The Minor Prophets: Zechariah

In this final episode of our Minor Prophets series, we explore the strange and powerful visions of Zechariah, a prophet speaking to a people who have physically returned home but remain spiritually displaced. ✨ Through symbols of cleansing, restoration, and renewal, Zechariah reveals that rebuilding a culture begins long before stones are laid and walls are raised. 🏛️

We explore why external change rarely produces lasting transformation, why true renewal begins within, and how Zechariah's message still speaks to cultures, communities, and individuals trying to rebuild after failure. 🙏 As we conclude our Minor Prophets series, we discover a recurring pattern found throughout these ancient books: before restoration can transform the world around us, it must first transform the world within us. 🎙️

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Transcript

Zechariah 
 

JR: [00:00:00] Okay, so this is one of those kind of great prophetic themes that ties Zechariah to Hosea, who ties it to Micah. The external crisis may be over, but the deeper problem kind of remains unsolved, right? And so people want relief from the consequences without true transformation.  

David: Okay, so this is the last in our series of the minor prophets. We've already knocked out four of them, and this is the fifth one. 

JR: Yeah, I can't believe we've gotten through them all. And you picked a doozy for today. Let me just, let me just start off by saying I read Zechariah, that's what we're gonna cover today, but I read Zechariah the last couple days, and I was like, "Dude, there's so much here." You know, it's like trying to cover Revelation in a 30-minute episode or something. 

So it's gonna-- this is an ambitious project. Of all the minor prophets, this is the least minor. 

David: Well, I think we had another one that was several chapters long. 'Cause, you know, some of these are like, I, I think Habakkuk was three [00:01:00] chapters long, and 

Micah's I think was shorter. Joel's short. But yeah, this one is 14 chapters, so maybe not a minor prophet, maybe a middle prophet. Like not the big guys, but. 

JR: Yeah, we need better categories.  

David: Yeah, so I think Zechariah definitely would fit into that middle category of you're not just gonna read a couple chapters of Zechariah. 

There's a lot going on there. And I thought that, too because when I outlined it, I thought, "Oh, this would be cool," and I did the same thing you did. I went back and started studying and looking at it, and I thought, "My gosh, there's a lot here. There's no way we can cover even half of what is in Zechariah." 

So we're just gonna have to do our best today. 

JR: Do the 30,000-foot view and see if, 

David: Yeah 

JR: you know, tell everybody else to jump in and read it and dig into it yourself 'cause there's a lot there. 

David: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. other thing that occurred to me and I'd like to take credit for it, that we were this smart when we started out with this series and outlined it. But it didn't happen that way. 

So we've really kind of worked our way [00:02:00] through Joel, Hosea, right, Habakkuk, Micah, and there's actually been a progression along with the history of the time. And I don't know that we like I said, I th- we'd like to take credit, but I don't think we really planned it that way. But you have Joel, who's prophesying around the time of the Northern Kingdom's fall.  

I think we threw a map up there. We'll throw it up there again. You have some others who prophesy the Southern Kingdom, saying, "Hey, the same thing's going to happen to us," and of course, eventually it does. Talked about those dates, right, in 722, the Northern Kingdom is exiled to Assyria. In 586, the Southern Kingdom is exiled to Babylon. And then we come to today, to Zechariah, and it works out perfect because Zechariah he's actually issuing prophecies, and they're not so much even prophecies. We'll get into this, but he's talking to the people about returning from exile now. And so the third key date in this [00:03:00] time period in Old Testament history that's really helpful to remember is 532 is when the exiles from Babylon are allowed to return, right? 

So yeah, we've actually seen this history progress through the minor prophets that we've talked about, and I just thought that kind of worked out cool. 

JR: Well, I think the reason it worked out that way is because the reason we did the order that we did was 'cause we wanted to embody the pattern. You know, we've talked about this in other episodes, we've talked about chaos coming into order, going into corruption, the offer for redemption, right? Collapse, renewal. 

And so we kinda wanted to hit all those highlights, and Joel was the initial warning, you know, the locusts are coming. Hosea was kinda living out the unfaithfulness of Israel in real time. Micah's calling out corruption in the powerful, in the leadership. 

Habakkuk is sort of wrestling with the coming Babylonian captivity, [00:04:00] right? And then today, Zechariah is talking to the people after the collapse, right? Calling them to rebuild and to remember and to hope again, right? So all these kind of capture that pattern over-overall, but to your point, it turns out that the reason it captured it in sequential order is because that was the pattern that played out in the history of the Israelite people. 

David: Yeah. And we've also said that it's easy to look at these prophets and skim them and go, "Well, they're all talking about the same thing." But I think that we've shown through this series that no, they're all talking about a different aspect, like you said, of the pattern, right? What happens when collapse is about to happen? What happens when things collapse? What happens when you have lost hope of renewal, right? What happens when the religious structure collapses? And so today we come full circle. So what happens when you return home and everything looks like it's set? And Zechariah's going to address that because that's not the end of the story. 

Things aren't just hunky-dory, right? It's like, "Yeah, go [00:05:00] live your best life now." 

JR: Yeah, I try not to make too many references to The Odyssey because when you always did it, I rolled my eyes 'cause I hadn't read it yet. I was like, "Okay, here we go." But yeah, that's, that's The Odyssey. If the Iliad is about victory and the Trojan Wars, all that kind of stuff, The Odyssey is about coming home, and what does it take to come home? 

You don't just win the war and just come back the same person. You come back different. And so The Odyssey captures this idea of what does it take to properly come home an integrated person after you've gone off to this war? And so in a way, that's what Zechariah's gonna talk about. 

It's like you can't just say, "Okay, we're out of captivity. Let's head back home." It's like there's a process of rebuilding, of renewal, of making something new come out of this while integrating what we've learned through this captivity, and that's what the Book of Zechariah is kind of about. 

David: Yeah, that's a really interesting comparison. I'm glad you brought that up because in The Odyssey, of course, when Odysseus returns home, in a lot of ways, that's just the beginning of the issues. He [00:06:00] survived this 10-year harrowing journey, right? But he gets home and his wife doesn't quite know who he is, right? 

His son doesn't know who he is. All the suitors have taken over his palace and are eating all his food. I think the dog is the only one who recognizes him. 

JR: Glad you said that. I was just about to say, I was waiting to stick that in there, you know? It's like the dog's the only one that recognized him, right? He recognized him and then he dies. So sorry, spoiler. Yeah. 

David: There you go, yeah. 

JR: Yeah. Be looking for that in the movie. 

David: Yeah, so it is interesting that the arrival home is really only just the beginning, and we have a tendency to go, "Oh, finally, we're back. We're home," right? And it's like, no, You have to rebuild a whole new life, right? 

Especially if you've been like Odysseus, away for 20 years, or like the Jewish exiles, if you've been in Babylon for the last 50 years, right? And it could be the next generation that's coming home, and they don't really know how to act, right? They don't know what all this is about. 

JR: Yeah, I'm glad you said that because you gotta remember this [00:07:00] isn't an individual that got captured or kidnapped, and he's held captive for a week or two and then gets caught. These are generations that are going through this, and so the generation that's coming back to rebuild was not the same generation that went into captivity. 

It's not the same generation that lived freely before the captivity, right? All that generation has died off, and so if you knew how to live before the captivity, you don't know how to live afterward 'cause all those people are gone. 

So it's just a whole new generation has to learn the old ways, and I think that's the voice that Zechariah is trying to project of how do we go back to the way things were. I don't wanna say go back to the way things were 'cause we've pointed that out. When you build something new, it's not gonna be the same as what it was before. 

But at the same time, how do we rebuild while holding on to the, what? The the values of the past, the values that helped us grow as a nation close to God while leaving behind the things that corrupted them. How do we start that renewal? 

David: Yeah. The [00:08:00] vision of renewal. You weren't around when the old ways were well-known. It's like renew to what, right? 

It had to be the biggest question, and Zechariah, I think as we unpack this, really starts to address that. The renewal of what? Well, let me tell you of what. Let me tell you what we're supposed to do now that we're back in Jerusalem. 

JR: Right. Okay, how are we gonna kick this off? 

David: So one thing we've seen is that chapter 1 verse 1 of almost all these minor prophets give us a little bit of background, unless you're Joel, right, who doesn't do anything. 

