Zechariah 3:2 - Exposition

The Lord said. The Angel of Jehovah speaks. The appellations are often here used interchangeably. The Lord rebuke thee. The Lord's rebuke falls with effect where it is directed; it paralyzes the hostile power (comp. Psalms 106:9 ; Nahum 1:4 ). Satan's accusation may have been well founded, but it sprang from malice, and was directed against the people whom God was receiving into favour, and therefore it was rejected and rendered innocuous. Some commentators have supposed that St. Jude is alluding to this passage when ( Jude 1:9 ) he quotes the words of Michael contending about the body of Moses, "The Lord rebuke thee:" but it is more probable that Jude is referring to some rabbinical tradition, or to the apocryphal 'Assumption of Moses' (see the matter examined in Dissertation I. of Dr. Gloag's 'Introduction to the Catholic Epistles'). That hath chosen Jerusalem ( Zechariah 1:17 ; Zechariah 2:12 ). God's election of Israel and renewed acceptance of her is the reason why Satan's accusation is rejected ( Deuteronomy 7:7 , Deuteronomy 7:8 ). She is not to be abandoned to the consequences of her sins, nor were God's gracious purposes towards her to be frustrated. "God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew;" and, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" ( Romans 8:33 ; Romans 11:2 , Romans 11:29 ). This . This man, Joshua, saved from his father's and grandfather's fate (see on Haggai 1:1 ), a type of the deliverance of Israel. A brand plucked out of the fire. Israel had been already punished by defeat, captivity, distress, and misery. From these evils, which had almost destroyed her, she had been delivered; and the deliverance would be completed; she should not be cast again into the fire (see Amos 4:11 , and note there). The expression is proverbial.