Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S23 || Prophecies of Jerusalem's Future || Zechariah 12:1-9 || Session 23 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Angel of the LORD in the Old Testament Link HERE
Could the mysteries of God's nature and the future of Jerusalem be interwoven in prophetic scriptures? Join us as we unearth the captivating military imagery found in the first few verses of Zechariah 12, where a future siege of Jerusalem is foreseen. We scrutinize why this prophecy doesn’t align with the historical Roman siege of AD 70, proposing instead its potential future fulfillment tied to the concept of the Day of the Lord. The episode ventures into the spiritual conflict surrounding Jesus Christ’s prophesied reign from Jerusalem, exploring the imagery of mad-stricken military horses and soldiers. Through this lens, we see how God promises to uphold the city against its would-be conquerors.
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn and I'm here with Steve. We have a ministry called Reasoning Through the Bible. We do verse-by-verse Bible study through the Word of God. If you have your Bibles, open it to Zechariah, chapter 12, and we're going to read the first verses there. Steve, if you could read verses 1 through 5.
Speaker 2:The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel. Thus declares the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him. Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around, and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will be severely injured and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. In that day, declares the Lord, I will strike every horse with bewilderment and his rider with madness, but I will watch over the house of Judah while I strike.
Speaker 1:subdivision of the message here, simply because he starts off with the burden, or many of the translations say the oracle or revelation of the Lord. So he's giving another message from the Lord, god, and the message starts out at the last part of verse 1 with this grand explanation or announcement by God, saying who he is and what his character is like. These are passages that I particularly love, simply because it tells us some things about our God. What does verse 1, steve, what does it say about the nature of God and who?
Speaker 2:he is. It says that he stretches out the heavens, that he lays the foundations of the world and that he forms the spirit of man within them.
Speaker 1:We have a God that is powerful enough to create the heavens and stretch them out the way they are. He can create what exists when there was no existence before. The words laying a foundation takes engineering and design. He is the master designer. It says forming a spirit inside man. Forming a spirit takes personality as God. Not only is he the creator that can create from nothing, not only is he powerful enough to stretch out the heavens, not only is he intelligent enough and wise enough to lay a foundation and have design and purpose for everything in the world, not only can he do all that, but he's personal and loving enough to create a being that has a spirit and a soul the human. It has knit us together from our mother's womb so wonderfully. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Speaker 1:Humans are very different than any other kind of an animal. We have the spirit that God put inside us that makes us in God's image. Humans can make machines, but we cannot make another living soul like God can. We live in a universe that has design, structure, purpose, and yet we have been built in the image of God, and I just find that tremendous All that is packed in this one verse where he lets us know exactly who it is that's speaking to us and all we can do is sit here in awe. Steve, I'm reminded of over in Romans 1, verse 20, says that even the natural man, the lost man, can look at creation, can look at the heavens, look at what God's made and can tell some things about the very nature of God. That's what I see in this verse. Don't you find this to be very, very special?
Speaker 2:It is special and it's also curious that it's here in a minor prophet. It's an acknowledgement of God the creator, marketing back to Genesis the very first part of it, that he is the one and only true God who can and does create everything.
Speaker 1:Much of this chapter 12 of Zechariah, we're going to be bumping into questions about whether this was fulfilled in Zechariah's day or some point in history prior to now. Or is this a church age thing? Or is it a future kingdom thing? There's just a good bit of that here. We're going to hear much of it, and it starts pretty much right out of the chute, verse 2, behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling, or some of the translations there say a cup that causes drunkenness, dizziness or staggering. What he's saying there is that he's going to take the city of Jerusalem and make it such that the people that surround the city are going to be acting like they're dizzy or drunk or staggering. Now, several passages in this part of the book of Zechariah talk about the city of Jerusalem being surrounded by all the nations of the earth. Right here in 12.3,. He says it again in 12.9, that all the nations will surround Jerusalem, and he says it again in chapter 14, verse 2. Verse 3 says all the nations of the earth will gather against Jerusalem and that God will make Jerusalem like a heavy stone that people will hurt themselves trying to lift.
