Understanding Zechariah 13:1-6
Nov 22, 2023 3:39:28 GMT
Post by Colossians on Nov 22, 2023 3:39:28 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
Prerequisite reading
With respect to hermeneutics:
“Comprehensively disannulling the regeneration-of-Israel idea”
“Expounding Romans 11:25,26, the 'target' of Romans 9:6-9”
“The interpretative key that unlocks Romans 11:25,26”
“The new covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34”
_________________________________
UNDERSTANDING ZECHARIAH 13:1-6
[1] “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.”
: “fountain”
First and foremost we are reminded here of our Lord’s words that he who comes to Him shall never thirst, and so also of the river of life which flows from the Lamb (Rev 22:1): this “fountain” is none other than Christ Himself.
: “ the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem”
We are also reminded of the apostle’s words that the gospel is for the Jew first but/and “also” for the Gentile, the important point being that such “also” is understood as “also first”, for the same apostle has also said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
Commensurately, although Rachel (who represented the elect of Jewish extraction) was first loved, Leah (who represented the elect of Gentile extraction) was made to be (also) first, for it was she who brought forth the line of Christ.1
And so we understand this house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem, to be both the natural branches attached to the Vine that is Christ, and the unnatural branches grafted in to that Vine: it is the Israel of God to which Zechariah refers.
So again the apostle:
“But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all” Gal 4:26.
And the writer to the Hebrews:
“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels” Heb 12:22.
1 See also Ruth 4:11.
: “in that day”
We would be correct in understanding this to be pointing to the Cross and onward, however see our work: “The new covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34”, for the more comprehensive assessment.
[2] “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.”
We have said above that Jerusalem and the house of David are in reference to the Israel of God. The “land” mentioned here is in reference to the same.
With regard then to the removal of unclean spirits from this ‘land’, we are in a very direct sense reminded of our Lord’s casting out of unclean spirits from several possessed people during His earthy ministry; however just as the reference to the land is metaphor/type for the church, so this reference to (false) prophets and unclean spirits is primarily metaphor/type: it will include the phenomenon that is deliverance from demonic possession, no doubt, but its application is rather more general: it is the (unrighteous) state of our former selves that is the focus.
: “and they shall no more be remembered”
“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’ Heb 9:13,14.
“forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” Phil 3:13,14.
[3] And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.”
: “that when any shall yet prophesy”
The suggestion here of the emergence of yet another instance of false prophecy (and according execution therefor) when we have just been told that all false prophets are removed from ‘the land’, is not to suggest that ‘one of them got away’ on the first pass, but is simply to emphasise by way of reiteration that God’s Word is final and ‘no correspondence will be entered into’: it is to declare the work of the Cross and ensuing holiness a perpetuity.
So James:
“[With God there is] no variableness, neither shadow of turning” James 1:17.
So Paul:
“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of” 2 Cor 7:10a.
Commensurately, we who are born again have not merely turned over a new leaf, but have died and risen again in Christ.
: “his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth”
Zechariah draws on the law here to typify the holiness of God: New Testament parents do not kill their children, however we are informed at Deut 21:18-21 that the parents of a rebellious son in Israel were to bring him to the elders of the city for him to be stoned to death.
An admonition from Paul to the church at Corinth, and a prophetic declaration from John shall stand as anti-types:
“It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” 1 Cor 5:1-6.
“And there shall in no wise enter into [the New Jerusalem, which is the Bride of Christ] any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life’ Rev 21:27.
(See also Joshua 7 for another type.)
(See also Is 33:14.)
[4] “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision,
A (false) prophet is unlikely to be ashamed of his vision, even more unlikely if he has been executed. We thus understand at this point that Zechariah has, by virtue of the fact that all sin is sin regardless of whether committed by the non-Christian or the Christian, now bridged from the former (in whom dwells only the old man) to the latter who, although solely characterised by the New Man, is nevertheless one in whom the old man from time to time raises his ugly head.
However the sense here is not (primarily) experiential but judicial, even epochal: although we who profess Christ will often not be aware of our certain and several indiscretions (see 1 Cor 4:4), at least from the standpoint of the citizens of heaven we ‘ought’ to be. It is therefore great testament indeed to the grace of God that it is not the angels who shall judge us, but we them.
when he hath prophesied;
“When he has acted or spoken in the behalf of Christ without the say-so of the Spirit – when he has presumed himself to be able to assist Christ.”
We have all on several occasions spoken ‘for Christ’ without the authority of the Spirit. Commensurately, we do well to remind ourselves that this concession here – this admission to what would appear to be an exception to the norm – is presented to us by a prophet who, although his book is the word of God and thus without error, will have at certain times in his own life spoken of the things of God without the authority of God: Zechariah was in need of a saviour just like the rest of us.
