Zechariah's Message
This amazing man, Nehemiah, who has such amazing leadership qualities had to return to Babylon, having rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem, and re-established worship, along with Ezra, among the people of Israel, but some months later when he reappeared in Jerusalem a whole new set of problems faced him. A man - Jehovah Zechariah Vision YHWH, the second person of the Trinity, manifested in man's form, an earnest of the incarnation; called the "angel of Jehovah" (Zechariah 1:11,12), "Jehovah the angel of the covenant" (Malachi 3:1; compare Genesis 16:7 with Zechariah 1:13; Genesis 22:11 with Zechariah 1:12; Exodus 3:2 with Zechariah 1:4).
PRAYER ALERT March 4, 2016: I know that the Zechariah connection with the craftsmen seems really strange but as member nations of The Quarter like France who has now linked to ancient Egypt continuing to press for the division of Israel through "peace", the craftsmen always stand ready to bring chaos to their doorstep.
The prophet is confident that this mountainous project can be completed with God's help and so, addressing the mountain of obstacles, asks rhetorically, Who are you, great mountain?” (v. 7). Mountain as metaphor for insuperable opposition or resistance is common in the OT, especially when it is overcome and reduced to a valley or plain (Isa.
The first prophecy we will look at can be found in the Book of Daniel 12:4, "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." I picked this prophecy because I believe it describes the time we live in perfectly.
It's very interesting to me that when the Lord Jesus was here upon the earth when the subject of the second coming came up he said, The day or hour, no man, no angel, not even the Son of Man knows that day.” And here we have the angel of Jehovah in the midst of Israel symbolically crying out, Lord how long?” And so then it is a picture of Israel in degradation, but of God's covenant with them, the covenant man, the Lord Jesus in their midst with all of the power to execute judgment in their behalf and bring them to victory waiting for the time to do so.
9 We must therefore regard them either as ideal appearances, personifying the forces and providential acts which God often uses in carrying out His judgments on the earth, or, what seems to me the simplest and most natural explanation, angelic beings, or heavenly powers.”—Ibid., 175.
Many commentators understand the young man (ru^n~) to be the surveyor in light of the fact that the measuring he is undertaking will be useless inasmuch as Jerusalem will be a city without walls 270 However, the point of the prophetic vision is not to instruct an inexperienced angel, but the prophet himself.
For that reason we argue for the following rendering of verse v. 8: YHWH of hosts has said the following, that after glory He has sent me to the nations plundering you, for he who touches you touches the opening of His eye.” It is Zechariah who has been sent, clearly only in the sense of his being a herald from Jerusalem.
Message We are studying the prophecy of Zechariah in our morning studies and last Sunday morning we began our series of messages by looking at the opening six verses in which the prophet issues a call for repentance on the part of the returning exiles in the land of Palestine.
Gracious God, I bless you that I do not have to present my sacrifice directly to yourself, or else you would consume my sacrifice and me with the flames of your wrath; but I present what I have before your messenger, the angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus, and through him my prayers find acceptance wrapped up in his prayers; my praises become sweet as they are bound up with bundles of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, from Christ's own garden; then I myself, standing in him, am accepted in the Beloved; and all my poor, defiled, polluted works, though in themselves only objects of divine abhorrence, are so accepted and received, that God smells a sweet savour.