Zechariah by Chuck Missler Lesson 12

Nearing the end of the book - pure prophecy. I don't know why Daniel is studied so much for the creme de la creme of prophecy and Zechariah so little....(nor my apparent need to interject that here lol) But from beginning to end it is all visions and prophecy on every page.
My guess would be like The Revelation they have chosen just to pretend it doesn't exist because SO MUCH of it deals directly with these times and the gentiles as well as the Jews.
Ok, onto selectively editing the accompanying PDF follows (I don't think I could add anything better than Chuck's notes):

The Siege of Jerusalem
General Organization of the Book:
Ch:
1. The Riding One
2. The Measuring One
3. The Cleansing One
4. The Empowering One
5. The Judging One
6. The Crowned One
7. The Rebuking One
8. The Restoring One
9. The Kingly One
10. The Blessing One
11. The Shepherding One
12. The Returning One
13. The Smitten One
14. The Reigning One

Section I
Section II
Section III

1 - 6 Night Visions
7, 8 Historical Interlude
1st Burden: Chapters 9 - 11.
2nd Burden: Chapters 12 - 14.

Events Presented Include
The world confederacy against Jerusalem;
The victory of God’s people, empowered of the Lord;
The conviction of Israel nationally by the Spirit of God;
The presentation of Christ as their rejected Messiah;
The national Day of Atonement;
The cleansing of the hearts of the nation;
The purging of the land from idolatry and false prophets;
(The Crucifixion of the Lord);
The Time of Jacob’s Trouble;
The partial success of the nations invading Israel and besieging
Jerusalem;
The appearance of the Messiah for His people;
Their rescue and His Second Coming with His saints;
The changed and renovated Holy Land;
The establishment of the Messianic kingdom;
The punishment of the nations for their futile assault upon Israel;
The celebration of the kingdom feast, the Feast of Tabernacles;
The complete restoration of the people of God to a holy nation.

Symmetry
9 & 10 correspond to Chapters 1-4, highlighting the blessings upon
the covenant nation;
11, to Chapter 5, judgments upon the unbelieving nation, displayed
in their rejection of the Messiah; 14, to Chapters 6:1-8, etc.

“The Day of the Lord”: 18X in Zechariah. Key period, detailed in
Joel, Malachi, et al.

Chapter 12 deals with events before the reign of the Messiah, when
Israel shall be besieged by the nations for their final death blow against
God’s people. But it is God who puts down their evil designs. The
prophet foretells the destruction of Israel’s enemies.

It is also worth noting that the Evil Shepherd (Chapter 11) must precede
the nation’s deliverance. It is the cruel career of this sinister character
that plunges the nation into its most severe time of testing.

TRIBULATION:Jeremiah 30:5-7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21-22.
“Jerusalem” 10X this chapter; “In that day” 7X

Verse 1]

The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which
stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and
formeth the spirit of man within him.

“..spirit of man”: Man has a spirit.

“Burden” or massah; reveals its minatory character (Cf. 9:1).

“Stretcheth forth the heavens”: the dimensionality of space; Einsteinian
geometry, re: mass and gravity...

The three participles emphasize that God is sustaining constantly His
creation (Cf. Isa 42:5; 44:24). This majestic introduction is presented
to dispel all doubt and unbelief concerning these predictions. God is
abundantly able to carry out what He purposes to do (Heb 1:3).

Verse 2]
Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round
about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jeru-
salem.

“A gobblet of staggering” A cup is a well-known symbol of God’s
wrath. (Cf. Isa 51:17, 22; Jer 13:13; 25:15-28; 51:7).
[Is Israel under siege today?]

Verse 3]
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all
that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people
of the earth be gathered together against it.

“In that day,” bayyom hahu’, synonymous with “the Day of the Lord”
which reverberates throughout Chapters 12-14.

“Burdensome stone...torn in pieces” = a global hernia? Those who
would crush God’s city and people will be crushed by Jerusalem.

“All the peoples of the earth”: not a local or regional issue. Examine
Israel’s predicament today!

The ostensible absurdity of Jerusalem being globally significant:
No harbor; no river; no significant trade routes; no natural resources;
no intrinsic strategic significance... yet...

Only significant to certain religious groups:
• To the Jews, but only a portion of them;
• To the Muslims, but only since they recognized it was significant to the Jews. For over a thousand years they
controlled it, it fell into disuse and disrepair.
• To the Christians, but not to die for.

And combining all of these, creates an insignificant fraction of a
non-religious, unbelieving world—why would the entire world be
“in siege” against Jerusalem? It seems absurd...

..yet at this very moment the late lights are burning in every major
headquarters throughout the world as the staff people of every na-
tion of international significance is struggling with what to do about
Jerusalem... Is the appointed time at hand? Little do the nations of
the earth realize how they incur the wrath of God against them when
they touch the “apple of His eye” (Zech 2:8; Deut 32:10) for harm, let
alone seek to wipe them completely from the face of the earth!

