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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 477. Zechariah
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Literature
Alexander, W. L., Zechariah: His Visions and Warnings (1885).
Bennett, W. H., The Religion of the Post-Exilic Prophets (1907), 65.
Cheyne, T. K., Fresh Voyages on Unfrequented Waters (1914), 7.
Dods, M., The Visions of a Prophet (1895).
Duhm, B., The Twelve Prophets (1912), 173.
Elmslie, W. G., Expository Lectures and Sermons (1892), 113.
Findlay, G. G., The Books of the Prophets, i. (1896) 188.
Hitchcock, F. R. M., Hebrew Types (1913), 261.
Hunter, P. H., After the Exile, i. (1890) 152.
Kennett, R. H., in Cambridge Biblical Essays (1909), 113.
Kent, C. F., The Makers and Teachers of Judaism (1911), 43.
Kirkpatrick, A. F., The Doctrine of the Prophets (1892), 409.
McFadyen, J. E., Introduction to the Old Testament (1905), 222.
McWilliam, T., Speakers for God (1902), 231, 309, 316.
Mason, A. J., The Visions of Zechariah (1904).
Mitchell, H. G., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Haggai, Zechariah, etc. (International Critical Commentary) (1912).
Sanders, F. K., and Kent, C. F., The Messages of the Later Prophets (1899), 197.
Smith, G. A., The Book of the Twelve Prophets (Expositor's Bible), ii. (1898) 253.
Wright, C. H. H., Zechariah and his Prophecies (1879).
Dictionary of the Bible, iv. (1902) 966 (J. Macpherson).
Encyclopœdia Biblica, iv. (1903), col. 5390 (J. Wellhausen).
Encyclopœdia Britannica11, xxviii. (1911) 962 (J. Wellhausen and H. W. Robinson).
Expositor, 4th Ser., iv. (1891) 302 (W. G. Elmslie).
Expository Times, v. (1894) 153, 198, 311, 405, 500; vi. (1895) 26, 110, 232, 297 (J. Stalker); xiii. (1902) 549 (T. McWilliam).
Interpreter, ix. (1913) 198 (F. B. Clogg).
Jewish Encyclopedia, xii. (1906) 645 (E. G. Hirsch).
Journal of Biblical Literature, xxxii. (1913) 107 (P. Haupt).
For who hath despised the day of small things?- Zec_4:10.
The Hour and the Man
In this period prophecy does not maintain that lofty position which it has hitherto held in the life of Israel, and the reasons for its decline are obvious. To begin with, the national life, from which it springs, is of a far poorer quality. Israel is no longer a kingdom, but a colony. The State is not independent: there is virtually no State. The community is poor and feeble, cut off from all the habit and prestige of its past, and beginning the rudiments of life again in hard struggle with nature and hostile tribes. To this level prophecy has to descend, and occupy itself with these rudiments. We miss the civic atmosphere, the great spaces of public life, the large ethical issues. Instead we have tearful questions, raised by a grudging soil and bad seasons, with all the petty selfishness of hunger-bitten peasants. The religious duties of the colony are mainly ecclesiastical: the building of a Temple, the arrangement of ritual, and the ceremonial discipline of the people in separation from their heathen neighbours.
But what a mistake it is to despise the day of small things if there is working in and through them all the power of Nature or all the grace of God! As we read the utterances of Zechariah, we are involuntarily reminded of the matchless words, “For, lo, winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come.” We feel the breath of spring, we catch the spirit of hope, we have a sure presentiment that miracles are going to happen. Seeds and germs are small things, but the mystery of life is in them, with the promise and potency of immeasurable harvests. Prostrate Jerusalem is despised by a cruel and mocking world, and, what is worse, she can scarcely help despising herself. Guardian though she be of the light which is to lighten the world, her lot seems so bitter that she is prone to despair. But in her hour of sorest need God sends her prophets whose words of inspiration are one continuous sursum corda. It is her salvation that she gives good heed to them. At such a time God would forgive her aught save her despair.
