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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
As for you, because of the blood of My covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to your fortress, you
prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to
you. I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse
your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s
sword.
Then the Lord will appear over them; His arrow will flash
like lightning. The Sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet; He will march in the
storms of the south, and the Lord Almighty will shield them. They will destroy and
overcome with slingstones. They will drink and roar as with wine; they will be
full like a bowl used for sprinkling the corners of the altar.”
“The Lord their God will save His people on that day as a
shepherd saves his flock. They will sparkle in His land like jewels in a crown.
How attractive and beautiful they will be! Grain will make the young men
thrive, and new wine the young women.”
Zechariah 9:11-17
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be
to God.
Today, we return to the Book of Zechariah in the Old
Testament after a brief shift to the Gospels for a devotional season covering
Passion Week. As we come back to chapter 9, you may recall we left off with a
prophecy of a Messianic event, a majestic event that would see Zion’s king
arrive, lowly and riding on a donkey. The prophecy promised this king would
bring peace to the nations as he ruled over all the ends of the earth
(Zechariah 9:9-10).
Of course, the king mentioned was none other than Jesus
who entered Jerusalem just as promised, riding on a donkey to fanfare reserved
for royalty. Indeed, the King of the world had come but unfortunately, a vast
majority of the Israelites, to include their religious leaders, didn’t recognize
or acknowledge it.
So we pick up after this prophecy and find the Lord
coming back more to the near future for His people, a near future where they
would be restored and empowered. Look again at these verses here as we finish
the chapter:
As for you,
because of the blood of My covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from
the waterless pit. Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I
announce that I will restore twice as much to you. I will bend Judah as I bend
my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your
sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.
Then the Lord will
appear over them; His arrow will flash like lightning. The Sovereign Lord will
sound the trumpet; He will march in the storms of the south, and the Lord
Almighty will shield them. They will destroy and overcome with slingstones. They
will drink and roar as with wine; they will be full like a bowl used for
sprinkling the corners of the altar.”
“The Lord their
God will save His people on that day as a shepherd saves his flock. They will
sparkle in His land like jewels in a crown. How attractive and beautiful they
will be! Grain will make the young men thrive, and new wine the young women.” Zechariah 9:11-17
As we look at this passage, it’s important to get our
bearings on where we are in Israelite history as these words in Zechariah are
presented.
You’ll recall that Zechariah is a post-exilic book which
simply means that the setting within the book is after the seventy year
Israelite exile to Babylon, the end result of God’s judgment on His people and the
land He had given them. The people of God had chosen to live in complete
disobedience to Him, adopting the pagan worship practices of other people who
weren’t driven from Canaan when the Israelites invaded. Sure, there were plenty
of other sins committed but the one that got God riled up the most was the
blatant disregard and disrespect His people showed Him by worshiping false gods
and idols. God had warned their ancestors that He was a jealous God and would
not stand for them placing any gods before Him (Exodus 20:3-4). His jealousy
bore itself out in wrath and punishment as He sent first Assyria on the
northern kingdom of Israel before unleashing Babylon on Judah in the south. The
result of these two attacks was a once flourishing land left in ruin, including
the holy city of Jerusalem and God’s holy temple within. Canaan was left nearly
uninhabitable and it didn’t really matter because God displaced the Israelites
and sent them away into captivity for the aforementioned seventy years.
If the people thought it was fine to abandon God, now
they would see what it felt like to be abandoned as God would not bring the
Israelites relief until they had served His imposed penalty.
Well, that time did come and God did as He promised,
allowing a remnant of Israelites to return to the Promised Land to rebuild the
nation, their homes, their relationship with Him, and His temple. You’ll recall
the Babylonians had been overthrown by the Persians then and it was the Persian
king Cyrus, his heart moved by the Lord, who made the proclamation allowing the
Israelites to return (2 Chronicles 36:22-23).
Why is it important to remember which empire was in
control as the Israelites returned home?
Because it factors into the closing verses of Zechariah 9
and its associated vision.
God was restoring His people, freeing them from their
exile and returning them to their nation, their fortress. He promised a rich
restoration for the Israelites, vowing to provide twice what they lost after
being plundered by the Babylonians. He also empower the Israelite people and
use them as instruments of His use in battle, first referring to Judah as His
bow and Ephraim as His arrows before speaking of them in general as being like
a warrior’s sword. Indeed, the Lord would be their commanding officer,
appearing over them and sounding the trumpet for His people to attack, all the
while providing them protection and shielding in the heat of war.
So who would this conflict be against?
Note that the Lord mentions Greece and we know because of
history that this did happen as the Greeks overcame the Persians and then faced
a revolt by the people of Israel, a rebellion known as the Maccabeean Revolt,
sparked when the Greeks tried to ban the Torah and force the Israelites to
worship their gods. The Israelites were victorious in defeating the Greeks,
retaking Jerusalem but much work was needed in God’s temple within the city.
After the Greeks used it for their pagan practices, the temple needed
rededicated to the God of Israel and the Jews made sure that happened, once
again lighting the sacred menorah, a seven branch candlestick. The event is observed
annually during Chanukah, a word which means “rededication” as those of the
Jewish faith light their own menorahs in commemoration and honor of the event. The
menorahs remain lit for eight days to remember how the temple menorah managed
to remain lit for eight days despite a deep shortage of oil to burn.
So we know that these words of prophecy would soon come
true for the Old Testament Israelites in Zechariah’s day, just as the verses
about Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem. They would just be validated before
well before the Triumphal Entry happened.
But note that there’s still one other future event
mentioned here, one we can’t afford to overlook. For if the battle with the
Greeks happened before Jesus would enter Jerusalem to begin His last week of
human life, then what we find in the final verses of this passage would come
long after both events.
For we find the Lord God Almighty promising a coming day,
a day of the Lord when He would save His people as a shepherd saves his flock.
Indeed, we know God sent Jesus, His one and only Son, to be the Good Shepherd
for His people, a Shepherd who would lead His flock to the greenest pastures
ever, the pastures of heaven where they would live thriving in glory and beauty
forever. It’s a day all Christians long for, a day of fulfillment like the ones
the Israelites experienced when they were restored and empowered.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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