The final prophecies of Second Zechariah, collected in chapter 14, like his earlier words, essentially contain only...
The final prophecies of Second Zechariah, collected in chapter 14, like his earlier words, essentially contain only a description of what the prophet sees in the future. Most earlier prophets, including the first Zechariah, whose prophecies make up the book's first eight chapters, address the people listening to them directly. Gaining insight into the mysteries of God's design, the prophets speak in the Lord's name, calling people to repentance and bringing a word of comfort and hope. None of this is found in Second Zechariah's prophecies: they seem to be addressed to future generations. Second Zechariah seems to call for nothing; he reports future events as inevitable, as something that has already come to pass by the will of the Almighty. In this he differs strikingly from all other prophets.
Yet a connection does exist between the prophet's words and the historical context of his life. Perhaps unknown editors and scribes did not consider it necessary to include indications of this connection in the book's text, but it can nevertheless be discerned. The point is that indifference, lack of interest in faith, had become the chief feature of spiritual life in the prophet's time. Indications of this can be found in all the last prophets, as well as in sources outside the Bible. Therefore the prophet does not count on an overt response from his listeners; he prophesies because the Spirit speaking in his heart calls him to do so. ‘Whether they listen or not’—such was the Lord's command to the prophet Ezekiel. The same may be said of Second Zechariah's prophecy: he addresses those who still wish and are able to hear him.
Moreover, his understanding of salvation is of exceptional importance for understanding Second Zechariah's prophecies. Most prophets of the first and second generations saw and emphasised in the history of their own time what anticipated the future. God's intervention in the history of the chosen people was for them the beginning, the first and incomplete manifestation of the coming Day of Visitation. In contemporary events the prophets saw only reflections of God's design and strove to understand it. For Second Zechariah, the coming advent of Christ has no parallel; the centuries preceding the Incarnation find their fullness and meaning only in the events of the Messiah's Kingdom. For him, the Messiah's coming, rejection and enthronement become the sole centre towards which history is directed and without which it has no purpose. He does not prophesy in order to change the course of history, as the prophets before him were called to do. His aim is to point to the coming events so that people may have time to prepare for them and orient their lives towards them.
This is why Second Zechariah truly is the last prophet, after whom it remains only for John the Baptist to announce that the foretold Kingdom has come. And from Second Zechariah's time begins that intense expectation which underlies the spiritual life of many of the Lord Jesus' contemporaries, from Simeon the God-receiver and Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, to Nicodemus and the apostles.
Contrary to common notions of Israel's earthly greatness under the Messiah's rule, the first prophecy in chapter 14 says that at this time the country will be devastated by foreign invaders. The prophet is not given to know that these will be the Romans, inhabitants of a distant city in the west that was then barely three centuries old, so he uses the images of captivity and the earthquake in Uzziah's time, familiar to everyone in Israel. What matters to him is to tell his listeners and readers that in the coming age of calamity and subjugation the Lord Himself will come to His people. Four centuries before the day when Simon Peter will say to Jesus, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’, Second Zechariah says of the Messiah's coming, ‘His feet shall stand on that day on the Mount of Olives.’ But, like Joel, he sees in the Day of Visitation something incomprehensible and frightening that will shake the foundations of the world. ‘There shall be no light; the heavenly lights shall withdraw’: these words can only partly be understood as a continuation of Abraham's, Moses' and Amos' witness to the darkness surrounding the presence of the Invisible One. Second Zechariah himself does not explain them; he merely describes sparingly what was revealed to his inward gaze: ‘It shall be a day… neither day nor night; only at evening shall light appear.’ This is the very mysterious eclipse to which Luke the Evangelist bears witness: ‘It was about the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the earth until the ninth hour’ (Lk 23:44). But Second Zechariah also sees that this darkness, in which the sun will fade, will become a source of living water for the world—the very stream flowing with life from beneath the threshold of God's House of which Ezekiel spoke.
Second Zechariah concludes his message by pointing out that on that day God Himself will become King over all the earth, and His name will be the only one in the universe. People's distorted and false ideas about the Creator of the world will disappear, and they will know the true God. Therefore, throughout the world, beginning with Jerusalem, God's righteousness will triumph and every evil will be struck down.
Second Zechariah's last prophecy, which concludes the entire book, speaks of the triumph of the worship of God throughout the world. All nations, he says, will worship the King, the Lord of hosts, because without this they will have no source of life, symbolised here by the rain that makes the earth fertile. Everyone, even people as hostile to faith as the Egyptians, will take part in this worship, while Jerusalem itself and everything that has happened there will be profoundly sacred. And this triumph, this feast of faith, will be brought about by the Messiah's coming alone and by nothing else. The central thought of these final lines of the book is expressed concisely by the apostle Paul: ‘Therefore God also exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil 2:9–11).
