22: Minor Prophets – Zechariah 1-2

[Dunkle] Welcome back to Minor Prophets class. It’s good to be here. For those of you watching the recording again, I’ll apologize—my voice still hasn’t quite recovered, but I’m trying to get out the best that I can. And the students here are used to it. I sound this way all day. For the time being, hopefully next week it’ll be great.

But we wrapped up the book of Haggai last time, and we’re entering the book of Zechariah. And keep in mind, we did Zephaniah with a Ph. This is Zechariah with a Ch. And we’ll dive in with the five W’s so we can get a background on this book.

And the who, of course, is who wrote this book? Well, we believe a fellow named Zechariah. The name in Hebrew means Yahweh remembers. Or if you want to use the Eternal, the one remembered by the Eternal, or the Eternal remembers. It’s a little vague, but it has to do with remembrance in God. Pretty popular name. If we search the Scriptures, we can find 29 different people named Zechariah in the Bible.

So Zechariah was popular. The name was popular. This Zechariah was a member of the priestly family, so he’s descended from Aaron, the high priest—not unlike some other prophets. Jeremiah and Ezekiel also were priests, but also prophets. So Zechariah is not alone, but it’s not something that happens all the time. A person didn’t have to be a priest for God to call them as a prophet.

He’s called in verse 1 the son of Barakiah, the son of Iddo, which basically is telling us his family line. We believe Zechariah—well, not only we believe, I’m pretty certain—Zechariah was born in the Babylonian captivity. So he’s another post-exilic prophet. So he probably doesn’t have any memory of Judah and Jerusalem before it was conquered by the Babylonians.

You know, we’re going to see him coming in the first time. In chapter 2 and verse 4, he’s referred to as a young man. So how young is young? Well, that’s open to debate. I still think of myself as young, but not as young as many of our students. And the person that calls him a young man is an angel. And which of us isn’t young compared to any angel we might meet? So maybe it doesn’t tell us too much there.

But I mentioned when we covered Haggai that Zechariah and Haggai work together. In the book of Ezra, they’re mentioned as being a team, although that word’s not used. So Zechariah is prophesying about the same time as Haggai, but his book is much longer. It seems that he continued his work as a prophet longer.

So let’s talk about the when. The book, it says, starts in the second year of Darius. And we believe that’s probably the same Darius in Haggai and in the book of Daniel. It’s about two months later than Haggai’s first prophecy. So that’s not a great difference, but Haggai is the one that God has speak first. Then Zechariah will join in, still probably both in the year 520 B.C.

520 B.C., which we can relate to when the Jews were allowed to go back and begin rebuilding the temple. And there were stoppages, and then they were given permission to keep building and reestablished. So I don’t want to go through a timeline on all of that, but we believe 520 is probably the year—at least for the start of the book.

This will tie into the what, but I want to mention Zechariah has two parts. Or basically, chapters 1 through 8 are earlier and seem to be tied to rebuilding the temple. So chapters 1 through 8. Then chapters 9 through 14—there are no dates given, and they may have been written considerably later throughout Zechariah’s life. And many scholars believe that’s the case.

I’ll comment more on that in a moment, but I just want to make the point that we can say the first half of the book, for the most part, came early on and was written mostly at the same time. Then the second half could be stretched out quite a bit.

As far as where, we’re back in Jerusalem. This one’s pretty easy. But it is Jerusalem that’s not the capital of an independent kingdom as it was before the Babylonian conquest. This is Jerusalem that’s part of a province of the Persian Empire. Still the same location geographically. It’s good to keep the politics in mind as well.

Spend a little more time on the what and why.

The what? Well, some people call Zechariah the prophet of hope. And that’s partly because his messages are largely of encouragement and prophesying of the Messiah and the Millennium. But that falls under the why a bit more. But what? It’s a hopeful prophecy.

It’s also the longest of the minor prophets, just barely. The book of Hosea also has 14 chapters. So after a couple years of teaching the class and me incorrectly saying Hosea was longer, I went back and counted the number of pages. And Zechariah is a little bit longer, which doesn’t matter all that much.

