CHAPTER 8

TOWER OF POWER

The Messiah in Zechariah

Part II
Chapters 11-14
 
 

As we move now to the last four chapters of Zechariah, there is a sense of the sheer power of the Tower which is Christ, whose Spirit inspired the prophets of old, giving them vision. We learn that as they quested for understanding of the time, He was showing them that it was not for them, but for another generation that they wrote concerning the sufferings and subsequent glory of the Christ; and indeed, it has been to the whole Christian generation (cf. Psalm 22:31), far down the chute of time, that these things would apply (I Peter 1:9-11),

What then is to be found in these particular chapters of Zechariah ? ...

• Fascinating detail;

 

• the luxury of ironical depiction of eroded religion,
• so great is the knowledge, insight and sovereign overview of the morally minute acts of man,
• vast coverage,
• coming to precise elements at will;

 

• coverage over millenia,
• challenge to the heart,
• instruction to the mind,
• testimony to the soul -

 

• overview and even interview:

it is all there.

It is a privilege of a high order to look at this topic in these closing chapters of Zechariah, so please join me in the delight. It has the liberty of the vast waves of the sea, the stability of the rocks on which they hurl themselves, the reality of the oceanic scene as one regards it, and the spray of refreshment upon the face, naked to the heavens, looking on what He has done ... but in this case, as written BEFORE He did it!
 
 

THE DIVINE CONCENTRATE OF THE EVANGEL,
 THE CORE OF THE BEAUTY

In Zechariah 11, we come to a new vignette, in one sense, for it is a sudden transfer from future blessing (Zech. 10:11-12) to the intervening agony. In another aspect, it is an intensification of what was shown in Zech. 10:2-3, before the predicted intervention with divine shepherding skills, to protect and deliver the people of the Lord.

 To what, then, do we soon listen in Ch. 11 ? It is to this.

"There is a sound of wailing shepherds," we read (11:3). "Their glory is in ruins!"

Indeed, "the pride of Jordan is in ruins."

With tragic disgust, the divine word indicates that to Israel comes a period of non-protection from enemies. The leaders in the sometimes tight interweave of the political and the religious, in the theocracy, are corrupt. Despite the wickedness, perhaps of the pre-Maccabaean leaders such as Jason, Menelaus and Lysimachus, seen as self-serving (11:8), the Lord however continued His own 'feeding' (11:7). Nevertheless, the loathing of the Lord for what is not pious and loving, merciful and faithful is here fully expressed, as it was in Matthew 23 and Luke 11:53ff..

Dismissing the bonds of sustenance, breaking the Staffs, the shepherd implements, of Beauty and Bonds, He breaks the broken, and does not heal the breaches. The full force of the covenantal sanctions now come into play. We recall at such a moment the momentous words of Jeremiah in 5:31: "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their means, and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end of it ?" It seems a pity here that for some unknown reason the NKJV omits "of it". There is part of the incomparable flavour of the matter. It is not merely a reference to coming to an end of yourself at the end of your foolish way. It is far more. It is coming to an end of a way which has no continuance: it faces a precipice, and the momentum is ready to carry the people over it.

This syndrome is by no means finished!

But what has led to such an extraordinary finality ? Immediately after announcing this breach (v. 11), the Lord  evidently images a virtual conversation. It is as if He is addressing some of these intriguing and corrupt leaders, as the passage of history comes to its most pivotal phase. "If," He is depicted as saying (in effect, in spirit, to the point),

"...'if it seems agreeable to you, give Me My wages; and if not, refrain.'

"So they weighed out for My wages, thirty pieces of silver."
 

• Of whom does the prophet speak ? WHO is to be paid these appalling wages ? Let us see not merely by observing that this is the blow that breaks the covenant, making its negative sanctions automatic and complete, but by seeing what next follows. The imaged conversation continues:

 

• "Then the LORD said to me, 'Throw it to the potter - that princely price they set on Me.
  So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter. Then I cut My other staff, Bonds, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. And the LORD said to me, 'Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd.' "

It proceeds to describe a hand-picked, dynamic disciple of evil, for the new 'shepherd' in the midst of their desolatory decadence is now revealed to our eyes (11:15-16).

"Throw it to the potter" here has a double reference. First, it appears that "the potter", some meaningful, some famed, clear, topical or previously announced party is to be the recipient of the 'wages'.

Let us look then, first to the POTTER, and secondly to the WAGES in understanding the purport of this passage of the prophet's writings" Zechariah 12:13.
 

1) "Cast it to the potter!" Where might such a notable and indeed famous illustration be found in the word of God, especially not too far from the events of Zechariah ? It is in fact, in Jeremiah 18-19 that these considerations are aptly met. There is reference, first, to some nearby potter in Jerusalem, whose work in making a product, is related to the Lord's in making man or nation: his pottery creations are made comparable to the Lord's work on the heart and life of man whom He has made.

This is then followed by the taking of a pot from the hand of the potter, in presence of the elders, and breaking it in their sight: and this is presented, this practical imagery is wrought in the midst of a message on the coming breaking of Jerusalem.  "I will make this city desolate, and a hissing" - 19:8. It is hence a potent and evocative symbol: the potter, the pottery, the smashing.

As we shall see, the potter reference is moreover both in Jeremiah and in Zechariah used in similar ways, concerning successive events of a similar kind. While the latter is more crucial, the former gives the basis for its meaning. It is an escalating disaster, cumulative and catastrophic in the end of it. The first, we see, is the loss of the city (Jeremiah); the second is their loss of their King (Zechariah), and all that this implies! Savaging the Saviour is not a wise movement of the human spirit, popular though it be to this day, in the heart now, as in the hearth of the land, then (cf. Hebrews 10:29ff., II Peter 2:1ff.).

Before however this first tragic result is announced in Jeremiah 19, there is in the preceding chapter the appeal:

• "Behold, I am fashioning a disaster, and devising a plan against you. Return now every one form his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good" - 18:11.
  
  

The preceding text emphasises this, that God is ready to divert His anger, to anoint His people, to pardon, if only the people will turn from their evil. It is in Ch. 19 (as often in Jeremiah before this) that the essence of the evil is unfolded:

 

• "Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, which comes from the rock of the

field ? Will the cold flowing waters be forsake for strange waters ?
 

• Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to worthless idols, and they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, from the ancient paths, to walk in pathways and not on a highway, to make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished..." - 18:14-16.

 

Nor is this all. The apostrophe to Israel starts in Jer. 18:13: "Ask now among the Gentiles, who has heard of such things ? " It then itemises the above indictment!

Certainly this is a famous, a dramatic, an inescapable part of the recent heritage of the nation, flashing verbally, prophetically incisive and historically portentous, now by the time of Zechariah, wholly fulfilled!

The first result of our excavation, then,  is this. The casting to "the potter" means, from the parallel,  that there is a denial of the faith, of the LORD Himself which on other grounds in the Zechariah context, we have already noted to be the case. It is the denial of His own incarnate Person, the rejection of His amazing and oft-predicted coming to earth as the Messiah, using the line of David and the tribe of Judah for the human format (as in Isaiah 11). It is the denial of their King (cf. Zech. 9:9, 12:10).

This meaning in Jeremiah, and the contextual force in Zech. 11 are thus identical, confirmatory each of the other.

It appears that we should find a further intimation: that as Jeremiah (32) is given order from the LORD to buy a field, despite the imminent invasion of Jerusalem and Judah, one predicted to bring destruction, and indeed lodges the title deed of his purchased land in an earthen vessel, that this is an index to the fact that Jerusalem is to be restored to Israel, but ONLY AFTER DESTRUCTION. This of course is clearly depicted in Jeremiah in direct, literal terms, which is correlative attestation - as in Jeremiah 31:15ff., and indeed in Ezekiel, an adjoining prophet historically, dealing with parallel points very frequently, and with the same assurance (cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, SMR Appendix A).

