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THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH
Lesson 4, Chapter 2

We leave chapter 1 and begin chapter 2 of Zechariah, a most unique Prophet
in the way he presents the oracles God gave to him, which operates mostly in
complex symbolism because it deals so very much with the future. When I say
“the future” I mean future to Zechariah, and not necessarily to us. Followers of
Yeshua, worshippers of Yehoveh God of Israel, have waited for a long, long
time for the future timeframe of many of these prophecies to finally arrive. In
fact, I think the wait has been so long that it is too easy to just keep on living
and thinking that this future will always be even more future for us. This is
what happened to the Jewish people concerning the arrival of their Messiah.
By the time He finally did come, only the most zealous were still looking for
him. By then many Traditional Jewish views and doctrines had formed about
what the Messiah would be, what he would look like, how he would behave,
and how he would reveal himself. I think it fair to say that their expectations
were very nearly 100% incorrect. Not because their Holy Scriptures were
wrong, but because they didn’t take them literally enough, and because it is
much too easy to try to fit a prophetic happening into a mold that religious
leadership has decided upon.

I have concern that the same phenomenon is happening in our time,
concerning the End Times. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a wide array of
traditions and doctrines have developed within Christianity about the End
Times based more on fictional novels than on biblical evidence. Some Christian
denominations don’t believe there is such a thing as the End Times, others
only seem to care about the End Times…but within their own particular set of
thoughts about what it is, and when it’s going to happen. Nearly all of these
doctrines are based on one Bible book: the Book of Revelation.

In reality, it is the Old Testament Prophets… particularly the so-called Minor
Prophets… that set the scene for the End Times and the entry into a 1000-year
period of the Kingdom of God as the ruling force over our entire planet. What
is even more crucial for us to notice is those prophecies concerning what
would happen, and what did happen, to ancient Israel and Judah that would
set a fulfillment pattern that would be repeated in the End Times. That is, if we

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pay attention we learn that prophetic fulfillments are typically things that
happen more than once. The first time the event is near to the age in which
that prophet lived and had a fairly limited scope of who and what would be
affected. The next time it happened, that scope widened. Should it happen a
third time, typically it is predicted to be a global event with global affects. The
Book of Zechariah is one of the most informative about the events surrounding
the End of Days.

In Zechariah chapter 2 the second vison or oracle of this series of
vision/oracles is presented. We cannot make the error of reading this or
understanding it in a standalone manner. It is connected to chapter 1, and in
fact it adds more to the oracle presented in the 14
th
and 15th verses of
chapter 1. Here’s what that was:

CJB
Zechariah 1:14-15
14
The angel speaking with me then said to me,
"Here is what Yehoveh-Tzva'ot says: 'I am extremely jealous on behalf
of Yerushalayim and Tziyon;
15
and [to the same degree] I am
extremely angry with the nations that are so self -satisfied; because I
was only a little angry [at Yerushalayim and Tziyon], but they made
the suffering worse.'

Be aware that because I read nearly always to you from the CJB, and because
the CJB always substitutes the term “adonai” in place of God’s name, I will
read it with reinserting God’s name, Yehoveh. Because of the way Zechariah is
structured and due to the prolific use of God’s name in the original Hebrew, I
will be doing this from this point forward until our study of Zechariah is
completed.

God is the protector and judge over Israel. But, the judge decided that
unfaithful Israel had to be punished for their sins as an act of basic justice Yet,
it was also to drive them back into repentance, submission, and ultimately
obedience. Obedience to what? The typical response to that question is
obedience to God. While that is true, how are we to know what God’s rules are
that we are to be obedient to? Yehoveh says over and over, our obedience is
to be to the terms of the covenant… meaning the Covenant of Moses. So, in
driving His people back to Him, God would take the drastic measure of driving

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Israel then Judah out of the land He had set apart for them hundreds of years
earlier, but with a plan to eventually bring them back. To do this, Yehoveh
enticed two different gentile empires to attack and conquer first Israel, then
later Judah. It was the Assyrian Empire that overcame Israel, but it was the
Babylonian Empire of more than a century later that invaded and overtook
Judah. However, in doing so these nations also inured His anger because, after
all, God is the protector of His people, Israel and Judah.

