ZECHARIAH 14: 1-7
THE MESSIAH'S RETURN
[Rev. 16&19/ Ezekiel 38&39 / Daniel 11/ Psalm 2/ Joel 3]
The ultimate goal of all history is the Lord's personal appearance and reign. But before the literal and full manifestation of His Kingdom, the earth must experience the throes of rebirth pangs called the great tribulation.
The previous chapters have been preparing the scene for the return of the Messiah in glory to establish the Kingdom in Israel. Zechariah's name means God remembers. And here within the last chapter is the climax of all Zechariah's prophetic predictions when God comes to prove that He remembers His covenants and promises and establishes His earthly Kingdom.
During the second half of the seven years, repentant Jerusalem has been refined and tested by the heat of anti-Christ forces. Apparently the Confederacy of Nations has returned with all its physical and spiritual might to crush and eradicate this the strongest and largest Christian stronghold and refuge. [Others see this invasion as the same event depicted in Zechariah 12, but with different details.] The Satan led forces siege and finally capture Jerusalem and are plundering it with the intent of once and for all stamping out Christianity on earth. In this hour of their sorest need when all seems lost, "the Messiah Returns" as the pivotal event causing the dramatic reversal from defeat to victory.
I. The Final Siege of Jerusalem, 14:1-3.
II. The Physical Return of Christ, 14:4-7.
The day of the Lord is the time when the Lord intervenes directly, physically, obviously in human history. In Hebrew culture, the day begins with the setting rather than with the rising of the sun. Therefore, although the day of the Lord begins in the darkness of the Tribulation, it ends in the glorious brightness of Jesus' Second Coming.
I. THE FINAL SIEGE OF JERUSALEM, 14:1-3.
The opening picture thus is one of apparent hopelessness and helplessness for God's people. It is against this backdrop of darkest despair that the radiant glory of Christ's return is set. Let us follow as the hand of Scripture paints the scene starting in verse 1 of chapter 14. "Behold, a day of the LORD is coming when the spoils taken from you will be divided among you."
Verse one anticipates what is spelled out more fully in thw following verses. The Lord starts with a message that will help us reason out why He brings this terrible situation to His people's door step. This situation comes about so the Lord can return the spoils of victory to His people. The spoils are called your spoils (fem sg). These spoils are what should have come to Israel because of the covenant and promises of God but were allowed to be "taken from" her because of her disobedience to God's commands throughout the centuries.
What better way to receive the spoils than have your enemy unwittingly bring them to your door as their preparations for war. That is certainly something to behold but we will behold something infinitely greater in this passage.
The event is "a day of the LORD" by idiom and by context, a day that is coming for the Lord. This day is distinctively and preeminently His, the day when Christ returns and dispossesses Satan and his henchmen from their usurpation of the earth. A day when Christ establishes His Reign of Righteousness and Peace throughout the world [Isa. 2:12; 4:1-2; 11:10; 13:9; Amos 9:11; Joel 1:15; 2:1-2; Zephaniah 1:14-18; Mal. 4:15].
The day of (or for) the Lord, begins with hardship and brutality as the nations of the world come against Israel as is again proclaimed in verse 2.
"For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city."
"For I will gather" is a reminder that the Sovereign Lord is in complete control. He is the Lord of History and He is moving it to His conclusion. Yet He does not incite these nations to hostility. He simply uses their hostility for His own purposes. God desires to have these evil and wicked men present when He returns again, (see Rev. 19:19) so they will be.
The Lord gathers the enemy in overwhelmingly superior power and their advance is unstoppable. Revelations 9:11 mentions an army of 200 million. All the nations of the world are represented in the armies because they are part of the one world government led by the Anti-Christ (the Beast of Revelation 13). Specifically, this speaks of the invasion of the Middle East by the Antichrist, (the leader of a united Europe?), when he brings his armies into Israel to consolidate the world.
This verse portrays the exceeding distress of Jerusalem and it appears that the city and all its inhabitants are hopelessly doomed. Four statements give us the dire straits to which the city and its inhabitants are reduced.
Notice the type of people these anti-Christ armies are and see if you do not agree with God that they deserve the wrath He has in store for them.
First, "the city will be captured." They conquer by hate, aggression, and physical power. They will tolerate any who will not worship their leader.
Second, "the houses plundered." They steal that which is not theirs indication the insatiable greed to possess.
Third, "the women raped" - violated. Their uncontrollable lust and licentiousness show they are the worst of villains.
Fourth, "and half the city exiled." They make slaves out of people whose ideologies differ from their own.
Yet "the rest of the people," the remnant (yether from yather) are not killed. They may well be awaiting execution.
As these nations converge in an attempt to annihilate Israel, the Lord will return and physically fight for Israel, the people He cares about so deeply. Verse 3, "Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations as when He fights on a day of battle."
Here is given the reason for the terrible and desperate condition which the Jewish remnant will encounter. Their dire extremity becomes the Lord's opportunity. God often stretches our faith by waiting till the seriousness of the crisis is upon us before He answers. Here He stretches their faith to the absolute limit.
