The books of Daniel and Zechariah fit closely with the Book of Revelation. Other prophets like Isaiah have much to say about Armageddon, the Millennium and even the Great Tribulation. But, Daniel and Zechariah have a specific focus that we should pay attention to, if we wish to understand the events of Revelation more clearly.
Furthermore, there are some descriptions in Zechariah that will change how you will think about key parts of Revelation.
As always, we will have more questions than answers, but we will do our very best to stick to what God actually says, instead of what we want Him to say.
Contents
Zechariah 2 – Jerusalem and the Escape from Babylon
Zechariah 3 – The Coming of Jesus
Zechariah 4 – The Two Anointed Ones and the Seven Eyes
Zechariah 5 – Fantastic Imagery
Zechariah 6 – The Four Chariots and Jesus
Zechariah 7 & 8 – A Conditional Blessing and a New Covenant
Zechariah 9 – Three Prophecies
Zechariah 10 – Judgment and Redemption
Zechariah 11 – The Failed Return and the Betrayed Messiah
Zechariah 12 – Gog and Magog and Ezekiel’s Fire
Zechariah 13 – The Redemption of Israel
Zechariah 14 – The Second Coming and the Millennium
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Introduction
Zechariah is one of the few prophets mentioned by name by Jesus, and He shows us that even during the beginnings of the Second Temple, there was great evil at Jerusalem. Here is what Jesus said:
34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
– Matthew 23:34-36 (NKJV)
That passage is part of the Woe that Jesus cries out to the Scribes and Pharisees, for their hypocrisy and evil hearts. And in fact, it is believed that the Pharisees were in Jerusalem at the building of the temple and would have been part of the murder of Zechariah.
How do we know this?
Well, we can’t know for certain. the name of the people that we call Pharisees is actually פרושים (peh-roo-sheem). They may have been the descendants of Parosh. And, we see them here:
the people of Parosh, two thousand one hundred and seventy-two;
– Ezra 2:3 (NKJV)
Ezra 2 lists the people that came with him to build the Temple. But, the spelling of Parosh is different than that of the Perushim (Pharisees). The name for Parosh is spelled פרעש (Pah-rohsh), and it has an ע (ayn) in it, instead of the ו (vav) for the Perushim (Pharisees). Of course, Parosh means flea, and maybe they deliberately changed the name because they were tired of being called fleas. Don’t know. There is a lot of arguing over where they came from.
But, wherever they came from, it is horrifying to think that the people who came with Ezra to build the Temple, sacrificing their comfortable livelihoods in Babylon for a difficult existence at the place where Jerusalem once stood… and then have them later turn and murder poor Zechariah …that’s truly awful to think.
But, we can see the truth of this in Nehemiah when he goes to build the city of Jerusalem, and finds all kinds of corruption in the Temple. In fact, when he leaves for only a short time, he returns to see yet again corruption that he worked so hard to eradicate.
So, the accusation by Jesus against the Scribes and Pharisees makes a lot of sense. They were the descendants of those who murdered Zechariah. This also means that we need to remember that corruption that was at the Second Temple as it was being built.
Now, where else do we see the prophet Zechariah mentioned?
Some might want to say that he’s mentioned in Isaiah 8, but his father’s name is slightly different than mentioned by Jesus and in Zechariah 1. Also, this would have meant that Zechariah was well over a hundred years old when he was murdered. That’s impossible because the first vision that Zechariah receives, calls him a נער (nah-ar), which means boy or youth.
However, we do have references to Zechariah in Ezra and Nehemiah. But, in these verses, he is called the son of Iddo – which was his grandfather. And, you’ll notice that Zechariah is careful to mention that Iddo was his grandfather.
Why?
Because Iddo was a prophet. He was well known, so Zechariah was making sure the people could identify him properly. It seems that Zechariah’s father, Berechiah, was obscure and would not have done much to identify Zechariah. Also, like Jeremiah, a scribe might have been the one to write down the words of Zechariah, and he might also have had an incentive to make sure people understood who Zechariah was.
Also, it is not unusual in the Bible for people to be referred to as sons of their grandfathers. None of this is vastly important, except to locate Zechariah properly, and to understand how bad things were when the Temple and Jerusalem were being built.
Reading Nehemiah, you can feel his agony, frustration and astonishment over the sins of the people. And Ezra felt even worse, literally tearing his hair out over how bad things were. And, Zechariah had to live through that and eventually be murdered because of it.
When you read the Book of Malachi, you can see more of this corruption that murdered Zechariah. Malachi also shows us that the prophecies of Zechariah are not for Second Temple Israel. Even though Zechariah sometimes speaks about his present day, the prophecies about the Last Days are the most powerful. When we get to the last chapter, there won’t be any confusion over whether he is a prophet of the Last Days. However, we have yet to start with Chapter 1.
So, let’s do that.
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Zechariah 1 – The Horsemen
One thing that we will need to remember as we go through the Book of Zechariah is that he is a teenager at this point. Maybe even pre-teen. In chapter two he will be referred to as a young man, but the Hebrew word is נער (ponounced, nah-ar). It means boy, or ‘youth’. But, my feeling is that he is old enough to do some of the physical things he is commanded to do, like create a crown in chapter 6. But, such ‘feelings’ should not be considered as truth.
All of this is verification that Zechariah was young enough at the start of his ministry, that he would have still been around when the people of Jerusalem became corrupt, and slew him just as Jesus said in Matthew 23:34-36. As I said, the last prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, Malachi, confirms the terrible corruption in the temple and Jerusalem, so we can be confident that the Zechariah of the Book of Zechariah really was a martyr for his faith in God.
However, allow me to say that Zechariah and Berechiah were very common names. So, there is some possibility that Jesus was referring to an even later Zechariah ben Berechiah, one that is not recorded in the Bible.
Remember that our responsibility is to be Biblical, and not using a feeling to say, “thus saith the Lord.”
A Call For Israel To Repent
In the first part of chapter 1, God speaks to Zechariah and tells him to speak to those around him to repent of their wickedness and not be like their fathers who rebelled against God’s words spoken to them by the prophets.
5 Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?
6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.
– Zechariah 1:5-6 (KJV)
And, how did the people respond to this kid who was speaking the words of God to them?
They obeyed.
Think that through for a moment. A teenager gets up and tells the people that God told him that they need to repent of their sins and turn back to God. And, they do it.
That’s pretty amazing.
Yes, his grandfather Iddo was a prophet, so the people might have respected that. And, Zechariah and Iddo were priests, so some more respect would have come Zechariah’s way. Also, he had help from Haggai the prophet who was much older (Ezra 5:1) But still…
…a teenager?
Telling me to repent of my sins and return to God?
YES.
God really can work with any and all who follow Him. From a young age, Zechariah dedicated his life to following God, and God gave him a special place in His Kingdom. You are never too young or too old to serve God.
A Vision Of Revelation’s Horses
Almost four months later, Zechariah has a vision that should be of special significance to all of us:
8 I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.
9 Then said I, O my lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be.
10 And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.
11 And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest.
– Zechariah 1:8-11 (KJV)
Does this remind you of anything?
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!
I have spent a lot of time talking about eschatology with other Christians, and I almost never find anyone who can connect the four horsemen of Revelation 6, with the horsemen that we see in Zechariah. And, this won’t be the only time that we will see God speak about them in this book.
What are these horsemen?
They are servants of God doing God’s will. They aren’t evil spirits. They aren’t demons. They aren’t human beings. Whatever they are, they certainly represent the will of God because they report back that they’ve accomplished their mission and that the earth is at rest.
What is the purpose of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
They bring great destruction, taking civilization to the brink of collapse so that when Seal Six occurs, our way of life is utterly crushed. Over that period, billions will die, but for a time… the world will also be at rest.
I do not believe that it is a coincidence that these horsemen in Zechariah are similar to those in Revelation.
And, why would God wish for the earth to be at rest at the time of Zechariah?
Well, as we’ll see, God wishes for Israel to rebuild the Temple, to restart the sacrifices and offerings, and to follow the laws commanded by God in Torah.
What will be the result of the Four Horsemen of Revelation?
The destruction of the rules-based, global order that we have now. That collapse and chaos will allow the coming of Gog and Magog and the Redemption of Israel through faith in Christ. There won’t be a Third Temple of sacrifice, but there will be a holy place where people will offer up continual praises and offerings to God at Jerusalem.
But, the price paid to get there will be really high.
God Will Comfort Jerusalem
This next part of Zechariah 1 is difficult. The angel that was standing with Zechariah in this vision, asks Yehovah when He will have mercy on Jerusalem. God answers with a definitive yes:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem.
17 Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.
– Zechariah 1:16-17 (KJV)
The angel is asking God for mercy after this 70 year period of desolation. And God responds that He will choose Jerusalem again. But, I’m having trouble with this.
Why?
We know from Ezra 5, Zechariah was also prophesying for the building of the Temple. But, we find a huge amount of corruption towards the end of the Ezra. And when we get to Nehemiah, the corruption is terrible. And, Zechariah is still alive in Nehemiah 12, but they eventually murder him after that.
Then, when Malachi comes along much later, Jerusalem and the Temple are in a very sorry spiritual state. So, when the LORD says this:
…My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.
– Zechariah 1:17 (KJV)
I’m having a lot of trouble putting that verse in any period of time in the past except during the time of the Hasmonean Dynasty, which lasted less than 50 years as an independent kingdom. That’s why I’ve always considered this to be a Last Days prophecy, even though it does not say that it is about the Last Days.
Again, this means that there’s a question mark over verses 12 to 17.
The Horns That Will Scatter The Nations
Then, in verses 18 to 21, God speaks of four horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem. And, we know that God used gentile nations to scatter Israel to every part of the earth. But then, God shows Zechariah four craftsmen.
What do these Four Craftsmen do?
Their job is to TERRIFY the nations. And, I use all caps because the KJV gets that word wrong. The KJV says ‘fray’ which means to ‘wear away’. But, the Hebrew word is להחריד (L’Ha-Cha-Reed, ch as in Bach). It means to terrify or horrify. Not wear away. So, yet another KJV error.
Here’s the verse:
And I said, “What are these coming to do?”
So he said, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head; but the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”
– Zechariah 1:21 (NKJV)
Here’s the question:
Was this the rise and fall of the Hasmonean dynasty?
I’m sorry, but no. (Or, MAYBE no.)
The Hasmoneans did a lot. And, for the short amount of time in which they ruled, they were powerful. But, they fell quickly. And, they certainly didn’t terrify the Romans or the Seleucids. And, the Romans weaseled their way in and took over. But, I’m fully prepared to be wrong in this, since I wasn’t there.
Conclusion
There is a lot in this chapter. Some of what is written here is pretty obvious, and we even have some extra insight into the Book of Revelation. I really, really dislike having to be uncertain about parts of this chapter, and my instinct is to point to the future and not the past.
It’s also deeply disturbing that Israel constantly turned towards corruption so quickly. Every time that Ezra or Nehemiah would turn their back on them, the Israelis would go back to their corrupt ways – even though they had absolute proof that God had punished them for their corruption and would do so again if they didn’t stop.
And of course…
…they didn’t stop.
Now, if you think that Israel was worse than we are, think again. We Christians have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so we have far, far less excuse than those Israelis more than 2300 years ago. But, we’re doing the same stupid corruption that they did. Yes, Israel was stupid. But, we are proving to be even worse.
We really are a special kind of stupid.
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Zechariah 2 – Jerusalem and the Escape from Babylon
Zechariah 2 is yet another difficult chapter in two parts. The first is a prophecy of how big Jerusalem will be and that God will be a wall of fire around her and that He will be the glory in the midst of the city.
The second part speaks of God calling the people of Israel from the North, to the Land of Israel. Furthermore, He also speaks of being in their midst and many nations joining themselves to them.
The question is…
Has any of this happened yet?
Let’s see if we can answer that.
Zechariah 2 opens with the vision of a man who is going out to measure Jerusalem. And, the angel that is with Zechariah, speaks to the man to tell Zechariah what Jerusalem will be like.
And said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein:
– Zechariah 2:4 (KJV)
At the time Zechariah is experiencing this vision, Jerusalem hasn’t been rebuilt yet, and God is already speaking of how huge the city will be. So, that raises a question:
Has Jerusalem ever been this big?
Try finding that out, and you will get a ton of different answers. Some historians and archeologists will give a number as low as 20 thousand. Some have even said 250 thousand. And yes, you will get that much of a difference in estimates.
When would this have happened?
Right around the time of Jesus.
The Hasmonean Dynasty had been successful in reconstituting the land of Israel. They had recaptured everything that the Sleucids had controlled of Israel, and then expanded further – even taking out the people of Edom.
And then… they fell apart. They fought among themselves and the Seleucids kept sticking their foot in, before the Romans came along and threw everyone out.
For the briefest period of time, between the Seleucids and the Romans, Israel had full sovereignty until they destroyed themselves. What a classic bit of tragedy. And, the only thing that has kept modern Israel from doing the same, were the Arabs that wouldn’t stop trying to destroy them.
Seriously, at the beginning of the State of Israel, one of biggest worries was civil war. And, that civil war had begun even before the State of Israel had been founded. Jews were killing Jews, but the Arab threat to their existence united them in ways that nothing else could. Just look at what happened on October 7th of 2023. On October 6th, the Tel Aviv Left was tearing Israel apart and threatening a civil war. After October 7th, there was no thought of that.
If you want to destroy Israel, give them peace for a few decades.
But wait, I ‘forgot’ to mention the last verse in that first section:
For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.
– Zechariah 2:5 (KJV)
Okay, so that hasn’t happened yet. Not even a little. This is definitely the future.
But, which future?
Is this the Millennium, or is it the time of Israel’s Redemption?
Well, let’s think the Millennium through.
