Zechariah 3:2

"And Jehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"

This double rebuke of Satan by God Himself dramatically demonstrates the conception that Satan is indeed a powerful, superhuman enemy of mankind, full of the utmost and most malicious wickedness.

Details of Satan's charges against Israel (as represented by Joshua) were not given in the vision; for there was no need to do so. God's prophets themselves had spelled out in the most vehement language the gross sins and vile wickedness of God's people which resulted at last in their near-total destruction. God did not need Satan to point out their sins, which were evident enough in the filthy garments in which Joshua appeared in the vision.

The occasion of Satan's opposition was strategic, coming precisely at the point in history when it appeared that Israel would indeed not perish, but that God would go right on with his longstanding intention of bringing into the world the Holy Redeemer through his now-disciplined people. Satan's opposition was squarely against that.

Satan's arguments were not heard; they were not refuted; they were not allowed for a moment to interfere with the plans of the eternal God. God merely hurled against him the devastating double-rebuke of this verse; and, immediately, Satan was vanquished, and he appeared no more in the vision.

"Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem ..." It was not as if God were considering whether or not he would go on with thc plan of redeeming humanity; ah, no! In ages long previous to the times of the vision, it was an immutable fact that "God had chosen Jerusalem"; and the rebuke of Satan emphasized it, "Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee."

"Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ...?" The impact of this was directed against Satan's objections, as if God had said:

Look, Satan, I have already rescued Israel from what you along with the whole world thought was their final doom. They were in the process of being burned up forever, but I have pulled them out of the fire and have no intention of altering the plan of human salvation.

As Gill put it:

"The ten northern tribes were gone; the generation that went into Babylon was dead; and those who returned were but a handful compared to the ones who remained in Babylon. Unless God had plucked them as a brand from the fire, they would no longer have been a people."[8]

This whole vision should be understood exactly for what it is, a vision, an enacted metaphor of reality. The law-court scene in which Satan appears as prosecutor and the angel of God as defender of God's people is an enacted figure of speech, one that is carried over into the New Testament, where Jesus Christ our Lord is represented as our "Advocate" (1 John 2:1).

Dean's opinion of this vision does not agree that Satan was an "accuser" in this situation, but "an adversary," one who opposed God Himself and any action of Joshua's that might have conformed to God's will.[9] We actually find no fault with that view, for in Satan's function as an "adversary" he naturally "accused" also; and there were plenty of things to accuse with reference to Israel.