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THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH
Lesson 16, Chapter 8 Continued
We were in Zechariah chapter 8 at verses 16 and 17 when we ran out of time, so that’s where we’ll begin today.
CJB Zechariah 8:16-17 16 These are the things you are to do: speak the truth to each other; in your courts, administer justice that is true and conducive to peace; 17 don't plot harm against each other; and don't love perjury; for all these are things I hate,' says Yehoveh."
In Hebrew, truth is emet and justice is mishpat. It is rather common in the Old Testament, after the Covenant of Moses was established, to use these two words in association with one another. The intent is to explain far more than an expected personal behavior; it is to become an attribute, an underlying condition of Hebrew society… the entire congregation of Israel… including their governmental system.
So, what is truth? How is it defined and where is it to be found? Truth and being truthful are not exactly the same things. Truth explains how things really are at their deepest level. Truth is not belief. Belief is a confidence one has that something is factual. Belief doesn’t have to be real or rational. Truthful is a description of not lying; it is communicating something you believe to be so, faithfully and without intended corruption. A person can be truthful and communicate something that is NOT the truth at the same time. At the deepest level, the material, tangible and visible can be deceiving. It is the divine spiritual underpinnings of something that make it truth. And, it is those divine spiritual underpinnings that the Bible explains to us, and can be found nowhere else. Therefore, when this verse in Zechariah is speaking of truth, it is speaking ONLY of God’s Word to humanity. Who else but the Creator can tell us truth?
The challenge for us lies in that human religious institutions invariably descend into replacing truth with doctrines and customs… beliefs… that more reflect what someone or some group wants to believe, versus what actually is at the deepest spiritual level. This tendency to devolve truth into belief is human nature. One of the very best, perhaps the earliest, biblical examples of this devolution is what happened in the Garden of Eden when Eve had an interesting conversation with the Serpent.
CJB Genesis 3:1-6 Now the serpent was more crafty than any wild animal which ADONAI, God, had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You are not to eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman answered the serpent, "We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, 'You are neither to eat from it nor touch it, or you will die.'" 4 The serpent said to the woman, "It is not true that you will surely die; 5 because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it had a pleasing appearance and that the tree was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her; and he ate.
Eve veered from truth, and instead created a doctrine… she transformed truth into a belief. But, truth is reflected in the previous chapter:
CJB Genesis 2:16-17 16 ADONAI, God, gave the person this order: "You may freely eat from every tree in the garden 17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You are not to eat from it, because on the day that you eat from it, it will become certain that you will die."
Did you spot the difference? Truth is that Adam and Eve were not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eve turned into in a false doctrine: “You are neither to eat from it nor touch it, lest you die”. God said nothing against touching the fruit. Only not to pick it and consume it. This is what Church doctrine and Jewish tradition, often do. God’s truth, embellished or twisted by a human, added to or subtracted from, turns truth into a belief that now makes it NOT the truth.
Thus, in Zechariah 8:16 and 17, God is telling the Judeans to set aside their manmade traditions… their long-held beliefs… and return to the truth. And for them… and for us… that truth is to be found in the Torah and the Prophets. By this I do not mean to imply that we also don’t find truth in the New Testament; because we do. But, because Constantinian Christianity… the gentile-created faith that began around the 4th century A.D… has determined to read and find as truth only the New Testament, then the Old Testament that establishes all the principles and definitions of terms used by the New is discarded. This by itself means that all that comes from taking only the New Testament as truth will be doctrine and belief. It is as though we claim to use the English language, but at the same time we discard the dictionary definition of its words and replace each word with a new and different meaning. We have experts and officials… secular and Christian… say that this is a good thing because then each of us have the freedom (said to be the liberty given to us by Christ) to develop our own definitions of words based upon our own personal truths. Folks, this is spiritual anarchy and this has overtaken the world, Christianity, and Judaism.