Will there be any need for a ‘wall of fire around Jerusalem’?
No. There won’t be ANY need of that. So, we are left with the Redemption of Israel. And, for quite some time, Jerusalem and Israel will be at peace, because the rest of the world will be spending all of its efforts trying to restart civilization.
The Restrainer
Only when corruption comes again to Jerusalem, will the ‘wall of fire’ be taken away, and the Antichrist will place his abomination that makes desolate.
Now, as I was rereading that sentence, I realized something important. If Yehovah is going to be a ‘wall of fire around Jerusalem’, how will the Antichrist be able to set up his image in the sanctuary?
Well, you’ll notice that Daniel 11:21-45 talks about the invasions of Israel by the Antichrist, but he only turns to taking over Jerusalem in verse 31. And, he does this by working with those who have forsaken the holy covenant. Only then does he get into Jerusalem and proclaim himself to be god.
What does Paul say about the Restrainer?
1 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
– 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (NKJV)
Paul is speaking to the Thessalonians about the Antichrist. That’s clear.
What is the context that Paul uses to talk about Antichrist?
Jerusalem.
Will the Antichrist be able to proclaim himself as god unless he is at Jerusalem?
Well it seems that this is necessary.
Would the Antichrist be able to do this if Yehovah was still a wall of fire around Jerusalem?
No.
Now, is this the correct answer to who the Restrainer is?
I don’t know. But, it’s a better answer than I have seen so far. And, you will notice that the Antichrist in Daniel does not proclaim himself to be god until AFTER he has taken Jerusalem.
Again, here’s the Wall of Fire again:
For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.
– Zechariah 2:5 (KJV)
Is this Wall of Fire the Restrainer?
It sounds like it. But, it is not necessary to claim this. All we really need to know is what Paul said, and that means that Israel will have been a Christian nation for long enough for corruption to come in and create the great falling away.
The Redemption of Israel
Then, in the next section God calls for Israel to escape from the North, from the daughter of Babylon.
Who is the daughter of Babylon?
That’s a very good question. If you do a search for the ‘daughter of Babylon’, you will find only five references:
“daughter of Babylon” – Biblegateway (KJV)
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22daughter+of+Babylon%22&version=KJV
Psalm 137:8 – O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Isaiah 47:1 – Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Jeremiah 50:42 – They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.
Jeremiah 51:33 – For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.
Zechariah 2:7 – Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
I’m not sure how many know this, but Babylon has never been destroyed. Instead of being destroyed, it was captured by Cyrus the Great via a clever sneak attack by his general Gobryas. It was – in every sense – a special forces raid that made it into the Babylonian King’s inner palace where all the leaders of Babylon were. Gobryas and his men killed all of Babylon’s leadership, and the rest of Babylon surrendered.
The takeover of Babylon was almost a bloodless coup. Only the leadership of Babylon died. And, this presents us with a problem.
Babylon was never destroyed. It was only abandoned. When Persia took over, it became a regional capital. When Alexander the Great took over and died in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, the Seleucids continued using it as a regional capital, but it was all downhill from there. When the Persians pushed back the Seleucids, Babylon was captured, lost once or twice to the Romans, got it back… eventually, it became nothing more than a frontier village. And, when the Arabs rampaged across the Middle East, everyone forgot where Babylon was.
None of that is the way Jeremiah 50 and 51, Psalm 137, describe the destruction of Babylon. Only Isaiah 47 could be considered, if you squint.
So, who is this daughter of Babylon?
I don’t know. No one does. The best that we have are theories. And, the best of those theories are about what might be coming in the future. You could make a case for the destruction of Iraq as being a kind of beginning of the fulfillment of Babylon’s destruction, but it is still habitable. What hasn’t happened yet is the part where the daughter of Babylon will never be inhabited again, and it may only happen when Gog and Magog come, with the cataclysmic destruction that follows.
However, we do know that the Jews have come from the North. In fact, the first of them came from the North, from Europe. But, that was just the beginning.
Here are the first two verses that we have been talking bout:
6 Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord.
7 Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
– Zechariah 2:6-7 (KJV)
And indeed, Israel was spread to the four winds of heaven, and from the four winds they have returned.
And, those Jews who lived in Iraq?
After Israel became a nation Iraqis began to have a more and more hostile view of the Jews, to the point where they needed to flee Iraq for Israel. Mossad organized the airlift via Iran and Cyprus. The operation was called Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, and over a 120 thousand Jews were in that airlift.
It is a fact that the vast majority of Israeli Jews came from other places than the West. However, that doesn’t stop the antisemites from making claims that there are no real Jews in Israel.
Then there are two very interesting verses:
8 For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
9 For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me.
– Zechariah 2:8-9(KJV)
Those that have abused the Jews have found themselves being forced to help Israel. Not a single nation that has persecuted the Jewish people has been unaffected by this. They have all been forced to aid Israel in some way. And, the stories that have been told about this are as numerous as they are fantastic. But, the last part of the chapter is the best of all:
10 “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the Lord. 11 “Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall become My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. 12 And the Lord will take possession of Judah as His inheritance in the Holy Land, and will again choose Jerusalem. 13 Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is aroused from His holy habitation!”
– Zechariah 2:10-13 (NKJV)
For those of you who have read When Gog Comes and Ezekiel’s Fire, you know that the whole world will experience a massive cataclysm that will prove to them that Yehovah is God, and that He has chosen Israel. And, the number of prophecies about this outnumber any other prophecies about the Last Days.
Furthermore, as verse 13 says, the world will indeed be silent, and God will be the protector of an Israel that has come to faith in Jesus Christ. And people everywhere will understand this, and Christians will want to be a part of it.
(At least, those of us who have survived.)
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Zechariah 3 – The Coming of Jesus
Zechariah 3 gives us prophetic visions of the past and the future. It also raises a few questions and shows us when Zechariah began his ministry. And, we will yet again see a direct connection with the Book of Revelation, as well as a few interesting translation errors.
We will see one of the few conditional prophecies, as well as phrases that are hard to pin down. Timing is everything, and there are a couple of phrases here that I bet have tripped up many people. So, let’s get started.
Zechariah 3:1 provides us with our first conundrum:
Zechariah changes the name of the High Priest from ישוע (Yeshua) to יהושוע (Yehoshua). We know that he was called Yeshua (Jeshua) in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. However, Joshua (Yehoshua), the leader of Israel who brought them into the Land, after Moses died… Nehemiah also calls him Yeshua (Jeshua). You can see that here:
And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness.
– Nehemiah 8:17 (KJV)
And, if you want to see all the times where Jeshua (Yeshua) was used as a name, you can see that here:
Jeshua
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=Jeshua&version=KJV&resultspp=250
You will find that Jeshua is mentioned only twice outside of Ezra and Nehemiah. We also know that Yeshua was a rather common name at the time of Christ. People were looking for salvation, and named their children after that desire.
The problem comes from the intellectual Christians who like to find some bit of knowledge that they think they can use to establish some personal greatness. And, they forget that the way that Hebrew characters were written, dramatically changed right around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Notice the change in characters, here:
| Letter name |
Variants | |
|---|---|---|
| Contemporary | Ancestral | |
| Alef | א |  |
| Bet | ב |  |
| Gimel | ג |  |
| Dalet | ד |  |
| He | ה |  |
| Vav | ו |  |
| Zayin | ז |  |
| Chet | ח |  |
| Tet | ט |  |
| Yod | י |  |
| Kaf | כ |  |
| Final Kaf | ך | |
| Lamed | ל |  |
| Mem | מ |  |
| Final Mem | ם | |
| Nun | נ |  |
| Final Nun | ן | |
| Samekh | ס |  |
| Ayin | ע |  |
| Pe | פ |  |
| Final Pe | ף | |
| Tsadi | צ |  |
| Final Tsadi | ץ | |
| Qof | ק |  |
| Resh | ר |  |
| Shin | ש |  |
| Tav | ת |  |
The above came from my discussion about the Fall of Babylon and the Handwriting on the wall, here:
Daniel 5 – And How Babylon Fell To Cyrus
https://revelationsix.com/a-biblical-overview-of-daniel/#Babylon_Fell
Now, notice the difference between the Hebrew that changed during the time of the Babylonian Exile. Here is what the current Hebrew text shows:
מנא מנא תקל ופרסין
(Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin)
And, the text that Moses and most of the prophets knew:
And no, I can’t read that. I can read the “מנא מנא תקל ופרסין”, but I can’t read the original Ancient Hebrew characters. However, Daniel could. And he did.
So, as I asked before…
Why did the Israelis change the character set for written Hebrew?
The words didn’t change. The content of the Bible didn’t change. Just the way that the characters were written. And, I’m not sure that we can trust the biased sources that we have, that might describe why this change happened. But, I’m very curious about this, even though it really doesn’t matter much. Nothing was changed in the Bible, except the shape of the letters it was written with.
Now, does this explain the confusion over Yeshua vs Yehoshua?
I don’t know, but it’s the best guess that I have. The scribes writing for Ezra and Nehemiah might have gotten a little choked up over the issue, but Zechariah wasn’t. Zechariah knew that the name of the High Priest was Yehoshua (Joshua), not Yeshua (Jeshua).
The other guess, is that God changed the name of the High Priest in the vision that Zechariah was given. It doesn’t explain the change of the name of Joshua ben Nun to Jeshua ben Nun, so that makes it a half-guess.
But, to those intellectual Christians who wish to argue the point, there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you on the way out. I have no tolerance for intellectuals. They are a stain upon our faith and a curse upon our society. I will have nothing to do with them until they repent and turn back to a pure faith, not corrupted by carnal foolishness.
The name of Jesus was Yeshua (ישוע). And, it is Yeshua. Every evangelical Christian Israeli understands this. Every Biblical Archeologist understands this. Those that don’t understand this might need to see their doctor.
Whew. All that from just a reference to the first verse.
Verse one goes on to speak of Joshua the High Priest standing before the Angel of the LORD with Satan standing to oppose him. And, all of us are in that position. We stand before God as we go about our lives in service to Him, but we are opposed by Satan at every turn. And, it is only God who protects us from Satan’s desire to destroy us. But, verse two adds something interesting:
And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
– Zechariah 3:2 (NKJV)
The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem.
Think about how much of the Bible is about this choice. There is no place on earth that benefits from this special status as chosen by God. Yes, the Land of Israel is important, but the most important is Jerusalem. David had to reign there. Jesus had to save us from our sins there. And one day, after the Redemption of Israel has happened, a man that we will call the Antichrist will seek to place his image there. Then, when the Millennium comes, which we will get to in chapter 14, Jesus will rule the world from there.
Why is Jerusalem so important?
I can give you many theories, and they all have merit. But, nothing I can tell you will make any difference. God chose Jerusalem for reasons that He did not tell us. So, we accept it as truth.
What are these theories?
Jerusalem is at the bridge between Europe and Africa and Asia. With God placing His city and His Temple at Jerusalem, every place in the world would have heard about God. In ancient times, information flowed along trade routes, and everyone would have heard about the God of Israel at one time or another.
All because of trade routes.
Jerusalem is also the hardest city to get to, unless you are coming from the south. No one would EVER go to Jerusalem, unless it was to worship God.
It is a place that can only exist if God is there. Israel is located at the meeting points of empire. Every empire from Africa to Asia to Europe fought in Israel and sought control of Jerusalem, or at least its neutralization.
Yet, no empire has ever ruled from Jerusalem. Every empire ruled the area of Israel from Damascus. Always. The Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Persians and every Islamic empire all ruled the region from Damascus.
God specifically chose a place that made no strategic sense, but a very spiritual reason.
Okay, so that’s Jerusalem, but why is Joshua spoken of as a brand plucked from the fire. The word used isn’t like the iron brands that you mark cattle with. No, this is a wooden stick that you use to stir up a fire. If you leave it in, it burns up.
So, God is speaking of Joshua the High Priest as one who has been rescued from being burned up. And, he came to the temple from Babylon. But, when you read through Ezra and Nehemiah, everyone was in spiritually bad shape. They had been corrupted by Babylon, and God was rescuing them from spiritual annihilation. And, we see this with the next verses:
3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel.
4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.”
5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by.
– Zechariah 3:3-5 (NKJV)
That’s you and me. God has taken our corruption and sinfulness and removed it from us, by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
How did God remove the filthy garments and the iniquity of Joshua the High Priest?
The exact same way. Every person in the Bible who had their sins taken away and their filthiness cleansed, did so through the final sacrifice of our Lord and Savior on the Cross and the anointing of His blood in the holy place of the Temple in heaven. Without that, none could be saved. Without that you and I cannot be saved.
The Conditional Prophecy
The next part of chapter two speaks of Jesus, a future removal of the iniquity of the Land of Israel, and an admonition to the High Priest that he would be blessed as long as he followed God’s commandments. And, as you probably already guessed, that didn’t last very long.
6 Then the Angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying, 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:
‘If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here.
– Zechariah 3:6-7 (NKJV)
Did Joshua the High Priest even follow God properly for any length of time?
No.
Here we see that his sons had taken pagan wives:
18 And among the sons of the priests who had taken pagan wives the following were found of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah. 19 And they gave their promise that they would put away their wives; and being guilty, they presented a ram of the flock as their trespass offering.
– Ezra 10:18-19 (NKJV)
(Remember Jeshua in Ezra = Joshua in Zechariah.)
This means that Joshua did NOT walk in the ways of the Lord, because he allowed his sons and brothers to marry pagan women. So, in all of this chapter, there is an understanding of how Israel will fail and continue to fail.
The Coming Of Jesus
But, in the midst of all this failure, we still have the promise of redemption through Christ:
8 ‘Hear, O Joshua, the high priest,
You and your companions who sit before you,
For they are a wondrous sign;
For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
9 For behold, the stone
That I have laid before Joshua:
Upon the stone are seven eyes.
Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’
Says the Lord of hosts,
‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
10 In that day,’ says the Lord of hosts,
‘Everyone will invite his neighbor
Under his vine and under his fig tree.’ ”
– Zechariah 3:8-10 (NKJV)
TRANSLATION NOTE: the BRANCH spoken about here is not a branch, but a sprout/bloom/bud. I do not understand why Hebrew translators can’t get this right. What’s wrong with them? This isn’t a difficult Hebrew word. In modern Hebrew, a צמח (tseh-mach, ‘ch’ as in Bach) is a plant or sprout. And, the same goes for Ancient Hebrew, צמח IS NOT A BRANCH.
Seriously, where do these Bible translators come from?
Now, in verse eight, you might not have understood where this prophecy was going, but verse nine would have told you everything that you needed to know, if you’ve been reading the Book of Revelation.
Remember the Lamb with Seven Eyes?
Well, let me allow Revelation to describe Him for you:
1 And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2 Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it.
4 So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. 5 But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.”
6 And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.
– Revelation 5:1-7 (NKJV)
So, the Stone with Seven Eyes is Jesus Christ, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Root of David. And, the Seven Eyes are the Seven Spirits of God that are sent out into all the earth. But wait, Zechariah refers to a stone and not a lamb, well we have plenty of verses about that, but I like what Peter had to say:
4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,
5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
– 1 Peter 2:4-8 (KJV)
Jesus is our Cornerstone. He is our head. He is our foundation. Without Him, our house is built on sand.
Now, you’ll notice that translators will capitalize the word Branch, because they know that this is Jesus Christ, but they didn’t capitalize the word ‘stone’. Bible translators don’t know that this Stone is also Jesus Christ.
Now, there’s one last bit that we haven’t covered. Zechariah 3:9 says, “Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’ Says the Lord of hosts.” So, there’s an inscription. But, it’s a little unclear. The inscription upon The Stone is probably this:
‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.’
However, you could also say that we don’t know what the inscription is, or that it’s this one:
‘Everyone will invite his neighbor
Under his vine and under his fig tree.
Whichever choice you make as to what the inscription is, we can say that the prophecy “I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day” has not taken place. In fact, at no time since the last kings of Israel, has the iniquity of the land been removed.
When will the iniquity of the Land of Israel be removed?
When the Redemption of the Children of Jacob finally comes.
In fact, there are more passages about the Redemption of Israel in the Last Days, than about any other subject about the Last Days.
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Zechariah 4 – The Two Anointed Ones and the Seven Eyes
Zechariah 4 shows us yet another direct connection with the Book of Revelation. This time, it is the two Olive Trees and the Two Witnesses that we see in Revelation 11. But, there is one difference. In Zechariah 4 there is one candlestick and in Revelation there are two. And, the candlestick in Zechariah is described differently than the one in Revelation.
Is this difference significant?
We also see the Seven Eyes which are the Seven Spirits of God that go through all the earth. They are also talked about in Revelation 5 AND Zechariah 3.
Are you starting to see how important Zechariah is?
In chapter 3 of Zechariah, God speaks to the Joshua the High Priest, who had filthy garments. But, in chapter 4 God speaks to Zerubbabel who is the governor of Judah.
Where else have we heard of this Zerubbabel ben Shealtiel?
Well, they came to Jerusalem with Ezra to build the Temple at the command of Cyrus, King of Persia – which was 550 BC. But, they didn’t complete it by the time Artexerxes I came along more than 60 years later and told them to stop. It sounds like – even though they had resistance from the locals – they still dawdled in their work. So, when the High Priest in Zechariah 3 was described as having ‘filthy garments’ it was probably well deserved. He and Zerubbabel didn’t do their jobs as well as they should have.
But, then about 60 years later, in the second year of Darius II in 425 BC, Haggai stood up with young Zechariah and told them to get back to work on the Temple. And, they did.
Now, as we start looking at Zechariah 4, we are only halfway through the prophecy that began in chapter 1, and will finish at the end of chapter 6. As I have said before, the chapter breaks are only about 800 years old, and were not made by men who were true followers of God.
Chapter 4 begins with Zechariah having fainted:
1 And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
2 And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:
3 And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
– Zechariah 4:1-3 (KJV)
Zechariah asks what these are, and the angel asks him if he knows. Zechariah says that he doesn’t know. The angel then responds with something that doesn’t sound like an answer at all:
6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
8 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
9 The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
– Zechariah 4:6-9 (KJV)
Through this angel, the Lord is saying that Zerubbabel has nothing to worry about and that the Holy Spirit will make this happen. Even though it seems like a mountain stands in front of Zerubbabel, making him feel unable to finish the task, God will remove the obstacles in his way – again, through the Holy Spirit. And in Ezra 5, we see Haggai and Zechariah prophesy that the Jews should restart the building of the Temple:
1 Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them.
2 Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them.
– Ezra 5:1-2 (KJV)
And, to prove that God would use the Holy Spirit to make this happen, the enemies of the Jews sent to Darius, asking them to make them stop. But, they also reported what the Jews had told them, that Cyrus the Great had given them permission. So, a search was made, and through the Holy Spirit, the scroll written by Cyrus was found. And, Darius not only gave the Jews permission to finish the Temple, but he made sure that everything that they needed was provided for them.
How long did it take the Jews to finish the Temple?
Four years.
(We see all of that in Ezra 6.)
So when God says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit”, that will accomplish more than any effort or determination that we or our enemies have. If the Holy Spirit is with us, nothing can stop us. If the Holy Spirit is not with us, we can do nothing.
Then a strange verse appears, and there are some terrible translations of it – especially the ESV.
For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
– Zechariah 4:10 (KJV)
The KJV and other translations like it come closer than the others. It is NOT a plumb line. That is NOT what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew is actually two words: האבן הבדיל (haEh-ven haB’deel). It basically means ‘the stone of tin’. And this is where translators should NOT be fooling around with the language. If it says ‘stone of tin’, say ‘stone of tin’. Yes, I know that we would normally use such ‘stones of tin’ as a weight for a plummet or a plumb line. But, the Bible didn’t say that, and the translators should not have fiddled with it.
And, that grand and glorious ESV that was supposed to be like the best bible ever? They actually say ‘plumb line’, when no such word as ‘line’ is actually in the verse. This kind of thing makes me wonder how many Bible translators were even true Christians.
And, what does this stone of tin have?
Seven Eyes.
Where did we see these seven eyes before in Zechariah?
Here:
9 For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
– Zechariah 3:9 (KJV)
This appears to be the same stone in the hand of Zerubbabel. And, God said that He would put seven eyes on that stone, and that these eyes would be the seven eyes that run to and fro on the earth.
How does Revelation describe these eyes?
6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
– Revelation 5:6 (KJV)
So, these seven eyes are the seven spirits of God that see everything on the earth, and they are also on the stone of tin in the hand of Zerubbabel.
Then Zechariah asks the angel a question:
11 Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
– Zechariah 4:11-12 (KJV)
Revelation says this about these two olive trees:
3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
– Revelation 11:3-5 (KJV)
After about three and a half years, these two witnesses are killed by the beast that rises out of the bottomless pit.
What does that angel in Zechariah 4 say about these two olive trees?
13 And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
– Zechariah 4:13-14 (KJV)
Of course, everyone and their grandmother have theories about who these two anointed ones who will prophesy against the Antichrist. Some claim certain prophets. Others claim that they are Judaism and Christianity, which is insane. Some even claim that THEY are one of the two witnesses.
But, God doesn’t say who they are. And, if God doesn’t say, maybe we shouldn’t. In fact, the safest and most effective way to understand the Bible is to look at it as more than a book of knowledge about God. It’s more than that. It sets the boundaries of our knowledge about God.
Those things that are not said, are forbidden until the Lord Returns. Even Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:4, says that there is knowledge that is not lawful for men to say. So stop seeking for unlawful knowledge. (All that you will get is a lie from Satan.)
Stick to what God actually says, instead of what you want God to say.
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Zechariah 5 – Fantastic Imagery
Zechariah 5 provides us with an almost impossible challenge. And, I don’t know how much of what ANYONE says should be considered accurate. However, the wording seems to indicate a time in the future, a future where our civilization isn’t what it is today. And, it may be that the Land of Shinar becomes something that we wouldn’t have expected.
Furthermore, we have some fantastic imagery, a flying scroll, the only time that we have ever seen female angels described in the Bible, a woman who represents wickedness and the basket that she is carried is about nine gallons.
This is heavy stuff, so let’s dig in.
Remember that this is part of the same vision that began in Chapter One, and it won’t end until Chapter Six. Never forget that our chapter divisions are artificial, inserted into the Bible by men who were not saved around eight centuries ago. The same is also true about verse divisions that were inserted after they divided the Bible into chapters.
Never put great importance in a chapter break or even how a series of verses are divided.
(And, I don’t know why I’m the only person who talks about this.)
The Flying Scroll
This chapter is so unusual, I will need to quote all of it. And, the first part of the chapter describes a flying scroll. The KJV says roll, which is a bit unusual but there is some reason for that choice. And, it’s not some small scroll, like a letter written to someone. No, this is much larger. In the Hebrew it’s referred to as a מגלה (M’gee-lah). So this would be a scroll of substantial size, and it is.
1 Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.
NOTE: The root for מגלה (m’gee-lah) is גלל (gah-lahl), which is a verb that means to roll. And, if you want to know what a wheel is (and I know that you do), its a גלגל (gal-gal). And, if someone asks you to summarize what you were going to say, he would tell you to not give him the whole מגלה (m’gee-lah) and to just give the important details. Moving on…
2 And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.
That’s a very big scroll. And, that means there must be a lot in it. And, I wonder about how many seals are on this scroll, keeping it closed. And no, we CANNOT say with ANY certainty that this is the same scroll that is unsealed in Revelation. But, some of the things that it does are compatible with what Revelation describes. Like this next two verses.
3 Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.
4 I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.
Remember, that when you read Revelation, the sealed scroll introduced in Revelation Six, is going after an earth that has become utterly corrupt.
Does that mean that the scrolls in Zechariah and Revelation are the same?
Absolutely not. But, I understand the desire to speculate. Just do not turn your speculations into doctrine. Too many have been less-than-careful and have done great damage to themselves and the people who trust them. Whatever the case, the scroll itself is doing the damage to those who are evil.
The Flying Basket
The second part of this chapter refers to a flying basket. Now, the KJV says ephah, but it means either a measurement or a container that would hold an ephah. We’re not quite sure how much an ephah is. Some say nine gallons. Some say half that. But whatever it is, this container is not huge, so keep that in mind as we go through the next section.
5 Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.
6 And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth.
7 And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.
Now, if this is a nine gallon container, this is a tiny woman sitting in it. I know that this doesn’t mean anything, but I find it to be a curious.
8 And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
That ‘it’ isn’t an ‘it’. It’s a ‘her’. In Hebrew, the word ‘it’ will be masculine or feminine, depending upon what the subject is. But, in this case, the original Hebrew is using an older version of a modern Hebrew word for ‘her’ אותה (oh-tah). So, this wickedness is actually a woman. In fact, it’s the woman sitting in the container, which was sealed with lead.
9 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.
10 Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah?
11 And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.
So, these two female angels carry this woman that is called Wickedness to Shinar, which is an area where Babylon was located as well as the place where the original tower of Babylon was built. And, I have a very important question:
WHY?
And, the follow up questions would be:
What would this look like?
What’s going on here?
I don’t know, but this doesn’t conform to anything that we have seen happen over the past 2500 years. Remember that – as of Zechariah’s writing – Babylon had already been conquered, and over the centuries it will slowly wither away until very little of it could be found. It was never destroyed. Just abandoned. And, over the centuries, local villagers probably took the stones of Babylon to build their own houses. All that would have been left, would be scattered mounds of brick, where once a proud city stood.
However, the Bible speaks of a future destruction of Babylon by the Medes (Iran) in Isaiah 13 and 14. We also have a similar destruction of Babylon in Jeremiah 50 and 51. And, they both speak of a destruction of Babylon that is complete and never ending. No one will be able to live there, after it is destroyed. But, we see people being able to live in the area of Babylon today.
However, there is one thing that both Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of when talking about this fantastic destruction of Babylon.
THE REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL
That’s right, there is a connection between this incredible destruction and Israel receiving the gift of salvation. We also know that Gog and Magog happens at this time. We know that Iran plays a role in Gog and Magog, and also in the destruction of Babylon.
Think about where Iran would need to march through to get to Israel. They would need to march through Iraq, and they would want to destroy or neutralize all the Sunni Arabs that they find.
Would this represent this future destruction of Babylon?
Will the Sunni Arabs carve out a state of their own in Iraq, a state that will be completely destroyed?
Possibly.
There’s also something else that happens when Gog and Magog attacks Israel. There will be a shift in the rain patterns due to a change in the geography of the our planet. The global earthquake that destroys everything will also change the height of mountains. Some will grow higher. Some smaller.
I’ve written about this in chapter 9 of Ezekiel’s Fire. The rains that come to Israel will shift southwards, and the change in the Syro-Lebanese mountains will starve Damascus of water.
Will this change also starve Babylon of water?
I have no idea, except that none of this has happened before. But, I also don’t understand why God places the woman named Wickedness in the area of Babylon.
I suspect that those who survive the coming of Gog and Magog will understand all of this better than we do now.
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Zechariah 6 – The Four Chariots and Jesus
Zechariah 6 is the end of the vision that began in chapter 1. And, it also speaks again about the four horses, but it adds a something new to their description.
They are the Four Spirits that go forth from the Lord. And, they sound a lot like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Chapter 6 ends with a crown for Joshua the High Priest, and how this six chapter prophecy will be confirmed. Even more important, this prophecy speaks of Jesus coming and building the Third Temple – the Body of Christ.