The nuance here then is that of a brotherhood who have huddled together and with fear and trembling produced a petition to him to whom they must give account – a petition that such an one forgive a ‘mistake’, an ‘oversight’, that has been made by one of them (and thus by all of them in that being brothers they are altogether as one). (Cf. Gen 44:1-16.)
How then shall such error be corrected?
“If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God” 1 Pe 4:11
: when we speak or act, let it be by the leading of the Holy Ghost and not of our own will. (See also Col 2:18.)
However let us also say:
“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” Gal 6:1.
neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:”
We are given clear indication here that Zechariah’s prophecy concerns itself with the New Testament/Covenant: he who was declared by Christ to be the greatest prophet ever and who therefore (with respect to time) provided the demarcation line between the old and new covenant, was clothed in camel’s hair: there would be no more need for any prophet to add to the canon of scripture once the object of their faith had arrived.
So:
“Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into” 1 Pe 10-12.
[5] “But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.”
More heralding here of the modality of the New Testament/Covenant: ‘Amos’ has retired from his part time job and gone back to focusing solely on herding cattle.2
So:
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things” Heb 1:1,2.
2 We shall therefore understand the declaration at Amos 3:7 that God reveals His secrets to His servants the prophets to be in reference to prophets of New Testament modality. (Cf. Dan 12:9, Eph 3:5.) (See also our work: “Luke’s list: secrets and lions”.)
[6] “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”
First and foremost here we identify this prophet as Christ because:
1. The referent has clearly been given the preeminence over the preceding referents, and we know that Christ must have the preeminence in all things.
2. Christ’s hands were nailed to the Cross.
3. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” John 1:11.
___
We are therefore presented with two tasks:
1. We must needs reconcile such identification with the fact this ‘prophet’ has just told us that he is “no prophet”.
2. (In accord with our comment under v4 above) we must needs reconcile such identification with the fact that this ‘prophet’ has apparently prophesied without the authority of the Spirit.
The writer to the Hebrews provides for us the interpretative framework:
“For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren” Heb 2:11.
With regard then to the first task:
“[Christ], being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation” Phil 2:6,7.
With regard to the second task:
“I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men” 2 Sam 7:14.
: see subnote 6 in our work: “On the separation of persons”.
Summary
“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” Rev 19:10.
Amen.
Prerequisite reading
With respect to hermeneutics:
“Comprehensively disannulling the regeneration-of-Israel idea”
“Expounding Romans 11:25,26, the 'target' of Romans 9:6-9”
“The interpretative key that unlocks Romans 11:25,26”
“The new covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34”
_________________________________
UNDERSTANDING ZECHARIAH 13:1-6
[1] “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.”
: “fountain”
First and foremost we are reminded here of our Lord’s words that he who comes to Him shall never thirst, and so also of the river of life which flows from the Lamb (Rev 22:1): this “fountain” is none other than Christ Himself.
: “ the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem”
We are also reminded of the apostle’s words that the gospel is for the Jew first but/and “also” for the Gentile, the important point being that such “also” is understood as “also first”, for the same apostle has also said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
Commensurately, although Rachel (who represented the elect of Jewish extraction) was first loved, Leah (who represented the elect of Gentile extraction) was made to be (also) first, for it was she who brought forth the line of Christ.1
And so we understand this house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem, to be both the natural branches attached to the Vine that is Christ, and the unnatural branches grafted in to that Vine: it is the Israel of God to which Zechariah refers.
So again the apostle:
“But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all” Gal 4:26.
And the writer to the Hebrews:
“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels” Heb 12:22.
1 See also Ruth 4:11.
: “in that day”
We would be correct in understanding this to be pointing to the Cross and onward, however see our work: “The new covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34”, for the more comprehensive assessment.
[2] “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.”
We have said above that Jerusalem and the house of David are in reference to the Israel of God. The “land” mentioned here is in reference to the same.
With regard then to the removal of unclean spirits from this ‘land’, we are in a very direct sense reminded of our Lord’s casting out of unclean spirits from several possessed people during His earthy ministry; however just as the reference to the land is metaphor/type for the church, so this reference to (false) prophets and unclean spirits is primarily metaphor/type: it will include the phenomenon that is deliverance from demonic possession, no doubt, but its application is rather more general: it is the (unrighteous) state of our former selves that is the focus.
: “and they shall no more be remembered”
“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’ Heb 9:13,14.
“forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” Phil 3:13,14.
[3] And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.”
