The City on a Hill

III A Series of Revelatory Oracles

E Return, Text: 14:1-21

Title: The City on a Hill

Introduction

This closing chapter of Zechariah is often interpreted in a literalistic fashion. I do not mean literal. It is interpreted in a way that betrays the meaning but sounds good to the carnal ear. Thus many interpreters think that what is being portrayed here is the actual military invasion of Jerusalem at the end of the age. This produces a two-fold weakness in our thinking. First we suppose that the great enemies of the kingdom of God are physical, contrary to that Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but with spiritual wickedness in high places and the rulers of the darkness of this age. The battle is primarily spiritual even when it involves, on occasion, physical persecution. The other weakness is that we think that our enemies are all outside the kingdom of God. Satan does indeed afflict from without, but his greatest strategy is to destroy from within. I am reminded of the words of Abraham Lincoln speaking to young men in Springfield, Illinois in 1838. He is talking about the United States, but the words are applicable to the Church. “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Thus the literalistic interpretation of this passage attempts to define exactly the period and matter of its accomplishment and has proved a failure, and has led to a mingling of events of very different dates, and to a conglomeration of senses literal, metaphorical, and anagogical, which creates confusion while assuming to explain difficulties. The literal interpretation must be resigned, and the whole prophecy must be taken to adumbrate the kingdom of God in its trial, development, and triumph. The city of God is always in danger from enemies domestic and foreign and it is always delivered by its chief resident, God Himself. Let us look therefore at the city where there is a storming, followed by a securing, followed by a subjugation, and finally a sanctification.

I The Storming

In verses 1-5 the storming of the city of God is described, A day of the Lord is coming when your plunder will be divided among you. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. All the pagan nations are united against the city as in Psalm 2:1-3, Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles. This conflict occurs constantly throughout history, but is intensified at the end. It is, if you will, the Devil’s last stand. The violence is like an earthquake. Many perish in the attack, but there is a remnant that escapes. These are the chosen ones, the true believers. Their enemies are God’s enemies and He is coming to destroy them. The Lord plundered Jerusalem to eliminate the unfaithful ones, and he plundered their enemies whom he had raised up to plunder them. Thus judgments fall throughout history as the Lord keeps coming, but there will be one final event, one final plundering, when nothing will be left but the indestructible kingdom of God and His elect people.

II The Securing

In the midst of the foregoing judgments the true city of God will be preserved as we read in verses 6-11, On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime—a day known to the Lord. When evening comes, there will be light. On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter. The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name. The whole land, from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem, will become like the Arabah. But Jerusalem will be raised up and remain in its place, from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses. It will be inhabited; never again will it be destroyed. Jerusalem will be secure. Thus God protects and preserves His people in the past, present, and future. America today is very concerned about its security from enemies. This is good, but one can never be perfectly secure by human measures. God made oysters perfectly secure. His shell shelters and protects him from all enemies. When hungry, the oyster simply opens his shell and food rushes in for him. He has freedom from want. But God made the eagle and said, “The blue sky is the limit — build your own house!” So the eagle built on the highest mountain. Storms threaten him every day. For food he flies through miles of rain and snow and wind. Our national symbol is not an oyster, but an eagle, and which would you rather be anyway? Our security is in God. In Revelation 21 and 22 the apostle John has a beatific vision of that city in its glory. John’s description of his vision exactly parallels the words of Zechariah. The Apostle records his vision in Revelation 21:22-27, I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Thomas Moore in his commentary on Zechariah reminds us, “This chapter is one of those portions of Scripture which, like sealed orders to a vessel, which are not to be opened until a certain latitude is reached, can only be read in perfect comprehension after the church has reached a point in her history yet future.” In other words, according to Moore, we can not understand fully until the time comes, and yet in the church we experience this already in part.

III The Subjugating

The securing of the city is followed by the subjugation of its enemies in verses 12-19, This is the plague with which the Lord will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. On that day men will be stricken by the Lord with great panic. Each man will seize the hand of another, and they will attack each other. Judah too will fight at Jerusalem. The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected—great quantities of gold and silver and clothing. A similar plague will strike the horses and mules, the camels and donkeys, and all the animals in those camps. Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The Lord will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This is what happens to those who oppose the work of God and persecute the people of God and the Church. They have marched against the Church and now their bodies will rot; their eyes have searched for weaknesses in the church with which to mock God, and now their eyes will rot in their sockets; they have attacked the church with the vitriol of their tongues and now those same tongues rot in their mouths. They turn against one another in panic and we see this happening with our own society daily. Their economies are ruined and the wealth they have stored up becomes meaningless and their industry perishes with the animals which were a sign of wealth in Old Testament times. The last mentioned in our text is the feast of tabernacles which they are to celebrate in Jerusalem. This is also called the feast of booths and in the Hebrew “Sukkot.” It is one of the three Biblically mandated festivals on which Hebrews were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. Zechariah asserts that in the messianic era Sukkot will become a universal festival and all nations will make pilgrimages annually to celebrate the feast. Why is such great importance attached to this festival and why are there such extreme penalties of drought for those who do not celebrate. The reason is that the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths, was a reminder of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness between Egypt’s bondage and the promised land. Those that participate are declaring their faith in Jahweh as the only redeemer. In the Messianic age they are declaring their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Those who refuse to celebrate are not saved. They are not delivered from the bondage of sin by Israel’s redeemer. Thus they are exposed to the judgment of God and the drought is a stark image of that and a severe reminder to us that it was at the feast of tabernacles that we read in John 7:37 and 38, On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. Obviously this is the opposite of drought.

IV The City Sanctified

The final result is seen in verses 20 and 21 when the entire city of God is sanctified, On that day holy to the Lord will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord Almighty. The goal from the moment of the fall of Adam into sin had been a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. Most of us are unfamiliar with the zeal of God for purity in His people in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 11 we find comprehensive legislation regarding unclean animals. In verses 32-35 we read, When one of them dies and falls on something, that article, whatever its use, will be unclean, whether it is made of wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth. Put it in water; it will be unclean till evening, and then it will be clean. If one of them falls into a clay pot, everything in it will be unclean, and you must break the pot. Any food you are allowed to eat that has come into contact with water from any such pot is unclean, and any liquid that is drunk from such a pot is unclean. Anything that one of their carcasses falls on becomes unclean; an oven or cooking pot must be broken up. They are unclean, and you are to regard them as unclean. Although the Bible never says cleanliness is next to Godliness, I suspect the saying had its origin in the ceremonial rules for Israel which in Jesus’ day were expanded greatly by the Pharisees. There was a passionate dedication to purity. But now in Zechariah’s vision everything is kosher which means ritually pure. The apostle John’s vision of the city of God at the end of the Bible certainly corresponds in many details with Zechariah 14. This vision is an ideal picture of the Body of Christ, the true temple of God, both now and in the future. It will only be fully achieved when Jesus returns, but it exists now and calls us in the church to exclude now what shall not have a permanent place in that city. This is according to John in Revelation 21:27, Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. It calls into question and shames the lax discipline of Christian churches in our time. We ought to be about creating this holy city on a hill.