Notes for  11 November 2026

The rights of Roman citizens in the Roman Empire were strictly observed. And Paul, as can be seen, did not fail to take advantage of this. Roman citizenship gave him immunity from any local laws that applied to those who did not have it. Conquering ever new territories, the Romans, as a rule, left local laws in force for the local population. But Roman citizens, wherever they found themselves, were under the protection of their own, Roman laws.

Roman citizenship could be held not only by those born in Rome, but also by inhabitants of other territories — in special cases. In principle, it could be granted to any resident of the empire and sometimes actually was granted — for special merits or for large donations to public or state needs. Paul, for example, was a hereditary Roman citizen, although he had no relation to Rome as such: he was born in Asia Minor. And now the apostle is using his status: the local authorities had absolutely no right either to imprison him or to subject him to corporal punishment (Roman citizens were exempt from it).

What is this: a desire to get even, to put the representatives of the local authority, who had clearly exceeded their powers, in their place? Unlikely: for in that case Paul could have declared his Roman citizenship from the very beginning. A kind of compensation for the moral damage inflicted? Partly yes: it is, after all, actually a matter of public admission by the representatives of the local authority that they were wrong. But it was not only about this admission, nor only about Paul personally or his companions. It was about the witness that he bore.

Of course, the admission of being wrong by the local officials was forced. But it was dictated not only by Paul's status as a Roman citizen, but also by the events that accompanied his imprisonment. The point was to recognize the reality and significance of these events, in which the manifestation of God's power is clearly seen. And therefore, to also recognize the reality of Paul's witness, which has a right to exist. So that it would be clear to everyone: ignoring God and His Kingdom is possible only for a time. Even for representatives of Roman authority.

Addressing the disciples, Jesus tells them what seem to be quite obvious things: God is good, He will give His children what they ask of Him. If even man, being more evil than good after the fall, still does not wish evil upon his own children and fulfills their requests, then what is there to say about God? Meanwhile, as is evident, to the disciples, as to many others, including us today, what the Savior said was far from obvious. Why is that? Jesus answers this indirectly by calling for persistent prayer, for urgent requests. It would seem everything is simple, but under what conditions can a request be truly persistent?

Obviously, at least two conditions are necessary here. First, what is asked for must be truly important to the one asking. And here the main thing is not to deceive oneself or others (we are not speaking of God here; He cannot be deceived in any case): if what you ask for is truly important, absolutely important, if it is the goal and meaning of life, at least at the moment when you make the request, there is a good chance of receiving what is asked for (unless, of course, it is a sin or a direct violation of a commandment). But if the request is repeated as a traditional ritual act, while deep down the one asking does not really believe in a result, there can be no result at all: for such a prayer only shows that the one making the request does not really need what is asked for all that much.

And secondly, the one asking must unconditionally trust Him Whom he is asking. Not just believe in His existence, but exactly trust, as one trusts a father or a close friend. But if there is no trust, if the one asking addresses God as a petitioner to an official, knowing that he will most likely do nothing, one cannot count on help. And not because God punishes the distrustful for their distrust, but because trust is the spiritual core upon which relationships are held together, whether relationships with God or with man. And any help from God to man can only be provided in the context of relationships based on trust. And if there is no trust, there will be neither a relationship nor help.

The lepers themselves turned to Christ for help, and let us note how the healing takes place: He immediately sent them to show themselves to the priest as a testimony of the miracle, as the law of Moses required. They set out on the journey without yet having been cleansed, and this was risky for them, but these people had the faith necessary for healing. The cleansing happened on the way, but, having fulfilled the prescriptions of the law, they immediately forgot to Whom they owed this gift.

Only one, a Samaritan, returned to Christ. Some believe that his return was caused by the impossibility of going together with the Jews to the Jerusalem priest, but he could have gone to a Samaritan one and also not returned, since it does not follow at all from the story that he refused to fulfill the prescriptions of the law, which basically coincided for Jews and Samaritans. But here he alone returns, and Jesus notes that only this man, despised by orthodox Jews for his heterodoxy, gave glory to God. The other nine, offering the prescribed sacrifices in the temple, would surely have been surprised if they had been reproached for refusing to give glory to God. But there are situations when behind the formal observance of rules there might not be a genuine turning toward the Creator. And only to the one who returned does Christ say: “Your faith has saved you.” The faith of the other nine was sufficient to receive healing, but, apparently, incomplete for receiving salvation.

