As the stars flicker into the purpled dusky sky, the prophet
Zechariah extinguishes the flame from his lamp. He says a prayer before he
sleeps – ‘Lord of the Universe, it is true, that before You there is no night,
and the light of the world is with You. You make the whole world shine with
Your light. Keep me as I sleep.’
Zechariah sleeps as the moon climbs into the dark skies over
the city of Jerusalem.
And in his sleep he looks up into the darkness at the intersection of heaven
and earth and sees a grove of aromatic myrtle trees. The trees are rooted in
the depths of the abyss, “the extremity of the world …at the extreme limits of
life (Ollenburger, 750).” The dark seas are filled with danger and mystery.
A wind whispers in the branches of the myrtles carrying the
fragrance of Eden
into the night. The whole world is quiet, but the air is charged, tense,
expectant.
In the shadows of the myrtle trees he sees a man riding a
red horse, and behind him more horses – red, chestnut, and white – pawing at
the ground and snorting. They are powerful creatures.
Zechariah turns to the angel that is now suddenly standing
next to him and asks, ‘Sir, what are these horses doing here? What’s the
meaning of this?’
The angel-messenger answers ‘Let me show you.’
Then the rider of the red horse speaks up, ‘These are those
whom YHWH has sent to patrol the earth.’ And now the horses deliver their
report to Angel of YHWH, the rider of the red horse,’ We have patrolled the
earth, and lo, the whole earth remains at peace.’ They are Yahweh’s agents sent
to patrol the earth. They are God’s dominion over all of creation and have
unlimited, universal range (Ollenburger, 751). They are the hosts of heaven,
the angel armies of God returned from a reconnaissance mission.
Hearing their report, the Angel of YHWH cries out to YHWH,
‘Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, how long are You going to stay angry with Jerusalem? How long will
You withhold mercy from the cities of Judah on which You have inflicted
Your anger for the past seventy years?’
And from the darkness of the grove YHWH speaks words of
grace and comfort to the Angel of YHWH, who then addresses Zechariah: ‘Proclaim
this message, it is Yahweh’s message – I am jealous for Jerusalem
and Zion. And I
am extremely angry with the nations that are comfortable and at ease.
‘I’ve come back to Jerusalem,
but with compassion this time. I’ll see to it that my Temple is rebuilt. My cities will prosper
again. I will comfort Zion
again. Jerusalem
will be back in my favor again.’
Zechariah is commissioned to preach the return of YHWH to Jerusalem and his
compassion and consolation for the people. But his message isn’t just a “there,
there” type of consolation. Zechariah is to alert Israel and the world that Yahweh’s
determination is to change the world – to rearrange the present order. YHWH is
remaking, recreating the world, and restoring the world to its proper order.
Governments are going to be cut off and cast down, while Zion is going to be lifted up and exalted.
“For YHWH has chosen Zion,
He has desired it as home. ‘Here shall I rest for evermore, here shall I make
my home as I have wished.'" (Psalm 132: 13 – 14)
Through the night Zechariah receives a series of eight
visions – at one point the interpreting angel awakens him “as one is awakened
from sleep.” Using a variety of both familiar and, at times, bizarre, Zechariah
is given a vision of the world as it is, and as it will be. The visions move
from a focus on the whole world to a focus on Judah,
then Jerusalem, and then at the heart of the
visions, of the Temple
itself. The visions then move back outward again through Jerusalem,
and Judah,
to the whole world.
Zechariah sees horns that represent nations being cut off by
blacksmiths that serve the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, an un-measurable Jerusalem being measured
and surrounded by YHWH as a wall of fire. He sees Joshua the high priest
standing before a heavenly tribunal accused by the Satan. He sees a vision of
the seven-branched Menorah within the Temple
flanked by two olive trees. He sees a flying scroll that condemns thieves and
perjurers. He sees a basket that contains a woman who is wickedness, and he
watches as the basket is carried off by two women with wings like storks, to Babylon where it will be
set up and worshipped. And in the final vision he sees horses, again as the
servants of YHWH Sabaoth (the LORD of Hosts), sent out to patrol the ends of
the world.
And because Zechariah is unable to understand what he is
seeing in these visions they are interpreted for him by an interpreting Angel.
The visions are devoted to a number of related themes:
The rebuilding of the Temple
in Jerusalem.