JR: Yeah. Joel just jumps right in. 

David: Yeah, so chapter 1 verse 1 is probably the best place to start. We've talked a little bit about the background, but there's a lot going on just in this one verse. 

So let me read it real quick. "In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo." All So that gives us a lot of information right there, not the least of which is that the second year of Darius [00:09:00] puts it right at 520 BC. And so historically, we know when some of the kings of Persia reigned. We know when Darius reigned, right? We know about Cyrus, that I'll get into in a minute. But this one we can say this was written at about 520 BC. 

JR: Okay, yeah. So we pinpoint this one because Zechariah pinpoints it. Yeah, the first thing I noticed about that first verse was Darius, and I was like, Darius. You know, Darius, Darius. And that was Daniel. Daniel was in Darius's court. He originally was in Cyrus's court. 

 I looked this up and yeah, Daniel would've been... Which I love that when these prophets overlap, cause again, we kinda think of them somehow sequential one after the other, but that's not really the case. And so Daniel would've been about 70 years old. He would've been in the court of Darius 'cause he was high up, had political power at that time. 

Yeah. And, and the other thing that is worth pointing out is that Cyrus and Darius, again, those are Persian leaders. And so you're thinking, well, I thought they were in captivity in [00:10:00] Babylon, right? And so this is the end of the Babylonian Empire and the beginning of the Persian Empire historically. 

And so that's important to point out because not only does Israel need to figure out how to rebuild and create something new, this is in sort of a global shift of power that they have to do this. 

David: Yeah, that's right. We've switched to Babylon to Persia now. So we've gone from Assyria to Babylon to Persia, right? and within that 50 years of captivity in Babylon, yeah, Babylon kind of is overtaken by the Persians. New rulers come to power, which really explains ... I'm glad you brought up Daniel because it really explains then why the person of Cyrus in 532, who's the Persian king, he actually lets the people return. And there's a lot of history there because some of the prophets were saying , "Look, we were supposed to return. We were exiled from Jerusalem." I think Cyrus pulls out some of the scrolls and [00:11:00] he says, "Yeah, you should just go back," right? And so Cyrus lets the people return to Jerusalem. 

Cyrus is, gosh Okay, so throughout the minor prophets, they've been issuing this picture of renewal in the future, and they always come back to this messianic figure, right? We've heard it from almost each one of them that it's gonna be an outsider. It's gonna be born in Bethlehem, right? 

He's going to, well, he's gonna be from the line of David. All these things, right, hinting at this future Messiah. But it's interesting that in the Old Testament, Cyrus actually takes on this messianic archetype. Now, he's not the ultimate Messiah, because we know that's Jesus, right? 

But he takes this messianic archetype on. He's called God's anointed, right, because of this thing that he does where he actually tells the Jewish people in exile to go home, right? 

JR: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, he had to have been heavily influenced by Daniel, right? Daniel's [00:12:00] working directly with him. 

David: yeah  

JR: So Daniel may not have, I mean, as far as the Book of Daniel, know w- where he interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, that's a little bit before because there's a transition between Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. 

But somewhere in, later on in the Book of Daniel, it mentions Cyrus, it mentions Darius, and so I don't really quite understand that whole transition. You probably know better, you're the history guy. But it is interesting that those two were kind of contemporaries. Not that they were the same age, but they kind of overlapped a little bit. 

David: Yeah, in fairness, I'm not gonna pretend, but I just looked it all up, 'cause there's a lot of monumental history going on during this time period. So Nebuchadnezzar is basically the last of the Neo-Babylonian rulers, I think. It may have been another one. But Cyrus comes in in 539, and Persia overtakes Babylon. So Cyrus then is the new king of the region. They're the new superpower. Darius follows Cyrus, and all this is happening then, [00:13:00] you know, when these prophets are prophesying. So Cyrus then, again, becomes this messianic figure who says the people can return to Jerusalem. It's like, "No skin off my back. Yeah, just go." 

And one of the reasons why he's a bit of a messianic figure too is I think he even gives them money to rebuild the temple. And so, you have all these people then returning from exile to Jerusalem. This is the context of Zechariah. But this is also when, Okay, so it's Ezra and Nehemiah are... 

JR: Right 

David: you know, those are the historical books. And it's kind of, like, out of place because it's before Psalms, right? Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job. But they're the ones who are telling the people to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, right? Any church building campaign today is going to teach on the Book of Nehemiah, right? 

JR: Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's used for the sermons to kinda get the wallets to open a little bit. 

David: Yeah, yeah. Nehemiah's probably going, "Dude, there's so much [00:14:00] more to what I said than just giving you material for a building campaign," but. 

JR: Well, so in Zechariah he mentions Zerubbabel in one of the later chapters. I don't know if we're gonna cover that section or not, but i- Zerubbabel popped in my head 'cause I'm like, first of all, it's a unique name. But Zerubbabel was the one that was instrumental in Nehemiah building the wall, right? 

David: I think that's right, yeah. 

JR: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the tie-in there. And so that's when, you know the stand in the gap, you build the part of the wall that faces your house. You know what I mean? So it is kind of neat. Zechariah really does kind of bridge a lot of monumental historical movements. And so right in the heart of it, Zechariah's kind of prophesying, saying, "We have to rebuild right in the middle of all this stuff." 

David: Yeah. And you have the voice of others saying we have to rebuild the wall. Zechariah is going to- we'll jump into this here, but yeah, he's going to talk about the temple. He's gonna talk about the priesthood. I think a way to summarize it might be he talks more about the culture. It's not just about physical [00:15:00] rebuilding, right? 

And I think Zechariah, I think he even mentions the wall somewhere in there that we're not gonna get to today. But that's a lot of background on Zechariah. So 

JR: I was about to say, we're 20 minutes in and we've gotten through one verse, so. 

David: Yeah. 14 chapters, people. Hang with us here. 

JR: Yeah, that's right. This is gonna be a multiple day quest here. 

David: Yeah. All right, l- let's have people listened in to verses two through six, and we'll try to walk through the highlights of Zechariah and pull the pattern out. But this is two through six, then we'll come back and talk about it. 

The Lord was very angry with your ancestors. Therefore tell the people, this is what the Lord Almighty says. Return to me, declares the Lord Almighty, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed, this is what the Lord Almighty says. 

Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices. But they would not listen or pay attention to [00:16:00] me, declares the Lord. Where are your ancestors now? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors? Then they repented and said, the Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.  

JR: Okay, so this is one of those kind of great prophetic themes that ties Zechariah to Hosea, who ties it to Micah, right? The external crisis may be over, but the deeper problem kind of remains unsolved, right? And so people want relief from the consequences without true transformation. And so it's like surviving a heart attack, and so you change your schedule, you change your diet for a few weeks, you do what the doctor says, but then you just go right back to doing all the exact habits that got you into the crisis in the first place, right? 

And so the way Zechariah's starting out here, very similar to Hosea and Micah in the sense that [00:17:00] don't forget how we got here. That's the first thing, is if we're gonna move forward, we can't forget what got us into the collapse the first time. And so he's pointing all these things out. 

Basically, he's kind of giving a recap of what the other prophets said. 

David: Yeah. Don't forget your history, right? Don't forget it's what got here in the first place. And the other thing I think he addresses right off the bat in the verses you just heard was, hey, even though we're physically back, and there's a lot of rebuilding to do, the rebuilding has to start with our understanding of our position with God and the covenant, right? 

Because that's what our ancestors did. They screwed all that up. That's who all those other prophets were talking about, right? So he's laying the foundation for saying, before we start rebuilding walls and temples, you have to understand that where our place in the covenant is and what our responsibility is, or this is all just gonna happen again."  

JR: Right. We may be out of captivity, but we're far from home. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. And again, I like that [00:18:00] idea of Odysseus returns home, but the work is just beginning. 

JR: Right 

David: There's relationships to reestablish, right? You've gotta cleanse the land of the freeloaders in your house, right? You gotta do all these. You've gotta... so that's what he's laying the foundation for really. 

JR: Right 

David: Okay, so that takes us then, after he's laid the foundation, that takes us to a series of visions that Zechariah has, and we're not gonna be able to tackle all of these visions. But in Zechariah 1:8, he says, "During the night I had a vision," right? 

