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THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH
Lesson 3, Chapter 1 Continued 2
We left off at verse 11 of Zechariah chapter 1, where it was dealing with Zechariah’s vision of the 3 horses that were roaming the earth to give a report to Yehoveh about the condition of the world at that time. Before that, I told you we’d talk some more about this recently introduced character called the Angel of Yehoveh; we’ll do that now. And later, I’ll speak to you about something curious (but it matters) that is only indirectly connected to the Book of Zechariah.
First, let’s re-read verses 8, 9, 10, and 11.
CJB Zechariah 1:8-11 8 It was night, and I saw there before me a man riding on a russet-colored horse. He stood among the myrtle bushes in the valley; and behind him were other horses, russet, chestnut-colored and white. 9 I asked, "What are these, my Lord?" The angel speaking with me said to me, "I will show you what these are." 10 The man standing among the myrtles said, "These are those whom ADONAI has sent to wander throughout the earth." 11 Then they themselves answered the angel of ADONAI standing among the myrtles, "We have been wandering throughout the earth, and the whole world is quiet and at peace."
To clarify: even though the CJB says “angel of Adonai”, and English Bibles say “angel of The Lord”, both are incorrect translations. Adonai is Hebrew for the generic word lord, and so using the word “lord” in English versions means that the Bible translators are implying that the Hebrew word in this passage that they are translating from is adonai ; this is false. The words we find in the Hebrew Scriptures are Malach Yehoveh: Angel of Yehoveh, with Yehoveh being God’s formal name. There are agendas behind these decisions to mistranslate these words. In the Jewish world, it is a taboo that began in the 300’s B.C. to not say or write God’s name. In the Christian world, it was an attempt to remove the influence of God the Father from the Bible and to replace it with God the Son.
So, who is this Angel of Yehoveh, how does he fit into this story, and is this just another name for a character that has already been introduced? It is a common claim among Bible commentators that the figure of the Angel of Yehoveh is the same as the man on the horse in the myrtles. I cannot agree with this. It is the way that verse 8 is worded in Hebrew that confuses the matter and leads to a few different conclusions. The vision is that an ish…a man… is riding on a horse. Then in the next sentence it says “he” STOOD among the myrtle bushes. So, was the man riding or standing? If he was riding, then the standing figure was a second person in the myrtles. It is my position that the “he” (who) stood among the myrtle bushes was NOT referring to the man but to the horse. The man was riding, the horse was standing. That also works better with the remainder of the passage. If I’m correct, and the “he” is referring to the horse, then we could slightly reword the passage to better get its correct meaning across by saying: “It was night, and I saw there before me a man riding on a russet-colored horse. The horse stood among the myrtle bushes in the valley, and behind him were other horses…”. Do you see how well that fits together?
So, with that resolved, then another figure that I call The Interpreting Angel answers Zechariah’s question about those 3 other horses, and that begins verse 9: “I asked, what are these, my Lord”. And, indeed, this passage asks in Hebrew “what are these my adon?”. That is, God’s name is NOT used so this figure is NOT a manifestation of God. Then we read that “the man standing among the myrtles answered: “ I will show you who these are”. So, who is this “man standing among the myrtles?” This is yet another figure. We have the man sitting on a horse, and that horse is standing in the myrtles. Now we have another “man” in the myrtles, but (like the horse) this “man” is standing. This standing man says that those 3 horses have been sent by Yehoveh to wander throughout the earth. Next we read that they themselves spoke…and “they themselves” are the 3 horses who say at the end of verse 11, “we have been wandering throughout the earth, and the whole world is quiet and at peace”. This is not to claim that like Balaam’s donkey that was enabled to speak, so were these 3 horses. Rather, this was a vision and the horses were symbolic and not real.
Back at the beginning of verse 11 we got a reference to the Angel of Yehoveh “standing among the myrtles”. This answers the question of who this 2nd man in the myrtles is (the man standing verse the man sitting on his horse). The man standing in the myrtles is symbolic of the Angel of Yehoveh. Thus, this “man” isn’t really a man after all; rather, he just had the appearance of a man in Zecharia’s vision. Complicated, is it not? In this short passage we have 4 different figures involved, not counting the horses: Zechariah, the man on horseback, the Interpreting Angel, and the Angel of Yehoveh who looks like a man and is standing among the myrtles.
