Zechariah 9: A Heavy Word and the Coming King

Ryan: 00:00:12

Welcome back to Ryan and Brian's Bible B show.

Ryan: 00:00:13

I'm Ryan.

Brian: 00:00:14

And I'm Brian.

Ryan: 00:00:14

And this is the Bible Bistro podcast.

Brian: 00:00:16

All about the bible, theology and all things related to the christian faith.

Ryan: 00:00:20

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Ryan: 00:00:22

How are you today, Brian?

Brian: 00:00:23

I'm doing okay.

Brian: 00:00:24

How are you doing?

Brian: 00:00:24

I'm.

Brian: 00:00:25

I'm a little.

Brian: 00:00:26

I'm a little froggy in my throat because harvest has begun here in the.

Brian: 00:00:31

Out on the edge of the prairie and dust is kicking up into the air, and I always have allergy issues this time of year anyway, but that exacerbates it.

Brian: 00:00:41

So.

Ryan: 00:00:42

Little house in the prairie.

Ryan: 00:00:43

Little house in the prairie.

Ryan: 00:00:44

Laura Ingall Wilder.

Ryan: 00:00:45

Is that what her name?

Brian: 00:00:46

We're on the edge of the prairie.

Ryan: 00:00:47

Oh, edge of the prairie.

Ryan: 00:00:48

Please, please, let's distinguish prairie.

Brian: 00:00:53

Edge of the prairie.

Brian: 00:00:54

I was more referring to a prairie home companion than I was.

Ryan: 00:00:58

You're prairie adjacent, is that what you would say?

Brian: 00:01:00

I would call ourselves prairie adjacent.

Ryan: 00:01:03

All right, well, we're back.

Ryan: 00:01:06

How about that conversation?

Brian: 00:01:07

There we go.

Ryan: 00:01:08

Here we go.

Ryan: 00:01:08

So we're back.

Ryan: 00:01:09

We're continuing in Zechariah.

Ryan: 00:01:11

We had some words of the Lord.

Brian: 00:01:13

Recently, and I was reminded again of how much I love the book of Zechariah and how interesting it is, especially when we get into this messianic part.

Brian: 00:01:24

And that's kind of what I was saying last week when we looked at chapter seven and eight, that there's a way in which we're getting into the section that really gets very, very messianic.

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And I think you're gonna see that by the end of the episode today.

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In this episode, we're basically gonna just look at chapter nine.

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But chapter nine begins a prophetic section.

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I'm gonna call it like a very specific prophecy.

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If you're reading along in your bibles or you look at these few chapters, you see that they're set apart in that poetic kind of format you often see in the prophets.

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And really, this is a long section, but we're going to have to break it into pieces because there's just a lot going on here.

Brian: 00:02:06

What else was I going to say about this?

Brian: 00:02:07

One other thing I was going to say, well, we'll figure it out as we go.

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But anyway, this is going to be where we really begin to see the messianic language taking root.

Brian: 00:02:17

We got to think through some things about the New Testament and those kind of things as well.

Ryan: 00:02:22

Yes.

Ryan: 00:02:22

And last week we talked about some of the words of the Lord.

Brian: 00:02:25

There were four.

Brian: 00:02:26

Yeah, four times where it says the Lord has said Zechariah.

Ryan: 00:02:30

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:02:30

And he was answering a question that Israelites had asked, do we still need to fast?

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And he gives a very long right.

Brian: 00:02:39

But actually, you know, gets to kind of the heart of what that's all about, fasting and feasting.

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And then at the end of that, where I was, what I was pointing out is he's pointing to this time where he's talking about the inclusion of the Gentiles, I think.

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So we're going to see some really interesting long range prophecies here in this section, a couple of different ones.

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So we're going to talk about the Messiah, but we're going to talk about this other guy first.

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So that's Zechariah, chapter nine.

Ryan: 00:03:02

Okay.

Ryan: 00:03:03

All right.

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I'm excited.

Brian: 00:03:04

If you would read verses one and two for me, if you don't mind.

Ryan: 00:03:07

A prophecy.

Ryan: 00:03:09

The word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach and will come to rest on Damascus for the eyes of all people.

Ryan: 00:03:15

And all the tribes of Israel are on Yahweh.

Brian: 00:03:18

Okay, so we need to look at.

Brian: 00:03:20

Actually, I should have had you bring up.

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I'm going to bring up another translation here.

Brian: 00:03:23

I forgot to do this and I'm going to show you why, because there's.

Brian: 00:03:27

There's a couple of really difficult things in this chapter that are difficult from a translation standpoint.

Brian: 00:03:35

So I want to make sure we have both kind of different ways that we can read this.

Ryan: 00:03:40

Okay, what version?

Brian: 00:03:42

Nine one.

Brian: 00:03:43

Oh, I've already got it up.

Brian: 00:03:44

I've got the english standard version, just because it gives it a different one.

Brian: 00:03:48

And I'll show you, in fact, and I think in the footnote of Niv, you'll have the other possibility as well.

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While I have the sv up, I want you to notice this first word in Niv.

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It says the prophecy of the word of the Lord, that word that the Niv chooses to translate.

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Prophecy is an interesting word.

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And in fact, I told you in preparation for us doing this podcast to look that up and to see the Bible word, study what we could find on that.

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The ESV, for example, translates it an oracle.

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But what were some other words that you saw when we looked this hebrew word up?

Ryan: 00:04:24

A burden or a weight or something along the side.

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So it has this concept in it of a weightiness or a heaviness to it, a burden.

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Or one of the words that I thought helped me understand this was the word onus.

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If you think about something having an onus.

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So this is a prophecy or an oracle that's coming on the people.

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But it is one.

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And in fact, there's kind of a play on words here where it says it's going to come to rest on Damascus.

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In other words, this heaviness, this burden is going to come down.

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And so this is a prophecy, but it is a warning, right, or a prophecy of destruction, essentially, we could say.

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So the word lord is against the land of hadrack.

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That word had.

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That's the only time that that place name occurs in the New Testament.

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But we do have some ancient.

Ryan: 00:05:15

What I say in New Testament.

Ryan: 00:05:17

Yeah, one of the Bible.

Ryan: 00:05:18

In the Bible.

Brian: 00:05:19

It's the only place that word occurs in the Bible.

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But we do have some ancient inscriptions that mention this as a town in northern Syria.

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So this would make a lot of sense when we see the other things that are going to come.

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And I'll go ahead and kind of tell you to pay attention to this, but we're moving in chapter nine, at least the first half of it, from north to south.

Brian: 00:05:43

And I think there's a very specific reason we're doing this.

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So this is in northern Syria.

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It also then mentions coming to rest on demand, Damascus.

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And of course, Damascus is the capital or the chief city in the region of Syria.

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Most of you guys, I know you can look this up or think about it, but just in general, so we think about Judah, which is down where Jerusalem is, down in the south.

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Above that, you're going to have what we call in the New Testament, Samaria.

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In that area, or in the Old Testament, we have kind of Israel.

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Then Syria is going to be to the north of that.

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And that kind of goes all the way up the mediterranean coast, to the east coast of the Mediterranean, all the way up to the top where it kind of curves around.

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And so we're imagining kind of a movement from north to south.

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And I'll go ahead and give you this hint.

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I think we're talking about a conquering army that's moving from north to south and conquering in this way.

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So it begins with Syria.

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It begins with the northern towns of Syria.

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It comes down to Damascus.

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Now, here's where we get this difference in translation, because look at the last half of verse one.

Brian: 00:06:56

You read that for me again from the Niv, if you would, for the.

Ryan: 00:06:59

Eyes of all the people and all the tribes of Israel are on Yahweh.

Brian: 00:07:04

Now, I'm going to read this from the english standard version because there's an ambiguity in the way that we can understand this verb.

Brian: 00:07:12

So this will be very familiar to you, Ryan?

Brian: 00:07:14

You're dealing with a lot of ambiguous verbs these days.

Ryan: 00:07:17

Yes, I am greek.

Brian: 00:07:20

So the last.

Brian: 00:07:20

Yeah, Ryan's in Greek right now, and he's kind of frustrated because there's times I'm like, well, it's context, right?

Brian: 00:07:26

Well, here's an example in Hebrew where it's context.

