Zechariah 12:1 - Meaning and Application

Here is the title of this charter of promises made to God’s Israel. It is called the burden of the word of the Lord, a divine message that carries weight. It is serious in its delivery, it must be pressed on the people, and it will press hard when it comes to pass. For the church’s enemies, it is a heavy burden, like the talent of lead in Zechariah 5:7-8. But for Israel, it brings comfort and good.

Even the fiery law of Deuteronomy 33:2, and the fiery prophecies and providences that come from God’s right hand, are for their good. The same word that speaks terror to their enemies speaks peace to them. It is like the pillar of cloud and fire, bright toward the Israelites to guide and encourage them, but dark toward the Egyptians to frighten and weaken them. Happy are those who have even the burdens of God’s word for them, along with its blessings.

The title of the one who gives this charter is also set before us, to show that he has both the authority to make these promises and the power to keep them. He is the Creator of the world and our Creator, so his rule cannot be challenged. He stretches out the heavens. He did this at the beginning, when he said, “Let there be a firmament,” and he still holds them spread out like a curtain. He keeps them from collapsing, and he will do so until the end, when the heavens are rolled up like a scroll.

No limit can be set to the power of the one who stretches out the heavens, and nothing can be too hard for him. He lays the foundation of the earth and keeps it firm and steady, though it is founded on the seas (Psalm 24:1-2), and though it hangs on nothing at all (Job 26:7). The one who founded the earth is surely its ruler and judge. People deceive themselves when they say, “The Lord has forsaken the earth,” for if he had, it would sink, since he not only laid its foundations at first, but still supports them now.

He also forms the spirit of man within him. He made our souls (Jeremiah 38:16). He did not only breathe life into the first man, but still gives the breath of life to every person. The body comes from the fathers of our flesh, but the soul is given by the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9). He shapes people’s hearts. They are in his hand, and he turns them like streams of water, molding them as he wills for his own purposes. Because of that, he can save his church by strengthening its friends and discouraging its enemies, and he will save all his chosen people forever by making their spirits new.

The promises themselves now follow, and by them the church will be kept safe. All who love it may enjoy a holy confidence. Whatever attacks the enemies of the church make against her purity or peace, those attacks will end in their own ruin. The enemies of God and his kingdom may hold deep hatred for Jerusalem and plan its destruction, but in the end they are only preparing their own downfall. Jerusalem is safe, and those who fight against it are the ones in danger.

This is shown by three comparisons. First, Jerusalem will be a cup of trembling to all who lay siege to it (Zechariah 12:2). They think it will be a cup of wine, easy and pleasant to drink, and they thirst for its spoils, even for its blood, as if that were their cup. But it will become a cup of slumber, even a cup of poison, which they cannot drain. The very fumes of it will be enough to overcome them. When the kings gathered against her and saw that God was known in her palaces as a refuge, they were terrified and fled in haste; fear seized them (Psalm 48:3-6). In the same way, Alexander the Great was said to be struck with awe when he met Jaddus the high priest, and so he was kept from harming Jerusalem. When Sennacherib besieged Judah and Jerusalem, he found them like a cup of wine that made him and his mighty men fall into a deep sleep (Psalm 76:5-6).

Some take the sense to be this: “I will make Jerusalem a post of breaking,” a thing that wounds those who strike it. Anyone who attacks Jerusalem is like one who runs headfirst into a post he cannot move, and only hurts himself. The blast of the terrible ones is like a storm against a wall (Isaiah 25:4), broken by it, but not able to shake it. God’s church is a cup of comfort to all her friends (Isaiah 66:11), but a cup of trembling to all who try to corrupt her with error or destroy her by war and persecution. See also Isaiah 51:22-23.

Second, Jerusalem will be a burdensome stone to all who try to move it or carry it away (Zechariah 12:3). All the people of the earth are pictured as gathering against it, one group at one time and another at another time. There has been a long line of enemies, from age to age, making war on the church. But even if they all came together at once and agreed to wipe out the name of Israel so it would be remembered no more (Psalm 83:4), they would find the task too hard for them.