Speaker 1:We have here, steve, this idea, and he mentions Jerusalem over and over that Jerusalem as a city will be made such that it's going to cause the nations around it to be dizzy or disoriented or like they're doing something like a drunk person would. He says there that Jerusalem is going to be the focus of all this military action. He's saying that it's going to take place such that Jerusalem causes every other nation to go crazy. Now, stephen, that I can believe, simply because in our day we've seen the nations that surround Israel today do things that are just not logical. They seem to be so incensed with the idea of Israel even existing that the Jewish people even being there, that they do things that could only be classified as illogical and insane because they've caused their own people a lot of problems. So it's easy for me to believe that this idea that Jerusalem would be a cup that causes dizziness or staggering, we could see that in our day.
Speaker 2:What else in these first few verses do you see, I see some military terms that are being used. It says a siege. A siege is whenever a city is completely surrounded and they cut off people coming in and supplies coming in. They also cut off people going out. They basically starve the people that are on the inside of it. This can't be the time, though, of AD 70, when Rome came in and did that. They put a siege around Jerusalem. The reason why it can't be speaking of that is because it gives a description here that God has caused these nations, in this siege, to be reeling, to have a quake. Their knees become like jelly. That's not what happened in 87. The Romans did come into the city, completely, sacked it and burned it, took the temple and destroyed it. This can't be talking about that particular siege of Jerusalem that happened then. This has to be a time in the future whenever Jerusalem is once again under siege, but yet God is there with them, through the description of these verses here, in the first five verses of chapter 12.
Speaker 1:This chapter 12 is going to give us ample opportunity to compare these events to not only the siege by the Romans in 70 AD, but there's also some historical times that happened prior to Christ, after Zechariah, and prior to Christ, during the time of the Maccabees. We'll be able to compare those and see where it fits best in biblical prophecy. We'll get to that before we get out of this chapter, I assure you. Verse 3 says these things will happen in that day. Verse 4, these things will happen in that day. The phrase in that day appears six times in chapter 12 alone and it appears 18 times in the book of Zechariah. In that day is a clue that these prophecies are at least future to Zechariah's day and it refers to the same thing. We would take it, steve, as the same thing as what's called the Day of the Lord.
Speaker 1:The Day of the Lord is a period of time where a lot of prophecy comes true and includes the seven-year Great Tribulation period and the thousand-year earthly millennium. Both Joel 2.11 and Malachi 4.5 both specifically speak of the day of the Lord as great and terrible, or the words there. Some of the translations say dreadful and fearful. The day of the Lord is great and dreadful, it's fearful, great meaning, large, large and terrible and fearful. The coming salvation in the church is not a dreadful or fearful thing. Salvation is not a terrible thing. Salvation is a wonderful thing when it says here, in that day we take it to be the same as the day of the Lord. That is not our day, it's not the church age, simply because the church is the wonderful salvation of God, not a terrible or dreadful thing. Paul says that the day of the Lord is still future to when he wrote 1 Thessalonians, because 1 Thessalonians 5.2 says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Thessalonians 5.2 says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So we have ample passages throughout the Word of God that talk about in that day.
Speaker 1:What day? The day of the Lord, the great and dreadful, terrible day of the Lord here, zechariah 12.3 and 4,. That day I'm going to make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples who will be severely injured. It's dreadful for the people trying to attack Jerusalem. The horse is a military animal. They're going to be confused. The military soldiers are going to be blind. That's what he's saying here in 12, 3, and 4, is that in that day, what day? The day of the Lord, when Jerusalem causes those who are around it to be drunk and dizzy and insane and not be able to succeed in their military attacks? That's what he's saying here, and it's quite clear what he means.
Speaker 2:Glenn, let me ask you a question Is Jerusalem an actual?
Speaker 1:place. Yes, it's not St Louis or London or Singapore, or your city or mine, unless you happen to live in the city of Jerusalem. In this passage again, we'll see before we get out of here. It talks about Judah, talks about Jerusalem, talks about Zion, talks about the house of David. This is a thoroughly Jewish chapter. We're going to see that as we go through it.
