A New King
Zech 9 October 5, 2008
Intro:
This morning we are going to continue our study of Zechariah by looking at chapter 9, and we might need to work hard with it so before we dive in, let me begin with these:
The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, ’My Mommy looked back once while she was driving,’ he announced triumphantly, ’and she turned into a telephone pole!’
A Sunday school teacher asked, ’Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark?’ ’No,’ replied Johnny. ’How could he, with just two worms.’
Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School. ’Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.’ ’Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?’ his mother asked ’Well, no, Mom. But, if I told it the way the teacher did, you’d never believe it!’
The preacher’s 5 year-old daughter noticed that her father always paused and bowed his head for a moment before starting his sermon. One day, she asked him why. ’Well, Honey,’ he began, proud that his daughter was so observant of his messages. ’I’m asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon.’ ’How come He doesn’t answer it?’ she asked.
Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother’s house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When Little Johnny received his plate, he started eating right away. ’Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer.’ said his mother. ’I don’t need to,’ the boy replied. ’Of course, you do,’ his mother insisted ’We always say a prayer before eating at our house.’ ’That’s at our house,’ Johnny explained. ’But this is Grandma’s house and she knows how to cook!’
Zech 9
OK, back to work… we’ve worked through the first 8 chapters of Zechariah, and as we turn today to chapter 9 we start the final section of the book. 1-6 were the night visions, 7-8 were a series of sermons and messages, and now we begin 9-14 which are mostly written as Hebrew poetry. There are some challenges in this section, in fact one commentator has called these “perhaps the most problematic six chapters in the Bible” (D.J. Clark, quoted by George Klein in Zechariah, New American Commentary, p. 253). Let’s have a look:
Zech 9:1-8 (NLT)
1 This is the message from the Lord against the land of Aram and the city of Damascus, for the eyes of humanity, including all the tribes of Israel, are on the Lord.
2 Doom is certain for Hamath,
near Damascus,
and for the cities of Tyre and Sidon,
though they are so clever.
3 Tyre has built a strong fortress
and has made silver and gold
as plentiful as dust in the streets!
4 But now the Lord will strip away Tyre’s possessions
and hurl its fortifications into the sea,
and it will be burned to the ground.
5 The city of Ashkelon will see Tyre fall
and will be filled with fear.
Gaza will shake with terror,
as will Ekron, for their hopes will be dashed.
Gaza’s king will be killed,
and Ashkelon will be deserted.
6 Foreigners will occupy the city of Ashdod.
I will destroy the pride of the Philistines.
7 I will grab the bloody meat from their mouths
and snatch the detestable sacrifices from their teeth.
Then the surviving Philistines will worship our God
and become like a clan in Judah.
The Philistines of Ekron will join my people,
as the ancient Jebusites once did.
8 I will guard my Temple
and protect it from invading armies.
I am watching closely to ensure
that no more foreign oppressors overrun my people’s land.
What we have here, in these first 8 verse, is a message of God’s judgment against the enemies of Israel. Now I decided not to walk through each city, plotting them on a map, and telling the stories of them and their relationship to the people of God – with apologies to the two or three of you who would really enjoy that – but I do want us to pause and notice a couple of things. First, God is NOT here addressing the specific enemies that had recently taken the Israelites as slaves – instead this is a list of Israel’s more “traditional” enemies, some going back 500 years to the times of David. That is interesting, and casts the message in a more global way, reconnecting the people to their entire story and God’s sovereignty over them, and lifting them from just their present situation as recently returned slaves.
The second thing worth pausing and noticing is God’s treatment of the Philistines. I missed this when I just read the passage, but it is quite significant. Verses 6 and 7 begin with descriptions of God’s total victory – “destroy the pride”… “grab the bloody meat”… “snatch the detestable sacrifices”… but look closely at what comes next: “then the surviving Philistines will worship our God and become like a clan in Judah. The Philistines of Ekron will join my people.” The Philistines were most-hated enemies, but instead of annihilation, God promises that He will adopt them into His family and make them part of His covenant people. This is a radical departure, and an amazing promise: God welcoming His enemies into His Kingdom.
Zech 9:9-13
That sets us up well for what comes next, the most famous verses of Zechariah:
9 Rejoice, O people of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem!
Look, your king is coming to you.
He is righteous and victorious,
yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—
riding on a donkey’s colt.
10 I will remove the battle chariots from Israel
and the warhorses from Jerusalem.
I will destroy all the weapons used in battle,
and your king will bring peace to the nations.
His realm will stretch from sea to sea
and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.
11 Because of the covenant I made with you,
sealed with blood,
I will free your prisoners
from death in a waterless dungeon.
12 Come back to the place of safety,
all you prisoners who still have hope!
I promise this very day
that I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles.
13 Judah is my bow,
and Israel is my arrow.
Jerusalem is my sword,
and like a warrior, I will brandish it against the Greeks.
