24: Minor Prophets – Zechariah 4-6

[Dunkle] Welcome back to Minor Prophets class. We’re going to carry on now. We’ve been making our way through the book of Zechariah, and we’re in chapter 4. We didn’t quite make it to the end last time. But I’ll remind you that Zechariah had this vision of a candle—not a candlestick—a lampstand with a golden bowl and two olive trees feeding oil to all the lamps. And we worked our way through to saying that what mattered was the high volume of oil, and that symbolizes God’s Holy Spirit so that we can be the light of the world. That’s what truly matters. And it’s sort of summed up in what I consider to be a strong memory scripture:

“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)

So that’s something we want to keep in mind, whether or not we remember where it is—that human might and human power of any kind don’t get things done. God’s Spirit does.

So we understood that. And we see this reference to Zerubbabel, the governor, laying the foundation and bringing the capstone. His hands started the temple but would finish it. And then I put a little bit of doubt on whether Zerubbabel actually finished it. And again, I’m not citing any particular historic documents. I’ll just say it’s not entirely clear. I’m not saying for certain Zerubbabel wasn’t on hand and didn’t finish. It’s just we want to be prepared for that possibility. But if that was the possibility, it leads to the idea that, okay, in human terms, somebody prominent and important might start something that others who are less prominent finish for them.

We related that to Mr. Armstrong—that we’re continuing the work that he started, not taking away from what he did, but carrying on. And not missing the point that in Zechariah chapter 6, it says of Jesus Christ, the Branch, that He will finish the temple. He’ll build the temple, the spiritual temple that is the Church. We didn’t finish that particular passage, though, so let’s go on in Zechariah 4, verse 10.

Part of the same phrase, it says:

“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10)

What small things? Well, many people think this refers to the current temple being constructed that Zerubbabel was overseeing. It was smaller. It was much less opulent than what we call Solomon’s Temple. Matter of fact, keep your hand here, but turn back a few pages to Haggai chapter 2 and verse 3.

And Haggai 2:3 says:

“Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?” (Haggai 2:3)

Well, okay—talk about small things. “This temple you’re building now compared to the last one”—you know, it says “nothing.” Okay, but is that the end of it? I don’t think it is. We need to consider what God is doing.

Still in Haggai 2, verse 9, God says:

“The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,” says the Lord of hosts. “And in this place I will give peace.” (Haggai 2:9)

When we discussed Haggai, we noted that Jesus Christ would come to this latter temple, and that mattered far more than size, far more than gold and silver. We should be encouraged. If the Church is the spiritual temple, size isn’t what matters, and opulence and decoration aren’t what matter.

I think there’s a lesson for us in this because some of us who are a little older can think back to when the Church—you know, the Church of God as we called it, the corporate organization—boy, it was bigger. When I attended my first Feast of Tabernacles, there were about 15,000 people in that one building keeping the Feast. That’s more than the United Church of God has total. We were on the radio every night across the United States, on TV stations. We reached a point where we were mailing out 8 million magazines almost every month.

And you could look at the work we do now and say, “You know, isn’t this as nothing?” But I think that’s why in Zechariah 4:10 we see:

“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10)

And that could be interpreted to mean, “Don’t. Don’t despise the day of small things.” Maybe we’re living in a day of small things in a certain way. I’ll say “in a certain way” because while we’re not mailing out 8 million magazines, we’re on an Internet that’s available all around the world, and many more than 8 million could access it every day. We’ve got a reach that hasn’t been rivaled in our history. We don’t want to despise what seems small.

And rather than preach at you I’ll move on. It says: “For these seven rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.” (Zechariah 4:10)

A plumb line was a simple tool with a weight on a string to make sure that walls were vertical. Very straight. So we could say, in spiritual parallel, if Zerubbabel is a symbol of Christ, Christ is going to make sure the walls of the Church are straight. He’s going to make sure we’re vertical or true. Sometimes that requires correction. You could say, “Okay, you’re getting a little off plumb. We need to fix that.” The correction isn’t always pleasant, but if it’s done, it’s needed.

