Zechariah: Odd Visions, Puzzling Statements, Messiah Peeks Out, God Wins Chapter 4 – the Lampstand and the Trees (The Messiah, the Spirit, and the Two Sons)
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Zechariah: Odd Visions, Puzzling Statements, Messiah Peeks Out, God Wins Chapter 4 – The Lampstand and the Trees (The Messiah, the Spirit, and the Two Sons) Introduction : Now we come to the fifth vision. There is a structure to the grammatical text of this vision: The Introduction verse 1 The Vision verses 2-3 The First Question verse 4 Do you not know? verse 5 The Answer verse 6-7 A Companion Message to Zerubbabel verses 8-10 The Second and Third Questions verses 11-12 Do you not know? verse 13 The Answer verse 14 Unlike the chiastic structures we saw in lessons 1 and 3, here the structure is clear parallelism. The Vision (vs. 2-3): There is a golden menorah (the Hebrew word) with a bowl on top (literally its “head”) with seven lamps and seven pipes to the lamps. And there are two olive trees, one on its right and one on its left. To get a picture of this vision, the bowl is equal to or above the lights and would be filled with oil. The oil would flow from this golden bowl through the golden pipes to the golden lamps. The bowl itself, as we find from verse 12, is apparently fed by golden pipes that have receptacles which collect golden olive oil from the two trees. But what does this all mean? The Interpretation (vs. 6-7): The angel answers Zechariah's inquiry as to the meaning with these words: “Not with strength of resources and not with strength of vigor, but with My Spirit, says Yahweh of the armies. Who are you great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And the head stone shall be brought forth with shoutings: “Grace, Grace to it!” The background to this message is as follows. Seventeen years previously, Zerubbabel had left his home in Babylon and led a ragtag group of Jews back to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:1). Two years later he made an attempt to build the temple (Ezra 3:8) but opposition arose (Ezra 4:1-2), his opponents sent a letter to the king (Ezra 4:11-22), and the project was forcefully stopped (Ezra 4:23-24). This was not a pleasant experience for Zerubbabel. Now, at the instruction of Haggai and Zechariah he began to build again (Ezra 5:1-2). Again opposition arises (Ezra 5:3) and another letter is written to the king identifying by name those building the temple, undoubtedly including himself as the ringleader (Ezra 5:8-17). Zerubbabel was discouraged. The angel gets right to the point. We might expect the angel to tell Zechariah that the menorah is “x” and the trees are “y” and this means “z.” But the angel jumps directly to “z” and only later fills in “x” and “y.” The meaning is this: The work of God is not dependent on resources nor vigor. The Hebrew words used here for “might” and “power” as the verse is generally translated, are two close Hebrew synonyms; but to the extent they shade in different directions, the two shades reference strength as it relates first to resources and then to vigor. So what happens when our resources are spent and our vigor is gone? What does this mean for the work of God. The answer is surprising. Our lack or resources and our lack of vigor does not diminish God's ability to accomplish His work. To the contrary, our inability creates 2 the pathway for His ability. God's work is not begun with our resources or our vigor, it is not sustained by our resources or our vigor, and it is not completed by our resources or our vigor. It is begun, sustained, and completed solely by the Spirit of God working through willing people. And any work not begun, sustained, or completed by the Spirit is not God's work. This is the message to Zerubbabel. The presence of the Spirit is critical to the work of God. When God gave instructions to build the tabernacle in the wilderness, we find that He filled individuals with His Spirit to accomplish the work (Exodus 28:3; 31:3). When David desired to build the first temple, it was the Spirit of God who provided the plans (1 Chronicles 28:11-12). When God needed a man to lead His people out of bondage, He placed His Spirit on Moses (Numbers 11:17, 25). When God needed a man to lead His people into the promised land, He filled Joshua with His Spirit (Numbers 27:18; Deuteronomy 34:9). When God set about to rescue His people from their enemies, He sent His Spirit to the judges and to king Saul (Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Samuel 