And he starts to describe this vision, and I think he has seven or eight of them throughout his book. But he says, "There was a man mounted on a red horse. He was standing in the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were a red and brown and white horse." So then he asked the angel, "What do all these mean?" And the man standing explained, "These are the ones the Lord has sent out to go throughout the earth." So the report back then is that we've gone throughout the earth [00:19:00] and found the whole world at rest and in peace. So kind of a weird vision, but that's what happens. He sees four horses. They go to the ends of the earth, and they come back, and they say, "The world is at peace." Now, next 

JR: You'd think that's... Yeah, that sounds like a good thing. 

David: Yeah, what's going on here, right? 

JR: Right. Yeah. Well yeah, I thought the same thing. I'm like, "Well, that, okay, that's good. That's a good report. Everybody's at peace." But it's almost like maybe a better English word, modern word would be complacent. Everybody is just complacent. 

They're in their regular routine. It's almost like the chaos is in the past and they're just becoming complacent again, which is what got them into the corruption the first time around. And so it's almost like everybody's just sitting quietly enjoying the fact that the world isn't burning down around them. 

And so maybe that's a better example of peace. What was your thought on that? 

David: Yeah, so the first thing I thought of, and we've run into this in the Book of Judges where Remember the 30 sons who rode 30 [00:20:00] white donkeys? 

JR: Oh yeah, sure. 

David: Sure, yeah, right? 

JR: Yeah. Yeah. 

David: They, they're not horses, they're donkeys. But when you understand that symbolism, that is the illusion of peace, right? That's what that meant, 

JR: Yeah. 

David: right? 

JR: Yeah, that's right. 

David: So, then you see these 30 sons riding 30 white donkeys, and they're going around talking about, "Well, everything's at peace." Well, un till their village gets overthrown and sacked, right? Because, there was this illusion of peace, but they weren't prepared. And so I think there's a couple things going on here. 

I think there's that aspect of it where Zechariah says, "Look, the reports coming back are, I like what you said, "The chaos has subsided," right? 

JR: Mm-hmm 

David: The Persian Empire has brought a level of peace in the region.  

JR: There's  

David: not these wars going on all the time, right? 

JR: Yeah. 

David: How prepared are we to maintain that peace, right? 

So one of the things that I think he's doing in this first [00:21:00] vision is the Angel of the Lord is saying, "Look, there is this kind of... maybe a better word is like ceasefire, right? There's this ceasefire going on. What are you, as the people of Jerusalem, as the exiles, what are you doing to rebuild? And the answer is nothing at the moment, right? 

JR: Yeah. 

David: it's 

JR: They're just enjoying the peace. 

David: Yeah, it's like, "Hey, we just got here. It was a long journey, you know? We just enjoyed not being at war." And Zechariah, I think, is going to come in and say, "That's great, but that time is over," right? Because let's not get caught off-guard with this illusion of peace, I'll say, during the ceasefire. 

JR: Okay 

David: That's the way I think this first vision kind of functions. 

JR: Yeah, it's hard to kinda pull all of this imagery together 'cause it was several things. I mean, it's everything from the color of the horses, we can get into that in a second. But also it's like, the myrtles. The myrtle tree? You know, sta- Yeah, they're standing in a [00:22:00] ravine, which is the opposite of a mountain. So just the symbology initially, before we get into the horses, is that we're in a ravine. We're the opposite of the mountain, right? 

We're among these myrtle trees. I had to look this up to see what the significance of that was, and apparently this is like a little scrubby bush. We've been in the Middle East, we've been into Greece, and it's covered by these small little... You've got the cedars of Lebanon, which are s- reaching toward the heavens, but then you've also got these scrubby bushes all over the place, that if you're hiking, you don't wanna get anywhere near them 'cause it's not like, it's not like grass. 

You're not making your way through it. Well, a myrtle is kind of a, it's kind of a small scrubby bush. And so it's sorta like this man that's standing in the ravine among the myrtles is creating this imagery that says, it's something like humility. You're in a low place, right? I mean, we're not in a good spot right now. And so the myrtle tree becomes... It's something like It's a humble shrub, right? And so, uh, every- that it's saying here is things are fragile, [00:23:00] things are kind of desolate, we're in this valley. 

And so it's kind of we're in this humble place. And when that's the picture that's being painted, to your point, it's like there may not be war going on, there may be peace, but look where we're at. We're sitting in a ravine of myrtles. It's like we don't wanna be here. We want back to the mountaintop. 

We're headed back to Zion. And so that's why that imagery's important. It's like saying this is where we're at, and it's a reminder of where we want to go to. 

David: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I also had this image as you were talking about the little scrubby bushes. I don't know if you remember this, it's probably happened more than once, but you and I saw a cave and we pulled off the side of the road. We said, "Oh, let's hike through this little scrubby field and go to that cave." And I don't know if you remember this, but our shoes were just covered in these thorns. 

JR: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was I think that was in Philippi. 

David: That was another... But yeah, my shoes were... I just threw them away before we got back on the plane, 'cause 

JR: Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. [00:24:00] And it was, I had those, yeah, 'cause I had those shoes on that kinda had a foam bottom, not Crocs. I wouldn't have worn Crocs, but you know, the sole of them had that spongy, it wasn't a solid sole. Oh my gosh. And I kept getting stabbed. So it was thick enough to go through that sole and stab me in the foot, and I'm like, " What are we do- Like, we're walking in a, a sea of nails." 

But they were brutal, man. 

David: Yeah. Anyway, I just had that image, a, a flashback of a couple of times when you were talking about that. But the white horses, okay? the horse colors. 

So, a white horse represents peace. Now, it's interesting 'cause a donkey represents peace and humility, but a white horse represents peace. 

A red horse represents battle. It's a war horse, okay? So it's interesting, 'cause you get the idea that the horse of peace comes back and says, "Yeah, everything seems fine," and the war horse goes out and comes back and says, "Hey, it's kinda boring out there," [00:25:00] right? 

JR: Yeah, I got nothing to do. 

David: Yeah. I don't know if you had a take on, I think they were brown horses. Is that right? 

JR: Well, okay, so some translations say brown or some say dappled, which is sort of like a spotted horse. I think, I think that's, yeah, kind of a multicolor horse. And so that one is kind of a little bit more enigmatic. It's sort of like I took it as sort of like a mixture of war and peace. 

It's a mixture of the two. It's a transitional horse, right? It's incomplete peace like what you, were saying, you know? 

David: Yeah 

JR: And so the the key idea is that these horses are patrolling history itself, right? And so this makes a connection to Revelation, the horsemen of the Apocalypse, you know, that imagery. 

And so when you look at horses and their colors and what they mean, it's kind of interesting that it flows across books. It means the same thing in Revelation as it does here in Zechariah. 

David: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so the point of this first vision really quick is [00:26:00] that there's a window of opportunity, right? 

JR: Right. Yeah 

David: Yeah so Egypt's not marching through. Babylon's fallen. Persia seems to be on our side for the moment, right? Momentarily at least. And so there's a moment of opportunity here. As we continue to move through Zechariah, this is what Zechariah's really gonna talk about. 

So really quick, in chapter two, verse one, I'll just read this real quick. He says, "Then I looked up, and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand. And I said, 'Where are you going?' He answered me, 'To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,' declares the Lord, 'and I will be its glory within.'" Okay, now that's a vision then of rebuilding Jerusalem. So Zechariah has moved from we have a window of opportunity here. Then the next vision is this man with the measuring line who says, "I'm going to measure Jerusalem," and I like this imagery, "and [00:27:00] I myself will be the wall of fire around it." They haven't rebuilt the wall yet.  

JR: Right. Well, okay, so, remember that the horsemen find that the world is at peace, and that sounds like a good thing, but Jerusalem is still in ruins, so God's upset by this. He's like, "Look, don't enjoy peace when the temple's destroyed." And so then we jump into this measuring line imagery, which I think is really interesting because I don't know. 

When I think about a person with a measuring line, I think the ancient world would've seen measuring a city as something like planning, rebuilding, creating order, right? It's, more than just we're taking some measurements. There's something very civil, civilization building, maybe that's a good way to say it, about when you go out and measuring. 