Speaker 2:You know, as the description gives here, it says there in verse 3, that all the nations will come against Jerusalem. It's going to be a burdensome stone as to the nations wanting to go against it and really wipe it out. So the question comes about why is it that the people and nations of the world would want to wipe out Jerusalem? Well, the people that are living there are the Jewish people that are there at the time. The reason why is because I think there is some spiritual warfare that's going on related to who does the prophet tell us is going to set up and reign from Jerusalem in this restored kingdom of Israel. Who does the scripture tell us is going to do that?
Speaker 1:It's going to be the Lord Jesus and he's the one that's going to come back and set up his throne in Jerusalem. We'll see that before we get out of the boat. Now. In verse 4, god says I will strike every horse with bewilderment and his rider with madness. And then, at the end of the verse, I will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. Now, horses in Zechariah's day were military animals. If you take the military animals and you strike them, bewilder them or blind them, and the riders, which are the soldiers, are mad or insane, then the military's not going to be very effective. That's what he's saying here. It's quite clear to the hearers that he's saying that the people that come against Israel militarily are going to be stopped. The military machines, the horses, are going to be stopped. The soldiers are going to be driven mad. That's one of the ways he stops them.
Speaker 1:The next verse, verse 5,. When the nations of the world surround Jerusalem, they're, of course, going to be in the surrounding country of Judah. The people of Judah will be glad that the people of Jerusalem helped defend against these attacking nations. God is saying that he's going to defend the Jewish people when they're attacked by all these nations that come up against them. That's key to determining when this is going to happen. Because, steve, regardless of anything else this is saying what is very, very clear is God is saying I am going to defend Jerusalem against the attackers. That's what he means, am I?
Speaker 2:correct. Not only is he going to defend them, he's also saying there in verse 5, that the clans or the people of Judah, the Israelites, the Jewish people, are going to say in their hearts they're going to recognize that it is God that is fighting for them, they're going to recognize that it is their God, yahweh, that has blinded and bewildered the mechanized divisions of all these nations. Again, this is a situation where we've talked about earlier in this session that it couldn't be the siege of the Romans in AD 70, because even then, the people didn't acknowledge that God was with them, because God wasn't with them during that destruction. So, yeah, this is something that's a change of other times and other situations that have happened of other times and other situations that have happened.
Speaker 1:There are well-meaning Bible teachers that teach that these things that appear here in Zechariah 12 were fulfilled in Jewish history and we would disagree with them Again. Not anything personal here. I'd just like to say why. Simply because, if you go through this in detail, these passages in Zechariah 12 do not fit anywhere in Jewish history. For example, one of the passages of what you just said, steve, is in the Romans in AD 70.
Speaker 1:Another one that's often mentioned is in between the time of Zechariah the prophet and Jesus, there was the intertestamental period. There was a time of what is known as the time of the Maccabees. There was a family called the Maccabees that was their name and there was a father and some sons and they led a revolt against some Greek conquerors. The Greek conquerors were after Alexander the Great. He had taken over the entire world. Then Alexander died and his kingdom split into four sections that fought with each other for centuries. So these Greek leaders would come in and one of them, antiochus Epiphanes, took over Jerusalem. At that time he stopped the temple sacrificial ceremonies, he sacrificed a pig on the altar, he commanded the Jewish people to stop circumcising their children and all these kinds of things that, of course, the Jews didn't like. There was a family called the Maccabees that ended up routing the Greek forces out of Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Bible teachers point to that and say well see, there was a time where the Jewish people defeated the Greek forces, the pagan forces that had come into Jerusalem. The reason why that does not fit is a couple of reasons, one of which is the Greeks came in and conquered Jerusalem first, and this family, the Maccabees, had to go gather an army and take it back. So the first phase of the Maccabean Wars, the Jews lost. These passages are quite clearly saying that he's going to defend Jerusalem against these enemies, whereas the first one they were defeated. And yes, it's true that the Jews pushed the Greeks out of Jerusalem, but a few years later the Greeks took it back again out of Jerusalem. But a few years later the Greeks took it back again.
Speaker 1:So, regardless of how you read Zechariah 12, it just screams at us that God's going to defeat the enemies. When you have a situation in the intertestamental years, with the time of the Maccabees, where the Jews lose, then they win, then they lose again and stay in a defeated state After the Greeks took it back over again. There were many years where there was a heavy Greek influence. The coins had Greek names on them. They were heavily dominated by the Greeks until about 33, 37 AD when the Romans came in and took them over. We can't really say these things fit during the time of the Maccabees simply because, yeah, judas Maccabeus forced out the Greeks after the Jews lost and before the Jews lost again. So it just doesn't fit historically.