Today's reading once again brings us back to the question of the place of religion in the spiritual life of a person. Indeed, Paul, who by the order of the representatives of Rome in Judea was delivered to Caesarea (Acts 23:33), found himself in a somewhat ambiguous position. In fact, he had to give an answer to the representatives of secular authority concerning a matter that concerned only the Synagogue and those who belonged to it (vv. 2–21). But the apostle, as can be seen, does not consider that his disagreements with the Sanhedrin and with the Sadducees concern only himself and his coreligionists. And here we do not have a desire to win by relying on the support of the Roman authorities — it is simply that the accusations turned out to be too serious. Of course, in those times the representatives of Rome always somehow ended up involved in all the serious events taking place in Judea and in Palestine in general, and serious events there were in any case associated either with the Temple, or with the Synagogue, or with yet another messianic movement that threatened to escalate into an uprising. Moreover, to carry out some of the sentences handed down by the Sanhedrin (including death sentences) was only possible after their approval by the Roman authorities, who always and everywhere reserved the last word in matters concerning the life and death of their citizens and subjects. It is not surprising that in the case of Paul, who was also a Roman citizen, Rome in the person of its local representatives could not help but take part.

But the seriousness of the accusations brought against the apostle was connected not only with the fact that for the crimes of which he was accused, the Torah prescribed the death penalty — the main thing lay in the very fact of such accusations. Paul was accused of a crime against the people, the Temple, and the Torah (vv. 5–6), and he obviously considered following the Torah a matter of fundamental importance precisely in the context of his witness about Christ and about the Kingdom. He, as can be seen, was in no way ready to renounce either the Torah, or the faith of his fathers, or his Jewishness (vv. 11–21) — for him such a renunciation would be tantamount to a renunciation of Christ and of the Kingdom. Paul never imposed his religion on anyone whom God sent to meet him, but neither did he desire to allow his opponents to deprive him of what was a natural and organic part of him. And therefore the apostle defends his right to remain a Jew, faithful to the Torah and to his people, even before the representatives of secular authority, who, in essence, did not care about any of this.

One can and must deny oneself for the sake of the Kingdom, but he who betrays himself will lose both himself and the Kingdom.

The final prophecies of Deutero-Zechariah, collected in the 14th chapter, like his previous words, in essence, contain only a description of what the prophet sees in the future. Most of the previous prophets, including the first Zechariah, whose prophecies make up the first eight chapters of the book, are addressed directly to the people listening to them. Penetrating the mysteries of God's design, the prophets on behalf of the Lord direct a call to repentance to the people and bring a word of consolation and hope. None of this is present in the prophecies of Deutero-Zechariah — they are as if addressed to future generations. Deutero-Zechariah seems to call for nothing, he reports on future events as inevitable, as what has already been accomplished by the will of the Almighty. In this is the striking difference of Deutero-Zechariah from all other prophets.

And yet a connection between the words of the prophet and the historical context of his life does exist. Perhaps unknown editors and scribes did not consider it necessary to include indications of this connection in the text of the book, but it can still be seen. The fact is that indifference, apathy toward faith had become the main feature of the spiritual life of the era during the time of the prophet. Indications of this can be found in all the late prophets, and also in extra-biblical sources. And therefore the prophet does not count on a visible response from his listeners, he prophesies only because the Spirit, speaking in his heart, calls him to it. “Whether they hear or whether they refuse” — so the Lord commanded the prophet Ezekiel. The same can be applied to the prophecy of Deutero-Zechariah; he addresses those who still want to and can hear him.

Moreover, of exceptional significance for understanding the prophecies of Deutero-Zechariah is his understanding of salvation. Most prophets of the first and second generations saw and emphasized in the history contemporary to them that which 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 the events contemporary to them, the prophets saw only gleams of God's design and sought to comprehend this design. For Deutero-Zechariah, however, the coming advent of Christ has no parallel; the centuries preceding the Incarnation find their fullness and meaningfulness only in the events of the Kingdom of the Messiah. The coming, rejection, and enthronement of the Messiah become for him the only center toward which history is directed and without which it is aimless. He does not prophesy in order to change the course of history, which the prophets preceding him were called to do. The goal of Deutero-Zechariah is to point to future events so that people might have time to prepare for them, so that people might orient themselves by them in their lives.