Unwittingly Christianity has taken this concept of individualized personal relationships with God so far as to imply that with the Holy Spirit now dwelling in us, He will give us each our own truth about what is good and evil… what is sin. Former scriptural definitions, former scriptural laws and commands, no longer universally apply. What is sin for us individually may not be sin for others or for our group, and vice versa. This is what was happening within the Hebrew faith of ancient times as it was being practiced by the Israelites, and particularly in this passage it is addressing the Judeans. God says to practice TRUE truth and TRUE justice that can only come from one source, with one truth and justice code, one universal meaning for each term, and one creator of it all. That was the only possible remedy for the ills of Judean society that eventually led them into exile, and it is the only remedy for the ills of Christian and Jewish society, which are leading into darkness.
Because the definition of terms is so important, then let us realize that true truth defines true morality. Morality means the acknowledgement that there is a good and evil, and we are obligated to avoid evil and instead to always do good. It also means that good and evil must be defined for each specific human behavior along the nearly infinite spectrum of all possible human behaviors and choices. Therefore, the most basic principle of good and evil is to love… love God, and love our fellow human being. But, that is not sufficient because how are we to know from God’s perspective what love is, and is not? Thus, the 10 Commandments form a basic outline of how to love God and how to love humans. However, even that is not sufficient, because of each of the 10 general commands about how to love, there are indeed so many different cases possible that more nuance must be applied. Thus, around 600 case examples of good and evil in our behaviors covering different areas of our lives are objectively specified in a moral code called The Law of Moses. Even then, not every possible human behavioral scenario was addressed for the Moses-led Israelites, and due to our advanced societies of the 21st century even more behavioral possibilities exist for us than for them. Thus, in His Sermon on the Mount, Yeshua explained that behind each law and command of the Law of Moses was a spiritual principle, and it was the understanding of these underlying spiritual principles that would inform us about how to navigate the limitless possibilities that can confront each of us in life, but aren’t specially addressed by the Law of Moses.
Continuing in Zechariah 8:16, God says to administer true justice in their courts of law. Interestingly, in this two-word phrase (true justice) we don’t find emet mishpat, but rather mishpat shalom. If we were to apply the nearly universal English translation of shalom used by Bible translators, which is “peace”, then we have peaceful justice. That doesn’t make a lot of sense or inform us of much that is useful. Shalom should in most cases be translated as divinely given well-being. Shalom is a broad concept of wholeness and completeness. So mishpat shalom is a justice system that reflects God’s perspective, and uses God’s laws and commands to judge, thus producing a good and proper result. Even more, this divinely inspired justice system ought to produce a kind of shalom… a kind of divinely given well-being within the Judean society.
Because the CJB takes some liberties with this verse, it substitutes the words “in your courts” for the literal “in your gates”. In ancient Middle Eastern cities… Hebrew and gentile… the city gates were designed with an adjacent open area meant to be where important public discussions were held, court was convened and justice meted out. It was a place of assembly for urban dwellers and used for diverse reasons… holding trials being just one of them. So, in the current context of justice, “in your gates” is just another way of saying when you hold a public trial.
The 3rd among the 4 foundational principles this passage says are to be obeyed, is for the Judeans not to form evil thoughts in their hearts against their fellow man. Better, the idea is not to plot in one’s mind something to harm your fellow human. Almost always this concerns revenge for some perceived offense. And finally, make no false oath. Generally, this is to be taken in a judicial sense, so saying to commit no perjury captures it pretty well. All these 4 principles together ought to reflect the character of Hebrew society; it ought to be what everyone strives for as a congregation. In fact, when first given to the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt in the form of a covenant called the Law of Moses, it was presented to Israel as a congregation, and the congregation as a group agreed to its terms.
Let’s move on the last section of chapter 8, which begins at verse 18.
RE-READ ZECHARIAH 8:18 – end
Martin Luther made the following observation about this section of Zechariah. He said this in explain of what God intended to impart to the people:
“Keep only what I command, and let fasting alone. Yes, if you keep my commandments, not only shall such fasts be over and come to an end; but because I will do so much good to Jerusalem, all the affliction, for which you have chosen and kept such fasting, shall be so forgotten, that you will be transported with joy when you think of your fasting, and of the heart’s grief on account of which you fasted for the time”.
