pierce our imagination and emotions -ESVLB-

v2 - "cup of staggering" - cup of intoxicating liquor bringing shame, destruction, etc.

v7 - The Abrahamic covenant will be fulfilled.

v10-14 - Hadad-rimmon could be the name of a town near Megiddo, making this a reference to the deep mourning that followed King Josiah’s death in a battle there (v. 11; see 2 Chron. 35:24). The identity of the one who is “pierced” (Zech. 12:10) and on whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem … look is difficult to discern. If on me is defined by the following phrase (“whom they have pierced”), then the reference is to God himself, perhaps in the person of the shepherd who will be struck in 13:7, a prophecy that John 19:37 sees fulfilled in the person of Jesus. The mourning will affect the entire community, family by family, men and women alike. Two particular lines are singled out: the royal line of David, by way of his son Nathan (Zech. 12:12; cf. 1 Chron. 14:4), and the priestly line of Levi (Zech. 12:13), by way of his grandson Shimei (1 Chron. 6:16–17). -ESVSB-

14

1-11 - Jerusalem’s Judgment, Deliverance, and Exaltation. Terrible times are yet in store for the people of Jerusalem, but God will visit them and make Jerusalem secure and prominent.

v6 - On that day. It is difficult to determine what period of time is being indicated by the remarkable prophecies in this entire chapter, whether a future time in this present age, or a future millennial kingdom and the rebellion that follows it, or the events that surround Christ’s return and the beginning of the eternal state (see note on Ezek. 40:1–48:35; see also 1 Pet. 1:10–11). -ESVSB-

v7 - In the evening there will be light. The normal pattern is that light breaks through in the morning (Gen 1:3) but in the day of the LORD in judgment it would do so in the evening. In a sense the universe will be “de-created” in order to be “recreated

v8 - Living waters will flow out from Jerusalem. Ezekiel sees this same phenomenon in conjunction with the inauguration of the messianic age (Ezek 47; cf. Rev 22:1–5; also John 7:38).

v9 - The expression the LORD will be seen as one with a single name is an unmistakable reference to the so-called Shema, the crystallized statement of faith in the LORD as the covenant God of Israel (cf. Deut 6:4–5). Zechariah, however, universalizes the extent of the LORD’s dominion — he will be “king over all the earth.”

v10 - Geba to Rimmon - all of Judah

v12-21 - The Nations Humbled and Brought into Submission. After the nations have suffered a gruesome defeat, they will dedicate themselves to worshiping the true God in Jerusalem.