So the plumb line is in the hand of Zerubbabel. And while I skipped over it, it says:

“These seven rejoice to see the plumb line.” (Zechariah 4:10)

And what are the seven? Well, we’ve related that perhaps to the seven eyes that were on the stone, because it says:

“They are the eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.” (Zechariah 4:10)

I won’t revisit all of that, but it seems to represent God’s observation—that He’s aware of everything going on throughout the whole earth. And it seems to express some pleasure at this temple growing—the smaller, less opulent temple that Zerubbabel was overseeing. Hopefully God’s pleasure in this smaller spiritual temple that we might be right now.

Okay, we’ll move on because Zechariah moves on in verse 11.

“Then I answered and said to him...” (Zechariah 4:11)

And again, that seems to be the angel who spoke with me—the narrator who’s right there explaining things to Zechariah.

“What are these two olive trees?” (Zechariah 4:11)

I know from the back of the room you can’t see much of the green. Still doesn’t look like an olive tree, but maybe you could see it. He sees them, and we know in real life olive trees don’t drip oil, but that’s what this represents.

Well, what are these?

“And I further answered and said to him, ‘What are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains?’” (Zechariah 4:12)

So I’m getting specific. There’s oil coming in. We’ve got the trees. We’ve got branches. What is this?

And then:

“Then he answered me and said, ‘Do you not know what these are?’” (Zechariah 4:13)

“No.”

Sorry, I don’t know if it was like that, but it’s humorous to think about. And I don’t think the angel who spoke with me was mean or harsh. He probably understood. Maybe he was having a little fun with Zechariah. “You mean you don’t know this?”

“No, I don’t.”

Well, he says:

“These are the two anointed ones, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.” (Zechariah 4:14)

The literal Hebrew is “sons of fresh oil,” which means to me less than “anointed ones.”

But “sons of fresh oil”—remember, an anointed one has been anointed by oil. But this might also indicate someone who anoints with oil. And we’ve seen some people in the Bible that have done that. You know, a priest would be anointed into his position, but he wouldn’t be in a position to anoint others. So we could take that for what it’s worth.

Scholars have come up with lots and lots of guesses of who these two are. You know, some have said, “Oh, it’s looking at Moses and Aaron, Daniel and Ezekiel from that era, Zerubbabel and Joshua right then and there,” and we could go on and on. But why would we? Because the Bible has an answer to this question. Am I right? Okay, a couple of people nodding their heads. The answer is in Revelation 11. It’s worth us turning there. We’ll be coming back to Zechariah.

But Revelation 11—well, I won’t read the whole chapter. It starts in verse 3 where it says:

“And I will give power to my two witnesses...” (Revelation 11:3)

Okay, two witnesses. People have guessed about what that is, but it says they’ll prophesy 1,260 days. The two witnesses are prophets. Later we’ll see it describes them working miracles, but also being killed, laying dead in the streets, and then brought back to life. They’re men, humans. And there are going to be two witnesses.

Verse 4, though—I didn’t read Revelation 11:4:

“These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.” (Revelation 11:4)

They’re the two olive trees.

Well, what do you mean? There’s one place in the Bible where it talks about these two olive trees, and it’s here in Zechariah. So we’re seeing that Zechariah had a vision basically symbolizing the two witnesses that would come at the time of the end. They’re going to be doing a powerful work proclaiming the gospel—maybe when the Church is not able to do so.

We still have questions. Boy, do we have questions. Who are they? Where do they come from? How do they know they’re the two witnesses? Who wants to sign up for the job? Not me. It doesn’t sound like the most pleasant job, but they’re doing a powerful work.

And I’ve said, when the time comes, we’ll know who they are, and they’ll know their mission. But for now, we can just say this: to me, in my mind, it fits in with the idea of:

“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.” (Zechariah 4:6)

God can take two physical men and say, “Okay, by My Spirit, you’re going to go do this work. You’re going to do a work on par with what a whole church was doing before.” And, you know, this isn’t the day of small things. It’ll be a day of great and powerful things, in a sense, in a manner of speaking.

And we move on. I’m going to pause there, but we’re moving into chapter 5. It seems that that fifth vision comes to an end, and in the same night Zechariah is going to have another one. So if you’re keeping count, I have this as number 6.

So it says:

“Then I turned and raised my eyes, and saw there a flying scroll.” (Zechariah 5:1)

So—a scroll rolled up. You know, before they had codex-type books, which we’re familiar with, things were written on scrolls.

