Studies in Zechariah

It is of little profit to understand the exact location of the places mentioned in this verse; there is some difficulty in doing that. The prophecy shows that in that day when the Lord has appeared there will be a great change in the surface of Palestine. Everything will become a plain. Now it is a land of mountains and hills. But then the hills and mountains will be lowered and become a plain. Jerusalem, however, is lifted up, and is seen shining in her earthly splendor and in it the magnificent temple. In the midst of the millennial Jerusalem in the earth will be another high place, still higher than the city. It is the glorious Mount Zion. “But in the latter days it shall be that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills” (Micah iv: 1). Upon this high place the glory will rest. Thus it will be seen and cover the earth as the waters cover the deep. “And the Lord will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of the flaming fire by night; for over all the glory shall be spread a canopy” (Isaiah iv: 5). From that high and glorious place in the earth the communications and intercourse between the heavenlies and the earth will perhaps take place, it will be the ladder upon which the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of Man.

Verse 11. “And they shall dwell therein,
And there shall be no more curse,
But Jerusalem shall dwell safely.”

The happiness of the Jerusalem in the earth. The curse is entirely removed. While now Jerusalem is one of the most miserable places in the earth, desolate and forsaken, and during the tribulation it will be the place of misery, sin, and curse, it will become the most blessed place in the Millennium. The Lord will show forth there His great lovingkindness, and all the blessings we have reviewed in the visions of Zechariah will all be fulfilled. “There shall be no more thence an infant of days nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old, and the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree shall be the days of My people and My chosen people shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass that before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the Lord” (Isaiah lxv). But that wonderful city in the earth, the city of Jerusalem, in all her blessing, joy, peace, prosperity, praise, and worship, is but a faint type of that still more glorious Jerusalem which is then above. The new Jerusalem, our glorious home, dear reader (if you are in Christ), is then in the air, and at the end of the thousand years it will come down and find its eternal resting-place in the new earth.

Verses 12-15. “And this shall be the plague
With which Jehovah will smite all the nations
That have warred against Jerusalem:
His flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,
And their eyes shall consume away in their sockets,
And their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
And it shall be in that day
There shall be a great confusion among them from Jehovah,
And they shall lay hold everyone on his neighbor’s hand,
And his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor,
And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem,
And the wealth of all the nations round about shall be gathered,
Gold, and silver and apparel in great abundance.
And so shall be the plague of the horse,
Of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass,
And of all the beasts that shall be in those camps as this plague.”

This is the description of the dreadful punishment which will befall the enemies in that day. It is to be read in connection with the third verse, the Lord fighting against those nations, and the punishment will be upon them when He appears. Thus it is seen in Revelation xix. He appears, and after His appearing there is the scene of punishment of the enemies. “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come and be gathered together unto the great supper of God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond and small and great” (Rev. xix: 17, 18). What an awful judgment it will be! In Ezekiel we have likewise a description of it. It is however to be remarked that the vision of Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix speaks of the judgment which will fall upon the rebels of the last revolt at the end of the thousand years. Still that second punishment is foreshadowed in the first. “And thou, Son of man, thus saith the Lord God, Speak unto the birds of every sort, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves upon every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth… And ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men and all men of war, saith the Lord God” (Ezek. xxxix: 17-23).

“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh” (Isa. lxvi: 24).

How wonderful the prophetic Word is! What a harmony! How dare men who call themselves Christians deny its divinity and infallibility? The wealth of the nations belongs then again to Israel. The nations spoiled them, and now all the riches of the Gentiles become theirs. Even so it is now during their dispersion. The nations who persecuted and robbed the Jews during the middle ages have become the most miserable and impoverished, while the Lord has given greater riches to the Jews, and often drawn from the very countries who stole their goods. From Egypt of old they came forth laden with silver and gold. It will find a repetition, only on a grander scale, in the day of their restoration. Now in unbelief and in dispersion they are the richest of all nations. Oh! that the nations would now understand it – the nations called Christendom – that “they are laboring for the fire, and wearing themselves with vanity” (Habak. ii: 12), and that the wealth and glory accumulated by them will fall a prey to the Jews. “Ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and to their glory shall ye succeed” (Isa. lxi: 6).

Verse 16. And it shall come to pass
All that is left of the nations which came against Jerusalem
Shall go up from year to year
To worship the King, Jehovah of Hosts,
And to keep the feast of Tabernacles.