Speaker 2:It also doesn't fit from the description that's here. It says all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it, it being Jerusalem in verse 3. It doesn't say that they're peoples from all different nations. It says all different nations and it gives the same description a couple of verses later, that all the nations are going to be blinded and stuff. The Greek, although they were made up of people from various nations, and the Romans later were made up of people from their army, was made up of people from various nations.
Speaker 2:It's not a representation of what's saying here. It says all the nations of the earth. So it's many nations, not many peoples of nations, that are going to be here at this time of Jerusalem where it becomes a burdensome stone. To me, glenn, it strikes of the nation saying what are we going to do about Jerusalem? There's a problem and a situation that needs to be taken care of. What are we going to do about it? That's the burdensome stone. When he says here in verse 3 that all who lift it will be severely injured, meaning is that anybody that comes in there and tries to disrupt and displace the Jewish people from their rightful place of Jerusalem, their capital city, there's going to be a problem for them.
Speaker 1:You can't really take that and apply it to the time of the Maccabees, when the Jews lost more than they won. This was a series of battles over a number of years and the Jews ended up losing in the end. The Maccabean leaders ended up losing to the Greeks. In the end, the Jews dominated until the Romans came in and dominated. So this just doesn't fit anywhere in Jewish history.
Speaker 1:We can't take a battle that's in the middle of a series of defeats and take it to mean what Zechariah 12, 3, and 4 say. It just does not fit. As you pointed out, steve, we can't take it to mean 70 AD, because in 70 AD the Romans came in and destroyed the whole city and turned it into a pile of rubble, destroyed the temple that leaves us with. Can we make this figurative language and spiritualize it into the Christian life? There are some Bible teachers that would say well, what this is really talking about is, instead of Jerusalem, it's talking about the New Jerusalem, which is the church, and it's talking about the Christian life and God's going to protect the Christian life in the sense that as Christians, we're not going to have any spiritual enemies and we can live in peace in Jesus Christ. So that's another one. Will that fit this passage?
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't. And it comes back to why I asked you the question earlier is Jerusalem an actual place? And of course, your answer was yes, but it's not Singapore and you named off some other cities. No, I think this is talking about an actual place. It's talking about an actual situation that is going to take place. Jewish people, the Israelites that are there at that time because they're starting to say within their hearts hey, god is with us, god is protecting us at this point in time. That doesn't even fit with the spiritualization that you just mentioned. To me this is very plain, taking the plain meaning of the words here in the text, that this is an actual event still yet to happen, it's in the future.
Speaker 1:The reason we can't apply it to the Christian life is this passage here in Zechariah says the nations of the world are going to lay siege to Jerusalem and be defeated. We don't see that in the church or salvation in Christian life, simply because one the world doesn't lay siege to Christian salvation. That's just not how salvation works. There's no imagery in salvation that makes it look like the world's going to attack our salvation in Christ. That imagery just doesn't fit. Secondly, yes, we have this wonderful salvation in Christ, but we're also I mean, read vast passages of the New Testament. Talk about how we're torn. We have the old flesh and the new flesh.
Speaker 1:Read Romans, chapter 7. The things I don't want to do, that I do, and the things I want to do I don't do. Who will deliver me from this body of death? This person is screaming out in agony. Read all the things that the apostle Paul had to go through with the shipwrecks and the lashings and the. I mean, the world was, from a worldly standpoint, was attacking Paul as a person and winning. Now the kingdom went out. That's not what this is saying. This is saying that the world will be defeated In our day. The world is still tempting us. That's how we get it. The world is tempting us and, steve, it just doesn't fit, would you agree?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with everything. And as we continue to go through these next verses, it's even going to become more clear that it can't be talking about or applied to the Christian life today.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and read. The next section. Starting in verse 6 says this In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot amongst pieces of wood and a flaming torch among the sheaves. So they will consume, on the right hand and on the left, all the surrounding peoples, while the inhabitants of Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites in Jerusalem. The Lord also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem these verses are very plain. And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. These verses are very plain God's going to cause the people of Judah to be so powerful that they consume quote all the surrounding peoples. Unquote Not merely some of the enemies, not just a person from the enemies, not a representative sample, but all the surrounding peoples will be defeated and consumed. Note here who is doing the action. God is going to cause this to action. Also, notice we've said all along that this doesn't apply to salvation in the church age or to intertestamental period, because look at how thoroughly Jewish this is. Just in those four verses that we just read, not the rest of the chapter or even the book, but just those four verses.