(It's just WEIRD how everything is going RIGHT DOWN THE LINE OF OUR LORD'S WORDS- so weird lol. "The more sure word of prophecy..." 2 Peter 1:19)

The Returning One
verse 4]
In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and
his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah,
and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.

Same three plagues in Deut 28:28 (curses, 28:15ff, for disobedience,
etc.) now visited upon her enemies. The victory will be supernatural.

Verse 5]
And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jeru-
salem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.

God empowers Israel; overpowers their enemies.

Verse 6]
In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among
the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the
people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall
be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.

Verse 7]
The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house
of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify them-
selves against Judah.

The Lord Defends
Verse 8]
In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that
is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David
shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.

[“In that day” emphasized twice in this verse.]
And we know what the Lord means when he says things twice close together.

(Glory of the House of David: 2 Sam 17:8; 18:3, et al.)

The Angel of the Lord before them: Ex 23:20; 32:34; 33:2; Josh 5:13
(as preamble to the Book of Revelation).

Verse 9]
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations
that come against Jerusalem.

“Seek...” as in Zech 6:7 concerning the steeds that “sought to go to
and fro in the earth...”

The cup of their iniquity was full (Cf. Gen 15:16; Rev 16:13-21).
Which nations will come against Jerusalem? God will summarily
deal with the nations who seek to thwart His purposes in Israel for
world blessing...

...but what moral and spiritual shift has occurred in Israel that would
warrant the change from dispatching foes against them to giving
protection to them? National conversion!

The Pierced One
Verse 10]
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jeru-
salem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me
whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for
his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn.

“Pour” &pv; shaphak {shaw-fak’} used to indicate a transforming
spiritual transaction, as in Joel 2:28ff (Cf. Isa 44:3; Ezek 36:26, 27;
39:29).

God also has spiritual purposes which must be accomplished in Israel.
The nation is not yet in the place of obedience and trust in their Mes-
siah. The prophet now sets forth in vividness and power, as nowhere
else in Scripture, the conversion of Israel. This has yet to happen.

“House of David... Jerusalem”: metonymy standing for the whole
covenant people.

“Spirit of Grace and Supplications”: both derived from the same
Hebrew root: @nj; chanan {khaw-nan’}: mercy, gracious, merciful,
supplication.

The reference is to the Holy Spirit in all His influences (Cf. Ezek
39:29; Joel 2:28-29. See our notes on Joel 2:28ff). Cf. Heb 10:29.

This is the time of Romans 11:25-27.

“...Pierced”

Their confession at this time is Isa 52:13 - 53:12.
Did they themselves pierce their Messiah? Indeed, in their unbelief
and rejection of Him they made the deeds of their ancestors their own
(as John 19:37; Cf. Rev 1:7).

“Bitterness”: rrm; marar, to be bitter. [Note Ruth 1:20: Naomi (Mara)
returns to the land before Boaz can do his part...]

Once they view Him as He was rejected, they will manifest their true
repentance by mourning—of the most intense and forceful kind of
grief: that of a firstborn son.

Rabbinical View: Two Messiahs?
The theory of two Messiahs, one to die and one to reign, is an inven-
tion of the rabbis without foundation in the Scripture, to explain the
passages which present the Messiah as suffering and as ruling. These
“two Messiahs” are referred to as the Messiah ben (son of ) David,
and a secondary, warfaring one, Messiah ben Joseph. Emerging in the
1st or 2nd century A.D., this view became rooted in the Talmud. (The
earliest Talmudic reference to this “second” Messiah (Sukk. 52a and
b) dates from the 3rd century A.D.) The various imputed references
are confused and inconsistent.

The answer is to be found in two advents of a single Messiah, as
proved by this very passage. The oldest interpreters of the passage,
both Jewish and Christian, so understood it. [The Dead Sea Scrolls
Qumran text, 4Q521, also underscores a 1st century single Messiah
view, as reported by Michael Wise and James Tabor, Biblical Archae-
ology Review, Dec 1992, q.v. The Search For the Messiah, by Mark
Eastman and Chuck Smith, pp. 89-100.]

When pressed by Christian arguments about the OT prophecies of the
sufferings of the Messiah, the fiction about the Messiah ben Joseph
offered a welcome means of escape. The ill-fated Jewish rebellion
under the false Messiah Bar Kochba (132 - 135 A.D.), their aspirations
were quenched in blood, and the contrivance was used to rekindle
Israel’s hope. [See The Search For the Messiah, Mark Eastman and
Chuck Smith, pp. 89-100.]

