ZECHARIAH

Zechariah was contemporary with Haggai (Ezra 5:1). The prophecies of the two men relate to the same time in the history of the Jews which, as we have seen in our study of Haggai, was a turning-point in God’s dealings with Jerusalem and the Jewish nation. The significance of that emphatic keyword in Haggai,  “From this day will I bless you” (2:15-19), must be grasped if we are to get  to the heart of Zechariah's message. These prophecies of Zechariah take up from this same point, developing, and amplifying the message of Haggai.

Zechariah both priest and prophet.

Zechariah also begins in the year 520 B.C., “in the second year of Darius of the Medo-Persian empire” (1:1). We are again among the fifty thousand people of the Jewish "Remnant" who had returned sixteen years earlier from the Jewish exile in Babylon. They had returned under a mandate from King Cyrus to populate the land and rebuild Judaea and Jerusalem. Haggai and Zechariah were raised up of God, to inspire the flagging zeal of the Jewish leaders and people.

Zechariah was both a priest and a prophet. He was "the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo" (1:1). This Iddo was one of the priests who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Joshua (Neh 12:4). This means that Zechariah was a descendant of Aaron. We are told that he exercised his priestly office in the days of Joiakim, the son of Joshua (Neh 12:12,16).

It was unusual but appropriate that the ministry of both prophet and priest should be united in the one person at that particular time. Only too often, in earlier times, the prophets had to stand in strong opposition to the priests when the priests were formalists, who went through the rituals, but were oblivious to the inner meaning of the holy rites which they administered. While the priests observed the rituals the prophet’s task had been to recall to the minds of the people the vital spiritual truths enshrined in the outward rituals. Zechariah united in himself all the traditions of the Aaronic priesthood with the zeal and authority of the prophet. No one was more fitted to encourage the people in discouraging times and at the same time to arouse them from their apathy in the rebuilding of the Lord's House.

From this time the priesthood takes the lead in governing the nation. The history of the covenant people falls into three main periods. First, from Moses to Samuel, Israel was ruled by Judges. Second, from Saul to Zedekiah, Israel was ruled by Kings. Third, following the exile in Babylon, from Joshua and the repatriation of the Remnant, down to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 A.D., we have Israel ruled by the Priests.

Haggai’s short ministry of four months was one of exhorting the people to complete the task of rebuilding the Temple. Zechariah’s ministry was to assure the people that having done that, God had forgiven them and that they were destined for great blessings.

The Seven Symbolic Visions

   Chapters 1-8 make up the first part of the book. In these chapters we have seven visions with a follow-up message of application to “all the people of the land” (7:5; 8:9,11,12).

The seven visions described in these chapters are really seven in one, for they all came in one night, on the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, in the second year of Darius" (1:7). This was exactly five months after the rebuilding of the temple was resumed. These symbolic visions conveyed to Zechariah and the Jews an assurance of God’s continuing love. We will try to pick out the main point in each of them.

The first of them is that of the four horses and their riders (1:8-17). Zechariah sees an angel patrol drawn up among the myrtles in the valley. These heavenly "scouts" (verse 10) report to the Angel of Jehovah the result of their survey of world conditions. The nations are "at ease" (compare verses 11 and 15). Zechariah is intended to show that although the surrounding nations are at careless ease while Jehovah's remnant suffer hardships and although there may seem little sign that judgment is about to fall on these wicked nations in fulfilment of Jehovah's word through Haggai (Hag 2:22), yet in the invisible realm, God is watching, and the heavenly powers are already preparing for the stroke of retribution.

  1:12 - 17 Clearly, then, the essential point in this first vision-picture is that Jehovah has now become jealous again for Jerusalem, and is about to punish the nations for their abuse of His covenant people.

1:18-21 The second and third visions express this very same fact under different symbols.

In the second vision (1:18-21) Zechariah sees four horns and then four craftsmen. The four horns are the nations which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem, and the four carpenters are Jehovah's agencies of judgment against these nations.

2:1 –13 In the third vision Zechariah sees a young man with a measuring line going to measure Jerusalem but a heavenly messenger runs to this young man, saying, “Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, because of the multitude of men and cattle in it” that is, it would exceed all the wall measurements which this young man was intending to take because its prosperity would be so great. Jehovah Himself would be Jerusalem's wall, as the fifth verse continues, “For I, says the Lord, 'will be a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.”

  In the second and third visions, we have the judgment of the nations and the return of Jehovah's favour toward Jerusalem (see especially verses 6-13). Once again Jehovah has become ‘jealous for Zion.’

  3:1In the fourth vision Zechariah is shown Joshua the high priest of the returned remnant standing before the Angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. The main purpose of this symbolic change of clothing for Joshua is easy to understand. During the period of the ‘desolations’ Jerusalem had been rebuked and chastised. Her priests and people have suffered the Lord’s judgement. Now things have changed and it is shown in this provision of new priestly garments for Joshua, who is here the represent-ative of the covenant people. Instead of the Lord rebuking Joshua, it is now Satan who is rebuked, and Joshua, as representative of the returned Remnant, is “a brand plucked out of the fire.” Joshua's filthy garments are removed (verse 4), the symbolic meaning of which, we are plainly told, is the removing of iniquity from him, as representative of the people. God then provides Joshua with expensive clothes. He is clothed with rich apparel and a diadem is set on his head. He is given a new commission and promise for the future. Quite clearly the meaning of the symbolism here is Jehovah's return of favour to His people and city. Once again Jehovah has become ‘jealous for Zion.’