Ironically, the Persians overcame the Babylonian Empire and took it away from
them. The Persian kings actually freed the Jewish people to go home and
reconstitute their lives, their Temple, and their worship practices. So, why
would Yehoveh have a bone to pick with Persia? The cause of God’s increased
anger and wrath concerning them had to do with what the Persian Empire did
as regards Jerusalem and Zion: they took these places away from God’s
people, which is the same as taking them away from God. We’re told that God
has especially great jealousy over Jerusalem and Zion; He will react harshly
against those who mess with Jerusalem and Zion because the se are
exclusively His. When Persia refused to give Jerusalem and Zion back their
independent sovereignty, this provoked Him to a new and greater level of
wrath.

Immediately within the first few words of chapter 2, we get symbolism that
can be difficult to decipher. The symbols are horns. Let me remind you that
even though all the words are there and they are the same, depending on your
Bible version chapter 1 ends at verse 17 or it continues through verse 21. So,
some Bibles will have those verses (18 – 21) as the final verses of chapter 1,
while other versions will have those same verses as the first 4 verses of
chapter 2. It makes no difference in substance or content, but it can be
confusing when discussing it. The CJB ends chapter 1 at verse 17, and that is
what I’m referencing when I mention chapter and verse number. Let me also
point out that while using this chapter and verse numbering method makes
this the second vision/oracle, the other chapter and version method begins the
third oracle about a man holding a measuring cord.

What these first several verses of chapter 2 are speaking about is God’s
increased wrath over the gentile nations (these are nations that are part of the

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Persian Empire) that Yehoveh holds responsible for what He sees as unjustly
harsh treatment of His people. What follows that explanation is a prophetic
vision of how the Kingdom of God will develop and evolve over time, and then
finally to its mostly fully developed moment at the entry into the Millennial
period, just prior to the re-creation of the entire Universe including planet
Earth. Nonetheless, this only continues the most challenging task of properly
unwinding these prophecies so that we can grasp their meaning because the
terminology used is from the 5
th
or 6
th
century B.C. and so we must be careful
not to try to view it through our modern Western lens.
Let’s read the entire chapter 2.

READ ZECHARIAH CHAPTER 2 all

So, the first symbol presented is horns and then the second symbol is
presented: the smiths. While these might be challenging for us to understand,
obviously these were common things to the people of that era and they had no
difficulty grasping their sense even if the exact meaning in this prophecy was
not obvious. The other key to helping we moderns to understand is to not try
to look for a precise comparison between the vision object and exactly what it
was meant to represent. As an example: if the vision object had been an
automobile, it would have been fairly easy for us to grasp the sense of it even
though from a precision aspect we know there is much variation among
automobiles from their size to their shape, to the number of passengers they
can transport, to even the type of locomotion used (diesel engine, gas engine,
electric motor). So, a car represents transportation of people in a very general
and broad sense, and the details about it are unimportant. Rather, what is it
that these common things, the horns and the smiths, are meant to represent
within the context of how they are being used?

Zechariah asks the Interpreting Angel exactly what these horns are meant to
represent, as opposed to asking “what is a horn?”. The Angel responds that
the horns represent the powers that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.
What this is to mean to us (that is, how is this to be interpreted) has never
been fully agreed upon by academics. That is mainly because 1) indeed the
interpreters are trying to find a precision match between the symbol and its
meaning, and 2) the method they tend to go about interpreting it seems

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mostly concerned with Hebrew grammar and word etymology. This is certainly
a needed discipline when studying the Bible. However, especially when it
comes to study of the Old Testament Prophets, I have invariably found that
one needs always to look first to the political, theological, and cultural context
of the people and governments in that prophet’s era. As a comparison: it is
difficult to apply similar metaphors and expressions commonly used in the Civil
War, to literature and conversations of the 21
st
century. And, if one were to
prophecy something in the Civil War era that would occur in the 21
st
century,
what kind of symbols could possibly be used to get the message across? Thus,
the best one can do in predicting the future is to use symbols that have
meaning for the era in which the author wrote and the first readers read.

