GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ZECHARIAH 14:1-5
I will let Luther begin our understanding of this final chapter:
“The last parts of [this chapter] induce me to understand this chapter to refer not to Judgment Day but to Christendom. For the words that “every pot shall be sacred,” that “the equipment of the horses shall also be holy,” that it shall be a sin not to keep the feast of booths, and indeed almost all parts of it except the one about the splitting of the Mount of Olives fail to fit in well with Judgment Day, but they do fit in very well with Christendom, which lives in faith and in the Word.”
14 Behold, a day of the LORD is coming
when the plunder taken from you
will be divided among you.
2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem
to battle.
The city will be taken
and the houses plundered
and the women raped.
Half of the city will go into exile,
but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
With these words, the prophet takes us to the physical destruction of Jerusalem shortly after the days of the Lord’s ministry. In the first verse, we see the Lord restoring what was taken and plundered from his people. These are physical, worldly things, because spiritual gifts cannot be plundered or removed. But even the physical things that were once taken away will be restored, such as the privilege for God’s people to worship, which is common in most countries, although in China and some Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries this is still dangerous.
The Romans came and sacked the city, burning, killing, stealing and raping. The terrible details do not need to be recalled here, but it might help some readers to see a quick outline of the events of those five months, from April to September, 70 AD:
1, April. Jewish resistance to Roman rule leads to a siege of Jerusalem beginning (according to Josephus) three days before Passover.
2, May. The Romans break through the two outer walls of the city and meet heavy resistance at the thickest and strongest inner wall.
3, June-July. Nearly conquered by famine and sickness, the people of the city are subject to the usual horrors of such times (see Deuteronomy 28:52-57).
4, August. Siege towers are erected against the inner wall. Such things included “engines of war to throw fire and stones, machines to shoot arrows, and catapults” (1 Maccabees 6:51). The Romans break through on August 30 and set fire to the temple.
5, September 1-8. The upper and lower parts of Jerusalem are destroyed. The structures are all plundered, and the city is burned to the ground. The Romans only leave the three towers of the citadel of Herod (southeast side) and some of the walls there “to indicate to posterity the nature of the city and of the strong defenses which had yet yielded to Roman might.” Apart from this, for many years to come, the ruins are so extensive and the rubble so pulverized (“not one stone left on another, Mark 13:2) that there is no indication that anyone has ever lived there at all. Up to a million Jews and Gentile inhabitants have died in the siege.
6, After this, Jews are forbidden from re-entering the city ruins. Jews are scattered around the Empire. The Sadducees and the priesthood virtually cease to exist overnight. The Pharisee sect is transformed into the modern Rabbinic (Rabbi-led) Judaism still known today. A Roman military camp (Legio X Fretensis) is set up on the site of the ruins.
7, Sixty years later, the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina is established during a trip to Judea by Emperor Hadrian.
Zechariah’s prophecy that “the rest of the people will not be taken from the city” might be a reference to Christians not being banned as yet, but it also could simply refer to the other non-Jews (Gentiles) living there.
3 Then the LORD will go out
and fight against those nations
the way he fights on a day of battle.
Does the prophet see the Lord fighting against the nations that attack Jerusalem (that is, the Romans), to spare his people, or does he join in the attack, fighting “among” or “alongside” those nations, to bring down the residents of the city that rejected Christ? A similar question will be raised in verse 14. The fighting that God does on behalf of his people involves his word; that is “the way he fights.” He makes war on false teaching and sinful hearts. He wounds and condemns with his law, and then he comes to bind up those wounds with his gospel. “He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us. He has injured us but he will bind up our wounds” (Hosea 6:1).
4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives
that stands east of Jerusalem,
and the Mount of Olives will be split in two
from east to west
making a very wide valley.
Half of the mountain will move northward,
and the other half southward.
5 And you will flee by my mountain valley
(for the mountain valley will reach to Azal).
You will flee as you fled from the earthquake
in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.
Then the LORD my God will come,
and all the holy ones will come with him.
I agree with Luther, first, that these words could apply to Judgment Day, but second, that since the rest of the chapter (indeed, of the book) applies to the ministry of Christ and the history of the Christian Church (that is, just about everything except Judgment Day), that this also should be applied in the same way. This is Christ waging war through the gospel in the world and in the age we live in today.
The fight of the gospel throughout the earth began at the Mount of Olives. While Jesus gave his Great Commission in Galilee (Matthew 28:19-20), he ascended from the Mount of Olives (“near Bethany,” Luke 24:50-51). It was probably there that he repeated his Great Commission: “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). It is the word of God that divides all things. “From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three” (Luke 12:51). So even though the mountain itself moves and divides in the vision, this is a picture of the way that the word of God will work in the world. Half of the world will move one way, and half the other way. Some will be filled with faith, others will harden their hearts in unbelief.
Azal or Azel appears to be a city or some other location in the area of the Mount of Olives. A gulch, the Wadi Yasul, has been suggested, but it’s just not certain what place the prophet means here. But the spiritual meaning is this: The rift or valley caused by the gospel message will be very wide and will cause distress among families and friends. Some people will be drawn into unbelief, and they will be lost. “Let him not deceive himself by trusting in what is worthless, for he will get nothing in return” (Job 15:31). Others will fall into sects or denominations that do not have the pure gospel. Their leaders will be condemned, since “if you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9), and “You know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). Yet many of their people will be saved through their simple faith, for “the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him” (Psalm 32:10).
But where the gospel is preached truly and the sacraments are administered according to Christ’s command and for the forgiveness of sins, there is the true church. Isaiah said: “Open the gates so that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that guards the truth” (Isaiah 26:2 EHV). And our Confession agrees:
“It is God’s will to call men to eternal salvation, to draw them to himself, and convert, regenerate, and sanctify them through this means and in no other way– namely, through his holy Word (when one hears it preached or reads it) and the sacraments (when they are used according to his Word). ‘For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe’ (1 Corinthians 1:21).” (Formula of Concord)
Ours is not an easy time in which to live as a child of God, but God blesses us and holds us securely in the faith. As Luther prayed about his lectures on this chapter, so we also pray today: “May Christ help and protect us in the singleness of his mind. Amen.”
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 14:1-5 The Mount of Olives