Brian: 00:07:29

So it says, for the Lord, this is the ESV, for the Lord has an eye on mankind and all the tribes of Israel.

Brian: 00:07:37

So you see, the difference there is, are we talking about everyone looking every, all the eyes of mankind and Israel, particularly looking at God, or are we talking about the Lord looking at mankind and all of Israel?

Brian: 00:07:52

So basically, the two ways to understand this, and it's interesting, here are two relatively recent translations that are taking opposite sides on this particular issue.

Brian: 00:08:02

And again, there's a lot of scholarly debate about this.

Brian: 00:08:05

Let me tell you the two ways you can take this, and I'll tell you why I think what I do about this.

Brian: 00:08:11

So first of all, if the Niv is correct in taking the translation, so that it means that all the people are watching God, basically, they're watching the Lord.

Brian: 00:08:23

It's saying, let's see what God is going to do in this situation.

Brian: 00:08:27

Is God going to rescue his people as he's promised or kind of like watch?

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The actions that God is going to take on behalf of his people is the way we would understand that.

Brian: 00:08:38

If we take it the other way, it could be that it's talking about God has seen what all of mankind is doing, and therefore he's bringing this judgment.

Brian: 00:08:49

There's going to be this conqueror that's going to come in and going to destroy because God can't see what these other nations have done.

Brian: 00:09:00

And in particular, I'll go ahead and tell you, I think we're talking about a prophecy.

Brian: 00:09:05

And again, I believe that this is predictive prophecy.

Brian: 00:09:07

I believe it's looking forward to a time after the exile.

Brian: 00:09:12

And let's go a little further, and I think we'll understand exactly who he's talking about.

Brian: 00:09:18

So let me say one more thing there.

Brian: 00:09:19

It says in verse two, then you read, I had you read verse one and two, didn't I?

Ryan: 00:09:23

I've only read verse one at this point.

Brian: 00:09:25

Read verse two, then.

Brian: 00:09:26

I apologize.

Ryan: 00:09:26

Now, which version should I read in ESV or Niv's?

Brian: 00:09:29

Fine.

Brian: 00:09:30

Okay.

Ryan: 00:09:31

And on Hamath, two, which borders on it, and on Tyre and Sidon, though they are very skillful.

Brian: 00:09:37

Now, Hamath is still a city that exists to this day, but we call it now Hamah have you heard about Hama lately in the news?

Brian: 00:09:48

It's a major city in Syria.

Brian: 00:09:51

It's a city of about a million people in Syria to this day.

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Same city, Hamas.

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Here is Hama in the news.

Brian: 00:10:02

Hamath in the Bible is Hama in the news.

Brian: 00:10:04

And so it says, this destruction is going to come upon Hama.

Brian: 00:10:07

So, again, we're moving from north to southeast as we see it, and then down further, we see these two very important cities, these twin cities, Tyre and Sidon.

Brian: 00:10:16

And we've talked about.

Brian: 00:10:17

We had a whole episode where we talked about Tyre and Sidon.

Brian: 00:10:19

Isn't that correct, when we talked about Isaiah, or have we not?

Ryan: 00:10:23

Maybe.

Brian: 00:10:24

If not, I'll say a little bit about it.

Ryan: 00:10:26

I'm 70 episodes in.

Ryan: 00:10:27

I'm a little fuzzy.

Brian: 00:10:29

That's what I count on you to do, is remember everything we've ever talked about.

Brian: 00:10:32

Yeah.

Brian: 00:10:33

So, Tyre and Sidon, I'll tell you a little bit about this then, and then we'll come back, and if we haven't talked about it, we really should, because there's really interesting stuff.

Brian: 00:10:43

So Tyre and Sidon are twin cities.

Brian: 00:10:46

They were an interesting city, and they're often used.

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They're often talked about in the Bible, particularly its destruction.

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You see its destruction mentioned in Isaiah, chapter 23.

Brian: 00:10:55

You see its destruction talked about in Ezekiel, chapters 36 through 38, I think it is.

Brian: 00:11:01

That's in the notes someplace.

Brian: 00:11:02

I guess you should bring the notes up.

Brian: 00:11:04

It's in the book of Amos.

Brian: 00:11:06

Over and over again, Tyre is mentioned, and tyre particularly becomes a symbol of a very prideful people.

Brian: 00:11:15

And the reason is, this is Tyre really was an island off the coast of the Mediterranean, and Sidon was a city on the mainland, right there near it.

Brian: 00:11:24

What this did for Tyre then Tyre became a place that was very well known for its commerce and for its.

Brian: 00:11:30

Its transportation.

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Ships came in and out of tyre all day long.

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And, in fact, it's an island that's ringed by harbors.

Brian: 00:11:40

So you could have boats basically parked.

Brian: 00:11:43

I guess you don't really park a boat.

Brian: 00:11:44

What are you?

Brian: 00:11:44

Docked.

Brian: 00:11:45

Boats docked all around the island.

Brian: 00:11:48

Parked.

Brian: 00:11:48

You can tell what a sailor I am.

Brian: 00:11:51

I clearly don't know the terminology, but have them docked all around the island and bringing wares from all over the Mediterranean.

Brian: 00:11:59

So it was a really great place.

Brian: 00:12:00

It was a good harbor place.

Brian: 00:12:02

This caused tyre to become very rich.

Brian: 00:12:05

And in the next couple of verses, we'll see that being referred to.

Brian: 00:12:08

Referred to.

Brian: 00:12:09

But then tyre also became very prideful, because Tyre saw itself as an impregnable city, because it was on an island off the coast.

Brian: 00:12:19

How could an army attack it?

Brian: 00:12:22

And so they saw themselves as basically, you couldn't lay, how do you lay siege to an island?

Brian: 00:12:27

You know, you typically would lay siege to a city to weaken it.

Brian: 00:12:31

But if you lay siege to a city on an island with all these harbors, they would simply go and get more goods and, you know, they could last forever.

Brian: 00:12:38

Right.

Ryan: 00:12:38

You can't put a ring of boats around there, just leave him out there indefinitely.

Brian: 00:12:41

Exactly.

Brian: 00:12:41

And so this is what caused Tyre to become known, and they become almost synonymous with pride.

Brian: 00:12:48

And so here is a prophecy then, regarding the destruction of Tyre and Sidon.

Brian: 00:12:54

So go ahead and read verses three and four.

Brian: 00:12:56

Now, after we said that Tyre has.

Ryan: 00:12:59

Built herself a stronghold, she has heaped up silver like dust and gold like the dirt of the streets, but the Lord will take away her possessions and destroy her power on the sea, and she will be consumed by fire.

Brian: 00:13:12

So you see two things here.

Brian: 00:13:13

The first is that idea of a very wealthy city, right?

Brian: 00:13:18

You know, silver's heaped up in her streets just like dust and gold's just like mud, right?

Brian: 00:13:23

It's just common.

Brian: 00:13:24

And so that's an image of the wealth.

Brian: 00:13:27

But behold, it says, the Lord is going to strip her of her possessions, he's going to take away her wealth and he is going to bring fire upon her to destroy her.

Ryan: 00:13:37

Now, we know, which is interesting, as an island that fires the destructive forces, the destroyer.

Brian: 00:13:43

We know how this happened.

Brian: 00:13:45

We know when it happened.

Brian: 00:13:47

It was a result of a dude you may have heard of named Alexander the Great.

Brian: 00:13:53

When Alexander the Great, go back and look at our Daniel, episode two, because it talks about Alexander the Great's conquest.

Brian: 00:13:59

And I'm going to say more about that in just a minute.

Brian: 00:14:01

But Alexander the Great, when he came through Tyre and Sidon, basically Tyrez, you know, they just pulled every up all their connections to the mainland and they said, basically, come get us.

Brian: 00:14:14

You know, you can't do anything about it.

Brian: 00:14:16

Alexander was moving very quickly through the known world at this period of time.

Brian: 00:14:21

And so they kind of thumbed their nose at him.

Brian: 00:14:23

And I'm going to tell you something, Alexander did not take that well.

Brian: 00:14:28

Alexander was not known as the kind of guy who could take a joke.

Brian: 00:14:32

So what Alexander did is he built a causeway.