The horns were a very well-known symbol in that ancient era for power.
Usually that meant a government that projected military power. However, we
also have to back away and see the role of the horns in the wide scope that is
introduced to us with the first vision oracle, and then winds its way through 5
more visions that deal with more narrowly focused nuances that all fit within
that very broad scope of the opening vision, which concludes with the 7
th

vision. Further, as I highlighted in Haggai, and now again in Zechariah, at the
center of it all is the Temple. Because, in general, Christianity has a negative
viewpoint of a Temple as a result of Yeshua’s advent, then most of the time
the centrality of the Temple to Zechariah’s visions is dismissed. Therefore, the
entire core of the purpose of these oracles is lost and something more fanciful
has to be inserted in its place. We’ll not be doing that even if it injures some of
our sensibilities.

Eric Meyers makes this excellent insight that I’d rather simply quote to you
than to paraphrase:
All of the visions have as their ultimate concern the content of the
central focal one, the Temple in Jerusalem as well as the High
Priesthood, which is the subject of the prophetic vision that stand at
the center of the series along with the fourth vision .

What cannot be bypassed in that the core focus of all these oracles is the
Temple and the Priesthood, and their irreplaceable necessity in God’s plan not
just for Israel, but eventually for all humanity.

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So, the horns are symbolic of the great national powers that destroyed Israel,
scattering the people to the wind, and also who invaded Judah destroying the
Temple and much of Jerusalem, sending the Jewish people as a group to
Babylon, and now Persia as lording over God’s people and the place where God
puts His name (Jerusalem), even if Persia is doing so in a more enlightened
and somewhat gentler policy of governance.

One of the things that can throw interpreters off is that there were 4 horns.
Maybe we can identify 3 of them as earthly powers, but who is the 4
th
? There
doesn’t seem to be place within the context to understand the horns as
anything but history past, not involving some future power (as Daniel’s
prophecy does). On the other hand, there was one more scattering of the
Israelites that did occur, that of the aftermath of the Roman invasion and
destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of 70 A.D. So, could this be the 4
th

horn? Perhaps. Yet, another viewpoint is that this is talking about the
scattering of Israel, and most historians wouldn’t consider what Babylon did as
a scattering, and neither did Persia… at least to any significant extent. My take
is to ignore the number of horns as trying to match them with world powers,
and instead to see the number of them (4) as representing the entirety of the
earth. That is, the 4 compass directions. The number 4 is a most common
symbolism to the people of that day. If what I am suggesting is the case, then
generally this oracle is speaking about all of the military powers that scattered
Israel to places all over the known world. And, just as importantly, that
Yehoveh holds power over them just as they hold power over Israel.

Verse 3 introduces this second symbol of this second vision oracle. Different
Bible versions choose to translate this in different ways. The Hebrew word is
charash. It is a general term for a variety of skilled people who can create
things whether that be a woodworker (a carpenter) or a painter (an artist), or
maybe even a jewelry maker. Several Bible versions have chosen to us the
word smiths, with at least 1 version using the term blacksmith. But, when we
read verse 4, one wonders how artisans can do what is being suggested.

CJB
Zechariah 2:4 I asked, "What are these coming to do?" He said,
"Those horns that scattered Y'hudah so completely that no one could

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even raise his head- well, these men have come to terrify them, to
overthrow the nations that raised their horns against the land of
Y'hudah to scatter it."