What is this Angel of Yehoveh? Is this literally a very high angel that is there to represent God? Or, is this God Himself? Or, is Angel of Yehoveh just rather figurative since in a certain sense all angels are angels of God since they are all under God’s authority? I feel that I can answer this rather definitively: the Angel of Yehoveh is a manifestation of God Himself. A manifestation that serves a particular role. This ought not to confuse us. Most Believers are familiar with the Trinity concept in which God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But in fact, we read in the Scriptures of other persons or direct manifestations of God such as the Shekinah, The Glory, and (as here) the Angel of Yehoveh. So, I have just listed 6 named manifestations of God that the Bible speaks of separately: The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit, The Glory, The Shekinah, and The Angel of Yehoveh.
Because of the manmade concept of the Trinity (a word that is never found in the Bible), that doctrine is that there are not 6 (or perhaps even more) manifestations of God, there are a total of only 3. And, thus, every manifestation of God in the Bible must be one and only one of either the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit. When speaking of the Trinity, we need to understand it for what it is: a Church doctrine. And, there is not merely one universally accepted Trinity Church doctrine, there are a few that typically revolve around whether all the manifestations are co-equal in authority, knowledge and purpose…or they are in a hierarchy of authority, knowledge and purpose; and even if they are merely different names for exactly the same person or entity. This is why when someone asks the question of “do you believe in the Trinity”, in reality it is an unanswerable question. When I’m asked, my first response is “which one?” That usually brings an uncomfortable pause to the discussion, because only a very few Believers are aware that there are a few different Trinity doctrines.
But more, I confess to you that while I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I do not subscribe to the Church-created doctrine called the Trinity Doctrine, no matter which one it might be. And this is because quite clearly, there are several more than 3 manifestations of God spoken of in the Bible, and it is intellectually dishonest to try to fit the others into the mold of The Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit only for the purpose of maintaining a doctrine. Further, there is absolutely a hierarchy of authority, knowledge and purpose that is presented to us as we find that the Father sits atop that hierarchy with all the other manifestations of Him representing certain aspects of His will for His creation and for His creatures, which the Father uses to bring about His purposes. It is all very mysterious and so any attempt to thoroughly explain it always reaches a premature end that never quite satisfies. Even so, that is no good reason to create a fanciful doctrine that tries to close the loop in a way that humans prefer. God and His manifestations are not of the 4-dimensional realm that humans reside in (other than for Yeshua who seemed to belong to both the physical and heavenly realms), so we simply don’t have the ability to comprehend that heavenly realm.
Here in Zechariah, then, is presented a particular manifestation of God that we know from earlier Bible books, and he is called The Angel of Yehoveh. His purpose is to communicate in a direct and visible manner to certain people that God has chosen. Let’s take this one step further. Often (if not typically), these various manifestations of God will speak in the first person: that is, “I” or “Me”, as opposed to a Prophet who speaks of God in the third person (He). And yet, when the speech gets more nuanced, names or titles of these various manifestations of God often will be used instead of “I” or “Me”. We have one example of this before us here, and it explains why it is so critical that we translate the Hebrew correctly, and that we know God’s name and who, exactly, that represents. God’s name is Yehoveh, and by this is meant the name of The Father. So, the manifestation of God that is called The Angel says it is Yehoveh (God The Father) who sent these figurative horses to wander the earth as His scouts and to report what they see back to Him. It was the Father that sent them, and it was the Father who wants the information. Not the Holy Spirit. Not the Son. Not The Glory. Not the Shekinah. And, not even the Angel. This is not meant to shake you up; it is meant to urge you to read the Bible critically and honestly, and not through the lens of manmade Church doctrines nor manmade doctrines of Judaism. Once we can do that, then difficult truths can finally emerge even if they are cloaked in mystery.
Let’s re-read Zechariah chapter 1 starting with verse 12.
RE-READ ZECHARIAH CHAPTER 1:12 – end
Now that we understand the Angel of Yehoveh as a particular manifestation of God, we see that He asks The Father a question: how long will You keep withholding mercy from Jerusalem and Judah? This time The Father is addressed adding a title to His name: Yehoveh of hosts. The term “the hosts” is referring broadly to the heavenly angels of no specific kind or category. And, this matches other places in the Bible that speak of one of The Father’s roles as being in charge of the created spirit beings in Heaven. Interestingly, the Bible also informs us that just as The Father delegates many of His purposes to His several different manifestations to carry out, in Heaven He does the same thing. The Father delegates to the highest class or category of divine beings in Heaven called the elohim who serve as His Divine Council. Their job is to be the administrators of Heaven in the same way that humans are to be the administrators of earth.