But I will say that it’s made up of those two major parts that I discussed. So chapters 1 through 8 is largely him describing visions—vivid visions with great symbolism. So much so that some scholars call that part of the book apocalyptic. Apocalyptic writing means prophecy, but with extreme visions—very vivid and with a lot of symbolism.

The book of Revelation is the best example we can give of apocalyptic writing. Of course, another name for Revelation is the Apocalypse. So Zechariah 1 through 8 seems to fit that style.

Then Zechariah chapters 9 through 14 is less symbolism, and it’s primarily end-time millennial prophecy written in more normal—I want to say normal prophecy style. It’s written in poetry, as most of the prophets are. And so the first half stands out as apocalyptic. Then in the second half, it’s run-of-the-mill, ho-hum prophecy—I say that in jest. No prophecy is ho-hum or run-of-the-mill.

It’s worth you knowing, though, that because the styles differ enough, some Bible scholars—Bible critics—think that actually it wasn’t all written by the same person. Some would say that there’s one Zechariah who wrote the first half, and then Zechariah number two, or something they might call, wrote the second half. I don’t think that’s true. We believe the Bible is inspired by God, and what I think happened was God gave different revelations at different times, and as Zechariah aged, he wrote in a different style.

I could say that—I’ve told you guys that when I was in my teens and twenties, I wrote a fair bit of poetry. If I read that now, I’d go, oh, did I really… did I write like that? My style is different now. All of your style is probably a little bit different than when you were younger, so having a different style doesn’t necessarily mean a different person.

One more thing about the writing while we’re talking about style. Hebrew scholars look at his style of writing and they say his rhythms are unequal, and the parallelisms aren’t quite symmetrical. What does that mean? Well, he wasn’t as great a poet as some of the others—maybe because he was raised near Babylon and Hebrew might not even be his first language. It’s not bad; it’s just not to the high proportion like Zephaniah and Habakkuk were considered great poets. Zechariah is okay.

Let’s talk again about why. I’ve kind of covered this, but the book overall is a message of encouragement. And first of all, encouragement to finish building the temple. That will echo what we saw in Haggai, and Haggai was very direct—get out there and gather wood and build this temple. Zechariah’s encouragement is more subtle, but that’s what it wants done, and God is assuring them that it will be done.

A second encouragement is take courage—the Messiah is coming, and God’s kingdom is coming. We call it the Millennium, although Zechariah didn’t know that term. But we would say, yeah, you know, Christ is coming, and He’s going to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Although Zechariah didn’t write it in those terms, his prophecies give that encouragement. And to me, that’s exciting. That’s a good reason to want to study it.

I’m pausing because that’s my five W’s. I’m ready to get into chapter and verse. I realize I’ve gone a little quickly in some cases, so I want to slow down a little. But I do want to dive in.

We see the start of the book—it’s the eighth month of the second year of Darius. "In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet" (Zechariah 1:1). And it’s probably Zechariah the prophet, not Iddo the prophet.

But it says, "The Lord has been angry with your fathers" (Zechariah 1:2). Therefore say to them—so Zechariah, tell these people—"Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Return to Me,’" (Zechariah 1:3).

Turn back to God. As I said, the Hebrew word that’s translated return is the one that sometimes is translated as repent. So God wants them to come back, which is good. He’s not saying, I’m done with you. He’s saying, no, I want this relationship. You return to Me and I’ll return to you.

"Don’t be like your fathers, of whom the former prophets preached." Now, when it says former prophets, it’s not the Hebrew division. Like here at ABC, we have a class called Former Prophets, and we start with Joshua, Judges—no, this just means earlier prophets. So the prophets that we’ve already studied, if Zechariah is post-exilic, the former prophets would be pre-exilic. I don’t know why we have to put it in such multi-syllabic words, but it makes me sound scholarly.

So these earlier prophets did what they said because they preached, and the Lord of Hosts said, "Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds"’" (Zechariah 1:4). But they didn’t hear nor heed. They didn’t pay attention when they should have.

"Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?" (Zechariah 1:5). He’s saying to the people, look at your history and learn a lesson from it. God wants you to remember this.

I’m looking back. I noticed I overlooked something I wanted to mention about a phrase that’s in verse 3. In verse 3, where he says, "Thus says the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 1:3), the word translated Lord there is the tetragrammaton, and "of Hosts" is from the word sabaoth.