This series of interlocking references thus produces the brilliantly subtle, but spiritually plain result, elsewhere depicted in so many ways.

Thus, the casting of the price of the Messiah to the potter, predicted in Zechariah 11, gains its necessary meaning from the Jeremiah incident, with the potter, linked through the purchase concept,  to Jeremiah's own buying of an apparently hopeless investment in a field, in a city, yes even in Jerusalem. This city,  by his own prophetic word about to be destroyed and invaded, evokes firstly, but not only,  the coming destruction of Jerusalem at the predicted epoch likewise, even that in which the covenant broken in the sale of the King, Himself as in Zech. 11:12-13, pierced (Zech. 12:10).

Exposed and vulnerable, they are lost: void of their covenanted king, they first endure the fruits of their exposure.

The Jeremiah reference is crucial testimony, because of this facet, to the fact that the purpose of casting it to the potter, in Zech. 11, is at once a redemptive payment (the land was in fact redeemed by the prophet) and a devastating attestation of the coming judgment. Indeed, in view of its historical and explanatory context, this verse in Zechariah MEANS casting it for the field, which is the only purchase for which a price is required in this Jeremiah context, associated with punitive destruction and eventual hope.

It is this which the potter case symbolises so expressly. Hence in Matthew 27:9-10, the primary force of the Jeremiah references is ground for the use of this name as source, since without it nothing to the point of purchase is explained in the case; but the Zechariah reference, though similar in much  to the citation, is not so in  the crucial point of the word 'field'.

In Matthew’s context,  it is merely ancillary in force. It is thus THROUGH Jeremiah that the here relevant point comes, even though it is also in Zechariah that the application is made.

Thus, as in Jeremiah, so in Matthew, the reference is to the payment for the field being made, whereas in Zechariah, there is a casting of the money. Without Jeremiah, the potter reference is left in mid-air; through him only does it gain meaning. In that meaning, there are thus two elements. In Zech. 11, the potter element evokes the destruction coming and the hope residual, as in Jeremiah, and the payment evokes the allied Jeremiah attestation, wrought in purchase of a field.
Without both of these aspects, there is no meaning to the rendering of money at all. With them, all is clear, and accounted for.

As in mathematics, so in literature where symbolism is involved, you have to search out the defining criteria, and then make application.

Matthew is stressing the payment aspect, Zechariah for his part,  having prophetically provided the amount and the sense of disgust in the casting. It is the payment however which is Matthew's concern, and it is terms of this allusion that he makes his reference.
In Sum, to the issue of Matthew, then: The prophecy in view for Matthew is hence attributed as coming through him who lists it, namely Jeremiah. If its detail is filled in by another who is not named by Matthew, its point is provided by the one cited. Were it named, then the point might be lost in the detail. It is moreover literally true that it came through Jeremiah, relative to the point at issue. He and he alone specified the point of the payment. Its further particularisation is not his topic here.

There is however more to be gained from this signal series of prophecies.
Indeed we shall soon see to what a magnificence of spiritual magnitude Matthew’s mode of citation leads us! (cf. Romans 11).  It is like a road of access to a highway.

Jeremiah 18:3-7, at the very outset of the episode with the potter, depicts the potter having a marred product, and then remaking it. Cannot the Lord do so with a marred Israel, comes the dramatic query! This, in the context of the chapter of Jeremiah, leads on to a spiritual appeal to the people, before the devastation proceeds. It appeared that they would insist on being broken, but God would insist on their being restored! So it was, and so their provocation proceeded "till there was no remedy" (II Chronicles 36:16).

Thus the potter is the expression both of disaster and hope, and the field is the expression of assurance and faith, trusting that to follow the devastation, is the  restoration. How would Jeremiah actually bring himself to PAY for a plot in a city about to be removed from Jewish control, a devastation about to ruin the very point of population, and at that, for some 70 years as predicted (Jeremiah 25)! However the Lord was as sure of the coming destruction as of the later  restoration. So in Zechariah, the use of potter and field not only evokes Jeremiah, but the joint illustration which each bring, of judgment followed by hope, of loss followed by redemption.

In parallel, in the very tragic enactment of these things  in the context of the Messiah,  there is also an implicit appeal, which has continued through the centuries, and to this day. It is judgment or salvation; the former certain, except for the latter. What is a series of challenges for a time, then becomes a certainty IN its time, the destruction of this world, the judgment of its unrepenting denizens and the restoration of a millenium earth, followed by the utter reconstruction, a new heavens and a new earth.

The parallel proceeds. As a few came with Ezra to rebuild, so a remnant only will go there for a city suitable, which has foundations, whose builder and founder is God!

But let us return to our immediate context in Zechariah. If in Ch. 11 we see these portents and predictions, in Ch. 12 we see the specialised repentance of  heart for many in Israel, at a season of desperate warfare and enormous pressure for that nation.

Soon, now in history, as then in prophetic sequence, it will be fulfilled in a restoration of heart and spirit to many of this straying people in their own land (Zech. 12:10), for

 "Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place -

Jerusalem" (12:6).

Many heeded the call to repent at that time of the Messiah the Prince on this earth, Jesus the Christ, so that whereas the city was lost, destroyed indeed, the souls were then won, even as thousands of Jewish people started the Christian Church as a populous body. Then the city as such rejected Christ to its devastation; but in the prediction of Zech. 12, the city is sustained, the people repent in a major thrust, and they look with mourning on what they - or their nation - had done.

In this, it is so spiritually important that there be a vast repentance, severing spiritually from the former folly of the city, of Jerusalem, in killing its king. It is here that not devastation and destruction, but deliverance and the glory of the Lord comes, even in Person, even to Jerusalem, even the Mount of Olives, even to rule (Zech. 14:5, Psalm 2), as formerly to suffer redemptively for all who are to come.

If then even in the very teeth of judgment impending on the city, many came in Christ's day, there is to be another ending. As the Age comes to its conclusion, now in the midst of martial trials and invasive thrust, many more will come as predicted, and the Lord will then in His time, come in glory, to rule in the sustained city: and in what fiery contrast is it now to the first, the day of its visitation (Luke 19:42ff.); for now, the scene figured is of repentance. This end is glorious; this scene is majestic. Here is the return of the Lord, once smitten, to rule. That is the message of Zech. 12 and 14.

Let us however look back to Zechariah's day, and see the scope of his prophecy!

The rejection of the Messiah to come, is predicted, even as the Jews of that day were rebuilding the ruined city; predicted likewise were the assaults on the Jerusalem to be at the end of the Age (i.e. just before the Lord comes back, in the flesh, as in Zech. 14:5, and Matthew 24 and Acts 1). The repentance for that rejection is predicted, and it is predicted to be NEAR the END of the AGE of the Messiah.

It is all predicted, all being fulfilled, little being now left of this profound case study in mercy and judgment, magnificent offer and miserable rejection. The rest of the world has imitated Israel in much; but the mercy continues to one, to all, for the time being, as it continued for a little in the days of Jeremiah. Then, for the city, the end came.  Then, in our day, for the world, the end comes (as in Matthew 24:12,22 cf. Romans 11).

As Jerusalem was lost then, so when the end comes, will the world face its own ruin, which is daily drawing closer, like a torpedo on target for a ship, leaving an impressive wake of signalled events as predicted (Cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). This time, in the end, it will be the setting of the whole world which is lost, as Jerusalem was then; and just as Jerusalem was nevertheless then restored, after its 70 years, so will be the world in the form of a new heavens and a new earth, when the old is very certainly, very physically destroyed (II Peter 3, Isaiah 51:6).