That is why Deutero-Zechariah is truly the last prophet, after whom it will remain only for John the Baptist to proclaim that the foretold Kingdom has come. And from the times of Deutero-Zechariah begins that intense expectation which lies at the foundation of the spiritual life of many contemporaries of the Lord Jesus, from Simeon the God-Receiver and Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist) to Nicodemus and the apostles.

Contrary to popular notions of the earthly greatness of Israel under the rule of the Messiah, the first prophecy of the 14th chapter says that at this time the country will be laid waste by foreign invaders. It is not given to the prophet to know that these will be the Romans (the inhabitants of a distant city in the west, which at that time was barely three centuries old), therefore he uses the images of captivity and the earthquake under Uzziah familiar to everyone in Israel. It is important for him to inform his listeners and readers that in the coming era of disasters and enslavement 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,” Deutero-Zechariah proclaims the coming of the Messiah: “His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives.” But, like Joel, he sees in the Day of Visitation something incomprehensible and frightening, from which the foundations of the world will be shaken. “There shall be no light, the luminaries shall withdraw” — these words can only partially be understood as a continuation of the testimony of Abraham, Moses, and Amos about the darkness enveloping the presence of the Invisible One. Deutero-Zechariah himself does not explain them, he only sparsely describes what was revealed to his inner gaze: “It shall be a day... neither day, nor night; only at evening time shall there be light.” This is the very same mysterious eclipse to which the evangelist Luke testifies: “It was now about the sixth hour of the day, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour” (Lk 23:44). But the prophet also sees that this darkness, in which the sun will dim, will become for the world a source of living water — that very stream exuding life from under the threshold of the House of God, about which Ezekiel spoke.

Deutero-Zechariah concludes his word by indicating that on that day the enthronement of God Himself over all the earth will take place, and His name will become the only one in the universe. Distorted and false human notions about the Creator of the world will disappear, and humanity will come to know the true God. And therefore throughout the whole world, starting from Jerusalem, the victory of God's righteousness will be accomplished, and every evil will be struck down. The last prophecy, concluding the whole book, speaks of the triumph of the worship of God throughout the whole world. All nations, the prophet asserts, will worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, because without this they will have no source of life (which here is symbolized by rain, ensuring the fertility of the earth). All, even nations so hostile to the faith as the Egyptians, will participate in this worship, and Jerusalem itself and everything that happened in it will become a great shrine. And this triumph, this feast of faith, will be conditioned only by the coming of the Messiah and nothing else. The main thought of these last lines of the book is briefly expressed by the apostle Paul: “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).

The list of defeated kings provided in the Book of Joshua closely resembles lists of the same kind known from Egyptian and Babylonian sources. They were not so much a boast as a kind of memorial record: after all, the conquered kings usually became vassals and tributaries of the victor. The descendants of both the victors and the defeated could ascertain the validity of the claims of the former and the obligations of the latter. And in general, for subsequent generations, such lists were a kind of archival record confirming the authenticity of events known to them from other sources. Looking at the list of names enumerated in the book, one might think that almost half the world had been conquered. In reality, it is a matter of a territory that was comparatively small, but at that time highly fragmented: every city-state had its own king, and every tribe its own chief. There were many cities in Palestine, and even more tribes in those times. Obviously, the Hebrews captured most of the country during their campaigns of conquest, although not all of it entirely.

The sacred writer, however, by providing this list, intends not only to glorify the valor of his people or to leave a testimony for the memory of future readers. By enumerating names that mean nothing not only to us but, most likely, to the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries as well, he seems to say: for us these names mean nothing anymore, but before God each of them has its own meaning, just as every person who bore this or that enumerated name has his own significance in His eyes. Of course, it is a list of the defeated, and not of the victors, but after all, victory and defeat are meaningful for God only in the context of His fulfillment of His plan. And He wants to save everyone — both among the victors and among the defeated — and therefore remembers the name of everyone who one way or another ended up in the path of His people.