Zechariah 14:1-21

10. JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN ANDSANCTIFICATION OF JERUSALEM

(Zechariah 14:1)

In another apocalyptic vision the prophet beholds Jerusalem again beset by the heathen. But Jehovah Himself intervenes, appearing in person, and an earthquake breaks out at His feet. The heathen are smitten, as they stand, into moldering corpses. The remnant of them shall be converted to Jehovah and take part in the annual Feast of Booths. If any refuse they shall be punished with drought. But Jerusalem shall abide in security and holiness: every detail of her equipment shall be consecrate. The passage has many resemblances to the preceding oracles. The language is undoubtedly late, and the figures are borrowed from other prophets, chiefly Ezekiel. It is a characteristic specimen of the Jewish Apocalypse. The destruction of the heathen is described in verses of terrible grimness: there is no tenderness nor hope exhibited for them. And even in the picture of Jerusalem's holiness we have no really ethical elements, but the details are purely ceremonial.

"Lo! a day is coming for Jehovah, when thy spoil will be divided in thy midst. And I will gather all the nations to besiege Jerusalem, and the city will be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished, and the half of the city shall go into captivity, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. And Jehovah shall go forth and do battle with those nations, as in the day when He fought in the day of contest. And His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives which is over against Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split into halves from east to west by a very great ravine, and half of the Mount will slide northwards and half southwards for the ravine of mountains shall extend to ‘Asal, and ye shall flee as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, Amos 1:1 and Jehovah my God will come and all the holy ones with Him. And in that day there shall not be light congeal. And it shall be one day-it is known to Jehovah-neither day nor night; and it shall come to pass that at evening time there shall be light. And it shall be in that day that living waters shall flow forth from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea: both in summer and in winter shall it be. And Jehovah shall be King over all the earth: in that day Jehovah will be One and His Name One. All the land shall be changed to plain, from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem; but she shall be high and abide in her place from the Gate of Benjamin up to the place of the First Gate, up to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hanan'el as far as the King's Winepresses. And they shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more and Jerusalem shall abide in security. And this shall be the stroke with which Jehovah will smite all the peoples who have warred against Jerusalem: He will make their flesh molder while they still stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall molder in their sockets, and their tongue shall molder in their mouth."

"And it shall come to pass in that day, there shall be a great confusion from Jehovah among them, and they shall grasp every man the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall be lifted against the hand of his neighbor. Ezekiel 38:21 And even Judah shall fight against Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the nations round about shall be swept up, gold and silver and garments, in a very great mass." These two verses, Zechariah 14:13 and Zechariah 14:14, obviously disturb the connection, which Zechariah 14:15 as obviously resumes with Zechariah 14:12. They are, therefore, generally regarded as an intrusion. But why they have been inserted is not clear. Zechariah 14:14 is a curious echo of the strife between Judah and Jerusalem described in chapter 12. They may be not a mere intrusion, but simply out of their proper place; yet, if so, where this proper place lies in these oracles is impossible to determine.

"And even so shall be the plague upon the horses, mules, camels, and asses, and all the beasts which are in those camps-just like this plague. And it shall come to pass that all that survive of all the nations who have come up against Jerusalem, shall come up from year to year to do obeisance to King Jehovah of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And it shall come to pass that whosoever of all the races of the earth will not come up to Jerusalem to do obeisance to King Jehovah of Hosts, upon them there shall be no rain. And if the race of Egypt go not up nor come in, upon them also shall come the plague, with which Jehovah shall strike the nations that go not up to keep the Feast of Booths. Such shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Booths."

The Feast of Booths was specially one of thanksgiving for the harvest; that is why the neglect of it is punished by the withholding of the rain which brings the harvest. But such a punishment for such a neglect shows how completely prophecy has become subject to the Law. One is tempted to think what Amos or Jeremiah or even "Malachi" would have thought of this. Verily all the writers of the prophetical books do not stand upon the same level of religion. The writer remembers that the curse of no rain cannot affect the Egyptians, the fertility of whose rainless land is secured by the annual floods of her river. So he has to insert a special verse for Egypt. She also will be plagued by Jehovah, yet he does not tell us in what fashion her plague will come.

The book closes with a little oracle of the most ceremonial description, connected not only in temper but even by subject with what has gone before. The very horses, which hitherto have been regarded as too foreign, Hosea 14:3 or-as even in this group of oracles (Zechariah 9:10)-as too warlike, to exist in Jerusalem, shall be consecrated to Jehovah. And so vast shall be the multitudes who throng from all the earth to the annual feasts and sacrifices at the Temple, that the pots of the latter shall be as large as the great altar-bowls, and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be consecrated for use in the ritual. This hallowing of the horses raises the question, whether the passage can be from the same hand as wrote the prediction of the disappearance of all horses from Jerusalem (Zechariah 9:10).

"In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto Jehovah. And the very pots in the House of Jehovah shall be as the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holy to Jehovah of Hosts, and all who sacrifice shall come and take of them and cook in them. And there shall be no more any pedlar in the House of Jehovah of Hosts in that day."