But the world ? What is that ? and Jerusalem, it is a significant city within it. Soon, both will be gone, and a new heavens and earth, fitting for the Messiah, His munificent divine gift to the people of God from all races, will proceed (II Peter 3). It seemed odd for Jeremiah to buy his field then, in view of the doom; but it was not only symbolic, but justified on their restoration. So to many, it seems odd to receive the redemption in Christ (though it is HE who has paid, yet they jib at the realisation of being purchased cf. I Corinthians 6:20). It is however both necessary and wise. It is HE who continues, and HIS will which is done, and HIS creation which is restored, and in HIM is mercy and peace, and HIS is the glory and the praise. His is truth, mercy and grace.

Let us now, having noted this end of the matter, return to our immediate occupation in Zechariah 11-12. Just as the death of the Messiah was ... wrought,  so His resurrection was indeed the 'first fruits', the expression of the mercies to follow. Thus, in perfect harmony, in Zech. 14, after all the treachery and the piercing which was the mode of His death, we find Him vitally exuberant in strength, His very feet coming to rest on Mt Zion, the triumph imparting to the follies of the past, the sombre realities of just and due sovereignty, which however, while fatal to the enduringly wicked, is blessed and benignant to all who seek Him (Isaiah 11, Psalm 72, Psalm 2).

Thus hope shines in the midst of horror, and the field aspect in the prophecy in emphatic depiction in Matthew, is likewise an annunciation of expectation when the horrors are past; for did not the Lord restore Jerusalem, and will He not have pity on His people again; and indeed, even restore Jerusalem again (Luke 21:24) in its time. The detail of THAT saga is intriguing and delightful - see SMR Appendix A, and The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3 and Ch. 3 *1.

Yes, and in the interim, what a burdensome stone this city of destruction has become. As it was predicted to be ready for destruction in Christ’s day (Luke 19:42ff.), so is the very antipodes of expectation, as His return draws near. For now,  it is predicted to become not a nonentity, but an intolerable trouble to the harassing Gentiles! This is the very opposite of the days of Christ, and the result is the very opposite, not His departure to glory, but His return from it!

Glory has the last word in God’s works, for He IS glorious. If He is left for ever, then this is not glorious, but with Him, the end is glory. And who insists on severance ? who would have His loss, as if this were gain, to lose what is the source and the splendour, the truth and the righteousness, in order not to repent, and to enshrine oneself in the coffin of carnality, of mind, spirit, body, self-assured, or victimised by folly.

Nothing is hopeless when the Lord is there, however; and it is precisely the mood, the psychological and indeed spiritual mode of hopelessness which, being the enemy of faith, is the wolf at their throats, intolerable to God, lethal to themselves (Jeremiah 2:25).

• "There is no hope! " they said,
• "No, for I have loved aliens and after them I will go";

and again,

• "Yet you say, 'Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me.' Behold I will plead My case against you..."

(Jeremiah 2:35).

Who will remould what is perfect (cf. Isaiah 42:18-20) ... "who is blind as he who is perfect" ? And what perfection is this which aborts both itself and the facts.

It is however not uncommon: it was thus then, it is thus now. So the money is cast to the potter. The wages to stifle redemption add to the cause of conflagration and subtract from the provision of comfort.

Zechariah summarises and particularises. The base however is Jeremiah, from whom the issue arises, as source and signaller. The case is a profound parallel to the Gentile present, for  it is now they also who make a present of His presence, and setting at nought His presents, present themselves to themselves for their own world, which is passing now, as was Jerusalem then.

So much for the first of the aspects of "cast it to the potter". The second is far more important, though the former has implications which give it an importance of its own.
 

2)   "A Princely Price they set on Me!"

Second, it is clear in Zechariah's prophecy, that someone is going to treat the LORD in some exploit for which 'wages' might seem fitting, hence treat the Messiah, who alone could conceivably be in such a position, as a human amongst others (as in Zech. 6:12ff.), with a financial form of contempt. With a profound laser like beam of light in the darkness, it is made manifest that there is so vast a disparity between that for which 'wages' are to be paid, and the amount paid, that it is a sublime insult. Conceived in blindness, it is executed with folly and received by the Lord as a mountain of vileness lodged in an abyss of faithlessness so great that the one and the other are in consent with death. The covenant is broken (Zech. 11:10-11).

The 'wages', this financial format for betrayal, for derogation, that He might be despised and rejected of men to the uttermost (as in Isaiah 53:3), these constitute is as keen an edge as could conceivably have been placed on derogation of deity, a cachination of corruption, against His Person, His work and His witness. It is Majesty apprised by the market, blind with its greed, self-righteousness and indifference, ablaze with dark light, an horrendous inferno, like creeping lava.

Thus in Zech. 11:7-14, the sardonism reaches to irony, and the irony to wrath so carefully controlled that it is as an operation is in play, the words slicing through the obesity of dead hearts, lipo-suction at work with vehemence. The words are designed, it seems sure, to awaken if it were possible, the dead to what they do; and now of course, it is to what they have done. Perhaps some of this will be effective at that great predicted time when what they sold will be mourned, and what they pierced will be repented of (as in Zech. 12:10ff.).

National solidarity continues in the failure to recognise the Saviour, and it continues in the people theocratically committed to His reception (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). That the Gentiles mimic the action in the degradation of once great churches at this day, does not mitigate what was done, or minimise the need for repentance. To this Zechariah comes in the next Chapter, the twelfth.

But for what particular act is the Lord to be given these appalling wages, so presumptuous in concept, so spiritually illiterate in performance, so empty in mockery ? It is of course the work of the Good Shepherd, in contrast to that of the false ones, for is it not written in 11:7, "so I fed them", and has not Zechariah already shown us, as we saw in Ch. 7, in comparison with Ezekiel 34, as seen in Ch. 6, above (cf. Zech. 9:16-10:3), that this was to be!

This 'feeding' which incorporates all they really need, and hence the atonement, as in Zech. 3:9, reflected in 12:10, is nothing less than the output given, the effort made on the part of the Messiah, in bearing the sin, and coming as man, as 'the Branch' to do so, so vividly expressed in Zechariah 3:9, 6:12ff. and 13:1.

FOR THAT, the price is 30 pieces of silver ? It is like offering 2 cents for Manhattan Island, only infinitely worse: for that will God, but as to God, He remains (cf. Zech. 9:7); and that is imperfect, but His perfection is unsullied.

At once obvious is all the reticulation of ridicule in Zech. 11:10-15, noted above. At once, the ground for sudden, absolute severance of the covenant, is apparent.

• They have lost the blood cover since they are covered with blood, the very blood of the atonement which was despised (shown in 13:1), and which is nevertheless NECESSARY.

 

This does not remove God's unconditional commitment to the entire scope of prediction of Israel, since His work is something that He has said, and will do, as also noted in Ch. 6 above: but it does mean that there is no thread left of deliverance from sin, pardon by blood. They hung in their arrogance and sin, by a thread; that thread is now severed by the crucifixion, a robust act of rebellion, most adequate for the purpose! The ONLY blood now relevant (as in Isaiah 53, 66), is HIS OWN. It is this which has been contemptuously treated. And indeed, has He not been subjected to scheming political and religious cunning, the height of provocation and the depth of deviousness, to GET RID OF HIM.

Such scheming was apparent in priestly dealings at the end of the Maccabean period, and this continued till its outcome in intense and intensive corruption placed Christ on the gallows instead of the throne.

