We concluded Chapter 10 with the Lord's promise to restore Israel, a promise which will not find its complete fulfillment until the kingdom comes. I think the Lord must have made the beautiful promises in Chapter 10 of Israel's future glory because He has some bad news to deliver in Chapter 11.
The rebuilding of the temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius while the prophet Zechariah was still a young man. Now, many years later, he receives the word that Jerusalem will be invaded again and the temple will fall. He learns that the nation's leaders, symbolized by shepherds in this chapter, will lead the people astray just as they did in the past. He learns that a Good Shepherd is coming who will care for the flock, but the nation will reject His leadership.
This must have been shocking news for anyone who lived in Zechariah's time when it looked like at last their fortunes were turning around! How awful it must have been to know that, though Israel would never truly bow her knees again to false gods, she would bow her knees to legalism and the traditions of men rather than to the word of God. No wonder God had to give the good news of Chapter 10 before giving the bad news of Chapter 11! If He had not, what future hope would the Jews have been able to cling to after the fall of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD? If the Lord had not sworn by His own holiness that Israel would endure through the ages and that she would at last be ruled over by her own King, how would she have made it through the centuries since? Just as the Lord promised an end to the captivity in Babylon, He has also promised an end to all foreign rule over His people and an end to Israel's oppression by the nations.
Chapter 11 begins with this mournful wail, "Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars! Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen the stately trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan; the dense forest has been cut down! Listen to the wail of the shepherds; their rich pastures are destroyed! Listen to the roar of the lions; the lush thicket of Jordan is ruined!" (Zechariah 11:1-3) Lebanon was famous for its superior cedars. King Solomon imported a great deal of cedars from Lebanon both for the temple and for his own palace. The "doors" of verse 1 may symbolize the temple doors and the coming destruction of the temple by the Roman army. In addition, the references to "Lebanon" and "Bashan" indicate the direction from which the destruction would come, as this is the route General Vespasian's forces took, under the direction of his son Titus, when advancing upon Jerusalem to quell the rebellion there.
I think it's worth taking the time to note something here. Earlier in the book of Zechariah we found him announcing the arrival of the King who would come into the city mounted on a donkey to the accompaniment of shouts of praise. This was fulfilled when Jesus of Nazareth, of the tribe of Judah, of the line of King David, declared Himself the Messiah and King by entering Jerusalem by this method on what became known as Palm Sunday and The Triumphant Entry. The triumph of that moment was short-lived, since He was crucified later that same week, but something very momentous and prophetic occurred as Jesus reached the point in the road where He could look down over Jerusalem. The gospel writer Luke tells us, "As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace---but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.'" (Luke 19:41-44)
Jesus was sitting on His donkey in the same place the Roman general Titus would sit on his warhorse about forty years later as he plotted how best to lay siege to the city. Jesus wept with a broken heart as He saw what would befall His people when Rome would build an embankment against the city and hem the people in on every side. In ancient warfare it was often easier to starve people into surrendering than to fight them into surrendering, so Titus built seigeworks all around the city and he cut down every tree within a nine-mile radius to build them. Zechariah foresaw the destruction of the forests in the prophecy given to us in today's passage. He says, "Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen; the stately trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, the dense forest has been cut down!"
As we continue on this week in Chapter 11 we will find Zechariah's prophecy lining up perfectly with the words of Jesus in Luke 19. When Jesus wept over the coming fall of Jerusalem, He stated that this would happen because His people rejected Him as King. He had presented Himself as the "Good Shepherd" who cares for the sheep, unlike the nation's leaders who had fallen into legalism and hypocrisy. He was rejected as the Good Shepherd, just as the good shepherd we will see later in Chapter 11 will be rejected. Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, the least amount that could be paid for a man since it was the price of a slave. The good shepherd of Zechariah's prophecy will not be paid the wages to which he is entitled, but his work will be valued at the insulting sum of thirty pieces of silver.
We are going to learn from Zechariah's prophecy that the King he foresaw so triumphantly entering Jerusalem is not going to assume the throne of David at His first advent, nor is He going to overthrow Israel's enemies, nor is the kingdom going to come. All these things would have happened if His people had been able to "recognize the time of God's coming to you", and if they had "known what would bring you peace", as the Lord said in the gospel according to Luke. But we can cast no judgment upon Israel, for didn't we all at one time deny the very One who could bring us peace? When we clung to our own stubborn ways, weren't we opposed to the leadership of our Good Shepherd? When we were living in our sins, weren't we all like sheep who had gone astray?
Praise be to the name of the Lord for not giving up on us when we persisted in going our own way! Though we rejected Him for a time, He did not reject us. He kept entreating us and making His offer of peace. The same can be said for His people Israel. A future hope awaits her. A future glory is hers. God is not finished with her.
No comments:
Post a Comment