Now, “flying” implies to me like, you know, Superman—you know, “It’s a bird, it’s a plane.” The Hebrew can mean that it’s unfolded, it’s unrolled, and that “flying” could apply to that. So we’re not absolutely certain. But he knows that its length is 20 cubits and its width is 10 cubits.

That’s a pretty big scroll. Ten by twenty—that’s about 15 by 30 feet. Try and think of any—I don’t have a room in my house that big. I don’t think.

Okay, it actually is the same size as the Holy Place that was in the tabernacle Moses built in the wilderness—15 by 30, we believe. And it was the same size as the porch of Solomon’s Temple. Although, I’m honestly not certain if those correlations are intended to be those correlations or just a size that works.

Anyways, it’s pretty big. Fifteen by thirty—that sounds as big as a billboard.

And he says—okay, verse 3:

“Then he said to me, ‘This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth.’” (Zechariah 5:3)

What’s the curse?

“Every thief shall be expelled according to this side of the scroll. Every perjurer shall be expelled according to that side of it.” (Zechariah 5:3)

So we seem to have this writing on both sides. And that might correspond to actually the two stone tablets that had the Ten Commandments. We don’t always think about it, but in Deuteronomy—where is it? Sorry, I’m not seeing it. I thought I had it written down.

It’s thought that they were written front and back. And of course, God wrote on those with His finger. He wrote the Ten Commandments.

If it does correspond, some have said this also corresponds to the two different sections of the law—you know, dealing with honoring God and dealing with loving man.

And you might say, “Well, how is that?” Because it deals with every thief. Okay, stealing is breaking one of the Ten Commandments.

Every perjurer—what do you mean by perjurer?

Well, actually it comes up—and I’m looking for—yeah, in verse 4 it says:

“I will send out the curse,” says the Lord of hosts; “It shall enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name.” (Zechariah 5:4)

So swearing falsely by God’s name is taking God’s name in vain. So that’s the Third Commandment. We’ve got both covered.

It’s enough to make you wonder, though, why is this represented that way? Well, the penalty is being expelled. Some say that represents death—being expelled from the land of the living, so to speak. Others speculate that it means being sent out of the Holy Land where God was now doing His work.

So we can wonder, but in verse 4 it says:

“I will send out the curse,” says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 5:4)

God is going to be the One doing the punishing.

“It shall enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name. It shall remain in the midst of his house and consume it, with its timber and stones.” (Zechariah 5:4)

So “remain in the house”—the Hebrew there literally means “spend the night,” but it’s a common idiom for being permanent. So it’s a punishment that’s not just temporary or passing.

We’re not going to have people breaking God’s law, swearing falsely by God’s name, or stealing. And even the house is going to be consumed.

Now, we don’t have time to ponder very much, and I’m not sure I see a lot of symbolism here other than: don’t break God’s law. It’s written out. There’s punishment that comes.

Because moving on in verse 5:

“Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, ‘Lift your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth.’” (Zechariah 5:5)

Now this could be a continuation of the previous vision, which was number 6. Some people say now we’re at number 7. And because he’s looking at something entirely different, I tend to lean that way. I’ll call it 7.

Keeping in mind that the numbering matters not a bit. So don’t worry about the number, but it’s nice to keep track.

So, “Lift up your eyes and see what goes forth.” (Zechariah 5:5)

Well, what is it? It’s a basket. The word translated “basket” here—the Hebrew literally is ephah. We’ve seen that word, and it’s a measure, generally a measure of dry weight. And there are different interpretations, but think of about a half-bushel, maybe a bit bigger. Of course, it just occurred to me—in our day and age, how much do we use bushels? But you’ve seen what’s called a bushel basket. It’s not huge, but it’s not tiny.

So it’s a basket. That’s the best interpretation. It’s a basket that’s going forth.

“This is their resemblance throughout the earth.” (Zechariah 5:6)

“Their resemblance” leaves us wondering, “What are you talking about?” until we get to the latter part of this chapter when it’s going to describe a woman.

Matter of fact, let’s just go ahead and see in verse 7:

“Here is a lead disc lifted up...” (Zechariah 5:7)

So it’s a heavy lid to keep whatever’s in that basket. He opens it up, and there’s a woman sitting inside the basket. Keep in mind—symbolism. And he shoves it back down and says:

“This is Wickedness!” (Zechariah 5:8)

So that’s why the heavy lid is on there. So this is a woman symbolizing wickedness. “Their resemblance” seems to be talking about that.