Nations will be left after the tribulation and the wrath – this is clear from many passages of the Word. In the New Testament we have the statement made at the first council in Jerusalem. “Brethren, hearken unto me; Simeon hath rehearsed how God at first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After these things I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called,” etc. (Acts iv: 15-18). Number one is the visitation of the Gentiles, a calling out of a people for His name, and we are still living in number one. Number two is His return, the building again and setting up of the tabernacle of David, which can only come after the calling out of a people is accomplished the fullness of the Gentiles come in; and number two and the events connected with it we have learned from the studies in Zechariah. Then follows number three, the residue of men seeking after the Lord. In verse 16, they that are left of the nations correspond with the residue of men in Acts iv. The temple will then stand in Jerusalem as the house of glory and a house of prayer for all nations. There will be a perfect worship, grand and glorious, and it will not be confined to Israel, but the nations will join in it. We may learn perhaps from this verse that the Lord will leave every year once His place on His throne over the earth and come down to Jerusalem and show Himself in His glory before the worshipping multitudes in the earth, as He is seen in the New Jerusalem above. The occasion is the feast of Tabernacles. It is the millennial feast. It is a feast kept in remembrance of Israel’s wanderings through the wilderness for forty years and all their subsequent wanderings. It stands also for the ingathering of the full harvest. A feast of joy, praise, and thanksgiving. The Jews keep it to the present day, though few know the full meaning of it. Every year when it comes again they read this 14th chapter of Zechariah. It is strange indeed. What a glorious feast that will be, kept there in Jerusalem, when the fullness at last has come! The fullness of the Gentiles has been gathered in, and is in the New Jerusalem; the fullness of Israel has come in the earth, and their receiving has been life from the dead, and the Gentiles know the glory of the Lord. Some find a difficulty here in the fact that it is stated that the nations, the residue of men, are to come up to Jerusalem, and the difficulty is that it will be impossible for all of them to do that. It is not at all necessary that every individual must go up to Jerusalem once in a year. Perhaps every nation will send representatives to the feast of Tabernacles, and they come in the name of the different nations and bring their presents. This seems to be indicated in the visit of the wise men from the East, who came to Bethlehem to worship the new-born King (Matthew ii). They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, In Isaiah lx: 6 we read of the coming of the Gentiles to Jerusalem when the Lord has come again. They shall come from Sheba; they shall bring gold and frankincense (the myrrh is left out here, for it speaks of suffering), and shall proclaim the praises of the Lord. As the wise men who came to Bethlehem were representatives of nations, so during the Millennium the nations will send delegations to the feast of Tabernacles. What a scene that must be! How crowded Jerusalem will be by those from Greenland and from the interior of Africa, from India and the islands of the sea, as well as from the nations which composed the Roman empire. The ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God, and now their praise is heard in the city and mingling with the psalms sung by His own redeemed people.

Verses 17-19. And it shall be that whoso of all the families of the earth
Shall not go up to Jerusalem
To worship the King, Jehovah of Hosts,
Upon them there shall be no rain.
And if the family of Egypt go not up and come not,
Upon them shall be none.
There shall be the plague
Wherewith Jehovah will smite the nations
Which go not up to keep the feast of Tabernacles.
This shall be the sin of Egypt,
And the sin of all the nations
Which go not up to keep the feast of Tabernacles.

This is the other side. All those who refuse will be punished, and the punishment will be very swift. From this and other prophecies it is seen that not everything will go so smoothly as it is generally believed during the Millennium. God’s messengers in that day will be the Jews going forth to proclaim the truth of God, and what preachers they will make! Still some will be forced to submit. The end of the thousand years brings a revolt from the side of the nations, which is not a small matter. “And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (Rev. xx: 7, 8).

From this we see that many of the nations, Gog and Magog, are only too willing to side once more with the enemy, and to shake off, if it were possible, the yoke of the rule of Jehovah’s earthly people.

The last two verses we have to consider make the whole prophecy perfect. It is the declaration that Jerusalem will be holy.

In that day there shall be on the bells of the horses
Holiness to Jehovah,
And the pots in the house of Jehovah
Shall be as the bowls before the altar.
Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah
Shall be holy unto Jehovah of Hosts.
And all they that sacrifice shall come
And take of them and sacrifice therein,
And there shall be no more Canaanite
In the house of Jehovah of Hosts in that day.

The most holy person in Israel, the high-priest, carried the inscription, “Holiness to Jehovah” around his mitre, but now even the little bells of the horses bear that inscription. In that temple which stands during the Millennium sacrifices will be brought, but there will be no difference in the vessels, which are used in Jerusalem, the meanest and smallest will be holy. In one word all will be holy, all will be consecrated to Jehovah. What a perfect service that will be of the people which are then, in truth, a holy people. Application can be made of this to believers now. Surely everything the saint has, and his whole life, must be thus consecrated to Jehovah, to the Lord. No Canaanite will be there, nothing unclean. The Vulgate translates the word Canaanite with merchant. It stands, however, with everything that is unclean and an abomination. The city will be completely purged from it

And of the new Jerusalem it is written, “There shall in no wise enter into it any thing unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie; but only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life… Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.” (Rev. xxi: 27 and xxii: 15.)

We have reached the end of the visions and burdens of Zechariah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, who, indeed, may be termed the Prophet of Glory. We praise our Lord for what He has taught us in these studies, and for His Spirit, who guides His children into all truth and shows us things to come. May he use this volume for the edification of the saints and for a better understanding of the words of prophecy. We are living on the very threshold of the fulfillment of all these visions and words. Soon He will come for His saints, and even now the Spirit groans within us. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.