Zechariah 2:1 - Meaning and Application

The prophet was told, in God’s name, to assure the people (Zechariah 1:16) that a measuring line would be stretched over Jerusalem. Here that promise is shown in a vision and confirmed, so the prophet can deliver God’s message with greater clarity and confidence.

He sees a man going to measure Jerusalem (Zechariah 2:1-2). The text says he lifted up his eyes again and looked. God had already shown him something encouraging (Zechariah 1:20), so now he looks again for more light. The comforts we have seen by faith should make us look further into God’s grace, because there is always more to learn of it.

At the end of the previous chapter, he saw Jerusalem’s enemies defeated. That made him hope the city would not be destroyed. But safety from enemies was not enough to make Jerusalem truly blessed, so more was promised. More work still had to be done. When David said he would cut off the horns of the wicked, he also promised that the horns of the righteous would be lifted up (Psalm 75:10). So the Son of David, Jesus Christ, appears here as the man with the measuring line in his hand, because he is the master builder of his church (Hebrews 3:3), and he builds exactly by the right measure.

Zechariah boldly asked him where he was going and what he planned to do with the measuring line. Christ answered that he was going to measure Jerusalem, to take a careful count of its size in every direction. This would show what kind of wall would be needed around it, and what further room would be needed for the many people who would live there. When crowds gather to Jerusalem (Isaiah 60:4), it is time for her to enlarge the space of her tent (Isaiah 54:2). God notices the size of his church, and he will see that there is room when many guests are brought to the wedding supper, even if the number is great (Luke 14:22). In the New Jerusalem, the Father’s house above, there are many rooms.

He is then told that this vision means good for Jerusalem. The line he saw was not a line of confusion (Isaiah 34:11), and it was not a line for destruction, as when God stretched a line over the wall of the daughter of Zion in judgment (Lamentations 2:8). It was like the line used when an inheritance was divided by lot, a sign of settling and giving, not ruining (Psalm 78:55). The angel who spoke with the prophet was about to measure Jerusalem, but another angel came to ask that he first explain the vision to the prophet, so he would not be left with anxious guesses.

“Run, and tell this young man,” he says, because the prophet was still young when he began to prophesy, and no one should despise youth when God honors it so highly. He was young and inexperienced, and might fear the worst, so he needed to be encouraged to hope for the best. He was to be told that Jerusalem would be both safe and great.

It would be as safe and as large as human numbers could make it (Zechariah 2:4). Jerusalem would be inhabited like towns without walls. Its people would increase and multiply so much that the city would spread out far beyond its present bounds. City walls protect, but they also limit growth. Jerusalem, even if it kept walls to keep out enemies, would be filled as freely as a city without walls. It would seem to lose itself in its suburbs, as London does, where the out-parishes are more crowded than the old city inside the walls. So it would be with Jerusalem. It would spread out as if it had no walls, and yet it would be as safe as if it had the strongest walls, because of the great number of people there, and even the cattle, which would add both food and wealth.

The growth of a people is a great blessing. It is a sign of God’s favor and a promise of more blessings to come (Psalm 107:38). People are multiplied because he blesses them.

Jerusalem would also be safe and great by the presence of God himself (Zechariah 2:5). It would be safe, because God would be a wall of fire around it. At that time Jerusalem had no walls and was exposed. Even when it had walls before, enemies had broken through and torn them down. Now God would be a wall of fire. Some think this refers to shepherds who made fires around their flocks, or travelers who made fires around their tents in the wilderness to keep wild animals away. God would do more than give them a hedge, as he did for Job (Job 1:10). He would do more than give them walls and fortresses (Isaiah 26:1), which can be battered down. He would do more than stand like mountains around them (Psalm 125:2), since mountains can be climbed over. He would be a wall of fire around them, which no one can break through, scale, undermine, or even approach without danger.

God would not only put such a wall around Jerusalem, he would himself be that wall. Our God is a consuming fire to his enemies and to the enemies of his church. He is a wall of fire on every side, not just one. Jerusalem would also be great, because God himself would be its glory in the middle of it. His temple and altar would be set up there, his worship would be observed, and the signs of his special presence and favor would be there. That would be its true glory, making it admired by all around. God would receive honor from them, and he would give honor to them.

Those who have God as their God have him as their glory. Those who have him in their midst have glory in their midst. That is why the church is said to be all glorious within. And the people or places that have God as glory in the middle of them also have him as a wall of fire around them, because over all that glory there is, and will be, a defense (Isaiah 4:5).

This was partly fulfilled in Jerusalem, which over time became a flourishing city and made a great impression in that region, far beyond what anyone might have expected after its low condition and long recovery. But its full fulfillment belongs to the gospel church, which spreads far like towns without walls by welcoming the Gentiles, and which has God, the Son of God, as its Prince and Protector.