Now, if we think about it, okay, we see women serving as symbols at a time or two in the Bible, okay? Often as a symbol of the Church. In Revelation 12, we see a woman symbolizing God’s true Church, and she’s taken away to her place. But we also see a woman that rides the beast, symbolizing a great false church.

If the symbolism is the same, we could say this could represent a church. And since it’s wickedness, let’s say a false church. So I’m going to go there.

So we see this resemblance—wickedness—and then, yeah, verse 9:

“Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in their wings...” (Zechariah 5:9)

“They had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven.” (Zechariah 5:9)

So these flying women come with these great stork wings, and they’re going to carry off the basket.

Now, if you live in Western society—America or Europe—you see a biblical image of women with stork wings. What do you think of? Yeah, that’s how we see angels portrayed. It’s easy to go there, but let’s be honest. Do we see women portraying angels anywhere in the Bible with wings? That’s not what we see.

So I think it would be a mistake to go there and assume these are the women of Renaissance paintings that represent angels. No, angels—if you read in Ezekiel chapter 1, and I think Ezekiel 10—they look like bulls with four faces and different heads and eyes all over. You don’t want to see one of those angels. It’ll freak you out the way it did Ezekiel.

I prefer when an angel shows up like Gabriel and he just looks like a man. And even then, they always have the appearance of young men—never women with great wings.

And you might say, “Well, okay, Frank, what are you getting at?” If it’s not representing angels, well, let’s think about some particular ways. The wings—they’re particularly stork wings. And what we know about storks is they’re migratory birds, and they’re powerful wings. They can cover a lot of distance. Maybe that plays in, you know. So it might be representing, again, churches and taking something.

Now there’s wickedness. Okay. Now we just see they’re lifted up and going somewhere. Maybe the destination can tell us something.

Verse 10:

“So I said to the angel who talked with me, ‘Where are they carrying the basket?’” (Zechariah 5:10)

“And he said to me, ‘To build a house for it in the land of Shinar; when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base.’” (Zechariah 5:11)

Hmmm. Shinar is the southern part of Mesopotamia where Babylon happens to be. That’s led some scholars to think, “Ah, is this talking about taking wickedness and establishing it there in Babylon? Is it taking it away from the Promised Land—from Israel, from Judah—and establishing it there?”

Notice I’m asking it as a question. There’s not enough for us to say with absolute certainty.

But I’ll say some people have speculated that in the midst of a book where God is constantly talking about redeeming Judah—remember Joshua the high priest with filthy garments, but the filthy garments are taken away and he’s given clean garments that can represent righteousness—some have speculated this is talking about taking away the sinfulness of Judah and planting it back in Babylon, maybe in the form of a false church.

You know, we see in end-time prophecy Mystery Babylon the Great, this great false church that’s represented in Revelation as a woman.

So I think there could be something to that. You know, Shinar represents Babylon, some would say, but toward the end time you would substitute Rome.

Again, I want to hesitate, and I don’t want to say it dogmatically, but I haven’t come up with an interpretation that I like better.

At least when it comes to the nation of Judah, we know Israel was taken away, and some people would say the two women represent Assyria and Babylon taking away the sinning Israelites. There’s wickedness there. The Israelites never came back. There are holes in that analogy, but it seems to represent something that I think has to fit in with the theme of the other prophecies that we’ve seen, right?

Well, sadly, the angel who talked with me doesn’t tell us any more. So I wonder if Zechariah was scratching his head saying, “Can you tell me a little more?” Maybe he did later off camera and we didn’t get the rest, but... So we’ll look at this and move on understanding there’s probably more to learn.

I’m one of those people that thinks, you know, at the end time when Christ comes, maybe some things will become so clear and we’ll say, “Ah, that’s what that was.” I’m okay with that. I’m okay with having some things we don’t know, as long as we acknowledge we don’t know what we’d like to know, and maybe we’ll figure it out later. There are things we do know pretty clearly, and I’m glad of those things.

So with that, I’m going to move on. We move into chapter 6. This seems to be the last vision of the night—either the eighth vision, as I’ve been counting, some say seventh. And I’ll tell you, some scholars say this is the hardest one to understand. Well, that’s pretty rough considering what we just finished.