Essentially, these final verses of chapter 8 are more directly-given answers to the inquiry brought by the delegation that came from Bethel concerning whether they ought to continue with the tradition of fasting on certain days. The words to open verse 18 tell us that another unit of oracles is beginning, because the words are the standard formula we see in Zechariah to announce it. What is now coming are 3 more oracles, but they are meant to be understood as a unit. That is, they are related.
Verse 19 speaks of 4 fasting days being observed by the Judeans. One in the 4th month, another in the 5th, then the 7th, and finally the 10th month. As for the reasons for these fast days, the reality is that the order they are given doesn’t mean that the associated events happened in that order one year. The fast in the 10th month commemorates something that happened before the other ones. The 10th month is when the siege of Jerusalem by Babylon began in the 9th year of the reign of the Jewish King Zedekiah. It set off a series of events that caused the Jews to create more fasting observances in the following year, in the 4th, 5th, and 7th months.
CJB 2 Kings 25:1 so in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, N'vukhadnetzar king of Bavel marched against Yerushalayim with his entire army. He set up camp against it and built siege towers against it on every side.
The fast of the 4th month remembers when the Babylonian armies finally broke in to Jerusalem, setting up a series of events leading to the end of Judah as a Jewish Kingdom, and it is also when the leaders of Judah fled.
CJB 2 Kings 25:3-7 3 On the ninth day of the [fourth] month, when the famine in the city was so severe that there was no food for the people of the land, 4 they broke through into the city. All the soldiers [fled] by night through the gate between the two walls, near the king's garden. Because the Kasdim were surrounding the city, the king took the route through the 'Aravah. 5 But the army of the Kasdim went in pursuit of the king and overtook him on the plains near Yericho; all his troops deserted him. 6 Then they took the king and brought him up to the king of Bavel in Rivlah, where they passed judgment on him. 7 They slaughtered his sons before his eyes. Then they put out Tzidkiyahu's eyes, bound him in chains and carried him off to Bavel.
The fast of the 5th month commemorates the actual fall of Jerusalem. The Babylonian army that had already entered into the city a month earlier, burned down the king’s palace, the Temple, many houses, and they knocked down even larger sections of the protective walls. This became known as the fast of the Ninth of Av, sort of the granddaddy of all the fasts of Judaism. Why remember this on the 9th day of the month when the record of this even clearly says the 7th? No one knows.
CJB 2 Kings 25:8-10 8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was also the nineteenth year of King N'vukhadnetzar, king of Bavel, N'vuzar'adan, the commander of the guard and an officer of the king of Bavel, entered Yerushalayim. 9 He burned down the house of ADONAI, the royal palace and all the houses in Yerushalayim- every notable person's house he burned to the ground. 10 The whole army of the Kasdim, who were with the commander of the guard, broke down the walls of Yerushalayim on every side.
The fast of the 7th month recalls the assassination of Gedaliah and many of those who accompanied him, in retribution by other Jews because they saw him as being a traitor by his accepting a position offered by King Nebuchadnezzar to be the governor over Judah.
What do all these fasts have in common? They are all manmade annual fasting days and were not authorized or commanded by God. And, to one extent or another all had to do with the conquering of Judah by Babylon.
God says that all 4 of these self-proclaimed fasting days are going to become feasting days of joy. The concept is that in the future, the sorrowful reasons for fasting will vanish because the sorrows associated with them are going to vanish. All that will remain is joyfulness and cheer for the House of Judah. We need to be careful to parse the context properly, here. Whatever is going to happen to end sorrow and the accompanying fasting will affect more than only those technically belonging to the House of Judah; it will also affect those of the House of Ephraim/Israel, because whether of Judah or Ephraim/Israel, they are all legitimately Israelites. However, the House of Israel (in its most technical political sense) being long gone as its own kingdom and scattered, did not adopt some special fast days because of their demise. It was the Judeans that did this. Therefore, since Zechariah is primarily about Judah (Yehud) and the aftermath of the Babylonian Exile and now their return, then the discussion revolves around Judean history, and does not include the history or circumstances of the House of Israel.