Lord Radstock loved in later years to recall these events-so small in themselves as to be passed over almost unnoticed. One of the keynotes of his life and work was his deep recognition of the smallest events as indications of providential leading. The fruitfulness of those tiny seeds of opportunity which most of us ignore was a marked feature of his life, and the constant watchfulness resulting from his continual waiting upon God in the minutest details for direction and guidance, differentiated his spiritual life, to a large extent, from others. To quote his own words: “The tsetse fly in South Africa has been one of the most potent factors in the social, commercial and military affairs of that Continent. Was the first tsetse an unimportant personage? Perhaps there is no deeper saying of St. Augustine than ‘Maximus in Minimis,' yet how often we say, ‘Oh, that's only a little thing, it doesn't matter, does God look into such trifles?' Scientific thought to-day is largely occupied with the study of organisms so minute as to escape detection by the most powerful microscope. Yet these organisms, infinitesimal as they are, have power to affect the lives and destinies of men. If that be so in the natural order, how much more in that spiritual realm of the Unseen where God has ‘chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are'?”1 [Note: Mrs. E. Trotter, Lord Radstock (1914), 181.]
Mr. Lloyd George spoke on the War at Bangor, Feb. 28, 1915. Concluding his speech in Welsh, he said:-War is a time of sacrifice and of service. Some can render one service, some another, some here and some there. Some can render great assistance, others but little. There is not one who cannot help in some measure, whether it be only by enduring cheerfully his share of the discomfort. In the old Welsh legend there is a story of a man who was given a series of what appeared to be impossible tasks to perform ere he could reach the desires of his heart. Among other things he had to do was to recover every grain of seed that had been sown in a large field, and bring it all in, without one missing, by sunset. He came to an anthill and won all the hearts and enlisted the sympathies of the industrious little people. They spread over the field, and before sundown the seed was all in except one, and as the sun was setting over the western skies a lame ant hobbled along with that grain also. Some of us have youth and vigour and suppleness of limb; some of us are crippled with years or infirmities and we are at best but little ants. But we can all limp along with some share of our country's burden, and thus help her in this terrible hour to win the desire of her heart.1 [Note: The Times, March 1, 1915.]
2. As only eight chapters of the Book of Zechariah bear the prophet's name, and the last six (9-14) reflect the conditions of a much later time, we confine our attention to the former. Zechariah's prophecies are of almost unique interest. In the form of a vision, or rather dream, we have a series of word-painted political or ecclesiastical cartoons, from which it is not difficult to obtain a fairly clear idea of the influences at work in Judah during the months which followed the beginning of the restoration of the Temple.
Two things in these prophecies specially attract us-the ethical spirit which pervades them and the winsomeness of the personality which expresses itself in them. Zechariah affirms again that the whole essence of God's Word by the older prophets has been moral-to judge true judgment, to practise mercy, to defend the widow and orphan, the stranger and poor, and to think no evil of one another. For the sad fasts of the Exile Zechariah enjoins gladness, with the duty of truth and the hope of peace. Again and again he enforces sincerity and love without dissimulation. His ideals for Jerusalem are very high, including the conversion of the nations to her God. But warlike ambitions have vanished from them, and his pictures of her future condition are homely and practical. Jerusalem shall be no more a fortress, but spread village-wise without walls-full families, unlike the present colony with its few children and its men worn out in middle life, by harassing warfare with enemies and a sullen nature; streets rife with children playing and old folk sitting in the sun; the return of the exiles; happy harvests and springtimes of peace; solid gain of labour for every man, with no raiding neighbours to harass, nor the mutual envies of peasants in their selfish struggle with famine.
And we feel that all through we are in spiritual communion with one of the most lovable of the prophets. It is a simple, hearty but practical man whom such prophesying reveals, the spirit of him bent on justice and love, and yearning for the unharassed labour of the field and for happy homes. No prophet has more beautiful sympathies, a more direct word of righteousness, or a braver heart.
