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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Chapter - Chapter 10 The
Lord Will Come For Judah
(ch. 10:1 – 11:3) In
verse 1 God says to Israel
to ask the Lord for rain in the springtime because it is He who creates
the storm clouds for men and the plants of the field for everyone.
Verse 1 is actually a carry over from the end of the previous
chapter. The rain will
produce the crops needed in Israel
during the thousand year rule of Jesus on earth, and it is God behind
the rain. Verse
2 starts a new topic. It
speaks of diviners and idols, and in the context it is speaking of idols
and diviners within Israel, but not in Israel
in Zechariah’s day since they had forsaken these idols.
It’s speaking of idol worship in pre-Babylonian exile days.
This is false worship and God was very unhappy with this.
Diviners are false prophets. They mislead people by foretelling
the future that isn’t accurate. The
idols spoken of here were family idols.
Many families had their own small and not so small idols that
they worshipped. They were
actually the possession of the head of the family and were somewhat
symbolic of his authority. They
were attempting to here from their God, but in the wrong way.
They felt their idols could be a means of worship to the God of
Israel. The church has
similar idols today, especially so in Catholicism.
The
last half of verse 2 says that the people, that’s God’s people, are
oppressed and are people without a shepherd. That is why they’ve
turned to false idol worship. They
have no one to point out the right path to walk on.
So as the prophet says, “the comfort they get from these idols
is in vain.” It’s a
false sense of security. I
know this passage is speaking to and about the Jews, but the church
today in many respects is in the same condition.
Church leaders aren’t teaching
Biblical truth as much as they should and therefore their people
are going astray. The
post-modernism movement that is infiltrating the church today is one
such example. Verse
3 tells us how God feels. He
says that “His anger burns against these shepherds,” and He will
surely “punish them.” God
does get angry with false and dishonest leaders who lead His people,
whether they’re the Jews or the church. The
second part of verse 3 states that the Lord Almighty “will care for
His flock, the house of Judah.” I believe the word
Judah here means all of Israel, not just the two southern tribes that existed at that time.
God will care for His people and they will be like a strong
“horse in battle.” This
tells me that Israel
will overcome their enemies at some point, and once again, the final
fulfillment of this prophecy is at the return of their Messiah Jesus, at
the end of this age. Some
people feel that the battle spoken of here has a twofold fulfillment.
It was first fulfilled in and around 167 B. C. when Antiochus the
fourth went into Jerusalem, desecrated the temple with idol worship and tried to destroy the city.
The Jews ended up having some success at this point, but it
wasn’t a lasting success. They
were soon overcome by the Verse
4 says that from Judah
will come the cornerstone, the tent peg, and the battle bow.
Most scholars say this represents Jesus.
He is often referred to as the cornerstone in the New Testament.
If He is the cornerstone, we must ask, “what building is He the
cornerstone of ?” Obviously
the building was not built at the time these words were spoken.
Jesus is the cornerstone to the new building, a new family of
God, that includes Gentile believers.
Yet He is also the cornerstone to the new community of redeemed
Jews once He returns to this earth. This would be the context of what is
being said here. This speaks of the Jews Messiah returning to them. Verse
4 also says that every ruler will come from Judah. It is clear that in the
thousand year rule of Christ on earth, He will have many other secondary
rulers scattered around the world to rule with Him. The
New Testament speaks of His people ruling with Him. Verse
5 says that “together they will be like mighty men.”
The word “they” refers to Jesus and those ruling with Him.
Zechariah goes on to say that because the Lord is with them,
meaning Israel, they will over throw their enemies.
They will do that to a small degree in the days of Antiochus the
fourth, a couple hundred years later, But they will really do it for
sure at the end of this age. In
verse 6 we see that the Lord will strengthen the house of Judah
and the house of Joseph. God
then says, “I will restore them because I have compassion on then.”
God loves Israel. He has great compassion for them, even though they walk away from
their God so often, yet in the end, God will restore these people to be
the people they were meant to be. The
last part of verse 6 says that Verse
7 speaks of the Ephraimites and their children rejoicing.
Ephraim was one of the ten northern tribes of Israel
and when spoken of in the Old Testament as it is here, is often in
reference to all of the northern kingdom, not just the one tribe. The
northern ten tribes of We
learn in verse 8 that God will signal Ephraim and gather them in.
Some translations use such words as “hiss”.
This might suggest a secret signally of the Jews.
When we want to get someone’s attention without letting
everyone know, sometime we make a quiet hissing sound and motion to
them. I believe this
gathering of Ephraim, and all of the Jews is at the end of this age
which has been taking place quietly over the last few decades.
To me, the gathering comes in two parts.
One is what has been taking place in recent decades, that is,
Jews returning to their homeland. They
may not realize it, but they are returning back to Israel
because they have been signaled by the Lord.
The
second wave of gathering comes when Jesus returns to the earth, when all
Israel
will be saved. The remaining
remnant of Jews will then return, and this will be a massive return of
the Jews. Verse
8 also tells us that at this time the number of Jews will be as high as
they ever have been. In
verse 9 God says that even though He has scattered the Jews throughout
the world, they will remember their God and return to both Him and the Verse
10 says that there will not be room for them in Israel. That’s how many people will in fact return to
Israel
from Verse
11 is a direct reference to the Great Tribulation.
God says that Israel
will pass through the seas of trouble.
The final Great Tribulation is often called Jacobs Trials.
Even though these trials come upon the Jews that subsequently
spill over to the rest of the world, the Jews will get through them.
God says that the “surging sea will be subdued.”
The surging sea is the sea of troubles caused by the nations of
the world. Verse
11 continues by saying that “Assyria’s pride will be brought down
and Egypt
’s scepter will pass away.”
Once again these two countries, although centuries apart in
history, are symbolic of the nations of the world in the last great
world empire. All these nations that come against will be brought down
to nothing and their scepter of authority will give way to the authority
of Jesus. Verse
12 is simple. God basically
says that He will do this. If
God says that He will do it, He will.
That’s the end of the story. Chapter
11 verses 1 to 3 gives a picture of the fall of Lebanon.
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