Zechariah 6 is split into two parts. The first part is about the Four Chariots, and the second is about the crown given to Joshua the High Priest. Both are very significant in completely different ways.
The Four Chariots
Let’s actually read what is said about these chariots:
1 And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass.
2 In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses;
3 And in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.
4 Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?
5 And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country; and the white go forth after them; and the grisled go forth toward the south country.
7 And the bay went forth, and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth: and he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth. So they walked to and fro through the earth.
8 Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.
– Zechariah 6:1-8 (KJV)
Notice the coloring of these horses. In Revelation they are White, Red, Black and Green. I know that translators say that last horse is Pale, but the original Greek says Chloros – Green. And, verse three might have been why the translators of Revelation called the fourth horse Pale.
Why?
Because the Hebrew word for ‘bay’ is אמץ (Ah-moh-ts). Unfortunately, there are different definitions to that word, depending on how it’s pronounced. And even then, the same pronunciation can have two different meanings. However, we are talking about a color. And Ahmots means ash-grey. And, ‘Ash Grey’ would be quite a pale color.
Now, when you look up this word in a concordance or interlinear, they might say ‘strong’. But, that’s a different word with a different pronunciation. If the word meant ‘strong’, it would still be spelled אמץ, but the pronunciation would be ‘Oh-mets’. And, since the context of the description of these horses are about their color, and because of the pronunciation of the word in the verse… we must stick with ash-grey or maybe ‘grey-brown’.
The Grisled horses?
Grisled must be an old English word for spotted, because that’s what the Hebrew word ‘bah-rode’ means.
So, we have five horses, with two that are together. Revelation actually does the same because of what follows the Pale horse.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
– Revelation 6:8 (KJV)
What color of horse does Hell ride?
Is it spotted?
What are these horses?
Zechariah asks that, and the angel responds with, “These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.“
Is that what the horses and horsemen are in Revelation 6?
I would have to believe that the answer can only be a resounding YES!
Now, this does not mean that we are watching a different view of the removing of the first four Seals. These spirits are going out at a different time than Revelation 6. And, it appears that God uses these spirits to punish the Earth at different times.
Why?
Well, after the White and Black horses went to the north country, the angel said this to Zechariah, “Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.”
Now, do the colors of the horses indicate what they do?
In Revelation 6, we see each rider given something specific, and was given a specific duty. Zechariah does not describe that here. Yet, the differences in colors would seem to show that these horses have different duties, and it would be natural to assume that these duties are similar to what Revelation describes. So, that would be my operating hypothesis.
White Horses – a conquering empire
Red Horses – Violence
Black Horses – Scarcity
Ash-Grey Horses with the Spotted Horses – Death and Hell
And, at the time when the White and Black horses went to the North, something happened that made the angel less angry, or more at peace. Some judgment happened up there.
What could have happened or happening around 520 BC?
Well, there were a bunch of revolts that Darius had to put down across his empire. That could account for the actions of the White and Black horses. Then, he invaded Europe, going after the Scythians. Then, Darius had to beat up Greece for fomenting revolt in Anatolia. He was the guy who lost the battle of Marathon. So, there was a lot of stuff going on up in the North that these two horses would have been a part of.
But, what did the Red Horses do?
They aren’t mentioned as doing anything. However, the rebellion that Darius had to spent two years putting down might have been the work of the Red Horses, instead of the White and Black that I mentioned earlier.
The Crowning Of The High Priest
Then Zechariah is commanded to do something unusual. With his own hands he is to create a crown for the High Priest, so that the High Priest would also be king. And THAT is highly unusual until you think of who Jesus is. Jesus is both our High Priest AND our King. But, let’s see what this section actually says:
9 And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
10 Take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai, of Tobijah, and of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah;
11 Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest;
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
14 And the crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah, and to Jedaiah, and to Hen the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the Lord.
15 And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.
– Zechariah 6:9-15 (KJV)
Now, remember that this is during the time of Ezra. The gold came with Ezra. So, Zechariah takes the silver and gold and builds a crown for Joshua the High Priest, and sets it on his head. Then verses 12 and 13 say:
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
Is God calling Joshua the High Priest, the Branch?
No.
First of all, the word Branch is not branch. We’ve talked about this before, it’s actually bloom or sprout. Not a branch. But, that’s less important than who is being talked about:
Jesus
But, what temple does Jesus build?
Well here is what is said in John 2:
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
– John 2:18-21 (KJV)
The Body of Christ is the Third Temple, and there shall never be a need for a fourth. And, the fact that Jesus is also our King, brings this prophecy to life. This means that Zechariah was speaking about Jesus.
Then, one more thing is said:
15 And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.
– Zechariah 6:15 (KJV)
To prove that this six chapter prophecy was from the Lord, God will bring people from far away to build in this temple, and even the city.
Where did we see this?
The coming of Nehemiah, from Persia.
That confirmed to Zechariah that the vision and prophecy were true. But, it also proved to everyone else who might have thought that Zechariah had eaten the wrong mushroom. However, there is one more thing to contemplate.
Who is building in the Third Temple, the one that Jesus built – the Body of Christ?
You, me and everyone else who is a member of the Body of Christ. We are also those who are far off and have come to build in the Temple of the Lord, which is the church.
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Zechariah 7 & 8 – A Conditional Blessing and a New Covenant
In chapter 7 of Zechariah, God speaks to the people with scorn, when they ask if they should continue weep and fast, telling them that they should have obeyed Him before Judah and Israel were destroyed. And, He spoke of their disobedience that cost them everything.
Then, in chapter 8, the Lord speaks two prophecies to Zechariah. The first shows His intent to build Zion and bless the people, but with some subtle conditions that we know that they did not follow.
However, the second prophecy is yet to be fulfilled, and hints at a new covenant. But, let’s begin with chapter 7.
In this chapter, Israelis sent representatives to ask the priests at the Temple whether they should continue their fasting and mourning in the fifth and seventh months. And God speaks to Zechariah, who is also a priest and tells these representatives that God is not impressed with their fasting. In fact, God says that He would rather have them obey His laws.
The LORD says:
Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?
– Zechariah 7:7 (KJV)
When King Saul disobeyed a direct order from God, the prophet Samuel came to Saul and said:
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
– 1 Samuel 15:23 (KJV)
Think about that statement for a moment.
Has God changed His view of rebellion?
I’m sorry, but the God of Samuel is the same God that we worship. And, if God viewed rebellion to be as evil as witchcraft, then we had better look carefully at ourselves to see if WE are in rebellion against God.
Paul emphasized the seriousness of this in his letter to the Church at Philippi:
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
– Philippians 2:12 (KJV)
Our churches have lost their willingness to obey God. We no longer fear God. And, when we say that we love God, it doesn’t ring true. All of that means that we are rapidly approaching the same position that Israel was in, before THEY went into captivity.
All Israel had to do was obey, and they refused.
The message is the same to our churches:
All they need to do is obey.
Then, God speaks again to Zechariah, about Israel’s disobedience and how they oppressed each other and refused to listen to the law and the prophets. God said:
Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts:
But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.
– Zechariah 7:13-14 (KJV)
Zechariah 8
Now, as we enter the beginning of another chapter of prophecy, let me emphasize again that God does NOT change. He is incapable of changing. He is the same God during the time of Zechariah as He is today. So, when God says this about Zion, the place where Jerusalem is:
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury.
– Zechariah 8:2 (KJV)
If God was jealous for Zion with such great jealousy and fury, is that still true today?
You had better believe it!
In later chapters, we will see what God will do to those who try to interfere with Jerusalem, and what He does to them. In fact, we’ve already seen what God has been doing to the nations that burden themselves with Jerusalem.
Never interfere with something that God is jealous over. Never do that, unless you wish to be judged by God and suffer His wrath. I both fear and love God far too much to do that.
God continues with verse three onward, speaking of how He has returned to Zion, and yes this is present tense. And, He speaks of gathering Israel from the East and the West. That children will again play in the streets of Jerusalem. That men and women will reach old age. That He will dwell in the midst of them.
All of this will be glorious, but God set a condition upon His intentions:
15 So again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah: fear ye not.
16 These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:
17 And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.
– Zechariah 8:15-17 (KJV)
Now, did Israel fulfill this condition?
For a short time, yes, they did fulfill this condition. But, only a short time. In fact, so short, Zechariah was eventually murdered by the people that God sought to bless.
The Second Prophecy of Chapter 8
You know that you have the beginning of another prophecy when you see a sentence like this:
“And the word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying,“
That’s verse eighteen, and what follows is NOT a conditional prophecy. No, this prophecy speaks of a time in our future. Not only that, God speaks of something that is NOT in the covenant given to Israel at Mount Sinai.
This next verse is not about what Torah says…
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.
– Zechariah 8:19 (KJV)
That’s a VIOLATION OF TORAH!
Doing this would be disobedience to God, unless something had changed. Unless, a new covenant was given to Israel. And, we know what that covenant is.
That’s right, the New Covenant made by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through His sacrifice on the Cross, His burial and His resurrection.
THAT is the New Covenant that will change the mournful fasting into feasting. And, a little bit later, towards the end of Zechariah, we’ll see how Israel comes to faith in Jesus Christ.
Not only that, but there will be a geographic center to our faith: Jerusalem. We’ve never seen this before, although the Roman Catholic Church wanted Rome to be the geographic center of Christian faith. But, God did not choose Rome, and Roman Church has been in rebellion against God for more than 1900 years.
These last two verses make the point well:
Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.
– Zechariah 8:22-23 (KJV)
Is this happening today?
No.
Has it EVER happened?
No.
So, it must be in our future. And, it can only happen after the Redemption of Israel and the cataclysm that occurs that crushes what’s left of our civilization. But, as our civilization recovers from the ruins created by Ezekiel’s Fire, people will go to Jerusalem to seek the Lord and to pray.
That day will be glorious, but even that time of glory will have an end. As people start to rebel against God again, the Restrainer will step out of the way, allowing the Antichrist to rise and conquer the world.
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Zechariah 9 – Three Prophecies
Chapter 9 of Zechariah is a difficult one. It talks about the First Coming and the Millennium. About a new covenant that will be spread to the ends of the earth. It also seems to talk about the Redemption of Israel and Armageddon. Or, maybe not.
And, I found an error in my thinking, that this chapter was in three parts.
Or, did I?
Since I figured a couple things out writing about Zechariah 9, so you might get something new from this too.
When I started Zechariah, I had the impression that I could move through it quite quickly. But, that false impression came from working with the last three chapters – 12, 13 and 14. And, as I look back on how long it took me to understand them, I now realize the Zechariah was never going to be an easy prophet to understand.
And, people STILL don’t understand him.
There are two reasons for that. The first is that it is only now that these incomprehensible prophecies can begin to be understood. As God has promised in many places in the Bible, He said that the last days were sealed until the time came to unseal them. But, there’s a second more ominous reason.
Isaiah said this:
But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
– Isaiah 28:13 (KJV)
God purposefully made the Bible hard to understand so that the wicked would not understand and be broken. And, I need to keep reminding myself of these two reasons when people are not able to understand what seems so simple.
Oh, and a third way to NOT understand the Bible is to read commentaries written by people who DID NOT understand the Bible, which is mostly all of them.
Zechariah 9 is broadly divided into three parts:
Zechariah 9:1-8
Zechariah 9:9-11
Zechariah 9:12-17
Zechariah 9:1-8
We run into our first challenge in verse one:
The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord.
– Zechariah 9:1 (KJV)
In the Hebrew, the words ‘as of all’ is just ‘and all’. I don’t know how the KJV got that wrong. It’s actually a very simple Hebrew word וכל (veh-chole ‘ch’ as in Bach). Also, it’s not ‘eyes of man’. It’s ‘an eye of a man’. But, I might be nitpicking a bit here.
Here’s the question:
When were the eyes of all the tribes of Israel toward the Lord?
Has this every happened?
Maybe there was a moment in time in which this was true. It’s hard to say. They were only really independent 110 BC until 63 BC. From then on, the Hasmoneans decided that killing each other in an uncivil war was a great idea. And, don’t forget that Zechariah was murdered for his faith.
The other possibility is that verse one will be in the same time frame as Isaiah 17, where God permanently destroys Damascus and rescues Israel. And, here’s an interesting verse that sounds like what Zechariah said:
At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
– Isaiah 17:7 KJV
Is that a perfect match?
It sounds like it, but ‘sounds like it’ isn’t proof.
Then, God speaks in verses two through six of all the other Gentiles in the area that will be destroyed. Tyre, Sidon, Ashkelon, Gaza, Philistines. And then God says that a bastard will dwell in Ashdod.
I had thought all of these people had been destroyed by the Babylonians and then the Persians. But, it could be that God was speaking about those places that had been rebuilt. After all, they would have been rebuilt.
However, verse seven and eight are interesting:
7 And I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth: but he that remaineth, even he, shall be for our God, and he shall be as a governor in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite.
8 And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes.
– Zechariah 9:7-8 (KJV)
I can see how, for a brief time, that those that remain in Israel were for God in the past. But, verse 8 says that God will protect Jerusalem and that no oppressor will go through Jerusalem again.
Has that ever happened?
And, that word ‘again’ isn’t as strong as it looks in English. It just says עוד (ohd), which just means ‘more’ or ‘again’. It’s not as strong as the words that God uses to indicate ‘forever’ like dor v’dor or l’olam. But, I don’t know that this makes much of a difference.
But, just as Isaiah 28 said, God is not going to make this easy for us.
However, the next prophecy will be easy to understand.
Zechariah 9:9-11
These next three verses are among the most important in the Bible:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
10 And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.
11 As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
– Zechariah 9:9-11 (KJV)
What is verse nine talking about?
