OUT OF THE CHAOS: A study in the book of Zechariah
To view on YouTube:
The last couple of weeks, the news has been scanty, but enough for us to know that in Shomron and in Gaza, there is conflict between Jewish people and Arabs. People have died, even yesterday, on both sides. When will true and lasting peace come? How will it ever come?
To answer that, we have to look into the Scriptures. We have seen two names God uses of himself over a couple of months we have been studying this book written about 500 BCE by a young prophet named Zechariah. The names are Lord of all the earth and Lord of hosts. We will see both of those identifiers in today’s episode, chapter 10. By the way, if you haven’t yet… please pause and read, then re-join us. Thanks.
Lord of all the earth means no one is better than anyone else, and it also means God will take care to bring every one of his sheep into his pasture. It’s a picture of inclusion and of his majesty. It also means no other gods are really gods at all; they are fake news! So although it can picture inclusion, it’s definitely a term of exclusivity. If there’s an earth, then there is only one Lord of it, and that’s Yahweh! Lord of all the earth also implies his power to make nature yield to his desires. The earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24.1) and the fulness of it, so what can stand in his way? The term then can mean provision and power to keep the darkness away from his sheep. That’s a comfort to me, in this season and every season.
The other name we have zoomed in to notice is Lord of armies or Lord of hosts. A military-sounding name for sure. Powerful, and preventing. That’s what I see and hear in his name. He’s powerful to keep his own and prevent those who want to harm his own sheep and people. God is a strong tower and a mighty fortress that keeps the evil of the enemy away from us. Hallelujah—I count on his faithfulness in this regard.
Now we are going to see both of those attributes, those self-defining by God, in this chapter and the next as we see God’s appeal to us to be his and to call out the Bad Shepherds who are plaguing the Jewish people. I wonder if he were speaking today, if God had a Zechariah today, if the world had a Zechariah today, what he might say about God and about the condition of the flock of God in 2023. Let’s see if this applies to us and let’s learn what God has to say to us as 21st Century people.
Let’s jump in.
Verse 1: Ask of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain. Fairly straightforward, isn’t it? When it’s time to rain, ask of God. It makes great sense in an agrarian culture like Judah. The Temple is probably already built, and the people of Judah are returning from Babylon. They had plenty of rain there; their crops grew, their vineyards were abundant. Now they are back in the land of promise, and they need the rain. We in Australia know this situation well. There are places in our sunburnt country which have been in drought for years. Ask of the Lord rain is a good idea. Unless you believe that idols could help. I know people who would pray to an idol if that would help them get out of problems in our day. Faust is the classic story of selling one’s soul to the devil to make our dreams come true. The Broadway show ‘Damn Yankees’ is one of the renditions of that same story as is The Little Mermaid. Perhaps someone in NSW who won the 100 million dollar Powerball did just that in Australia last night.
The verse is telling us to enquire of the right God, the only God, the Lord of all the earth. All other gods are not gods, and they have no control over the rains. Ask of the only God and get it right. No matter how long you have to wait. No matter how tempted you are to solicit support and help from (as it says in verse 2) the teraphim. Those are small household gods. I like that imagery. One, because it reminds me of the story of Rachel stealing those from her father Laban and on the Q.T. hiding them in her saddlebag and sitting on it while Laban conducted a massive search. Laban and even Jacob called the teraphim ‘elohav’ which means gods. So when Zechariah chooses to add one more use of teraphim into the Tanach, to me it says “no matter how small you think those gods are, they are still not God.” The Proverbs says, “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and do not (even) lean on your own understanding.” (3.5) The little idol is the same as a massive totem or a Tower of Babel. Sin and the sin of idolatry particularly is ruinous. Ask of the Lord, and he will supply.
The other reason I like Zechariah’s use of teraphim is the obvious contrast with the Lord of all the earth. That little thing? You think that will help? It cannot even cover what a Bunnings sprinkler head would cover in an Aussie backyard. Compare that to verse 1 “storm clouds” and “Showers” The contrast is clear as. God is the Lord of all the earth.
Verse 2,
For the teraphim speak iniquity,
And the diviners see lying visions
And tell false dreams;
They comfort in vain.