And of course, this is a transliteration from Hebrew letters, so it could be spelled slightly different. Lord of sabaoth—it looks kind of like Sabbath, but it doesn’t mean the Sabbath. It means a large group. Lord of Hosts—some English translations say the Lord of armies, or of Israel’s armies. So this meaning the God over people—lots of them, all of them, really.

So the reason I point that out is this phrase is going to be used 44 times in Zechariah’s first eight chapters. And Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi used that name more than 80 times. Because they’re all three post-exilic prophets, it makes us think, is this a term that was sort of in vogue?

I mean, it’s still the same God, but they’re using a phrase very commonly that maybe, in that period of time, became the more common way to say it. I tend to think it’s that, not necessarily that it’s this great new truth, but it’s something you should be aware of—that it’s there.

But this is the God that said, hey, I talked to the earlier prophets and people didn’t listen. And what did it bring to them? Well, they’re not around anymore. "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?" (Zechariah 1:5).

Yet God says, "But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?" (Zechariah 1:6). God’s words and His statutes do last forever, and they’re going to have effect. The people didn’t listen when God said stop sinning, and so they paid the price.

So remember what God said at the start of verse 4—"Do not be like your fathers" (Zechariah 1:4). Don’t be like those guys. Don’t have the same fate. We don’t want to lose sight of where they are. They were freed from Babylon, allowed to come back and rebuild Jerusalem, establish the temple again. So don’t fall into the same problems that the earlier ones did.

So it makes sense. I mean, it’s not startling new material, but it reminds us of God’s patience and giving people a chance.

So, verse 6, "So they returned and said: ‘Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways and according to our deeds, so He has dealt with us’" (Zechariah 1:6). You know, it’s like people say—they have to acknowledge, yeah, that’s what happened. God’s law was there. It says if you sin, you’ll suffer this punishment. That’s what happened. So we seem to be on the same page here.

Now, in chapter 1, verse 7, we start what we could call a new prophetic utterance. So this is at a different time, beginning a new message from God.

And I want to note what stands out here is this isn’t going to be just a singular, here’s a message to give.

From what we see, it seems that Zechariah will have—let me say that so you can hear it—Zechariah will have several visions in one night. So perhaps he’s sleeping and dreaming, but he has several visions. The reason I say several is different scholars count them up differently. Some say seven, some say nine, and I often say eight. That fits in the middle, but it’s right in that range.

And so he records precisely when this happens. It’s the 24th day of the 11th month, the month Shebat. "On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat" (Zechariah 1:7). Shebat is the 11th month. And with the Hebrew calendar, you’d either have 12 or 13 months, depending on if it’s an intercalary year. The time of year corresponds to around February or March. So it’s in that time of year.

And I think one of the main reasons he’s being this precise is, as I said, this was one crazy night. He has all these vivid visions that he’s going to record. So let’s get to it.

In verse 8, first vision: "I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees" (Zechariah 1:8). There’s debate on if the myrtle trees are symbolic, because they’re not big trees, and sometimes they’re used to symbolize Judaism and represent a lowly status, but being at peace. It could be that, or it could just be coincidence that that’s the kind of trees that were there.

Now, we’re pretty sure that this man on the horse is an angel. It’s not just a typical man. Actually, if you look down to verse 11, "So they answered the Angel of the Lord," (Zechariah 1:11). Angel is from the Hebrew malak. But where we see the term Angel of the Lord, you remember what that usually means? It’s usually that’s Jesus Christ—the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ that we would call the Word from John 1:1. And I think that’s likely true.

So He appears as a man. He’s riding a red horse, and we’re going to see other horses with Him—horses of different colors: red, sorrel, and white. White—we know what that color is. Sorrel might be a mixture of colors. Do you call a palomino that, or am I thinking of different? No, not—what do you call the mixture? There’s a term for that.