The question that The Angel of Yehoveh asks that begins with “for how long” is, in Hebrew, ad matay, and this term is actually an idiom. It is a protest, a questioning of what is perceived to be wrong or unfair. It’s like saying to our kids, “so for how long are you going to be irresponsible and not clean up your room?” We don’t expect to get an answer back based on some amount of time, it’s our protest to them. So, the Angel of Yehoveh questions the motive and reason that The Father isn’t showing mercy, yet, to Jerusalem and to Judah. Essentially we also could say that the Angel of Yehoveh is expressing His own compassion and care for Jerusalem and Judah (now called Yehud), and so is begging on their behalf that The Father return to showing them mercy.
I find it interesting that it is NOT the Prophet Zechariah but rather the Angel of Yehoveh that acts as a sort of intercessor for Jerusalem and Judah. Although, such a thing ought not to surprise us, because we regularly find Yeshua, The Son, approaching the Father asking for similar things for His people. When He hangs dying on the cross, Yeshua doesn’t offer His own forgiveness to those who put Him there, but rather He asks as an intercessor that The Father forgive them. It was the Son’s purpose to die as the saving atonement that meets the requirements of The Father to forgive.
The Angel of Yehoveh asks specifically about Jerusalem and Judah. Why not just Judah since Jerusalem has been Judah’s capital? Or, why Judah and not Yehud? After all, Judah as a Jewish nation no longer exists; the same approximate place is now the Persian Province of Yehud. Some of this must be speculation on my part. That said, the words Jerusalem and Judah have been a regular biblical pairing for a very long time. Jerusalem was always more than merely a capital city. And it was also more than only a capital city of Judah. It was the capital city of the entire Promised Land. Of course, the civil war in the late 900’s B.C. split the Israel of David and Solomon into 2 kingdoms, each governed by their own king, and each with their own capital city (Jerusalem for Judah and Samaria for Ephraim/Israel). More importantly, Jerusalem is the place where God put His name. That is, Jerusalem is the spiritual capital of all Israel, and as we look closer in the Bible, it is also the spiritual capital of the world. In time, it will be the capital of God’s Kingdom on earth, where Yeshua will live, rule, and reign.
It seems to me that despite the king of the earthly Persian Empire giving it a different name, to God the place is still Judah. Here’s the point: what the Angel of Yehoveh is mostly concerned about in His protesting question to The Father about Jerusalem and Judah by using the term “for how long”, is not the Jewish residents per se, but rather it is the political identification of the people and the land. Right now, their political identification is Persian. That is, it is no different for those in Yehud than in all the other gentile nations under Persian control. Judah was the former name of a former set-apart Hebrew nation; but, now, Yehud is the name of the Persian province where the Judeans live. They were in essentially the same political position as the many nations and places where the Jewish Diaspora scattered and spread-out to. Just because Jews lived in some gentile nation, it didn’t turn those gentile nations into set-apart Hebrew nations. From an earthly standpoint, what made Yehud, Yehud was that the land and the people were under the political identify and authority of a gentile king. What had made Judah, Judah was they were under the political identity and authority of a Hebrew king. So, the issue of concern for the Angel of Yehoveh is, when will God turn His mercy back towards Jerusalem and Judah, and rescue them from their current forced political identity as Persian, and return them to their natural Hebrew political identity.
Interestingly, Yehoveh replies with words of kindness and compassion, but His reply is not to the Angel of Yehoveh who asked the question, but rather to the Interpreting Angel that has been speaking with Zechariah. The Hebrew for “word” used here is debarim. It does mean words, but when it is coupled with Yehoveh speaking them it takes on the character of a prophecy. So, Yehoveh’s answer as to what will happen will absolutely occur just as any other revelation of God. When God speaks it, it’s a done deal.
