The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him: 2 “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. 3 On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it. 4 On that day, declares the Lord, I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness. But for the sake of the house of Judah I will keep my eyes open, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. 5 Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the Lord of hosts, their God.’
6 “On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem.
7 “And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. 8 On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them. 9 And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
Him Whom They Have Pierced
10 “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. 11 On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; 14 and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves. Zechariah 12 ESV
Zechariah 12
Who stretched out the heavens - It is amazing how many times this comes up in the OT. Most of the world today accepts a model or models relating to origins that dates the universe by billions of years, and time, for these models, is an essential thing, some might say magical. For proponents of macro evolution that do not like the idea of a Creator or design, time was essentially their greatest ally, as we have all heard, "given enough time," and the more the better for these models. Now for those that like to see time as some sort of force, or a place to throw away the arguments of complexity, for they reason that given enough time then all the variety in the universe would be able to happen, develop, and occur on its own, unguided by any Designer, for them, time and chance start to take on personalities. Many of the early Darwinist did not like to accept the idea of the Big Bang, because it stated a beginning, a start, but science points us to a start, that the universe had a beginning, which also started time, which is essentially a measurement, duration, much like chance is not a force, is not intellect or any type of creative power, but a measure of probability, the likelihood that something will or would not occur. So now two different groups of the scientific community, some that propose design, given that all things appear to show patterns and language, as if God spoke them into being, and others that believe there is no designer, but from both of these groups there is a majority that think the universe is some 14 billion years old, so now everything that occurred must occur within that time frame, if we are to evaluate this scientifically, by normal means of observation, where we trace things by cause and effect. For some, this is a problem, because you're saying that time and space are not infinite, that matter was not always existent, and so when they reach a hang up regarding development, they now feel confined, because you can't just add more time where it is not available. So, where would we find more time? Where could we resolve the issue of what took place during the "planck epoch"? Maybe we could borrow from the multiverse, or aliens from a galaxy far, far away where thankfully they all speak English anyway, putting the question somewhere else, but never dealing with the elephant in the room. My wife sent me an interesting article from the BBC on origins, and here is a selection from it:
Suppose we ask: where did spacetime itself arise from? Then we can go on turning the clock yet further back, into the truly ancient "Planck epoch" – a period so early in the Universe's history that our best theories of physics break down. This era occurred only one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. At this point, space and time themselves became subject to quantum fluctuations. Physicists ordinarily work separately with quantum mechanics, which rules the microworld of particles, and with general relativity, which applies on large, cosmic scales. But to truly understand the Planck epoch, we need a complete theory of quantum gravity, merging the two.
We still don't have a perfect theory of quantum gravity, but there are attempts – like string theory and loop quantum gravity. In these attempts, ordinary space and time are typically seen as emergent, like the waves on the surface of a deep ocean. What we experience as space and time are the product of quantum processes operating at a deeper, microscopic level – processes that don't make much sense to us as creatures rooted in the macroscopic world.
The most we can say with confidence at this stage is that physics has so far found no confirmed instances of something arising from nothing - BBC.com article by Alastair Wilson
So there are all these theories out there, but there is this God, that Zechariah describes here as saying, He is the one who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth, and this is important because this same God is going to make some other very big claims about the future as well. Look at the first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning (that's time), God (that's force), created (that's action), the heavens (that's space), and the earth (that's matter).
But as simple as even the first statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is, it is at the same time an illustration of the profundity with which God speaks in simple language. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, a child can understand it. And yet in those simple, clear, unmistakable words there is massive, massive, profound data.
Herbert Spencer, a non-Christian scientist, hailed as one worthy of many prizes in science, died in 1903. His greatest achievement, Herbert Spencer, was that he discovered the categories of the knowable. That is to say he determined that everything that exists fits into one of five categories. This was hailed as a massive, massive cataloging of realities. Spencer said, “Everything fits into one of these categories, time, force, action, space, matter,” and was hailed by the scientific community. - J Mac
So I am not a scientist, not even that smart, but there are more than 10 times in the Bible that God describes Himself as the One Who stretched out the heavens. He also, in very simple language, says, He did it in six days, evening and morning. Now maybe it's because I am not that smart, but I take those to be literal days, so I have to excuse myself from the table of those that see Genesis 1 as allegorical. When He says "stretched out the heavens", I was amazed, so from this starting point "Big Bang", He pulled out the heavens, took the universe to amazing breadths, so the farthest visible stars to us, those we see in the Hubble telescope, billions of light years (distance light travels in one year) away, that light was stretched out in one day, that trail of light would have been visible with the Hubble telescope from the day He made the heavens. It is an indicator that God created the universe with age, like when we set up a fish tank, we want the water aged, we want helpful bacteria to be present, that break down waste, otherwise our ammonia goes out of control, with no lights our plants die, without stability the PH crashes. Now you can set this tank up and break it in over several days, or you can add helpful bacteria to the water, seeding the filtration, and be able to add fish the same day. So a lengthy intro, but that same God, Who stretched out the heavens is now going to speak to Jerusalem and tell her about the last days. When He speaks it's though it already happened, but we, who live in space and time, have not yet arrived there to see it.