A pinto? Maybe. Well, some people say it’s just brown. And there’s debate when we see red. We know in the Pentateuch there’s reference to a red heifer. And I like to point out, okay, red does not have to be like Clifford the big red dog. You know, that’s red. No animal is that color. But in this vision, the horse could be that color, but it could be what we might call auburn. Or we have people that we know who have red hair, but their hair is not the color of Clifford the big red dog. I’m assuming all you guys know who Clifford is. I should have brought—I’ve got a stuffed animal of Clifford that I like to use for this analysis.

Anyways, these colors, though, might remind us of something. Did they remind you of Revelation? When the seals are opened, we see that the colors match a certain symbolism. And that symbolism might—but it might not—be implied here. So I want to mention what it could be.

In Revelation, the red horse is a symbol of war. "Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth" (Revelation 6:4). In that chapter, the white horse represents triumph or conquest, and in that case of Revelation 6, it’s by a false religious leader who’s carrying a bow rather than a sword. But I’ll point out, in Revelation 19, when Jesus Christ does appear, "Behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True" (Revelation 19:11), and He has a great sword.

In Revelation, we don’t see sorrel. So we’re left wondering, you know, because we know in Revelation they have black and they have pale, which some people call green. And again, I’ll say it’s possible that this symbolism is there. It’s also possible that it’s just a variety of horse colors, and they’re there. So since we don’t know for sure, let’s get at what we do know.

Because if the meaning is not clear, we’re going to see some explanation. And I love it when the Bible will just tell us what the vision means. So in verse 9, Zechariah asked, "Then I said, ‘My lord, what are these?’" (Zechariah 1:9). So he sees these horses of different colors. I’m guessing he knows they’re horses, so he’s probably asking, what’s this mean? Which is basically what I’ve been wondering so far—what does it mean?

And we see a particular character: "So the angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are’" (Zechariah 1:9). Okay, so we don’t have a name, but we have a title. There’s an angel who’s called the angel who talked with me. We’ll see that phrase come up several times through the next chapters. I’d like to think it’s the same person—the same angel converses with Zechariah and gives an explanation. I like to refer to him as the narrator. So you see, the angel who talked with me—I think he’s the narrator whom God has assigned to answer questions and give him some understanding.

And it’s not the Angel of the Lord, who’s probably Jesus Christ. And that would be the one that we see in the next verse, in verse 10. "And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered" (Zechariah 1:10).

So it’s interesting—he’s talking with this one angel, and then the man among the myrtle trees gives an answer. So we could say, I heard you ask the question—I’ll tell you. This is my supposition on that. He said, "These horses are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth."

Okay, they’re going to and fro. They seem to be operating under the command of God. He sent them to walk to and fro among the earth. That implies maybe a similar mission that you’ll see if you turn to chapter 4 and verse 10. Zechariah 4:10—at the last part of that verse, it’s mentioning some eyes, which we’ll see in a little bit that are on a stone, but it says, "They are the eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth" (Zechariah 4:10).

So eyes scanning to and fro, or horses going to and fro, might be symbolizing that God is keeping track of what’s going on in the whole earth. He is paying attention. Now, I would propose that God doesn’t have to have some other agency—God is omnipresent and omniscient. He knows all these things. But it’s a good way to symbolize that He’s aware and He’s keeping track, and they’re going throughout all the earth.

Verse 11: "So they answered the Angel of the Lord, who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly’" (Zechariah 1:11). They, the horsemen, answer the Angel of the Lord, which seems to be that same man who stood among the myrtle trees. So I’m going to assume the horsemen are talking to the One that we know is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. And they say, we have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and they’re going to tell Him what we saw—the earth is resting quietly.

What does that mean? Does it mean it’s the Millennium? No, we’re not there yet. Maybe if we apply this to the time where they are now, it could be representing the fact that we know the Persian Empire has conquered Babylonia. And in the first part of that, there was war. There were rebellions that cropped up that they had to suppress. But in time, Persia quelled—quelled, thank you—they made peace. The earth became quiet.

And it seems to be saying we’ve reached that point, which is a safe time for reestablishing the temple and reestablishing the religion that God wanted, which would be encouraging to the people of Judah to know, hey, it’s a time of peace. God wants us to build the temple. Let’s be about it.

Okay. But we’re not done here. There’s a question that comes up.

"Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said, ‘O Lord of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?’" (Zechariah 1:12)

Okay, you could say in contrast with these other nations, where there seems to be peace, you say Judah is still subjugated. You know, the 70 years prophecy is complete, there’s been a decree they can go back, but it’s not quite established yet.

We’re going to see a message of encouragement that it will be established. But before we go to that, we’ve got to address—wait a minute—the Angel of the Lord, I’ve said that we believe that’s the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Who is He talking to, saying, "O Lord of hosts"? Well, if I’m correct that the Angel of the Lord is the Logos, the Word, He’s talking to God the Father.

And why wouldn’t He? I want to point it out because this is one of the few places in the Old Testament where we clearly would see two members of the God family—the Father and the Son, as they’ll be known later. You could make an argument that this Angel isn’t the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. That wouldn’t change our understanding of God’s nature or of the message. But I tend to like the idea that this could be reminding us that we have these two entities that are the God family.

Similar to what we see in the book of Daniel, where it says, "One like the Son of Man… came to the Ancient of Days" (Daniel 7:13), where you clearly see the two members of the God family at that time. That’s sort of a passing thing, but I couldn’t leave it without comment.

But anyways, we had this question. You know, you’re angry with Judah, punished—but if the world is resting quietly, how long before mercy on Jerusalem? So we get an answer in verse 13. It says, "And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me" (Zechariah 1:13). There he is again—the one I would call the narrator. So there’s an answer given to the angel, who is then going to give it to Zechariah.

And the message is, "I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal. I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease; for I was a little angry, and they helped—but with evil intent" (Zechariah 1:14–15). This seems to be saying, yeah, God was angry with His people—with Israel and Judah—and they needed to be punished. We’ve seen through the Bible, God would use other nations to punish. He would bring in the Assyrian army to punish Israel. He called Assyria the rod of My anger. When He wasn’t using Assyria anymore, He used Babylon to punish Judah.

So they helped—but with evil intent. They took it too far. Nebuchadnezzar got puffed up with pride. So God is saying, you went too far. You didn’t do just what I wanted. Now I’m angry with you. And those nations would have to be punished.

But we don’t want to focus on that. We want to look at verse 16, where He says, "Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy" (Zechariah 1:16).

This is definitely a message of comfort for the people that are there in Jerusalem, trying to rebuild it, trying to rebuild the temple. "I’m returning to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built, says the Lord of hosts, and the surveyor’s line stretched out over Jerusalem."

Again proclaim, "My cities shall again spread out through prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion, and will again choose Jerusalem" (Zechariah 1:17).

That’s encouraging. That’s comforting.

And we can make a case that there are three different ways to interpret God’s comfort, partly because He mentions Zion as well as Jerusalem. We’ve made the case that Zion can represent God’s Church, especially if it says daughter of Zion.

I’m going to propose a past, present, future way to do it—and present being our perspective. In the past, in Zechariah’s time, it would be that new temple is going to be built. I’m going to cause it to be done. I’m not punishing Judah anymore.

In the present—and by that I mean our present, or at least the era of God’s Church—God has the spiritual temple built. We are that spiritual temple. An individual who has the Spirit of God in him could be called a temple, but the Church as a whole—we are living stones in a temple built up to God. So God’s having His temple built in that way.

And in the future, in the Millennium, Jerusalem will be rebuilt with a new temple. And we see that described in the latter chapters of Ezekiel. So it seems that God is putting layers in this passage, but all of it is to be comforting, to be encouraging. He says, I’m returning with mercy. My house shall be built. I imagine Zechariah had a smile when he gets this news. This is great.

And that’s the end of the first vision—horses, comfort, and encouragement. But we’re going to move on, because we’re not even in the next chapter yet.

In verse 18, "Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns" (Zechariah 1:18). Four horns? Horns do serve a certain symbolism in the Old Testament with Hebrew.

I’m trying to remember the Hebrew word keren. I’ve seen it spelled with a K, a C-H, and a Q. But it often represents power. It is the word that would be used for an animal horn.

Think of a rhinoceros. If that rhinoceros is coming at you with his horn, that’s power. That’s scary. The phrase is sometimes used to refer to a crown or that kind of power.