Verse 14 says that Yehoveh’s reply was: “I am extremely jealous on behalf of Jerusalem and Zion”. No direct mention of Judah. Zion is a term that is used in different ways in different eras. In Zechariah’s era, Zion was one of the more known names for the place upon which was built the Temple. I think it is even more specific as the southeast hill in Jerusalem where King David wanted to build the Temple, but his son Solomon wound up doing so. The upper part of the hill is where the Temple was constructed, the middle and lower parts are where the City of David, along with David’s palace, was built. The idea is that God was especially concerned over the city of Jerusalem and its precincts, as well as the place where His Temple belonged. Jerusalem, the city where He placed His name, and Zion where the Temple that would allow fellowship between Yehoveh and Israel to take place, was the overriding matter to God. So, careful study as opposed to rushing through these verses reveals God’s priorities.
Looking at the opening of verse 14 reveals another interesting line of questioning that isn’t directly connected to our lesson today (the one I mentioned at the beginning of today’s lesson), but I think it is worthwhile to take a brief detour to talk about it. It involves the matter of root words, and associated words, in the Hebrew language and how critical of a role they play in understanding the intent of the various authors. First, there are few translations that translate verse 14 literally. Here is what it says: “The angel who speaks with me then said to me, Proclaim! Thus spoke Yehoveh of Hosts…”. I want to look at the word “proclaim: Proclaim is an important word because of its weight. It is an announcement that carries legal authority. The Hebrew word being used is qara. It is indeed proper to translate it as proclaim, at least when we understand it in terms of it referring to a royal proclamation. What is fascinating is that it is from the same root or associate word as the Hebrew miqara. It might not look like it because we find a beginning mem in the word miqara, but grammatically the root family of meaning of those 2 words is related. Any good Hebrew Lexicon can supply us their definitions.
Miqara is often (and most usually) translated in the Hebrew Scriptures as “convocation”. That is, the sense of it is an assembly of people. Interestingly, as it was sometimes used in ancient times, it could also mean “a reading”. That is, much like its cousin word qara that means to proclaim something, miqara has an alternate use of meaning something like a public reading. Exactly what the nuance between a reading and a proclamation might have been in the minds of the ancient Hebrews I can’t say, but here’s why I bring it up as a good example of the impact of understanding the nature of Hebrew root words. As Bible students, and especially those of us that adhere to the Hebrew Roots movement, in Leviticus 23 we read a verse that is so very well known, but has always been something of a conundrum to deal with in Judaism.
CJB Leviticus 23:3 "'Work is to be done on six days; but the seventh day is a Shabbat of complete rest, a holy convocation; you are not to do any kind of work; it is a Shabbat for ADONAI, even in your homes.
The puzzling part is this: this verse seems to contain a command that on Shabbat the Israelites were supposed to get together for a formal assembly. To use more modern terms, a communal congregation service. Yet, we find in Exodus 16 in the story of an incident about gathering manna to eat, that because some people went out on the Sabbath to gather up manna after being instructed not to, Moses confined everyone to their tents. So, by doing this, had Moses gone too far and done this in direct defiance of the command to meet together every Shabbat? When we examine the Old Testament, from the time the very first instruction of observing a 7th day Sabbath was given, and until the return of the Jews from Babylon, there is no mention in the Bible or in any extra-biblical Hebrew literature source, of Israel ever holding a worship service to observe the weekly 7th day Shabbat… not once. Rather, biblically speaking, Shabbat was determined to be primarily a strict day of ceasing one’s labors. What gives? One would think that references to Shabbat meetings would be liberally sprinkled throughout the Old Testament since the importance of Shabbat is stressed. Historically, however, the evidence is that Shabbat worship services only began to happen upon the creation of the Synagogue system, which itself was a post-Babylon institution created and officiated by lay-Jews… non-priests. That is, meeting on Sabbath seems to have arisen from Synagogue Traditions that developed, but not something taken as a command from the Torah nor as something associated to the Temple. If we assume that we are not properly interpreting Leviticus 23;3, then the only weekly ceremony the Torah called for and that was practiced for certain was the special Sabbath day sacrifices accomplished by the Priests, and it only involved the priests. Let me be clear: this is not to condemn or find any fault with we at Seed of Abraham, or our Jewish friends, of getting together on Shabbat for a worship service. But, I have serious doubts that the Hebrew term miqara as found in Leviticus 23 is correctly translated as saying God commanded a communal assembly on that day, because not even when Moses was alive did Shabbat meetings happen, so far as any biblical or any other evidence that exists.