In what sense however, one may ask, are the 30 pieces, associated with His predicted betrayal (concerning which see Joyful Jottings 25, for the Old Testament prophecies outside the present one), or in what sense is this a wage ? for Him ... In fact, in tracing out the way in which this is fulfilled, we observe in the Gospels that Judas was the 'treasurer' for the disciples in the service of the Lord. He kept the bag and stole from it.

Thus when he took yet more funds relative to his 'group', a payment of 'goods' which included Jesus, while receiving his name and place from Him, there is a sense in which Judas is receiving more formal funds. The treasurer notes the increment in financial resources for his clan. Very good. In an audit, he might indicate that the special character of their leader led to this extra payment, on the part of those willing to pay for action relative to Him, so that it appears in the accounts as a financial credit.

Had not Christ then 'earned' this wage, and was He not paid for His performance, which included the Cross ? This, it is wages.

The satire is contained, and the more piercing for that very reason!

The result, an evil shepherd, is a form, if you want to preserve the irony, of 'congratulation' on their choice, focussing the fruit of their 'wisdom' ( Zech. 1112. cf. I Cor. 1:21-25).
 
 

THE ALPINE AZURE,
AND THE CELESTIAL MOVEMENT TO CONSUMMATION

The breach is open, the wound is sore. Israel, though already returned from her (relatively) mini-exile,  is to be sown among the peoples as in Zech. 10:8, Isaiah 11:11, in a dispersion from which she will after "many days" return (as in Ezekiel 36-37, Hosea 3:4). She will however in the end return to a New Covenant (as in Jeremiah 31:31, Ezekiel 16), and so, in due course come back, for cover and purification to be sprinkled not with blood as in the Old Covenant (Exodus 24:6-8), but with clean water (36:25). This is in preparation for and relation to the Messianic blessedness to come to the remnant (Isaiah 11), even to those for whom the sprinkling relates. This is ultimately spiritual, but nevertheless as a parallel to Exodus, and such passages, equipped with sacramental overtones fitting for baptism, when, post-Messiah, blood is no more applicable (as it was in Exodus 24:6ff.).

What is to occur when, still unworthy (as in Ezekiel 36:22), the people are brought back from so many lands, never more to roam (37:23ff.) ? Dismissed, they are back. Despoiled, they have been restored to their place. What now ? and what next ?

In Zechariah 12, in other words, we see the next stage after the ruin, the dispersion and the sanctions brought against Israel.

The vast perspective is introduced by a soaring ascription (Zech. 12:1):

"The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel.

"Thus says the LORD,

who stretches out the heavens,

lays the foundation of the earth,

and forms the spirit of man within him."

We are, therefore, quite evidently about to be presented with revelation for which that is a suitable introduction. It is rather like being shown telescopic pictures of distances realms of space, before undertaking a voyage to Venus. We are being prepared.

Now we see some of that unfading faithfulness by which the Lord both fulfils His word to Abraham (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4), and His vengeance on Israel's oppressors; for if Israel has sinned grievously, have its vindictive and heartless invaders, assailants and pogrom manufacturers, been saints ? or rather, often, more like devils themselves! The Gentile world is not given eternal credit for the persistent destruction of Israel, because the latter has so often fallen into such sins that its divinely ordered disciplines astonished the earth! If God disciplines, hyenas among men do not need to add to it! (cf. Obadiah 10-14, Ezekiel 35:5-10, Isaiah 37:21-29, Jeremiah 50:6-11). Often enough the Lord has warned transgressors who seek bargain basement rates for afflicting the nation whom He has afflicted for their sins; and at times, that warning has been incandescent. Nations have been judged in such terms, prominent in the litany of their errors.

No, not Israel alone has much to learn. On the contrary, when the Lord acts, it will be so that not only ISRAEL but also the NATIONS will learn, one and all, that it was the LORD who acted, both to remove them and to restore! (Ezekiel 36:23,38).

What then is this revelation to which Zech. 12:1 is the majestic introit ? We find, as we address this next chapter, the twelfth, that now Israel is once more in place, but not in peace!

The vileness of her violence against the Messiah, so gravely charged, and with such acuity, in Zech. 11, has not ceased to exist, nor has it been pardoned as yet, as this chapter commences. Instead, Israel is back according to promise, and in the midst of turmoil, Israel is now depicted on mission, one assuredly to end in massive conversion to the Messiah whom they rejected some millenia before, and so not on a Christian mission. But then! neither was Cyrus, who also at that time did not know the Lord, that king at whom we looked in some detail in Ch. 6 above (remember Isaiah 45:1-4, and esp. v.4 ?).

What then is the fresh development in Zechariah 12, following 11 ? What new tableau is presented to our fascinated eyes ?

It is this. Jerusalem, the city destroyed (as in Daniel 9:27), is now the city surrounded. It is not meekly submissive to its Gentile neighbours however, of whatever ilk they may be, Arab, of some other false prophet, seditiously pretending Christ, or whatever.

On the contrary, she is burdensome, like a heavy stone, an oppressive reality in the midst of the minds and might of her assailants. In fact, not merely is she to be a problem child to the world powers which want to dispose things, as seen in Zech. 12:2-4: she is "a cup of drunkenness" to them! This implies securely that her nature and place, her history and position, all, together with her endeavours and (as in Isaiah 66) sudden restoration, will alike grieve the godless, and upset the exponents of false prophecy. Who are these ? They are the sort noted with contempt by the LORD, in Isaiah 44:24-26, when observing the futility of their promises and premisses, in contrast to the reality of the Lord, who IS the truth, whose word bows to nothing and to none (cf. Isaiah 43:13).

Jerusalem now, when the Lord has satisfied His wrath and speaks to comfort, leading Israel back to the cross (cf. Jeremiah 31:18-22,31ff.). To try to take her, now, is therefore to court devastation (as of course happened to Nasser with his backer, the USSR, and others, in the 1967, 1973 wars to exterminate Israel). Clinton and Bush alike have not tamed her. Is she then 'easy' for diplomacy, dependent and so manipulable ? or is she a spike in the hand, a burden for the back of her disposers! Is Abdullah of Arabia to tell her the score ? is Madeleine Allbright to bring the branch ? Is Clinton to make plain the path ?

Why then is she not yet broken ? It is of the Lord. There will be yet more and more sophisticated efforts (as the comparison of 'little horn' mark I and 'little horn' mark II implies, expounded in Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 8); and an establishment is still to be expected in some little distance from the Mediterranean; but she will not be overrun (cf. Daniel 11:45).

Who are those specifically who are to suffer in this confrontation or shall we add, imbroglio, interview or concern with Israel ? "Those who would heave it away." Jerusalem is like a burdensome stone to them. Yet, we may ask, How would that be unless they tried to ... lift it in some way, in order to manipulate or to murder, to ruin or dispose of, or simply dispose!  It is, after all, to be 'heaved away', in effect,  if you suggest such delightfully liberal and sensitive destinies for it, as this: that it should be international (like an international Washington, not run by the USA - courtesy of the UN 1949), or should be halved (like a Sydney on each side of the bridge, one for Indonesia and one for Australia), or controlled (like London under France, or the UN) for some 'good' purpose.

It is all theft of what God has given to her (and in fact, of what both Britain and the post-war international body granted to her, the latter confirming the British act); and the main opponent is naturally the Lord. He has disciplined, not destroyed; He has exiled, only to restore.