  4: 1_10 The fifth vision is that of the golden candlestick and two olive trees.

This is of special encouragement to Zerubbabel, the civil leader of the Remnant, verses 6-10, as the preceding vision was to Joshua, the religious leader. The mountain should become a plain before him, and he should certainly complete the rebuilding of the temple. Verse 10 is the key to this vision. “Who hath despised the day of small things (the poor-looking beginnings of the rebuilding)? For these seven eyes of Jehovah (the seven lamps of the candlestick) which run through all the earth shall behold with joy the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.”Once again, therefore, the meaning is that of Jehovah's new pleasure and favour toward Zion. See also verse 12, “What are these two olive branches which through the two golden spouts (or tubes) pour out from themselves the golden oil”? The oil dropped of itself from the fruit-bearing branches into two spouts or channels which conveyed it to the central reservoir. The answer is, “these are the two sons of oil which stand by the Lord of the whole earth”. They represent Joshua and Zerubbabel  as representatives of the covenant people, and through whom the Spirit of Jehovah was now flowing again to bless. Once again Jehovah has become "jealous for Zion."

Chapter 5 The sixth vision. 

Zechariah sees a huge scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide (thirty feet by fifteen feet), passing through the air, and is told that this is the curse which goes forth against wickedness in the land. When God sets up His House in the land, as in the preceding vision, His word goes forth, as in this new vision, to judge and sentence all that is not in harmony with that House. There cannot be a restoration of Jehovah's blessing without the expulsion of that which is evil. That large, floating scroll, open for all to read, explained why, up to that time, there had been such adversity among the Remnant. It was Jehovah's curse upon the evil which was still permitted. Now, Zechariah is shown what is to be done with the evil. He sees an "ephah" (the largest of the dry measures in use among the Jews, equal to six or seven gallons), in some large container, and is told that this represents the wicked of the land. A leaden disc is lifted from the mouth of the ephah, and there, inside is a woman. The interpreting angel says to Zechariah “This is wickedness”. Then he casts the woman down into the ephah, and puts the leaden weight on the mouth of it. Suddenly, now, two other women, each with the wings of a stork (an unclean bird) appear, with the wind in their wings, and bear away the evil ephah to Babylon.

The meaning lies in the peculiar details of this sixth vision. Its point is plain enough. Let the falsehood, perjury and thieving which were published on the flying scroll (verse 3) go to Babylon where they belong. Babylon was the seat of the anti-God movement right from the days of Nimrod (Gen 10:10). If the "ephah" was the old-time Jewish symbol for trade, then the woman in the ephah would represent Babylonian corruption which was affecting the commerce among the returned Remnant. The proper home for such corruption is not Jerusalem, the city of Jehovah, but Satan's rival city, Babylon. The very fact of Jehovah's new jealousy on behalf of Zion means a renewed intolerance of that which is unholy.

6:1-8 Finally, in the seventh vision, and the symbolic crowning of Joshua, which follows it (verses 9-15), we see again Jehovah's coming judgment on the Gentile nations, and the return of His favour toward Jerusalem.

The four war-chariots of this vision represent swift moving Divine judgment. The four angel drivers are the four spirits of the heavens who go out from standing before the Lord of all the earth (verse 5). This corresponds to the four angels of Rev 7, as Jehovah's agents of judgment. Special judgment is meted to "the north country" from where the great Gentile invaders had come (verses 6 - 8).

 In marked contrast with this, there comes to Zechariah, apparently at dawn, the instruction to enact a remarkable coronation ceremony (verses 9-15). He was to receive silver and gold from certain Jewish visitors who were present from Babylon, and to make a composite diadem in order to crown Joshua, the new high priest at Jerusalem. Then he was to say: "Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of Jehovah. There is a type-reference to Christ, of course, but the immediate meaning of it is that Jehovah, as well as sending out his chariot judgments on the surrounding Gentile nations, has returned with mercies and gracious promises to the remnant of His people.

These, then, are Zechariah's seven visions.

It is clear that the key thought running through them is that which is uttered in connection with the first of them, “I am jealous (again) for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy; and I am very sore displeased with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little while displeased, and they helped for evil. Therefore, thus says Jehovah: I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy and my house shall be built in it says the Lord of hosts” (1:14-16).

Of course, we must recognise that in many places they look beyond the immediate and local, to an ultimate fulfilment at the second coming of Christ. See 2:10-13; 3:8-10; 6:12-14. The reason why the full realisation of such passages is still future is that when the Messiah-King came and offered Himself to His people, they rejected and crucified Him causing the promised age of blessing to be suspended.  

It is a reminder to us that God’s standards are quite different from those of this world. We cannot embrace both sets of standards at the same time.