How words are translated matters. The historical record of what Israel did (and didn’t do) matters. Accuracy matters.
Many years ago, when I was in Israel, I asked a kind Orthodox Rabbi why, if Shabbat is a day of ceasing from our normal labors, is he working by conducting Shabbat services. He smiled and said, “it is a problem, isn’t it?” I have felt for many years that there is something not quite right about the way we traditionally understand that Leviticus 23 instruction as regards the word miqara meaning an assembly. So, here is an alternative way (and I believe the far more likely way considering the evidence) to translate Leviticus 23:3 that accounts for this strange anomaly, which indeed falls within one of this word’s known definitions. It is this:
CJB Leviticus 23:3 "'Work is to be done on six days; but the seventh day is a Shabbat of complete rest, a holy reading; you are not to do any kind of work; it is a Shabbat for ADONAI, even in your homes.
In any event, it is always beneficial to look closely at the Hebrew and especially at root words that have associated meanings. Much can be lent to our biblical understanding by doing that no matter what book we are studying; Zechariah is no exception.
Back to Zechariah. Now that we have a better idea of the likely more nuanced meaning of the Hebrew words qara and miqara, then what we gather is that verses 14 – 17 works together as a unit that gives the Angel of Yehoveh a response to His pleas to The Father to show Jerusalem and Judah mercy. This 4-verse response begins a series of 3 brief oracles or prophetic proclamations. The first oracle is in verses 14 and 15. So, another nuance of the word qara (proclaim) is to use it as notification of a new revelation. Verse 14 says that God has great zeal and jealousy for Jerusalem and Zion. Now, in verse 15, what was just said is added to by exposing God’s feelings of wrath against those nations (gentile nations, by definition) who currently are peaceful and at rest BECAUSE up to now God has felt only a little anger against them even though they did evil (and this evil was likely something they did to harm Judah and perhaps includes harm to Ephraim/Israel). The notion is that when God has wrath against a nation, He will cause turmoil and unrest to occur. Therefore, the fact that all these nations are at peace indicates that His wrath was very small against them. Recall that the horses sent out to wander the earth reported that the world was peaceful; no major wars going on. These nations are undoubtedly those who were swallowed up first by Babylon and then later by the Persian Empire.
What exactly was the cause of God’s new and greater wrath? Listen especially to the ending of verse 15.
CJB Zechariah 1:15 15 and [to the same degree] I am extremely angry with the nations that are so self-satisfied; because I was only a little angry [at Yerushalayim and Tziyon], but they made the suffering worse.'
Notice that God’s wrath has levels. It’s not a matter of great wrath or no wrath, just as we learn in Revelation that tribulation has levels. This is how God and His Creation operate. Sin, punishment, holiness, uncleanness, sacrifices, and more all have varying levels of cost, intensity or severity depending on the situation. So, the cause of God’s greater wrath had to do with what the Persian Empire did as regards Jerusalem and Zion: they took them from God’s people, which is the same as taking them from God. We’re told that God has great jealousy over Jerusalem and Zion; He will react harshly against those who mess with Jerusalem and Zion because they are exclusively His. When Persia refused to give Jerusalem and Zion back their independent sovereignty, this provoked Him to this new and greater level of wrath.
But verse 15 also reveals that these nations made the suffering of His people worse than it needed to be. That is, yes, God must have a little bit of anger towards those that He virtually caused to attack His people in order for them to carry out God’s punishment for disobedience and unfaithfulness. But… that punishment had limits. God put a limit of 70 years on it. It involved exile, not brutality. We begin to realize that while God intended that the Judeans be put under the control of Babylon then Persia, after 70 years the punishment was to end, and the Judeans ought to be fully freed and so should the land of Judah. Persia gave the former Judah a measure of sovereignty, were not brutal with them, but did not return them to the complete independence that God wanted. This caused the level of His anger to increase from minimal to a lot more.
