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Zechariah, Prophet of God's remembrance, part 3

Zechariah 1:1-3 begins,

¹ In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo saying, ² “The Lord was very angry with your fathers. ³ Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Return to Me,” declares the Lord of hosts, “that I may return to you,” says the Lord of hosts’.”

God was referring to the sins of their fathers more than 70 years earlier when they refused to obey His law as they had vowed to do at Mount Horeb in the days of Moses. This rebellion, of course, was the reason for the 70-year captivity and Babylonian exile which had only recently ended.

In essence, God was causing them to remember their covenant with Him so that God would have legal grounds to remember His covenant as well. “Return to Me… that I may return to you,” God tells them. To return is to turn around, to repent. The fact that God was speaking to people who had already returned to the old land shows that this was inadequate. Anyone can immigrate to the old land if he has the means and the strength to do so. The return that really matters is repentance and returning to fulfill the terms of the covenant.

This is a lesson for our time as well, for again we see how the Zionists have “returned” to the old land but have not repented in the way that would make God “return” to them.

Partial Repentance, Partial Subjugation

When the first wave of immigrants returned to the old land, they were ignorant of God’s law and appear to have adopted the laws of Babylon. Decades later, after Nehemiah arrived to build the walls of Jerusalem, the governor discovered that the people were practicing usury (Nehemiah 5:1-5), which was forbidden in the law (Exodus 22:25; Deuteronomy 23:19). The result was that the common people who had returned from captivity had become slaves to their fellow Jews.

It is clear that even under Zerubbabel in the days of Zechariah (520 B.C.) God was not satisfied with the laws that governed their society. Though they had returned physically, they had not returned spiritually. Historically, these returning Jews did make one improvement, however. The Babylonian captivity had stamped out the practice of building idols to worship. Yet the problem of heart idolatry remained ingrained in their daily lives. So we read in Zechariah 1:4,

⁴ “Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not listen or give heed to Me,” declares the Lord.

The implication is that if the people continued to live by Babylonian laws and reject the laws of God, they faced the prospect once again of captivity and even exile. Zechariah was sent to warn them by reminding them of their history.

We may conclude, then, that the people’s “return” did not resolve the more important underlying problem—the root cause of captivity and slavery. It is for this reason, I believe, that the people remained subject to the dominion of Persia, the second beast empire prophesied by Daniel. They enjoyed a degree of autonomy, but not full independence. Their spiritual condition was reflected in their political subjugation.

The Lesson of Past Prophets

In those days it appears that the admonitions of Jeremiah and Daniel still held sway over the people as a whole, in that they willingly submitted to the Persian kings. In fact, they were glad that the Persian kings protected them from their hostile neighbors who were also subject to the Persian empire. This protection is set forth in both Ezra and Nehemiah.

However, as the centuries passed, a new religious view gained traction which claimed that God wanted them to be free. Their idea of repentance was to rise up against foreign domination and establish their independence. These “patriots” rebelled against God’s verdict (Jeremiah 27) and ignored the prophet’s instructions (Jeremiah 29), and tried to fight the fourth beast empire—Rome. The result was disastrous, and once again they were brought into exile.

In other words, they “repented” of following the word of the Lord and decided instead to follow a lawless course of action. Had they submitted to Rome, they might have prospered, as did many of other nations that Rome ruled. But because of their rebellious nature, Rome reacted more and more harshly, and the people became more and more oppressed.

Zechariah 1:5, 6 continues,

⁵ “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶ But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, ‘As the Lord of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dealt with us’.”

Zechariah’s message from God was generally accepted by the people, and “they repented” at that time. They agreed with the earlier prophets and acknowledged that their exile to Babylon had come about because of their rebellion and refusal to believe the word of the Lord. Unfortunately, as with all times of repentance in the past, the lesson was lost by succeeding generations.