It's planning. It's getting things ready. But then it's interesting that they don't build a wall around it. That would've been absurd in ancient times to have a city without walls, and it even mentions because there's so n- what, there's a great [00:28:00] number of people or animals in it, right? 

That would've sounded insane because ancient cities depended on walls for survival, right? So walls represented protection and all those things. And so it's kind of this interesting image of first we're gonna measure, and the assumption is we're gonna, if we're measuring a city, we're planning on how to build a wall around it. 

But then God says, "No, I'm gonna be the wall, and the wall is gonna be a fire." Yeah. Do you wanna get into that imagery? 

David: Wow, there's a lot there. But okay, so you're right that an ancient city, especially the capital of a nation like Jerusalem, right, without a wall, you're a sitting duck, right? It's just a welcome mat for any invader who's gonna come through and sack the city. So yeah, the first thing to notice is that there is no wall. I just like the imagery. This ring of fire, it's like God's basically saying, "You're unprotected right now, but I'm going to be your protection until you get your act together enough to rebuild the [00:29:00] wall," right? 

JR: Yeah. No, that's, that's definitely the better way to see it. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: Yeah. Yeah, that's right 

David: And it was interesting 'cause I think you're exactly right, too. 

When you're ... Talk about a measuring line. This is basically planning the city again, right? I think of the story when Alexander the Great comes to Egypt and what is it? He sees this shoreline on this harbor, and he pours out some kind of, like, barley or I forget exactly what it was barley or corn or something. But he pours out the boundaries of this city that he's going to build, which becomes the city of Alexandria. 

JR: Right 

David: Right? But it's that same kind of thing, right? What is he doing when he's pouring out that substance to create the boundaries of the city? He's planning it, right? And the first thing you plan is the walls.  

JR: Becauase  

David: if you don't have walls, that city's not gonna last very long. 

JR: Right. Do you think that there's anything about the fact that this, in the vision that the city had no walls, do you think that there's [00:30:00] something in there that kind of implies that something like God's blessings isn't gonna be confined? It's almost like he's preparing them for, "Look, you think the city should be this big to contain everybody. 

I'm telling you it should have no walls because we're gonna continue going out." I'm trying to make a connection to kind of the messianic the future covenant is going to include the other nations. We're gonna get into this in Zechariah later, but it's sort of like with there's no walls, you're including other nations, in a realistic sense, of course that's absurd because you don't wanna do that. 

You, you're sitting ducks, like you said. But at the same time, if you're doing that fractal symbolism where this means not only are we rebuilding Jerusalem, but we're rebuilding the covenant itself, and we're gonna bring in outsiders, do you think that there's something about no wall that's pointing to that? 

Or am I just reaching? I don't know. I That's a little bit of what I got out of it. I just don't, don't have a good way to say it 

David: Yeah, there could be some-- It could be [00:31:00] saying the same thing, at the same time, right? It could be saying, "Look, the city doesn't have walls. You need to build walls. I will be your wall." But in this kind of, "I'll be a ring of fire around it," it could also be a vision of the messianic future, right? That in the ideal city, there won't be a wall. I don't know, but Revelation may talk about a wall. But I know in other places, God has said, "There won't be any sun because I will be that for you." So maybe there is a little bit of a vision of you have to build a wall in this temporal time, but yeah, in the messianic kingdom, there won't be a need for a wall. But we're not there yet, so you'd better build a wall. 

Something like that, yeah. 

JR: Right. Well, it just seems like that Zechariah is saying that kind of true security doesn't come from external structures, because that's one of the s- central themes of all the prophets, is that Israel repeatedly trusted in kings, armies and wealth, you know, temples, walls, [00:32:00] right? 

And all of them eventually failed. And Zechariah is saying the presence of God itself is going to be the protection. 

David: Is your best defense. 

JR: Yeah. Right.  

David: I think this gets into the next part where without the proper orientation to God, the physical structures don't mean much. You could see it this way, too. We can build a wall, but without the proper orientation to God, even the wall's gonna come tumbling down because it already has, right? 

It's happened before, during the first one. So there is this idea of let's build a wall, but also this image of, you know, we serve a God who can be this ring of fire to protect us. And then we have an impenetrable wall, right? There's a lot there.  

JR: Oh, I know. I mean, there's just connections to the burning bush and the pillar of fire in Exodus and Sinai, and even like at Pentecost, right? There was the fire in Pentecost. It's just there's so many connections there that, golly, we could dig [00:33:00] into all of them or we could actually have a hour-and-a-half podcast and move on. 

But you're right. This chapter is sort of a collapse of a worldview, meaning that after exile, the natural instinct is to build a stronger wall, right? That's how traumatized humans think. You know, pain makes people defensive, and so their initial reaction is, "Gotta build a wall, gotta build a bigger, stronger wall this time." 

And Zechariah, to your point, is saying, "Okay, listen. Yes, we do have to build a wall, but right now we have to plan for it. We have to do it the right way. Don't just start throwing rocks out there," right? It's like, "Don't let the trauma of captivity move you forward. Let's move forward in a different way." 

And he- so he's almost like he's kind of dismantling a little bit of a worldview right here. 

David: Yeah. And there may be a tendency, like you said, coming back from exile to panic, to go, "We have to do all this really fast." But I like what Zechariah's laying out here, is he's saying, "Look, I had this vision from God. We have [00:34:00] time. There's a window of opportunity here, but we have to take advantage of it. 

But we have time," right? There's 

JR: And in the meantime, God will be our defense. 

David: Yeah, yeah. 

JR: Yeah. 

David: No, that's cool imagery. 

JR: Yeah. Okay 

David: All right, so let's skip ahead to chapter three. This is another vision here, and we'll let people listen to chapter three, verses one through five. 

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?' Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 

The angel said to those who were standing before him, 'Take off his filthy clothes.' Then he said to Joshua, 'See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.' Then I said, 'Put a clean turban on his head.' So they put [00:35:00] a clean turban on his head and clothed him while the angel of the Lord stood by. 

David: Yeah, so the first thing to note in this vision is he sees Joshua the high priest, and he sees Satan, or the Satan, right, accusing the high priest. And what's notable here is that the hight priest Joshua is dressed in filthy clothes as he stands before the angel. All right? And the angel says, "Take off your filthy clothes and put on new garments." Now, the first thing to understand here is that this is not Joshua of the Old Testament, Joshua. Okay? This is actually a high priest at that time who was named Joshua, which been a common name, right? 

JR: Okay. Well, seems like they would've pointed that out. How do you know that? Out of curiosity, is that just... how do we know that? Does-- He doesn't point that out, does he? 

David: Okay, so I had to look this up. Ezra 2:2, so it's Ezra-Nehemiah, right? Same time. 

Ezra 2:2 lists Joshua as one of the leading high [00:36:00] priests of Jerusalem when they return to exile. So Ezra 2 says, "No, this is a guy. His name's Joshua," right? But then you have this whole interesting tie-in that what is the name Joshua? Well, it comes forward, it's basically the name Jesus. 

JR: Oh, sure. Yeah. 

David: Because in New Testament, right, the name Jesus is basically the name Yeshua, right? So you have this interesting picture of Joshua, who's actually the high priest at that time, but then he's standing accused before Satan, the angel rebukes Satan and says, "Put on these new garments." I don't know, I think that's interesting imagery, right? Of Jesus will become this great high priest, right, who will be accused by Satan and actually overcome. That's a whole different conversation we could have, but that is imagery there. But this is an actual high priest at the time named Joshua. 

JR: Okay. Well, I mean, your sounds like you're [00:37:00] more on point 'cause I saw Joshua-- I just saw you know, the high priest, so this would work either way. You know, 'cause the priest represents-- he symbolized the bridge between God and humanity, right? Heaven and Earth. And so when you see this high priest with these filthy clothes, it's almost like it was painting the picture that the priestly connection between God and humanity is corrupted, right? 

I mean, that's, that's the way I saw that, you know. That the, that the spiritual system is polluted, right? 

David: Yeah, yeah. I think you're right on track. So in this vision then, say what does this mean? Okay, so Zechariah has a vision of the priesthood itself, right? Not the temple, not the physical walls, but the priesthood itself wearing filthy clothes that needs to be cleansed.  