Therefore the people wander like sheep,
They are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.
Zechariah widens his imagery to include the leaders of the Jewish people. Now it’s not only that the people are leaning into false worship and prayer, but they are simply sheep and they have no shepherd. Then he quickly changes his tune in verse 3,
3 “My anger is kindled against the shepherds,
And I will punish the male goats;
For the LORD of hosts has visited His flock, the house of Judah,
And will make them like His majestic horse in battle.
In other words, it’s not really that there are no shepherds; it’s that the shepherds are bad! And who is going to fix this? Who you gonna call? The Lord of hosts!
You see the role of the shepherd in ancient Israel was twofold: 1) feed the sheep and 2) guard them from wolves and other assailants. Many Christians read John chapter 10 and see Yeshua calling himself the “Good shepherd” and see the classic paintings of an idyllic, pastoral scene. Yeshua is carrying a little lamb, and the other sheep are huddled up against him with gratitude and such. There is no enemy; there is no problem.
But when Paul is leaving the Ephesian believers (Acts 20) he reminds them of his teaching ministry and then like Moses in his Swan Song, predicts that men will come in to disturb the congregation.
“For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” (Acts 20.27-30)
A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A good shepherd chases the wolves away to protect the sheep. That’s the ministry of the Lord of hosts.
Verse 3 ends with the sheep becoming like valiant horses ridden in battle. God himself will attend to his people Judah. The bad shepherds, the bad leadership will be subject to God’s discipline; the people will be brought in and brought near. And become like steeds arrayed for and carrying knights of battle.
That theme of God caring for his people continues through this whole chapter. Listen to these phrases in verse 6, “I will strengthen the house of Judah”, I will save the house of Joseph, I had compassion on them, and I will answer them. These are not even exhaustive.
Verse 7: Their heart will be glad; their children will see and be glad; their heart will rejoice in the Lord.
Again more of what God has done in verse 8 “I have redeemed them” and verse 10 “I will bring them back from Egypt and Assyria”
Verse 11 “They will pass through the sea of distress.”
What I’m saying and what Zechariah is clearly saying without tautology is that God has our back. The implication is that if you are serious with God, he’s on your team. If you keep a few teraphim and follow ridiculous bad shepherds, you are destined for troubles. But if you keep your eyes on God, and trust in the Lord, with all your heart, no matter the condition of the land or the temple, no matter your own situation particularly, if you trust him, God “will strike the waves in the sea so that all the depths of the Nile will dry up.” (v. 11)
That’s the Lord of hosts and that’s the one on whose team we are. He’s got our back. We don’t need to defend him; we don’t need to guard his reputation. He will do it. Isaiah 14.27 “For the LORD of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”
Barry Webb in his commentary highlights two great results of God’s intervention here. One is the erasure of the problems of the past. “They will be as though I had not rejected them.” (v. 6) But sometimes we think of the past and ‘all bad.’ And God has to eliminate the whole lot. But the past includes both good and bad. So Webb says that the other great result is that what awaits us eclipses the past. So while we had an Exodus from Egypt a millennium before, now without all the plagues and with God alone acting, we will be delivered from Egypt, and not only from there, but also from Assyria. And we will become abundant. This has echoes both of Creation, a reiteration of the Abrahamic covenant, and the Exodus to be sure.
Most of the commentators look at chapter 10 as a follow-on from chapter 9. I’m not speaking arithmetically, but rather in the mechanics of the salvation pictures God is painting through the prophet.
All these things whether the echoes of Abraham or the Exodus, all of them speak of covenant and repair. If you will, using our usual term “salvation.” He even says, “I will save them.”
So how will this take place and who are the bad shepherds? As I say, most commentators focus on the linkage between chapters 9 and 10. In chapter 9 we found the donkey-rider and he was ‘endowed with salvation.’ (9.9) The answer given by Zechariah is a person down the proverbial road, who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. That person will save us. That’s the mechanism God will use. No wonder Yeshua called himself the “Good Shepherd” and he came to replace the bad ones.
At the beginning today I asked the question about peace in the land of Israel and Shomron. The answer is, as you might have expected, the person of Yeshua. It’s when we get in right relationship with him that we get into right relationship with others. Even ‘the other.’
