25: Minor Prophets – Zechariah 7-9:8

[Dunkle] Welcome to Minor Prophets! We're going to pick up this time where we left off last time. We're making our way through the book of Zechariah. And one thing we did complete last time was what I like to call one crazy night. And I think Adam Sandler made a movie like that, or Eight Crazy Nights. Anyways, I didn't see the movie, so I'm not sure.

But Zechariah had a rather crazy night with all of these visions. And we've worked our way through those and tried to understand the symbolism as best we could, admitting that there are times where we have different ideas of what the symbolism might be. Sometimes we're just very uncertain.

But one thing that is certain throughout—and I think pretty much throughout Zechariah—is God's mercy and compassion on the nation of Judah. And I'm mentioning that because it's prevalent in the chapters we've covered. But also, as we're about to pick up with chapter 7—which I should turn to chapter 7—we're going to see that's a very important point, that God is going to say He's basically done punishing Judah, at least for now. And now He's going to be blessing Judah. That comes out pretty clearly.

So I want to point out that chapter 7 will begin what we call a new prophetic utterance. So it's a separate prophecy. It's not on that same night. Matter of fact, verse 1 says, “It came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev” (Zechariah 7:1).

That's around November or December. So it's late fall, early winter perhaps, probably 518 B.C. And looking at that, it's about two years after the previous crazy night with all those visions. So time has passed. And what prompts this is we're going to see some messengers come with a question. So let's see what it says.

“When the people sent Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to the house of God, to pray before the Lord.” (Zechariah 7:2)

So representatives, perhaps from the exile community, are going to come to the house of the Lord. They're going to come to this temple that's in the process of being built, where sacrifices have been offered. I'm sort of referencing, without turning to Scripture, Ezra and Nehemiah. One of the things it says is that before the temple was built, they set up an altar and resumed sacrifices.

So we have pilgrims, so to speak—not the guys with the funny hats that we think about for Thanksgiving—but people who travel to come to the place where God put His name to worship.

So these representatives are coming, and they're going to have a question. So they come to pray before the Lord, and verse 3 says, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?” (Zechariah 7:3).

Now, this might seem an odd question. What do you mean, weep in the fifth month and fast? Fasting is something we're used to doing in which month? Seventh month. The Day of Atonement falls in the seventh month.

So I want to be clear, this is not talking about the Day of Atonement.

And let me give you some dates. We're going to have several. Right now they've just mentioned the fifth month. Some other dates will come up in a bit. But if we say fifth month—and it was typically on the tenth day—there was a commemoration of basically the destruction of Jerusalem. Let's say the burning of Jerusalem.

And so I'm going to say a commemoration, certainly not a celebration. The Jews aren't happy and having a party because Jerusalem was burned. They're commemorating it. So there was mourning and fasting.

And Jerusalem, of course, was destroyed back in 586 B.C. by the Babylonian army. And I would say, in their practice, this was the second greatest fast after Atonement, which God had ordained as a holy convocation, about which we understand great spiritual significance. They also kept a fast in the seventh month. So this one will come up a little bit later: seventh month and third day.

And that commemorated the assassination of a governor named Gedaliah. And Gedaliah is a character that we'll meet when we go through the book of Jeremiah. In essence, he'll be the governor that Nebuchadnezzar appoints to rule over the few poor, weak of the land that are left behind when Judah is taken captive.

Now, I'm going to add a couple of fasts to this. But I should comment: there is a question because you might say, while they're having a fast on the third day of the seventh month, they're going to have a fast just a week later on the tenth day. Now, on the tenth day, God says no food, no water. There is some question of whether, on these days, it is what we would call a full fast, or whether it is some type of partial fast.

And I ask the question, and the answer is: I don't know. We could speculate either way, and maybe it wasn't the same for everyone. If you're an ultra-Orthodox, very serious Jew, maybe you absolutely fasted on all these occasions. Some other people might have said, “Well, I'll skip having a nice meal, and instead I'll have some Cheerios for dinner.”