And so I think you're right on track here. What this vision is getting at is, again, we've talked about this theme all through Zechariah, is before we address the physical buildings, we have to address the [00:38:00] institutions themselves. 

JR: Yeah. Well, go back to Micah. One of Micah's criticisms was false prophets. And so I realize ... Well, the priesthood also, but he was pointing all this stuff out, the corruption in the priestly class that were looking, they were looking for confirmation from their false prophets. 

David: Yeah 

JR: Micah's already pointed this out. 

Hosea's already pointed this stuff out. And so, yeah, Zechariah's pointing out what they've already said in the past, right? That this institution is polluted. And to your point, we can't worry about building the institutions back until that's corrected, until that integral part is corrected. 

Who needs a temple if you've got corrupted priests there overseeing it? 

David: Yeah, that's right. And so the angel goes on to give the charge to Joshua, and he says, you know, "Look, if you'll walk in obedience to me, if you'll keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my court." So that's exactly what's going on here, right? Zechariah has this vision of before we [00:39:00] tackle the temple, we gotta tackle the priesthood, we've gotta leave all this crap behind in the past of corrupt priests, right, corrupt false prophets. And back to the very beginning. We've gotta correct the What the We've gotta correct the problems that our ancestors had, right? Or all this is gonna be for naught? 

JR: Yeah. Well, I thought it was interesting that he's got these filthy garments and he's still standing in God's presence, right? That's a kind of a shocking image because, you know, holiness is what's supposed to stand in the presence of God, and here's this guy, this bum. 

You know, if you wanna make another Odysseus reference, the king comes back in filthy rags and nobody recognizes him. But that's kind of the tension of this whole chapter is how does corrupted humanity survive before God's holiness? It's something like that. And then of course, God is the one who s- who takes off the filthy clothes. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: And that's an image of [00:40:00] removing the sin, removing the filth, right? 

So the cleansing comes from God, not Joshua. I thought that was an, that's another thing to pick up on, even though I thought that Joshua was you know, the Old Testament Joshua. Still works. The cleansing comes from God, not the priestly class, and this is something that's a change moving forward. 

David: And we're gonna see that play out in a couple visions from now. But yeah, I imagine as a result of this, probably Zechariah goes to the priests and says, "Look, we need to kind of re-dedicate everything," right? "We need to go through this cleansing process to make ourselves holy before God before we can even start talking about rebuilding physical buildings." 

JR: Yeah, that's right.  

David: Alright, let's move on. Chapter four is more visions because Zechariah has a lot of these visions, but let's skip ahead to chapter five. There's a couple here that I wanna talk about. We're gonna talk about chapter 5, verses five through eleven. But before that is the the [00:41:00] flying scroll. And I think you had some throughts on the vision of the flying scroll real quick. 

JR: Well, yeah, I had several things 'cause it-- that's kind of a strange image. Yeah, the flying scroll to me, it popped out as like, well, the scroll is kind of obviously something like God's truth, right? And it's flying, so it's no longer contained. It's no longer hidden, right? 

And so again, we're talking about corruption. So corruption that was tolerated privately is now publicly exposed, and that's gonna tie into this next image of the woman in the basket. But this scroll flying through the air kind of suggests that judgment is, A, unavoidable, and B, that it reaches everywhere. 

But the other thing that I thought was interesting about the scroll is that It was specifically 20 cubits long and 10 cubits wide. 

David: Right. 

JR: And so that's another one of those kind of weird-- If you're talking about a flying scroll, you're obviously speaking some metaphorically, but then it's weird to give such specific dimensions to a metaphor.[00:42:00]  

And so I looked that up. I'm like, "Okay, what else?" This is where AI is great. I just punched into AI, "Where in the Bible do you find 20 cubits by 10 cubits?" And it came up with Zechariah, obviously, but the only other place it came up was the porch of Solomon. So the porch of Solomon was specifically 20 cubits by 10 cubits, and that is historically where the scribes would read out, read out... 

They, they would stand on the porch of Solomon, and they would read to all the people the scriptures, right? That's where the scribe would... Yeah. And so th- so there's that connection that I don't think they would have missed. And the other connection that I found is that's the specific dimensions of the holy place. 

Not the Holy of Holies, but the holy place. And so, imagine the tabernacle is a certain dimensions. You got the Holy of Holies, which is the inner sanctum, but then outside is the holy place. That's where the Ark of the Covenant was. That was where the cherubim on either side. I think there's a connection there to [00:43:00] the olive trees on either side. 

What I'm trying to say, and I wish I'd written some of this stuff down, is that I think there's a clear connection that people reading Zechariah would've picked up on, and the scroll is not only God's word or God's judgment flying to all the reaches of the earth, it was in this pattern of the holy place. 

There's all these connections to the old tabernacle. And so the way I view this, and again, this is just me kind of digging a little bit. Hindsight is 20/20, so when we're looking back on ancient prophecies, knowing through the lens of Christ and Christianity and the crucifixion, things like that, I look at that as almost like the tabernacle has flown away. 

The necessary place where you go to the priests and have your sins ab- absolved has turned into this flying scroll that flies to the ends of the earth. And again, that's kind of, I'm pr- uh, maybe reaching, I... but I don't think I am. I think that [00:44:00] it's one of those things that in hindsight, all that ties together with the new covenant and the coming of Jesus. 

David: I like the idea that the dimensions fit Solomon's porch basically where the scripture would be read, right? 

JR: Yeah 

David: And so when you were saying that, that 20 by 10, I was thinking, "Well, that's kind of the layout of a lot of temples," right? They'd be twice as wide as they are long, something like that, right? 

JR: Yeah, the two to one ratio. 

David: Yeah, the 2:1 ratio, yeah. So I like that image. So I could see how, yeah, the flying scroll ... And look, this temple's probably destroyed, right? So the flying scroll represents maybe a, of embodiment of what the temple was supposed to be, and so you see the scroll that goes throughout all the world. And I- it's interesting too, it says, "I will enter the houses of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name." 

So that's the scroll that's judging, right? 

JR: Right. Yeah, that's the judgmental aspect of it. 

David: Yeah. So I- yeah, that's really cool. That makes sense. I didn't get the whole, like, 2:1 [00:45:00] ratio, but yeah, that's exactly what it's talking about. 

JR: Well, and this is why I said at the beginning, I was like, "Dude, how are we gonna cover this? There's so much." I mean, and there's a dozen of these things. So anyway. Okay, so right after the flying scroll, moving on, is the woman in the basket. I, and I had, I had trouble with that one. You seemed to have a little bit better take on, on what that represented. 

David: Yeah, let's let people listen to that one so they can fully appreciate it, and then yeah, I'll give my take on that. 

Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, 'Look up and see what is appearing.' I asked, 'What is it?' He replied, 'It is a basket.' And he added, 'This is the iniquity of the people throughout the land.' Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman. He said, 'This is wickedness,' and he pushed her back into the basket and pushed its lead cover down on it. 

Then I looked up, and there before me were two women with the wind in their wings. They had wings like those of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between [00:46:00] heaven and earth. 'Where are they taking the basket?' I asked the angel who was speaking to me. He replied, 'To the country of Babylonia to build a house for it. 

When the house is ready, the basket will be set there in its place.'  

JR: Okay, so we have this image of the angel that comes forth, a woman in a basket, and this isn't like a wicker basket 'cause it has a lead top to it. And so it's more like a, a, concrete or maybe even a lead bowl with a lead top on it. 

And the top is taken off and you see this woman inside, and her name is Wickedness, and so they have to stuff her back in the basket and put it on, and then these angels carry it off. Help me out here 'cause I was a little bit lost on this one. 

David: Yeah. It's such a strange vision, right? And so many of these visions are. It's like my dreams after I've had chicken wings or something like that. 

JR: Oh, yeah, yeah. I read that and felt like I just woke up with 104-degree [00:47:00] fever. 

David: Yeah, so, think about what Zechariah's been talking about, right? He's talking about cleansing the priesthood, to your point, the scroll that goes out and judges, right? So Zechariah is still on this track of, look, we have to cleanse ourselves, we have to cleanse the institutions before we can move forward with actually building structures, right? 

So what this is, I think, is the woman who represents wickedness, right? 