EVEN IF "all the nations of the earth are gathered against it" (Zech. 12:3), still it will be formidable, and not like a worm for the beak of the early bird, so much as a wound for the arm of the slayer! (Zech. 12:3). Lie down or die down, say the sensitive nations, the exponents of new international relations! The Lord does not have it so. Just as the Lord was a stumblIng block to Israel through their unbelief (Isaiah 8:14), so is He to the 'international community' which for convenience would starve Israel of her destiny, throwing the spoils to the dogs to devour. If not, why then is there no peace for even the small part of the land she has been accorded, instead of the Palestine noted in the agreements; and why is she not recognised as terrorised with terrorists far more prolonged in their fanaticism, then those who have more recently attacked the US ? Does the US not then want to learn ?

There are two lessons available.

1) She can learn, as has been clearly pronounced, though in subtle terms, by Arab power, that there is something WRONG (in their view) with the way she is treating Israel (or rather WAS treating that country, by a measure of support for her afflictions, just as she has given a varying but real measure of support to Taiwan since the 1950's, in the face of her assailant from the mainland). The 'lesson', In other words, is this: Cool the help, reduce the aid, let 'events take their course' as many nations with oil wealth invest her premises and divest her of this and that, if not indeed of all life whatever, if they are able.

That is ONE potential lesson.

2) The other ? It is this. Deal justly with Israel, recognise terrorism, as Hilary Clinton rightly did in her recent visit to Israel, as terrorism; and add THAT terrorism to the list, if you have a list.

Which lesson is to be learned by the US in particular, and perhaps by other countries in some measure, also ? Earlier, in August of last year, on this site one expressed acute concern at the seeming lack of sensitivity and perception concerning the sufferings of Israel at the hands of religious insurgents, backing part of her population to take more of the slender land committed to her. Lack ? By whom ? At that time, by the US! Its superficial response to the plight of Israel, its young writhing in the arms of explosive personalities from the Arab world,  had reached a proportion which caused one to shudder with apprehension, as it were.

Would there be a response from the celestial site where it matters ? Concerned for the US, one expressed with no small vigour.

It would at least appear that there was such a response, as on September 11, 2001, though this is in no way to suggest that this was the ONLY ground for the development. It is in the same spirit of concern that one points out that any positive response now,  to the virtual blackmail to defile the interests of justice at the menacing tone of Tower destroyers, their friends or accomplices,  is not a wise move. God is not mocked, and in the case of Israel as the above quotations show, is not impressed with additions to her afflictions. It is unwise to join with those who so act. There is moreover the undiminished promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3ff., 15:27ff.).

But what of all these turmoils and embroilments, confusions and effusions, difficulties and troubles, seeming insolubles and irresolvables in and about Israel ? What in view of these empirical developments, of Zechariah 12:1-7 ? Nor should one omit the Jewish suffering as implied in Zech. 14:-12, and fulfilled in 1948, to the letter. One might be forgiven for thinking that all this was a NEWS SUMMARY, written yesterday. Perhaps some might even venture to read what happens next ? It can be seen in Zechariah 12:8-13:1 and in Zechariah 14:3ff., not surprising just after the events described in the preceding verses! That, it is so orderly, is it not!

That, it is the nature of prophecy, the very scoop of the universe, unparalleled, in simple fact, without equal, observationally, with no peer, empirically. The world goes on learning its modicum of science, and changes the word of yesterday, today; but the word of God goes on changing in only one thing, the world and its history, its people and its agents,  as whatever it says, comes to pass. In terms of scientific method, it is incomparably better, needing neither revision, nor review, and providing only empirical confirmation of its ascription of its words to the possessor of eternal wisdom, knowledge and power.

His name ? The Lord. There is (as a simple matter of historical fact), no other name to equal this one, no other power to compare, and no other performance worthy even of consideration. That, naturally enough, and supernaturally, is precisely what you would expect, and constitutes, apart from the particular, the generic of verification: it is verification in kind, in quality, in calibre, in depth as well as in detail.

What is often forgotten by the nations, with their notions and potions, lotions and commotions, armaments and increments, dissipations and situations, is just this, that THE LORD has a mind and will of His own, and that it is not possible to outwit Him, outmanoeuvre Him or make Him desist: unless of course you are on a course of evil, and turn to Him for mercy. This world is not destined to learn that lesson as we see in Revelation 19:19. It will actually dare to defy Him. So be it. Some will however learn of Him whose humility is so great that He came "lowly and having salvation" on an ass's colt (Zech. 9:9). Among those, are many of Israel (Zech. 12:10), in an action soon (Luke 21:24ff. cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5), to come.

The Lord ? He has His own counsel, and works ALL THINGS after that counsel. Moreover, He declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10 cf. Ephesians 1:11). Thus when He declares in Zech. 12:4 that He will turn the martial assaults on Jerusalem to confusion, and that the inhabitants of Jerusalem will as a strength before the Lord, for their rulers, He does not mean that there is an open door to diplomacy for the destitution, desecration or dismemberment of the place.

When therefore Kofi Annan thinks that the 'new' peace initiative from Abdullah of Arabia, as it is euphoniously, indeed euphemistically called, is important, that there must be work and so on, does he consider what it is and what the Lord has said ? Whose word shall stand, that of the Almighty or that of the UN, so appallingly insensitive to the returned, subjected people, of Israel, with their one site, so eroded that even a gangster might be ashamed, by the side of the Islamic world, which wants more, and more ... and gives for armaments for rebellious occupants of some of Israel in their endless terrorism, but not land of their own for their resettlement.

As to that, who needs to be resettled ? Only those who want to take over Israel or part of that pitifully small portion of Palestine accorded in fact to it, to kill, maim and explode themselves on its terraces, pizzerias and among its flowers, flesh flung like dung in indifference to the casualities! Those who want to remain as citizens, with provision for liberty of thought and worship, as the original Balfour Declaration implied, what hinders this ?

What however is this peace initiative, of Adbullah of Saudi Arabia ? There are two aspects to be considered here, at the outset.
 

• 1) the words: there is to be a restoration of all that Israel 'took' in the 1967 war, it appears, in return for a willingness on the part of the 'Arab world' to ... cease the pandemonium, in effect, and give Israel 'a go', an un-waylaid opportunity to exist. Nice of them!

 

• 2) the works: there is to be therefore a return of one half of Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and West Bank, so that the relationship of Israel to Israel of old, on the one hand, and to the Palestine promised, is so miniscule as to be almost nothing but notional, an enhanced immorality and an exit from undertaking, even more momentous than it now is!

So: hand over half of Jerusalem, and of course, with that the Mosque, already preserved BY Israel for the Moslems that want it, in the heart of Jerusalem! In this way, the religion's desire in that territory, may have adjoined to it, a further territory in the only capital and historical site of the efflorescence of Israel, promised by God and man, and now in the trials and travails of diplomacy, about to be ... seized, received ? by the Arab maw. Let us however be precise: by that Islamic maw which is part Arab and part other, being international, global and globally active in insurgencies of many kinds. As to the Arabs per se, they are not all Islamic, nor all violent by any means.

It is the leading, the cutting edge however with which we are concerned, which presents itself as "Arab".

IF: this is done ? if these conditions are met ? If the 'peace plan' is implemented, then ? Why then, provocateurs may be given the red light, so that ambush and escapade, bombing of shopping sites, ruin to young bodies, arming of children and teaching them to fight with guns at 6 or so, on the part of Islamics, this will ... if not cease, at the very least, cease to be a total, overall plan.

What a bargain!

But let us return to Zechariah, with a very different and far more merciful and just divine scenario. The former is as man proposes; the latter as the LORD disposes.

"Like a firepan in a woodpile" (Zech. 12:6) are the governors of Judah to be, in devouring "all the surrounding peoples." This has been fulfilled in 1948, 1967, 1973 and with a codicil from other nations added, in 1991. The point about the last named is this, that Iraq at that time was angrily parading its continued war on Israel (as operational since 1948, without cease), while being pounded by such forces as the Lord decided to use! "Like a fiery torch in the sheaves" was the result, militarily, diplomatically, and actually, as predicted.