But here, what is it representing? Well, we’re not sure just from verse 18, but as we go down, we’ll get an idea that it does mean military power, probably from different nations. So he sees horns, and I’ve always wondered—does he see just horns? Does he see animals with horns? He doesn’t tell us. Well, he does tell us—he says horns.

So maybe they’re—what—disembodied horns. That seems freaky, but it’s one crazy night for Zechariah. So I said to the angel who talked with me—he’s still got his buddy, the narrator, right there that he could ask—"What are these?" (Zechariah 1:19).

Well, maybe he didn’t know they were horns. Maybe he saw something—what’s that? "These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem" (Zechariah 1:19).

Okay, so who scattered Israel and Judah and Jerusalem? Nations that God worked with. You know, we know Assyria did. We know Babylon did. If we want to extrapolate, we could say other nations afflicted Israel and Judah. We might consider—well, Egypt made them slaves. You know, so there’s some question.mBut we can see some answers as we go a little further, because he’s not done with this vision. In verse 20 it says, "Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen" (Zechariah 1:20).

Craftsmen—some translations say smiths. You know, imagine a guy with a tool belt, and he’s coming out with his tools, and he’s got a job to do. And I said, "What are these coming to do?" (Zechariah 1:21).

"These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head; but the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it" (Zechariah 1:21).

Terrify might not have been the best translation—it could have been translated to break, or pound, to grind to powder, to fray them.

So these craftsmen are going to destroy these horns. "But the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it" (Zechariah 1:21).

Flower, you had a question? I was going to say the last translation says fray. Your translation says fray? And I like that, except fray isn’t a word we use in English very much anymore—unless you have a seam that’s fraying or a hem of your garment.

But so we’ve got the powers that scattered Israel and Judah. Craftsmen are the ones that are going to destroy those.

And it just leaves it there. It doesn’t give us any more. So I’m going to propose three different interpretations and confess that these aren’t the only possible interpretations. And I’m going to turn around the board—because my friend Junia—I'm not going to turn it around, I’m going to flip it. I did some handwriting that’s much more legible than my normal one. There go the markers. Yeah, this is how things happen at ABC sometimes.

So one supposition is maybe look at past nations that scattered the Jews. And there I mentioned Egypt, the Chaldeans or Babylonians, Persia, and Assyria. Okay, that would work. But it does seem to have the problem that, okay, this wraps it all up and there’s nothing that would relate to end time.

And we see most of these prophecies seem to be looking into the future. So another proposition that’s come up is, what about the vision that Nebuchadnezzar had, and later that Daniel had, of these four world-ruling empires? First Babylon as the head of gold, then Medo-Persia as the chest and arms of silver, Greece the belly and thighs of bronze, Rome being the legs of iron. We could make the case that is still being fulfilled.

But some have said, well, Greece never, you know, destroyed or took captive or oppressed Israel. Now some would say they did. You know, history could be looked at a little bit differently.

I like a third interpretation, although I’m going to caution—me liking it doesn’t necessarily make it correct—but it has a certain elegance to it, because it shows oppressors of Israel and then what might be the smith that destroyed it.

In this case, Assyria conquered the northern kingdom, but then Babylon conquered Assyria. In this case, interestingly, Babylon would play the role of one of the craftsmen—the smith—and then becoming a horn, because Babylon, after it destroys Assyria, it conquers Judah, takes them away captive, destroys the temple.

Well, who frayed ancient Babylon? That would be Persia. Remember we covered it in Daniel 5, where—handwriting on the wall—they divert the river.

Okay, thank you. You would think I would know these things, but I’m a history teacher, not a mathematician. I don’t do numbers.

Okay, so Persia destroys Babylon, and we might say we’ve got a period when we’re not disturbed. But we know the city of Jerusalem would be rebuilt, another temple would be rebuilt, and those will be destroyed by Rome—after Jesus Christ has come and had His ministry.

So Rome could be considered one of the horns that—what’s the term we’re using now?—that scatters Judah so that no one could lift his head. And then who frays Rome? Well, we could say that—we’ve got the term here—Gothic hordes. The Germanic tribes, you know, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, and the Goths. These are the ones—remember Mr. McNeely said we could think of biker gangs. They come in and cause a lot of trouble.