Those who want to keep sin’s kingdom strong in the world see Jerusalem, meaning God’s church, as the main obstacle to their plans. They think it must be removed. Yet they will find it heavier than they expected. They cannot move it, for God will keep a church in the world in spite of them. It is built on a rock and stands like Mount Zion, which abides forever (Psalm 125:1). This stone, cut out of the mountain without hands, will not only stay in place, but fill the whole earth (Daniel 2:35). And it will break in pieces all who burden themselves with it, as the stone smashed the image (Daniel 2:45).

Some think this points to a sport, which Jerome says was used among the Jews, as it is among us. Young men tested their strength by lifting heavy stones, and if the stone was too much for them, it fell on them and hurt them. Those who make a joke of religion and mock sacred things will find it to be a burdensome stone. It is dangerous to treat holy things as if they were a game. Even if they say, “Am I not only joking?” they are gathering a crushing load of guilt for themselves. Our Savior seems to refer to these words when he speaks of himself as a stone that falls on those who will not have him as their foundation stone, grinding them to powder (Matthew 21:44).

Third, the governors of Judah will be among their enemies like a hearth of fire among wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf (Zechariah 12:6).

Not that their own passions will make them firebrands to everyone around them. No, Zion’s King is meek and humble, and all rulers under him must be like him. Rather, God’s justice will make them avengers of his cause and of their own cause against their enemies. Those who fight against them will find it like thorns and briers standing against a consuming fire (Isaiah 27:4). The fire will pass through them and burn them up together.

It is God’s wrath, not their own anger, that is the fire which destroys their enemies. God’s fire is said to be in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem (Isaiah 31:9). The enemies thought they would be water to this fire, putting it out completely. But God will make them like wood, and even like a bundle of grain, which burns more easily, for this fire. They will not only be consumed by it, but they will make it burn more fiercely.

When God wanted Abimelech and the men of Shechem to destroy one another, fire is said to have come out from one to devour the other (Judges 9:20). In the same way here, fire will come out from the rulers of Judah to devour all the peoples around them, just as God’s witnesses are said to consume those who try to harm them (Revelation 11:5). The persecutors of the early church found this fulfilled. Lactantius wrote about God’s judgments on the first persecutors, and even Julian the apostate, at the end, confessed it: “You have overcome me, O Galilean!” The church’s motto may be, “No one attacks me without risk.” It was once said, “If you are tired of life, persecute Christians.”

It is also promised that God will confuse the plans and weaken the courage of the church’s enemies (Zechariah 12:4). “In that day,” when the peoples of the earth gather against Jerusalem, “I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness.” Again, “I will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness,” so that they will be useless to them. Blinding the horses will be as bad as crippling them. The horses and their riders will both forget the military skill they were trained for. Instead of keeping rank and following discipline, they will go mad and ruin themselves. The church’s foot soldiers will be more than a match for the enemy’s cavalry, and those who trusted in horses will be defeated by those forbidden to multiply horses.

It is also promised that Jerusalem will be repopulated and filled again (Zechariah 12:6). Jerusalem will be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem will not move to some other country, build a city there, and call that city Jerusalem, as settlers have done in other places. No, they will have a new Jerusalem on the same foundation, on the same ground, as the old one. That happened after the return from captivity, but this promise reaches its full meaning in the gospel church. The church is a Jerusalem that lives in its own place, because the gospel is to be preached to the whole world, and so it may claim every place as its own.

It is also promised that the people of Jerusalem will be able to defend themselves and still be under God’s protection (Zechariah 12:8). Here we see God’s way of preserving his church, and his people, from the gates of hell all the way through the gates of heaven. First, the Lord himself will guard them. On that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, not only the city itself from being taken and destroyed, but every person in it from harm. God will not only be a wall of fire around the city, but he will also surround each person with his favor like a shield, so that no attack from the enemy will touch them.

Second, he will do this by giving them strength and courage to help themselves. What God works in his people by his grace helps preserve them even more than what he works for them by his providence. The God of Israel gives strength and power to his people so they can do their part, and then he will not fail to do his. It is God’s glory to strengthen the weak, especially those who most need his help, know they need it, and will be most thankful for it.

On that day the weakest person in Jerusalem will be like David. They will be men of war, bold and brave, skilled and strong, like David himself. They will attempt and accomplish great things, as David did, and they will be as useful in defending Jerusalem as David was in founding it. They will also be as feared by its enemies as he was. See what divine grace does. It makes children not only men, but champions. It makes weak believers not only good soldiers, but great soldiers, like David. And see how God often does his own work more easily, more effectively, and more to his own glory, through weak and unnoticed people than through the most famous ones.