In reality, there is no command from God to the Bethel delegation to abolish their 4 annual manmade fasts. Rather, He says that the fasts are going to turn into joyous feasts at some point. Clearly, this has never happened in Jewish history, and so this can only be an End Times prophetic expectation. There is a Jewish legend that in times past, after Zechariah’s prophecy regarding these fasts, that the fasts were suspended. But, as time went on and when the Jews experienced troubles, they would start them back up again. There is nothing recorded inside or outside of the Bible that such was ever the case. Judaism today still keeps all 4 of the fasts spoken about here, none of which has anything to do with their latest exile… the Roman exile… and their return in 1948.
What was supposed to be the catalyst for changing the fast days of the Judeans into joyful feast days? It would not be because of a direct command of God, but rather it would be when Jerusalem (meaning the people who live there) loves and pursues truth (emet) and peace (shalom). Or better, pursues truth and divine well-being…wholeness. Put another way, it is when they finally let go of all their manmade customs and traditions and instead determine to follow the Torah and the Prophets. The End Times, after Yeshua returns, is when truth and shalom will be instituted, and by the sheer weight of this world-changing circumstance, the fasting comes to an end. This fits the probable meaning of these passages quite well, and it comports with other books like Revelation that speak more extensively about Israel and the End Times,
Verse 20 begins the 2nd of this final group or unit of 3 prophetic oracles. It says that in the future peoples and inhabitants of many cities will come to Jerusalem. Bible translators have always had some problems with this verse because of the Hebrew word amim; it is a plural word meaning peoples. Who is this talking about? We know this is an End Times action. Even so, some translators have decided it is better to take the word amim as singular and just make it people. Nonetheless, it is most regularly assumed that the terms peoples and nations are synonymous… that is, both terms are talking about non-Hebrews; peoples in the sense of their humanity, and nations in the sense of their political identity. I lean more towards those who think that peoples is a very broad designation indicating Israelites and others who have made some cultural or faith identification with them. Since Judah (now called Yehud) was now some mix of Samaritans, and a few hold-over Jews who had never left, along with various other ethnicities that had wandered into Judah and stayed after the Judeans were hauled off to Babylon, it probably is referencing them.
As for the inhabitants of other cities who also come to Jerusalem, there is a line of thought (with pretty good evidence behind it), that as it is used here, it is an idiom that means (or at least includes) civic leaders. That is, these are leaders and officials of other cities who come with the rest of the population. When in the Old Testament we encounter difficult words used awkwardly such as we have for the last several verses, and what they say doesn’t seem to make good sense in any typical way we can understand, rather than then assuming it must be an error, it is more likely than not that we are encountering an expression or an idiom that was used and known by the people at that time, but its meaning has been lost to history. So, sometimes we have to step back and look at the larger, not fully literal meanings of words and phrases to grasp what point or message it is that was being made (that’s the nature of expressions and idioms, their meaning is apart from the sum of their words). I think this is one of those times. We also have to grasp that as tribalism and the nomad lifestyle gave way to cities, central governments, and sedentary living in the Holy Land, then some common terms gained a little different meaning. For instance, the term “cities” went from meaning politically independent towns of substantial size often having their own king, to more meaning a particular classification of towns that included a central place that had a defensive wall. It was also understood that cities were part of a larger community of outlying rural areas, whereby the city served as a market place for the farmers and herders to sell the food they produced, and also where when danger approached, the local rural inhabitants would run to it for protection behind its tall and thick walls. This was in return for allegiance of the rural folk to that city’s officials and leaders (or king), as well as occasionally serving as part of that city’s work force. Bottom line: here in verse 20, the “inhabitants of many cities” probably meant all those living in towns associated with and surrounding those walled cities, and they weren’t necessarily all Jews. As was typical for when Zechariah lived and wrote, a mix of people and ethnicities had moved into the mostly vacated Judah after the Judeans were deported to Babylon, and these new folks had figured out a way to live together under a common set of rules and understandings, and were now a more cohesive group that saw themselves as a collective having common interests.
Moving to verse 21 that continues the thought of peoples and nations going to Jerusalem:
CJB Zechariah 8:21 the inhabitants of one city will travel to another and say, "We must go to ask Yehoveh’s favor and consult Yehoveh-Tzva'ot. I'll go too."
