Zechariah 2

2:1 AND I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof. And, behold, the angel that talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him, and said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, by reason of the multitude of men and cattle therein. For I, saith the LORD, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the glory in the midst of her. Ho, ho, flee from the land of the north, saith the LORD: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the LORD. Ho Zion, escape, thou that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith the LORD of hosts: After glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand over them, and they shall be a spoil to those that served them: and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the LORD shall inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and shall yet choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD: for he is waked up out of his holy habitation.

Chap. 2. This chapter contains the substance of a third vision. In conformity to what was said chap. 1:16, “a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem,” a man, or an angel, appears with a measuring line in his hand, going, as he says, to take the dimensions of Jerusalem, in order to its being rebuilt according to its former extent; which was afterward done by Nehemiah. This is accompanied with a message delivered to the prophet, showing the great increase of her population and wealth; her perfect security under the Divine protection; recall of her exiles from the north country, and the punishment of those that had oppressed them; the return of God’s presence to dwell in her; and the conversion of many heathen nations; and, lastly, the reinstatement of Judah and Jerusalem in the full possession of all their ancient privileges. Dr. Blayney.

In these visions Jehovah and the angel of the presence are used almost interchangeably, and the words spoken are attributed sometimes to one, sometimes to the other—the angel of the presence is indeed regarded as the visible manifestation of God. Farrar.

The third vision of Zechariah was based on what was in his thoughts and under his eye from day to day—plans for restoring the city. He seemed to see a man proceeding to take measurements for the laying out of streets and walls. As we often get notice of city improvements by seeing surveyors with theodolite and chain at work, so this man with the measuring line explained that he was going to ascertain the size and capabilities of Jerusalem, and to see what could be made of the ruins. But as he passes on to his work the angel is told to run and stop him and prevent him from measuring the city and planning new walls and fortifications. He is assured that it was useless marking out boundaries, because the city is destined to exceed all ordinary dimensions and become so great that no walls would be capable of containing it.

The great increase of population here predicted was to arise partly from the return of a large number of Jews from Babylon. Very significant are the urgent appeals that were found necessary to move them to return. “Flee from the land of the north. Deliver thyself, O Zion that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” They had to be warned even that punishment was to fall on Babylon, and that they would share in it if they did not escape. For people are always apt to get hardened to that deserted and distant condition into which God banishes them for their sin. The want of high spiritual communings which at first a man mourned over he gradually gets used to. The gayety and dissipation which were distasteful to him he can at last scarcely abandon. The cessation from Christian work, which at first he recognized as an infliction, he becomes so used to that it frets and hardens him to resume it. Dods.

1-4. In this vision a man is seen with a measuring line, going forth to measure Jerusalem—probably its dimensions before its recent destruction—as if preparing to rebuild it on the same foundations. The angel that talked with the prophet went forth (i.e., from the prophet), and another angel came forth (it may be supposed) from the Lord, to meet him and to say to him: “Hasten to that young man who has the measuring line, and tell him there is no occasion to measure the old limits of the city; the new one shall spread out beyond her former walls, and her people shall live in the surrounding country without walls, because of the multitude of men and of cattle.” The whole scene was designed to impress vividly upon the prophet and his people the great promise of God respecting the growth, prosperity and glory of the new city, and ultimately of that spiritual Zion of which this was the outward symbol.

5. The connection of thought here is admirable: Think no more of walls to be rebuilt for the new city, nor of costly outlays to beautify and adorn it; “for I, saith the Lord, will be Myself her wall,” even “a wall of fire round about her;” and I will be her adornment also—even “a glory in the midst of her.” This magnificent promise we cannot suppose to have been exhausted in the days of Zechariah, nor in the entire period before the incarnation of the Son of God; but pre-eminently then when He, the great incarnation of God, became manifest in human flesh in the midst of His Zion. Yet its fulfilment began in those days of Zion’s reformation and rebuilding. Our Divine Lord reasserted essentially the same thing, and made it a promise of perpetual love to His Church, when He said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” H. C.