Sorry, I say that because I love having cereal for dinner, and some people think that's weird. That aside, the question is, okay, we're having these fast days to commemorate the disaster that happened to Jerusalem and to Judah. So they're asking God, should we keep doing this?

Now, why would that even be a question? Well, the why is because Judah has been freed. They're back in Jerusalem. They're not exiles anymore—at least not forcibly. I say that because some chose to stay in Babylon. Most of the Jews didn't go back to Jerusalem. A large number stayed there because it's been 70 years. They built a good life there.

But still, it's not a disaster to mourn and commemorate if it's been undone. We're free. The temple is being built. So do we still have to do this? That's the question they have for God. And God will answer through Zechariah.

Okay, they have the question. Let's go to verse 5. Well, verse 4: “Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying ‘Say this to the people—and to the priests as well, because the priests didn't have an answer. “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?”’” (Zechariah 7:4-5).

It's like, was it really for Me? Or, you know, verse 6: “When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?” (Zechariah 7:6).

God seems to be saying, “Look, I've been watching you these seventy years,” and the implication is that you've been fasting more to make an appearance, to follow a ritual, than to draw close to Me. He's saying you have the appearance of religion without the substance.

And although I'm not going to turn to a lot of the other scriptures, we'll see in the Old Testament that God says, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). He wants that, not just the outer appearance.

And that's not to say that fasting is bad. Fasting is good. If they had read the instructions that God inspired Isaiah to write in Isaiah 58—which I think gives us the spirit of the law for fasting—then maybe God would have been more pleased.

So let's go on in verse 7. “Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous?” (Zechariah 7:7).

Basically, before the Babylonian conquest, God had sent prophets.

Now you see the term “former prophets,” and you might be thinking, we have a class here at ABC called Former Prophets, and it's referring to a division that the Jews have for the Scriptures. I don't think God is referring to our class, or even necessarily to that division. In this case, it really means the earlier prophets, the prophets that came before the Babylonian conquest. And we know some of their names—names like Amos and Joel and Isaiah and Jeremiah.

So God is saying, “You should have listened to them. You should have obeyed. And then things would have been good.”

So starting in verse 8, God is going to start emphasizing what He wants more than He wants any type of fasting or show of religion.

Verse 9: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother’” (Zechariah 7:9-10).

That's what God wants. And again, more than sacrifice—even more than fasting.

I can't help but compare this to Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

And it's nice to realize this is there, especially in the Old Testament. We relate Micah 6:8 to Matthew 23:23: “The weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23).

One of the points I like to make is that God was always more interested in substance than He was in the show. He gave Israel the ritual sacrificial system. He wanted them to do that. But He wanted them to have this in their heart: true justice, mercy, and compassion.

So that's what God always wanted.

But in verses 11-14, He says, “They refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear” (Zechariah 7:11).

You know, “La la la la la,” while God is telling them what they should do.

“Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets” (Zechariah 7:12).

So it's written in the law that God gave them through Moses. The prophets came and gave them this message. We see the record all through the Bible. Israel, although sometimes they might have been on track, for the most part didn't obey.

As an aside, I'll just point out that it's a little intriguing to me that we see basically the Law and the Prophets, which are referred to as two major divisions of the Old Testament. You know, we also have the Writings, but the Law and the Prophets are where God gives instruction for how to live.

Verse 13: “Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen” (Zechariah 7:13).

So we could say, in response to Israel not obeying the Law or the Prophets, judgment came.

So verse 14: “But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known” (Zechariah 7:14).

They were conquered by foreign nations and went into captivity. The Promised Land was left desolate. And it says at the end of verse 14, “Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate” (Zechariah 7:14).

Interestingly, although some people were moved into the northern part of Israel after the Assyrians took them out—and that's how they later had the Samaritan peoples—we don't see it described that this happened down in Judah.

You know, I'm getting my maps confused. Not confused, but...

So some other peoples were brought into the area that had been the northern kingdom of Israel. Judah was left mostly desolate. It doesn't say that the Babylonians moved other peoples in.