As with the horns, Zechariah asks the Interpreting Angel what the purpose of
these 4 skilled workers is. The answer is that they have come to terrify the
horns! Put another way, they have come to punish or to oppose those military
powers. Before we pursue that a little further, we have something else to deal
with. This verse speaks exclusively about Judah (the Judeans) and not about
all Israel. Frankly, this is puzzling and if I were to try to give a reason why this
has shifted to Judah only (the former Judah), it would be guessing. Perhaps it
is nothing more complicated than these prophecies are all about Judah
returning from Babylon, Judah being subject to Persia, and with Israel
(meaning the Northern Kingdom of Ephraim/Israel) just a distant memory.
That is, for Zechariah, Judah and the Judeans were his immediate context for
after all, he was probably born up in Babylon.

Nonetheless, just as the horns were used by God to judge Israel and Judah
(Judah more recently), so are the 4 artisans being used by God to judge those
4 horns. Kiel and Delitzsch confidently assert that these 4 artisans symbolize
the instruments of divine omnipotence by which the imperial power in its
several historical forms is overthrown. Maybe. Or maybe the horns represent
little more than all the powers in history lumped together that have harmed
God’s people, Israel, and the artisans are all the means lumped together that
God has and will use to execute His divine wrath upon those powers. I think I
prefer the latter to the former. Or as Kiel and Delitzsch also suggest as an
option: perhaps “It is simply designed to show to the people of God that every
hostile power of the world which has risen up against it (Judah), or shall rise
up, is to be judged and destroyed by the Lord.”

Next, a 3
rd
vision/oracle is presented starting with verse 5. Let’s re-read
verses 5 – 9.

RE-READ ZECHARIAH 2:5 – 9

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I think it is fair to say that just as the second vision/oracle was connected to
chapter 1:14 and 15, so is this third one connected to chapter 1:16.

CJB
Zechariah 1:16 Therefore says, 'I will return to Yerushalayim with
merciful deeds. My house will be rebuilt there,' says Yehoveh-Tzva'ot;
'yes, a measuring line will be stretched out over Yerushalayim.'

The first comment I want to make about this third vision/oracle is that some
commentators believe that this is talking about a Jerusalem that is located in
Heaven. I won’t go into the several reasons why some advocate this only to
say that on its face it can’t be so because there is no measuring of things in
Heaven. I realize that this is symbolic, however on the other hand, the
spiritual realm has no dimensions of length, width, or height. While the
Universe we all live in consist of 3 physical dimensions of length, width and
height, along with a 4
th
dimension of time, that is not so in Heaven. So, this
measurement is meant to indicate the physical Jerusalem of earth.

Unlike the measuring line used in chapter 1, this is a measuring string or cord
that is used like an ancient ruler. Two Hebrew words are used together to
indicate this device; hebel and midda. Zechariah sees a “man” as holding the
measuring line. Indeed, because the Hebrew is ish, then it is a human male.
However, this is not to mean anything more than that the symbolic entity has
the appearance of a human male. What is interesting is that the man with a
measuring cord carries another symbolism of itself, which is important to
understanding the vision. It is that he is one who measures the portion of
Judah’s inheritance from God. So, this works in conjunction with the thought
of inheritance found in chapter 2:16.

CJB
Zechariah 2:16 Yehoveh will take possession of Y'hudah as his
portion in the holy land, and he will again make Yerushalayim his
choice.

Thus, the man with the measuring line is in Judah’s allotted territory,
measuring Jerusalem as its sacred capital. And yet, the man with the
measuring line isn’t really the point of the vision. So, who is this man? We’d
have to classify him as an angel; in fact, this is a new figure added to the

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scene. This cannot be the Interpreting Angel that speaks with Zechariah
because he doesn’t add new elements to the scene, he only explains their
meaning and purpose. And, because the Angel of Yehoveh is called just that,
this “man” is not him, either. There is nothing unusual about the idea of yet
another angel being giving a role as the one with the job of measuring
Jerusalem.