This is the 2nd horizon, the not yet of Zechariah’s day, and if you will in the 3rd horizon, the not yet in Jesus’ day. The prophet is announcing replacement, and in some aspects that took place in his day, but sadly the Josiah-type revival didn’t happen. Sin continued. The expansion actually slowed. That means, there was an anticipation in a 2nd horizon for something more and better. That’s why we New Covenant people get so excited reading this because much of it is fulfilled in Yeshua.
He rode into town on the donkey and brought salvation. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3.16) A new sheriff is in town, and the old shepherds are replaced. Hallelujah!
But, as we will see in chapter 14, there is still a not-yet in this fulfilment. Yes, God will do great things for his people. But wait, like the late-night infomercial, wait, there’s more.
Verse 11, the sea of distress, in Hebrew Tsara (or in Yiddish ‘tsuris’) which every kvetching zayde well knows, the people of Judah and Israel will cooperate and they will pass through the sea of Tsuris. The Nile will dry up altogether. All enemies of the Jewish people will be diminished. Conquest is assured. Domination. Victory. The Lord of hosts!
Verse 12. I will ‘strengthen’ them. This echoes verse 6, and by the way, is not the usual word for ‘strength.’ It’s Gibor, meaning ‘mighty’. God will make us mighty. How? “In the Lord.” That is, in our relationship with the Lord. It’s not a contest to see how religious or how strong your faith is. It’s a relationship where God draws us to himself and he gives us his strength. We ask; God supplies. How good is that?
“And in His name they will walk” (v. 12)
This summarised for me this whole chapter. In God’s name, in his power, in his title “Lord of hosts” and “Lord of all the earth.” His characteristics are ours, if we know him and pray and spend time with him.
Is that something you want?
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Resource on video
To see a fun video overview of the book of Zechariah see this from Bible Project:
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/zechariah/
Bibliography:
Ryken, Leland (and others), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1998.
Smith, Ralph, Micah to Malachi: Word Biblical Commentary (Volume 32), Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1984.
Stead, Michael, Zechariah: The Lord Returns, Aquila Press, Sydney, 2015.
Webb, Barry, The Message of Zechariah: Your Kingdom Come, Intervarsity Press, Nottingham, 2003.
Wiersbe, Warren, Be Heroic: Demonstrating Bravery by your Walk, David C. Cook Press, Colorado Springs, 1997.
ACTUAL TEXT
Zech. 10:1 Ask rain from the LORD at the time of the spring rain —
The LORD who makes the storm clouds;
And He will give them showers of rain, vegetation in the field to each man.
2 For the teraphim speak iniquity,
And the diviners see lying visions
And tell false dreams;
They comfort in vain.
Therefore the people wander like sheep,
They are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.
3 “My anger is kindled against the shepherds,
And I will punish the male goats;
For the LORD of hosts has visited His flock, the house of Judah,
And will make them like His majestic horse in battle.
4 “From them will come the cornerstone,
From 1them the tent peg,
From 1them the bow of battle,
From 1them every 2ruler, all of them together.
5 “They will be as mighty men,
Treading down the enemy in the mire of the streets in battle;
And they will fight, for the LORD will be with them;
And the riders on horses will be put to shame.
6 “I will strengthen the house of Judah,
And I will save the house of Joseph,
And I will bring them back,
Because I have had compassion on them;
And they will be as though I had not rejected them,
For I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.
7 “Ephraim will be like a mighty man,
And their heart will be glad as if from wine;
Indeed, their children will see it and be glad,
Their heart will rejoice in the LORD.
8 “I will whistle for them to gather them together,
For I have redeemed them;
And they will be as numerous as they were before.
9 “When I scatter them among the peoples,
They will remember Me in far countries,
And they with their children will live and come back.
10 “I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
And gather them from Assyria;
And I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon
Until no room can be found for them.
11 “And they will pass through the sea of distress
And He will strike the waves in the sea,
So that all the depths of the Nile will dry up;
And the pride of Assyria will be brought down
And the scepter of Egypt will depart.
12 “And I will strengthen them in the LORD,
And in His name they will walk,” declares the LORD.
