Mining the Minors: Zechariah (15)

Zechariah’s final message of four is full of hope. Responding to a question from the men of Bethel about when Judah’s seventy years of judgment would finally come to an end, the prophet first paints a picture of a future Zion in which the Lord sweeps up their exiled brothers and sisters all over the world and restores them to their national home, coming to dwell in their midst. As with many prophecies, this one would not come to pass for thousands of years, but its fulfillment is as certain as the character of God himself.

Now, in view of God’s future mercies to Israel, Zechariah gives seven instructions for the men and women of Judah living in the early sixth century BC about how they ought to conduct themselves as a people for whom God intends and desires nothing but good.

II. Four Messages (continued)

4/ The Future Restoration of Zion (continued)

Zechariah 8:9-19 – Implications for Today in View of Yesterday

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor. But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts. For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.’

For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not. These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.’

And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.’ ”

Seven Instructions

These eleven verses of instruction contain seven commands to a nation rebuilding God’s temple. The point is not that Judah’s future blessing depends on a legalistic adherence to a few new rules to supplement the much-ignored Law of Moses, but that, as in the Sermon on the Mount, a certain type of conduct ought to characterize those who live under the blessing of God. We might call it the carrot approach rather than the stick. So then:

1. Let your hands be strong
2. Fear not
3. Speak the truth
4. Render in your gates judgments that are true
5. Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another
6. Love no false oath
7. Love truth and peace

Four commands are positive (“do this”), three are negative (“don’t do that”) and not all apply equally to every member of the nation. For example, it is highly unlikely many Jewish women were at work on the construction of the temple in those days, so the command “Let your hands be strong” applies mainly to the males. That is its context: building with confidence and determination. Likewise, “Render in your gates judgments that are true” applies exclusively to the elders among the people who sat in the gates and rendered judgments. It would not apply equally to those lining up to seek legal relief through them. The themes of truth, love and peace are prominent. These are obviously good principles to observe in any age, but Zechariah’s point is that they are appropriate conduct in a nation under God’s blessing, just as it was appropriate for the forgiven servant in the Lord’s parable to show forgiveness to others.

The Former Days and These Days

As mentioned last week, Zechariah is jumping around through time in this chapter. Here, he is in the present. He instructs the people of Judah to live in the spirit of future Zion right there and then. He calls attention to the contrast between their circumstances prior to beginning work on the second temple and the state of the nation only two years later, when acting in obedience to God’s commands through Haggai. If we wonder what those “former days” were like, all we have to do is reference Zechariah’s fellow prophet and contemporary: “You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.” Or, as Zechariah himself says, “There was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor.” The implicit question is “What do you think? Isn’t it better now?”

Things have changed for the better in Judah, says the Lord, at least for the time being, and he spells out precisely how: “The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew.” The new watchword for Judah is blessing, not cursing; peace, not war.

Judgment as Encouragement

We do not generally find the judgments of God terribly encouraging, and for good reason. But here, Zechariah points to the inexorability of God’s judgments as evidence of the security of Judah’s future. “As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not.” When God sets his mind to do something, that’s what happens, without exception. When he purposed to bring disaster, disaster came. Now, when the Lord purposes to bring good, be assured good will come. These days will be days of blessing; there is no doubt about it. God has spoken and he will accomplish what he has promised. If you doubt that, look backward and see that history proves he always does what he says.

If anybody ever tells you there’s nothing good about judgment, well, they’re wrong.

Four Fasts

Fasts into feasts: that is the Lord’s message to Judah. Mourning turned into seasons of joy and gladness all through the year. But here it gets interesting.

The men sent from Bethel had inquired about only one fast: the one in the fifth month that prescribed a season of mourning to mark the burning of Jerusalem, including the temple, the king’s palace and “every great house”. The Lord’s word came back through Zechariah, noting that they also practiced a fast in the seventh month, perhaps marking the Judean governor’s assassination later that same year, and the massacre of their fellow Judeans at Mizpah. In these final few verses of the message, the Lord speaks of four fasts: fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth month. So what were these other two fasts all about?

John Gill suggests the fast in the fourth month marked the day the Chaldeans broke through the wall of Jerusalem and the king fled, only to be captured and blinded. The fast in the tenth month may have marked the day Nebuchadnezzar’s troops besieged Jerusalem three years before it finally fell. Clarke, Constable and Calvin agree, among others. These are sensible suggestions, and the dates are certainly correct, as documented in Kings and Jeremiah. But all these fasts were mere human institutions with nationalistic rather than religious overtones, and it was high time to relegate them to the past. They were a pointless reminder of sin. With this in mind, the Lord tells his people, “Love truth and peace.” The time of fasting was over and the time for rejoicing had begun.

Zechariah 8:20-23 – Back to the Future

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’ Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’ ”

In the final few verses, Zechariah goes back to the future. He speaks of “those days”, the same bright future for Zion referenced in verses 1-8. The sixth century BC commands through Zechariah to enjoy the blessing of God find their final and complete fulfillment in a future day in which the temple in Jerusalem will become the center of worship not just for Jews but for the entire world. “Ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew.” Never in the history of our world have the earthly people of God been objects of such universal favor. This is certainly not the case today, and no such fulfillment of prophecy may be found in even in the most optimistic reading of secular or Bible history between then and now. First century Jews were frequent objects of persecution as they preached the gospel throughout the Gentile world.

Commentators who suggest taking hold of the robe of “a Jew” is an appropriate prophetic way to describe the Gentile response to Christ are imposing their systematic theology on the text. The idea that going with the Jew to Jerusalem is intended as an allegory for salvation in the Church Age is not to be seriously entertained. In our present age, it is not to “this mountain or Jerusalem” that we come when we worship the Father in Spirit and truth. The Lord Jesus himself said so, and his words ought not to be frittered away in order to squeeze Old Testament teaching into one’s view of prophecy.

No, “those days” have yet to come. If we are in any doubt that the correct interpretation of these last few verses is millennial, we have only to look at Micah (“peoples shall flow to [the mountain of the Lord]”, “many nations shall come”) or at chapter 14 of this book, where the same event is explicitly described in passages in which a future time frame is beyond reasonable argument.