And I'm going to speculate: perhaps God wanted it left empty because in seventy years the Jews were going to be allowed to go back. And at least some of them would go back, and we'd have a Jewish nation for God to send the Messiah to when the time came.

So we've got that coming, and we move into chapter 8.

As I said, we've seen that they come and ask God this question about fasting on these days, and God calls them on the carpet. “You weren't doing that for Me in the first place.” You didn't listen—speaking to them as a nation.

Now He's going to turn to the good news, though.

So we could consider chapter 8 to be directly attached. And part of the way we know that is in chapter 8 and verse 18, God addresses these questions again, and He mentions two other fast days.

So it seems this is still part of God's response to the question. He's called them out. He's shown how they got punished because they deserved it. But now God is going to show that He still loves them. He's going to give them blessings.

So, yeah, chapter 8 begins, “Again the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying” (Zechariah 8:1), leading some people to say, was there some gap? Or is it just God telling Zechariah, “Now tell them this. Add this to the message”? Well, either way:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I am zealous for Zion with great zeal; with great fervor I am zealous for her’” (Zechariah 8:2).

Meaning, God cares. You know, even if He's angry at times—and has been—that's not the same as indifference. God never seems to be indifferent toward Israel or Judah. And He never is toward us in His Church.

So He's zealous. And He says in verse 3, “I will return to Zion, and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem” (Zechariah 8:3).

You know, Zion can refer to that physical restoration as Jerusalem does, but it reminds us also that Zion in prophecy is fairly often a symbol of the Church.

Does God dwell in the Church? Yeah. Think of “Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). That's Paul writing. I do believe He dwells in me through the Holy Spirit too, but Paul is the one who wrote that in the Bible. And I believe God dwells in you through the Holy Spirit.

So, dwelling in Zion.

“Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, the Mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain” (Zechariah 8:3).

That's quite a bit different from the land made desolate that we saw at the end of chapter 7.

Okay, God is going to be with them.

And dwelling with them could even be a reference to what's called the Shekinah glory. Although that might make you think, wait a minute—we've read our Bibles. We know that the Shekinah glory came into the temple that Solomon built, and the priests had to get out. But this new temple that Zerubbabel is having built—there's no record of the Shekinah glory coming in.

But there is record of Jesus Christ coming in—God in person in that way. So I think that fulfills what we see here.

So the Mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain.

And in verses 4 and 5, it seems that God turns ahead to a picture of the Millennium, when He fully dwells with the people.

This is one of these wonderful scriptures I love when ministers quote it as part of a sermon at the Feast of Tabernacles, because it's this great picture:

“Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with his staff in his hand because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:4-5).

We've got young and old. It's a picture of peace and happiness. It's safe to play in the streets.

You've got to watch out for cars, but...

Now, we don't know if they'll have cars then. I think I grew up playing in the streets, but it wasn't as safe as it will be in Jerusalem, I'm pretty sure.

This might also indicate—well, it tells us for certain—that in the Millennium there will be physical people. So some people will survive the great plagues and live into the Millennium. And it seems that they'll have children—boys and girls playing in the streets. Families will be formed and continue during this thousand-year period.

And it's going to be what God wanted.

So I'll move on, because I could say more, but I'll just... I would like to say wax eloquent, but it might be the opposite of eloquent.

But it would be heartfelt.

Let's go on to verse 6. “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘If it is marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, will it also be marvelous in My eyes?’ says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 8:6).

I find that interesting because God gave them this fabulous prophecy, and it's like, “Yeah, doesn't that sound incredible?”

You know, it's hard to believe, but you can believe it. God says, “I believe it.” So the things that might make us stagger with unbelief—God's cool with it. I mean, He's got the power. He believes it. He makes it happen.

Okay, verse 7 still seems to be talking about Israel and the Millennium, and probably a reference to what we call the second Exodus, bringing the descendants of Israel that survive into the Millennium to the Promised Land for God's purpose.

He says, “Behold, I will save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west” (Zechariah 8:7).

So east and west—other translations might say “east country” and “west country”—but some look at the original Hebrew and say, “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” And that's partly poetic. From sunrise to sunset means from one end of the earth to the other.

