Zechariah 1 to 4
There was another prophet besides Haggai who told God’s words to people in Jerusalem soon after the return from Babylon. His name was Zechariah, and God showed him by angels and by visions, events to happen in those days, and of things to happen later, some that have not yet been fulfilled.
We know Zechariah was a young man because in one of the visions, an angel said, “Run, speak to this young man.” He was then told of a time when Jerusalem should be a very great city, and would need no walls, because God would Himself protect it, and he the glory in the midst” (Zech. 2:4,54And said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein: 5For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her. (Zechariah 2:4‑5)).
This shows that the Lord wants the young to know what He is to do. You may not at first understand many of the things shown the prophets, but each time we hear or read the words, they are plainer to us and we are helped. Most of the men who have told God’s words to others, ban when they were young. Zechariah both spoke and wrote God’s Words.
In one vision the prophet saw four “horns”, representing fierce nations, or powers, which had kept the people captives (as horns are the weapons or power of animals). Then he saw the “horns” conquered by “carpenters”, or builders,—nations who would allow Jerusalem to be rebuilt (Zech. 1:20,2120And the Lord showed me four carpenters. 21Then said I, What come these to do? And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it. (Zechariah 1:20‑21)).
In another vision the prophet saw Josa, the man who was the high priest at that time, standing before the angel of the Lord in unclean, “filthy”, garments. The high priest was always to wear pure linen clothes and a beautiful robe, not soiled garments. In the vision Satan stood near to accuse, or oppose the high priest. But the angel gave the order for the soiled clothes to be changed to clean garments, and “a fair mitre” to be placed on his head. The mitre was a headpiece of blue lace with a band across the forehead, on which Hebrew words were engraved, meaning “Holiness to the Lord” (Ex. 28:3636And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD. (Exodus 28:36)).
The high priest represented the people; the dirty clothing meant their ways ere sinful, sinful, so Satan could accuse them, but not after the angel had reclothed them. This teaches the holiness of the Lord, but also His great mercy. We are sinful and unfit for God as Israel, and Satan has reason to accuse us. But by the Lord Jesus His people are made fit for God.
Afterward, the high priest was told to do right ways, and he and the men of the temple were told of One to come, called “My Servant, The Branch”. That name, meant much more than we mean by that word; for we think of the branch as simply a part of a tree or shrub. But the word meant the sprout, or live part of the tree from which the rest grew. So The Branch was One to come to give life to others. The prophet was again told of The Branch as a Man:
We now know The Branch is Christ, the Son of God, “in Him was Life”. The temple He builds will not be of stone, but His peoples.
ML 10/04/1942