Brian: 00:14:36

He had his soldiers tear down the buildings in Sire or Sidon and throw them into the ocean until he built a causeway.

Brian: 00:14:46

Took him a few months.

Brian: 00:14:48

Just as comparison, though there had been previous attempts, Syrians had tried to take Tyre, and they hadn't been able to do it.

Brian: 00:14:54

They laid siege to it for several years and weren't able to, because, like you said, how do you, how do you do that to a, to an island nation?

Brian: 00:15:03

There had been, there was another conquering army that had come through after that and tried to do the same thing.

Brian: 00:15:09

It had been there for a number of years.

Brian: 00:15:10

It may have been the Persians, I think, but then here comes Alexander, and in the matter of a few months, he had had his soldiers throw all these stones from the mainland into the ocean and made a causeway, made basically a land bridge out to Tyre.

Brian: 00:15:30

The interesting thing, if you look on a map to this day, you can go on Google Maps and do this.

Brian: 00:15:35

Don't try, don't take my word for it.

Brian: 00:15:36

Take Google Maps word for it, and you can see that Tyre is no longer an island.

Brian: 00:15:41

It is now connected to the mainland because of what Alexander the Great and his army did.

Brian: 00:15:46

They marched out there, and I'm going to tell you, Alexander made a, made a example out of Tyrez, and that was, that was kind of Alexander's mode.

Brian: 00:15:57

If you would roll over and accept his rule, he would, he would allow you to continue.

Brian: 00:16:04

If you resisted him, he made an example of you, and that's what he did with Tyre.

Brian: 00:16:08

So, yeah, he burned the buildings.

Brian: 00:16:10

It became, it became a heap of rubble.

Brian: 00:16:14

This is interesting, too, because Ezekiel says, you know, even though you're a fine city now, Ezekiel says, you're going to become a place where the fishermen go and spread their nets.

Brian: 00:16:22

In other words, there's going to be so much nothing left that it's just going to be in bare rock and a great place for fishermen to spread their nets and let them dry out after they're done fishing.

Brian: 00:16:32

So this is the prophecy against Tyre and Sidon.

Brian: 00:16:37

So we'll say a little bit more about Alexander the great, but hold on to that.

Brian: 00:16:40

So I guess I've given it away at this point that we're talking about a conquering army that's coming from the north down to the south.

Brian: 00:16:50

So I think this is Zechariah.

Brian: 00:16:51

I think God, through Zechariah, is prophesying about the coming of Alexander the Great.

Brian: 00:16:56

He's talking about a time where things are going to change again.

Brian: 00:17:01

And so God's people need to kind of be prepared for this.

Brian: 00:17:04

They need to be, they need to be ready for this.

Brian: 00:17:06

So we continue this movement from north to south in Zechariah, chapter nine, verses five through seven.

Brian: 00:17:14

Oh, I just looked at my notes.

Brian: 00:17:15

It's Ezekiel 26 28 and Isaiah 23, where the destruction of tyre is.

Brian: 00:17:20

Is mentioned.

Brian: 00:17:22

Okay, so I'll just stop.

Brian: 00:17:25

Sorry I just started.

Brian: 00:17:26

But tyre becomes a big deal because it was a wealthy city in this region, and so its destruction is prophesied in multiple books in the Old Testament, I guess, is all I wanted to say.

Brian: 00:17:37

So go ahead.

Ryan: 00:17:38

Okay, so reading five through seven now.

Brian: 00:17:39

Yep.

Ryan: 00:17:40

So Ashkelon will see it and fear.

Ryan: 00:17:43

Gaza will writhe in agony.

Ryan: 00:17:45

And Ekron, too, for her hope, will wither.

Ryan: 00:17:48

Gaza will lose her king, and Ashkelon will be deserted.

Ryan: 00:17:51

A mongrel people will occupy Ashdod, and I'll put an end to the pride of the Philistines.

Brian: 00:17:57

So here's the philistines that are mentioned here.

Brian: 00:17:59

These are four of the five cities.

Brian: 00:18:02

If you go all the way back to the book of Joshua, we find these same five cities mentioned.

Brian: 00:18:06

Ekron, Ashdod, Gaza, gath.

Brian: 00:18:08

Gath is not mentioned here.

Brian: 00:18:10

And Eshkelon.

Brian: 00:18:12

These are the five cities of the plains, is what they're called in the book of Joshua.

Brian: 00:18:17

But these are the Philistine cities, what is later called the Philistine plain.

Brian: 00:18:22

This is the area toward the mediterranean.

Brian: 00:18:24

Again, we're talking about an army coming down the coast.

Brian: 00:18:26

This is the part that really took a long time for Israel to conquer.

Brian: 00:18:31

It wasn't really until the time of King David that they were able to conquer these cities.

Brian: 00:18:37

But now we're talking about a time where these cities are going to be conquered.

Brian: 00:18:43

The interesting thing is, notice in verse six, it says a mongrel people.

Brian: 00:18:49

That's an interesting word, too.

Brian: 00:18:51

There's lots of different bad words we could put in that place.

Brian: 00:18:55

But it's the idea of an offspring of how I want to say this, an inappropriate relationship.

Brian: 00:19:02

Basically a mixed people, a mongrel people, is kind of the idea that are going to live in that place and I'm going to take away the pride of the Philistines.

Brian: 00:19:14

He goes on then in verse seven, did you read that as well?

Ryan: 00:19:17

No, you cut me off before.

Brian: 00:19:19

I apologize.

Ryan: 00:19:21

I will take the blood from their mouths, the forbidden food from between their teeth.

Ryan: 00:19:26

Those who are left will belong to our God and become a clan in Judah.

Ryan: 00:19:30

And Ekron will be like the Jebusites.

Brian: 00:19:32

Okay, stop there.

Brian: 00:19:33

So what he's saying is that there's going to come a time where this group, the Philistines in these cities, are going to be incorporated into the people of God.

Brian: 00:19:42

So this idea of the blood between their.

Brian: 00:19:45

From.

Brian: 00:19:45

Between their mouths and the forbidden food.

Brian: 00:19:48

So basically they're going to eat kosher just like God's people should, is the idea.

Brian: 00:19:53

They're no longer going to participate, for example, drinking blood as a part of their idol feast or, you know, whatever the practice is there, they're going to quit that and they're going to be a people who become, he mentioned there is a clan of the tribe of Judahez.

Brian: 00:20:07

They're going to be incorporated into God's people here.

Brian: 00:20:10

So again, kind of going along with the idea of the inclusion of the gentiles we saw in the last chapter here, these people who have traditionally been enemies of the people of God are going to be incorporated, is what he is saying.

Brian: 00:20:24

They're going to become a part of it.

Brian: 00:20:26

They're going to belong to God.

Brian: 00:20:27

They're going to be like the Jebusites.

Brian: 00:20:30

And just to remind you, the Jebusites are what they called the people who lived in Jerusalem before David took Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and then later the southern kingdom.

Brian: 00:20:43

If you go back and look at jebusites, those are the ones that they conquer.

Brian: 00:20:46

And what happens is instead of destroying them all, David takes them and makes them a part of the tribe of Judah.

Brian: 00:20:53

And so he says it's going to be the same then for these philistine cities that have always been enemies of God's people, they're going to become part of God's people.

Brian: 00:21:01

Okay, so we've been moving north to south, and so now we're getting down toward the temple, toward the part of the world that Zechariah is in and the part of the world that he's riding to and going to become a great concern there.

Brian: 00:21:16

Questions or comments to this point?

Brian: 00:21:18

Because the next section is a little bit of a change.

Ryan: 00:21:21

I don't think so.

Ryan: 00:21:23

No, I don't think I have any questions about what's going on here.

Brian: 00:21:26

So I think we're talking about, again, Alexander the Great, he's prophesying in the fourth century BC.

Brian: 00:21:34

But Zechariah is writing earlier than this, talking about this destruction that's going to come from this greek king at a later, later period of time.

Brian: 00:21:45

So here's what I'll say.

Brian: 00:21:48

Let me just read verse eight then.

Brian: 00:21:52

But I will encamp at my temple.

Brian: 00:21:54

So again, what's Zechariah concerned about is the rebuilding of the temple.