Speaker 1:Judah is mentioned three times. Jerusalem is mentioned five times. House of David is mentioned three times. God is not speaking to the church here. Verse 9, god again says he's going to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. He talks here about the feeble among you are going to be like David. Well, who was David? David started out as king of the southern kingdom of Judah, then later became king of all Israel. David was a mighty warrior, probably the greatest warrior that the Jews ever had. In verse 8, in that day, the one who is feeble are going to be like King David. The context of the passage is talking about a future time when surrounding nations are going to be attacking Jerusalem and the people of Jerusalem. The Jews are going to be so strong that they're going to be like David's mighty warriors.
Speaker 1:Steve, we don't see this in the Christian life today. We see some victories and some failures. We see the Apostle Paul who will deliver me from this body of death. We see the Christian life screaming out that I'm tied to this sinful life. How can I get rid of this body of sin? That's the Christian life today. We have some victories and some failures. This only talks about victories. That, I think, makes it a thoroughly Jewish book. It is a thoroughly victorious time where there's no defeats to the ethnic Jews.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you look at verse 8, glenn, it says there that the Lord Yahweh will defend the inhabitants, so it's talking about the people of Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:It says there, at the last part of 8, that the house of David so that's the throne or the kingship of David, okay will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. Now, this term angel of the Lord we've done a session on it, talking about who is the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. We'll put a link to that in our description on both the video and the audio. But this is clearly saying Jesus, who we hold, is God, who is the Messiah and who is also the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. It's very clear that this is giving a depiction that Jesus is going to be there in Jerusalem and he's heavily involved in what's going on, what's happening there in Jerusalem. Yes, once again, I just don't see how people can take in, spiritualize all of these individual, actual places and terminology that's talking about individuals and put it into the Christian life today. I just can't see it.
Speaker 1:At the end of verse 8, it says there that the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. That is one more support for the angel of the Lord being the Lord, god Almighty, the pre-incarnate Christ. We've seen that and we point that out as we go through these passages. Now notice again verse 9. It says In that day I will set about this is God, I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Now again, the Christian life. We don't have all the world destroyed life. We don't have all the world destroyed. We still have the world attacking us. We still have the world tempting us. We still have the world going against the Christian way. They're not destroyed today. They weren't destroyed in the time of the Maccabees simply because the Greeks lasted for several hundred more years militarily controlling the land of Palestine, the land of Israel and the Romans. After that, none of it fits, except for a future kingdom when God will literally destroy all the nations that come up against the nation Israel. He will indeed protect Jerusalem and Judah. That's the fulfillment of the prophecy.
Speaker 2:I think that's the thing I want to finish with on this session, Glenn, is that there in 9, it says I want to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. That's a good summation of everything that has been talked about in these first nine verses of chapter 12. It's an actual siege that is around Jerusalem. God is there to protect them, and not only protect them, but to destroy multiple nations that have come, not just peoples of nations, but nations themselves, and that God is going to destroy them. And then we see this little bit of change in the people's hearts as they begin to acknowledge that God is with us and God is the one that is protecting us and causing the destruction of our enemies, represented in these nations that are besieging us here in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Well, go ahead and stop here, because the next verse Zechariah 12.10, is one of the prominent verses really in the whole book. Certainly in this chapter it's a center point and there's a lot there that we're going to see the Lord Jesus, we're going to see the Trinity here in the Old Testament. It's going to be a wonderful verse that we'll be able to really sink our teeth into.
Speaker 2:And we'll get into that next time on Reasoning Through the Bible, our teeth into, and we'll get into that next time on reasoning through the Bible. As always. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