And I love that. “I'm going to bring My people from one end of the earth to the other.”

“I will bring them back, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be My people and I will be their God, in truth and righteousness” (Zechariah 8:8).

“They shall be My people and I will be their God.” It reminds me of when God had Moses propose a covenant with the children of Israel after He brought them out of Egypt. So Moses was to go tell them, “I want you to be My special people, and I'll be your God.” But they broke that covenant.

And I thought of that because the previous chapter, Zechariah 7, is where God says, “Look, you didn't listen to My law and you didn't heed the prophets, so I scattered you and you became desolate.”

But it's going to be different now. The punishment's over. Now it's going to be: “You're going to be My people.” We're going to establish the relationship—let me say that slowly enough so we can say it—establish the relationship that God wanted from the start with Israel.

And I don't want to say God tried it and it failed. What I think happened is that God showed that humans, without His Holy Spirit, cannot succeed at having that relationship. And Israel is a terrific example. He gave them every advantage except the Holy Spirit.

Then after that demonstration, He starts calling people into His Church. And who does He call? The not many wise. The weak and the base. The people you would think would have no chance of success become a spiritual nation.

But “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

With God's Holy Spirit, it can be done. And so I like to make that lesson over and over again because I think God is making that lesson.

Anyways, He tells them all this, and now we move forward in verse 9. And He says, “Let your hands be strong, you who have been hearing in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets” (Zechariah 8:9).

And by the way, this section all the way from verses 9-15 is largely repeating what we saw earlier in the book of Haggai.

He's saying things hadn't been so good before they started building the temple, as it says in verse 9.

And verse 10 says, “For before these days” Which days? “These days now that you are building the temple and worshipping Me. But before that, there was no peace, no hire. People were at odds with each other.” (Zechariah 8:10).

Things weren't good. But God says now, verse 11: “But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days” (Zechariah 8:11).

I'm not going to treat you guys like that anymore.

“For the seed shall be prosperous, the vine shall give its fruit, the ground shall give her increase” (Zechariah 8:12).

Now good times are coming. There's going to be enough food. Your crops will grow. God is saying, “I'm going to bless you.”

In verse 13: “And it shall come to pass that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing” (Zechariah 8:13).

By the way, it's interesting because right now He's dealing with Judah—the guys living down in the land where it's purple.

Israel went into captivity by the Assyrians more than 200 years earlier, and they didn't come back. So when He says, “O house of Judah and house of Israel,” we could question, you know, is it referring ahead to the Millennium?

I think possibly and likely. Israel was punished, but God is showing there will be a time when the promises to Abraham will be restored to Israel. That's something I don't want to explore thoroughly here, but that's our understanding in God's Church—that Israel would be punished, the special blessings God gave them because of the covenant would be withdrawn, and the Assyrians could conquer them.

But God gives an indication all the way back in the law of Moses that after a certain period of time there would be a restoration, whether the Israelites knew that God was doing that or not. And it's getting into a subject that I don't think pertains as much here as I might try to make it. So I'm not going to try to make it.

Let's go on in verse 14, though. It says, “For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Just as I determined to punish you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath’” (Zechariah 8:14).

Verse 15: “So again in these days” As I said, after they come back, after they start worshipping and building the temple, “I'm determined to do good to Jerusalem and Judah. Do not fear.” (Zechariah 8:15)

Okay, I'm doing good. Don't fear. But He goes on in the next verse to say, “Do these things.”

“These are the things you shall do: Speak each man the truth to his neighbor” (Zechariah 8:16).

Okay, be honest.

“Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace” (Zechariah 8:16).

Now, what does it mean “in your gates”? Not how you get in and out of your backyard the way it is here. I'll just remind you: the gate of the city is not just an entrance. It's like the city hall. It's where the courts would meet. It is where judgment would be given. So this phrase would have made perfect sense in the time Zechariah said it. Not as much to us unless we stop and explain that. But give judgment for truth, justice, and peace.