Brian: 00:22:00

And so God is saying at this time, when this conqueror comes and destroys Tyre and Sidon, incorporates the philistine cities of the plain, takes care of those northern syrian areas like Damascus.

Brian: 00:22:16

When he comes to Jerusalem, God says, I'm going to be encamped at my temple.

Brian: 00:22:20

Now, what this points to, I think, for the immediate message for God's people is then we better get that temple done right if God's going to come and take up residence here.

Brian: 00:22:30

And further, what it says is I'm going to encamp at my temple to guard it against marauding forces.

Brian: 00:22:37

So we have warfare imagery.

Brian: 00:22:38

He's going to encamp.

Brian: 00:22:40

An encampment is a warfare military.

Ryan: 00:22:42

Yeah.

Brian: 00:22:42

Right.

Brian: 00:22:43

So I'm going to encamp at my temple and I'm going to guard it against the marauding forces.

Brian: 00:22:48

So God's presence in his temple is going to be something that protects Jerusalem.

Brian: 00:22:55

So you see what an impetus that would be for, you know, before this conqueror comes, we got to get that temple done.

Brian: 00:23:01

Right.

Ryan: 00:23:01

Exactly.

Brian: 00:23:02

Because this is where God is going to be when he, when he protects us.

Brian: 00:23:06

And then it says this, never again will an oppressor overrun my people.

Brian: 00:23:10

For now, I am keeping watch.

Brian: 00:23:12

So this is kind of the promise that he has.

Brian: 00:23:14

Now.

Brian: 00:23:15

The interesting thing, I've made reference to this before, I think, when we talked about Daniel, maybe I don't remember, but Alexander the Great, when he got down to Jerusalem, Josephus tells us about what happened then.

Brian: 00:23:32

And there's people who question this account because Josephus is writing at a later period of time, but he's referring to an earlier understanding of what happened when Alexander came down to Jerusalem, down to this area.

Brian: 00:23:47

So again, we're imagining, if this is Alexander the Great, we're imagining him coming down and getting to Jerusalem.

Brian: 00:23:57

And he actually, according to what we know historically, he goes down into Egypt, first of all, because they're the superpower, so he kind of bypasses Jerusalem.

Brian: 00:24:06

But then when Alexander the great comes back, we're going to see this.

Brian: 00:24:11

So I'm going to read this.

Brian: 00:24:12

This is from Josephus, antiquities of the Jews, book eleven.

Brian: 00:24:16

So I'm going to read part of this.

Brian: 00:24:18

It's a long passage.

Brian: 00:24:20

I'm reading Whitsun's, the earlier translation, because that's what I had access to.

Brian: 00:24:25

But it says now, Alexander, when he had taken Gaza.

Brian: 00:24:29

So that's what we had predicted in Zechariah, right?

Brian: 00:24:32

Made haste to go up to Jerusalem and Judeua.

Brian: 00:24:35

The high priest, when he heard this, was in agony and under terror as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians.

Brian: 00:24:42

Macedonians are talking about the Greeks, right?

Brian: 00:24:45

His king, Philip of Macedon, was Alexander's dad.

Brian: 00:24:49

Since the king was displeased at his foregoing disobedience, he therefore ordained that the people should make supplications, should join him in offering sacrifices to God, whom he besought to protect them, to protect that nation, and to deliver them from the perils that were upon them.

Brian: 00:25:05

Whereupon God warned him in a dream which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage.

Brian: 00:25:12

So here's what God's telling the high priest to do.

Brian: 00:25:15

According to Josephus, again, this is Josephus.

Brian: 00:25:18

He should take courage, he should adorn the city, and he should open the gates.

Brian: 00:25:25

Okay?

Brian: 00:25:26

So basically, as Alexander is coming, what God, according to Josephus, what God tells the high priest to do is don't resist him, open the gates to him.

Brian: 00:25:35

And the rest should appear, all in white garments.

Brian: 00:25:38

So they have this procession of people, all dressed in white, all the priests and everybody.

Brian: 00:25:43

And so then he acts according to the dream and waits for Alexander to come.

Brian: 00:25:48

So down.

Brian: 00:25:49

In a later paragraph, it says, for Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, all in white garments, while the priest stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate, whereupon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself.

Brian: 00:26:08

Alexander approached by himself and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest.

Brian: 00:26:15

The Jews also did it all together with one voice, salute Alexander and encompass him about.

Brian: 00:26:20

Whereupon the kings of Syria, everybody thought Alexander was crazy.

Brian: 00:26:24

Like, what are you doing going up there by yourself?

Brian: 00:26:28

But then I want you to listen to this.

Brian: 00:26:31

Why in the world, it says, basically, are you disordered in mind?

Brian: 00:26:35

Which is a nice are you crazy?

Brian: 00:26:37

Are you crazy?

Brian: 00:26:39

So Parmenio alone went up to Alexander, and he asked him how it came to pass.

Brian: 00:26:43

When all others adored him.

Brian: 00:26:45

He should adore the high priest of the Jews, to whom he replied, I did not adore him.

Brian: 00:26:50

In other words, worship him.

Brian: 00:26:51

I didn't.

Brian: 00:26:52

It wasn't him I was worshiping, but that God has honored him with his high priesthood.

Brian: 00:26:58

And for this very reason, for this, I saw this very person in a dream.

Brian: 00:27:03

This is Alexander speaking.

Brian: 00:27:05

Okay.

Brian: 00:27:05

According to Josephus, again, I saw this very person in a dream in this very manner of clothing when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering on myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea, thither.

Brian: 00:27:24

For that he would conduct my army and would give me dominion over the Persians.

Brian: 00:27:29

After that, having seen no other in this habit, and now seeing this person in this clothing, remembering that vision and the exhortation which I had my dream.

Brian: 00:27:38

I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and therewith will conquer Darius, the Persians, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all the things will succeed according to my own mind.

Brian: 00:27:52

So then it says that he goes into the temple and offers sacrifice according to the, to the priest instructions.

Brian: 00:28:00

And listen to this.

Brian: 00:28:01

I mentioned this when we talked about Daniel.

Ryan: 00:28:03

That's interesting.

Ryan: 00:28:03

I like this.

Ryan: 00:28:04

I like this, Brian.

Brian: 00:28:06

And then the book of Daniel was showed him, and in there, Daniel declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, and that Alexander then supposed that he himself was that person intended.

Ryan: 00:28:20

Hmm.

Brian: 00:28:21

So I find that fascinating.

Brian: 00:28:24

Yeah.

Brian: 00:28:24

You know, again, there are people who question wherever I, Josephus, got that information.

Brian: 00:28:30

But isn't it interesting that, let me, I didn't read this part, but I'll go ahead and just summarize, because Whitson's language, I wish, I wish I had the Loeb series.

Brian: 00:28:40

I need to get a hold of that section in the Loeb series.

Brian: 00:28:43

It's much smoother translation.

Brian: 00:28:47

Whitson reads a little bit like, you know, early, early 20th century English.

Brian: 00:28:53

But, but anyway, what he goes on and says is that Alexander asked the priest, well, what can I do for you?

Brian: 00:29:00

What favor can I do for you?

Brian: 00:29:02

So just to summarize, just to make sure you understand what's going on here is Alexander says, I had this dream back when I was trying to decide what to do about it, about conquering Asia, and that this person appeared, the high priest appeared to him in a dream and basically said, go ahead and do it.

Brian: 00:29:19

And then we see him coming and conquering, we see him destroying tyre in all these different places at the same time.

Brian: 00:29:28

The high priest is going, oh, my goodness, what are we going to do?

Brian: 00:29:30

Alexander is going to come and destroy us.

Brian: 00:29:32

And God appears to him in a dream and says, open your doors to him and go out arrayed in white with you at the head of this procession.

Brian: 00:29:41

Just wait for him to come.

Brian: 00:29:43

And when Alexander sees it, he recognizes the vision he had back in Macedonia, the dream he had back in Macedonia.

Brian: 00:29:51

And so what he then says, after he offers sacrifice, and they read to him the book of Daniel and say, we think this is what's talking about.

Brian: 00:30:00

Then Alexander says, what favor can I do for you?

Brian: 00:30:05

And their response makes all the difference in the next four centuries.