: “that when any shall yet prophesy”
The suggestion here of the emergence of yet another instance of false prophecy (and according execution therefor) when we have just been told that all false prophets are removed from ‘the land’, is not to suggest that ‘one of them got away’ on the first pass, but is simply to emphasise by way of reiteration that God’s Word is final and ‘no correspondence will be entered into’: it is to declare the work of the Cross and ensuing holiness a perpetuity.
So James:
“[With God there is] no variableness, neither shadow of turning” James 1:17.
So Paul:
“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of” 2 Cor 7:10a.
Commensurately, we who are born again have not merely turned over a new leaf, but have died and risen again in Christ.
: “his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth”
Zechariah draws on the law here to typify the holiness of God: New Testament parents do not kill their children, however we are informed at Deut 21:18-21 that the parents of a rebellious son in Israel were to bring him to the elders of the city for him to be stoned to death.
An admonition from Paul to the church at Corinth, and a prophetic declaration from John shall stand as anti-types:
“It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” 1 Cor 5:1-6.
“And there shall in no wise enter into [the New Jerusalem, which is the Bride of Christ] any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life’ Rev 21:27.
(See also Joshua 7 for another type.)
(See also Is 33:14.)
[4] “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision,
A (false) prophet is unlikely to be ashamed of his vision, even more unlikely if he has been executed. We thus understand at this point that Zechariah has, by virtue of the fact that all sin is sin regardless of whether committed by the non-Christian or the Christian, now bridged from the former (in whom dwells only the old man) to the latter who, although solely characterised by the New Man, is nevertheless one in whom the old man from time to time raises his ugly head.
However the sense here is not (primarily) experiential but judicial, even epochal: although we who profess Christ will often not be aware of our certain and several indiscretions (see 1 Cor 4:4), at least from the standpoint of the citizens of heaven we ‘ought’ to be. It is therefore great testament indeed to the grace of God that it is not the angels who shall judge us, but we them.
when he hath prophesied;
“When he has acted or spoken in the behalf of Christ without the say-so of the Spirit – when he has presumed himself to be able to assist Christ.”
We have all on several occasions spoken ‘for Christ’ without the authority of the Spirit. Commensurately, we do well to remind ourselves that this concession here – this admission to what would appear to be an exception to the norm – is presented to us by a prophet who, although his book is the word of God and thus without error, will have at certain times in his own life spoken of the things of God without the authority of God: Zechariah was in need of a saviour just like the rest of us.
The nuance here then is that of a brotherhood who have huddled together and with fear and trembling produced a petition to him to whom they must give account – a petition that such an one forgive a ‘mistake’, an ‘oversight’, that has been made by one of them (and thus by all of them in that being brothers they are altogether as one). (Cf. Gen 44:1-16.)
How then shall such error be corrected?
“If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God” 1 Pe 4:11
: when we speak or act, let it be by the leading of the Holy Ghost and not of our own will. (See also Col 2:18.)
However let us also say:
“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” Gal 6:1.
neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:”
We are given clear indication here that Zechariah’s prophecy concerns itself with the New Testament/Covenant: he who was declared by Christ to be the greatest prophet ever and who therefore (with respect to time) provided the demarcation line between the old and new covenant, was clothed in camel’s hair: there would be no more need for any prophet to add to the canon of scripture once the object of their faith had arrived.
So:
“Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into” 1 Pe 10-12.
[5] “But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.”
More heralding here of the modality of the New Testament/Covenant: ‘Amos’ has retired from his part time job and gone back to focusing solely on herding cattle.2
So:
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things” Heb 1:1,2.
2 We shall therefore understand the declaration at Amos 3:7 that God reveals His secrets to His servants the prophets to be in reference to prophets of New Testament modality. (Cf. Dan 12:9, Eph 3:5.) (See also our work: “Luke’s list: secrets and lions”.)
[6] “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”
First and foremost here we identify this prophet as Christ because:
1. The referent has clearly been given the preeminence over the preceding referents, and we know that Christ must have the preeminence in all things.
2. Christ’s hands were nailed to the Cross.
3. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” John 1:11.
___
We are therefore presented with two tasks:
1. We must needs reconcile such identification with the fact this ‘prophet’ has just told us that he is “no prophet”.
2. (In accord with our comment under v4 above) we must needs reconcile such identification with the fact that this ‘prophet’ has apparently prophesied without the authority of the Spirit.
The writer to the Hebrews provides for us the interpretative framework:
“For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren” Heb 2:11.
With regard then to the first task:
“[Christ], being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation” Phil 2:6,7.
With regard to the second task:
“I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men” 2 Sam 7:14.
: see subnote 6 in our work: “On the separation of persons”.
Summary
“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” Rev 19:10.
Amen.