Now they didn’t have motorcycles in ancient times, and I’m not sure if they had leather jackets with their club name on the back, but we could say they destroyed ancient Rome.

The thing about this one that’s a little bit different is we could say there’s one more yet to come, and that’s going to be what we call the end-time beast power. It’s going to oppress. And the one that will fray that is going to be Jesus Christ when He returns.

I’m not going to hold you accountable to know these exactly. It’s worth remembering there are these different interpretations, and some others that, you know, I didn’t bother to put in my notes because I don’t think they’re as likely. The important thing is to know God is in control, and His bottom-line promise—He’s going to take care of His people.

He’s going to send these craftsmen to take care of those horns. So this is a message—a message largely of comfort and hope. Things will get better even if there’s an oppressor. Whether we know who that is or not, there’s somebody to stop that oppression. God delivers His people.

Matter of fact, if you think—if you look back to verse 3, where God says, "Return to Me… and I will return to you" (Zechariah 1:3). This is partly a promise of—I’m going to return to you. I’m going to take care of you.

I like to use the phrase, the great "yet I." You know, I’ll punish you, I’ll send someone—yet I will take care of you. I will.

Maybe I’ve said enough about that. We’ve got a few minutes to move into chapter 2, where we begin the third vision of that night. Okay, third vision—and that’s going to elaborate on something we saw back in verse 16.

In verse 16—actually, yeah, at the end of verse 16, sorry, I was reading verse 17—"a surveyor’s line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem" (Zechariah 1:16).

Okay, a surveyor’s line—that implies measuring and building. So in chapter 2, verse 1, "Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand" (Zechariah 2:1).

Zechariah is not shy. He asks, "Where are you going?" (Zechariah 2:2). I’m going to go measure Jerusalem, "to see what is its width and what is its length" (Zechariah 2:2). I often say, simple question, simple answer.

By the way, this man with the measuring line—probably an angel. Although again, this is a vision, so he’s seeing a vision of something that—I’d say God’s using His angels to measure.

And here’s our friend in verse 3 again: "And there was the angel who talked with me, going out; and another angel was coming out to meet him" (Zechariah 2:3). In this case, he’s coming out. Another angel is coming to meet him, so there’s some coming and going.

And the angel coming to meet him said, "Run, speak to this young man" (Zechariah 2:4). The young man we presume is Zechariah. And that’s where I said, well, the angel could call him young even if he’s 800 years old—but he might only be in his 20s or 30s.

But what’s to tell him? "Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it" (Zechariah 2:4).

Towns without walls—"Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls" (Zechariah 2:4). We see that in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, where that is, seems to be God’s people in Jerusalem, where they don’t need physical defenses. Now, that’s going to tempt Gog and Magog in Ezekiel, but we’re not dealing with that here.

Why don’t they need physical defenses? Verse 5: "For I… will be a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst" (Zechariah 2:5). The glory in her midst—think of the Shekinah glory, God’s presence. You know, God is going to be right there. I’ve been referencing Ezekiel—the very last verse in Ezekiel, "the name of the city… The Lord Is There" (Ezekiel 48:35). We presume it’s talking about Jerusalem because it’s talking about the temple. It’s like we’re going to give Jerusalem a new name—God is there.

Fits with Revelation 21, where God says He’ll dwell with man and wipe away their tears. So He’s going to be like a wall of fire. And that actually fits—I talked about a city without walls tempting Gog and Magog—we see a similar thing in Revelation 20, when Gog and Magog come in verses 7 through 9, but they’re destroyed. Fire comes down and just takes them out. God is going to be like a wall of fire.

Comforting? Yeah—God’s protection. I’m going to be with you. I’ll be there. My glory will be present. So that’s encouraging.

Let’s go on in verses 6 and 7, where He says, "Up, up! Flee from the land of the north… for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven" (Zechariah 2:6–7).

That can refer to the Jews of that time. They went into captivity. Most of them didn’t come back to Judah. Quite a number stayed in Babylon. But if you look at today, Jews are everywhere in the world. And I like to say they know that they’re Jews because of the Sabbath—that’s an identifying mark. But He says, yeah, I’ve scattered you.

"Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon." This is a clear warning—warning Jews to get away from Babylon.

And I want to propose three ways to look at this, as we did before, that could also be seen as past, present, and future. The past would be a warning for the Jews in Zechariah’s time—leave Babylon. God has now opened the way to go back to Jerusalem, and you can leave Babylon and get away from that culture. Babylon survived the Persian conquest because they were able to go under the gate and didn’t have to destroy the city.

But let’s move on. What about present? And present—I’m going to have a long view—but we could say through history, God’s people have been spread out. And we are warned—separate from Babylon. "Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans" (Isaiah 48:20), as well as "Move from the midst of Babylon, go out of the land of the Chaldeans" (Jeremiah 50:8).

So we’re to come out of Babylon symbolically—out of the culture, away from that religion.

And as far as a future interpretation, it’s very similar, but it’s specific to the end time. End-time Christians are warned to separate from what we would call Mystery Babylon the Great. "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons… Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues" (Revelation 18:2, 4).

So what we see here in Zechariah holds up—"Up, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon" (Zechariah 2:7).

And He moves on in verse 8: "For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘He sent Me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye’" (Zechariah 2:8).

Here again, we might see a reference to the two beings in the God family. "He sent me." That seems to be the One that we would call the Word, referencing being sent by God the Father.

"After glory"—scholars disagree on the meaning of what it means by saying that. Some say it means after God worked His glory in punishing Israel for their sins. Some want to tie it to Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, when He’s glorified—which He prayed to the Father to do. It leaves us wondering, but either way, it is talking about that deliverance and protection.

"He sent Me… to the nations which plunder you." In other words, I’m going to take care of them. "For he who touches you touches the apple of His eye" (Zechariah 2:8).

The Hebrew here literally is talking about the pupil, but "apple of His eye" is an English phrase that means something dear and close. It sort of comes out because the eye is the most complex part of the body and the pupil very vulnerable. So let me give you a less complicated way to interpret this: someone who messes with God’s people is like poking God in the eye—and He doesn’t like that.

So you mess with My people, you’re poking Me in the eye, and God will deal with that.

In verse 9, "For surely I will shake My hand against them, and they shall become spoil for their servants" (Zechariah 2:9). Is "shake My hand" like shaking a fist? Some people say that. But others say it means God can handle things with a wave of His hand—you know, I’ll take care of them. Nothing to God. I kind of like that one better, because I don’t think God needs to shake a fist. He can just deal with things.

I was hoping I could get to the end of this vision before we run out of time. He goes on to say, "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion!" (Zechariah 2:10).

Okay, daughter of Zion again reminds us usually of the Church. "For behold, I am coming. I will dwell in your midst." Notice it’s speaking in first person. This seems to be talking about the One that became Christ, saying, I’m coming. I’ll dwell in your midst. You know, through His Spirit being in us, He’s literally in us.

And "The Lord will take possession of Judah as His inheritance in the Holy Land, and will again choose Jerusalem" (Zechariah 2:12). That’s a powerful statement.

I skipped over verse 11, though.

And "Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall become My people" (Zechariah 2:11). "In that day" is a phrase that most often makes us think of end-time prophecy. So whether we could say past, present, future, this seems to indicate future. Christ paved the way to dwell, and of course when God establishes His Kingdom, His dwelling will be with men, as Revelation shows us.

We’re just about done here. I’ll note in verse 13, "Be silent, all flesh," (Zechariah 2:13). There’s a time when God says, I want silence. Habakkuk 2:20 said the same thing.

And I’ve got a little trivia I’ll close with. In verse 12, where it said the Lord will take possession of Judah as His inheritance in the Holy Land—the term "Holy Land" is quite comfortable for us. This is the only place it appears in the Bible. We use it, and it’s not incorrect—it’s just not one that appears very often in Scripture.

But the bottom line here, though, is this vision shows God choosing Israel. He’ll redeem them and be with them.

And we’re a little bit over time—thanks for your indulgence. Tomorrow—well, tomorrow, next time we have this class—we’ll pick up in chapter 3, starting the fourth vision. And we’ll see you all then.