Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Senior
I am really torn over the interpretation of Zechariah chapter 14. Some aspects seem Postmillennial, others (maybe) amillennial, others even Premillennial.
Right now I think it is speaking of the whole Church age with a Postmillennial flavor.
If you think you understand the chapter, please give me some bullet points or a paragraph or two on several of the verses.
Thanks,
from Lang et al.
A great and at first successful Assault is made upon the Holy City (vers. 1, 2). B. Then God miraculously interposes, grants Escape, and after a mingled Condition of Things gives a final and glorious Deliverance (vers. 3–7). C. A Stream of Salvation pours over the whole Land (vers.8–11). D. The Enemies are chastised (vers. 12–15). E. The Remnant of Them turn to the Lord (vers. 16–19). E. Jerusalem becomes thoroughly Holy (vers. 20, 21).
This concluding chapter of the Prophet has been very variously interpreted. Calvin, Grotius, and others supposed it to refer to the times of the Maccabees, which for a variety of reasons is scarcely possible. Marckius, following Cyril and Theodoret, applied its opening verses to the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus, and with him agree Lowth, Adam Clarke, and Henderson; but the circumstances here stated do not correspond with the facts of history, nor if they did, could the former part of the chapter be violently sundered from its plain connection with the latter part. The “later criticism” (Hitzig, Knobel, Maurer, Ewald, Bertheau, etc.), refer the passage to the period immediately preceding the Babylonish exile and the catastrophe then threatening Jerusalem; and when reminded of the contrast between the prediction and the facts, appeal to the ethical aim and conditional nature of prophecy as fully accounting for this, But even admitting their principle, it does not apply here, for this chapter has nothing to say of sin and judgment, of repentance and conversion on the part of the covenant people, but only of their dreadful trials and glorious deliverance. Such a prediction, addressed to Judah in the last decennium before the exile, could have exerted no healthful influence, and certainly the glowing statements of the latter part of it have no counterpart in any experience of the restored people. It only remains then either with Wordsworth, Blayney, Newcome, Moore, Cowles, etc., to refer it to a period yet future, or with Hengstenberg, Keil, etc., to suppose that it describes in general terms the whole development of the Church of God from the commencement of the Messianic era to its close. In either case the chapter must be taken as figurative and not literal. The cleaving of the Mount of Olives in two for the purpose of affording escape to fugitives from Jerusalem; the flowing of two perpetual streams from the holy city in opposite directions; the levelling of the whole land in order to exalt the temple-mountain; the yearly pilgrimage of all nations of the earth to Jerusalem; and the renewal of the old sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual; these are plainly symbolical statements, but not therefore by any means unmeaning or useless. The chapter does not stand alone in the Scriptures. Parallels are to be found in Isaiah (65–66), Ezekiel (38–39), and Daniel (12), as well as in the closing book of the New Testament.
The Prophet begins with the account of an attack made upon the holy city by all nations, who, instead of being destroyed (like Gog and Magog in Ezekial) before getting possession of the holy city, seize and plunder it and carry away half its population, and then are met and thwarted by Jehovah, who provides escape for his people. This feature of escape inclines one to regard the passage as an ideal picture of all the conflicts of the Church with its foes.
Right now I think it is speaking of the whole Church age with a Postmillennial flavor.
If you think you understand the chapter, please give me some bullet points or a paragraph or two on several of the verses.
Thanks,
from Lang et al.
OUTLINE
A great and at first successful Assault is made upon the Holy City (vers. 1, 2). B. Then God miraculously interposes, grants Escape, and after a mingled Condition of Things gives a final and glorious Deliverance (vers. 3–7). C. A Stream of Salvation pours over the whole Land (vers.8–11). D. The Enemies are chastised (vers. 12–15). E. The Remnant of Them turn to the Lord (vers. 16–19). E. Jerusalem becomes thoroughly Holy (vers. 20, 21).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
This concluding chapter of the Prophet has been very variously interpreted. Calvin, Grotius, and others supposed it to refer to the times of the Maccabees, which for a variety of reasons is scarcely possible. Marckius, following Cyril and Theodoret, applied its opening verses to the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus, and with him agree Lowth, Adam Clarke, and Henderson; but the circumstances here stated do not correspond with the facts of history, nor if they did, could the former part of the chapter be violently sundered from its plain connection with the latter part. The “later criticism” (Hitzig, Knobel, Maurer, Ewald, Bertheau, etc.), refer the passage to the period immediately preceding the Babylonish exile and the catastrophe then threatening Jerusalem; and when reminded of the contrast between the prediction and the facts, appeal to the ethical aim and conditional nature of prophecy as fully accounting for this, But even admitting their principle, it does not apply here, for this chapter has nothing to say of sin and judgment, of repentance and conversion on the part of the covenant people, but only of their dreadful trials and glorious deliverance. Such a prediction, addressed to Judah in the last decennium before the exile, could have exerted no healthful influence, and certainly the glowing statements of the latter part of it have no counterpart in any experience of the restored people. It only remains then either with Wordsworth, Blayney, Newcome, Moore, Cowles, etc., to refer it to a period yet future, or with Hengstenberg, Keil, etc., to suppose that it describes in general terms the whole development of the Church of God from the commencement of the Messianic era to its close. In either case the chapter must be taken as figurative and not literal. The cleaving of the Mount of Olives in two for the purpose of affording escape to fugitives from Jerusalem; the flowing of two perpetual streams from the holy city in opposite directions; the levelling of the whole land in order to exalt the temple-mountain; the yearly pilgrimage of all nations of the earth to Jerusalem; and the renewal of the old sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual; these are plainly symbolical statements, but not therefore by any means unmeaning or useless. The chapter does not stand alone in the Scriptures. Parallels are to be found in Isaiah (65–66), Ezekiel (38–39), and Daniel (12), as well as in the closing book of the New Testament.
The Prophet begins with the account of an attack made upon the holy city by all nations, who, instead of being destroyed (like Gog and Magog in Ezekial) before getting possession of the holy city, seize and plunder it and carry away half its population, and then are met and thwarted by Jehovah, who provides escape for his people. This feature of escape inclines one to regard the passage as an ideal picture of all the conflicts of the Church with its foes.
Lange, J. P., Schaff, P., & Chambers, T. W. (2008). A commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Zechariah (pp. 109–110). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.