Those that have God for their God have Him for their glory; those that have Him in the midst of them have glory in the midst of them, and thence the Church is said to be all glorious within. And those persons and places that have God to be the glory in the midst of them have Him for a wall of fire round about them, for upon all that glory there is and shall be a defence (Isa. 4: 5). Now all this was fulfilled in part, in that Jerusalem in process of time became a very flourishing city. But it was to have its full accomplishment in the Gospel

Church, which is extended far, as towns without walls, by the admission of the Gentiles not it; and which has God, the Son of God, for its prince and protector. H.—This promise will receive its utmost completion in that “New Jerusalem” (described in Rev. 21:10) where “the glory of God and the Lamb” are said to be “the light thereof” (verses 11, 23. Cf. Isa. 60:19). W. Lowth.

6. Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north. This beautiful apostrophe is addressed to such of the Jews as continued still to dwell in Babylon and the adjacent country lying north of Jerusalem, exhorting them not only to come, but to make their escape with all possible speed from a land which God was about to make the scene of His vengeance. Dr. Blayney.

8. For thus saith the Lord of hosts—that is, the Messiah. There is no part of Holy Scripture that more fully vindicates those confessions of our faith, which call upon us to acknowledge a plurality of persons in the Godhead, than the very remarkable passage in this and the next three verses. Eveleigh.

“After the glory” is an elliptical, shortened phrase, looking to verse 5, and meaning that after having become the glory of Zion by revealing Himself as her king, her refuge and protector, it followed naturally that He should be sent to scourge the nations that had spoiled Jerusalem—i.e., the Chaldeans, and perhaps the Edomites also. As to the persons “He” and “Me,” in the phrase “He hath sent Me,” etc., the language implies that the speaker who calls Himself the “Lord of Hosts” hath been sent by some one referred to as “He;” “He hath sent Me,” etc. The one thus “sent” can be no other than the leading personage in the vision (1:8-13), there seen on a red horse (verse 8); to whom the other horsemen report (verse 11); to whom the angel interpreter offers prayer (verse 12); and moreover the same personage who in 2:5 says, “I will be a glory in the midst of her”—i.e., the Son of God. The antecedent of “He” is implied in thought rather than expressed in word; yet can be no other than the infinite Father—often represented in the Scriptures as sending the Son—here on a mission of providential judgments on the guilty nations that had desolated Jerusalem. The reason assigned is beautifully significant of the tenderness of even the Father’s love toward His people. We often see manifestations of tenderness in Jesus Christ while wearing our nature in its human weaknesses; but here Jesus says of His Father: “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye.” “Toucheth”—in the sense of doing harm. The apple is the pupil of the eye, which the Hebrews call the little man of the eye, or, as here, the little boy of the eye, both terms coming probably from the fact that, looking into the eye, you see a miniature picture of yourself. Can we realize the precious truth taught here—that God feels every injury done to His people, as we feel a wound in the apple of our eye? Then let us forever dismiss and discard the cruel assumption that the infinite God has little or no sympathy with our spiritual life, with the real welfare of His people, the interests of His truth, and the cause of human salvation! H. C.

After the glory hath He sent Me unto the nations. To send a person after anything implies the requisition of his services for that particular purpose. When, therefore, God is said to have sent His angel “after the glory,” He must be understood to have charged Him with the means of bringing it about. Now the means which the Divine wisdom had devised for securing to His people “the glory” He had promised them, was by executing a severe vengeance on their oppressors, to manifest His concern for their honor and interest, and His resolution not to suffer their wrongs to pass off with impunity. In pursuance of this plan, and of the orders He had received, the angel says He was about to “shake” His hand over the Babylonians, by whom the Jews had lately been oppressed, and to deliver them over as “a spoil to their (former) servants.” And as this is given as a reason for summoning the Jews to quit that devoted country with all possible speed, that they might not be involved in the calamities which were coming upon it, so the angel subjoins that when this came to pass according to His word, it would be a convincing proof that Jehovah had sent Him. Dr. Blayney.

