GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ZECHARIAH 9:10-13
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
the battle bow will be taken away,
and he will proclaim peace to the nations.
Here the Savior’s kingdom is described: It will have no weapons of war, and so he even depicts himself walking up and down a line of warriors, pulling men out of their chariots and down from their war-horses, and slapping the horses’ rumps so that they run free. The bows and arrows and swords and spears are all thrown into piles; they will not be needed for this kingdom of the Lord. There will be no edicts or new taxes to be read out village by village. There will only be a herald proclaiming peace, peace within the kingdom, and peace outside the kingdom with the nations all around.
His rule will be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
We always need to be careful not to read our own experience, science, music, etc., into the Scriptures. Our task with the word of God is to learn from it and take it to heart, not to plant our ideas into into it. So when the text says “from sea to sea,” we shouldn’t think of a land stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as in our patriotic songs. Zechariah is echoing Psalm 72:8, “He will rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.” The first sea for Zechariah, as it was for Solomon, is the Dead Sea, and from there, the outer seas of the world. This was not just the Mediterranean, but the ocean beyond, in parallel with “the ends of the earth.” In the same way, “the River” in this case does not necessarily mean the Euphrates as it so often does, nor the Nile, as is sometimes the case. Here it is the little Jordan, where Jesus was baptized and where his ministry began, for that is the point of the verse.
So the Christian church had its beginnings in Israel, around the Jordan and its little lakes, and then spread out to the ends of the earth without armies or commands (or at least, those things were not part of God’s will or design). Wherever the gospel is forced on people, the Word of God is abused. It should be through preaching and through families, and not by force, that faith is spread. In other words, it should fall under the realm of the Third and Fourth Commandments, and not the Fifth. “We should fear and love God that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it,” and also “honor, serve, and obey our parents, and give them love and respect,” which includes matters of worship and faith.
11 As for you also,
because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12 Return to the stronghold, you prisoners who have hope;
today I declare that I will restore double to you.
These verses are a description of salvation through Christ. The blood of his covenant is not the blood of bulls and goats and twice-a-day lambs. Apart from this verse, the term “blood of the covenant” only occurs once in the Old Testament, which is Exodus 24:7 and the ratification or consecration of the law, the Ten Commandments, with the people (see also Hebrews 9:19 for this incident). The true blood of the covenant is the blood of Christ, which did not atone for one sin one day and another sin the next, having to be shed again and again, year upon year, but only once for all sin. This is the restoration of the prisoners who have hope, hope in Christ alone, for Jesus has set us free from the threat of the hideous waterless pit of hell.
More than that, his promise is to restore double to us, who have been bound by sin, death, and the devil. What does this mean? This is a call back to the promise given to Isaiah a hundred and fifty years before: “Tell Jerusalem that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins: her hard service is completed, and her sin has been paid for” (Isaiah 40:2). That passage shows us that the double redemption consists of these two things:
1, Freedom from sin, because “her sin has been paid for” and because he is setting the prisoners free from the waterless pit. Christ is the one who “was pierced for our transgressions. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him” (Isaiah 53:5).
2, Freedom from the Law, because “her hard service is completed,” and the law is fulfilled in Christ. The law was only put in charge of us “to lead us to Christ” so that we could be justified by faith in Christ (Galatians 3:24).
13 For I will bend Judah as my bow;
I have set Ephraim as its arrow.
I will stir up your sons, O Zion,
against your sons, O Greece,
and I will wield you like the sword of a giant.
Here the Savior returns to the subject of weaponry. The true weaponry of the Lord consists in the people who proclaim his truth. This is what he means when he says, “I will bend Judah as my bow” and “I have set Ephraim as an arrow in the nock of my bow.” The few sons of Zion will be sent out against the uncountable sons of Greece, but the Greeks would embrace the Gospel when it came, so that before Paul’s life and ministry were ended, one could scarcely walk ten miles in Asia Minor, Cyprus, or Greece, without finding a Christian church. And before that, Greek would have become the language of the church and the whole civilized world.
“I will wield you like the sword of a giant,” or the sword of a mighty warrior. This is a reminder of David’s mighty men and the warriors they faced with their weapons. When David took the sword of Goliath to defend himself against King Saul, he said, “There is none like it!” (1 Samuel 21:9). This is the truth about the Word of God, as well: There is no word like it. “The sword of the Spirit is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). It is “living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The word of God makes us strong because it lives in us (2 John 1:14), and with it, spoken in the name of Jesus Christ, we overcome the evil one.
“I will wield you like the sword of a giant.” I am fond of this phrase in Latin: Ponam te quasi gladium fortium. It is a blessing on a preacher, for it is God doing the work, and I am but a tool in his service. The sword of a giant, am I! I may come from a tiny village, and my work is only in the smallest of cities, but my God uses me in his service.
Parent, teacher, coach, pastor: The sword of a giant are you! Do his work with love and contentment. Be eager when he swings you like a sword in his service; taste and bite the fresh air of this world as he makes you sing and strike, cut and heal. Be bright and effective, clean and pure, doing whatever task he sets you to. Complain only when he leaves you in the sheath too long, or if he sets you on a shelf, and then complain only the way a horse does, by stamping at the earth, wanting to run. Let him sharpen you with tests and instruction. But have courage. He wields you, not the other way around. Let him say it to you again:
“I will wield you like the sword of a giant.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Zechariah 9:10-13 Like the sword of a giant