It's almost like symbolically she represents the sins of the people. You could even think of it the sins of the ancestor. And so what God is doing here in this vision, he's saying, "I'm gathering all this up." It's in this personification of this woman in a basket. And notice where he takes it. He takes it to the country of Babylonia. So he takes it back to Babylon, right? 

JR: Oh, wow. Okay. That's Shinar, right? Yes.  

David: So what he's doing then is he's taking all the sins of the people [00:48:00] who are now inhabiting Jerusalem, the sins of the ancestors, and he's basically saying, "I'm wiping the slate clean. Now is a chance for a new beginning because I'm gonna take all their sins, and I'm going to take it back to Babylon," right? Now, again, the woman in the basket going back to Babylon, what image is that, right? It's the 

JR: The, the whore of Babylon. Yes. Okay. Well, I-- okay, so that's one thing I was graphing. I was like, "Okay, why is it a woman?" And then it's clearly says two women angels carry her back. And so I was like, "What's, what's the feminine? What are they trying to grab here?" But that's exactly it. It's the whore of Babylon imagery is what they're doing. 

And so if, I can push back on your idea that wickedness is the sin of the people, you could also say that she represents the culture of Babylon still living within the freed Judeans, you know, Israelites, right? You can't rebuild a holy city while secretly carrying Babylon inside of you. 

David: [00:49:00] Yeah, that's true. Like all the sins they bring from Babylon, whether it's bad habits, whether it's idol worship, right? Whether it's who knows what the people were into. We talked about this, and we'll get to it probably again, but this idea of just because you return from exile doesn't mean you live like a free person, right? I imagine there's this whole psychology of saying, "Stop living like an exile even though you're free living in Jerusalem." And so, that could also be captured in this idea. It's like we gotta get rid of all this junk, this baggage that we're carrying around, right? So let God cleanse it, let God take it up, and let Him take it back to Babylon where it belongs. 

JR: Yeah, that's so interesting because that's a modern issue that we talk about is when you go through some kind of trauma, if you had a horrible childhood, if you went to war, have PTSD, you may be out of the situation, you may be back from war. Whoever was doing the abuse to you as a child, that [00:50:00] person may be gone, but you still carry that within you. 

And so the next step, first step is to get ourselves out of this terrible situation. The second step is to get the terrible situation out of us. And so he's kind of laying out a little bit of a modern idea of psychology and psychological trauma that we have to get rid of before we can move forward. 

David: No, yeah, that's exactly right. 

Yeah, how many times do you see people from a certain country, right, freed from a dictator, or freed from a really oppressive regime. And it's almost like you have to, like, have patience with that next generation to say, "Here's what it actually means to live free. You don't live under that dictatorship or that oppressive regime anymore," right? 

And so I think that's a little bit of what's going on here with this really interesting vision of the woman in the basket. 

JR: No, that's really helpful because now those two visions, the scroll and the woman in the basket, kind of tie together as part of this overall process of these are the steps it takes to [00:51:00] rebuild. And to what we said at the beginning, you don't just waltz into the promised land. You have to go through the wilderness. 

You have to kind of learn what it takes for the new generation to accept this new promise, this new covenant that they're moving into. And so, yeah, okay, that's starting to pull together a little bit. 

David: The other thing I'll say too about, because it is this strange detail about she says it's a basket, right? And you think wicker basket, but then it's got this lead top on it.  

JR: And  

David: I just think that indicates, like, the finality of it being sealed away, right? 'Cause if it's a basket, she can just get out, right? Or, you know, it's like if a wicker basket doesn't really hold water, right? 

But if it's like this lead container almost, it, it's almost like, gosh, what was it at Chernobyl? They had to seal the whole thing in this unbelievable concrete thing. So it is being sealed for all eternity, right? It will not get out anymore, the [00:52:00] radiation. And I think that's the image I got with this, like, lead top on this basket, right? It's not getting out anymore. 

JR: Yeah. It's funny you say that 'cause I thought the same thing. It's like, man, this is kind of crazy that they use the term lead because now I think of lead, if you're in a lead room or a lead-lined room, no signals can get in and get out. Y- your phone isn't gonna work. And I was like, man, that's kind of a crazy ancient idea that they captured that lead seals. 

It's obviously got weight to it, but also there's a sealing effect to it. And oh man, my love for conspiracies jumps into the whole, the ark was some sort of radioactive energy transmitter and you had to seal it in lead or else the people are gonna ... You know, I love all that stuff. 

But I did read that and think, man, that's kinda wild. How did they how did the ancients kind of understand the process of lead? Because you can take this, and this is not me... Well, I guess it is me taking the 21st century and projecting it [00:53:00] back on that verse, but there's something about me that says, yeah man, you gotta seal off those outside signals. 

You've got to cut yourself off from that phone in your hand. You've gotta not be a slave to text messages and y- you know, the internet and all that. It, like, carries that 21st century vibe to it and I don't know. Of course that's not the intent, but I just, th- that's where my mind goes. 

David: Well, but there is something about let's take the sins of the people, let's put it back in Babylon, and let's cut ties with it, right?  

JR: Yeah, send Babylon back to Babylon. 

David: I think it's like, man, leave Babylon behind. Some of you who are physically here in Jerusalem, you've never left Babylon though, right? You're still hung up. We, we would say that, right? You're still carrying your old habits. You're carrying what might be a couple generations now of, you know, familial wounds from being exiled, right? And it's like, let's just seal that up and forget about it, and it's done before we can move forward. 

JR: Yeah, there is definitely a [00:54:00] 21st century sermon in those verses. You know? I mean, a good pastor can take that, just those verses and run with it. Have a whole series on it. 

David: And so, to kind of summarize to this point, Zechariah is saying we have a window of opportunity, but he hadn't talked about building anything yet, right? He's talking about cleansing the priesthood. He's talking about the scroll that goes through and judges. He's talking about taking the sins of the people, so it's like cleansing and purifying the people. Leave that back in Babylon. And it's so interesting to me that this is the pattern he's laying out, before we can even talk about going down to Home Depot and start building stuff again. 

JR: Yeah. 

David: We've got to get our mind right. We've got to get our spiritual life right. We got to get our psyche right. 

JR: Yeah, this is the Mr. Miyagi, yeah, the Mr. Miyagi moment, you know. It's like, "When am I, when are you gonna teach me how to punch?" He's like, " we're not even close to that. We're not, I'm, I'm not teaching you how to fight. You gotta learn defense, you gotta learn balance, all those things," right? So yeah, Zechariah is a [00:55:00] bit of a Miyagi figure here. 

David: That's true. That's a good way to put it. "I got my new hammer, dude. When are we gonna talk about building stuff," right? And Zechariah's like, we're not there yet. Go 

JR: Yeah, put it up. Yeah. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: I'd paint my fence. I love it. 

So like you said, he's building-- he's trying to build a framework for how do we rebuild the temple? 

How do we rebuild our culture? How do we rebuild society? And that's not, like you said, you're not gonna run out to Home Depot right now. We gotta prepare ourselves to it. So the next several chapters, it kinda continues along this line. We said at the beginning, there's just no way to, like, dive into every aspect of this. 

But one of the things I didn't want to miss in Zechariah was sort of the messianic prophecies, the things that we look back at in the 21st century as, "Oh, man, that's just such a clear image of Jesus." And that's in what is that? 

That's chapter nine. Do we wanna jump there? Let's go there. 

David: Yeah, yeah. Let's jump ahead to [00:56:00] this messianic vision that all the prophets seem to get to. 

JR: Okay, so let's go to chapter nine, verses nine through 13, and then we'll let everybody listen to it, and that way we can kind of dig into this messianic prophecy on the other side. 

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. 

His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope. Even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. 

I will rouse your sons, [00:57:00] Zion, against your sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword. 

JR: Okay, so as you listen to that, right away you kinda catch that image. I'm sure nobody missed it. See, your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey." All right, so that's just a clear image of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a j- donkey. But you're saying there's a lot more there than just that little reference. 

David: Yeah, so it starts with that, which again, this is quoted in some of the gospels in the New Testament because they recognized it. They started quoting Zechariah, right? So Matthew chapter 21, John chapter 12, they both reference this idea of this is what we're supposed to look for in a Messiah. And so I think we talked about in Micah, it said it's gonna come from the line of David. He's gonna come from Bethlehem, which is the outside, right? It's the unimportant place. It's not the center of power. So here you have another piece of the puzzle here. So your coming [00:58:00] king is going to come riding on a donkey, lowly and riding on a donkey, okay? That's a great image, especially when you tie it back to the, maybe the war horses of his first image, right? 