Verse 6 has Zechariah addressing this new angel and asking, “Where are you
going?”. It’s kind of fascinating how all of these vision/oracles revolve
essentially around conversations: questions and responses. Therefore, like a
drama series on TV, there’s a growing cast of characters that make
appearances from time to time. And what we come to realize is that the
man/angel and the measuring cord aren’t the symbolic focus, but rather it is
the reason for this task of measuring that has to be flushed-out that gives us
the true picture.

When we pay attention to this dialogue we also realize that this man/angel is
on the move. He is going somewhere, his destination being Jerusalem… but
he’s not there, yet. This measuring task is in anticipation of a full restoration
of the city of Jerusalem along with its all-important Temple. This idea of
measuring a city with a Temple is also part of Ezekiel’s prophetic visions, thus
what we read here in Zechariah is connected to what Ezekiel sees.

CJB
Ezekiel 40:1-5 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the
beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month - this was the
fourteenth year after the city [of Yerushalayim] was struck - it was on
that very day that the hand of Yehoveh was on me, and he took me
there.
2
In visions God brought me into the land of Isra'el and put me
down on a very high mountain; on it, toward the south, it seemed that
a city was being built.
3
That is where he took me, and there in front of
me was a man whose appearance was like bronze. He had a flax cord
and a measuring rod in his hand, and he stood in the gateway.
4
The
man said to me, "Human being, look with your eyes, hear with your
ears, and pay attention to all the things I am showing you; because
the reason you were brought here is so that I could show them to you.
Tell everything you see to the house of Isra'el ."
5
There was a wall

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surrounding the house. The man had in his hand a measuring rod six
cubits long [ten-and-a-half feet], each cubit [twenty-one inches]
being a normal cubit [eighteen inches] plus a handbreadth [three
inches]. He measured the wall's width at ten -and-a-half feet and its
height ten-and-a-half feet.)

And, from there Ezekiel goes on with very detailed measurements of the
restored Temple, the city, the territory of the tribes of Israel, and more. I’m
going to keep hammering home this issue of the Temple because it is so
critical to God’s restored Jerusalem and His Kingdom in general. And because
the historic Constantinian Church that so many of us grew up in has generally
found this Temple issue to be anywhere from incomprehensible to offensive to
anathema, all because Paul called Believers “temples”.

CJB
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
16
Don't you know that you people are God's
temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
17
So if anyone destroys
God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you
yourselves are that temple.

Thus, Christianity has essentially taken this to mean that Believers are the
replacement temples for the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, much in the same way
that the gentile body of Believers of the nations is the replacement people for
the Hebrew people of Israel. So, to even contemplate that God is demanding
His Temple be rebuilt, and to then to find these excruciating details of the
Millennial Temple laid out in the final 8 chapters of Ezekiel (with nearly all
Christian and Jewish scholars agreeing this Temple is a far future Temple
where Messiah will live), is a deep source of resentment, even anger, that has
led to all sorts of imaginative spin to try to work out some way to make what
the Bible clearly says about the Temple work with Christian doctrines that
virtually say the opposite. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul is in no way saying that
Christians have replaced the Jerusalem Temple. Like with a few other things
he says… such as Believers being priests… he is intending that to mean “like
temples” or “like priests”. People of his era well understood that; it’s gentile
Believers outside of Jewish culture that misconstrued the meaning, and has
stuck with it for centuries. These statements of Paul are similes intended to
bring across a message that the Holy Spirit of God now lives in us, and this is

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because the belief was that the Holy Spirit of God lived in the Temple
(although that is not exactly true, either). Thus, if we are vessels with the Holy
Spirit in us, we are like walking, talking temples and so we need to treat these
bodies as though they were holy and set apart for God just as is the Temple in
Jerusalem.

Now, in verse 7, yet another new cast member is added, when another angel
appears. The Interpreting Angel goes out to meet this new angel and tells this
new angel to:

CJB
Zechariah 2:8 …"Run and tell this young man, 'Yerushalayim will
be inhabited without walls, because there will be so many people and
animals;

For this angel to be told to “run” to tell this young man with the measuring
tool to go measure Jerusalem, is to add the sense of urgency and that because
this message comes from God, then it is the duty of a messenger to hurry to
deliver it.