The return of Yahweh’s presence to Zion.
The reformation of the moral and social character of the
world.
And the inclusion of all nations within the glorious future
of Zion.
The world, according to the visions of Zechariah and the
rest of Scripture, is a sanctuary in which the reign of God is visible and
unchallenged. God’s holiness is all-pervasive in the temple that is the
world.(Levenson, 86) “YHWH is in His holy Temple,
let all the earth keep silent before him."(Habakkuk 2: 20)
What Zechariah sees in his series of visions is not just the
restoration of the temple, not just the restoration of Jerusalem,
not even just the restoration of the nation of Israel
– but the restoration of the whole of the created order within the heavenly
city of Zion,
wherein all nations are gathered and restored.
In his final vision Zechariah lifts his eyes and sees four
chariots coming out between two mountains of bronze. Drawing from a variety of
ancient near eastern mythical ideas Zechariah envisions these horse drawn
chariots as coming with the dawn and the rising sun. The two mountains of
bronze are ablaze with the light of the rising sun.
“Arise, shine out, for your light has come, and the glory of
YHWH has risen on you. Look! though night still covers the earth and darkness
the peoples, on you YHWH is rising and over you his glory can be seen. The
nations will come to you light and kings to your dawning brightness."
(Isaiah 60: 1 – 3)
This solar imagery is appropriate for the final of his eight
visions. The fist image came to him in the night. And now, at the break of
dawn, he is receiving the eighth and final vision. The number eight is often
used in scripture to represent a new beginning, a new day. Eight were spared in
the flood (Genesis 7:13, 23) when God gave the earth a new start. Circumcision
was performed on the eighth day (Genesis 17: 12). Thomas saw the risen Christ on
the eighth day (John 20:26). The Eighth vision of Zechariah describes the
beginning of a new world order, a new creation.
He sees four chariots pulled by horses of varying colors
heading out in all directions. The horses burst like the sun from between the
mountains. They are vigorous and strong and impatient to be about their work.
They are about the work of a new creation. They are the winds or the spirits of
God and they are taking God’s Spirit to bring peace to the world and to the
north country in particular. The north country being the land of exile, Babylon. They are the
divine winds of (re)creation sweeping over the land (Genesis 1:2)
The final vision ends with the Spirit of God at rest. The
first vision began with the world being at rest – but the rest is different
now. Things have changed during night. Thing have changed during the course of
the evening’s visions. “The world is at peace when Zechariah first sees in the
night, and it is at peace when the visions conclude. But the word has changed. International,
internal, and cosmic order have been recreated. Sacred space has been restored.
(Ollenburger, 784)”
Within Zechariah’s visions, oppressors have been brought
down, exiles have been brought home, and Zion
has become the gathering place for all the peoples of the world as they all
come to worship God. Zion
becomes a place without walls – for no walls of stone and mortar could ever
contain the multitudes that are gathered within YHWH’s protective walls of
fire.
But was it just a dream. What happens to the visions when
Zechariah awakens in the morning? Do they disappear into fleeting and vague
memories as dreams often do – or will they become a reality?
Zechariah invites us to imagine with him the things that he
has seen. We are to envision these signs along with the prophet. When we read
what he has written about his visions we see them in our minds along with him.
But we are also called to inhabit those visions – to inhabit the world
according to what we have see – to inhabit the world according to what it will
become on YHWH Sabaoth’s initiative.
People often make the statement, “well, it’s not a perfect
world…” but that’s a cop-out. It’s an excuse, and a miserable excuse. The
author of the letter to the Hebrews makes it clear that “what you have come to
is Mount Zion
and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where millions of angels have
gathered for the festival, with the whole Church of first-born sons enrolled as
citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the
spirits of the upright who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator
of a new covenant… (Hebrews 12: 22 – 24)”
We have come to Mount
Zion. We are gathered
within those protective walls of fire. The kingdom we inhabit cannot be shaken.
To say, 'oh well, it's not a perfect world' is to awaken from Zechariah's
visions and forget what we have been shown. We need to inhabit those visions, and to make them real in the world around us. We need to live into those visions.
Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The
Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988)
Ben C. Ollenburger, The Book of Zechariah: Introduction,
Commentary, and Reflections – The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume 7 (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1996)