More than halfway across the universe, an enormous blue star nicknamed Icarus is the farthest individual star ever seen. Normally, it would be much too faint to view, even with the world’s largest telescopes. But through a quirk of nature that tremendously amplifies the star’s feeble glow, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were able to pinpoint this faraway star and set a new distance record. They also used Icarus to test one theory of dark matter, and to probe the make-up of a foreground galaxy cluster.
The star, harbored in a very distant spiral galaxy, is so far away that its light has taken 9 billion years to reach Earth. It appears to us as it did when the universe was about 30 percent of its current age. - Nasa.gov
…7He commands the sun not to shine; He seals off the stars. 8He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. 9He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, of the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.… Job 9: 7-9
1Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty. 2He wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent, 3laying the beams of His chambers in the waters above, making the clouds His chariot, walking on the wings of the wind.… Psalm 104: 1-3
I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering - For who? The nations, and they will come to her confidently, the world, and drink from this cup (actual Hebrew describes something larger, a basin), that all of them come to drink from, but it is really the cup of God's wrath.
And then most notably, the Lord is introduced as the One who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundation of the Earth and forms the spirit of man within him. Those are all descriptives pointing at one great event: creation. The One who is the Creator will be the consummator. It is the Lord who creates, and it is the Lord who brings His creation to its end. And that is the message that Zechariah receives from the Lord, “I will act. I will act in the end. I created everything that exists out of nothing, and I will decide when everything that exists goes back to nothing. This is prewritten history by the sovereign Creator. - J Mac
I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone - They come cocky, they come in strength, it's a tiny nation, so it looks like a few hours work and then be home for dinner and cocktails, easy, but look, "all who lift will surely hurt themselves." It's that kind of heavy, heavier than you anticipated, and now you're drunk from the cup of God's wrath, and injured from what looked to you like an easy burden.
All the nations of the earth will gather against it - This is Armageddon, the final battle, and Israel is the great prize. We are waiting for the return of Christ, and they didn't recognize His first coming. God has made huge promises about a future Israel, and these nations come to snuff that out, because they hate God, and the existence of this people is a rebuke to their autonomy, their master wants to foil some plan of God, and he is running out of time, running out of options, because he hasn't been able to stop even one thing that God predicted. God is showing the world and the heavenly beings that He is sovereign, even over wicked men and angels.
The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish 11 and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.
12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. 13 And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. 14 For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. 15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. Revelation 16: 10-16
I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot - It will become very evident to all, especially Israel, that their strength is coming from the Lord. It will be a shock to those that came looking for easy pickings, and came with massive forces.
Feeblest among them on that day shall be like David - A nation of giant slayers, of warriors. If God is for you, who can be against?
…44“Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” 45But David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.… 1 Samuel 17: 44-46
And the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord - The Son of David will be with them, going out before them, the Angel of the Lord, this is Christ, God sitting on the throne of David, the Messiah's second coming. We know from our studies that the Angel of the Lord was a preincarnate Christ, now we see the two ideas tied together. The angel of the Lord went before the armies in the past, and He led the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and the wilderness. He was the cloud by day and fire by night, the ultimate Shepherd.
20Behold, I am sending an angel before you to protect you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not defy him, for he will not forgive rebellion, since My Name is in him.… Exodus 23: 20-21
10-14 And I will pour out - So look at this, God is talking to Zechariah, so God will pour out "a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy". We have God, and we have the work of the Spirit, regeneration. What does this look like? How can a man be born again? Look, they are being granted repentance.
…26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances. 28Then you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.… Ezekiel 36: 26-28
When they look on Me, on Him Whom they have pierced - Who is talking now? Still God, Who said, "I will pour out", now they look on Him, and we know this to be the visible manifestation of God, the Son of God. Why? First because "no one has seen the Father", and secondly, look at the text, He identifies Himself further, "Him Whom they have pierced". Now all of this was at the Father's will, but it was Jesus, Who took the curse upon Him, as cursed is everyone who hangs from a tree. It was Christ, Who was nailed to the cross, whose side was pierced, from which the water flowed. In this short section of Scripture you have the gospel, and in it's Trinitarian form.
…6who has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen. 7Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him— even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen. 8“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and was and is to come—the Almighty.… Revelation 1: 6-8
The land shall mourn - Blessed are they that mourn, this is a fruit of those that have come under true conviction, they see their sin, they see the one they pierced and rejected.
Each family...their wives by themselves - No one falls under the protection of the head of household, marriage does not save you, nor is salvation hereditary, as those who claimed to be sons of Abraham were corrected by the Son of God. As they say, "God doesn't have grandchildren." Knowing someone who is saved does not save you, you have to believe in the only expectable sacrifice, Christ, all your hope has to rest on Him, not you, not who you are related to, not your works, not your husband or your wife, salvation is in Christ alone.
Please notice this: this is not collective; this isn’t a national event; this isn’t orchestrated like some National Prayer Day. This is individual people mourning over their own sin. And the reason it points out the wives is simply to make the clear point: wives submit to husbands as a standard behavior. Wives follow their husbands, but here it will be the wife repenting of her own sin, mourning over her own sin and looking at the cross and saying, “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. This is when they all individually confessed, because salvation doesn’t happen to nations; it only happens to individuals. And if the whole nation of individuals is saved, then the nation is saved. - J Mac
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