But it did not, even this last Gulf War, quench the enemy. This is not the position for this stage, and in vain will you look for it in Zechariah 12. Repentance TO Israel before deliverance FOR Israel is the divine prescription. The Lord does not altogether intervene to prevent the realisation of folly, and the necessity for faith in Himself; but He has for all that as Ch. 9 of SMR depicts, done a very great deal just as prophesied, already, pending that required pivot of intervention (as dramatically exposed in both Ezekiel 38-39 and Micah 7:15ff., as also in Deuteronomy 32 and Isaiah 66 (for all of which see Biblical Index). What instead happens, as the burdensome stone continues, and the things, the assaults which make it burdensome continue, it is this: that the long awaited, long delayed and utterly essential REPENTANCE of many in Israel comes.

Meanwhile, the two facets of the crystal continue: the furore and the fighting, and the delay in Israeli repentance, NOT for existing, but for persisting without acknowledging their sin against the Lord, one which not merely causes trouble, but excludes by its disbelief the source of ultimate and adequate resolution. It is God, not man, who has that in His hand. It is His will, not that of man, be it the US or the UN, the Arab 'world' or any other body, which will, as always, prevail, being just and true.

The teeming triumphs have come, in fact, where "one who is feeble" shall be "like David," quite simply because the Lord, like some academic lecturer in science, has desired it to be so (Zech. 12:6-8), and has so directed the practical assistant at his bench. Israel does not yet realise the source of this strength (Zech. 12:8, Psalm 34:15-17). It is blind to Him who is invisible to the blind, but vital to those who see (cf. John 9:39-41); and His works are most visible, in much prescribed, and on many inscribed, even in the heart (Hebrews 8:7-10, 11:27, Jeremiah 31:31-34), just as He predicted also, would be the case, from ancient times, when He predicted the first coming of the Messiah so frequently (as in Jeremiah 23:3ff., Ezekiel 34ff., Psalm 2, 40, 22 - cf. Joyful Jottings 21-25).

He uses means. He is able to direct even the anger of man, to His service (Psalm 76:10): He does not make man evil, but He does turn what he is doing, to the plan. So a bull may decide to charge, but the matador decide to evade, mislead and bring him to ruin. An imperfect parallel, this, yet it shows the use of wisdom as well as power, without interference in evil as evil, to make it so, but only with evil as good! To that may be added, the reward of evil when its sensation becomes a syndrome that grips (II Thess. 2:11, Proverbs 1).
 
 

LESSONS THAT GROW,
AND DO NOT LESSEN (with apologies to Alice)

There ARE lessons to be learnt, and the Lord is a great teacher! He has His own ways, and they do not change (Habakkuk 3:6, Psalm 102, Malachi 3:6). Some of those lessons occurred in the almost farcical feeling of the 1948 overthrow of the multi-national assault on the fledging Israel, really a sprinkling of people among the Arabs, BY Israel. It was as if an infant using judo, threw over a brazen bully, equipped with brass knuckles. As to the 'infant', they even took half of Jerusalem. David ? yes. One as a thousand ? Assuredly. It is as it said; it happened as forecast, to the fact and to the feeling. The only fiction was in the enlarged intentions of the assailant. How 'burdensome' can you get!

In 1967, the heavily endowed Egyptian Air Force was stricken while on ground, the tanks without their support were likewise stricken en route to Israel, and disaster came to the one seeking disaster, ruin to the aspirant to deliver doom to Israel. The Israeli sortie into the desert, and to Elath made military history, a subject of soaring admiration, even amazement. The REST of Jerusalem was taken by "these miserable Jews" this "catastrophe" for Islam.

In 1973, the surprise attack on a Jewish 'holy day' led to near disaster, but reservists called up, and allies at work, led to a restoration so total, that we soon found the Egyptian army surrounded on the far side of the Suez Canal, with Russia diplomatically up in arms, when its other arms in Egyptian hands, had frankly failed. It was to be sure, a decisive moment in history, when man sought to overthrow the scriptures, and found the ink red. One sure way to end in the red ink is to defy the word: defile the heritage of the Lord ? this is pandemic. But the end of it is the red ink, the defilers being defiled (Proverbs 1 and Psalm 2 alike are eloquent on this process).

In 1991, there was the vast armament of Iraq, for long helped in order to circumvent Iran, by foreign power ... and that built-up nation was then assailed by a multinational force, so that this competitor for the 'glorious' position of invader and destroyed of Israel (it DID make it clear that a war was on, and DID attack Israel), felt the burdensome character of the stone, as did the rest.

Now there is this wonderful charismatic, this religiously admirable and ethically profound work of killing kids on the streets on Jerusalem, and arming kids in Palestinian occupied territories. It speaks for itself.

Will the WILL of Israel be broken ? Will the will of George Bush be activated ? Neither is particularly apparent. Even an Arab Professor in Germany, on the German radio broadcast in English, this very day in early 2002, was found to be declaring that this 'peace initiative' from Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was not really an initiative of that kind. His view: Arabia was under pressure, being given various privileges of commerce by the USA, and this 'peace plan'
was a response without heart. Be that as it may, it is certainly not with any undue amount of concession. It is like saying to some girl, when a thug assails her: Just have intercourse, and there will be no rape!

Just give half of Jerusalem, and the rest of the lands of course, and mark how the dangers will subside! Scarcely inspired, at least, not by the Lord!

The same German professor interviewed on radio, noted that it was quite essential, and that he as an Arab himself had to say so, that Israel be given assurance of its right to exist.

It is some right, that, is it not ? To exist. It does not inspire with the thought of undue PEACE while existing, or undue commerce, while persisting, or undue equity while insisting, but just the permission to retain protoplasmic Jewish flesh without having large amounts of Palestinian flesh spattered on it in bombs, and the like. It is not sure what MORE would be wanted. It is just the privilege of existence. Suppose someone is kidnapped: then for the whole bank account of the father, this person is given right to exist. There may, of course, be further need to 'take care of' the person; but then, what is it, this life! it may be protested.

So it goes, but it does not come to a halt, this unpacifiable determination to exalt Allah, who is not there (More Marvels ... Ch. 4), by Islamic arms, and to subdue the Jews.

What next ? This: as in Zechariah 12:10, the Jews are to find the ground for their feet, the reason for their millenia of mockery, the site for their restoration, the rock "who begot you", the rock "of his salvation" (Deuteronomy 32:18,15), "from which you were hewn" (Isaiah 51:1), of which the people have become "unmindful" (all precisely as predicted, for the status quo before the Lord's vast, epochal intervention as in 32:36ff.).

That Rock ? : it is in the MESSIAH (Psalm 62:1-3, I Cor. 10:4, Isaiah 28:16). They are to regret with bitter hearts and deep repentance, the piercing of the LORD, yes the Lord, for it is He who is speaking, as shown in Zech. 12:10, and has been speaking in 12:1, 6, 10, in that very context.

It is undesirable to 'pierce' God, even if He does, as He did, come in the flesh.

It is not merely regicide; it is, as to form and format, deicide. It is quite literally, in the flesh as available for human expression of scorn, to kill kindness, and to lacerate mercy. It was however  all provided for, as to format, in the scope of the divine plan of salvation, made available to man. Thus, that death, as Christ poured out His soul unto death (Isaiah 53:12), to bring forgiveness to the transgressors and prayed for them as they let His blood drip (53:12), merely was the predicted dawn of the resurrection, which in its day, again as predicted, some 3 days later, proved the most important testimony to power ever made in the history of the universe.