Brian: 00:30:10

And so the reason I mention this is because, however we understand this, wherever we understand Josephus getting this from, the effect we see, we had to come from someplace, because what the high priest says is all we want is for you to allow us to continue to keep our laws and to continue to keep our dietary laws and all those kind of things.

Brian: 00:30:36

And Alexander agrees, and then he goes, marches on toward Persia to conquer there.

Brian: 00:30:42

Of course, he eventually conquers the whole world, goes to the Indus river, and we know the rest.

Brian: 00:30:49

But the interesting thing is, that's exactly how we find not only Alexander, but his successors treating the jewish people, that they're allowed to continue to keep their law all the way, all the way until we get to the dreaded Antiochus epiphanes.

Brian: 00:31:11

And then even the Romans after that essentially had the same.

Brian: 00:31:15

How do I say this?

Brian: 00:31:16

They had the same attitude toward the jewish people that they are basically allowed to continue to practice instead of being forced to worship under the roman gods.

Brian: 00:31:28

And then, of course, we have a conflict about that later as well.

Brian: 00:31:31

But I find this fascinating.

Brian: 00:31:32

I think this is what Zechariah is referring to prophetically.

Brian: 00:31:37

I think this is what God is saying through Zechariah.

Brian: 00:31:40

There's this conqueror that's going to come, and he's going to take care of all these other nations, but when he comes to Jerusalem, to the temple, I'm going to be there, and I'm going to be encamped, and I'm going to protect my people.

Brian: 00:31:52

So, thoughts on that?

Ryan: 00:31:55

I hadn't read that Josephus passage before.

Ryan: 00:31:58

I mean, that's really fascinating to.

Ryan: 00:32:02

Yeah, I get, you know, I think that's.

Ryan: 00:32:05

It's interesting thought about that.

Ryan: 00:32:07

You know, again, you brought up Antico's epiphanies.

Ryan: 00:32:09

We know he was trying to stop the jewish practices.

Brian: 00:32:12

Sure.

Ryan: 00:32:13

By desecrating the temple.

Ryan: 00:32:14

But, yeah, it's really, I.

Ryan: 00:32:18

It's kind of.

Ryan: 00:32:19

I'm just processing that, you know, like the callback to Daniel also is very interesting to me.

Brian: 00:32:25

Well, and if it fits, if Josephus is historically accurate, the other thing I love about this is it shows that Daniel was known in the fourth century BC, which I believe.

Brian: 00:32:38

I believe it predates that period of time.

Brian: 00:32:41

I believe in predictive prophecy, and some people don't.

Ryan: 00:32:45

Well, yeah, and it outlines how, at least in the time of Josephus and what they probably would have believed beforehand, how they looked at Daniel as well.

Ryan: 00:32:53

You know what I mean?

Ryan: 00:32:55

It's kind of giving, it's kind of like an interpretive key to kind of see how it was, what was going on there.

Brian: 00:33:00

I think so.

Brian: 00:33:01

And again, this is Josephus.

Brian: 00:33:04

So we take it with a, you know, I shouldn't say a grain of salt, but we, we treat it as a source.

Brian: 00:33:10

Right.

Brian: 00:33:11

But like I said, when we, when we begin to put it together with the rest of the story, and again, I think Daniel's written at the time, the historical time of Daniel.

Brian: 00:33:22

I think it's written at the beginning of the babylonian exile.

Brian: 00:33:26

That's where I place it and where I date it.

Brian: 00:33:30

But there are some people who have a really hard time with it, and therefore they have to try to move it later because they don't believe in the kind of predictive prophecy, the specificity of this predictive prophecy in the way that I do.

Brian: 00:33:43

My point is, it's not just Daniel, though.

Brian: 00:33:45

It's Zechariah.

Brian: 00:33:46

We see similar kinds of things in the Book of Ezekiel.

Brian: 00:33:50

You know, it's just, it's really interesting to me.

Brian: 00:33:53

And again, part of the reason that I believe in the inspiration of scripture is we see these predictive prophecies that can't be explained.

Brian: 00:34:04

You can't fully explain them in any other way.

Brian: 00:34:07

You can try to explain away details of it, but all of it, the way it fits together so well.

Brian: 00:34:13

And, I don't know, just all of it together just kind of blows me away, too.

Brian: 00:34:17

I find this really interesting whenever I tell the story, the reason I read it today, sometimes I'll just tell a story, you know, rather, because it's, you know, let me read to you a chapter of the book of Josephus, you know, but everybody loves it.

Brian: 00:34:30

But, you know, I'll tell people the story and it's almost like they can't believe.

Brian: 00:34:35

Oh, you're, you're twisting that a little bit.

Brian: 00:34:38

But no, this is the, I just read it to you.

Brian: 00:34:40

Right.

Brian: 00:34:41

And it's pretty much the way that, you know, we would, we would anticipate.

Brian: 00:34:47

Anyway, that's what I think we have going on in the first part of this prophecy.

Brian: 00:34:52

Okay, so now we have a transition.

Brian: 00:34:56

So we have this really interesting conqueror who's going to be coming through, I think, under God's direction.

Brian: 00:35:02

Right.

Brian: 00:35:03

God uses, we've seen this before.

Brian: 00:35:06

God uses foreign rulers in order to accomplish his purposes.

Brian: 00:35:11

I mean, that's one of the themes that we see in the prophets.

Brian: 00:35:16

I think, about Isaiah's.

Brian: 00:35:18

All these nations are a tool in God's hand.

Brian: 00:35:21

They're no more than a club or a saw or rake or whatever.

Brian: 00:35:26

But then we shift gears a little bit and we see another kind of ruler who comes on the scene.

Brian: 00:35:33

And in fact, there's almost like a contrast, I think, between Alexander's conquest and the kind of king that God is going to send in the future.

Brian: 00:35:44

So go ahead and read verses nine and ten to me and tell me if they sound familiar to you.

Brian: 00:35:48

This is Zechariah: 9910

Ryan: 00:35:51

Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion.

Ryan: 00:35:53

Shout, daughter Jerusalem.

Ryan: 00:35:54

See, your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Ryan: 00:36:01

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim, and the war horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken.

Ryan: 00:36:08

He will proclaim peace to the nations.

Ryan: 00:36:10

His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Brian: 00:36:15

Okay, so that passage is used in a couple places in the New Testament that we look at almost every year.

Brian: 00:36:23

What's the story?

Brian: 00:36:24

Do you remember the story where we find this?

Ryan: 00:36:27

Well, it's a triumphal entry.

Brian: 00:36:28

It's a triumphal entry.

Brian: 00:36:29

So we celebrate this the week before Easter as christians, almost every year.

Brian: 00:36:33

Well, we celebrate it every year, but we read these passages almost every year.

Brian: 00:36:39

And it is, we call it the triumphal entry.

Brian: 00:36:42

It's the palm Sunday.

Brian: 00:36:45

We sometimes will call it.

Brian: 00:36:46

A week before Easter, we have Jesus entering into Jerusalem.

Brian: 00:36:53

Go ahead and read the story out of Matthew 21.

Brian: 00:36:56

Matthew 21.

Brian: 00:36:56

We find it mentioned.

Brian: 00:36:57

We find it mentioned in the book, the Gospel of John as well.

Brian: 00:37:01

Go ahead and read Matthew 21, one five, if you would.

Brian: 00:37:03

This is the story.

Brian: 00:37:04

It should be pretty familiar to us.

Ryan: 00:37:06

As they approached Jerusalem and came to.

Ryan: 00:37:08

Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth.

Brian: 00:37:11

Fage.

Brian: 00:37:12

I don't know however you want to say it.

Ryan: 00:37:14

Okay.

Ryan: 00:37:14

I mean, there are people who, on the mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt by her.

Ryan: 00:37:26

Untie them and bring them to me.

Ryan: 00:37:28

If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them right away.

Ryan: 00:37:33

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets.

Ryan: 00:37:36

Say to daughter Zion, see, your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Brian: 00:37:43

So basically, this idea of them going and getting this donkey and this, this colt are, are said there in Matthew to fulfill this prophecy.

Brian: 00:37:55

John specifically says the same thing, that this is to fulfill this prophecy, that your king is coming to you gentle and riding on a donkey.