But, there are better more literal translations that tell us a bit more.
YLT Zechariah 8:21 Yea, gone have inhabitants of one To another, saying: We go diligently, To appease the face of Jehovah, To seek Jehovah of Hosts — I go, even I.
While the term inhabitants gives us the impression that this is talking about the common people in general, the remainder of the verse helps us to understand that this verse is more speaking about the leaders. Even the final words “I go, even I” clearly means the leadership, if not the chief leader. From the context of the entire Book of Zechariah, and from similar verbiage using the same idiom in chapter 7, we come to understand that “to appease the face of Yehoveh” or “to ask Yehoveh’s favor” are actually political vocabulary terms. The absolute authority of Yehoveh is the point, and the various civic leaders coming to Him indicate their submission to that authority.
Various English words are used to translate the Hebrew halak. Some like the CJB dampen the intensity of this word with saying it means “we must go”, while other translations say diligently, or speedily, or even “at once”. The idea is these leaders are compelled by all that has happened to urgently go to Jerusalem to demonstrate their allegiance to Yehoveh, no doubt out of a combination of fear and newly acquired respect. Who are the inhabitants of these many cities? First, obviously it is only those who do recognize Yehoveh’s authority (even if only very recently), and second, there will be an expanding scope of precisely which cities and leaders are involved. At first, only Judean cities, and then later (End Times) it increases to become cities worldwide.
We find the same thought in Isaiah chapter 2 and in Micah chapter 4.
CJB Micah 4:2 Many Gentiles will go and say, "Come, let's go up to the mountain of Yehoveh, to the house of the God of Ya'akov! He will teach us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths." For out of Tziyon will go forth Torah, the word of Yehoveh from Yerushalayim.
Folks, this day is coming and we need to prepare for it, and encourage others to do so as well. The Prophet Ezekiel warns what happens to the nations whose leaders do not join the other leaders who do go to Jerusalem to seek the favor of Yehoveh as they are supposed to. Words like this in various Old Testament passages continue to flummox me as to why the Christian world that I came from still refuses to acknowledge it. After all, this is primarily talking about the End of Days, which has captured the imagination of the Church for a few decades, now. But, I suppose when we throw away the Old Testament teachings, or even minimize them, then of course the truth becomes distorted or lost altogether. Over and over, we are told that it is the Law, or the Torah, that the nations will come to Jerusalem to learn. It is this Torah knowledge that allows them to walk in God’s paths and to lead their people to do the same. Why would people already studied in and following God’s ways (biblically defined as the Torah) feel urgently compelled to go to Jerusalem to learn them? Because, while the gentiles that are mentioned might in some way be devoted to God, they did not know or do His ways. Instead, they know and do manmade doctrines that they had believed were His ways. They do what they have been told by their religious leadership to believe. And this is largely because they have been discouraged for centuries from reading or taking seriously the very information that these prophets say the gentile leaders will finally submit to, and go to Jerusalem to finally learn.
I truly believe that this is not entirely future; it is a process that has already begun. We see it primarily in the form of the Hebrew Roots and Messianic movements that are erupting all over our planet. It is those who already worship the God of Israel, and who trust in His Son Yeshua, who have seen the light and now want to diligently learn God’s ways, and have also come to realize that we find these ways in His Torah. The very first seeds for this movement were sewn over 400 years ago when the Pilgrims came to America to do just what the Hebrew Roots movement is doing today. It has taken a very long time before that small seed turned to seedling, then to sprout, then to a tree and subsequently to bearing fruit. But, amazingly, you and I live in the time when the blossoms that will become that fruit have formed, and the first evidence of the fruit has appeared. Don’t let it pass you by.
Verse 22 emphasizes that what has been said in verse 21 is absolutely going to happen.
CJB Zechariah 8:22 Yes, many peoples and powerful nations will come to consult ADONAI-Tzva'ot in Yerushalayim and to ask ADONAI's favor.'
