Verse 16
"Therefore, thus saith Jehovah: I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it, saith Jehovah of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem."
My house shall be built in it ..." They are wrong who see in this promise nothing more than the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. Despite the obvious fact that the Jews understood this to mean exactly that, it is actually open to question whether or not their Temple was even included in this. In all of these visions, God was speaking of that distant day when the righteous BRANCH should appear and build God's true Temple, which is the Church of Jesus Christ (Zechariah 3:8).
My house shall be built ..." actually means that God's purpose of bringing in the Redeemer for all mankind will surely be achieved. All of the sins and apostasies of Israel would not be permitted to nullify that eternal purpose. Perhaps as a concession to people so naturally born to secularism, God also allowed the rebuilding of a Temple which he had not wanted from the first, and which, in the fullness of time, like its predecessor, would be summarily condemned and destroyed by the same God who destroyed the first. In any case, the physical Temple was rebuilt and finished in 516 B.C.
As Unger said:
"This promise had an incipient application to the prophet's times, and supplied the means of encouragement in the construction of the second temple. That application, however, was only partial."[30]
And a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem ..." This expression was used in two ways, either for destruction, or for building; but it is in the latter sense that we find it here. It meant that Jerusalem would be rebuilt. A line would be stretched out to measure and identify the streets and begin the process of rejuvenation for the destroyed metropolis.
Be the first to react on this!