“Let none of you think evil in your heart against your neighbor; and do not love a false oath. For all these are things that I hate,” says the Lord (Zechariah 8:17).

It reminds me that in Proverbs, God gives a list of things that He hates. And if there's something God hates, we should probably keep it far from us. But God says, “This is what I want you to do now that I am blessing you.” And basically, it's obedience to the moral law. “I want you to be good people.” That's why I want to emphasize that.

He's never saying, “Don't do the ritual sacrifices.” He's never going to say, “Don't fast.” But the preference, the highest priority, was always this: “Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace” (Zechariah 8:16).

As I said, the weightier matters of the law: mercy, justice, and... I'm taking it backwards now. Mercy, judgment, and faith. Peace. Yeah. Maybe you should do Micah: “To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

See, I've been speaking for years, and I still have my mind go blank when I'm trying to say something.

Okay, so God's going to bring things back to this question.

“Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “The fast of the fourth month...”’” (Zechariah 8:18-19).

Well, wait a minute. We don't have a fourth month, so we'd better get one. Fourth month.

And in the fourth month—and I don't have the day here—that's when they commemorated Jerusalem being broken into. Let's say breached. They got through the wall. The Babylonian soldiers finally got a break in the wall, and they could go in and start the utter destruction, which was a terrible thing.

He mentions the tenth month, and there was a commemoration then of the beginning of the Jerusalem siege. So there are these various days attached to the calamity that occurred for Jerusalem. So they had a question about one, and God brings up all of them.

And yeah, let's continue in verse 19. He mentions these fasts of the fourth month, fifth month, seventh month, and tenth month. “They shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah” (Zechariah 8:19).

In other words, the disaster that was being commemorated is past. God is now blessing the people. So turn these days into commemorations of good.

Yes, flower?

[Flower] What is that?

[Dunkle] I'm sorry. It's the beginning of the Jerusalem siege.

Now that you pointed it out, that's pretty illegible. So it's supposed to be “beg.” abbreviated—beginning of Jerusalem siege. This is why I type things I hand out to people. Okay, but God is saying they're going to be turned into cheerful feasts.

Now, one of the things I want to say is that there's a pretty good answer for that time. But there would be a time ahead, quite a few years later, when Roman armies would besiege Jerusalem and once again destroy it. And the Jews would have a question again. It's not in the Bible, but: what do we do now? Are these days of cheer and gladness, or are they days of fasting?

And so, in general, in the Jewish community—at least among the very Orthodox—the tradition has been that when times are good, crops are good, we're not being persecuted by the government, we can mark these days in happy ways. When times are terrible, then we do have them as days of mourning and commemoration.

And I believe there are some groups that have marked them as commemorations for tragedy ever since the destruction in 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. But that wasn't God's main point.

The main point was: okay, you were punished earlier because you didn't heed the law and the prophets. You were punished, but God says, “Now I'm turning and doing you good. I'm bringing blessings. So celebrate and enjoy it.”

And we see in the next verse, starting in verse 20, what seems to be a millennial picture. Maybe in some cases it happened in that era, but we look to the future where it says:

“Peoples shall yet come, inhabitants of many cities; the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us continue to go and pray before the Lord, and seek the Lord of hosts. I myself will go also’” (Zechariah 8:20-21).

This seems to picture a time—think of that hymn in our hymnal, “Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord; we’ll all praise His name.” I mean, that's what we're picturing here. People from all these different nations.

It's kind of dramatic, and I've read that in the Hebrew it's more significant that it switches from plural to singular. You know, in verse 21 it was, “Let us continue and go,” and then it says, “I myself.”

So each individual, it seems, is going to be convinced in his own mind, not just going along for peer pressure, but really believing this. And that's a powerful, good thing. Really, it reflects what we want to have. We say you have to be called by the Father to come to Christ, and that's as an individual.

And I like to tell young people in the Church, you know, the Apostle Paul says your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. We believe God does individually call the children of those He calls. That's you. That's me. I'm not a child anymore, but I was at one time, and I got to be called because members of my family were called.