The number of people is going to be “many”. The gentile nations (their leaders) that come won’t be only the smaller ones, but the superpowers as well. The entire spectrum of nations from weakest to strongest will be represented. Jerusalem will be the center of the world. Truth is, it always has been; it just hasn’t been recognized. Certainly, at the time this was written, Zechariah and his readers would have thought of the Persian Empire as the superpower that will eventually come to bow down to Yehoveh in Jerusalem. However, if this were to be speaking of the year 2024, we’d be picturing the leaders of China, Russia, and the USA submitting. If the Lord tarries, then perhaps the superpowers of today will be others than these 3.
Finally, in verse 23 we read:
CJB Zechariah 8:23 Yehoveh-Tzva'ot says, 'When that time comes, ten men will take hold- speaking all the languages of the nations- will grab hold of the cloak of a Jew and say, "We want to go with you, because we have heard that Elohim is with you."'"
“What that time comes”, and in some Bible versions “in that day”, are common biblical terms referring to the End Times. Using the number 10 (10 men) presents a standard biblical symbolic number. 10 is both a round number, and a number denoting something that is fully whole and complete. It is symbolic of being universal. And, it is the sum of two other special biblically symbolic numbers, 7 and 3. Very likely the use of 10 men is to represent all humanity, because it also says these men are speaking all the languages of the nations. To grab hold of the cloak means to submit, to have loyalty towards, to want to follow. This is a well-known gesture of the ancient world, so this interpretation is solid. So, universally, this prophecy says that the gentile world will turn away from anti-Semitism, which is the hallmark of Islam and also of Christianity since the 4th century, and instead want to join with Jews even if somewhat subserviently.
This goes hand in hand with the entry into a Golden Age of Israel as expected by Jews, which is also spoken of as, and synonymous with, the Millennial Kingdom of God by gentile Christians.
I also want to once again point to the typical translation of the last words of verse 23, where most Bibles says “we have heard that God is with you”. What it actually says ‘we have heard that Elohim is with you”. Is this speaking about God? Yes it is… no disagreement there. However, the term elohim when pointing towards God is (in my opinion) meant to depict Him in the role of the chief administrator of Heaven and Earth. It adds the element of authority over what goes on in both Heaven and Earth. There is no English word or phrase that can exactly translate the 2 different uses of elohim in the Bible…. First as one of several titles for God, and second, as the name of the class of divine beings in Heaven that serve on God’s Divine Council. Partly this is because Christianity simply doesn’t want to deal with its implications and would rather stick with old and traditional explanations and traditions. But, I think that unless something comes along that can prove it wrong, to understand one of God’s attributes as being the chief administrator over all the lesser administrators (the elohim in Heaven, humans on Earth) this is the best way to think of it.
I want to close this chapter of Zechariah with a couple of remarks. A major take-away is that we see the expansion of these several oracles and prophetic utterances as widening from a purely Judean perspective to a global universal perspective. It begins only with the Jews who have returned to Judah. Then it widens to them plus the Jews that have not returned to Judah. Then it widens again to all of them plus the mixed people of various ethnic backgrounds who now live in Judah but who are loyal to the Judeans and the Temple in Jerusalem. And then, finally, its scope becomes planet-wide to include the people of all nations and ethnicities. Step by step, stage by stage, the influence of God over the Judean community expands in the End Times to the worldwide community.
The second take-away is that the story about a delegation coming from Bethel to Jerusalem wondering if they should end fasting celebrations since the 70th year of exile is upon them, teaches that in the end, there will be no need for fasting observances. Nothing but feasting and joyfulness will abound, and so stopping the fasting observances of the past will become obvious.
Finally, even though faith in, and allegiance to, Yehoveh will eventually be universal, nonetheless the capital of this faith for the entire world will be Jerusalem in Israel. And, even though the bulk of the Christian world today thinks the Temple building era is over because since Yeshua, all of His Believers are literally the new temples of God, all the Prophets agree that there will not only be a glorious physical Temple built, complete with a Priesthood to operate it, but that God demands it and it is His Son who will lead the building of it.
It is the Jews… one of the world’s tiniest populations, living in one of the world’s tiniest countries…that will be that linking force between God and the gentile world.
We’ll stop here and take up Zechariah chapter 9 next time.