BLOG

Zechariah, Prophet of God's remembrance, part 40

Zechariah 14:1 says,

¹ Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil [shawlal, “plunder, spoils of war”] taken from you will be divided among you.

Who are being addressed here? The answer is in the previous verse, where “you” refers to the one-third who have been brought through the fire, those refined as silver (Zechariah 13:9). These are the ones who have believed in Christ, particularly in the 40 years leading up to the Roman war in 70-73 A.D. They are the ones who have called upon the name of the Lord and have become “My people.”

Possessions Returned

In the first century, we see how these believers were persecuted, killed, and driven out of the land, forced to flee, leaving behind their houses and property to be confiscated by the religious authorities. Acts 8:1 says,

¹ … And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Yet Zechariah 14:1 prophesies that their losses will be returned and “divided” among them. This pictures them sorting out their possessions to give everything to the rightful owners. There seems to be no evidence that this actually occurred in the first century. By the time of the Roman war, most of the Christians had escaped and were living in other parts of the Empire.

In fact, God used this persecution—bad as it was—to remove the Christians to safe areas so as to spare them from the hardships of that war. The remaining believers in the Jerusalem church left the city just before the final siege of the city during a lull in the war. This was between 66 and 70 A.D. The church moved to Pella on the other side of the Jordan River.

The recovery of “the spoil,” then was to be a future event at the end of the age after Jerusalem is destroyed for the last and final time. Obviously, the first-century believers themselves died long ago without ever seeing their possessions returned to them. However, “My people” expect to be raised from the dead at the end of the age, where they will be rewarded appropriately, along with the generation of overcomers who are alive at the time.

God’s Siege of Jerusalem

Zechariah 14:2 says,

² For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.

Here God Himself asserts that He is the One gathering “all the nations against Jerusalem.” He is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces coming against Jerusalem. Though most people would see only the physical troops, led by fleshly generals, those who understand the sovereignty of God must see that God Himself is bringing judgment upon the city and the entire land.

This is consistent with Isaiah 29:1-4, where God speaks directly to Jerusalem, saying,

¹ Woe, O Ariel, Ariel [“lion of God”] the city where David once camped! And year to year, observe your feasts on schedule. ² I will bring distress to Ariel, and she will be a city of lamenting and mourning, and she will be like an Ariel [“hearth, fireplace”] to me. ³ I will camp against you, encircling you, and I will set siegeworks against you, and I will raise up battle towers against you. ⁴ Then you will be brought low. From the earth you will speak, and from the dust where you are prostrate your words will come. Your voice will also be like that of a spirit from the ground, and your speech will whisper from the dust.

Jerusalem, as Ariel, was supposed to be a lion of God, but God turned the city into a fireplace. (Ariel carries this double meaning.) If God is leading the foreign troops in a siege of Jerusalem, then conversely, God’s enemies are those who defend the city. An enemy is anyone who opposes God and is hostile to Him, as the law tells us in Leviticus 26:40, 41, and 42. Jerusalem became God’s enemy when the leaders and the people rejected God and showed hostility toward the One He sent, Jesus Christ. About Israel, Isaiah 63:10 says,

¹⁰ But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy. He fought against them.

Hence, when God fights against “Ariel,” it is because the people and its leaders remain hostile to God and to Jesus Christ. This is why God fights Jerusalem and why the city will be destroyed once again.

Speaking again to Jerusalem, God indicates that the city’s “enemies” have already taken over the city. This occurred in 1967 when the Israelis took control of the entire city. Isaiah 29:5 says, “But the multitude of your enemies,” that is, the enemies of Ariel, “will become like fine dust… and it will happen instantly, suddenly.” Most Bible teachers assume that these enemies are those who lay siege to Jerusalem, but in fact, Jerusalem’s real enemies are those who rebelled against God, thereby triggering God’s siege against Jerusalem.

A Nuclear Strike?

Isaiah 29:6 uses terminology that seems to describe a nuclear blast upon the city.

⁶ From the Lord of hosts you [Jerusalem] will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire.

If we hope to understand God’s plan to destroy Jerusalem, it is important to interpret Zechariah 14:2 in light of Isaiah 29:1-6. Each prophet includes details that are omitted by the other. Isaiah speaks primarily of the destruction of the city, while Zechariah tells us that “the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled.” Apparently, the city will be taken prior to its destruction. Only after it is taken will someone detonate a nuclear device that will turn the city and its inhabitants to “fine dust.”

We must then ask ourselves this: What would be the Israeli response to losing Jerusalem in such a siege? It is an open secret that the Israelis possess nuclear bombs. Would they not decide that if they can’t have it, they will not let anyone else have it? It is quite possible and probable that the evacuation of the city will allow the Israelis themselves to nuke the city. In fact, this is the well-known “Samson Option,” which many have talked about for decades.

The Samson Option (Hebrew: ברירת שמשון, romanized: b'rerat shimshon) is Israel’s deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a "last resort" against a country whose military has invaded and/or destroyed much of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

Isaiah 29:7, 8 indicates that when the dust settles, no one will get the land. It will be like a dream, where someone dreams of being hungry and thirsty and of eating and drinking; but when he wakes up, he is still hungry and thirsty. In other words, for both Jew and Palestinian, the dream of inheriting the land will remain unrealized. With nuclear contamination all over the land, no one can live there.

Zechariah 14:2 says, “half of the city exiled,” which, in the present day siege, means that half of the inhabitants of the city will be forced out during the siege. “But the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.” We are not told the ethnicity of those who leave and those who remain, but that it will be half and half. Presumably, those who do not leave are the ones who will be left to die in the nuclear strike.

Zechariah 14:3 concludes,

³ Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fights on a day of battle.

What nations? We have already shown that God Himself is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces that lay siege to Jerusalem. Will He then turn against His own army to defend the Israelis? That seems unlikely, but Zechariah gives no real explanation. “Those nations” probably include both sides of the war, seeing as how no one will get to inhabit the land at the end of the war, as we learn from Isaiah.