NOTES for Zec 6:1-15

At the time, when Zechariah preached (and it was shortly after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, when were still alive the representatives of the first generation of the repatriates), messianic expectations in the Jewish people were extraordinarily intense. And it is not surprising: because and the pre-captivity prophets, and Isaiah of Babylon, who began his sermon shortly before the Persian conquest of Babylon and the decree of Cyrus the Great about the return of the Jews on the land of their fathers, spoke about the end of the captivity, as about the time of the expiation, when all past sins will be forgiven to the people, and it will only remain to wait for the Messiah promised by God.

But the representations of the contemporaries of the prophet about the Messiah reminded more those of the early prophets: the Messiah was for them, first of all, a righteous ruler, who, having come to power, will establish in the country laws, corresponding to the Torah, and will restore in Jerusalem the Temple, having resumed the regular services there, including, naturally, the sacrifices also. But Zechariah tries to explain them that the Messiah is not at all such as they expect to see Him. The prophet sees in the Messiah, first of all, the High priest, and only after the chief. He turns in a way back his listeners to the image of David - the prophet, who, having become a king remained all the same first of all in particular a prophet. But, as seen, it is not all the same about the high priest in the traditional understanding of this word. Zechariah does not call accidentally the Messiah "BRANCH", which grows up out of his own root or "of his place" (the Jewish corresponding word means literally "of its depth").

So the prophet obviously means that the Messiah does not depend on laws of the world not transformed as regards His ministry, that He is not conditioned by them and does not need any official position or social status to carry out His mission. About "the own root" in relation to the Messiah Zechariah said in the same sense, in which his great predecessor, Isaiah of Babylon calls the Messiah "slave" “child” : the Messiah does not need to be a great man in the eyes of "this world" in order to do what God sends Him to the world for. Indeed, the Kingdom of the Messiah, by His own words "is not of this world". And neither He Himself, nor His Kingdom needs a support on the side of the strengths of this world.