Month: August 2025

Week 32  Zechariah 12

I can’t say for sure but I think the last three chapters of Zechariah – 12-14 – are a separate section of the book. Up to that point there’s been a lot of content dealing with Zechariah’s visions. But then 12 starts off with what looks like a heading or subtitle:
The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel.
A few other bible versions use that same (odd) expression: the burden of the Lord. But others change the word burden – replace it with:
a pronouncement
a prophecy
the oracle.
I notice that a couple of them decided to make it into a kind of title by adding a semicolon:
A prophecy:
One of them bolds the words to emphasize it:
An Oracle.
Anyway the point is that it looks to me like chapter 12 is the start of a new section. I realize that it’s possible to break down the book of Zechariah in other ways so I’m not going to go-to-the-wall over this one.
But I have two reasons to think that Zechariah was moving-on in 12:1.
The first was that opening phrase: An Oracle. To me that looks like an ancient-world equivalent to a bit of neon signage.
Secondly was that Zechariah began to frequently use the expression day of the Lord in his last three chapters – I counted 18 times in 44-verses. Often enough that the day of the Lord might be Zechariah’s key idea in 12-14.

Note: quote from Zechariah 12:1 (NASB CSB CJB ESV NIV & RSV)

Week 31  Zechariah 7

The chapter begins with men coming to Zechariah and asking him about a fast they had been practicing for years-and-years.
The way they put the question to Zechariah he had two options. Answer a) yes…keep fasting. Answer b) no…stop fasting. But like what happens sometimes in the bible Zechariah didn’t answer the question directly. Instead he told them about other things the Lord wanted to see:
Make fair decisions
Show faithful love and compassion to one another
Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the resident alien or the poor
And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.
I check a cross-reference to Isaiah where the people  were wondering about fasting and Isaiah told them what the Lord preferred:
break the chains of wickedness
untie the ropes of the yoke
set the oppressed free
share your bread with the hungry
bring the poor and homeless into your house
clothe the naked
and don’t ignore your own flesh and blood.
Some of the same practices in both lists. Some of them maybe even harder than fasting.
I like lists like these.
They remind me that the technical formalities of OT religion were supposed to be technical. And also personal.
And they remind me that the prescribed practices of OT religion didn’t end in the Temple court. They were supposed to carry over into my regular day-in-and-day-out.

Note: quotes from Zechariah 7:9-10 (reformatted) & Isaiah 58:6-7 (reformatted & slightly rephrased) (CSB)

Week 31  Zechariah 6

The Lord told Zechariah to visit the high priest – a man named Joshua – and say: here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord. So it makes it sound like Joshua is the Branch.
I’ve got a niggling concern about this so I check the five marginal references in my bible:
In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit
The days are coming…when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land
Listen Joshua, you and your associates…are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch.
These other verses explain a couple of reasons why Joshua is not the Branch.
First the Branch is – genealogically-speaking – going to come from David’s clan. Not Levi’s.
Second Zechariah says the Branch will come at a future time. The Branch is waiting-in-the-wings.
Third Zechariah tells Joshua he only symbolizes the real Branch. A kind of logo… a trademark.
So whoever the Branch actually is…he isn’t Joshua the priest.

Note: quotes from Zechariah 6:12 Isaiah 4:2 11:1 Jeremiah 23:5 33:15 Zechariah 3:8 (NIV)