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And verse nine was completed. And, we know what verse 11 is talking about. That’s the New Covenant created by the shed Blood of Jesus Christ.
But, what about verse 10?
We know that through the gospel, Jesus did speak peace unto the heathen. That’s you and me. But, there’s a phrase that gives us pause. It’s this one:
‘and his dominion’
It’s actually one Hebrew word, with a prefix ‘and’ and a suffix ‘his’: ומשלו (ew-mash-lo). The root word is משל (mo-shel). That is also the root word for government ממשלה (mem-shah-lah). This would seem to mean that Jesus is literally governing the world.
Is this the Millennium?
I think that there is a solid case to be made for that. But, you’ll notice the confusing past, present and future in these three verses. This is by design. Those who demand that we believe that we are in the Millennium, will be caught by this verse because they will see what they want to see.
So, don’t get caught.
We will get to the chapter that describes the Millennium, and it will not be like anything that the Amillennialists say.
Zechariah 9:12-17
This prophecy is where I had consistently made an error with verse 11, thinking that it was a part of this set of verses and not the previous set. That was incorrect.
Why?
Because verse 11 speaks of the rescue of those caught in a waterless pit by the Blood of the Covenant of Christ, and verse 12 is about rendering double judgment upon Israel:
Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;
– Zechariah 9:12 (KJV)
Hmmm… where have we heard the Lord refer to rendering double unto someone?
Yeah, here:
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
– Isaiah 40:2 (KJV)
So, God is saying that He will render double unto Israel, for her sins. But, then this next verse gets us all confused again:
When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.
– Zechariah 9:13 (KJV)
Okay, that just threw a wrench into the machinery. I don’t know who this Greece is. I can tell you what I think, but I’m not sure.
Our first option is the Ptolemaic kingdom and the Seleucids, that were Greek. Israel – for a brief time – carved out a vassal state from them. Eventually, Jerusalem would be sacked by Antiochus IV, and later the Hasmoneans gobble up a chunk of the Seleucid empire before descending into that uncivil war.
Our second option is, well… I would think Gog and Magog. But Greece is not listed in that army. Go and read Ezekiel 38:1-6. You will not find Greece (Yavan) or any of her descendants in that list of who attacks Israel.
So, what does that leave us with?
Well, the Antichrist, who comes out of one of the four kingdoms of Alexander. And, we know from Daniel 11:21-45, that the Antichrist is the King of the North. And, we have this intriguing verse:
And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance.
– Zechariah 14:14 (KJV)
And, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Judah fighting in the Battle of Armageddon is beyond bizarre. But, it would explain the meaning of the next three verses:
14 And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.
15 The Lord of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar.
16 And the Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.
– Zechariah 9:14-16 (KJV)
That sounds like Armageddon.
But, is this before they receive their glorified bodies, or after?
Or, are we on the wrong track altogether?
And yes, the exact timing of the Resurrection and the Rapture is deeply uncertain. Those who claim that they KNOW the exact moment in time, have not read all the passages about the Resurrection and the Rapture. Never make doctrine out of supposition, or a verse taken out of context.
Now, we have one more verse. And, I want you to remember that the people who created the chapter divisions were not saved. And, there’s a lot of controversy over who did what. Some say that Rabbi Nathan AD 1488 was the one who divided the Hebrew Scriptures into chapters and verses. While others say that the Ben Asher family did this in AD 900. And then there’s Roman Catholic Archbishop of London, Stephen Langton in 1227.
That’s why I believe the last verse of this chapter actually belongs in chapter ten:
For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.
– Zechariah 9:17 (KJV)
And, if you read ahead, you’ll see how verse 17 fits better with Zechariah 10. But, I won’t blame you, if you feel otherwise.
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NOTE: Notice how I have made mistakes. I make them all the time. There isn’t a single Christian who has ever lived who hasn’t made lots of mistakes in interpretation. Now think about the commentaries on your shelf.
Do you really want to trust what they say?
And yes, I also mean that you should not trust what I say.
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Zechariah 10 – Judgment and Redemption
As we move into chapter 10, we will ask ourselves if this has already been fulfilled or not. After all, some elements of unfulfilled prophecy sometimes look a lot like what has already happened.
There will be verses in this chapter that will tell us with utter finality that this really is a prophecy about the future. And the events unfolding as I write this, seem to show that this future is much closer than we thought.
So, let’s go hunting for those verses.
The first two verses look like much of what you would expect from prophecies that have already been fulfilled:
1 Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.
2 For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.
– Zechariah 10:1-2 (KJV)
As He has done for thousands of years, God tells His people:
“Ask and you will receive”
And, like has happened for thousands of years, they refused. So, God left them without a shepherd. But, verse three marks a transition:
3 Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats: for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock the house of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle.
– Zechariah 10:3 (KJV)
To this day, I cannot watch a movie about the Holocaust. What I saw, as I did my own research about that time, has left wounds that do not heal. The horror of what happened is beyond comprehension. The systematic, organized, industrialized and efficient massacre of six million Jews is more than I can handle peacefully.
Many more millions died terribly during World War II, than died in the German death camps. But, the horror of war is far less of an evil than the murderous insanity that sought to slaughter a defenseless people with such fervor and industriousness.
The tragedy of this terrible moment in time is that the Jews of Europe were warned of what was coming. Those living under the British Mandate that they called Palestine begged the Jews to flee, to come to the Land of Israel. And, if they couldn’t flee to Israel, just get to somewhere safe.
Most European Jews wouldn’t listen, until it was too late.
People don’t realize that the original name for Israel’s number one intelligence agency was haMossad L’Aliyah Bet – aka The Institution for Immigration B. It’s job was to find ways to get Jews to safety, and gather intelligence that would make that possible. Once the state of Israel was established, the organization’s name changed to המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים (ha-Moh-sahd le-Moh-dee-een u-leh-Taf-kee-deem Meh-yoo-chah-deem), or The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.
Mossad isn’t all that great in the ‘Special Operations’ part of things. They have made some notorious failures. And, some of what people blame Mossad for is actually from IDF Unit 8200. There might actually be more members of Unit 8200 than there are in all of Mossad. But, I’m sure that both work together quite well, or not. (Rivalry is a thing.)
Anyway, what happened in the Holocaust was the destruction of the greatest rabbinic schools and the cream of Judaic scholarship. The greatest rabbis and institutions of the Ashkenazim were destroyed by Nazi Germany and her allies. The survivors that washed upon Israel’s shores were bereft of their shepherds.
The way that God drew the children of Jacob to the Land of Israel, caused them to be stripped of the Judaism that strangled them. They became something different. Something not seen in thousands of years:
Israelis
Yes, they were still Jews. They spoke Hebrew. Every Israeli child learned what Torah said. But, the shackles of the Talmud and Rabbinic Judaism were torn away. What was left became a warrior nation willing to defend themselves and take the Land that God had promised them.
I’m glossing over a HUGE amount of detail here. And, I am tempted to give you that detail, but that would take far more time than what we have. I have many stories of what made Israel who she is today.
I even knew some of the people who played key roles in those stories.
But, take a moment to look at the last bit of verse three:
“hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle.”
Yeah. That came true in spades. Israel became a nation of warriors, for that was the only way that they would ever survive. And, they destroyed all who came against them, never losing even one war.
Think about that for a moment. A tiny country made up of a people that were derisively called ‘the quivering Jew’, became a nation of warriors who defeated armies a hundred times larger than themselves. So, you had better believe that God has made Judah ‘His goodly horse in battle’.
Oh, and one last thing. Israel would not have survived without the Christians. The real kind. No matter what conspiracy theory you are told about Israel’s founding, none of that foolishness compares to what real Christians did to make Israel happen. And yes, I have stories about that as well. So, I say again…
Without Christians, there would be no Israel.
God goes on to confirm all the above, in verses four and five:
4 Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together.
5 And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded.
– Zechariah 10:4-5 (KJV)
Just look at the Suez war in ’56, the Six Day War in ’67, the Yom Kippur War in ’73, and all the other wars that they have fought. They completely and utterly destroyed their enemies. In fact, not a single Arab nation is willing to fight them. Not one.
And no, I do NOT call the Palestinians a nation.
Iran is the last of Israel’s enemies that dares to fight her. And the Ayatollahs will also fall, just as every other enemy of Israel has fallen.
God has reshaped the Middle East, by using Israel as His Destroyer. No longer will the Muslims ever have the Caliphate that they long for. God has blocked them… with Israel.
Up to now, you could have made a case that this prophecy was about the Hasmonean Dynasty. They called Judah Macabees ‘The Hammer’, and he and his dynasty recaptured the Land of Israel and for a short time, no one could stand up to them either. But then, they became corrupt, had an ugly little civil war and collapsed.
The next three verses tell us that we are in the middle of this prophecy – that it is still in motion and yet to be fulfilled:
6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them.
7 And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the Lord.
8 I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased.
– Zechariah 10:6-8 (KJV)
Those three verses have not happened yet. They have yet to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, but that day is coming. There are some things that must happen first, for those verses to become present truth. And, it looks like Israel and even the world is moving in that direction.
Remember that Ezekiel 38 and 39 tell us the exact moment of Israel’s Redemption. The coming of Gog and Magog will be the catalyst that God will use for Israel to recognize who their Messiah was, and is. But, Gog and Magog won’t come against Israel, until Israel is at peace and defenseless.
Yes, there will be an IDF, but it won’t be the juggernaut that it is today. The IDF at the time of Gog and Magog will be a shadow of its former self, because they will be at peace. No one will threaten them. And just like they did with Gaza before October 7th, they will let their guard down.
In verses 9 to 11, God turns back to what is our past:
9 And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.
10 I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place shall not be found for them.
11 And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.
– Zechariah 10:9-11 (KJV)
God spread the Jews across the world, but every one of them remembered who they were and where their heart was. For two thousand years, the Jews said to themselves, “Shah-na ha-Bah b’Yerushalayim.” Next year in Jerusalem. But, they had carved out lives for themselves in those far off lands, so God had to do something to force them out of their complacency and back to Israel.
God made it impossible for the Jews to continue living in any Arab country, even any Muslim country. They were all forced out by persecutions and pogroms. And, Israel did its best to resettle these refugees, and they prospered. They were forced out of communist countries, and they were even forced out by European countries.
Only horrible circumstances would persuade Jewish communities around the world to move to Israel. And their flight to Israel made her a vibrant country where only a third of Israeli Jews have come from the West.
Then, we get to this last verse, that is so important, that speaks much more than the few words it contains:
12 And I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord.
– Zechariah 10:12 (KJV)
That verse tells us many things:
- They will be Redeemed by God.
- They will have time to become strong in faith
- They will be in control of their country during this time
So…
Where is the Great Tribulation?
Where is the First Resurrection and the Rapture?
Where are all the ill-conceived eschatologies that have nowhere to put the Redemption of Israel?
Of course, you know the answer to that. There is no verse that describes a pretribulation rapture. There is no verse that consigns Israel’s Redemption to the Millennium. And, this is clearly not symbolic. And, it has clearly not been completed.
Unfortunately, those who have been brainwashed to believe a certain eschatology will be blind to what was said here. Part of that is due to the fact that some of the Last Days is still sealed. Part is due to foolish commentaries that confidently proclaimed errors about that which they did not understand. And then, there are the rebels who hate Israel, while claiming Christ.
I wish that there was some easy way to undo the damage that our brothers and sisters have suffered, but I’m afraid that – just as the Jews had to suffer great persecution and hardship – we too must suffer greatly before we realize the errors that we believe.
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Zechariah 11 – The Failed Return and the Betrayed Messiah
When pondering chapter 11 of Zechariah, it is clear that the return of the Jews to Israel, under the Persian Empire was NOT the Redemption of Israel. This chapter prophesies the continuation of Israel’s sinfulness and corruption, after they return to Israel – knowing that they were cast out because of it.
This also prophesies the sacrifice of our Lord. How he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. This is tragic beyond belief, but a great blessing to you and me, because there was no other way that we could be adopted into the household of God.
When Jesus said this:
34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
– Matthew 23:34-36 (NKJV)
What Zechariah said in chapter 11 would have been part of the reason why they murdered him.
Why?
Because this chapter tells the people of Israel that they will be destroyed. And, this would have been something that they would not have tolerated. This wouldn’t have happened immediately, but once Ezra and Nehemiah were out of the way, corruption would have accelerated and Zechariah would have been one of the first to be killed.
The first part of chapter 11 talks about Lebanon, and that was initially a bit confusing.
Why would Lebanon suffer?
Well, let’s look at the verses and then talk about it:
1 Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
2 Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are spoiled: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down.
3 There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
– Zechariah 11:1-3 (KJV)
Well, after Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire, and then dies, the resulting civil war between and among his generals would have been pretty hard on those living on the borders between the four main kingdoms. And, some of the most vicious combat would have been between the Seleucids in present-day Turkey and the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt.
Where was the border between them?
Israel and Lebanon. Both fought back and forth, tearing up the land of Israel and Lebanon. Then, when the Romans came through, even more damage was done. Following that, we had the Byzantines and the Persians followed by the Muslim Caliphates, that also fought each other.
So yeah, Lebanon would have had a really tough time, and it is STILL having a tough time. Currently, the Lebanese are hoping that Israel can kick out Hezbollah, who has terrorized them for decades. Before that they were terrorized by the Syrians, Yasser Arafat, the Ottomans and… well, you get the picture.
From verse 4 to verse 11, it speaks of the same kind of thing happening in the Land of Israel, but in a different way. God speaks of shepherds that consume the flock – the people of Israel. God also speaks of violence, civil war and being conquered:
4 Thus saith the Lord my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
5 Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord: but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour’s hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.