“Then I turned and raised my eyes and looked, and behold, four chariots were coming from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze.” (Zechariah 6:1)

Okay, we must have symbolism here. Bronze mountains. Now in the Hebrew it says the mountains, as though we know which mountains they are. They’re the mountains. But we haven’t been talking about any mountains. There aren’t any earlier references, so again, speculation.

Some people say, “Oh, it’s the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives.” Some say it’s representative of God’s Church and God’s heavenly Kingdom. Some say it’s like the bronze pillars that Solomon’s Temple had. I threw that in because I thought, well, why would you say they’re mountains? Some people have said it’s the Mount of Olives after Christ lands and splits it in two. But we don’t see that represented as bronze.

So maybe we should stop theorizing on that, but I told you it’s hard to understand.

We know there are four chariots, each pulled—now it says horses, so I’m guessing two or more horses for each chariot. And we see the colors come back that we’ve seen before. We see one with red horses, a second with black, a third with white, the fourth with dappled horses. And by the way, they’re strong steeds. They’re not sickly weak horses. They’re ready to go.

Well, when we were covering the first chapter of Zechariah, I mentioned maybe these correspond to the colors of the horsemen in Revelation 7—no, Revelation 6, I’m sorry—where red seems to equal war. White could represent conquest by false religion, but later conquest by the true Messiah. Black represented famine. There in Revelation there’s a pale horse. Some translations say green. I’d feel pale if I saw a green horse. But here we see dappled, maybe a mix of colors.

If they do represent plagues—and it’s a very large if—but if they do, maybe dappled represents a mix. Dappled is a mix of colors. But maybe these don’t represent those things at all.

I wanted to at least comment that it’s there. I recognize these horses are different colors, and John the Apostle saw the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But we’re going to see what they do, and that seems to represent something different.

And by the way, if we don’t know what the horses represent, we’re in good company because neither did Zechariah.

In verse 4:

“Then I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, ‘What are these, my lord?’” (Zechariah 6:4)

Now he doesn’t say, “Don’t you know?” This time he says:

“These are four spirits of heaven, who go out from their station before the Lord of all the earth.” (Zechariah 6:5)

So they represent spirits—let’s say angels—who go out from their station before the Lord of the whole earth.

I can’t help but remember about the seven eyes going to and fro throughout the earth. This makes me think God is sending agents back and forth. He’s keeping track.

“The one with the black horses is going to the north country, the white are going after them, and the dappled are going toward the south country.” (Zechariah 6:6)

Now we could speculate if the direction means something. “To the north”—well, from Israel it’s going up here. We might remember in Daniel 11, two of the four kingdoms that arose after Alexander the Great died became known as the king of the north and the king of the south. Maybe there’s a tie-in there.

It could also just represent full coverage. If you go north, you go south, you get both hemispheres in that sense.

In verse 7:

“Then the strong steeds went out, eager to go, that they might walk to and fro throughout the earth.” (Zechariah 6:7)

And He told them:

“Go, walk to and fro throughout the earth.” (Zechariah 6:7)

So they walked to and fro throughout the earth.

Don’t you love how sometimes the Bible will tell you something and then tell you again? Make sure you heard it, so it’ll tell you again. So they’re doing that.

And in verse 8:

“Then He called to me and spoke to me, saying, ‘See, those who go toward the north country have given rest to My Spirit in the north country.’” (Zechariah 6:8)

I’ve got the New King James that says “given rest.” I believe the Old King James says “quieted My Spirit.” Okay? Rebecca’s got the Old King James.

And some scholars who study the Hebrew say this could have been translated to say, “have quieted My wrath.”

Now whose wrath? Well, they’re sent out by God. So some people have translated this as quieting God’s wrath, meaning He’s done—maybe done punishing.

Okay? God has His wrath. It’s there. And then He sends these agents out through the whole earth. You could say it’s been quieted.

In the context, there’s something to be said for that because we’re at the time when the Persian Empire has destroyed the Babylonian Empire, and that ended the 70 years of punishment on Judah. And we end up with there being kind of peace.

There is a time in Daniel’s prophecy—I believe in Daniel’s prophecy—where you see that. You know—no, not Daniel. It’s early on in Zechariah.

So I wanted to say—I went all the way back to Haggai.

