Zechariah 3:8 - Meaning and Application

As the promises made to David often move naturally into promises about the Messiah, whose kingdom David’s was a type of, so the promises made here to Joshua quickly rise to Christ. Joshua’s priesthood was only a shadow of Christ’s priesthood, not just in a general way, because it kept the line of Aaron’s priesthood alive, but especially because it restored that blessed way of contact between heaven and earth, which Israel’s sin and captivity had interrupted. Christ is a high priest, as Joshua was, for sinners and sufferers, one who speaks to God for those who have lived under guilt and anger. Joshua needed to understand Christ’s priesthood, because all the strength, value, and usefulness of his own priesthood came from Christ’s priesthood.

See who this promise of Christ is given to in (Zech 3:8): “Hear now, O Joshua.” Joshua had already heard with joy what concerned himself, but a greater than Joshua is coming. “Hear now concerning him,” God says, “you and the rest of the priests, your companions, who sit before you.” They sit at his feet as learners, yet Joshua must think of them as his equals, because they are all brothers. The high priest and the other priests are meant to notice this, because they are “men wondered at.” They are set up as signs, as pictures of Christ’s priesthood.

What God was doing for Joshua and his companions was a joyful sign of the coming Messiah, and thoughtful people would see it that way with glad amazement. Or they are “men wondered at” because they stand out so much. People mock them as strange because they do not join others in the same sinful living (1 Peter 4:4). Or they are wondered at because of their unusual troubles and their surprising rescue from them, as in (Psalm 71:7), “I am as a wonder to many.” God’s people and ministers are often men of wonder in many ways. The high priest and his companions here, like the prophet and his children in (Isaiah 8:18), are for signs and wonders. But people’s amazement at them will fade when the Messiah comes, like stars fading in the sun’s light, because his name will be called Wonderful.

The promise itself has several parts, all meant to comfort and strengthen Joshua and his friends in the good work of rebuilding the temple. Looking to Christ and trusting the promises about him and his kingdom would help them through the troubles they faced in that work and in all their service.

The Messiah will come: “Behold, I will bring forth my servant, the Branch.” He has been hidden for a long time, but the right time is near when God will bring him into the world, among his people Israel. God himself will bring him forth, so there is no doubt that God will own him and support him. He is God’s servant, sent to do God’s work, obedient to God’s will, and fully given to God’s honor and glory. He is the Branch, the name given to him in (Isaiah 4:2), (Isaiah 11:1), (Jeremiah 23:5), and (Jeremiah 23:15). His beginnings were small, like a tender shoot, but in time he would become a great tree that fills the earth (Isaiah 53:2). He is the branch from which all our fruit must come.

Many eyes will be on him. He is the stone set before Joshua, pointing to the foundation stone or chief corner-stone of the temple, which may have been laid with special ceremony before Joshua. Christ is not only the branch, the start of a tree, but also the foundation, the start of a building. When he is brought forth, “seven eyes” will be on him. His Father’s eye was on him to care for him and protect him, especially in his suffering. When he was buried in the grave, like a foundation stone under the ground, heaven’s eyes were still on him. He was hidden from people’s sight, but never from God’s. The eyes of all the prophets and Old Testament believers were on this one stone. Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day, and he saw it and was glad. The eyes of all believers are on him too. They look to him and are saved, like the eyes of the bitten Israelites looked to the bronze serpent. Some understand the stone as having seven eyes in it, like the wheels in Ezekiel’s vision, and take this to mean the perfect wisdom and knowledge that Jesus Christ had for the good of his church. His eyes go to and fro through the earth.

God himself will give him beauty and honor: “I will engrave the engraving of it,” says the Lord of hosts. The builders had rejected this stone as rough and unattractive, but God will smooth and polish it, and even carve it so that it becomes the head stone of the corner, the most beautiful stone in the whole building. Christ is God’s own work, and much of God’s wisdom appears in the plan of our salvation. That wisdom will be fully seen when the carving is complete. This stone is a precious stone, even though it is laid as a foundation stone. The engraving may point to the precious stones on the high priest’s breastplate, where the names of the tribes were engraved, like the engraving of a signet (Exodus 28:21, 22). There were twelve stones there before Aaron, and as far as we know they are now gone. But before Joshua there will be one stone worth them all, and that stone is Christ himself. This precious stone will shine as if it had seven eyes, showing perfect wisdom and good judgment in the words that come from the breastplate of judgment. And God will engrave the engraving of it, meaning that he will commit all his chosen people to Christ, and Christ will stand before God as their representative and advocate. In that way he will act for them, just as the high priest did when he went before the Lord with all Israel’s names engraved on the stones of his breastplate. When God gave a remnant to Christ, to be brought by grace to glory, then he engraved the engraving of this precious stone.

By him sin will be removed, both its guilt and its rule over us: “I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.” When the high priest had Israel’s names engraved on the precious stones he wore, he is said to bear the iniquity of the holy things (Exodus 28:38). But the law could not make anything perfect (Hebrews 10:1). He bore the guilt of the land as a picture of Christ, but he could not take that guilt away. That work was left for Christ, the blessed Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He did it in one day, the day when he suffered and died. What the sacrifices of many ages could not do, not even all the yearly days of atonement from Moses to Christ, was done by the sacrifice offered that day. This fits the angel’s word in (Daniel 9:24): “He shall finish transgression and make an end of sin.”

Some understand the engravings God put on him as pointing to the wounds and stripes that were laid on Christ’s blessed body. He suffered these for our sin and our guilt, and by those wounds we are healed.

The result of all this will be the sweet joy believers have in themselves, and the sweet fellowship they will have with one another (Zechariah 3:10). In that day, each person will invite his neighbor to sit under the vine and the fig tree, which give pleasant fruit and also cool shade for resting places. When iniquity, or guilt and sin, is taken away, we receive precious blessings through our justification, that is, being made right with God, blessings more valuable than the fruit of vine or fig tree (Romans 5:1).

We also rest in a calm peace and are free from the fear of evil. What should frighten us when iniquity is taken away, when nothing can truly harm us? We sit with delight under Christ’s shadow, sheltered by him from the burning heat of the law’s curse. We live then like Israel did under Solomon’s peaceful rule (1 Kings 4:24-25), for Christ is the prince of peace.

We should also invite others to share this joy with us. We should call our neighbors to come and sit with us, and to enjoy the same blessings in fellowship with us under the vine and fig tree. Gospel grace, when it truly works with power, makes people more neighborly. Those who know Christ’s comfort and have fellowship with God through him will be eager to draw others into it too. Let us go to the house of the Lord.