– Zechariah 11:4-6 (KJV)
NOTE: Shepherds always take excess male sheep and raise them to be slaughtered. You only need just a few male sheep to make sure that your female sheep are producing lambs. Of course, what God is speaking of here is more than just that natural process.
What happened before, during and after the Seleucid conquest of Israel was terrible. It was Israeli against Israeli. Hellenist Jews against fundamentalist Jews.
NOTE: If you want to know why the Septuagint is such a bad translation of the Bible. Remember that it was Hellenist scribes that were translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Let that sink in.
From verses seven to eleven, God was feeding the poor of the flock. He speaks of loathing the shepherds. He spoke of Israel consuming itself as they would bite and devour each other. But, verses ten and eleven are telling:
10 And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
11 And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord.
– Zechariah 11:10-11 (KJV)
Was God breaking His Covenant with the poor of the flock?
No.
But, He was breaking His Covenant with those who were rebels against Him. And, we see the new covenant that God would make with the poor of the flock in the next two verses:
12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
– Zechariah 11:12-13 (KJV)
If you’ve been reading your Bible, you will recognize the following:
3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
7 And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.
– Matthew 27:3-7 (KJV)
That’s right, verses twelve and thirteen are about Jesus being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Now, the rest of Matthew 27 gives credit to Jeremiah for this prophecy. Since, our Bible contains only a fraction of the writings of the prophets and apostles, we cannot claim that Matthew was wrong. All that we can say is that the writer of the Book of Matthew (Matityahu) may have had access to scriptures that are lost to us, today. (And no, that doesn’t give you permission to go and ‘find them’, like many false teachers like to do.)
Jesus came to the poor of Israel. To the destitute and broken. And, He taught them, healed them and gave them a new covenant. But of their shepherds, the Pharisees, He called them hypocrites and vipers.
Then, in verse 14, God says something that will only be healed when Ezekiel 37 is fulfilled:
14 Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
– Zechariah 11:14 (KJV)
God breaks apart Judah and Israel and scatters them across the globe. In fact, the other tribes of Israel forget their tribal identities and eventually just call themselves Jews. Even the Levis and Cohens who are of the tribe of Levi, call themselves Jews – but that’s a fulfillment of Ezekiel 37.
Then, in the last three verses God speaks of what happens to the Jews in every land around the world:
15 And the Lord said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
16 For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
17 Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.
– Zechariah 11:15-17 (KJV)
After the leaders of Israel chose the leader of a rebellion against Rome over Jesus, they sealed their fate. They had chosen the path of a revolution that failed in AD 70 because they tore each other apart, allowing the Romans to have an easy victory.
Then, when the Bar Kochva Revolt failed in AD 136, the Rabbis decided that they needed to change their observance from one that is Temple-oriented to one that is centered on the Rabbis. So, they corrupted their interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures, one that would also try to keep as many Jews as possible from becoming Christian.
However, their attempts to keep Jews and Israelis from becoming Christian failed miserably. For almost two thousand years, every generation has seen many Jews come to faith in Christ, to the great distress of the Rabbis.
But, the next two chapters will talk about how all who survive the coming of Gog and Magog in Israel, will come to faith in Christ. The death of billions around the world and millions in Israel, will be hard to watch. But, the world cries out for this judgment, and we will rejoice when Israel has finally been redeemed.
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Zechariah 12 – Gog and Magog and Ezekiel’s Fire
We will kill billions of people in the first four verses, but there’s also a blessing that cannot come without this horrifying event.
Like Ezekiel 38 and 39, Zechariah 12 and 13 are a single vision. And an unsaved somebody, broke this vision into two pieces about 800 years ago or 1100 years ago, and it was a very foolish to do. And, putting that artificial break in the middle made it harder to see that Zechariah 14 is not connected at all to the previous two chapters. Chapters 12 and 13 begin with an attack upon Jerusalem and the region of Judah. It continues with their repentance and the acceptance of Jesus as their savior. Zechariah 14 is a completely different story.
And, here are some interesting points that we will cover:
God’s love of a physical place called Zion.
The Solar EMP.
Woe unto us, if those are horses!
The Generals and Jerusalem.
Why this is NOT the defeat of the Antichrist.
Modern idolatry in Jerusalem.
Jacob’s Trouble.
A comparison with Zechariah 14.
So, let’s get into that.
Zechariah 12
So, let’s begin with Zechariah 12.
Unfortunately, like so much of this effort to understand the timing of Jacob’s return, this chapter has numerous translation errors. Worse, these are very basic errors that no expert in Hebrew should make, which leaves me wondering about the competence (or laziness) of Bible translators.
How is it possible that anyone would hire translators with such an awful understanding of Hebrew?
Here are the first three verses of the best translation that I could find:
1 The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel, saith the Lord, which spread the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of poison unto all the people round about: and also with Judah will he be in the siege against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem an heavy stone for all people: all that lift it up, shall be torn, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
– Zechariah 12:1-3 (GNV)
TRANSLATION NOTE: For verse two, most translations say ‘cup of trembling’ (KJV) or ‘cup of reeling’ (ASV). However, the 1599 Geneva Bible actually gets it right. The word is ‘poison‘ (רעל, pronounced: rah-ahl), and it also means ‘venom’ or ‘toxin’. Yes, a poison, venom or toxin can give you symptoms of ‘drunkenness’ or make you ‘reel’, but translators should stick to the original word and not corrupt our interpretation of the Bible with bad wording.
In verse three, the words, ‘lift it up‘ is עמסיה (pronounced: ohm-sey-ha), mean ‘burden’ or ‘load’. If you want to load something onto a truck, you use a cognate of that word: עומס. The idea is that they want to carry it or even control it.
Also in verse three, there is a lesser issue. The word ‘against‘ is עליה (pronounced: ah-leh-yah). It means to go up to. Yes, in the context of the verse, it means ‘against’, but translators should not be making these kinds of decisions for us. It’s less egregious in its error, but it’s still a misrepresentation of the word.
God’s Love Of Zion
When God talks about Israel, His primary focus is Jerusalem. Zion. It’s why it is entirely appropriate to call anyone who is pro-Israel, a Zionist. You simply do not have an ‘Israel’ without a ‘Zion’. Zion – Jerusalem – is the center and focus of Israel. It’s the center and focus of God. And, THAT is why I say that God is a Zionist.
And, if God is a Zionist…
…you should be one, too.
He will one day rule from Zion, and He has made it abundantly clear that the tiny patch of ground where King David’s city stood, is more important than any other place on Earth.
In fact, God says in verses two and three that He will claw apart anyone and everyone that causes trouble for Jerusalem and for Israel. If you mess with Zion, God will crush you. You will be damaged so thoroughly, that you will deeply regret ever thinking even negative thoughts about the Jewish ownership of Jerusalem.
The Solar EMP
And in this next verse, we see the Solar Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) that happens to those nations that come against Jerusalem:
4 In that day,” says the Lord, “I will strike every horse with confusion, and its rider with madness; I will open My eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.
– Zechariah 12:4 (NKJV)
Now, think carefully about what this means. Horses will be confused and blind. Riders – humans – will be driven mad. Most will think of this as something supernatural, and I’m sure that it will seem like that. But, we have scientific evidence that this really should be considered a natural phenomena from a single event – even though it is caused by God directly.
Ezekiel’s Fire – The Great Solar Cataclysm Straight Out of Prophecy
http://www.ezekielsfire.com/
In that book, I get into all the reasons why this is a micronova. Those details were why I wrote Ezekiel’s Fire. The science section is chock full of why this points directly to a massive solar event. That section alone is worth the price of admission. But, right now it is more important to talk about the effects. So, let’s start doing that by considering a more literal interpretation of this passage.
Are These Really Horses?
Let’s assume that God really is talking about horses.
How is it that horses could be struck with confusion or even blindness?
How could human beings be struck with madness by such a powerful solar flare?
Over the years, those who pay attention to solar flare activity have noticed that big solar flares tend to correspond with outbreaks of psychosis. And, if there was a really, Really, REALLY big solar flare or micronova, we could safely assume that there would be an even larger outbreak of psychotic events – i.e., madness.
Would horses be struck with confusion?
Well, I would assume that horses could get confused, in the same way that humans were struck mad. But, blindness is another thing altogether.
Are these horses really being struck blind?
Or, maybe we should ask this question:
Are these really horses?
Woe Unto Us, If These Are Horses!
As I have said elsewhere, if our civilization has fallen so far that we are using wood and horses, billions of people will have already died, and our civilization would already have been crushed. It would mean that farm tractors no longer work and that up to six billion people had already starved to death.
If these really were horses, medical care, entertainment, news media, and education would only exist at an early 19th century level – or worse. There would be no electricity. No running water. Big cities would become death traps. Governments would shrink and fracture. Plagues would sweep through our societies. The suffering would be terrible.
If these really were horses, we would not only lose the resources to create and maintain the machines and tools that our current civilization needs. We would also lose the knowledge of how to create those machines.
It would be a billion times worse than the Dark Ages that Europe went through after the fall of the Roman Empire. That’s how bad the situation would be, if Zechariah is talking about real, honest-to-goodness horses. It would be worse than anything that I describe in Ezekiel’s Fire.
So yes, these COULD be horses, but you had better hope that they aren’t.
No matter how you slice this, you’re going to get five to six billion people dying. And by the way, there are processes at work right now that are leading us to a complete collapse to bronze age conditions. I believe that we could avoid this worst-case scenario if we massively localized political power and commerce, but our politicians seem uninterested in doing so.
I mean, when was the last time a political institution chose to give up power?
However, discussing how our civilization could collapse into a new dark age would take a book to describe adequately. But, instead of a book, I built a website and we talk about some of that in RevelationSix.com.
But, let’s assume for now that our high tech civilization will continue up to the coming of Gog and Magog. And, we would understand this because we already know that God uses metaphors in prophecy. A quick read of the Book of Daniel would quickly demonstrate that our Lord does this routinely. So, let’s look at the thought that the reference to horses is metaphorical. And, let’s start by talking about WHY God would use metaphor.
Why Refer To Horses?
So, why did God refer to horses?
People at the time of Zechariah could not have imagined any other form of transportation. Therefore, God referred to horses because that was what Zechariah – and everyone else living before the 1800s – could understand. Imagine the confusion if God had described people riding inside wheeled, metal and glass boxes that consume a nasty black goo that came from deep underground.
It would be incomprehensible. Of course, a different kind of incomprehension may have been the goal here. God told Daniel to seal up the vision, and it has truly been sealed – since very few seem able to understand it.
The bottom line is that we are forced to accept the fact that the mention of horses here as almost surely metaphorical. If it isn’t, we are in much worse trouble than what I describe in Ezekiel’s Fire. I shudder to think of that, but I also know that it’s possible.
Why The Reference To Blindness?
So, if the mention of horses is symbolic…
…what does it mean to strike them with blindness?
Let’s think a bit about what the Lord is trying to say to us here. When you strike a horse with blindness, you aren’t killing the horse. However, you would be keeping it from ever doing anything useful. A blind horse won’t start. It won’t go anywhere on its own. To everyone looking at the horse, it would appear to be fine, except that the horse just wouldn’t move.
You turn the key in the ignition and nothing happens. Everything looks okay, except for the fact that the car/tank/truck won’t go.
Do we have any examples of something like this?
We do.
The Electromagnetic Pulse – EMP
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon at extremely high altitude. When they did this, they found that the starters were burnt out in all the cars within a certain radius around the test site. The same kind of thing happened when America detonated a nuclear bomb at high altitude over the Pacific Ocean. We call this phenomenon a nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse, or a nuclear EMP.
An EMP can come in many different forms. It can be man-made, by detonating a nuclear weapon at high altitude. It could be a short-range weapon, used to knock out nearby electronics. Or, it could come in the form of a massive solar event like Ezekiel’s Fire:
And I will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell securely in the isles; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.
– Ezekiel 39:6 ASV
When Ezekiel’s Fire comes, your horses – planes, trains and automobiles – will go blind. They won’t start. They will cease to operate. They will look fine on the outside, but God will have turned them into useless hunks of metal and plastic that will quietly sit in your driveway or on your street – immobile. Forever.
Just as bad will be the elimination of electricity networks across the globe. Everything electrical that was not directly destroyed by this EMP, will cease to work, because all the gigantic, custom-built transformers at every power station will be destroyed. This means that water will stop being distributed to buildings and homes. Manufacturing plants will not operate. Food will not be distributed. Water will not be purified. Sanitation will break down. Hospitals will close.
In just a few days after this event, vast numbers of people will die – if they do not have access to free-standing, drinkable water. And, that’s due to the fact that electric water pumps are the number one way that water is distributed throughout the developed world, and even the less-developed world. A billion people could die of thirst alone, when Ezekiel’s Fire strikes.
There might be places in the world where the effects of such a solar EMP would be reduced. Some have said that countries near the earth’s equator will suffer fewer effects than those farther north or south. This is due to the nature of Geomagnetically Induced Current (GIC), which is weaker near the equator, during solar storms. However, Ezekiel’s Fire will be so tremendous that it’s hard to think of any place that would truly be safe. And, let’s not forget the global earthquake!
Whatever your location, you need to ask yourself this question:
Can you survive without electricity, running water and transportation?
If you can’t, then you had better start working on an alternative. You can live three days without water and thirty days without food.
Think about it.
When Gog and Magog starts its march towards Israel, get away from any city. Go camping.
The Generals And Jerusalem
So, we’ve killed billions of people in just the first four verses of Zechariah 12. Let’s look at the next two verses:
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in the Lord of hosts, their God.’ 6 In that day I will make the governors of Judah like a firepan in the woodpile, and like a fiery torch in the sheaves; they shall devour all the surrounding peoples on the right hand and on the left, but Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place—Jerusalem.
