Zechariah 14:1

This chapter has been considered somewhat of an enigma by commentators for centuries. Even Luther said, "In this chapter, I surrender, for I am not certain of what the prophet treats."[1] Of Zechariah 14:3, Adam Clarke stated that, "This is an obscure place."[2] After pointing out conflicting interpretations, Pusey could not decide between them, "Leaving the truth of the time (prophesied) to the judgment of the Lord."[3] The critical scholars admit all kinds of difficulties and propose various emendations, excisions, rearrangements and interpolations as solutions. We do not consider the chapter to be more than ordinarily difficult.

Several keys to unlocking the mystery of prophetic writings are available to the student of the scriptures. One of these is the device of answering multiple questions with one answer, a device used by Jesus in that great 24th chapter of Matthew where the subject under discussion is exactly the same as the theme of Zechariah here, "the destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple)," and "the time of the end of the world" (Matthew 24:3). Jesus' reply comprises the whole subsequent chapter, in which he clearly indicated that Jerusalem the literal city would be destroyed, making it at the same time a type of events of final world conflict and the Second Coming of Christ. Many of the things Jesus said describe both events. For example, "this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled" (Matthew 24:34) has a double application derived from the double meaning of "generation." In the case of the destruction of Jerusalem, it referred to the life-span of an ordinary generation (forty years); but in the case of the Second Coming, it meant that "the generation" or "posterity" of Abraham would not perish until the end of time. A dozen other examples of the same thing are seen in that single chapter.

There is such a resemblance between this chapter in Zechariah and that of Matthew 24, that it is safe to suppose that Jesus' words in the New Testament may actually be understood, partially, as an expansion and elaboration of this very prophecy.

Another key to understanding the prophecies regards such expressions as "last days" and "the day of the Lord," as used by the inspired apostles and prophets of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The scholarly distinction between eschatology and the entire Christian dispensation cannot possibly be correct. Peter identified the preaching of the gospel on Pentecost as pertaining to "the last day"; and the pedantic device of writing that off as Peter's mistake is nothing but a means of concealing their own error. It is not Peter who was mistaken on Pentecost, but the eschatologists who have failed to see that everything, absolutely everything, in the whole Christian dispensation belongs to the "last days," or to "the day of the Lord." Paul likewise referred to this period as "the ends of the ages" (1 Corinthians 10:11).

Thus, it is that men fail to see that the opening paragraph (Zechariah 14:14) is a reference to the destruction of literal Jerusalem, and must be applied to the literal city. It cannot be understood in any other way. How, for example, would the women be "raped" spiritually? However, there is an application far beyond the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70. The destruction of Jerusalem, the capital of the apostate "chosen people," as a punishment of their rejection of the Son of God, is a type of the ultimate judgment against the apostate church of God at the end of the age and prior to the Second Coming. The first Israel was an eloquent type of the second Israel.

Zechariah's marvelous prophecy of "the day of the Lord" is neither as specific nor as complete as that of Jesus; but, with the help of Jesus' elaboration of it, it is quite easily understood. The first paragraph details the destruction of Jerusalem; and we turn now to the study of the text on that (Zechariah 14:1-5).

Zechariah 14:1-2

"Behold, a day of Jehovah cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city."

We do not hesitate to apply this to the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Romans some forty years after their cruel and inhumane crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ (A.D. 70). For centuries, the great students of the Bible have discerned this. Luther, Clarke, and many others understood it this way. Objections to this view are that:

This interpretation is made untenable by the assurance that, "the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city." Of Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans, Josephus says, "Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury ... Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple."[4]

Note the word "plunder" in Josephus' quotation. Enslavement of people was one of the principal elements of "plundering" any city in ancient times; and we may be certain that the Romans never overlooked this. "Half the city shall go forth into captivity" means that a great part of the people became slaves. But how about their "not being cut off from the city?" This applies to the Christians, none of whom lost their lives in the siege of Jerusalem; because, forewarned by the Saviour, they were miraculously enabled to escape prior to the fall of the city. See under Zechariah 14:4, below. The city from which they were not "cut off" was the holy church, not the literal Jerusalem.

The weight of Hailey's objection lies in his supposition that the Romans took no slaves; but Josephus stated flatly that, "The rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old, he put them into bonds, and sent them to the Egyptian mines."[5] This did not include countless thousands of others reserved for the triumph, and sent as gifts to the provinces, where the local magistrates had the option either to destroy them in their theaters (with wild beasts, or gladiatorial contests) or to employ them as slaves, all mentioned in the same passage. This completely nullifies all objections based upon the allegation that a vast number were not sold as slaves. They most certainly were, just as this prophecy declared.

"For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle ..." First, this applied to the literal overthrow of the earthly Jerusalem in 70 A.D. "The Roman armies were composed of all the nations of the world."[6] In the second place, this refers to the gathering of all nations against Christianity in times leading up to the Second Coming of Christ (See Revelation 16:13,14). "They are the spirits of demons working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty" (Revelation 16:14). This understanding of the double significance of the passage clears up the conflict between those interpretations which stress one meaning, and those that emphasize the other. Both meanings are present.

Gill, for example, saw that, "We are here dealing with events of the end time";[7] and Martin Luther referred it to the destruction of Jerusalem and the events that occurred at the close of Christ's ministry (by the Romans in 70 A.D.).[8] Just as the fall of Jerusalem in Matthew 24 was indicated as typical of a greater crisis of events at the Second Coming "and the end of the world" in Matthew 24, so it is in this passage of Zechariah. Both meanings are definitely in the passage.