And I didn't finish the verse, but it goes: “Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord” (Zechariah 8:22).

Verse 23 says: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you”’” (Zechariah 8:23).

Some translations say “the hem” or “the edge” of his garment. Hey, listen, listen—“Let us go with you. We've heard that God is with you.”

We could say the Jewish people, but maybe we could extrapolate to say that when God's Kingdom is being established, those who are not yet converted will recognize those who are and know they're onto something.

“God is with you. Let me go with you. I want to learn this too. This is where the blessings are. This is obviously the way to live.”

Makes me wonder—any one of us, some of you might have had people you know who aren't in the Church who are curious because you're different. They see it in the way you live and your attitude and maybe blessings in your life.

Now, unless God does call them, they might not go much further, but sometimes they get this idea: “God is with you.” You know, whether or not they understand it.

I'm going to pause and take a sip of water because this concludes that two-chapter prophetic utterance. We've got time left to begin chapter 9 of Zechariah. I want to make the point that chapters 1 through 8 are the first part of Zechariah. Chapters 9 through 14 make up the second part, and it's written in a fairly different writing style.

Of course, most of the first chapters had this imagery of him seeing these visions with all this symbolism and such. And then we had this special message.

A lot of modern scholars who are Bible critics raise the question—and even believe—that there were actually two different writers for what we know as Zechariah. So they would say there was a writer who wrote chapters 1 through 8, and an entirely different person wrote chapters 9 through 14.

I don't think that's correct. And the Church has never believed that. All of the oldest Jewish manuscripts see the whole book together. It was preserved as one unit. We have no reason to doubt that Zechariah was the author.

But we do acknowledge the different writing style and perhaps a somewhat different purpose. This might have been written a number of years later. We don't—you know—well, notice in chapter 9 you don't see, “In such-and-such year of whatever.” So he doesn't give us the date, so we don't know for sure when it was written.

But here I'll remind you of something I think I mentioned in this class before. I could find some things I wrote back when I was in my teens and twenties, and if you compared them to stuff I write today, the style is a fair bit different.

It doesn't mean it was written by someone else. But, you know, I'm a bit different than I was. That could easily be true for Zechariah. You know, Zechariah maybe in his forties and fifties is different from the one who's called a young man by an angel earlier on, maybe only in his twenties. So there are very reasonable explanations for the different style. But I believe it's God's inspired word and have every reason to think it was written by Zechariah.

Okay, so I will mention before we get into chapter 9, the first several verses—verses 1 through 8—seem to describe... let's go back to this map... they might pertain to the conquest of Alexander the Great. And we've talked about this in other classes, where the Persian Empire dominates this area for hundreds of years, but they at one point tried to invade Greece.

They failed, but it made the Greeks and the Macedonians rather angry. Alexander's father, Philip, was preparing an invasion. I wonder if I should go to… Yeah, over here. Preparing to invade and conquer the Persian Empire.

Philip died before he could do that, but Alexander does come in. He moves across, he fights a dramatic battle up in this area, and then he'll move down the Mediterranean coast into Egypt, then come back again to finish off Persia.

And I'm telling you this because the cities that are mentioned in these first verses of chapter 9 seem to follow the route that Alexander took. And so it's commonly believed that this is a prophecy of Alexander's conquest, and notably that he didn't conquer Jerusalem. Jerusalem becomes part of this Greek Hellenistic empire, but he doesn't besiege and conquer the city. We'll address that in a moment.

But for now, with that thought in mind, we can go into “The burden of the word of the Lord against the land of Hadrach and Damascus its resting place” (Zechariah 9:1).

Hadrach, we think, was a city on the Orontes River. And I don't have the Orontes marked on this map, but I'll be like a weatherman and go, “It's this area.” But it is about there, and if we had a map showing it, we could document it better.

So he comes there, and it says, “For the eyes of men and all the tribes of Israel are on the Lord” (Zechariah 9:1).

If that is the context, we could say there is this Greek Macedonian army that's defeating everyone before them, and probably not only the Israelites but others are watching what's going on here.