– Zechariah 12:5-6 (NKJV)
TRANSLATION NOTE: The word for ‘governor’ in that verse is actually ‘general’ or ‘military leader’ – אלוף (pronounced: ah-loof). It actually comes from the word אלף (pronounced: eh-lef), meaning thousand – the implication being that a general in ancient times was a leader of a thousand soldiers. But, NOT a governor. Why the translators chose ‘governor’ is a mystery.
Verses five and six mean that the Israeli military, called the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), will be fighting in the countryside around Jerusalem, and south of Jerusalem. The Palestinians and the leading elements of the Gog and Magog alliance will be attempting to kill the Jews, and the IDF will be doing its best to defend the settlements like Gush Etzion, Efrat, Har Adar, Giv’at Ze’ev, Ma’ale Adumim and a host of others.
Including the Jerusalem neighborhood that I lived in for years – Gilo.
At the same time, the main army of Gog and Magog will be advancing into Israel from the north. And, just as in 1967, the only soldiers defending Jerusalem itself will be reserve units, made up of Jerusalem residents. When it says ‘the inhabitants of Jerusalem’ in verse five, it means that the situation will be so bad that everyone will be issued some kind of weapon and asked to defend the city. When we get to chapter 13 of Zechariah, we’ll see that it will be a desperate time in which two thirds of everyone in the land of Israel will die. Most will die from the earthquake (Isaiah 30), but at least some will die in the fighting.
Furthermore, I am dismayed by the reference to the ‘generals of Judah’ and not the ‘generals of Israel’. If so much of the IDF has been destroyed that only ‘IDF Southern Command’ (in Judah) survives as an organized force… well …that’s bad. Really bad.
But, the next verse injects a bitter and ironic point:
7 “The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah.
– Zechariah 12:7 (NKJV)
God hates pride with a passion, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem have a history of incredible hubris. God is going to make sure that Jerusalem cannot claim the glory that she does not deserve.
I really wish that we human beings were not so awful. But, we are, and it’s a very sad thing.
NOT The Defeat Of The Antichrist
Now, notice a striking difference between verse seven and the result of the Battle of Armageddon in Zechariah 14. You’ll see an in-depth comparison between Gog and the Antichrist in When Gog Comes, but we’ll do a little bit of that here:
In Zechariah 14, Jerusalem becomes the center of the world.
In Zechariah 12:7, God makes sure that Jerusalem is NOT.
In Zechariah 14, God saves Jerusalem first.
In Zechariah 12:7, Jerusalem is saved LAST.
That’s a HUGE difference, but we aren’t done yet. This next verse is where we see the average citizen engaged in fighting:
8 In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them.
– Zechariah 12:8 (NKJV)
This is where some might want to jump in and say that Jesus returns with His armies and defends Jerusalem. But, that’s not what Zechariah says here. This verse clearly says that God will give strength to each inhabitant of Jerusalem, and that these inhabitants will fight and overcome their enemies.
In Zechariah 14, we see the opposite – with Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives and splitting it in two. We will also see the armies of heaven in that chapter. But, we see none of that here, and it would be wrong to inject Zechariah 14 into this verse.
In Zechariah 14, Jerusalem is conquered, the women raped and half the city flees into exile.
In Zechariah 12:8, the inhabitants of Jerusalem successfully defend the city, with even the weakest being so incredibly strong that they will slay all their enemies, just like David did.
In Zechariah 14, Jerusalem is rescued by God Himself.
In Zechariah 12:8, God gives the inhabitants of Jerusalem the supernatural strength and ability to defend themselves.
These are profound differences that we should NOT ignore. Gog and Magog is clearly NOT the time of the Antichrist. Even if you wished to argue that God waits until Jerusalem is conquered before giving the citizens of Jerusalem the power to fight back, you could not prove that in this passage or in Ezekiel.
From this alone, you can confidently claim that Gog is NOT the Antichrist.
Gog And Magog And Salvation Through Faith
And as we continue through Zechariah 12, the next verse shows us Ezekiel’s Fire and Gog and Magog:
9 It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
– Zechariah 12:9 (NKJV)
Those nations are the ones in the Gog and Magog alliance that attack Israel. And, as you look at the history Israel for the last century, the target has ALWAYS been Jerusalem – which makes no sense from a secular point of view.
Then, those who sought to take Jerusalem are destroyed. That’s Ezekiel’s Fire. That’s the micronova that knocks down our civilization and throws us back to the pre-industrial era. Having said that, this gives me some hope that maybe… just maybe …those nations not in this alliance will suffer less damage.
Now, why can I be so confident that this is the coming of Gog and Magog?
Remember what we saw in Ezekiel 38 and 39, which directly describes Gog and Magog. The last nine verses includes this:
So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward.
– Ezekiel 39:22 (NKJV)
Then, compare that verse with the last five verses of Zechariah 12, which are just a more detailed retelling of what Ezekiel 39:22 says:
10 “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on [consider] Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. 11 In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; 14 all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.
– Zechariah 12:10-14 (NKJV)
TRANSLATION NOTE: The word for ‘look’ in verse 10 is הביט (pronounced: hee-beet), and it’s not the same as ‘see’ רואה (pronounced: roh-eh). The word ‘look’ (הביט) would be more accurately translated as ‘regard’ or ‘consider’. It’s a seeing from the heart, not the eyes. The word for ‘see’ (רואה) is about the eyes, and you don’t find that here.
Later, in Zechariah 14, the Lord will be visible. They will see Him with their eyes. This is in direct contrast with chapter 12, where God pours out His Holy Spirit upon them. Seeing with the eyes and regarding via the Holy Spirit are two very different things. Yet, that doesn’t stop false teachers from claiming that they are the same thing.
What is happening here, in Zechariah 12, is salvation through faith. Most of you should know the following passage:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
– Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV)
I could quote verse after verse about salvation coming through faith in Jesus Christ. If there was any other way, God would have told us. And, it is clear to me that salvation through faith and the indwelling – and baptism – of the Holy Spirit is what is happening here.
In Zechariah 12:10-14, we see the realization that the One that they had been rejecting for 2000 years, was (and is) the Messiah that they were looking for. The veil on their heart that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 3:16 will be torn away, and they will see the truth clearly – as you and I see it.
When you and I came to Christ, it was a deeply personal moment in time. We saw Jesus as the one and only true Savior. We asked God to forgive us of our sins and accept us as His children. We turned from sinful ways and embraced the salvation that can only come through Jesus Christ. We accepted the perfect gift of Jesus and entered into the kingdom of God.
The Israelis will do the same thing.
But for these Israelis, that acceptance will bring with it a crushing realization that all of their culture… all of their yearning and learning was in rebellion to God. They will discover that their rabbis and sages were worse than just wrong. They will realize that their great teachers had deceived and blinded them. And, they will understand that their proud deceptions sent all their ancestors into the eternal suffering and condemnation of Hell.
This will be a crushing realization. But, their days of mourning will be only for a moment, as their joy in the Lord overflows. To paraphrase Charles Dickens in the Tale of Two Cities:
It will be the best of times.
It will be the worst of times.
Those of us who survive that moment will be glad that we did, but it will be a very, very hard time. In fact, I believe that it will be the most difficult period of time since the Great Flood. The only thing worse than this, will be The Great Tribulation.
One More Thing – Isaiah 30:25-26
Do you remember how we talked about the salvation of Israel?
Do you remember how there will be an Solar event just like an EMP attack?
Then, this should be one of the scariest two verses you’ll read:
25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
– Isaiah 30:25-26 (KJV)
That will be all over the world. Our civilization will be smashed flat. When you see Gog and Magog coming against Israel… get out of the cities and go camping.
And, this vision given to Zechariah continues into chapter 13.
(Remember that the chapter divisions were NOT inspired by God.)
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Zechariah 13 – The Redemption of Israel
In chapter 13 God reinforces the idea that the children of Jacob will be saved from their sins in the exact same way that we have been saved from ours. Just as each of us turned from our wicked ways and accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior – through faith – they too will do the same.
When we get to Zechariah 14, we’ll see how that chapter is a completely different prophecy.
The Salvation Of Israel Continues
Here’s the first verse of Zechariah 13 that verifies that this is a continuation of chapter 12:
1 “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.
– Zechariah 13:1 (NKJV)
When you see words like ‘in that day’ in the first verse of a chapter, it’s clear that this chapter is directly connected to the previous chapter. It means that we are still speaking of the same prophecy that began in chapter 12.
But, how long is the ‘day’ in the phrase ‘in that day’?
Those of you who have been reading your Bible for long enough know the answer to that.
…’that day’ could last for years, decades and even centuries.
THAT DAY will only end, when the events described are complete. Days, weeks, months, years and even decades could go by, and THAT DAY will not be complete until all has been accomplished. Verse two continues with what will be accomplished:
2 “It shall be in that day,” says the Lord of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they shall no longer be remembered. I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to depart from the land.
– Zechariah 13:2 (NKJV)
Wait. God is speaking of idols. We understand about false prophets and unclean spirits…
…but what are these idols?
Modern Idolatry In Jerusalem
Years ago, My wife and I had the chance to witness a new Torah scroll being installed in a local synagogue, nearby our apartment. It was remarkably like what happens with an idol in the kind of pagan temple that you find in Taiwan.
As I write this, I am in Taiwan, and we see almost exactly the same kind of procession. When the priests in a local temple in Taiwan decide that it is time for their god or goddess to go on a procession around the neighborhood, or when they want to install a new idol, that procession looks remarkably like what happens when a new Torah scroll is installed in a synagogue.
Yes, that Torah scroll has the words of God printed on it, but that doesn’t matter. If you worship and bow down to ink and paper, it’s still idolatry. It doesn’t matter if that ink and paper is formed into the words of God. It is still idolatry.
There is only one person that we should bow down and worship:
God, and God alone.
Bowing down to ink and paper is a sin, no matter what the words say.
And, there is also the idol worship of the heart. Any kind of worship that is not of God is idolatry. The religious veneration of ANYTHING that is not the truth is idolatry, and that includes Judaism. And yes, Judaism is nowhere close to anything Biblical. Those who say otherwise, do not understand what the rabbis did to their religion after AD 70 and after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolt. I love the Jewish people, but they are in rebellion against God – for now.
The Spiritual Condition of Israel – Afterwards
I was going to skip the next few verses, but then I reconsidered.
Why?
Because it identifies the spiritual condition of Israel, after these events. It shows the passion with which the average Israeli will worship God. So, let’s look at verses three through six:
3 It shall come to pass that if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who begot him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, because you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord.’ And his father and mother who begot him shall thrust him through when he prophesies.
4 “And it shall be in that day that every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; they will not wear a robe of coarse hair to deceive. 5 But he will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a farmer; for a man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.’ 6 And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’
– Zechariah 13:3-6 (NKJV)
TRANSLATION NOTE: When verse three says ‘shall thrust him through‘, the word does not mean thrust a sword or knife in so strongly that it goes out the other side. It just means ‘stab him‘ – דקרהו , (pronounced dah-kar-roo-ho).
In another error, the word ‘arms‘ is actually ‘hands‘. I know that suffering a wound ‘between your hands’ doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what the Bible actually says. Translators should translate the Bible and leave the interpretation up to the reader.
This will mean that the Children of Israel will love God more than their own children. This will be a gigantic change from the way that Israeli parents raise their children now. Right now, the average child is put on a pedestal. If there’s anything that the average Israeli worships, it’s their children. There is no sacrifice too big, when it comes to their kids.
This created something of a problem for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in the early years of Israel’s founding. Israel’s little darlings had to be straightened out and given a strong dose of discipline, if Israel was to survive. This has placed the IDF in the role of ‘tough parent’. And, there probably isn’t any military in the world that is better at turning pampered, irresponsible brats into mature, trustworthy adults.
So, this is a very big deal. Israeli parents will truly place God first. In every way. And, probably for the first time ever, Israelis will be on the lookout for heresy, and won’t tolerate it when they find it – even if it is in their children.
Now, think about the depth of this change of heart.
Is this something imposed upon them from outside?
By the imposition of Torah, the Law?
No, this is the operation of God, where He takes away the heart of stone, and replaces it with a living heart. This is a spiritual transformation from the inside out. It’s the kind of transformation that you and I have gone through. The verses that describe the Millennium don’t reflect such a transformation.
A Verse About Messiah
But, we aren’t done. There are three verses left in this prophecy, and the next one was quoted by Jesus:
7 “Awake, 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.
– Zechariah 13:7 (NKJV)
Jesus quoted Zechariah, here:
31 Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:
‘I will strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
– Matthew 26:31 (NKJV)
Jesus was referring to His arrest and trial, and the scattering of His disciples. Yet, the context seems to be more than just Messiah, because of the rest of Zechariah 13. But, this isn’t the only time that God throws in a Messianic verse that appears in an unusual place.
Just look at Isaiah 7:14-17. That passage talks about the virgin birth of Christ, even though the context is the coming destruction of Israel’s northern kingdom. It seems completely out of place. But, we know that Jesus was born of a virgin, and we know that the northern kingdom was destroyed. So, we shouldn’t stumble over a verse that talks about Messiah, even though that verse appears in an unusual way.
However, I do not mind admitting that I don’t quite understand why verse seven appears like that. We could speculate over a possible dual nature to this verse. Unfortunately, the words ‘dual prophecy’ are usually just an excuse to be lazy and engage in wishful thinking. If you want to believe that this also refers to the destruction of Israel’s leadership, that’s fine. But, do NOT take away from the core meaning of this verse – the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Two Thirds of Israel Killed – Jacob’s Trouble
(And two thirds of the world killed.)