He sent war horses around the world that said, "Yeah, now's a good opportunity to rebuild." And now you see their ultimate Messiah/king riding in on a donkey, which is, of course, yeah, Jesus entering Jerusalem in hindsight, right? 

JR: Genuine peace, yeah. 

David: Yeah, genuine peace, not this false sense of peace. 

And, to play off that imagery then, the rest of that section that was just read, it makes sense then of what it says. 

"I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem. The battle bow will be broken." Why is he saying all that? He's saying that because when the true Messiah comes and establishes God's kingdom and brings true peace, you won't need all this stuff. You don't need your chariots. 

You don't need war horses, right? You don't need bows. He will [00:59:00] proclaim peace to all the nations. And so this is the vision of the ultimate future, right? God's messianic kingdom that the other prophets have talked about as well. 

JR: Yeah, and to go back to the expectation of a wall, the very first thing when you're out of captivity is we need to build a city and we need to build a wall. And, you know, it's saying, "Nope, no walls yet. God's gonna protect us, this ring of fire." And it's sort of the same worldview that Zechariah's inverting. 

He's saying what do we need after we get a wall? What do we need after we get our city established? Well, we need an army. We need war horses. We need people to go out and, and protect us. We need people to meet people at the gate. And it's like, nope, we're gonna have you know, your king is gonna ride in on a donkey. 

You know, so he, the Messiah is gonna come not as Caesar, right? It's gonna be the anti-Caesar. And so that's the image that he's throwing out there. Again, with our hindsight, it's so obvious, but at the time, the mentality of a captive person is, "No, we, we need protectors. We need [01:00:00] warriors. We need walls. We need all these things that need to be established," and Zechariah's kind of inverting all that. 

David: Yeah. This also ties back to that idea of this ring of fire where God says, "I will protect you while you go through the hard part of processing all this. Heal while you plan." Right? And so again, part of the ultimate messianic future is you won't need a wall. I'm there to protect you, right? And ultimately, there won't be anything to protect you from because God will have driven out all your enemies, right?  

JR: so ... 

Right 

David: you know, what a great thing to not need walls anymore, right? 

JR: Yeah, exactly 

David: and yeah. Yeah, so again, I, Gosh, I kinda knew it was the case, but I really have come to appreciate how every prophet builds up to this picture of a messianic future, right? There's stuff we have to do today, but we have to keep in mind of the ultimate vision, right? 

It's like we have to keep our vision aimed upward to where all [01:01:00] this will lead one day. 

JR: Yeah. All right, and so let me throw you a little bit of a rabbit trail question. We always say when we talk about Jesus coming in on a donkey, that the Israelites were expecting a warrior king to defeat Rome. When you have all this imagery in the Old Testament that lays this out, almost just, it's just throwing it in your face. 

It's such a glaring revelation that once it happens, why would anybody in Israel at the time have expected a warrior king? You know what I mean? 

David: Yeah. Well, first because Rome was in charge, so it's like how is God's Messiah going to reign if he doesn't overthrow Rome? I think that was probably the biggest thing. 

JR: Yeah, who's gonna take out a bully other than a bigger bully? 

David: Yeah. 

JR: Right. 

David: Right. Just because he rides in on a donkey, that's not going to impress Rome. And, you know, when you look back then at the life of Jesus and the whole way he enters Jerusalem and that whole Holy Week there, obviously there's something a lot more going on than overthrowing Rome, [01:02:00] right? He's ushering in a kingdom will have its ultimate fulfillment later in time. But yeah, I think that's probably the biggest thing. So in the Old Testament, they were building a picture of what this Messianic future or this Messianic figure would look like. But also, no one just sits there and writes it all down and says, "All right. Here's the checklist," you know? 

We do that in hindsight. But yeah, I think the main thing is that well, how are you gonna get past Rome unless you have a warrior to come in and overthrow, right? 

JR: Yeah 

David: 'Cause that's what had happened before. You go back to, gosh, Go back to the Maccabeans, right? the generations before Jesus comes on the scene, right? 

You had these people who looked almost messianic the Maccabeans, who established rule away from Rome. Didn't last long, but that's what happened, right? 

JR: Yeah. 

David: So, I think they were having this expectation of, "Well, the next guy's gonna be like that, only this time he's gonna finish the job." Something like that, right? 

JR: Well, one of the things [01:03:00] that I'm picking up from the prophets is our inability to see the long view. We're always seeing what's right in front of us. It's like, how are we gonna defeat Rome? It's not gonna be a guy riding in on a donkey. How are we gonna get rid of the corruption in our government? 

Well, it's not gonna be letting these more wicked government of Babylon come in and take us over. It's always this wrestling with what's right in front of us instead of seeing the long picture. And so I guess maybe sort of a 2026 observation maybe is that the next time you worry about, is AI gonna take over the world? 

How in the world can we fight the corruption in government? Both sides, Republican and Democrat, they're all corrupt. I mean, how are we gonna change this? There's wars, there's rumors of wars. You know, it's all this kind of chaos right in front of us. And one thing that you kinda learn through the prophets is A) there's a pattern to all this and a process to go through each section of the pattern. [01:04:00] But B) stop having such a shortsighted view. Start to view things through the eyes of God, who a day is like a thousand years. And so who the next president is, I promise you, is just a drop in the bucket, and He's not worried about that. 

You know, and start looking for the patterns. Start looking for the Messiah coming in on a donkey. You know, you may be looking for who's gonna overthrow Rome when from the 21st century looking back, we look at that and say, "Man, that was s- such a clear ushering in of the Messiah. How did they miss it?" You know? 

Well, they're dealing with their world. They're dealing with what's right in front of them. They're dealing with their taxes next year. They're dealing with whether they're gonna have their property seized, and that's the problem that's in front of them. But obviously, when you're on God's timeframe, it's a whole different set of issues that you're looking at. 

David: Yeah. It's such a difficult perspective to hold when, you know, you've got a short life and there's so much chaos in the world and you wanna fix it. Again, I think sometimes we lose sight that this is the way the [01:05:00] world is until God's kingdom fully comes, right? But we wanna fix it now. We wanna usher it in now, right? 

So we have to fix all these problems and that's not the way this really works, and that's what the prophets keep coming back to. 

JR: Yeah, and when we say we want divine answers and divine intervention, what we mean is we want divine intervention for what's right in front of us, and that's not the timeline that the divine lives with. You know what I mean? And so that's another kind of way of viewing that. It's like, man, all I'm worried about is can my kids afford a house or a- am I adequately prepared for retirement or, all these little short frame ideas. 

And so we ask for divine help in those things, and you're right. It's probably good to remember that, man, that's a whole different timeline you're asking, you're asking for. 

David: Well, I just had this thought of, you know when you were in elementary school and some bully knocked your schoolbooks out from under your arm or something like that, right? And in that moment, that seemed like the worst, most [01:06:00] humiliating thing that could ever happen, right? 

JR: Oh yeah, sure 

David: how is the world ever gonna recover from this, right? 

Or you, you break your arm ' cause you fell down, right? And you're like, I can't even see the future. And of course, I say that because we look back now and you go uh, such a little blip on the radar, and you move past it and go on. And I think sometimes our view of the world politically, socially, is kinda like that third-grader who goes, "Man, this is the end of the world. how can I recover from this?" Right? And you look back and you go, "You'll be fine. The world goes on." Right? This, too, you will survive, right? 

JR: Yeah. Well, when we went to Europe as kids, I forget exactly where we went, but I was like 10. The weekend we were leaving, I was upset because a good friend's birthday party was going on, and I was gonna miss it. You know? But you talk about just no perspective. I was truly upset on the plane. 

I was thinking, "Oh, you know, why did we have to go to Europe on a Saturday? Why couldn't we g- have waited one day? I [01:07:00] could've gone to the party," you know. But you're right, you know, it's like everything, everything is the end of the world when you're that age. And I guess when you're our age, it doesn't get any better. 

We think it's better, but we still have that shortsighted view. 