In cultured circles it requires some courage, not so much to admit that one belongs to the Christian brotherhood, as to carry out its idea calmly and unobtrusively, in the midst of alien or antagonistic influences; and one of the chief difficulties in our complex modern life is how to unite catholicity of spirit with religious earnestness. It has always been found extremely difficult to combine the recognition of good in others with energetic protest against evil of all kinds.
It is the duty of the Christian brotherhood to seek out the latent good: and if possible to evoke it, in all quarters, and in every character. At the same time, it is bound to bring forward, and to exhibit, the noblest possible standard of action, while it recoils from baseness of every kind, and draws the line-sharp, distinct and clear-between the two camps of light and darkness, the right and the wrong, the good and the evil. It is not easy to combine these two things.1 [Note: W. Knight, The Christian Ethic.]
3. Two important features of these prophecies require to be noted: the number of visions which they contain, and their frequent references to the activity of angels.
(1) The vision was not by any means a new method of conveying religious instruction. Amos, the oldest of the writing prophets, employs it; and there was not a time in the history of the chosen people when it was not more or less popular. Thus the word “vision” actually became a synonym for prophecy. This method of presentation-for it finally became a purely literary device-is found in its most complete development in the Book of Ezekiel. It was not from Ezekiel, however, that Zechariah learned to use visions, but from Amos. This is clear from the way in which he uses them, namely, in groups, and for the purpose, not of stimulating in his people great expectations for the future, but of impressing upon them the lessons of the past and the urgent demands of the present. Therefore, much as he taught by visions, it would be a mistake and an injustice to call him a visionary. In fact, there is none of the later prophets that is more sane and practical.
In the Descriptive Catalogue to his exhibition of pictures in 1809, Blake defines, more precisely than in any other place, what vision was to him. He is speaking of his pictures, but it is a plea for the raising of painting to the same “sphere of invention and visionary conception” as that which poetry and music inhabit. “The Prophets,” he says, “describe what they saw in vision as real and existing men, whom they saw with their imaginative and immortal organs; the Apostles the same; the clearer the organ, the more distinct the object. A spirit and a vision are not, as the modern philosophy supposes, a cloudy vapour, or a nothing. They are organised and minutely articulated beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can produce. He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments and in stronger and better light than his perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all. The painter of this work asserts that all his imaginations appear to him infinitely more perfect and more minutely organised than anything seen by his mortal eye.” “Inspiration and vision,” he says in one of the marginal notes to Reynolds's Discourses, “was then, and now is, and I hope will always remain, my element, my eternal dwelling-place.” And “God forbid,” he says also, “that Truth should be confined to mathematical demonstration. He who does not know Truth at sight is not worthy of her notice.”1 [Note: Arthur Symons, William Blake, 13.]
(2) The other striking feature of the prophecies is the constant mediation of angels. The prophets before the Exile had so sure a sense of God's personal intervention in the affairs of His people that they had no need to think of the ministry of angelic beings, although this no doubt formed a part of the popular belief. But with the growing sense of God's transcendence, belief in His self-manifestation became more difficult, and in the post-Exilic literature we are conscious of a change in the prophetic forms of utterance. God now communicates Himself more frequently by than without the agency of angels.
While Zechariah calls these beings Men, he also gives them the ancient name, which Ezekiel had not used, of Male'akim, “messengers,” “angels.” The Instructor “is the Angel who talked with me.” In the first vision, the man riding the brown horse, “the man that stood among the myrtle trees,” is “the angel of Jehovah that stood among the myrtle trees.” The Interpreter is also called “the angel of Jehovah,” and if our text of the first vision is correct, the two of them are curiously mingled, as if both were functions of the same Word of God, and in personality not to be distinguished from each other. The Reporting Angel among the myrtles takes up the duty of the Interpreting Angel and explains the vision to the prophet. In the fourth vision this dissolving view is carried further, and the Angel of Jehovah is interchangeable with Jehovah Himself; just as in the vision of Ezekiel the Divine Voice from the Glory and the Man standing beside the prophet are curiously mingled. Again in the fourth vision we hear of those who stand in the presence of Jehovah, and in the eighth of executant angels coming out from His presence with commissions upon the whole earth.