Brian: 00:38:05

Now, the interesting thing is you don't necessarily think about a king riding on a donkey, but there's a long history of it, all the way back to Solomon, when David gives the kingdom to Solomon.

Brian: 00:38:16

And you might remember there was some controversy about which of David's sons was going to be the one to rule on the throne.

Brian: 00:38:21

Yes, that's some controversy.

Brian: 00:38:23

It was pretty major rebellion.

Brian: 00:38:26

There's a big deal there.

Brian: 00:38:28

But when Solomon was chosen as a sign of his being the one, David says, go and let him ride in on my donkey.

Brian: 00:38:37

Put him on my donkey.

Brian: 00:38:40

And the idea of a king riding a donkey, again, that seems like a very strange image to us, but actually it's kind of a sign of peace.

Brian: 00:38:49

So in other words, when the king is not riding on a war horse, he's not in a chariot, he's on a donkey.

Brian: 00:38:55

It's a sign that he's not coming to conquer, he's coming in peace, is the idea.

Brian: 00:39:01

And there's other examples of that that we see in the Old Testament as well.

Brian: 00:39:06

But first, kings.

Brian: 00:39:07

Chapter one is where David says, Solomon should take my donkey and sign again that he's transferring his authority to Solomon.

Brian: 00:39:17

That's where you find that in one Kings chapter one, in verse 32 and 33.

Brian: 00:39:24

So this idea of a king riding a donkey isn't a contradiction, but it is the idea of he's coming to us gently, right.

Brian: 00:39:31

He's coming to us in peace.

Brian: 00:39:33

He's not riding a war horse, he's not coming in on a chariot, he's coming in on a donkey, which says something about the nature of how he is coming.

Brian: 00:39:44

Notice what he's also called here.

Brian: 00:39:46

It says, you will see rejoiced, daughter Zion.

Brian: 00:39:51

And that's just a way to talk about Zion is the mountain that Jerusalem is on, as we well know.

Brian: 00:39:55

Daughter Zion, daughter Jerusalem is the way to talk about the people of the city.

Brian: 00:40:00

Rejoice because your king is coming to you.

Brian: 00:40:04

And I think this is the contrast with what's given before.

Ryan: 00:40:09

Right?

Brian: 00:40:10

You see, I'm saying we're not talking about a foreign king who's coming in to conquer.

Brian: 00:40:13

We're talking about a king who's come from among you in order to rule now in peace.

Brian: 00:40:19

So your king is coming to you gently.

Brian: 00:40:22

And then he's described in two different ways.

Brian: 00:40:24

The first is righteous, and we know that word pretty well.

Brian: 00:40:29

It comes from this idea of justice, rightness or righteousness, justice, all have to do with that idea of things being done right, being done correctly.

Brian: 00:40:44

Right.

Ryan: 00:40:44

Right.

Brian: 00:40:46

That there is a certain holiness, there's a certain lack of conflict.

Brian: 00:40:51

You know, it is just in the way that he rules and in the way that he leads.

Brian: 00:40:57

He's not doing it for his own gain, for example.

Brian: 00:41:00

And we'll get into that more just to kind of prepare you because we're going to have another image that Jesus uses to talk about the way that he rules later on in Zechariah, which I think you guys are going to really like.

Brian: 00:41:12

So that's a good reason to hang on till next week.

Brian: 00:41:16

Here's the second word.

Brian: 00:41:17

So how did your translation say it?

Brian: 00:41:20

Righteous and victorious.

Brian: 00:41:22

Victorious.

Brian: 00:41:23

And this is a difficult term.

Brian: 00:41:26

You want to try to translate it in one word, righteous and victorious.

Brian: 00:41:29

But victorious isn't exactly the right idea.

Brian: 00:41:32

And I'm going to show you what I mean here is this comes from the root word, the verb in Hebrew that we would pronounce something like yeshua.

Brian: 00:41:45

Yeshua.

Brian: 00:41:46

Something along those lines.

Brian: 00:41:48

Or yeshua.

Brian: 00:41:51

It comes from the verb to save.

Brian: 00:41:57

Okay.

Brian: 00:41:57

For salvation.

Brian: 00:41:59

Jesus name, you might remember, is Yeshua.

Brian: 00:42:01

So it comes from that same kind of a root which has the idea of salvation.

Brian: 00:42:08

Now, salvation, not in the spiritual sense, like we often use it, but salvation in the, in the political or the military sense, we could say.

Brian: 00:42:18

So maybe even I would say something like the bringer of salvation, or even the word deliverer might be a better righteous.

Brian: 00:42:27

And it's a deliverer, something along those lines.

Brian: 00:42:30

So I just think that's a little bit of a nuance because he's going to talk about the salvation that he brings here in just a minute.

Brian: 00:42:37

And so I just wanted you to notice that that verb, it's not victory in the Alexander the great sense.

Brian: 00:42:44

Right.

Brian: 00:42:45

But it's this idea.

Brian: 00:42:46

He's the one who's bringing us deliverance.

Brian: 00:42:48

He's the one who's bringing us salvation.

Ryan: 00:42:50

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:42:51

So the ESV says, behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation.

Ryan: 00:42:58

Is he.

Brian: 00:43:00

It's the passive form.

Brian: 00:43:02

It's the passive form of the hebrew verb having salvation, carrying salvation with him.

Brian: 00:43:08

But again, it's hard to put that in one word.

Ryan: 00:43:11

Right, right.

Brian: 00:43:12

But that concept of salvation is there.

Brian: 00:43:15

He's the bringer of salvation.

Brian: 00:43:17

The third word that's used to describe him is lowly in riding on a donkey.

Brian: 00:43:21

Right.

Brian: 00:43:22

So this idea of lowly is, you know, is a sign of his.

Brian: 00:43:30

Could be a couple of things, but it's a sign of humility, I would say.

Brian: 00:43:34

But also the sign of how he was going to bring peace.

Brian: 00:43:38

It was going to be through, not through him conquering like Alexander, but instead it's going to be through him submitting himself to degradation, basically.

Brian: 00:43:50

He's going to come to us, bring her salvation.

Brian: 00:43:53

Righteous, bringer of salvation, and lowly.

Brian: 00:43:57

Okay, thoughts on that?

Brian: 00:43:58

Any questions or comments?

Ryan: 00:44:02

No.

Ryan: 00:44:03

Hebrew seems to have it's kind of tricky a little bit here.

Brian: 00:44:07

Well, I told you there's a couple of translation things that are very difficult here in Zechariah.

Brian: 00:44:12

There's another one later in this chapter.

Brian: 00:44:14

Yeah.

Brian: 00:44:15

It's sometimes not as clear how we should structure the sentence, what is the subject and what's the object and those kind of things.

Brian: 00:44:25

So there's a few things now that having been said, you know, those are relatively minor and things that, again, people have wrestled about and thought about.

Brian: 00:44:35

Right.

Brian: 00:44:36

And again, as I've been telling you in Greek, sometimes you just have to look at the context and see how does this fit together and what the reason.

Brian: 00:44:44

I like that idea of continuing to carry in.

Brian: 00:44:47

It makes bad English to try to carry in that idea of salvation.

Brian: 00:44:51

But I think it fits well with what we're going to see in just a minute.

Brian: 00:44:55

That's why I think that's the way to understand this.

Brian: 00:44:58

And I just want to point that out.

Brian: 00:44:59

That's not, see, that's why we spend some time studying this stuff so we get these little nuances that you might miss otherwise.

Brian: 00:45:07

So that's what I think we have going on here, the last half of that.

Brian: 00:45:11

And I know we've talked a lot about verse nine, but verse ten.

Brian: 00:45:15

Go back and just read that again, if you would just.

Ryan: 00:45:17

Verse ten.

Ryan: 00:45:17

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken.

Ryan: 00:45:23

He will proclaim peace to the nations.

Ryan: 00:45:25

His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Brian: 00:45:29

So he's talking about a time when there's not going to be any need for military chariot chariots.

Brian: 00:45:35

Right.

Brian: 00:45:35

And that, I meant to say that earlier.

Brian: 00:45:37

It's like he's not, he's not riding into town on a tank.

Ryan: 00:45:43

Right.

Brian: 00:45:44

He's.