He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. The highest expressions that language, assisted with all its helps of metaphor and resemblance, can afford, are very languid and faint in comparison of what they strain to represent when the goodness of God toward them who love Him comes to be expressed. (See Ps. 36 6; 103:11, 13.) So David strives to utter it, but with similitudes far short of the truth. If any will come near to reach it, it is that in Moses and Zechariah, where they who love God are compared to “the apple of God’s eye”—that is, to the most dear and tender part, as it were, about Him. Isaac Barrow.

God has special regard for and interest in the subjects of His redeeming love. He chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world. He gave His only begotten Son to save them from eternal ruin. His Spirit and His providence have been at work these six thousand years to accomplish His purposes respecting them. They seem nearer to Him than the unfallen angels, for they have been rescued and ransomed from ruin and death at an infinite cost. He has peculiar regard for them as the fruit of the glorious redemptive scheme by which He seeks to “reconcile all things unto Himself.” They stand related to His moral dispensations, to the “everlasting kingdom” of the future state, to the exaltation and final glory of the Eternal Son of God in His work of atoning love and saving grace, as no other beings do. Is it any marvel, therefore, that he who dares to touch one of these “little ones” touches the very “apple of His eye”? It matters not how unworthy and sinful and inferior His people may be, in themselves considered, and contrasted with angels. God looks at them in the light of His own eternal and far-reaching purposes. They stand intimately related to His eternal scheme of grace. He sees in them the future heirs of His glorious kingdom, the priests and kings of the Lord Almighty. They are to be the very “crown” and glory of Christ’s own eternal reward and rejoicing. Hence their names “are graven on the palms of His hands.” No weapon forged against or raised to injure them shall prosper. All their interests are safe in His hands. The gates of hell shall not prevail against one of His chosen ones. His infinite heart of love encompasses them ever. His everlasting arms are underneath them. J. M. Sherwood.

9. For, behold, I will shake Mine hand upon them. This is the hand of Jehovah Himself, and of the Lord of Hosts Himself, which is said, in one passage of Isaiah, to be “shaken over the river” (Isa. 11 : 15); and in another, “over Egypt” (Isa. 19 : 16); and nowhere else, except in the text, is the same form of expression used in Holy Writ. Dr. Eeleigh.

They shall be a spoil to their servants. As the Babylonians became to the Medes and Persians, who had been subdued, and reduced to subjection by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Abp. Newcome.

Immanuel, as the God of universal providence, sent to the nations that had wasted Zion, here declares what He will do, and calls special attention to it: “I will shake or wave My hand over them”—so much only being necessary to indicate to the executioners of His will what they were to do; and “they shall become a spoil to those who have heretofore been their servants”—i.e., the nations some time in servitude under Chaldea now rise up, overcome, and spoil her. Ye shall know by your experience of Divine blessings that My commission is truly Divine. It is remarkable that the phrase “the Lord of Hosts” is used interchangeably of the Father and the Son: of the Father here; of the Son in verse 8, and elsewhere in this and the previous chapter. No other explanation of this is needed save the fact that this name is equally applicable to either, and that the Scriptures in some cases represent the Father, and in some cases the Son, as administering the government of this world. H. C.

10-12. God’s promise to abide in Zion, and of the incoming of the Gentiles. Compare the parallel passages in Zeph. 3 : 14-20; Isa. 12 : 6; and infra 9 : 9, which, like that before us, had a first and literal fulfilment in the times following the return of the Jews from Babylon. They are all applicable in a wider and loftier sense to the dwelling of Messiah in Palestine, and to the spread of the Gospel among the heathen. B. C.