Yeah, in Zechariah 1 and verse 11, we see the horsemen again, and it says:

“We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly.” (Zechariah 1:11)

Maybe this is corresponding. As we said, that was the first vision of this very busy night for Zechariah. Now we’re circling back to what might be the last vision, and we’re getting, “Okay, the earth is quiet. God is taking care of things.”

And I said when we were in chapter 1, that’s not saying it’s the Millennium.

You know, that happens when Christ returns. The earth is truly at peace. But when the Persian Empire was established, it would be in place for—I’m trying to think if it was two or three hundred years—there’s relative peace until the war with Greece.

If it’s not that, we’re left to speculate. You know, we see God has horsemen, He has eyes going to and fro throughout the whole earth. We can be confident nothing is escaping His vision. We do understand when God wants something done, He can create a peaceful atmosphere. The Persian Empire made it peaceful enough for the Jews to build a new temple.

We often talk about in the New Testament how the Pax Romana set up a situation where the world was peaceful enough for the Church to preach the gospel to all the world. Maybe we could see a correspondence. We’ll leave it at maybe and move on because we’re not done with this crazy night yet.

We’re at peace, verse 9:

“Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying...” (Zechariah 6:9)

It’s worth noting in verse 9, it’s not “the angel who spoke with me.” Now it’s the word of the Lord. It’s God talking to Zechariah.

Now I will note, some scholars say what’s going to follow is another vision and label it number 9, but it seems to be instructions for him to do something. And I see it less as a vision and more as God saying, “Okay, morning’s coming. You’ve been seeing these visions all night. I’ve got a job for you. Sorry, you don’t get to sleep in and hit the snooze button. You’ve got work to do.”

And it starts off with verse 10:

“Receive the gift from the captives...” (Zechariah 6:10)

Well, which captives? These guys: Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah, who’ve come from Babylon.

“Go the same day and enter the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah.” (Zechariah 6:10)

So these three are bringing a gift. By the way, we see the name Heldai. I don’t know who he is, but we’re pretty sure that he’s the same one that in verse 14 is called Helem. It’s probably just that Hebrew letters can be transliterated in different ways, and most scholars think the translators just weren’t quite clear when they transliterated this.

So we have these captives coming from Babylon. That would seem to be Jews who—remember, all the Jews had been taken captive, but now they’re free to come back to Jerusalem. So now some are coming back, some more of them. They’re bringing a gift.

And we don’t know what it is until we read the next verse.

Verse 11:

“Take the silver and gold...” (Zechariah 6:11)

They’re bringing silver and gold. Maybe it’s silver and gold that were part of the original temple. Maybe silver and gold that were part of the cups and other vessels. Remember in Daniel—I think chapter 5—when Belshazzar drinks from them and then the hand appears and writes on the wall. Maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s just random gold and silver they had lying around. They’re bringing it as a gift. It can be used in the new temple.

But Zechariah is going to be instructed to do something particular with it. So this gold has a purpose.

“Take the silver and gold, make an elaborate crown...” (Zechariah 6:11)

The Hebrew actually says “crowns,” plural. Some scholars think it should be translated “double crown.”

Well, what does that mean? Well, considering what he’s going to use it for might tell us, because he’s going to set it on the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak.

Who’s that? It’s the high priest. Same Joshua that we saw earlier in filthy garments, and those filthy garments were taken away and he was given clean garments.

Okay, that was a symbol. This seems to be saying, for real, make a real double crown. And I’m being particular in the details maybe because we can understand them and it’s worth it.

Some say it means “double” because it would sit over top of the turban that the priest wore as part of his priestly garments. So make it so it can sit on there and put it on the head of Joshua.

Well, wait a minute. Priests are anointed and they serve the office of priest, but they’re not crowned. They don’t rule as kings or emperors. Am I right?

Okay, well, I say no priest was ever crowned, as we see in the Old Testament, because the crowning represents civil rule—a governor, a king.

Okay, well, this is going to represent not something Joshua would do.

And by the way, if you look down in verse 14:

“Now the elaborate crown shall be for a memorial in the temple...” (Zechariah 6:14)

This crown that Zechariah makes and puts on Joshua’s head will be for a memorial in the temple. Joshua is not going to keep wearing it. There’s maybe a symbol that’s symbolic—put it on his head, take a picture, then take it off and let’s put it in the temple as a memorial.