Brian: 00:45:44

He's coming on a moped.

Brian: 00:45:46

I don't know, whatever you want to.

Ryan: 00:45:49

Something less a Kia Sorento.

Brian: 00:45:51

I don't know.

Ryan: 00:45:51

Yeah, something, but very non threatening.

Brian: 00:45:54

But then this idea that he's going to take away the military hardware from those around, like Ephraim.

Brian: 00:46:01

Right.

Brian: 00:46:01

There's no longer going to be this conflict he's bringing peace is the idea.

Brian: 00:46:05

The battle bow will be broken is a really cool image here.

Brian: 00:46:10

There's not going to be any need for battle bow any longer.

Brian: 00:46:15

And so that's kind of the description that we have here.

Brian: 00:46:18

It says that his rule will extend from c to sea.

Brian: 00:46:22

So that's talking about the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea.

Brian: 00:46:25

And is it that, yeah.

Brian: 00:46:28

Or into the river, which is referring probably to all the way over to the, to the Euphrates, is what some people think.

Brian: 00:46:36

The river is often Euphrates, not the Jordan.

Brian: 00:46:39

So, so it's talking about the scope of his, of his rule.

Brian: 00:46:43

But then it also says that he was, he'll bring peace or speak peace to the nations as well.

Brian: 00:46:48

So even beyond the borders of his people's nation, he's going to be one who speaks peace as well.

Brian: 00:46:56

So other nations are being included in this.

Brian: 00:47:00

So salvation continues to be described.

Brian: 00:47:02

Look at verse eleven.

Brian: 00:47:02

Go ahead and read that for me.

Ryan: 00:47:04

As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.

Brian: 00:47:10

Blood of the covenant isn't used very often in scripture.

Brian: 00:47:14

In fact, it surprised me when I first went to look to see how often it's used.

Brian: 00:47:18

Famously, we have the covenant ceremony back in the book of Exodus where Moses takes the blood of the covenant and sprinkles it on the people, literal blood, in order to seal this covenant between God and his people, God and this nation, the descendants of Abraham.

Brian: 00:47:39

So it's used there, and of course it's used in the New Testament where Jesus says, in the institution of the Lord's Supper, this is my blood of the new covenant.

Brian: 00:47:49

Right?

Brian: 00:47:50

Which is poured out for many.

Brian: 00:47:52

So we have that kind of an idea of the new covenant, but then we have it here in Zechariah, because of the blood of the covenant, I will save you from the waterless pit.

Brian: 00:48:05

And the idea there is, if you're stuck down in a pit without water, that's a bad situation.

Brian: 00:48:10

If you got a way not to get out, but you have no water, you're going to die.

Brian: 00:48:14

And so this kind of an idea, because of the blood of my covenant, because of this, I would say this connection, this agreement that I've made with you, I'm going to save you out of this desperate situation, might be the way that we put it.

Brian: 00:48:32

And then he promises not only salvation, but he promises a restoration that is even greater than what had I had come before.

Brian: 00:48:41

And that's verse twelve.

Ryan: 00:48:43

Okay?

Ryan: 00:48:44

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:48:45

So return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope.

Ryan: 00:48:48

Even now, I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.

Brian: 00:48:52

So the idea that you'll get double back of the things that you have lost is kind of the idea here.

Brian: 00:48:59

So even you think about exile, you think about the things that have been lost in the history of God's people.

Brian: 00:49:05

He says, I'm going to bring you back double of that now, we just talked about peace, but there's images of warfare that come along here as well.

Brian: 00:49:14

So I love this image, this first one.

Brian: 00:49:17

I'm just going to read this.

Brian: 00:49:17

Verse 13.

Brian: 00:49:19

I will bend Judah as I bend my bow.

Brian: 00:49:23

So if you think about bending a bow, that's like drawing it back.

Brian: 00:49:26

And then I will fill it with Ephraim.

Brian: 00:49:29

So when you fill a bow, you put an arrow in it.

Brian: 00:49:34

So I'm going to use Judah like a bow, and Ephraim is going to be my arrow.

Brian: 00:49:38

And I love that idea.

Brian: 00:49:39

Of course, Ephraim is talking about the northern kingdom, right?

Brian: 00:49:42

Judah is the southern kingdom.

Brian: 00:49:44

And he's talking about how the way all of God's people together, all of my people together, God is saying, are going to be used in this way.

Brian: 00:49:54

And then he says, I will rouse your son, Zion, against your son's Greece and make you like a warrior's sword.

Brian: 00:50:02

You know, I'm going to bring this, this ultimate destruction.

Brian: 00:50:07

Then the Lord will appear over them.

Brian: 00:50:09

His arrow will flash like lightning, and the sovereign lord will sound his trumpet.

Brian: 00:50:15

He will march in the storms of the south, and the Lord almighty will shield them.

Brian: 00:50:20

So we've talked about the prince of peace, but then there's also this martial kind of conquering language that's used as well.

Brian: 00:50:27

Any thoughts on that?

Brian: 00:50:28

Do you want to.

Brian: 00:50:29

You said, hmm.

Brian: 00:50:30

Did you have any thoughts on it?

Ryan: 00:50:31

I was just thinking.

Ryan: 00:50:32

I was thinking about the blood of my covenant and, like, connecting that to your king that we have back in verse nine.

Ryan: 00:50:39

Like, if it was blood of my covenant was still just Yahweh, but we hadn't made that connection yet between the coming king and it being God as well.

Brian: 00:50:50

Sure.

Brian: 00:50:51

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:50:51

And does that make sense?

Ryan: 00:50:52

I was just trying.

Ryan: 00:50:53

Was just trying to think through that.

Brian: 00:50:54

Yeah, I think so.

Brian: 00:50:55

It.

Brian: 00:50:55

This is tough.

Brian: 00:50:56

And I'll tell you how I understand it.

Brian: 00:50:58

There's different ways we could understand this.

Brian: 00:51:01

I.

Brian: 00:51:01

You know, again, Jesus says to Pilate, and by the way, I meant to talk about this somehow, how quickly do we bring christology into this?

Brian: 00:51:11

Because this is Old Testament.

Brian: 00:51:12

Right.

Brian: 00:51:13

But he's got a different.

Brian: 00:51:15

It's a different kind of kingdom that he's bringing, and I do believe it's one that will be victorious.

Brian: 00:51:21

And ultimately.

Brian: 00:51:22

So let's go back to Daniel.

Brian: 00:51:24

Let's use Daniel to explain Zechariah.

Brian: 00:51:27

Daniel has this image in the very beginning of the book, chapter two, you might remember, of a statue that represents all the kingdoms of this world.

Brian: 00:51:35

And the final one he talks about is this crushing empire, which I and others understand to be Rome, after the Greeks, after they quickly come through and conquer, there's going to be this grinding iron kingdom that's going to come and going to grind everybody in the dust.

Brian: 00:51:53

And then Daniel says, the vision you had of a rock cut without human hands is going to come.

Brian: 00:52:01

And he says, in the time of those kings, God is going to destroy all the kingdoms of the world, and he is going to establish his kingdom, which is going to grow.

Brian: 00:52:14

That rock grows and becomes a mountain that fills the whole world.

Brian: 00:52:16

He says, right.

Brian: 00:52:18

So this is what I would understand, that the way that it's the way of the kingdom of God, it's the way of the kingdom that was established by Jesus Christ himself.

Brian: 00:52:30

It is the way that it comes to overcome all the kingdoms, all the nations of the world, which is not through, I think, violent means.

Brian: 00:52:42

So this idea of even the image of the bow, I think all of these images, I think, have to do more with conquering by means of the spreading of the kingdom than it does by military prowess.

Brian: 00:52:57

That's the way I would understand it.

Brian: 00:52:59

Now, there may be some difficulty with that, but again, you see where I'm going with this.

Brian: 00:53:04

I think what we have is your king, the one sent by God, who is different than the conquering Alexander.

Brian: 00:53:16

Beginning verse.

Brian: 00:53:17

Go ahead.

Ryan: 00:53:18

Yeah, I was just making sure I understood that the blood of my covenant, I mean, I know you connected it back to, with Moses and the blood of the covenant.

Ryan: 00:53:26

I was wondering if it was connected to the king.