It is a time of terrible horror when the enemy seems brutally triumphant and the future of even the remnant of God's ancient covenant people is in danger of total extinction and the covenants and promises made to the fathers in peril of being unfulfilled forever. "Then the LORD will go forth and fight." In this hour of apparent triumph of the anti-God and anti-Christ forces bent on removing all remembrance of the name YHWH from this earth, "The LORD will go forth and fight." When all seems hopeless, when all the previous victories of refinement seem lost in defeat, the Lord Himself appears as the divine warrior (2 Sam. 11:1; Isa. 26:21; Ex. 15:3).
This is the battle of Armageddon mentioned in Revelation 16:16. As the nations converge around Jerusalem, a series of wars occur culminating in the valley of Megiddo, or Armageddon. God has gathered His enemies together (including evil spirits) as a great horde in one place to deal with them in the sight of His people. Read Ezekiel 38:14-23.
The words "go forth" are employed of a king going out to war at the head of his troops (1 Sam. 8:20; Judges 4:14; 2 Sam. 5:24). The Lord has fought for His people before, [Ex. 14:13f; Josh. 10:14; Jud. 4:15 2 Chron. 32:21,] but never with the finality of this battle. This day is the day of the Lord when He takes vengeance on all "those nations" that have done His people harm (Ezek. 38 & 39).
II. THE PHYSICAL RETURN OF THE MESSIAH, 14:4-7.
Verses 1-3 provide a fitting introduction by presenting the drastic need which only the omnipotent God can handle. When the nations are ready to annihilate Israel and destroy Jerusalem, Jesus will return as verse 4 promises. "(4a) "And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which is in front of Jerusalem on the east;"
"In that day" is obviously here defined as the day the Lord Jesus Christ returns (Isa. 4:1-2, 12:1, 24:21, 26:21). [The feet obviously belong to the LORD of verse 3]. In Acts 1:11-12 the Lord ascended into Heaven from Mount Olivet and in like manner He returns to the Mount of Olives (Ezek. 11:23). It was there He spoke with His disciples about the end times (Mt. 24). His glorious ascent was personal and visible and His glorious descent will be personal and visible. The scarred feet of His resurrected glorified body are naturally the first part of Him to touch down.
"The Mount of Olives" at 2710 ft. high is the focal point of a mile long line of limestone hills. It faces and rises almost 200 feet above Mt. Zion, the temple mount, and 300 feet above Mt. Moriah. It dominates the eastern skyline (Ezek. 11:23, 43:1-2). Thus it provides a suitable spot for the touch down of the Most Glorious One.
The Mount is the same mountain on which He once shed tears of sorrow over the hardness of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the garden slope on which His bloody sweat fell in His dark night of His agonizing soul. This same Mount which witnessed His ascension from earth shall also witness His manifestation in glory. As the glory of the Lord departed from Jerusalem to the east (Ezek. 11:23) so it will return from the east (Ezek. 43:2). As the sun rises in the east so will the Sun of Righteousness rise, with healing in His wings, in the east.
The second part of verse 4 prophecies a cataclysmic event when Jesus comes back. "And the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle East to West by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the North and the other half toward the South."
[The mountain lays to the east of Jerusalem and is a ridge about two miles long. It is higher than, and overlooked, the Holy Mountain of Zion, being separated from it by the deep Kidron Valley. As such the Mount of Olives presented an obstacle in the way of escape from Jerusalem to the east. This had been seen notably in the case of David as he fled from Absalom (2 Sam. 15:30).]
Years ago, when Sheraton Hotel Corporation was looking at the Mount of Olives as a potential site, an environmental impact study showed that, due to a major fault running right through the Mount of Olives, they could not continue construction. In other words geologists "discovered" what Scripture had known for 2,500 years. [Jon Courson's Application Com. OT Vol. 2. Thomas Nelson, 2006. p 913]
Even earlier British scientists had found a crack in that very place on the Mount of Olives, where Zechariah prophesied it would split in two, to make a great valley through which His people would escape! How interesting that it was on this very Mount of Olives where Jesus sat and talked these things over with His disciples [the Mt. of Olive Discourse in Mt. 24-25]!
Our Lord's personal and bodily appearance will touch off tremendous seismographic upheaval. The mountain will rip in half from its very foundation in response to the actual presence of God. This event is well documented in Scripture (Micah 2:4; Nah. 1:5 Hab. 3:6; Ps. 18:7; Ezek. 38:19-20; Rev. 16:18-19).
The Divine Majesty of the Son of God returning to earth on the Mount of Olives will split it latitudinally from East to West, half of it moving to the North and half to the South forming "a very great valley." Revelation 16:19 predicts not only an earthquake in Palestine but in the entire earth in connection with Christ's return.
In the first part of verse 5 we learn that when the Mountain of Olives splits because of the Presence of the LORD it will actually become a way of escape for the people of Jerusalem. (5a) "And you will flee by the valley of My Mountains, for the valley of the Mountains will reach to Azel; Yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, King of Judah."