Some have speculated, because it says “all the tribes,” we know most of the tribes were taken by Assyria and are clear over here, but are they still paying attention along with the Jews? You know, what's going to happen here? It doesn't address it further than that. It goes back to the progression.

“Also against Hamath, which borders on it, and against Tyre and Sidon” (Zechariah 9:2).

We're working our way down the coast. Which reminds me of something I've seen in history. Some people were skeptical of Alexander's ability to conquer these coastal cities because they thought, “You have to have a navy.” And he didn't really set out with a powerful navy, but what he said is, “I'm going to conquer the sea from the land.” And he besieged and conquered these cities. He did exactly what he said. He was able to control the Mediterranean by taking these seaports.

And it mentions Tyre in verse 3: “For Tyre built herself a tower, heaped up silver like the dust, and gold like the mire of the streets” (Zechariah 9:3).

“Behold, the Lord will cast her out; He will destroy her power in the sea,” (Zechariah 9:4).

And Tyre in particular—well, let me mention—this prophecy is described more in depth in Ezekiel chapters 26, 27, and 28.

I won't go into great detail here, but we know that Nebuchadnezzar tried to conquer Tyre. So the Babylonians tried, and they besieged the city and conquered what was on the mainland, but the people of Tyre moved out onto an island and just kept on going.

Later, Alexander said, “There's water between us,” and he famously took the ruins and rubble and built a causeway. So he turned that island into a peninsula, brought his army across, and did conquer it. And that would be prophesied by Ezekiel hundreds of years before it actually happened.

Zechariah doesn't give the detail that Ezekiel does, but it seems to also be prophesying this well in advance. Okay, Alexander the Great is going to take out Tyre. He's not going to have the same problems that Nebuchadnezzar did.

It goes on to list several of the Philistine cities:

“Ashkelon shall see it and fear; Gaza also shall be very sorrowful; and Ekron, for He dried up her expectation. The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited” (Zechariah 9:5).

And by the way, the Philistine cities are by the coast. Alexander conquers them as well. Most of the people of Gaza were killed. And I'm not talking about modern Gaza, where a lot of people have been killed in recent times. It's right there along the coast, not only accessible to the coast but also on a major trading road. So the Philistine areas are places where battles and conflict happen.

I wanted to point out—yeah—“A mixed race shall settle in Ashdod” (Zechariah 9:6).

And this fits with history, where indications are that most of the population was removed and replaced by a mixture of peoples, not all Philistines.

You know, “I will cut off the pride of the Philistines” (Zechariah 9:6), it says at the end of verse 6.

And verse 7 says, “I will take away the blood from his mouth, and the abominations from between his teeth” (Zechariah 9:7).

This is thought by some to be prophesying a future conversion, or at least forcing the Philistines to give up some of their pagan practices that included eating blood and meat from sacrifices that God would not allow in the sacrificial system He gave. So that seems to be referencing that.

Going to the end of verse 7: “He who remains, even he shall be for our God, and shall be like a leader in Judah, and Ekron like a Jebusite” (Zechariah 9:7).

Okay, Ekron's going to be like a Jebusite. What do we know about the Jebusites? The name is familiar. It's a biblical name.

Well, it's worth mentioning that at one point the city we know as Jerusalem was called Jebus, and it was inhabited by Jebusites. In, I believe, 2 Samuel, we see the story of King David bringing his army there because he wanted to make that his capital city. And they get up through the water shaft, and they're able to conquer the city.

Many of the Jebusites were killed, so some would say “like a Jebusite” means destroyed by the invading Israelites. But not all of the Jebusites were killed. And there's one in particular that tells us there might be another interpretation.

A fellow by the name of Ornan the Jebusite. I won't turn there, but this story is also in 2 Samuel. When David was moved—and it indicates he was inspired by Satan—to do a census, he sent his chief commander Joab to number the children of Israel.

“I want to know how many fighting men we have.”

And later God would punish him. Matter of fact, He sent a prophet to say, “Choose your punishment.” You know, you've got three options. And David says, “Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14).