The acknowledgment of angels is needful in the church. Therefore godly preachers should teach them logically. First, they should show what angels are, namely, spiritual creatures without bodies. Secondly, what manner of spirits they are, namely, good spirits and not evil; and here evil spirits must also be spoken of, not created evil by God, but made so by their rebellion against God, and their consequent fall; this hatred began in Paradise, and will continue and remain against Christ and his church to the world's end. Thirdly, they must speak touching their function, which, as the epistle to the Hebrews (Heb_1:5; Heb_1:14) shows, is to present a mirror of humility to godly Christians, in that such pure and perfect creatures as the angels do minister unto us, poor and wretched people in household and temporal policy, and in religion. They are our true and trusty servants, performing offices and works that one poor miserable mendicant would be ashamed to do for another. In this sort ought we to teach with care, method, and attention, touching the sweet and loving angels. Whoso speaks of them not in the order prescribed by logic, may speak of many irrelevant things, but little or nothing to edification.1 [Note: The Table-Talk of Martin Luther (ed. 1875), 245.]
Good Words
In the homes of the Scottish poor a little child is taught to say his “good words” to God, and the effect on the development of his mind and character is incalculable. Still more incalculable is the power of the “good words” which God speaks to all His children. Breaking the silence of eternity, speaking at sundry times and in divers manners through His prophets, He has revealed the laws of heaven in the language of earth. And when a Greater than any of the prophets came among men, they wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth. In all Divine voices, received and believed, there is a miracle-working power, for they are spirit and they are life.2 [Note: James Strahan.]
A City without a Wall
But when Nehemiah arrived from Babylon in the following century, the first thing that he did was to survey the ruined walls of the city, and to give orders that they should be immediately rebuilt. Was, then, Zechariah or Nehemiah-the idealist or the realist-right? Was it well or not that psalmists of a later time should teach the proud citizens of Jerusalem to say to pilgrims and strangers, “Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks”? Would it have been better if Jerusalem had been inhabited “as villages without walls”?
2. It would have been interesting to trace the fortunes of a city which in those days had been bold enough to rely on a spiritual defence and not on fortifications. Certain it is that the walls of Jerusalem were ultimately her destruction, encouraging, as they did, the Jews to make so obstinate a stand against the Romans that an almost, if not quite, unparalleled slaughter and misery was the result. But though this part of the prediction was suspended through the unbelief and timidity of the Jews, that part which promised an overflowing population was abundantly fulfilled, the whole land being very soon densely filled with people, and Jerusalem being found too small and confined within the walls built round her.
Even in our own time, when international Christianity is still little more than a dream, the victory remains with the realist. But the ideal will never give men rest until it is realized. He who suffered outside a city wall will break down the walls of all cities, for He will implant in the hearts of all men that perfect love which casteth out fear.
In judging wisely the characters of men, one of the first things to be done is to understand their ideals. Try to find out what kind of men or of life; what qualities, what positions seem to them the most desirable. Men do not always fully recognize their own ideals, for education and the conventionalities of Society oblige them to assert a preference for that which may really have no root in their minds. But by a careful examination, it is usually possible to ascertain what persons or qualities or circumstances or gifts exercise a genuine spontaneous, magnetic power over them-whether they really value supremely rank or position, or money, or beauty, or intellect, or superiority of character. If you know the ideal of a man, you have obtained a true key to his nature. The broad lines of his character, the permanent tendencies of his imagination, his essential nobility or meanness, are thus disclosed more effectually than by any other means. A man with high ideals, who admires wisely and nobly, is never wholly base though he may fall into great vices. A man who worships the baser elements is in truth an idolater though he may have never bowed before an image of stone.1 [Note: W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, 66.]
