The Unbreakable Chain of God's Promises
Notes
Transcript
The near context of this continuation of Zechariah’s prophecies in chapter 9 looks toward the contest between the Maccabeans and Antiochus Epiphanes upon his desecration of the temple and his efforts to forcibly turn Jews into a Hellenized people beginning in 167 BC.
The far context of these verses looks to the conflicts of the great tribulation yet to come. The phrase “in that day” is used in Zechariah and the other prophets to indicate eschatological events.
The LORD’s Messiah has come and has been described as ruling over the whole earth. In light of this future, the LORD states His promises to His people through Zechariah,
1. The Promise to liberate and preserve His people, 11-13.
1. The Promise to liberate and preserve His people, 11-13.
Verse 11 — The LORD will bring about the liberation and preservation of His people. He made a blood covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, with the children of Israel, Exodus 24:8
So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
The LORD has freed them from the waterless pit. It was common for a dry cistern to be a place of imprisonment. As a figure of speech, it was used for general stress and misery.
Verse 12 — Here is a command to return to Zion the city of God. Those who had refused to return were still prisoners in exile. But all those who had hope, that hope which sustained them all through the years, will receive God’s promise to their responsive faith; “restore double.” The LORD in His graciousness will more than compensate His people.
Verse 13 — But first He will subdue all His - and their - enemies in order to bring about the realization of their hopes.
The four verbs in this verse (will bend, will fill, will stir up, will make) are ‘prophetic’ perfects, where the prophets speaks as if the future event has already occurred.
Greece mentioned here is the opponent of Zion, the holy city of Jerusalem. The Lord will use Judah and Ephraim (used to represent the former northern kingdom) as a bow and arrows. The nation will be stirred up against Greece and used like a warrior’s sword against them. With the benefit of looking back at history, we can see the similarities between the predictions and the near events to come, the conflict between Antiochus Epiphanes, followed by his descendants, and the Maccabees leading the people against the encroachment of Hellenism.
2. The Promise to protect His people, 14-17.
2. The Promise to protect His people, 14-17.
Verse 14 — The LORD reveals Himself as the Champion and Defender of Israel. He is with them, watching over them. He is described as the One who orders and leads His people to victory, pictured as violent and destructive as the whirlwinds south of Israel.
Verse 15 — The LORD of hosts will defend His people. that statement is followed by a word picture of God’s defense. His people will be like ravenous lions tearing the foe to pieces. The figures are priestly, suggesting holy war and victory.
Illustrates for us that opposition to God never issues in delight, but in dire and dread calamity.
Verse 16 — “in that day” i.e. in the last days before the Millennial kingdom, Israel’s God will save them. They are His flock and they are His crown jewels, displaying His glory in His land.
Verse 17— the ESV translation of this first phrase seems best, since the noun is third person, masculine, singular: As a result of God’s protection, “How great is His goodness and how great is His beauty!” It is not Israel being spoken of. Then we read the description of the blessings of abundance in store for God’s people in their conformity with the promises for obedience to the Lord.
3. The Promise to provide for His people, 10:1.
3. The Promise to provide for His people, 10:1.
In obedience they discover the way of blessing: they are to ask and find that God is both ready and willing to give them their request, the blessings of rain at the proper time for an abundant agricultural yield, a picture of fullness of provision. The LORD alone, the maker of storm clouds, and no other so-called god, is the source of Israel’s help.
4. The Promise to purify His people, 2-5.
4. The Promise to purify His people, 2-5.
Verse 2 — The LORD will purify His people for Himself. To seek blessings through the use of pagan and heathen enchantments will deceive and bring no comfort.
That choice causes the people to wander astray, to be easy pickings for others, they have no shepherd who will look after them.
Verse 3 — the shepherds and male goats are a picture of the foreign rulers, persecutors, and tyrants over Israel.
The verb translated ‘punish’ and ‘visited’ are the same Hebrew word; the distinction is one has a preposition. It means “to visit with disfavor or punishment,” hence, ‘punish’. Without the preposition, the same word has the idea of “visiting with favor.”