So it seems the third punishment was three days of plague. Okay, you probably remember that story. And near the end, God relents before it's fully carried out. So there's an angel with a sword coming toward Jerusalem, and it stops near the threshing floor of a man named Ornan, who's a Jebusite.

David comes—he understands he needs to go and offer sacrifice—so he buys that threshing floor from Ornan. And Ornan offers to give it to him and offers to provide the sacrifice. The point I want to make in this is that it seems at least some Jebusites integrated into Israel and adopted the true religion.

Ornan seems to want to worship God the same as David. So maybe saying “Ekron like a Jebusite” means some of the Philistines will likewise adopt the true religion and integrate with Israel. Excuse me.

And again, underline the word “maybe” if you're writing that, because you could also look at it and say, well, most of the Jebusites, when the city was conquered, were either put to death or enslaved.

So it could be either way. But it does underline the fact that God says eventually all people will worship Him, or they won't exist. People will do things God's way the way He called, they'll convert, or they'll have the option of choosing the lake of fire.

I hate to take it that far, but my belief at least is that the vast majority of mankind will be like Ornan the Jebusite and say, “Yeah, I want to worship the true God.” You know, “I don't want to go in the lake of fire.”

Let's get back to the story. Sorry, I varied off getting into the story. But in verse 8, this seems to be, again, God speaking in the first person:

“I will camp around My house because of the army, because of him who passes by and him who returns” (Zechariah 9:8).

So God is going to protect, we would say, Jerusalem, where the temple was. “Because of him who passes by and him who returns” again seems to apply to Alexander the Great. As I said, he fights the Persians, he moves down along the coast—he passes by.

He never goes into the interior to face Jerusalem. Instead, he goes to Egypt. And he famously goes to visit an oracle, and he decides that he's descended from the pharaohs and, you know, that he's a god. None of that's true. But he comes back. He'll come back, but he still won't attack Jerusalem.

The Bible doesn't tell us all of what happened, but there are legends. One says the high priest, a fellow named Jaddua, went out and met Alexander and interceded. And one version of the story says Alexander saw him wearing the garments of the high priest, which were very distinctive.

You know, in the Pentateuch God told Moses to make these garments “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2).

And Alexander sees him and says, “I had a dream last night of somebody wearing this outfit, and I knew that I had to protect him and treat him kindly.” These aren't the exact words. I don't remember the exact wording, but it seems that God intervened and Jerusalem was protected.

So the bottom line here, though, is that because of his army, “he passes by and returns” (Zechariah 9:8), but Jerusalem is spared from the destruction that Alexander brings to other cities.

Now, the last part of verse 8, though, says, “No more shall an oppressor pass through them” (Zechariah 9:8).

It's worth wondering, is that jumping to an end-time prophecy? Because, you know, Alexander didn't oppress and destroy Jerusalem, but “no more”—if we take that in absolute terms—it would mean no Romans will ever oppress and destroy Jerusalem. And we know that's not true. The Romans destroyed the city and destroyed the temple. So if it's meant in the extreme, it's a millennial prophecy of when that time is totally past.

It matches a prophecy in Isaiah. Isaiah 60 and verse 18 includes the phrase, “Violence shall no longer be heard in your land” (Isaiah 60:18).

No more violence in your land. That's prophesied for Jerusalem. That's Isaiah 60:18. Not test material, but it's worth knowing it's there. Okay, we have a switch, though, in what we're addressing. So far, what we've seen seems to fit with a prophecy of the invasion by the Greeks. You know, Daniel described it as the goat who came furiously and attacked the ram with two horns. This is in Daniel chapter 8, I believe.

This seems to be an echo or a parallel of that. In verse 9, we're going to switch from that imminent Greek conqueror or Greek conquest to a prophecy of the coming Messiah. So it's a prophecy that we want to pay enough attention to that, since we're out of time, we'll deal with it next time for this class.

So I don't like to break in the middle of a chapter, but it's necessary this time. So we'll pick up with Zechariah 9:9 when next we do Minor Prophets.