David: Yeah, that's right. 

JR: Ah. 

David: That's funny. All right, so let's wrap this up but I wanna hit a couple more specific verses here. And again, we're gonna jump ahead real quick. But there's another piece of this puzzle of what the Messiah will look like, 'cause in chapter 12 verse 10, I'll read this real quick. He says, "I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication." This is God talking to Zechariah, by the way. Says, "They will look on me," and then it says, "On the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." Such an odd detail, right? Of basically God saying, "They will look at me," and then say, "The one they have [01:08:00] pierced." Again, it's one of those little clues that it's like, why would he say that? 

JR: Right 

David: Of course, the Son of God is pierced on the cross. 

JR: Sure. 

David: And it's just another little interesting piece. I wanted to be sure and call that out.  

JR: Well, it's, I think kind of what it's saying is that God will ultimately defend Jerusalem, but the people have to first recognize the one that they pierced. Which is just so fascinating. But it is so obvious 'cause that really is it, what he's saying. It's like God will defend Jerusalem, but only after you accept the one who's been pierced. 

David: Okay, Maybe this is where you should go, because it's so interesting because we just talked about this vision of a warrior king riding in, and no, it's a guy on a donkey, and then he takes it a step further and says, and oh, by the way, you're going to pierce him before you actually..." Right? 

JR: Right. Yeah, absolutely. 

David: Like he's not going to come take over. He's going to get wounded by you almost. That's almost what it's saying here. 

JR: Sure. And [01:09:00] once you recognize that, then God is gonna defend Jerusalem in the way you think he's... Then the ring of fire, that's where the wall of fire is gonna come about. 

David: Yeah 

JR: Yeah, that is so fascinating. I mean, it's so clear once you understand, I mean, just symbolism 101 basically. And then it's almost like you gotta wade through 14 chapters of this to kind of pick out those pieces and create the puzzle that, yeah, that's exactly what he's saying. 

He's saying the wall will-- don't worry about the wall right now. God's gonna protect you for now. But you have to recognize that your Messiah is, A, not gonna be a warrior. He's coming in on a donkey. He's coming in on a peaceful animal. And B, that you're gonna pierce him, and until you recognize that he's the one you pierced, then you're still gonna be looking for your warrior king. 

You're still gonna be looking for your war horse answer to it. 

David: Yeah, that's so interesting. So it's almost like Zechariah's-- he's rebuilding the future vision, right? So he's rebuilding the [01:10:00] priesthood. He's rebuilding some of the systems. He's helped healing the people, but now he's rebuilding and giving them the proper messianic vision of the future. 

Because I could imagine there's a tendency for people coming away from exile, like you were saying, is, " Our next Messiah better be," right, "like Samson reincarnate," right? 

He better be a strong man with a huge army so this doesn't happen again." And Zechariah comes in, and it's like, " Let me rebuild the vision of the future again, a guy riding on a horse. 

And in fact, you're going to pierce him before you truly understand what's going to happen. But if you're truly gonna usher in peace, it's not gonna be with a warrior. It's not gonna be with a strong king you think it's going to be, right? It's gonna be through this Messiah." That's such a cool vision.  

JR: Yeah. And it's also just that reminder, man, before you rebuild a nation, you need to rebuild your expectations. Let's start off with where we're going. Before we lay the first brick, we have to know where we're headed. [01:11:00] And yeah, that's just a timeless message. 

David: Yeah, All right, one more verse and then we can wrap things up and get final thoughts. Let's skip ahead to chapter 14. "On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it to the east to the Dead Sea, and half to the west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter. And the Lord will be King over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord and His name the only name." Right? So that's kind of this final completed vision of the Messianic future. 

And again, it's the vision of peace, right? There's one King of the earth, no more competing kings. I love the imagery too, the symbolism of the water flowing out, which it's watering the land, right? 

JR: Yeah. Living water, right? I mean, it's, the living water as opposed to the sea, and we've pointed that out before. The sea represents chaos, and so when in Revelation, John says there was no sea. It doesn't mean there wasn't an ocean or anything like that. 

It just meant that the chaos is gone and it's being supplemented. It's [01:12:00] being replaced by this living water, you know, which is a river. There's a difference symbolically between a river and the ocean. And so it's being fed by this river, this living water that's going not just east but west. I think that's kind of interesting. 

It's going out two different directions. It's watering all the nations essentially. And to go back to Genesis where we talked about the 70 nations, and we're dividing them all up, and Israel's gonna be my nation. It's almost like It's an invitation for all the nations to come in now, and that's another thing that we haven't really touched on, but Zechariah does, talks about other nations. 

And so it's not just the nation of Israel that's God's people now. It's the invitation to all nations, Jew and Gentile. 

David: Yeah, to come participate in this kingdom, right? 

JR: Right. Right. Yeah, we're not an isolationist group anymore. Yeah 

David: No, I've really gotten I don't know, the more I talk through this even live as we're talking is I almost see Zechariah almost as a therapist, right? Of going, " [01:13:00] Let's 

JR: The Jordan Peterson of his day 

David: "Let's talk about let's talk through this because before we pick up a hammer and nail, you gotta get your head right. And we talked before we hit record, we talked about this mentality of the exile, even though they're free now in Jerusalem. Stop living in that mentality that you're still in exile. And I really think Zechariah is the prophet who kind of walks them through psychologically how to heal, and now we're ready to move forward and, you know, build the wall that Ezra and Nehemiah are gonna talk about.  

JR: Yeah. And you would think that if you're in captivity, you're just thrilled to be free and, and out of exile. But he's pointing out, man, you guys are holding on to Babylon. When you're in captivity, you know, it's that whole Stockholm syndrome that you start sympathizing with the person that took you captive, and it's almost like Zechariah's kind of pointing some of those things out, too. 

It's like, man, we gotta get rid of this before we move forward. You can't be sympathizing with Babylon. Let's load that [01:14:00] lady up in the basket and seal her in the lead basket and move her. Send her home, right? You know, we're not bringing her with us. You're not bringing this baggage with us. 

There's just so many, you're right, there's so many psychological ideas and layers to what he's saying that once you pick it out, it's like, yeah, I think he was the Freud of his time a little bit. The Carl Jung. 

David: Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, he really does play that role where other prophets are talking about repentance. We gotta build a wall. We gotta build a temple," right? I now picture him as having a very soothing voice. You know, like, "Friends, we've got a lot of healing to do before we tackle all that. So, gather around, hold hands," right? "Let's talk through this." Like, that's 

JR: Yeah. 

David: that's 

JR: Yeah, Micah had a, Micah had a booming voice. He was intimidating. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: Joel, he was saying the locusts are coming, you know? So he, he had a, loud, you know, intimidating voice. But you're right, not Zechariah. 

David: Well, I hope in this series that we've seen the very different voices that all the different minor prophets have. [01:15:00] And look, we only covered probably not even half of them, 

JR: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we didn't really even do justice to Zechariah. 

David: Yeah, there was so much there. 

JR: Yeah 

David: All right, so where are we headed next? 

JR: Summer break. Disneyland, right? Isn't that where we're headed? Yeah, we- we're on break for a couple weeks. 

David: Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna take a break in July is what we always do. So if you're listening live with us as we release these, we're gonna take a break in July and then come back in August with a new series. Here's what we're gonna do in July. We released a couple of other fairy tales on YouTube. Called them, you know, YouTube exclusives. But we're going to download the audio to those, and we're gonna release those on our regular schedule. So we're not gonna be live in July, but you're gonna be able to hear a couple of these fairy tales that if you haven't checked out our YouTube channel, you'll be able to listen to and hopefully enjoy. 

I think they're pretty cool 

JR: Yeah, I mentioned, uh, Rumpelstiltskin, which is one of them. 

Some fans of the show, and they were like, "What? What? I, I never s- [01:16:00] that wasn't in your fairy tale series." And I'm like, "Dude, you gotta go to our YouTube channel." And there's a lot of visual stuff, so it would be preferable to watch it on YouTube. But if you're you know, listen to podcasts while you work, while you work out, whatever, the audio will be fine. If you want a little bit more depth, hit the YouTube channel and take a look. 

 But yeah, otherwise, have a great summer. 

David: Yeah. We'll see you in August then. 

JR: Yep, sounds good