The exquisite irony and felicity alike of this divinely wise plan of salvation used hate to enact the crucifixion, that sacrifice with its redeeming power, and used resurrection to confirm the overthrow of all that man need fear, but only in and through this highly scorned Messiah. Not at all disesteemed by those whom He saved, healed and helped, He was yet not in favour with the ruling junta. This was both foreknown and predicted (Isaiah 49:7, Psalm 22, 2).

What abstractly, might have happened ? All could have been shown servile to sin, if He had not risen; national powers, such as now gather together against Jerusalem could have been able to crow over God, if they had merely retained the body, the corpse soon to be unavailable through resurrection; and while the likelihood of its rising, was too great for any degree of comfort (cf. Matthew 27:62-65), having been announced for a thousand years, and confirmed by the Messiah in person, right to the day of its actual happening! (cf. SMR pp. 931ff., Matthew 17:22-23).

However they did not manage it. Objectively, they could not retain the body. It was as if an enemy Captain had announced a millenium in advance, just what steps he would take, and all the powers on earth could not EVEN THEN, stop him! How puny is the power of man, when all is said, for he neither determines his birth nor his death; and even when he murders, his soul goes marching on both to judgment and to guilt. It never disturbs the plans of God, who uses the follies of men to indicate the glories of God, bringing to judgment, judgment, and to appeal, in His name, mercy.

That, the crucifixion and resurrection triumph over all opposition, is simply past (cf. SMR Ch. 6 and resurrection in Index) . Now we are looking at something beginning to appear rather more like the crucifixion of Israel. What now ?

If Israel as one small nation is given such power as we have been noting, by the word of God, to prevail over vast enemies, how much greater was the power when ONE MAN, the Messiah, simply broke death, and at that, a death following exquisite and prolonged torture so intense, that the butchery scarcely left Him recognisable as a man (as in Isaiah 52:14 cf. 53:4-6,12).

Just as God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3;16, Luke 1:35, I John 4:8-10), so those of Israel, the converted remnant in this amazing, predicted outpouring of the Spirit of God on that people, will mourn for the loss of their slain Messiah, slain by the hands of their own progenitors. Lamenting, they shall mourn as "one grieves for a firstborn". "The land shall mourn" - requiring more than a small arrival of repentance! There is no mere mass phenomenon: it will be personal, dispersed, experienced in heart and in mind, and in reflection; but its people will be very many.  So it is prophesied in Zech. 12:11ff..

Now, at this stage of the pouring out on Israel of "the spirit of grace and of supplication", which Zechariah contemplates, has the wheel of history turned; and crushed in spirit and hurt in heart are many of  the children of those who grieved the very Spirit of God, and mutilated the Messiah, for seeing their own national and personal plight, these are seen seeking each for himself, herself, the Saviour. The ruin that ruined Jerusalem is now the rejoicing that rejoiced the Christians who believed Christ when He first came. Therefore, there is at this predicted phase, a new unity with the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians.

Thus, in Zechariah 13:1, we find that

• "a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness."

Yes, the wheels of history have eyes, for all is under the hand of God, and there is to be seen what had to be seen (cf. Ezekiel 1 and Biblical Blessings Ch. 4).

Following this massive repentance, evangelisation and restoration to the concern and comfort of the Messiah, who died as predicted in the vicinity of A.D. 30 (SMR pp. 886) and has at this stage, being resurrected, come by His Spirit prior to His return in Person, to the weeping of Israel: there is a purging. The idolatries of the contemporaries are abolished (Zech. 13:3-5). There is desire for purging, purity and peace ... with God! at last ... The figments of philosophy, theosophy, and the threadbare theological nostrums, secular digressions from the realities, and theories of force and diplomacies of asininity, these will be scorned. The very 'brilliance' of unbelief including religious unbelief, will be like a polluted rag from septic sores. So it is portrayed by this prophet, in Ch. 13.

It is in the midst of this return of spirit, restoration of heart, insistence on truth, reconciliation with reality, that the consciousness of just how aweful was the atrocity of so treating the Messiah, so disadorning God with their follies, that gleaming in the midst of their hearts will be as it were, a vision. Powerful indeed will be the impetus of the vision, and clear the realisation of the woe wrought. It will be as if one of them actually spoke to Him, while wondering at His suffering and reflecting on the FACT of the Messiah, at His reduction to death on the cross, and that with betrayal of Judas as one cause,  and the authorities of the nation, including leading priests, as another. It will be as if one indeed asked Him, interrogating, and enquired  a strange thing.

What is this thing that one would say to Him, in spirit, as such a time ? It is this.

• " 'What are these wounds in your hands ?' And He will answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends' " (Zech. 13:6).

As Keil aptly puts it, "the expression 'between the hands' can hardly be understood in any other way than as relating to the palms of the hands and their continuation up the arms". The points of the piercing, as here described, and further in Psalm 22, while the victim was sardonically scrutinised (Psalm 22:12-17, Matthew 27:27-44), would tend to sag, and so to be sites for the tearing of flesh beyond the place of insertion of the wounds, as in crucifixion, by the weight of the body borne by so small a portion of it, on the hands. The term 'scar' is even suggested by Keil.

Thus we look at the vision of Zechariah from the Lord, as portrayed in 13:1 and 13:6, the blood and its means of spilling. The atmosphere is electric. There is now, as we have noted, massive repentance. This is the environment of fact. There is a turning to the Lord in terms of the forsaken Messiah, and there is a grief, at once terrible and agonising, experienced by those who, realising the awful penalties and just results of their pagan scorn of their own Messiah, are in anguish of heart.

It is in this plight, and situation, when peace is beginning now to come as the "fountain" for sin and uncleanness is opened in Jerusalem (which had millenia before, opened His arteries, or veins, or both), that the reflective mode takes over. Looking on this Messiah, meditating, ruminating and realising what has been done, they feel perhaps a sudden pang: HOW did these come ? Is it a rhetorical question ? Perhaps so, but probably not.

It is not likely to be merely an expression of guilt acknowledged, as looking on the obvious and manifest fact, they rehearse the cause in the midst of their deep penitence; though this is equally, almost certainly part of the background of the mood and mode of expression.

It is likely to be a form of address to the Lord, now manifest in their hearts (John 14:21-23), and a mournful empathy is seizing the questioner, as a mother might take a hand of her warrior son, who had been lacerated for the protection of the city, and say, My son, what are these wounds in your hands ? She is lovingly rehearsing, now that he is back and intimate once more, the very specific evidences of all that he has suffered. So here.

But there is more still. There is the immense change of heart which is finding it all but impossible to take in, the fact that the glorious Messiah, the ruler of the nations, the one whose mouth destroys iniquity (as in Isaiah 11's prediction of the restoration of the Messiah from the death as signified in 52-53), COULD even POSSIBLY have suffered so much. Thus the grief swells and expands, resounds and researches the heart, in the midst of a sensitive, massive and epochal repentance. It is as if they are wondering how He could scarcely conceivably be perceived, how understood to have so suffered, who is so great (as in the Christian song, "Amazing Love, How can it be, that Thou my Lord, shouldst die for me!"). Yet did it not come ? COULD it have ever been that any should so treat such a One as this!

Like successive layers in a rock, deposited in swift actions, in days, so in those days layer on layer of grief and interchange occurs, and people come to their senses, spiritually, to their Lord, after some 2 millenia. It has been a long time! There is no dampening through time, for the whole time is growing nearer 4 millenia since Abraham, and 3 and one half since Moses predicted no small amount of these things (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32); and now history finds it harbour.

