Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Zechariah 14:5-9
YHWH Will Come With His Holy Ones And Become King Over All The Earth (Zechariah 14:5).
The progress of God's purposes is now described. God will bring about a new work on behalf of His people, and will establish His Kingly Rule, and with Him will come a host of angels who are to be ‘ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation' (Hebrews 1:14).
‘And YHWH my God will come (go), and all the holy ones with you.'
It is YHWH of Hosts Who is here, and His hosts are with Him. Just as He came with His hosts for Elijah and Elisha, so He has come in even greater power for His people (2 Kings 2:11; 2 Kings 6:17 - note that the chariots were a symbol of God's presence with His prophets, not transport for Elijah). It is possible that these words are what Jesus had in mind when He declares that had He so wished He could have called on twelve legions of angels (Matthew 26:53). He knew that they were there ready to act at YHWH's command.
Or the idea may be that God would go forth with His saints (holy ones) spreading the good news of His Kingly Rule around the world.
‘With you'. This sudden change from the third person to the second is typical of Zechariah. Here he changes abruptly from viewing the scene to addressing God (compare on chapter Zechariah 2:8; Zechariah 7:13 and on Zechariah 12:6).
‘And it will happen in that day that the light will not be with brightness and with gloom, but it will be one day which is known to YHWH. Not day and not night, but it will be that at evening time it will be light.'
If anything can warn us against taking these events too literally it is this. The ordinary sequence of night and day will cease. There will be continual light. There will no longer be periods of brightness followed by periods of gloom, but a period of continual day. We are reminded of Isaiah's words, ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of YHWH has risen upon you -- and nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising' (Isaiah 60:1). Compare ‘The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light --' (words of Isaiah 9:2 applied to Jesus in Matthew 4:14).
‘One day which is known to YHWH.' No longer days of men but a day of God, continual and unceasing, where there is no day or night. As Isaiah puts it, ‘the sun will no longer be your light by day, nor will the moon give light to you for brightness, but YHWH will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory. Your sun will no more go down, nor will your moon withdraw itself, for YHWH will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be ended' (Isaiah 60:19). Compare also, ‘the sun and moon stood still in their habitation' (Habakkuk 3:11).
We may see the fulfilment of this in the presence of the One Who is the light of the world (John 8:12) and who makes us children of light (Luke 16:8; John 12:36; Ephesians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:5). We have been transported from under the power of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). We walk in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7) for He is light (1 John 1:5). Compare also John 3:18.
That the presence of YHWH means that, for His people from then on, there will be continual light in the spiritual sense is wonderful and heart warming. And this depiction of continual light is taken up in the description of the eternal kingdom in Revelation 21:23, ‘and the city has no need of the sun, nor of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God did lighten it and its lamp is the Lamb -- there will be no night there'. John applies it to the present time when he says, ‘the darkness is past and the true light is already shining' (1 John 2:8). As he said in his Gospel, ‘there was the true light, which lights every man, coming into the world.' And as Jesus Himself said, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life' (John 8:12). Here is the continual light untouched by darkness in reference to earth.
Thus the period of continual light in one way represents the light at present shining continually in the darkness through Him Who is the light, and in another refers to living in the eternal presence of the light of God.
‘And it will happen in that day that living waters will go out from Jerusalem, half of them towards the eastern sea and half of them towards the western sea. In summer and in winter it will be.'
This picture of a great river issuing from Jerusalem in two directions providing water in both summer and winter, giving Jerusalem all the advantages of the Euphrates and the Nile rather than being dependent on rain, is again idealistic. It is a picture of God's provision, of abundant supply and spiritual blessing.
We might not make too much of the fact that the waters are said to issue forth from Jerusalem in both directions were it not that this is made quite clear in Ezekiel 47, the passage which Zechariah must surely have in mind. This is no natural river but a river that flows from the house of God (Ezekiel 47:1) and from ‘Jerusalem' itself (high above sea level). As it goes it deepens and expands. Wherever it goes life springs up and the Dead Sea, where nothing lives, is turned into a fisherman's delight (Ezekiel 47:9). And because the water issues from the sanctuary fruit trees will have permanent life, producing fruit every month (Ezekiel 47:12).
This glorious river, like the apocalyptic Jerusalem itself, is symbolic of the truth of God going out to the nations bringing life wherever it goes. In John Jesus proclaims it as speaking of the Holy Spirit flowing through believers (John 7:37).
So the rivers are rivers of life, denoting the power of the Spirit at work, going out from Jerusalem through His people, in spite of the enmity of the nations. It is the outpouring of the spirit of grace and of supplication (Zechariah 12:10).
Should This All Be Taken Slavishly Literally?
The question may be asked as to whether it could all be fulfilled literally? There must, of course, be the theoretical possibility that an earthquake could split the Mount of Olives and continue splitting mountains from coast to coast causing a valley reaching both seas east and west, resulting in an equivalent to the Suez Canal. But that exaggerates the text and would flow by Jerusalem and not from it (and Ezekiel especially is very specific on this point), and it is not in accordance with the effects of the split in the Mount of Olives as described here. Nor does Zechariah link the two. Furthermore that would be a salt water canal not a refreshing, life-giving river as depicted here.
So in a book where vivid imagery has been present from the beginning speaking of divine horsemen, of supernatural smiths, of an angel measuring Jerusalem, of the crowning of Joshua in the heavenly courts, of a golden lampstand, of olive trees, of a flying ephod and of heavenly chariots, and here of a time of permanent day, the possibility of the language being intended to be wholly parabolic must be considered a probability.
End of Note.
‘And YHWH will be king over all the earth. In that day will YHWH be one, and His name one.'
The purpose of YHWH's activity is now confirmed It is that He might establish His rule over all the earth. This is the beginning of the Kingly Rule of God. And as Jesus made clear that Reign began with Him.
John the Baptiser declared ‘the Kingly Rule of God is at hand' (Matthew 3:2), and Jesus stressed that the Kingly Rule of God was available to those who sought it (Matthew 6:33). In His parables of that Reign He demonstrated how it would grow and grow as men responded to His word (Matthew 13; Mark 4:26), and His casting out of evil spirits demonstrated that the Kingly Rule of God had come to those who heard Him (Matthew 12:28). The coming of that Kingly Rule with power was revealed at the transfiguration, for it was present in the presence of Jesus (Mark 9:1). Thus when the Pharisees asked when the Kingly Rule of God would come Jesus replied, ‘the Kingly Rule of God is among you' (Luke 17:21). Entry under the Kingly Rule of God was by being born of the Spirit (John 3:5), so that Paul proclaimed the Kingly Rule of God, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 28:31).
Of course this growth of the Kingly Rule of God will finally reach its culmination at the last judgment when God will be all in all. But that final day has not come here in Zechariah for there are still many things to be accomplished.
‘In that day will YHWH be one, and His name one.' But in that day there will be no rival to God. Nothing and no one will be able to stand against Him. He will be supreme in His oneness (compare Deuteronomy 6:4). His name will not be shared with any other or applied to any other for all concentration will be on Him. And it is this glorious name, the name above every name, that Paul applies to Jesus Christ in Philippians 2:5 because it is His name.
In view of Zechariah 14:10 many have suggested the possible translation, ‘YHWH will be king over the whole land'. But Zechariah 14:12 makes clear that His sovereignty goes wider than that to reach the nations of the world, and in 16 onwards it is the whole world that acknowledges His rule.