The cataclysmic earthquake will provide both the means and the way of escape for the righteous Jewish remnant. They will escape both the devastation of the earthquake and the fury of this final anti-Semitic onslaught by fleeing into the newly formed valley where their Lord is. Only God's people will escape God's punishment (Mt. 24:16-20).
God calls them "My Mountains" because they were formed by the chasm created when He returns and because the Lord Jesus Christ stands upon them. In earlier times, the Lord parted the Red Sea in order that His people could escape to safety. In the last days, He'll part not a sea but a mountain for His people to escape from the armies surrounding Jerusalem. [Ibid. Courson. p 913]
The split forming the newly formed valley will reach to Azel, which is an unknown location. A major fault line runs up the Red Sea and right through this area. The earthquake in the days of good King Uzziah of Judah was so tremendous that Amos (1:1) refers to it to date his prophecy.
The phenomenal cataclysmic event is the climax of this age and is surrounded by other events that demonstrate the tremendous importance of Messiah's return as the second half of verse 5 reveals. (5b) "Then the LORD, my God, will come, (and) all the holy ones with Him!"
The glorious King of Kings and Lord of Lords does not return without His attendants and His army. He comes with His gedoshim, His holy ones. The holy ones certainly includes unfallen angels (Mt.16:27, 25:31; Mk. 8:23; Lk. 9:26) and apparently believers also (Dan. 7:18, 21, 22, 25, 27; 1 Thess. 3:13; Jude 14; Rev. 19:8,14). These could be those who have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess 3:13; Col. 3:4) or those killed in the Great Tribulation (Rev. ).
Read Revelation 19: 11-16. "I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war...
When Jesus comes back, when His kingdom is established, not only will there be changes on earth but in the heavens, as well as verse 6 teaches. "And it will come about in that day that there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle."
"In that day" when the Lord returns to earth, when He comes again and touches down upon Mt. Olives and brings all His holy ones with Him, in that great age-altering day, celestial phenomena will occur.
Read Isa. 13: 9&10; 24:23.
Read Joel 3: 14-16, (2:13; Amos 5:18).
Read Matthew 24:29, 31; (Mk. 13:24, 25; Rev. 6:13, 8:12).
Thus the splendid ones, the light ones or the light bearers that give and reflect light shall withdraw, dwindling away into murkiness, deep murkiness.
The day of the Lord will be characterized by supernatural cosmic disturbances unparalleled in the course of human history. This occurrence of supernatural darkening could well alter the 24 hour reckoning of a day "in that day" and make it a prophetic interval of time.
The whole course of nature will be turned upside down as verse 7 indicates for when one would expect the doom to turn into darkness, there is light instead. "For it will be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light."
Because of the topographic, cosmic, and indeed even cataclysmic changes, that day will be unique. "A unique day" because it is utterly distinct and completely different from any day in the history of the world (Jer. 30:7). This day is known only to the Lord and no other being knows when or exactly what it will be.
The uniqueness of this day is explained by it's physical nature. It will not be light for the natural sources of light have dwindled (v. 6). This backdrop of darkness is only right so that the splendorous light of the glory of our Lord and the myriads of His holy angels and of His glorified saints reflecting His radiant glory will be spectacular because it will be of the Lord's design. There shall be no competition with His magnificent splendor.
In the evening or the concluding part of the day of the Lord "there will be light." When this awesome day, characterized by gloom and splendor, concludes there will be light instead of darkness. This could be the thousand year restoration of the Heavenly luminaries which had withdrawn their light (Isa. 30:26; Mal 4:2) or this light could be the glory of God illuminating from Jesus Christ. He is the Light of the World and His appearing to usher in the glad new order of things in the millennial earth might be at evening. (Or the Lord could be returning at the sixth trumpet (Rev. 6:13ff). [Ken Barker. Expositor Bible Com. Vol 7. Zondervan. p 962]
"The judgment and suffering - possibly the refining of 13:8-9 are past, there again is light ushering in the new order." [This, the siege of Ch. 14 and Ch. 12 could be one in the same with the Lord delivering only temporary victory and the people accepting Him as Savior and Lord after He returns.] "In the hour of deepest gloom and blackness God causes the bright light of His deliverance to shine forth for his distressed ones." [Charles Feinburg, God Remembers. p 198]
Whatever the interpretation, great deliverance and glory will be brought by Him who is earth's only rightful King. For He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16) and at His coming earth's woes will be alleviated and earth's sorrows healed.
CONCLUSION
The attack of the nations meets with considerable success, threatening the very existence of the city (14:1-2). But then the LORD intervenes on behalf of His people, granting them first escape and then deliverance (14:3-5). This will be a unique time without parallel in history (14:6-7), and ushers in the universal reign of the LORD (14:9-11). [John MaKay, Focus on Zechariah, ]
Many times the Bible encourages us to watch for the Day of the Lord. What if you knew He was coming next month. Would you live differently? Christ could return for His church at any moment. Are you spiritual ready to stand before the Lord and give account for your life, the stewardship of time, talents, gifts and blessings He has bestowed upon you?
["The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted [NAS]" Isaiah 30:26.
"But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall" Mal. 4:2.]