We might proceed, but this is enough. It is evocative, provocative, has the deepest of pathos, the tenderest of empathy, the scorching realisation coming in full force into the now converted heart. The whole matte now exposed, as in the disciples of old, it is coming home to the mind, to the texture  of thought. Was it not similar, when in the Emmaus road episode, Christ had to say to them, so slow to perceive His resurrection and to understand, comprehend the majesty of love and the wonder of suffering in God's plan of salvation:

• "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have" - Luke 24:39. "O foolish ones and slow of heart not to understand..." (Luke 24:25).

The Chapter 12 of Zechariah finishes after this vivid and vital vignette, at the stated time, when a restored Israel suffers in the pangs of contrition, with a divine response, a celestial counterpart to the question just addressed. It is even possible that in view of Luke 24:39, it may for some have a measure of amazement almost (but not quite) amounting to unbelief. WHY DO YOU DOUBT! Yes, it is so. Realisation swamps the soul and astonishment numbs the mind.

This vignette over, the Lord is seen in Zechariah 13:7ff., revisiting the scene in which such things happened in the first place, at the time of Calvary itself.
 

• "Wake, O sword, against My Shepherd,

Against the Man who is My Companion,"
Says the LORD of hosts.
 

• "Strike the Shepherd,

And the sheep will be scattered:
Then I will turn My hand against the little ones..."

They had ignored the love of God for His Son, and now in the devastation following the crucifixion which Christ foretold (cf. Luke 19:42ff., Matthew 23:37ff.), would come. Hence not only the Shepherd, the Messiah, but those lambs and younger ones whom He had come to save, to take up into His arms, those weak whom He had come to protect, with honesty and love, unlike the scurrilous selfishness of those false shepherds who inhabited the high religious places: all would be slain. Kill the dog, and the robbers attack. Slay the Messiah and the powers assail. What is left!

Then more boldly over time, we see something of the ENORMOUS proportional removal of Jews from their national assemblage. Only a FRACTION will be left, so appalling is to be the devastation, the loss of life for the Jewish people (Zech. 13:8-9). SO it was to be and so it is (cf. Jeremiah 30 and The Biblical Workman Ch. 1).

From this we turn to "the day of the Lord" in Zechariah 14:1. The end is then scrutinised; and it will occur, just as the first events in this chapter are now over half a century past and wholly fulfilled, precisely as predicted. It always is; it is guaranteed so to be (Isaiah 44:24-26).

Before we proceed, however, to Zech. 14, let us enjoy and reflect on the delicacy, subtlety of irony, depth of exposure, mastery of coverage and the deft supply of detail in this (respectively) 500 or so year in advance prophetic depiction of these singular, indeed unique events, and 2500 year prelude written to cover what in fact are current, contemporary occurrences, and those yet to come.

So does divine power hide its mastery in all the supple delineations of detail, time no barrier, already reflecting on the singularity of epochal events for which history had to wait centuries, structuring understanding long before the things ever came to pass. So does deity teach humanity its place, as in Zech. 12:1 and Amos 4:13, so fulfilling Amos 3:7 while evincing far more broadly, and deeply, the total comprehension of all things by the Author of creation, and the Maker of man, for whom time is just a shute that He has made (Romans 8:38), so that knowledge of the end is easier for Him than is the perception of distance in space to us.

Thus He speaks, and so He has done; so may it be found by simple application to the text (as reflected in Isaiah 48:6-18), where the pathos of human negligence before the love of such majesty is made poignant in the extreme.

"Oh that you had heeded My commandments! Then you peace would have been like a river, and your righreousness like the saves of the sea."

 

 

THE INTERNATIONAL EMBRANGLEMENT,
THE RETURN OF THE LORD IN PERSON
AND THE MILLENIUM (Zechariah 14)

1. Seeing it in Place

It is now time to consider the sequence further.

Thus in Zech. 9, we see devastation on many nations, but in the midst of suffering, the Messiah for Israel, lowly and having salvation, not arrogant and enabling blather and self-esteem! "His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth."

Revealed in Zech. 9:11ff. ("as for you also, through the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit"), is the glory after the earlier suffering of the nation, so conspicuous in Zechariah 7 for example, when there is to be pre-emptive power over evil, long given its time, now up for its due.

This appears merely a coming deliverance, apt for preliminary footage, a testimony of love in the midst of the failings of Israel, a transcript for faith such as happened in the case of the Maccabees (see Daniel prediction of this phase of Jewish history as in Daniel 11:32, in Highway of Holiness Ch. 10).

We are here in the contemporary situation of Zechariah. Back from their disciplinary exile in Babylon, the nation is soon predicted to experience a form of large-scale victory almost incredible to the small people then returned to their devastated city, to rebuild it. This is of course as in Daniel 9:24-27, a matter of the interim before the Messiah, the 70 sevens which are to transpire in terms of the fulfilment of prophecy, the coming of the Prince, the Christ, and the bringing in of righteousness as there defined and depicted expresslly.

Thus seen here in these earlier chapters, is a glimpse of triumph for the people and deliverance for the growing nation. Is it to continue ? Alas not! This depiction of victory is soon followed in Zech. 10 by the Lord's disgust with the corruption of the greatly  aided people. As happened with the Maccabees, as may have been noted in our reference to the corrupt shepherds above, there was that appalling subsidence into political and ecclesiastical intrigue, such as is attested in some detail in Highway of Holiness Ch. 8 . This in turn led on to the corrupted priesthood which was so eager to remove the Christ, despite His words, witness, ways, healing, power and grace, attested authenticity and verified veracity: lest the nation suffer for a 'king' unattractive to Caesar, lest the ways of the world being opposed, the desires of the priesthood denuded, they should lose their posts, or even nation.

This survival technology, this rat psychology, so popular to many to this day, of course led to all they feared. They lost not only their posts, their nation but their place in history, unless so gross an outrage be called a place.

Moving however from this concentration on the false shepherds, a decline following the Lord's massive deliverances for His people, at that time still to come, and so contrasted with the Messiah, who not only had salvation, but humility with it, we reach an important fact. What can it be ? It is not difficult to find. Despite all this, there is a coming deliverance to mask, minimise or obscure by its brilliance all that went before. It is the work of the Messiah Himself, to which this prophecy returns like guests each night for dinner, on an ocean liner.

There is here, in Zechariah 10:9, as in 9:9ff., a preliminary indication of a rift, a ruction parallel to Isaiah 11:11. There is coming a dispersion and a restoration, as Isaiah puts it, a second time.

The enquiring mind cannot but be salivating at the expectation of explanation. How and why is this to be ? In Zech. 11 the answer is presented, as seen above, with appalling severity, clad in brevity but expressed with an irony that is all but incandescent! The false shepherds are now contrasted with their prey, the interlopers with their Prince, their filthy rags (as seen symbolically in Joshua's mime in Zech. 3:3ff., a professional as well as a personal touch), and false testimony, their sale of the Messiah indeed in which they were all too involved, leading to the ruptures with God specified earlier in this chapter (11) at that point.

With the menace of a false shepherd to 'replace' the true, Himself slain, we come to the sudden contrast. It is the light of the Lord in the presence of darkness. It is Jerusalem back in place for its terminal travails (Zech. 12). It is the people who had been misled, now replaced in their city, but surrounded with foes, with tension and with trial. As yet unconverted after that long dispersion noted from Moses (Deuteronomy 32, Leviticus 26) as the acme of their discipline for a contusion and confusion of disbelief, in many sustained steps, on the way to the irreversible events of Isaiah 11, 49, and Ezekiel 37, they are brought back to the Lord IN SPIRIT, just as already, they are in physical placement, in their city of old. The two steps have been noted several times on this site, most recently in Part II of