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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Chapter - Chapter 8 The
Lord Promises To Bless Jerusalem
(ch.8:1 - 23) In
verses 1 and 2 we see God Almighty speak through Zechariah once again.
God says that He is very jealous, even “burning with jealousy
for God
is jealous for His people, and even for the city of Jerusalem
as we’ve seen elsewhere. The
question arises, “is God still jealous for In
verse 3 God says that He will return to At
this time, as verse 3 states, Verses
4 and 5 picture a vibrant city of Jerusalem
in the days when God through Jesus will live there.
Children will be playing in the streets.
Old men and women with canes will be resting in peace as they
watch the children play. You
might ask, why these older people need canes in the thousand years of
peace when Jesus rules the earth. At
this point I’m not sure the answer to this question.
These people might well be Jews who have survived the Great
Tribulation, and as yet do not have glorified bodies.
Their glorified bodies will come at the end of the thousand
years. At
this point we need to make a distinction between the thousand years of
the peaceful rule of Jesus on earth and the coming of the new earth at
the end of the thousand years. It appears to me that life during this
thousand years will be much like our life today, except their will be
peace on earth. The total
change that comes to the world comes in the new earth as seen at the end
of the book of Revelation. That
being said, it does appear that those who return with Jesus to earth to
live during the thousand years will have their glorified bodies at that
time. In
verse 6 God says that this future In
verse 7 we see that in this future time, God will save His people the
Jews from the countries of the east and west.
There might well be a couple ways of looking at this.
Some might suggest that east and west is generic, symbolic of the
whole earth, because at the end of this age, Yet
it is interesting to me that God doesn’t say north and south.
North would apply to In
verse 8 God says that He will bring His people back into Jerusalem. I believe we’ve seen the
beginning of this. In
verse 9 God speaks to the present situation of Zechariah’s day.
He says that the Jews now hear the word of the Lord through the
prophets who were there when the foundation of the house of God was
laid. I believe the prophets
spoken of here are Zechariah and Haggai.
The only other possibility would be those prophets who were
present when the first temple was laid.
But I believe God is speaking of Zechariah and Haggai because the
last phrase in the verse is an encouragement for the present temple to
be completely built. They
had already built the foundation. At
this point they needed to get back to work and finish the rest of the
temple. Verses
10 and 11 jump into future prophecy again.
Before we look at it though I‘ll suggest a secondary meaning to
verse 9. It’s only a
suggestion. I’m not saying
it’s a correct interpretation. As
is often is the case, prophecy has secondary meanings.
These words of encouragement might also be directed towards those
Jews to come who will help rebuild the temple in In
verses 10 and 11 God says that neither man or beast will receive wages
prior to the rebuilt temple because God Himself causes neighbors to turn
their backs on one another. This
might well be the picture of the Great Tribulation where there is war
and upheaval everywhere, all of God’s doing.
During this time period Israel
could not do business. Yet
verse 11 says that this will all end.
God’s dealing with Verse
11 speaks of the “remnant.” This
is the remnant of Verse
12 speaks of future prosperity for Verse
13 says that We
see God’s determination in verses 13 and 14.
He said that He was determined to show His anger in judgment
against rebellious Israel. And that He has certainly
done over the years. But the story doesn’t end there.
God is just as determined to do good to the remnant of Israel
in the thousand year rule of Jesus from Jerusalem. In
light of the good things God will do for Israel He states certain things
He wants them to do in verses 16 and 17.
These things apply to Israel, God’s people, but they can also be applied to God’s New Testament
people as well. In
verse 16 God says, “speak truth to each other.”
Speaking truth would be a real encouragement.
Yet before they can speak the truth, they must know the truth.
The same would apply to us today.
We should be speaking truth to each other, but the problem is
that many Christians are not familiar with Biblical truth in order to
speak to their brothers. The
next thing God says to “render true and sound judgment in court”.
I’m sure nations everywhere can learn from this one.
What
we see here in these things God wants Israel
to do, is what will be done in the thousand years when Jesus will rule
from Jerusalem. In
verse 17 God says not to swear falsely or think evil of one another.
He says that He hates these things.
In
verse 18 God says that the fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and
tenth months will turn into celebrations.
Remember, these fasts were man made fasts.
They weren’t stipulated in the Law of Moses.
So these man made rituals turn from a depressing time into a
joyous time. This too is
futuristic of the thousand years to come. So
God continues to say, because of this Israel
is to love both truth and peace. I
think truth and peace go together. You can’t have one without the
other. I think history has
demonstrated that. Verses
20 to 22 continues to show us a picture of the thousand years of
Jesus’ rule. God says that
nations and cities, and peoples, will all come to Verse
23 closes this chapter and our vision of the thousand years of Jesus’
rule. God says that in that
day ten men from many languages will run and grab hold of the garments
of one Jew because their God is with then. This tells us that the Jews
will have a real place of ministry to the rest of the world.
The thousand years will be a time of peoples and nations all
around the world finding the truth of Jesus and being taught by the
Jews. This
chapter tells us one important thing about the thousand year rule of
Jesus on earth. It tells us
that the Jews will be of foremost importance.
The church age is over, and now the Jews are back in the
spotlight.
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