“The Secret of the Kingdom”

Sunday, November 24, 2024

The second half of Zechariah’s prophecies are a mix of the obvious and the obscure.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

        Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your king is coming to you;

        righteous and having salvation is he,

humble and mounted on a donkey,

        on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

(Zechariah 9.9)

It’s easy to see the fulfillment in the New Testament, when Jesus told two disciples,

“Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet…

(Matthew 21.2-4)

Matthew certainly recognized the source of Jesus’ odd instructions! At the same time, the context in Zechariah was not obviously about Jesus. It had to do with the coming judgment pronounced against Syria, Phoenicia, and Philistia (Zc 9.1-5). The promise that Jerusalem’s righteous, saving king would be seated on Zion again reads as messianic, given the state of affairs in Judea when Zechariah prophesied; but it certainly sounds like this king will be a man of war, who will establish peace through strength! Of course, that’s exactly what Jesus did—but his battles and strength were spiritual, and a man of his humble appearance and lack of great physical strength was not what the Jews expected.

It certainly does not stop there! For example, in the next chapter we find this:

for the Lord of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah,

        and will make them like his majestic steed in battle.

From him shall come the cornerstone,

        from him the tent peg,

from him the battle bow,

        from him every ruler—all of them together.

(Zechariah 10.3-4)

By the end of that quote, the significance has become hazy; but the mention of the tribe Judah and the ruler to come, labeled “the cornerstone,” are too much to pass without comment! The Messiah’s lineage is often emphasized, and his comparison to a foundation stone is likewise part of a pattern, appearing in Psalm 118.22 and Isaiah 28.16—both of which are quoted in 1 Peter 2.6-7.

Another obvious, yet obscure prophecy appears in the next chapter of Zechariah.

Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.

(Zechariah 11.12-13)

The speaker appears to be the prophet himself; but the meaning is not clear. Is this a figurative retelling of his prophetic career? Is it a vision? Did it pertain to the present, or the future? In any case, when Judas agreed to betray Jesus, the religious authorities “paid him thirty pieces of silver” (Mt 26.15); but later he felt remorse and tried to give the money back. His co-conspirators refused and so, “throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself” (Mt 27.5). The leaders were happy to murder God’s Son, but they drew the line at putting “blood money” into the temple treasury (v6), “So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers” (v7). The actors and reasons seem to be shifted around, but this is obviously all foreshadowed in Zechariah’s otherwise obscure prophecy.

A similar case appears in the next chapter.

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

(Zechariah 12.10)

God is speaking; yet he seems to label himself as one “pierced” and mourned, as parents mourn their child’s untimely death. There’s no trouble interpreting this in retrospect; we clearly recognize the speaker as Jesus! John’s Gospel makes it explicit.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. …And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

(John 19.34 & 37)

But one has to sympathize with those who tried to make sense of this passage, before Jesus’ death and resurrection!

There are more  messianic prophecies in these closing chapters of Zechariah, but these are some of the most obvious. Is the point just that the Old Testament is a preface to the New? Well, no—we should already have known that. But what is particularly meaningful in these few cases is that most of the other messianic prophecies in the Old Testament had a much more obvious, near-term fulfillment as their primary focus. Even many of the examples from the first of half of Zechariah fit into this category! But as the time drew near, God started giving his people hints that no longer had the same sort of double meaning. Jesus did something similar:

And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”

(Mark 4.10-12)

Many generations longed to know and understand what God has now made plain (cf. 1Pe 1.10-12). Be grateful that he has spoken plainly to this generation. Don’t take this gift for granted; but take advantage of it.

Jeremy Nettles

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