14 The gates of hell threaten the church; but all issues well at last, Zec 14:1-7.
The spreading of the church, Zec 14:8-16.
The punishment of those that fought against Jerusalem, and that neglect to worship there, Zec 14:17-19.
The increase and purity of the church, Zec 14:20-21.
14:1 The day - Of vengeance, Joe 2:1-2, cometh, or will soon overtake you, O sinful, unthankful! bloody! Jews. Thy spoil - All thou hast, O, Jerusalem, shall become a prey to thine enemy.
14:2 All nations - The Romans who at that time had the rule over all the nations of that part of the world. The residue - That small number of the Jews who were spared by Titus.Shall not be cut off - Were not forbidden to dwell about the city.
14:3 Then - After he hath sufficiently punished the Jews.As when he fought - As in those days when he fought for his people.
14:4 Shall cleave - Sinai melted, at the presence of the God of the whole earth. Great valley - So rich shall be a plain access from the place of the feet of the Lord unto Jerusalem.
14:5 The valley of the mountains - A place provided of God for their safety. O Lord my God - As if it were said, though it will, O Lord, put us into fear; yet without such wonderful works we shall not see thy salvation; therefore, O Lord my God come, and bring thy holy ones with thee.
14:6 In that day - While God is fighting with the enemies of his church, the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Nor dark - There shall be some mercy to allay the bitterness of judgment, and some judgment with our mercy.
14:7 One day - One continued day, no setting of the sun to make it quite night: God will always act in order to the full salvation of his spiritual Jerusalem. Known unto the Lord - The Lord knows when it shall begin, and how, and when it shall end.
14:8 In that day - When the days of ignorance, and idolatry shall end.Living waters - The quickening, saving truths of the gospel, with all its ordinances in purity. From Jerusalem - The church of Christ, the true Jerusalem. The former sea - Or eastern sea. The hinder sea - Or western sea. In summer and in winter - Perpetually, without intermission, these waters shall never dry away, or lose their healing virtue.
14:9 In that day - All men shall agree in worshipping one God, in one way of spiritual worship, and hearty obedience.
14:10 All the land - The whole land of Judea, a type of the whole earth, shall be filled with the knowledge of God. As a plain - All high, uneven places, all rocky and barren grounds, shall be changed into fruitful vineyards. So the church of Christ shall be fruitful, humble and lovely. Geba - The north boundary of the land.Rimmon - The south boundary of Judea. Jerusalem - Which taken mystically, is the church of Christ, and by the repair of all to this Jerusalem, is shadowed out of the compleat building of the church on all sides, north, south, west and east. Lifted up - Raised out of the dust. Benjamin's gate - Benjamin's gate north - east, corner - gate north - west; Hananiel's tower south, wine - presses north; that is in brief, compleatly around the city.
14:11 And men - Many for number, eminent for worth.Utter destruction - There may be afflictions but no utter wasting of Jerusalem; the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
14:13 A great tumult - Confusion. Shall rise up - From murmurs one against another they shall at last run into civil wars, and so destroy themselves, and revenge Jerusalem.
14:14 Judah - The Jews, and possibly Judas Maccabeus might be intended.
14:15 The horse - Those creatures which the enemy in the wars made use of, shall by the hand of God be suddenly and strangely destroyed.
14:16 That is left - That escapes the stroke. To worship - By a ceremonial usage which shadowed out a better worship, the prophet foretells the constant zeal of the converted Gentiles to worship the Lord. The feast of tabernacles - One solemn festival is by a figure, put for all the days consecrated to God for holy worship.
14:20 Shall there be - Written as it were on every common thing.Holiness unto the Lord - Their persons shall bear the dedicating inscription of holiness to the Lord, and by their study of holiness they shall make good their motto. The pots - Which were used in the kitchens of the temple, and were not accounted so sacred as the utensils near the sacrifices, and altar. The bowls - Which received the blood of the sacrifices, were esteemed more holy; so shall thy holiness in these days exceed the holiness of those former days.
14:21 Every pot - The utensils of private houses shall be all dedicated to God's service. That sacrifice - So the prophet expresses all religious affections, practice, and worship, which shall be as pleasing to God, as were the sacrifices of his people offered up with divine warrant and approbation. Seethe therein - That part of the sacrifice which pertaineth to the priests, and to the offerer to feast on. The Canaanite - Any of the accursed nation, or one who makes merchandise of religion. But all shall know that the Lord hath the greatest pleasure in upright, and sincere love and holiness.