Forgiveness
The reproof of the Adversary by the Angel of Jehovah signifies the victory of the milder attribute, that is, Jehovah's determination to save His people, because they are His people and their sufferings appeal to His sympathy, by an act of grace in spite of their unworthiness. It is from this standpoint that the vision becomes, on the one hand, a rebuke to the sceptics of Zechariah's day, and, on the other, a solace for those who, much as they had suffered and were suffering, as they felt, under the Divine displeasure, had retained their faith in Jehovah and still cherished an ardent hope that He would speedily forgive their iniquities and rescue them from destruction.
2. This great-hearted prophet has a clear sense of the redeeming and healing process which is the essence of Christianity. He would fain see a restored nation, as it stands before its God, swept by the same feelings as afterwards surged through the soul of a poor sinner who came into the presence of Christ.
She sat and wept beside His feet. The weight
Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct and out of date;-
Only the sin remained-the leprous state.
She would be melted by the heat of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver ore adulterate.
She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair
She wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;
And He wiped off the soiling of despair
From her sweet soul-because she loved so much.
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears:
Make me a humble thing of love and tears.1 [Note: Hartley Coleridge.]
The Messianic Hope
The phrase “sons of oil” would naturally mean producers of oil; but a Hebrew could use it of any thing or person with which or whom oil was associated in his mind. In this case it refers to persons consecrated, as kings and priests were among the Hebrews, to the execution of high functions by being anointed with oil. The interpreter does not tell Zechariah who these two “anointed ones” are, but the prophet had no difficulty in identifying them. Nor has the modern reader. The fact that there are two immediately suggests the names of Zerubbabel, the hereditary prince, and Joshua, the hereditary high priest, both of whom had been, or were to be, anointed for their offices. The descriptive clause, also, fits them, for in Zec_3:7, it will be remembered, Joshua was promised access to the immediate presence of Yahweh, and certainly Zechariah did not regard Zerubbabel as any less worthy of the Divine favour. The olive trees, then, symbolize the associated leaders, and their position on either side of the lamp with its seven lights means that they enjoy special favour, protection and assistance of Yahweh, to whom is here ascribed omnipotence as well as omniscience. The effect of such teaching can easily be imagined. It must have greatly encouraged the leaders themselves and greatly increased their influence with their followers, thus doubly affecting the enterprise then in progress, the restoration of the national sanctuary.1 [Note: H. G. Mitchell.]
2. A second Messianic passage (Zec_6:9-15) represents the crowning of the king of Israel. According to the Massoretic text, Zechariah is commissioned to make a crown out of the silver and gold brought by emissaries of the Babylonian Jews, and set it upon the head of Joshua the high priest. But it seems practically certain that the original prophecy in Zec_6:11 has been subsequently modified, doubtless because it was not fulfilled. The last clause of Zec_6:13 -“the counsel of peace shall be between them both”-shows that two persons have just been mentioned. The preceding clause must therefore be translated, not as in A.V. and R.V., “and he shall be a priest upon his throne,” as if the office of king and priest were to be combined in a single person, but “and there shall be (or, as Wellhausen suggests, “and Joshua shall be”) a priest upon his throne” (or no doubt more correctly, with the Septuagint, “a priest at his right hand”). As two persons are involved, and the word “crowns” in ver. 11 is in the plural, it has been supposed that the verse originally read, “set the crowns upon the head of Zerubbabel and upon the head of Joshua.” On the other hand, in Zec_6:14 the word “crown” must be read in the singular, and should probably be so read also in ver. 11 (though even the plural could refer to one crown). In that case, if there be but one crown, who wears it? Undoubtedly Zerubbabel: he is the Branch (Zec_3:8) and the Branch is the Davidic king (Jer_23:5; Jer_33:15). The building of the Temple here assigned to the Branch (Zec_6:12) is elsewhere expressly assigned to Zerubbabel (Zec_4:9). It is, therefore, he who is crowned: in other words, Zec_6:11 may have originally read, “set it upon the head of Zerubbabel.” Whether we accept this solution or the other, it seems certain that the original prophecy contemplated the crowning of Zerubbabel. As the hopes that centred in Zerubbabel were never fulfilled, the passage was subsequently modified to its present form.