The usage of “the house of Judah” is coming to be the designation for the whole nation. This nation, which once were afflicted, wandering sheep without a shepherd now, once purified, will be made by the LORD a useful tool, a “majestic horse in battle.”
Verse 4 — Out of Judah will come their Messiah.
He is their cornerstone: for unbelieving Jews, Isaiah 8:14-15
“Then He shall become a sanctuary; But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, And a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
“Many will stumble over them, Then they will fall and be broken; They will even be snared and caught.”
For believing Jews, Isaiah 28:16
Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.
As God’s seal of approval on Christ, Acts 4:11
“He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone.
Picturing the bond between Christ and believers in the church age, 1 Peter 2:1-8
Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,
you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”
This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,”
and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.
Finally, Christ’s future relationship with the nations, Matthew 21:44
“And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”
He is the tent peg:
The example of the tent peg is seen in Isaiah 22:20-25 where Eliakim the son of Hilkiah is entrusted with the government
“Then it will come about in that day, That I will summon My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
And I will clothe him with your tunic And tie your sash securely about him. I will entrust him with your authority, And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
“Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open.
“I will drive him like a peg in a firm place, And he will become a throne of glory to his father’s house.
“So they will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, offspring and issue, all the least of vessels, from bowls to all the jars.
“In that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “the peg driven in a firm place will give way; it will even break off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”
With Jesus, the dependable nail will have entrusted to Him all the glory of His Father’s house and He will not fail, even entrusted with all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).
He is the battle bow, Exodus 15:3
“The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name.
The Lord is at Your right hand; He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.
He will judge among the nations, He will fill them with corpses, He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.
He will drink from the brook by the wayside; Therefore He will lift up His head.
These three descriptive words present the results of Messiah’s activities. When Messiah intervenes, every oppressor departs from Israel.
God will empower His people for the victory, one that will be decisive and will confound the enemies of His people.
5. The Promise to regather His people, 6-12.
5. The Promise to regather His people, 6-12.
Verse 6 — All the tribes of Israel (the house of Judah , the house of Joseph) will be delivered (physically) and saved (spiritually) by the LORD. He will cause them to dwell in the land, to do so in the peace and security that He provides.
Previously, He rejected them because of His great hatred of sin, but no longer will they be foul or rancid to Him. He will be their God in reality, answering their every need for help.
Verse 7 — Ephraim will also fight by the enablement of the LORD, and they will rejoice in the victory granted them by God.
Verse 8 — When God calls them, they will respond for He has redeemed them, and He will bless them, Deut 26:5
“You shall answer and say before the Lord your God, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.
How will this increase happen in the last days?
Verse 9 — Israel would be sown (“scatter” NASB, but Hebrew word never used in that sense, but always of sowing) among the nations — not the Babylonian exile, but a future scattering. They will remember their God wherever they are, and whole families will return to Him and to the land. Deut 30:1-3
“So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you,
and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,
then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
In their remembering of the LORD they will come alive, Ezekiel 37:14
“I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’ ”
“They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever.
This is the human side of the return to Israel. The divine side is stressed in
Verse 10 — Here, Egypt and Assyria are representative of the lands of bondage and exile. The LORD will bring them out of those lands into all the homeland of Israel, not just the area around Jerusalem, but even both sides of the Jordan in the north. They will fill the land.
Verse 11 — The liberation of God’s sown people will be like the type of liberation their forefathers experienced out of the bondage of Egypt. When God goes before Israel, every barrier will be removed. Both the rod of Egypt’s task masters and the insolent pride of Assyria will be as nothing in that day.
Verse 12 — What is the condition of Israel, finally restored and vindicated? They will enjoy the strength given by God to enjoy Him, walking in the light of all His revealed excellence. That is the prospect which Zechariah places before the people as the culmination of their history. God has promised and He will complete it in the days of Messiah the king, where He will make every gracious blessing to abound for His people, Israel.