The house of David will be like God, that is, like the angel of the Lord, before them. Zerubbabel, who was then the leading branch of David’s house, would be given wisdom and grace for the work he was called to do, and he would lead the people like an angel, like the angel who went before Israel in the wilderness, who was God himself (Exodus 23:20). God increases the gifts and abilities of both people and rulers according to the work he gives them. David was said to be like an angel of God, able to tell good from evil (2 Samuel 14:17). In this way the house of David was to be now. The people of Jerusalem would be as strong and ready for action as David was by nature, and their leaders as wise and fit for counsel as David was by grace.

This promise would find its fullest meaning in Christ. At that time, the house of David looked small and plain, and its glory seemed dim. But in Christ, the house of David shone more brightly than ever, and his face was like an angel’s. In him it became more blessed, and more of a blessing, than it had ever been before.

It is also promised that there will be a good understanding between the city and the country, and that the balance between them will be kept right. There will be no envy or suspicion between them. They will not keep separate interests, but will join their plans and work together for the common good. This happy agreement between the city and the countryside, between the head and the body, is necessary for the health, peace, and safety of any nation.

The rulers of Judah, meaning the magistrates and landowners of the country, will think well of the people in Jerusalem, the merchants and craftsmen. They will not try to put them down or keep them under control. Instead, they will say in their hearts, not as empty politeness but sincerely, “The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength, the strength of my country, and of my family, in the Lord of hosts their God” (Zechariah 12:5).

They will therefore show respect to Jerusalem on every occasion, as the mother city, the ruling city, and the city that should be served first. They will see it as the nation’s strong wall and its safest defense in times of public trouble and danger. So they will all come to its aid and seek its protection. This will not be mainly because it is a rich city, and money is the strength of war, or because it is a crowded city that can send out the largest army, or because its people are usually the most gifted, active, brave, and able to lead. It will be because it is a holy city, where God’s house and family are found, where the temple and the priests are, where worship is kept up, and where the feasts are observed. It will also be because it will then be more than ever a praying city, for God will pour out a spirit of prayer on the people of Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:10). For that reason the governors of Judah will say, “These are my strength,” because of their relation to the Lord of hosts, their God, and their share in him.

Since the Lord of hosts is in a special way their God, they will say, “These people are my strength.” It is a good sign for a kingdom when its leaders know how to value its godly people. It is also good when governors see religion and religious people as a strength to support, and learn to call praying believers and faithful ministers the real defense of Israel, as Joash called Elisha, rather than the troublemakers of the land, as Ahab called Elijah. The wise will honor what God honors.

The court and the city will also not look down on the people of the country, not even on the least important among them, and much less on the governors of Judah. God will place special honor on Judah and keep them from the scorn of their brothers. As Jerusalem will be honored by special ordinances, so Judah will be honored by special acts of providence, that is, God’s care and rule over events. God says, “I will keep my eyes on the house of Judah” (Zechariah 12:4), meaning the poor people in the countryside. Proud people may overlook them with contempt, but the great God will look on them kindly and care for them. Indeed, “the Lord will save the tents of Judah first” (Zechariah 12:7). Those who live in tents are more exposed to danger, so God will especially protect and deliver them before those who live in Jerusalem. He will show his glory in what he does for the villages of Israel (Judges 5:11).

In this way, in Christ’s body, God gives greater honor to the part that seemed to lack it, so there should be no division in the body (see 1 Corinthians 12:22-25). That is why the glory of the house of David, which has great power, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who have great wealth, must not make them look down on Judah and the tents of Judah. The people in the countryside work hard, live plainly, and may not be as polished, yet they are not to be despised. Courtiers and city people should not look with disdain on country people, or on those whom God first sets his eyes upon and first saves, even while it is hard for the rich and great to enter the kingdom of God. If God has magnified the people in the tents of Judah by his grace, choosing the weak and foolish things of the world to use them, we insult him if we belittle them or boast over them (James 2:5-6).

This promise also points forward to the gospel church, where there will be no difference between high and low, rich and poor, slave and free, circumcised and uncircumcised, but all will be equally welcome to Christ and share in his blessings (Colossians 3:11). Jerusalem will no longer be thought of as more holy than the other parts of the land of Israel.