Then, we come to the last two verses that fill me with dread:
8 And it shall come to pass in all the land,”
Says the Lord,
“That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die,
But one-third shall be left in it:
9 I will bring the one-third through the fire,
Will refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
And I will answer them.
I will say, ‘This is My people’;
And each one will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
– Zechariah 13:8-9 (NKJV)
The fact that two thirds of Israel will be killed is horrifying.
I know that there are many who claim that this doesn’t mean physical death, and I understand why they want to say that. The thought of two thirds of Israelis dying through violence and earthquake is just too much for many of us to think about. But, the Hebrew speaks for itself.
The Hebrew word for die, in the above passage is יגועו (pronounced: yig-va-oo). It means ‘they will die’. And, the root word is גוע (pronounced: gah-va). It literally means to physically expire. In fact, a variation of that word includes agony in that death. The word does NOT indicate a spiritual death in any way.
Also, those who advocate the ‘spiritual death theory’ aren’t thinking this through. The people of Israel were ALREADY spiritually dead. Someone who was never spiritually alive, cannot spiritually die. You cannot kill someone spiritually until after someone is made spiritually alive. Israel is not spiritually alive today, so to spiritually kill two thirds of Israel is completely impossible. So, please discard this ‘spiritual death’ theory, if you hold it.
But, the physical death of so many… it will be a terrible thing to see.
Now, for those of you who have already looked at Ezekiel’s Fire, you’ll know that death and destruction is not limited to Israel or even the Middle East. It will be everywhere, around the world. Every city will be destroyed, and billions will die. In fact, I would venture to say that at least two thirds of the world’s population will die also – if not more than that.
Accepting the sheer horror of this event is one of the reasons why I finally understood that ‘Jacob’s Trouble’ really is about Gog and Magog and the Return of Jacob to God. This is the core verse:
Alas! For that day is great,
So that none is like it;
And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,
But he shall be saved out of it.
– Jeremiah 30:7 (NKJV)
And then there are these two verses from Isaiah 30:
25 There will be on every high mountain
And on every high hill
Rivers and streams of waters,
In the day of the great slaughter,
When the towers fall.
26 Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun,
And the light of the sun will be sevenfold,
As the light of seven days,
In the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of His people
And heals the stroke of their wound.
– Isaiah 30:25-26 (NKJV)
When the Redemption of Israel arrives at the coming of Gog and Magog, our civilization will be completely crushed. There will be nothing left except the rubble of our cities, the bodies of the dead and the pitiful survivors who now have to figure out a way to survive without electricity, running water, sanitation, medical help, stores to buy food and tractors to harvest and plant.
I would be surprised if even two billion survive this event.
There is literally no way that any high tech civilization can survive an event like this. This dystopian nightmare really is talking about the time of the coming of Gog and Magog. It cannot be any other time, and I am not looking forward to this – should I live long enough to see it.
A Bittersweet Prophecy
This death and destruction – coupled with spiritual salvation – is a bittersweet note for Zechariah 13 to end on. All the survivors of this great tragedy, in Israel, will accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but it will also mean a tremendous amount of terrible difficulty and suffering.
As it says in Zechariah 13:9, there will be a refining process, and it should be clear that it will be very, very hard. In fact, I am sure that many will wish that they HAD died, instead of going through what will come after. And, I hate the thought of it, but this is the will of God. And we truly deserve this day of judgment upon us.
We have rebelled against God, and it’s way past time for this to be brought upon us.
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Zechariah 14 – The Second Coming and the Millennium
Zechariah chapter 14 is difficult to comprehend because it suffers from a really bad translation mistake. And, we tend to assume that it is part of the prophecy of Zechariah 12 and 13.
It isn’t.
Not even close.
And, I once thought that Zechariah 14 was just an extension of chapter 13, so I understand why everyone gets this chapter 13 and 14 wrong. It also makes Amillennialists and Postmillennialists very unhappy, since it kills their theory about how the Millennium plays out.
Yes, Virginia, there really is a God who will rule from Jerusalem.
However, challenges remain. And some of them will connect directly with what we’ve already looked at in other books.
We find our first problems in the first two verses:
1 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
– Zechariah 14:1-2 (KJV)
I remember reading verse two and thinking of people being taken captive and sent to concentration camps. But, that is not what the original Hebrew word ‘captivity’ means. The word is גולה (go-lah), and it means exile. It means that half of the city goes into exile.
Also, look at the first words of verse one.
Does that sound like it is connected to the previous chapter?
No, of course not. There is no way that this wording connects with anything previous. This is a separate prophecy. If you wish to connect Zechariah 12 and 13 with this chapter, you will need to find some other prophecy that makes that connection, since you won’t find it here. And, I can tell you that no such prophecy exists. There may be decades or even centuries between Zechariah 13 and Zechariah 14.
Now, what did Jesus tell us about the coming of the Antichrist?
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
– Matthew 24:15-18 (KJV)
What part of Daniel was Jesus speaking about?
31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.
32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.
– Daniel 11:31-32 (KJV)
This means that those who listened to Christ, got out of Jerusalem and away from the Judean hills. Now, if you want to claim that half of Jerusalem really was taken captive, you will need to find a verse for that.
Oh, and what was the covenant that Daniel spoke of?
Is it the Old Covenant?
No, of course not.
God promised to give them a New Covenant:
31 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
– Jeremiah 31:31-33 (KJV)
Let’s see… that covenant sounds familiar. What could it possibly be?
Oh, I know. Christianity. Israel will become a Christian nation. They will accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And, if you’ve spent any time reading what the prophets have said, you’ll know that they say this in many different places.
There will be no return to the Old Covenant of sacrifice.
Okay, back to our story, so far. The half of the city that goes into exile sounds a lot like the flight into the wilderness of Revelation 12, where the woman is given sanctuary for three and a half years, along with what Jesus told us in Matthew 24.
Back to Zechariah 14…
Then, we have the second coming:
3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
– Zechariah 14:3-5 (KJV)
How much time is there between verse two and verse three?
Right about three and a half years. The clock doesn’t start ticking until the Abomination that makes Desolate is set up. However, Daniel 11:21-45 speaks of many things happening BEFORE that moment arrives. So, there’s some fuzziness here. But, that still doesn’t change the amount of time between verse two and verse three.
What happens in verse three?
Armageddon Begins!
And, you will notice that Jesus starts the Battle of Armageddon from Jerusalem. And, He does that by doing what two angels said that He would do. After Jesus gives His final words to His disciples:
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey.
– Acts 1:9-12 (KJV)
So, they were standing on the Mount of Olives, and Jesus ascends into Heaven. And, the angels standing by say that He will return to earth and land on the Mount of Olives. But, there’s a difference that the angels left out, which Zechariah describes:
Jesus lands on the Mount of Olives and it splits in two,
creating a massive valley that those who are left in Jerusalem can flee through.
Now, who are these saints that Jesus comes with?
The phrasing of the last part of verse five is curious:
…and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
Does it really say all the saints with you?
The wording isn’t exactly like that, but it’s close. The word for ‘saints’ here is קדשים (K-doh-sheem). That word literally just means holies. Now, having a plural for holy sounds foolish unless it refers to ‘holy ones’.
Who are these ‘holy ones’?
Now, these ‘holy ones’ could be any number of people or even angels. So, I could be wrong about what I’m about to say next. Just because you see ‘holy ones’ in one place, doesn’t make them the ‘holy ones’ you might see in another place.
Nevertheless, is there a place where it refers to those who are holy, who follow Jesus wherever He goes?
Well, consider the 144 thousand ‘holy ones’ who follow the lamb, in Revelation 14:
1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.
2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
– Revelation 14:1-5 (KJV)
And, we saw them earlier in Revelation 7 when God signed His name on 12 thousand men from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
So, in Revelation 14, these holy ones come with Jesus to Mount Zion, which would correspond with what Zechariah 14:5 says.
But, what happens later in Revelation 14?
The destruction of Babylon, the Resurrection and the Battle of Armageddon.
That’s significant, but Revelation 14 is not a ‘timeline chapter’. It is a parenthetical chapter that describes events that will happen later in the chronology of Revelation.
Revelation 12, Revelation 13 and Revelation 14 are all parenthetical chapters that add detail to certain events in the chronology of Revelation. And, you will notice that chapter 14 is the only chapter pointing forward. And, the chronology within that chapter would appear to show the Second Coming, The Resurrection and Rapture, and then Armageddon.
But first, Jesus must return with His Saints (Holy Ones) to the Mount of Olives.
So, it shows that there is some period of time between Jesus landing on the Mount of Olives and the Resurrections and Rapture. Revelation seems to say this. Zechariah 14 seems to show it. And then, Daniel 12 gives us this:
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
– Daniel 12:11-12 (KJV)
TRANSLATION NOTE: The word for sacrifice is not sacrifice. It just means ‘the always’ or ‘the constant’ (התמיד, ha-Tah-meed). No sacrifices are going on, because there’s no temple. But, offerings are happening, just like we do in our churches, when we give our tithes.
The important part about these two verses is the time difference. The Great Tribulation is 1,290 days. That’s a few days over three and a half years, which is what we were told about the length of the Great Tribulation. But, Daniel 12:12 adds a blessing for those who survive an extra 45 days.
Why?
Is this the amount of time it takes to get the Kings of the East to make it to the Battle of Armageddon?
So, from Zechariah 14, we see Jesus liberate Jerusalem. That would end whatever control the Antichrist has over Jerusalem. From Daniel 12, we see a waiting period. And, from Revelation we see a need to wait for the Kings of the East to arrive.
Once that waiting period is over, is THAT when the Resurrection and Rapture happens?
NOTE: you should take none of the above as ‘gospel truth’. I am assuming that these passages fit together in the way that I describe. I could be wrong, but it does tell us something about what most people have ignored for decades.
Then, in verses six and seven of Zechariah 14, we see something interesting:
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
– Zechariah 14:6-7 (KJV)
Do we have any comparison to this?
I’m not sure.
During the greatest solar event in recorded history, the 1859 Carrington Event, the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) were seen almost as far as the equator. They were so bright that people woke up, thinking that it was morning, and many could read the newspaper by the light of this aurora.
A much greater event will be what I call Ezekiel’s Fire, which is either a small nova event or a solar flare thousands of times greater than what we saw in 1859. And the Auroras will be even BIGGER.
You can actually see what that looks like here:
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
– Isaiah 30:26 (KJV)
NOTE: This is during the coming of Gog and Magog and not Armageddon.
You don’t want to be on the side of the earth that experiences the sun being that bright. However, it can’t last all that long because superheated material from the sun would start stripping away earth’s atmosphere and turning the sun-ward side of the earth into charcoal and glass. But after it’s over, the auroras would be incredibly bright. You probably could drive at night without headlights or streetlights, as if it were day.
The same thing cold happen again at the time of Armageddon. And, we also have the angel in Revelation with the Fourth Bowl, who pours it out on the sun and scorches the earth with fire.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
– Revelation 16:8-9 (KJV)
We also see this in Isaiah 24 after Armageddon:
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
– Isaiah 24:23 (KJV)
How would the moon be confounded and the sun ashamed?
Well, the glory of the Lord would be truly awesome. Also, there still might be a lot of material out in space causing the sun and moon to be dim. (And, those Auroras) There is a lot that we can’t know about the time of the Millennium because very little is described. Most of what we have are questions with no good answers. And we should be okay with that.
Avoid those who think that they should have an answer to every question.
The next two verses are what will make the Amillennialists and Preterists howl:
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.
– Zechariah 14:8-9 (KJV)
I know why Augustine created Amillennialism. The fall of Rome was traumatizing to him, so much so that he created a new theology to replace Rome as the ‘holy city’. But, Augustine’s foolishness should not convince Christians to be equally foolish.
The Millennium is not here, but it is coming.
The Millennium will be on Earth with God ruling over all the earth from Jerusalem.
This is what God told Zechariah, Isaiah and John. If you want to call God a liar, you will have to answer for that when you see Him after this life is over. I don’t think that God will give you a break for having been ‘deceived’. We have the Bible to tell us what the truth is, so we won’t have a good excuse if we believe the doctrines of men over the doctrines of God.
It’s that simple.
In the next two verses, we see that physical changes will be made to the area around Jerusalem – and probably the rest of the world.
10 All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin’s gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king’s winepresses.
11 And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.
– Zechariah 14:10-11 (KJV)
So, the land will be changed, and Jerusalem will be safely inhabited, and here is what God does to those who came against Jerusalem during Armageddon:
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
14 And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance.
15 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 these tents, as this plague.
– Zechariah 14:12-15 (KJV)
So, everyone who is against God at the Battle of Armageddon and at Jerusalem, dies. But, that doesn’t mean that everyone in the world dies. That’s foolish.
Why?
Well, the following verses from Zechariah tell us that there are survivors who will come to Jerusalem, once a year during the feast of Tabernacles (Succot):
16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
17 And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
18 And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
20 In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness Unto The Lord; and the pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar.
21 Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.
– Zechariah 14:16-21 (KJV)
Those who want to say that this is the New Heavens and New Earth, are not reading carefully enough. There is punishment for sin during this time.
What sin will there be in the Millennium?
If you don’t obey God and refuse to go up to Jerusalem for Hag haSuccot, you will be punished.
Therefore, this cannot be the New Heavens and New Earth. It cannot be the New Jerusalem. It must be the Millennium, and Revelation says this about Our Lord’s rule during the Millennium:
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
– Revelation 19:15 (KJV)
So, during the Millennium, Jesus will rule with a rod of iron.
What does it mean to be ruled with a rod of iron?
Every sin will be punished. Every. Single. One. No one will get away with ANYTHING. There will be perfect justice and a perfect peace. Every thought, word and action will be judged by God. And, the world will hate it, and will be ready to be deceived when Satan is released from the bottomless pit at the end of the Millennium.