3. The latter end of Zerubbabel, the Davidic prince of whom such high hopes were entertained, is wrapt in obscurity. It was undoubtedly expected that in the restored Judæa he would reign as King, and that Joshua would be a priest at his right hand. But God does not reveal all His counsels even to His prophets. It is significant that from the time of the completion of the Temple, we hear no more of Zerubbabel. Whether he died, or was recalled, it is impossible to say; but inasmuch as he was not succeeded by his son, the latter is perhaps the more likely alternative.
A Jewish tradition relates that Zerubbabel returned to Babylon and died there. It is possible that Darius, after the troubles that broke out during his reign, may have preferred to have a scion of the ancient dynasty of Israel under his eye rather than run the risk of his presence in Judæa stimulating projects for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. Of the sons of Zerubbabel (1Ch_3:19 f.) we know absolutely nothing.
In recent years new interest has been given to the personality of Zerubbabel by the extremely able and ingenious work of Sellin, Serubbabel. Sellin seeks to make out that, at the instigation of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (cf. Hag_2:23; Zec_4:9; Zec_8:9 ff.), Zerubbabel was actually raised to the throne of Judah, and the Messianic kingdom thus set up, but that he was soon overthrown by the Persians and put to death. The martyr king was even supposed by Sellin to be the suffering Servant of Isa_53:1-12. The evidence in support of these conclusions is very skilfully marshalled, but one has a feeling that fancy plays too large a part in Sellin's reconstruction of the post-Exilic history, and, so far as the argument rests upon Isa_53:1-12 and kindred passages, it will have no weight with those (and their number is increasing) who refuse to see in the Servant an individual instead of a collective sense.1 [Note: J. A. Selbie, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 979.]
The Flying Roll and the Ephah
The truth which this double vision brings before us is this: that the prosperity of a community, or a happy and thriving social condition, depends not only on outward tokens of God's favour, such as good harvests, freedom from epidemics, successes in war or diplomacy; not only on possessing the best possible form of government and an ecclesiastical condition of which neither radical nor conservative can complain; but also, and mainly, on the sound moral character of the people themselves, on the sense of honour they carry with them into all their dealings, the principle and high tone which characterize their daily life. Church and State may be organized on the best possible principles; Joshua and Zerubbabel may both be assured of God's favour, and yet the social condition of the people may be rotten to the core; and until the members of the community are men of honesty and good faith, there is no kingdom of God upon earth.
England, which has grown so great, may easily become little; through the effeminate selfishness of luxurious living; through neglecting realities at home to amuse herself everywhere else in stalking phantoms; through putting again on her resources a strain like that of the great French war, which brought her people to misery and her Throne to peril; through that denial of equal rights to others, which taught us so severe a lesson at the epoch of the Armed Neutrality. But she will never lose by the modesty in thought and language, which most of all becomes the greatest of mankind; never by forwardness to allow, and to assert, the equal rights of all states and nations; never by refusing to be made the tool of foreign cunning, for ends alien to her principles and feelings; never by keeping her engagements in due relation to her means, or by husbanding those means for the day of need, and for the noble duty of defending, as occasion offers, the cause of public right, and of rational freedom, over the broad expanse of Christendom.1 [Note: W. E. Gladstone, in The Nineteenth Century, iv. (1878) 584.]