However, the CJB translation of this verse (as does many English Bible
translations) leaves out an important word for some reason, that if included
would give better depth to the passage. The following literal translation,
although awkward sounding, gives a fuller sense of it.

YLT
Zechariah 2:4 …and he saith unto him, 'Run, speak unto this young
man, saying: Unwalled villages inhabit doth Jerusalem, From the
abundance of man and beast in her midst.

Notice that the word villages is missing in most English translations. The
Hebrew word that is skipped over is perazah, meaning towns or villages. And,
the word walls doesn’t actually appear here. In the ancient times, a village or
a town was defined as a sort of country hamlet that inherently did not have
walls. If it did have defensive walls (a large and expensive project), then its
status was upgraded to a city. So, saying a village without walls is like saying
a house with a door. Villages automatically don’t have walls, and houses
automatically must have doors so there is no point to adding those additional

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words. The idea being presented then is this: at a future time, Jerusalem will
more look like a large open area of country villages as opposed to a large city
enclosed by formidable defensive walls. This means that Jerusalem is going to
be much more extensive in size than ever before, and will have no need for
walls because God will be their protection. This extended size also means more
people and more livestock will be present.

Clearly, this is an End Times Jerusalem when all opposition to God’s Kingdom
is defeated, and all risk of attack is gone. Safety and security are no longer an
issue. At the time of Zechariah and Ezekiel, as it would be for several hundred
more years, a walled city and the surrounding villages were a necessary civic
unit. The city is where the villagers would come to buy and sell at the
marketplace. And, when an invasion of some kind was imminent, the villagers
would run to the city to be protected inside its walls. Because a city was
bounded by walls, then it could only accommodate a finite and limited number
of homes. Thus, villages surrounding it were necessary to provide sufficient
shelter for the population.

Verse 9 explains how the foregoing of no longer needs walls is possible (an
explanation that people of Zechariah’s era would certainly need to hear).

CJB
Zechariah 2:9 "for," says ADONAI, "I will be for her a wall of fire
surrounding her; and I will be the glory within her.

I left the term “Adonai” in here because virtually all English versions use the
term The Lord, even though God’s name (Yehoveh) is once again present. So,
it is The Father that is making this promise and statement about personally
being the equivalent to a wall of fire. As with Paul likening Believers to
temples, so here God is not going to be a literal fire. No one could pass
through a fire and live, so this is an expression speaking of 100% protection.
The end of this verse brings us to another occasion of something I’ve spoken
about before. When God says that He will be the glory within her (meaning
within Jerusalem), this does not mean glory in the sense of splendor. The
Glory needs to be capitalized because it is the name of one of God’s several
revealed manifestations. God, in the form of The Glory, will inhabit Jerusalem.
Or, as I think we’ll learn at later point, it is The Glory that inhabits the Temple

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that is inside of Jerusalem, as the object that makes Jerusalem unique from all
other places. What this means is that instead of only the Temple being the
holy place of God on earth, the entire city of Jerusalem… with its large
surroundings of many villages… that will be God’s earthly domain.

I want to end today’s lesson with this thought. While the typical mode of
prophecy is to provide a prediction that will be fulfilled in steps beginning from
a limited scope, and then happening again at a broader scope, and then
perhaps even again at its final universal scope, we are finding Zechariah’s
vision/oracles are doing the opposite. In his vision/oracles the first fulfillment
is presented as the widest universal scope, then Zechariah takes us in steps to
smaller and smaller scopes of the effects of the prophecy. This third vision has
now brought the reduction of scope down to only the city of Jerusalem and its
outlying villages. What will happen next in that progression is that the scope
will be further reduced down to only the Temple. And, as we have discussed
thoroughly, it is the Temple that is the ultimate focus of Zechariah’s
prophecies.

Beginning in verse 10 is an expansion on the first 3 vision/oracles, and that’s
what we’ll open with next time.