It has been a struggle for me to see what the scholar sees in these past few studies, vis-à-vis Isaiah’s Servant, Daniel’s Son of Man, and now Zechariah’s King. At times, I wonder, if only the scholar is meant to see these things. After all, this may be as it should be; he who dedicates his life to the study of the Lord, should receive some benefits that others, who believe what the scholar says, do not receive.
Presently, we are engaged in a study of one of the books of my favorite scholar, N.T. Wright, and his book is Simply Jesus. We are finishing the 12th chapter, entitled “At the Heart of the Storm.” The prophecy of Zechariah is composed of some strange, sort of ‘jerky’ and disjointed visions, but patient and determined study unveils a pattern, whereby Israel’s exile will be reversed and a King, the Messiah, will not only rule Israel but the whole world, all nations, as well.
Jesus seems to have used the Servant poems of Isaiah, the Son of Man figure and the clear sequence of the visions of Daniel, as well as the vision of the King in Zechariah to define his purpose, as the Son, God sent into the world. The sense of vocation, or purpose, is important to the servant of God, and Jesus found that sense of purpose in these three books.
We need to understand that one’s daily struggles are all part of what the scriptures refer to as the Table of the Lord (Malachi 1:7, 12; cp. Ezekiel 39:20; 44:16; Psalm 23:5; Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; see also Matthew 20:22-23; 26:42; John 18:11; 1Corinthians 10:21). With this in mind, Jesus’ sense of vocation¸ vis-à-vis his participation in events during his ministry and his sense of the cross are all found in these three books. They, the word of God in scripture form, were his guide to knowing what to do and say during his ministry (cp. Luke 2:49-52).
If these things are true and logical, then we are able to understand each of Jesus’ entries into Jerusalem, during the final week before the crucifixion, “humbly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, foal of an ass” to rescue his people (Zechariah 9:9-10) was done purposefully, and was an official claim to be the King of Israel, the Messiah, which is why some of the Jewish authorities took issue with what was done (Luke 19:39; cp. John 11:45-48), and because of Jesus’ increasingly clearer references to his being the Messiah, they conspired to destroy him (John 11:49-53).
This conspiracy is echoed in Zechariah in the form of part of the Table of the Lord, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones” (Zechariah 13:7). Thus, the King’s rescue (Zechariah 9:10) will come in the form of the shedding of his own blood in covenant (Zechariah 9:11), echoed in the death of the Suffering Servant as a trespass offering (cp. Isaiah 53:10).
Yet, as I mentioned in previous studies, the new kind of revolution was to be nonviolent. It is a new kind of revolution accomplished through the spreading of the Gospel by Jesus’ servants, after his death and resurrection. Jesus foresaw his death, as the means to bring all nations under his authority (John 12:32). Yet, such a conclusion must come with a cost, in that all nations will make war, not only with the Messiah (Psalm 2; cp. Acts 4:24-28), but also with his servants (cp. Acts 4:18, 21, 29), but ultimate victory is promised (Zechariah 14:1-5). As the dust settles in the persecution of believers, “there will be one Lord and his name one” (Zechariah 14:9), which means, it will be a reversal of the Lord’s confusing the languages of the nations (Genesis 11:7). At that time there was one way of worshiping God (one language),[1] but the nations corrupted their worship by making images of God in the form of men, animals, birds and reptiles (Romans 1:23). It was the Gospel that reversed this practice and continues to spread throughout the world, in an expression of the nonviolent rule of Jesus over the world.
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[1] See my earlier study in the Book of Genesis: The Whole Earth Was of One Language!
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