Ryan: 00:53:30

Again, I live in a New Testament framework.

Ryan: 00:53:33

I understand that.

Ryan: 00:53:34

And so for me, I see king and blood of my covenant, and I think, oh, that's.

Ryan: 00:53:38

That's Jesus, but like it.

Brian: 00:53:40

Well, I.

Brian: 00:53:41

Would they have under.

Ryan: 00:53:41

Would they have understood?

Ryan: 00:53:43

I guess my question is, again, we're kind of.

Ryan: 00:53:45

This is a hermeneutical question is.

Ryan: 00:53:47

But like, when an Old Testament person sees, because of the blood of my covenant, are they connecting that with Moses, or are they connecting that with the king that's referenced here earlier in Zachary.

Brian: 00:54:00

Talking about Zechariah's day?

Ryan: 00:54:02

Yeah.

Brian: 00:54:03

I think they are looking forward to a king sent from God that they would have called something like the mashiach, the Messiah.

Ryan: 00:54:12

Christ.

Brian: 00:54:15

Yeah, the Christ.

Ryan: 00:54:17

After they became Greek, they didn't speak.

Brian: 00:54:19

Greek, but they would have called the messiah.

Brian: 00:54:21

Right.

Brian: 00:54:22

And I think that's who they're thinking about and talking about.

Brian: 00:54:26

Right.

Brian: 00:54:28

And here's your question.

Brian: 00:54:30

So this is why I'm talking about questioning.

Ryan: 00:54:32

Is the concept of blood tied to that coming king or is, do you?

Ryan: 00:54:40

I'm just asking your thoughts.

Ryan: 00:54:42

Of course, we can't know for sure if they're just thinking about the mosaic covenant.

Brian: 00:54:48

I think they are thinking about the mosaic covenant.

Brian: 00:54:50

I don't think that makes it incorrect to think about followers of Christ as followers of Jesus and believing that he is confessing that he is the Messiah.

Brian: 00:55:03

I don't think that makes it incorrect for us to attach this to what he has accomplished.

Brian: 00:55:08

And that's why I even mentioned that the seat of your king riding to you on a donkey.

Brian: 00:55:16

Here's what I would say.

Brian: 00:55:18

Actually, what I meant to say.

Brian: 00:55:19

I think it's actually in the notes.

Brian: 00:55:20

This is what I meant to say is that what we can say for certain is that some of the earliest believers attached Zechariah, chapter nine to be a reference to none other than Jesus the Christ.

Brian: 00:55:35

Do you see what I mean?

Brian: 00:55:37

And I follow them.

Brian: 00:55:39

I mean, if the apostle, if it was good for the apostles, both Matthew and John agree on this, it's good.

Ryan: 00:55:45

For Paul and good enough for me.

Brian: 00:55:50

Yeah, that's where I go.

Brian: 00:55:51

So let's look at this last image.

Brian: 00:55:54

I know we're getting a little long, but let's look at this last image.

Brian: 00:55:56

And so here's what we have.

Brian: 00:55:58

The Lord almighty will shield them again.

Brian: 00:55:59

That's verse 15.

Brian: 00:56:00

I'm repeating that.

Brian: 00:56:02

And here's one of those times in Hebrew.

Brian: 00:56:05

Aren't you glad we have a little misunderstanding here?

Brian: 00:56:09

Two ways to understand it.

Brian: 00:56:10

Perfect.

Ryan: 00:56:10

Perfect.

Brian: 00:56:11

They will destroy and overcome with sling stones.

Brian: 00:56:14

Or it could be that God will allow them to overcome the sling stones.

Brian: 00:56:18

In other words, the weapons of the enemies will not harm them.

Brian: 00:56:23

Could be the way that it's understood.

Brian: 00:56:25

Now, this part, they will drink and roar as with wine and be full like a bowl used for sprinkling on the corners of the altar.

Brian: 00:56:33

So what you filled with a bowl on the sprinkling and the altar was blood of the sacrifice.

Brian: 00:56:38

Right?

Brian: 00:56:39

And so here again is probably this idea that they are going to be filled up with this.

Brian: 00:56:46

How do I say this?

Brian: 00:56:47

With this overcoming of the enemies.

Brian: 00:56:51

However we want to understand this, and I do find it interesting.

Brian: 00:56:54

The blood, the image of the corners of the altar is the way it's described.

Brian: 00:57:00

But then it says this, verse 16, the Lord their God will save his people on that day.

Brian: 00:57:07

Okay.

Brian: 00:57:08

And on that day becomes very important in Zechariah from here all the way through chapter 14.

Brian: 00:57:13

He's talking about some, we call it the messianic era.

Brian: 00:57:16

Right?

Brian: 00:57:17

He's talking about this day when the king comes that God has promised.

Brian: 00:57:21

And again, how did they understand it?

Brian: 00:57:23

A victory over enemies.

Brian: 00:57:24

What did it look like?

Brian: 00:57:25

It probably looked at, you know, it probably looked like victory over the enemies.

Brian: 00:57:31

Could probably look like this idea that there would be a conquering army.

Brian: 00:57:37

Right.

Brian: 00:57:39

We even see in the time of Jesus, his disciples understanding it that way.

Brian: 00:57:44

Correct.

Brian: 00:57:45

But that doesn't mean that that's what is being foretold.

Brian: 00:57:49

Right?

Brian: 00:57:50

So it says, the Lord their God will save their people on a day as a shepherdess saves his flock.

Brian: 00:57:57

So here's another image that we have that he is a shepherd, and that's going to become important for next week.

Brian: 00:58:03

That's the image that we find that Jesus uses in the next week.

Brian: 00:58:09

They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.

Brian: 00:58:12

So this is talking about how his people will be after he brings them together.

Brian: 00:58:16

They're going to be sparkly, shiny, if you're a firefly fan, but they're going to sparkle.

Brian: 00:58:28

Or Peter uses this image, they will shine like stars in a wicked generation.

Brian: 00:58:35

It's this idea that they'll be bright like jewels in a crown, how attractive and beautiful they will be.

Brian: 00:58:43

Grain will make the young men thrive.

Brian: 00:58:45

So in other words, there'll be plenty in the messianic age will be a time of plenty.

Brian: 00:58:49

That's one of the consistent themes.

Brian: 00:58:51

And new wine will make the young women thrive is the way I would translate this.

Brian: 00:58:56

So in other words, there's going to be plenty for everyone, both men and women, in order to enjoy a full life in the time when the messiah comes.

Brian: 00:59:06

All right, so that's Zechariah nine.

Brian: 00:59:08

And you kind of see why I like this.

Brian: 00:59:10

I mean, all these images and the contrast, what we understand to be fulfilled, prophecy of alexander the great, and then the contrast between his kind of conquering and Jesus kind of conquering.

Brian: 00:59:24

That's what I think we've got going on in this chapter.

Ryan: 00:59:27

Wow, there's a lot going on in here.

Brian: 00:59:30

Indeed.

Ryan: 00:59:31

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:59:32

Well, this is great, brian.

Brian: 00:59:33

Good.

Brian: 00:59:33

I appreciate it.

Brian: 00:59:35

If you enjoyed it, share it with somebody else.

Brian: 00:59:37

Make sure you get the word out.

Brian: 00:59:39

We're starting to see some more listeners, so we appreciate that.

Brian: 00:59:42

Keep sharing the word.

Brian: 00:59:43

We've got some good guests upcoming soon.

Brian: 00:59:46

Hope you're around for that.

Ryan: 00:59:48

So go to our website, which is thebiblebeastro.com.

Ryan: 00:59:53

yes.

Ryan: 00:59:54

And you can find resources.

Ryan: 00:59:56

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Ryan: 01:00:03

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Ryan: 01:00:09

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Ryan: 01:00:12

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Ryan: 01:00:18

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Brian: 01:00:20

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Ryan: 01:00:21

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Ryan: 01:00:22

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Ryan: 01:00:31

So appreciate everyone listening, and we'll be back as we continue in, in Zachariah.

Brian: 01:00:36

Yep.

Brian: 01:00:37

See you next week.

Ryan: 01:00:38

All right.

Ryan: 01:00:38

Thanks, Brian.

Ryan: 01:00:38

Bye bye.