Several passages (i.e., Isa 52:13 - 53:12; Dan 9:24-27; et al.) refute
this view. As Eze 34:22, 23 and Eze 37:21-24. Hosea 3:4, 5: they
shall have no king until they seek the son of David.

But none more clearly than Zech 12:10!

The Aleph and Tau?
There is an interesting identity that God uses of Himself in Isaiah
41:44: “...I the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am he.”

And again in Isaiah 44:6: “Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and
his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and
beside me there is no God.”

And again in Isaiah 48:12: “Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel,
my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.”

This identity is continued in the Book of Revelation: “Saying, I am
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last...” (Rev 1:11). And, “I am
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last”
(Rev 22:13).

“The First and the Last” is, thus, linked to the “Alpha and Omega,”
which are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. These are
also continued as an identity: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which
is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8). And, “...he said unto me, It is
done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give
unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely (Rev
21:6).

This identity is clearly the Jesus of the New Testament as further
clarified in Revelation 1:17,18: “And when I saw him, I fell at his
feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me,
Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead;
and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of
hell and of death.”

And also in Revelation 2:8: “These things saith the first and the last,
which was dead, and is alive...”

A Hidden Identity
In the Old Testament there is an interesting passage in Zechariah 12:10:
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall
look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him,
as one mourneth for his only son...”

This passage is remarkable since it speaks of the end times, and yet
presents the Messiah of Israel as the “One Whom They Have Pierced.”
Thus, it is also an allusion to the crucifixion.

It is even more remarkable when one examines the Hebrew text.
Below we have an extract from a Hebrew Interlinear Bible. The
translation for each word is just below it. (But remember, the Hebrew
goes from right to left.)

(inserted graphic missing- unable to copy over diagram - See lessons from John Kostic on the aleph and tav Hebrew alphabet lessons. The same aleph/tav from God math 137, and Genesis 1:1, the "untranslated word," always just SKIPPED over)

Notice that there is an untranslated word between the “me” and the
“whom.” It is simply two letters, the aleph and the tau, the first and
last letters of the Hebrew alphabet!

....and they shall look upon me, the Aleph and the Tau, whom they have
pierced...

In Greek, it would be “the Alpha and Omega”!

(There are some who have difficulty in recognizing Jesus as “Yah-
weh-God” in the Old Testament. These “identity” links may assist
in resolving these difficulties.)

There seems to be a treasure hidden in every corner. Isn’t our Lord
fabulous!
This seems to suggest a more insightful translation could be:

The Day of Great Mourning
Verse 11]
In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of
Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

[v.10, domestic grief. v.11, public calamity. The historical calamity
referred to was Pharaoh-Necho’s slaying of the godly Josiah, the last
ray of hope of the nation between Hezekiah and the fall of the Jew-
ish nation (2 Kgs 23:29-30; 2 Chr 35:22-27). This sorrow must have
been great indeed to become a point of comparison.]

“Hadad-rimmon” is a compound of two Syrian gods (2 Kgs 5:18).
It was the name of a site in the great plain of Esdraelon 4 miles from
the fortified city of Megiddo on the SW side of the plain.

Famous in Israel’s history:

• Jabin and 900 chariots were overwhelmed;
• Gideon’s 300 defeated the Midianites, Amalekites and the
children of the east;
• Samson triumphed over the Philistines;
• Barak and Deborah defeated Sisera;
• Saul slain by the Philistines;
• Ahaziah was lain by the arrows of Jehu,
• and Josiah slain by Pharaoh Necho. (1 Kgs 9:15; 2 Kgs 9:23, 27; 29:30; 2 Chr
35:22; Josh 17:11; Judg 1:27; 5:19.)

Also, Rev 16:16. Blood to the horse’s bridles...

Verse 12]
And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of
David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart,
and their wives apart;

David, the King; Nathan, the prophet (2 Sam 7:2); Levi, the priest...
Some identify Nathan as the younger son of David (2 Sam 5:14); this
is the branch that Luke used in the genealogy of Mary, Lk 3:23.]

Verse 13]
The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of
Shimei apart, and their wives apart;

Shimei was of family of Gershon, son of Levi (Num 3:17, 18, 21).

Verse 14]
All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

Intense sorrow: private and public; national and individual; personal
and family.

The deepest grief seeks seclusion.

“Look unto me”: as in Num 21:9 (Jn 3:14-16); a looking away from
self and mad-made endeavors to the Lamb that takes away the sin of
the world. Israel will come into the knowledge of sins forgiven by
looking unto her rejected and pierced Messiah, the crucified Savior
of sinners.

Rev 4:1 - 19:16 details what will now follow, as do Chapters 13 & 14.

So much of this goes right to The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ it is stunning how forgotten and overlooked The Book of Zechariah is!

The Lord bless you and keep you-

remember the Sabbath, and to keep it holy
(Friday sundown to Saturday sundown)