We move from a fountain of tears in Chapter 12 to a fountain of cleansing in Chapter 13. We concluded yesterday with the children of Israel mourning for the One who was pierced, and today we find that from this piercing flows a fountain able to cleanse mankind from all sin and unrighteousness.
The prophet Zechariah begins our passage by telling us these things will take place "on that day". As we learned previously, the term "on that day" is used in end times prophecies in the Bible. It looks ahead to the "day of the Lord" and to the kingdom age beyond that day. In Chapter 13 we are looking at the kingdom age when the King of kings will reign from David's throne forever. His people, who rejected Him at his first advent, are ready to receive Him now. In yesterday's study we found the Lord granting them a spirit of grace and supplication; this is why they mourned for the One who had been pierced. But it is this very piercing that brings deliverance to the nation. It is this very piercing that is able to make new creatures of us all. As the old song says, "What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
"On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity." (Zechariah 13:1) This fountain has been open to David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (in other words, Israel) since Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Many of the Jews believed on Him in those days. Many Jews have believed on Him since. But in the days when He comes again to His own, His own will receive Him like never before. There will be a wide-scale turning to Christ among the Jews such as there has never been during any other age. In the first century AD we found the Gentiles believing the gospel and flocking to the Lord Jesus in droves; the same thing will happen among the Jews "on that day".
The Lord speaks now in His own words, "'On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more,' declares the Lord Almighty." (Zechariah 13:2a) We have looked at a verse from Chapter 14 before, and will be studying it more fully later on, but idols will be abolished because, "On that day there will be one Lord, and His name the only name." (Zechariah 14:9b) It cannot be said that Israel is bowing down to literal idols in our times. Most of the Gentile nations are not bowing down to literal idols anymore. But we have all bowed the knee to something other than God, because anything we have ever put before God is an idol to us. This might take the form of seeking wealth or renown. It might be valuing a person or our relationship with them above our relationship with God. It might simply be choosing our own way instead of following God's laws, in which case we have made gods of ourselves. On that day, never again will the name of any other god pass through human lips. Never again will there be any separation between man and his Maker.
The Lord promises to remove something else from the land. "I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land." (Zechariah 13:2b) On the one hand we might be tempted to conclude that prophecy is removed because it is no longer needed. After all, the Lord Himself will be living among His people. While it's true prophecy will not be needed when we are able to see the Lord face to face, the prophets in this verse are so closely linked with "the spirit of impurity" that the Lord is likely speaking of the false prophets. There were a number of these in the land before the downfall of Israel and Judah. The righteous prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, were scorned in favor of the false prophets who promised victory from their enemies and peace to follow. Jeremiah urged the people to turn back to the Lord and repent instead of listening to the empty promises of the false prophets who "fill you with false hopes". (Jeremiah 23:16) A day is coming in which no one will ever prophesy lies in the name of the Lord again.
The godly prophets of the Old Testament warned of the coming destruction of Israel by Assyria and Judah by Babylon if the people did not repent, but the false prophets assured them their God was with them. This assurance removed any need for repentance, as if simply being the children of Abraham was enough to cause God to close His eyes to sin. The false prophets swore Jerusalem would never fall because God's temple was there. But God has never wanted to live in a sanctuary or a temple; He wants to live in our hearts. False teaching did not only spring up in the days of ancient Israel and Judah, but it still springs up today in the Christian community as well. We have to be alert to the danger of believing that because we are called by His name, the Lord Jesus will overlook sin. We are not above correction simply because we belong to the body of Christ, for whom the Lord loves He chastens. (Proverbs 3:12, Hebrews 12:6) The Lord chastened His chosen people Israel because He loved them and, like a any good parent, He did not want to see them going down the wrong path. The Lord also loves the church and will chasten its members as needed.
Is there anything more wicked than a false teacher? A person like that has a great deal of power and influence, so his judgment is especially harsh. "And if anyone still prophesies, their father and mother, to whom they were born, will say to them, 'You must die, because you have told lies in the Lord's name.' Then their own parents will stab the one who prophesies." (Zechariah 13:3) Bible scholar David Guzik says of this verse, "Zechariah prophesies a coming day when public opinion will not tolerate false prophets. There will be such a commitment to the Lord and His truth that even the family of a false prophet will condemn the false prophet." Some scholars take verse 3 literally since it fulfills the law in Deuteronomy 18:20, "But a prophet who presumes to speak in My name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death." Other scholars take the verse more symbolically, believing it refers to the cutting off of the relationship with a person who prophesies falsely, because in the church age we are told to have nothing to do with false teaching (1 Timothy 4:1-7) and to have nothing to do with those who claim to be in Christ but whose mode of living is immoral (1 Corinthians 5:11)
"On that day every prophet will be ashamed of their prophetic vision. They will not put on a prophet's garment of hair in order to deceive. Each will say, 'I am not a prophet. I am a farmer; the land has been my livelihood since my youth.' If someone asks, 'What are these wounds on your body?' they will answer, 'The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.'" (Zechariah 13:4-6) False prophets, especially pagan ones, had a practice of cutting themselves in their religious rituals. When Elijah had his showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, we saw the false prophets cutting themselves as if by the shedding of blood they could persuade a non-existent god to hear their pleas. A time is coming when the one who once prophesied falsely will give some other explanation for the cuts on his body. He will want to disassociate himself from his former lifestyle as much as he possibly can.
It's difficult to determine exactly what the former false prophet means when he will say the wounds on his body are wounds "I was given at the house of my friends". Some commentators have attempted to use this as a reference to the wounds of Christ because, in a sense, He was wounded at the house of His friends, and because in some of the older English versions of the Bible we find the questioning of the former false prophet rendered like this, "What are these wounds in thine hands?" But a proper translation of the original Hebrew would read like this, "What are these wounds between your hands?", meaning the trunk of the body. The NIV and several other modern translations have more correctly expressed the verse this way in line with the original language, "What are these wounds on your body?" It's hard to explain how the wounds of Christ would fit into this passage, since it deals with a spirit of false prophecy and the penalty of death on the one who lies in the Lord's name. The Lord was accused of being a false prophet, and that is the only sense in which I can see He would fit into this passage at all. If He had indeed been a false prophet, then His wounds were deserved and His death was warranted. If we are to find the Lord Jesus anywhere in verses 4 through 6, it is in His role as a substitute...a sacrificial lamb. He took the wounds that should have been ours. He suffered the death that should have been ours. He hung on the cross for our sins, for all our lies and hypocrisies and false doctrines and idolatries. We have a fountain of cleansing today because He was pierced for our transgressions and because the punishment we deserved fell on Him. This is why He has been given the name above all names and why, when He reigns over the earth, His name will be the only name.
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