Verse 16 has God saying that because of all the preceding, He will return Himself to fellowship in Jerusalem, and that fellowship will begin with merciful deeds to benefit His people. Key to this happening is that God’s house (the Temple) will be rebuilt there because the Temple is the place where His irreplaceable fellowship with them happens. And, ladies and gentlemen, despite what has been preached for centuries in Churches worldwide, this reality has not ceased. Israel was to be exiled yet again in 70 A.D. by the Romans, with that exile not to end until just after WWII, in May of 1948. This was the first step towards God restoring His fellowship with Israel, and we will see that same pattern unfold in the modern era as we find here in Zechariah. This means that God wants His Temple to be rebuilt, on the hill of Zion, in the city in which He has placed His name… Jerusalem.
It was a little over a century ago that the dispersed Jews of the world along with the leaders of several nations came to the conclusion that it was necessary for Jews to have their own state. However, the nations did not want to give the Jews their ancient homeland back because the Arabs were adamant against it, and before them the Ottoman Turks. Instead, the Jews were offered a few different places. The organization that represented the world’s Jews, the World Zionist Congress, refused those other places, but sometimes by only the narrowest of voting margins. The most zealous were holding out for ancient Israel. It was only because of the Holocaust that the world relented and gave the Jews their ancient homeland back to them. God was not ever going to allow Israel to be anywhere but the land He gave to them, nor would the place where He would put His name be anywhere but Jerusalem. And, His Temple would never be anywhere than where it had always been, on Zion. Once more: this is exactly what we see in Zechariah.
But, what this also means is that the Temple is going to be rebuilt in modern times, in exactly the same place it existed up until 70 A.D. And, despite all the religious rhetoric against it, with most Christian denominations claiming that God never again wants a Temple in Jerusalem, it is going to happen because God DOES want it. The Temple is central to God’s covenant with Israel; and God’s covenant with Israel is central to gentiles having an opportunity to partake of the salvation offered by God’s Son, Yeshua.
Verse 16 continues by saying that a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem. What is this measuring line? Also known as the builder’s string, this line is used to mark the boundaries of the city walls. This is not a measuring tape that was used to measure cubits to determine distances. In other words, this line describes where the city limits are. While there is no consensus about this in Bible scholarship, I think this is an End Times statement. Just as the walls of the location of the Temple were known to the returning Judeans (because the foundation was left mostly intact), so were the walls of the city of Jerusalem that the Judeans returned to; the city limits were already marked, visible and well established. Therefore, this can only be referring to a situation whereby the city limits have to be re-established, most likely because the old walls are gone.
Verse 17 completes chapter 1 in Bible versions that are based on the Hebrew Bible. But, for those Bibles based on the Septuagint (that ancient Greek translation from the 3rd century B.C.), chapter one continues through verse 21. To be clear: all this means is that the chapter markings are different. All the same words in all the same order are there with either version, so don’t be concerned.
Verse 17 also presents a 3rd proclamation or oracle.
CJB Zechariah 1:17 In addition, proclaim that ADONAI-Tzva'ot says, 'My cities will again overflow with prosperity.' ADONAI will again comfort Tziyon, and he will again make Yerushalayim the city of his choice.
This new revelation of God is that the cities of the Promised Land will once again have great abundance. In the context of what this meant in that era, it is part and parcel of God’s blessings and mercy opening up once again that ends inadequate rain, general bad weather, and the poor harvests that such conditions cause. Instead, God’s blessings and mercy brings back good and predictable rainfall, general good weather, which results in an abundance of produce and plenty of drinking water. While these results carry through to a modern meaning, we can expand it to be indicating a general prosperity for the people of the land.
When God says He will comfort Zion this is in relation to the former condition of pain and anguish over exile, and then the constant harassment of nations against them. It also includes the ideas of restored fellowship with God and full political autonomy. The continuing proclamation about Jerusalem again becoming God’s choice of cities again must be referring to the End Times. Once in 70 A.D. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed and taken by Rome, one could say that God’s “choice of Jerusalem” was put on pause. Even though in 1948 the former land of Judah was restored to a Jewish State, it excluded Jerusalem. In 1967, in the famous six-day war, the Jews retook the city of Jerusalem. However, the most important part of Zion…the Temple Mount… is still mostly in the hands of Islam. This is going to change at some point, because until it does, Jerusalem isn’t really the city of God’s choice. A Temple needs to exist as the symbol of God’s covenant and of His presence. Here in verse 17 is the proclamation by God that it will change.
We’ll begin Zechariah chapter 2 next time.