We’ve heard vs. 9 before, haven’t we: in fact, we hear it each year as we celebrate Palm Sunday, where Jesus fulfilled this prophecy and did, in fact, come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and was welcomed as the king, bringing “peace to the nations”, although a different kind of peace than the people expected. Now, our first task as we read Scripture is to try to hear it as the people would have heard it when first spoken. So imagine the people of Jerusalem, standing in the middle of a broken city, work begun on the temple but not yet complete, still subject to the rule of foreign kings, and still vulnerable to attack from enemies. Imagine their felt need – for a mighty warrior king to lead them, for a return to military strength. Yet that was not God’s answer: instead He promises them a Messiah who will be “righteous and victorious, yet humble”, riding not on a mighty war horse but instead on a donkey. He would come and reject the instruments of war, and instead bring peace – “shalom” – to “the nations”, sealed with a blood covenant that would free the captives, restore hope, and “repay two blessings for each trouble”. It is a promise which might have surprised, possibly even confused them, in their feeling a need for military strength at a vulnerable time. And thus God’s point: the hope and security and answer to the needs of His people is not found in their own strength, not in military might, but in God alone. God alone will defend His people, deal with the threats, and re-create an order and wholeness and peace – “shalom” – and thus God calls His people to trust, and to faith, by announcing a new kind of king, a promised Messiah, finding its fulfillment in Jesus.
One last thing to notice before continuing to the end of the chapter is hidden in verse 13. “Judah is my bow, and Israel is my arrow.” There is a critical nugget here, which again we need the context to appreciate. For about 400 years, Judah the southern kingdom and Israel the northern kingdom have been at each others throats. They have been divided, against one another, the people of God split into these two groups. Here is a nugget of unity, and of inter-dependence. A bow is useless without an arrow, and an arrow useless without a bow. These nine little words reverse 400 years of animosity and proclaim that God is going to reunite His people and make them, once again, inter-dependent.
Zech 9:14-17
14 The Lord will appear above his people;
his arrows will fly like lightning!
The Sovereign Lord will sound the ram’s horn
and attack like a whirlwind from the southern desert.
15 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies will protect his people,
and they will defeat their enemies by hurling great stones.
They will shout in battle as though drunk with wine.
They will be filled with blood like a bowl,
drenched with blood like the corners of the altar.
16 On that day the Lord their God will rescue his people,
just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.
17 How wonderful and beautiful they will be!
The young men will thrive on abundant grain,
and the young women will flourish on new wine.
These last 4 verses simply declare again that God will protect, fight for, and rescue His people. He does so in partnership with the people (see vs. 15), but it is very clear that it is God who is in charge and God who achieves the end result – a people who are “wonderful and beautiful”, who “thrive” and “flourish”.
Appling the Passage:
So there is chapter 9, in context and about 2500 years old. Does it have anything to say to us today? I think there are several points of connection.
First, God still creates a people who are wonderful and beautiful and thriving. Those promises in vs. 14-17 still apply to us, the people of God. We are still like sheep, needing rescue. We are still like jewels, needing to be cut and polished, so that we can be wonderful and beautiful. And God still comes and shapes and molds us into the kind of people He desires, full of life and beauty. Our job is to cooperate with Him – to obey, to devote ourselves to the pursuits that He lays out before us. And as we do, God creates a people who are wonderful and beautiful and thriving.
Second, God still unites. Just like He promised by adopting the Philistines as His own, and with making Israel the “arrow” and Judah the “bow”, God still takes people who have differences, hurts, animosity, and calls them to unity. Most of us have people like that in our lives, who have hurt us or with whom we have differed. Yet the Kingdom of God is about unity, about coming together for the sake of something far grander – the peace and wholeness that is described in the Hebrew word, “shalom”, which is about everything right and in its place and brought together, an end to hostility and separation and the hurt that comes from un-reconciled relationships.
Third, God still protects. This image is repeated throughout the entire chapter, of God fighting for and protecting His people. In these Old Testament times, the protection was against human enemies who would destroy the people of God; in the light of the New Testament we have the promise of God’s continued protection against the unseen enemies who seek to undermine our hope and obedience.
Fourth and finally, God still surprises. The people of God would have wanted and expected a mighty military king, instead God promises a Messiah who will be humble, who will get rid of the instruments of war and instead bring “shalom” to “all nations. God surprises His people by giving them not what they want or think they need, but by promising something far greater – He promised them Jesus. This can still be a struggle for us, because as we look at our lives, what we believe we need sometimes seems very obvious to us. And we can then easily become blind to the surprises of God, feeling that until God does that which we expect, He is not doing anything. And then we miss the things – the good and amazing things – God is doing in and among us.
Conclusion:
In our lives today, will we let God shape us into a people who are wonderful and beautiful and thriving? Will we let Him unite us? Will we remain under His protection by our continued obedience? And will we let Him surprise us?
Last weekend we celebrated our 50th anniversary as a church, and I tangibly felt the power of God doing those things – shaping us into a beautiful people, uniting us as His people, protecting us, and surprising us. I saw those in many ways as we reflected and thanked God for His hand on us for 50 years. As we continue to follow and to serve God, and to love one another, let’s stand on that history while stepping forward into the next things God is going to do among and through us, expecting Him to mold, unite, protect, and surprise.