10. Closely parallel with this is Zech. 9 : 9. There—“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy king cometh unto thee,” etc. Here, as the reader will see, “Sing and rejoice,” for lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord—i.e., Jehovah. This close similarity strengthens the evidence that the speaker here is the promised Messiah, and that this promised coming can be exhausted in nothing less than His appearance in human flesh, and indeed in nothing less than His abiding presence (spiritually) with His people “to the end of the world.” This abiding presence, in somewhat lower forms, He manifested from the time of Zechariah onward to His incarnation. All this is indeed occasion for exultant joy.

11. Christ’s coming to dwell incarnate and subsequently by His Spirit, the Comforter, would result in the calling of the Gentiles into His Church, and ultimately in the gathering of many nations, and in their becoming joined in the relationships of love and trust to their redeeming Saviour and King. Here recurs again that expressive phrase, “Thou shalt know” (in thine own blessed experience) that I am sent of the eternal Father, that the work is not Mine alone, but His as well—evermore sustained by the common sympathy and the co-operative agency of each and of both. H. C.

11. The Lord of Hosts hath sent Me unto thee. It being here said that Jehovah, being sent by Jehovah, should come and dwell in the Church, enlarged by the accession of the Gentiles, who can that be but our Lord Christ, who dwelt among us and was by God His Father sent unto us? Isaac Barrow.—A passage which, like this, declares that “the Lord of Hosts” was sent by one who also Himself is “the Lord of Hosts,” ought not for a moment to excite astonishment in a Christian; knowing, as he must, that the second person in the Trinity, who is so often said to “have been sent by the Father,” is called in the New Testament, not only “God,” but also by a name which is allowed to be equivalent to “the Lord of Hosts”—viz., “the Almighty.” (See John 1:1; Rom. 9:5; Rev. 1:8.) Eedeigh.—Intimations of a plurality of persons in the Godhead seem to have been given to the Jews, as in other places of Scripture, so in those texts, where mention is made of God more than once in the same text and under different capacities: as “the Lord raining fire upon Sodom from the Lord” (Gen. 19:24); God anointing, and God anointed (Ps. 45:6, 7); “the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at My right hand” (Ps. 110:1); “the Lord sending and the Lord sent,” in this passage; with sundry others of the like nature. Anon.

9-12. In closing this prophecy Zechariah encourages the people to expect that not only would Jerusalem be filled to overflowing with their kinsmen, but that God would dwell there. But the prediction runs on in language which seems too magnificent for any contemporary events: “Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be My people.” This is characteristic of Old Testament prophecy. It is always occasioned by some present need of the generation among whom the prophet lives, but the language employed seems larger than the occasion requires.

The events among which Zechariah lived were only the prelude and preparation for the far greater events which were to signalize the Church’s maturity; and as the prophet looked forward to the triumph of his people over present misfortunes, he could not fail to catch a glimpse of the perfect triumphs which were destined to be won by the perfected Church. Under the forms and appearances present to any one generation there lay truths and principles common to all generations. The temple was the then-existing form of God’s dwelling-place, the temporary expedient for Divine manifestation; but in all generations there is a manifestation of God, though not always a stone temple. And so round the whole circle of things with which God’s people had to do. Through those things the prophets were, by God’s inspiration, enabled to see the permanent principles which operated in them, and in speaking of the visible and familiar objects they therefore often used language which was verified not in those very objects and events then present, but only in the ultimate, highest forms which those principles and ideas were to assume.

The comprehensive promise which seemed to augur all good to Jerusalem in Zechariah’s time was this: “I will dwell in the midst of thee.” Beyond this, indeed, no promise can at any time go. If God dwells with us because He loves us and seeks our presence, this implies that all good will be ours. In this alone have we all that we need to balance and guide our life. To live as in a world from which God can never pass away, this is the key to happiness and energy. Dods.

13. Be silent, O all flesh. Let all men be “silent” in token of the profoundest reverence and submission (see Hab. 2:20), when God comes down from heaven (cf. Micah 1:3), or gives visible signs of His appearance to execute judgment upon His adversaries, or to show mercy upon His servants. Heaven is called “the habitation of God’s holiness” (De. 26:15; Isa. 63:15). W. Lowth.