11:6). When God found a man after His own heart, He placed His Spirit upon David to rule His people (1 Samuel 16:13). The work of Jesus began only after the Spirit came on Him (Luke 4:14-15). And, when Jesus went away, He gave express instructions to His followers to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). These are not mere coincidences in Scripture. If the Master waited for the Spirit to begin His work, relied on the Spirit to do His work, and completed His work by the Spirit (Hebrews 9:14), how much more do we need to learn lives of dependency on the Spirit of God? God's Spirit is God's key to God's work. Thus, the meaning of the menorah and the trees is that the work of God relies on the Spirit. Four months earlier, Zerubbabel specifically had been told to take courage because “My Spirit stands in your midst” (Haggai 2:5). Though the Jews had no resources and they had no vigor (they were discouraged and worn out), they had the Spirit of the living God, and He is sufficient for His people to perform His work. The mountain, almost all commentators agree, represents opposition or difficulties, or perhaps Gentile powers (Jeremiah 51:25; Amos 6:1). Mountains becoming plains is a Messianic idea (Isaiah 40:3-5). Jesus tied the idea of moveable mountains to faith (Matthew 17:20; 21;21). Implicit in this entire passage, and perhaps more explicit in Ezra and Haggai, Zerubbabel was a man of faith. Though previously thwarted, at the word of God Zerubbabel by faith again began the task of building the temple. And the mountain become a plain. The letter from Zerubbabel's adversaries reached king Darius. Darius sent a letter back to the adversaries commanding them to provide the resources that were needed to build the temple and to maintain Jewish worship (Ezra 6:1-12). And they did so (Ezra 6:13-15). The mountain truly had become a plain! But there is more. Zerubbabel would finish the temple and place the capstone (literally in Hebrew the “chief stone”). Only one other place in the Old Testament do we find the word “chief” modifying “stone.” David spoke of a stone that would become chief in Psalm 118:22: We generally translate this as “chief cornerstone,” and this may be right. It is certainly true that the word “corner” in Psalm 118:22 is elsewhere also used of Christ in Isaiah 28:16 in reference to a cornerstone in a foundation. But translating the Hebrew word “corner” as a “cornerstone” is not the only possible meaning of that Hebrew word. The word translated “corner” can also mean stones up high (Zephaniah 1:16 --“high towers”; Exodus 27:2 – fastening places for the horns of the altar). Thus, it is equally possible to translate Psalm 118:22 to represent the top corner piece of a structure, a capstone. The Psalm 118:22 passage is quoted in Matthew 21:42. The Greek word used in Matthew 21:42 is as ambiguous as the Hebrew word, and can be translated either as 3 a cornerstone or a keystone. You will find translations going both ways on the meaning of these words. Here, given that the foundation had already been laid (Haggai 2:18), it seems most appropriate to read this chief stone as the capstone. Such also ties in well with verse 9 where Yahweh says that Zerubbabel will finish the temple. And there would be great celebration. The word used for “grace” is the Hebrew word we find most often in Scripture when it appears in the phrase “found favor in the eyes of ...” (47 out of 69 usages of the word). Though the first temple was completed with an extravagant celebration that could never be matched with the resources available to the Jews in 516 B.C. (2 Chronicles 5), the second temple would have its own celebration. This was the promise given by God to the builder. Nevertheless, the grammar employed here is most interesting. If I read the passage correctly, the shouts of grace are not to the temple as a whole, but to “it,” a reference back to the capstone. Now, we can understand the celebration on completing the temple, but it is very unusual to have such an outpouring focused on a single stone, unless... The idea of a stone elsewhere in Scripture is linked to the Messiah (Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 28:16). And in Daniel 2:34, 35, 45, a cognate Aramaic word references the coming Messiah. Is it possible that the Spirit wanted the capstone of the second temple to remind us of the Messiah to come? Tertullian, the earliest of the Latin church fathers, writing at the end of the second century A.D.