And we could say, “Well, a memorial of what?”

And hopefully you guys are already ahead of me. You know where this is going.

We’re going to see the symbolism come out in verse 12.

“Then speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying: “Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH!”’” (Zechariah 6:12)

We’ve seen before—and I hope it’s still in our heads—the Branch as a way of saying the Messiah, the Anointed One, Jesus Christ.

It might not be a coincidence when it says, “Behold, the Man...” Pilate said that when he displayed Jesus Christ before the masses shortly before He was crucified. It’s in John 19:5.

Now, Pilate was speaking in Greek probably at the time, so maybe it’s just a coincidence. But considering it’s applied to mean the same person, it’s worth calling out.

I went here earlier to remind us, you know, Zerubbabel might be working on the physical temple. Jesus Christ is building the spiritual temple, the one that matters.

“Yes, He shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on His throne...” (Zechariah 6:13)

So He—the Branch—not Joshua son of Jehozadak.

“So He shall be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” (Zechariah 6:13)

He’s going to be a King and a Priest. Of course, that’s easy for us because we’ve read the New Testament, right? Let me reference some scriptures from Revelation. Revelation 19, verse 12 says:

“...and on His head were many crowns.” (Revelation 19:12)

And we hear that in song all the time, right? “Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.”

Later in that chapter, Revelation 19, verse 16 calls Him:

“KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” (Revelation 19:16)

Jesus Christ is the King of kings, but He’s also still the High Priest.

Hebrews 9, verse 11 says:

“But Christ came as High Priest...” (Hebrews 9:11)

He gets to be King and Priest. You know, “royal priest” is the way that’s translated sometimes, but either way it’s a very important, powerful lesson.

This is talking about the coming Messiah. It’s in the midst of many prophecies where God is saying, “We’re going to build the temple. I’m going to redeem Judah. I will make them strong. I’m still with them.” And He wants to make sure nobody ever forgets.

Now in verse 14, he says:

“Now the elaborate crown shall be for a memorial in the temple of the Lord for Helem, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and Hen the son of Zephaniah.” (Zechariah 6:14)

And we don’t have to memorize who all these people are, although Hen is thought to be another name for a fellow named Josiah who kept the treasury, and this would probably be in the treasury.

Verse 15:

“Even those from afar shall come and build the temple of the Lord.” (Zechariah 6:15)

Okay, more people would come and participate in building this new temple. But we could also say, in the spiritual temple, God is calling whom He will—not only descendants of Israel, people from afar.

Think of the story in Acts where Paul goes to the synagogue to preach the truth, and he’s mocked. Sometimes he’s stoned, you know, and he shakes out his garment and says:

“It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it... behold, we turn to the Gentiles.” (Acts 13:46)

I think there might be a correlation to “those from afar shall come and build the temple.” You know, the Israelites and Jews had a chance to already be close to God, although they didn’t take advantage of that. We could say those from afar—God will bring in whoever He will.

Boy, I can’t say “diligently” today, although I just did.

“Then this shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.” (Zechariah 6:15)

Again, this seems to be future prophecy. It’s going to come to pass if you diligently obey.

I’ll remind you again, 1 Peter 2, verse 5:

“...you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house...” (1 Peter 2:5)

And again, the theme we’ve seen throughout this crazy night of Zechariah with one vision after another—imagine, you probably needed a week to rest up from that night—but the theme is hope for the future.

There’s hope. There’s good news. Encouragement for God’s people.

And that was there for them at that time, and I think we could make a strong case it’s here for us now as God’s people. We have hope, encouragement for our future individually and the future of the whole world.

That’s why Zechariah—even though it’s confusing and we still have a lot of questions—it’s an encouraging book. There are really good things in here.

Deep breath.

Now, I’ll say chapters 7 and 8 go together as one unit. And even though we have a little time left for this session, I’m not sure I want to start and then have to finish it next time. So I’m inclined to cut this session a little bit short and say next time we’ll start off with chapter 7, and we’ll cover at least chapter 7 and chapter 8.

And then the rest of Zechariah is the second half where it’s very different.

So thanks for bearing with me as we wade through all these symbols and these questions and perhapses and maybes. But again, the bottom line is encouragement and hope.

And I hope you’ll join me next time.

Thank you.