Day 245: Zechariah 1–3 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible Department podcast, powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebobledapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (gentle music) Family, welcome to day 245 on the Bible Department podcast. Man, we are diving in to the book of Zechariah. Now, Zechariah is one of the strangest, oddest books of the Bible, but honestly, like we can tackle it, we can do it. Zechariah may be one of those books of the Bible that you kind of ignore. Like, you just kind of like, "Man, did we really need this one?" But Zechariah's gonna have over 40 prophetic messages about the person of Jesus. The fact that Zechariah is the person who prophesies that the Messiah would actually enter into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and tons of other things. Zechariah also is kind of split up from chapters nine to chapters 14, Zechariah gets really apocalyptic, okay? So remember Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, these are kind of like the fathers of apocalyptic literature. So the book of Revelation has gotta lean on images from the book of Zechariah heavily. Well, it'll take us a couple of days

to get to that portion of the book, but those are just some quick facts about the book of Zechariah. I'm gonna give you some context clues so that you can begin to understand Zechariah chapters one, two, and three, just a little bit better 'cause that or those rather, those are the chapters assigned to us on the Bible reading plan for today. So if you haven't done the reading, stop the audio, pause the video, go to the reading, read Zechariah chapters one, two, and three. You may be confused by what you read, but I'll help you to kind of make it plain. And if you have done the reading, let's dive into some context clues. All right, context, let's situate ourselves in the book of Zechariah. There are three post-exilic prophets in the entire Bible. There are pre-exilic prophets, exilic prophets and post-exilic prophets. That doesn't need a ton of explanation, but I do wanna over-communicate that pre-exilic prophets are prophesying before the exile. So they are prophesying that the exile's gonna happen. They're prophesying prior to 586 B.C. Because then 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar's gonna march his army into Jerusalem. He's gonna burn the temple to the ground and he is gonna haul a bunch of Jews

off into exile to Babylon, okay? So pre-exilic prophets are prophesying prior to 586 B.C. Then you get a bunch of exilic prophets, right? Ezekiel is not prophesying from Israel to Israelites. No, he's prophesying from Babylon 'cause my man is in exile. Daniel is in exile, right? Nebuchadnezzar's throwing him into, well, his friends, he's throwing him into a lion's den, his friend into a fiery furnace 'cause they are in Babylon. So those prophets are prophesying during the exile. Then there are post-exilic books. Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi are the three post-exilic books and we're gonna dive into Malachi, okay? So four context, okay? Even more context. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are gonna really outline what happens when the people return to Jerusalem. I just wanna kinda give you some numbers. There are about 1 million Jews that are living in Babylon, okay? Because of the exile. 1 million Jews, they're there for 70 years. They're in captivity. There are about a million Jews living in Babylon in captivity. Only 50,000 of them choose to come back to Jerusalem. And when they come back to Jerusalem, Jerusalem is in rubbles.

Jerusalem is in shambles, okay? Jerusalem is in ruins. So 50,000 out of a million. That, I don't know the math. I can't really do that math quickly, but 950,000 oxy just did do the math, okay? 950,000 of these jokers are like, "Nah, we good, we like Babylon," okay? So the crew that comes back to Jerusalem has to get kinda kicked in the shape, kicked in the gear because man, Jerusalem's rough, okay? So Haggai is in the mix like, "Hey, you guys like, you gotta prioritize God's house." Malachi's like, "You're not tithing, what's going on?" And Zechariah is in the mix trying to get the people of God to actually act accordingly. So Zechariah and Haggai are actually prophecy buddies. The Bible's gonna mention them side by side in books like Ezra and Nehemiah. Let's actually read from Ezra and Nehemiah. from Babylon back to Israel. Now, I'll say this, Daniel and Zechariah are kind of like opposites, okay? So Daniel is born in Jerusalem and then eggs out to Babylon where he's going to have a prophetic ministry. Zechariah is born in Babylon and then is going to travel back in return to Jerusalem where he's going to have a prophetic ministry, okay? So they are mirror images of each other. Daniel born in Israel, eggs out to Babylon where he's going to prophesy to the exiles. Zechariah born in exile, born in Babylon, travels back to Jerusalem where he is going to have a prophetic ministry.

So Zechariah is of the priestly line. So Zechariah is probably in training to be a priest. Here's what Nehemiah chapter 12 verse 1 tells us about Zechariah chapter 12 verse 1 is going to give us a set up and then we're going to skip to verse 16. It says this in Nehemiah chapter 12 verse 1, "These were the priests and Levites." This is one of those genealogies that you probably skip. When you're reading the Bible, you see a list of names and you're like, "I'm good." We all look at the list of names, okay? That's important. "These were the priests and Levites who returned with Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, and with Joshua. And it lists Sariah, Jeremiah, Ezra, and then we're going to skip to verse 16 of Ido Zechariah, okay? So Zechariah is here in a list of priest and Levites that's returning from Babylon to Jerusalem. Here's what Ezra chapter 5 verse 1 is going to say. It's going to say, "Now how God the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Ido, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them." Ezra chapter 6 verse 14 says this, "So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai, the prophet, and Zechariah, a descendant of Ido. They finished building the temple according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia." All right. So hopefully you're acclimated. You got this, okay? I want to remind you of just two dates, all right? First is that Cyrus declares decrees to the people of Israel in 539 BC, 539 BC that they can go back. You can go to Jerusalem, okay? The Persians have taken over from the Babylonians and the Persians don't have the same, I don't

know how to call it, like they just don't have the same policy, there we go, policies are the word. They don't have the same policy as it relates to exiles. The Babylonians wanted exiles to stay in Babylon. Persians believe that all the exiles can go home, okay? So the Jews are allowed to go home in 539 BC. They get home and they start rebuilding, rebuilding the walls in the temple in about 538 BC. They're done building the altar in 536 BC and then they're met with some opposition. You can read about that in books like Ezra and Nehemiah and they stop building. They just stop. And when you get to a book like Haggai, Haggai is kind of upset because God's upset and he's like, "How dare you rebuild your homes and you haven't dealt with God's house. Why is God's house in ruins but your houses are looking fancy?" And the people respond to say, "Well, we're poor. That's why we haven't prioritized God's house." And God responds with a line that I think we should preach more often. God says, "It's not because you're poor that you haven't built my house because you haven't built my house that you're poor, okay? When you prioritize God's house, God prioritizes your house." And God says, "I'll open up the windows of heaven." So often when we preach about tithing, we just go to Malachi when honestly we could preach straight out of the book of Haggai. I actually think Haggai has way more effective things to say, neither here nor there. And so Haggai is prophesying in 520. So think about this, 539 BC is when Cyrus declares that the people can go back. They don't build until 538. They've done building in 536. They build for two years and them suckers sit there for 16 years like, "This is hard." And then Haggai kicks them back in a year in 520 BC and gets them motivated again to

continue building. So I want to kind of give you some dates, okay? Because we're going to get, I want to kind of let you see how the ministers of Haggai and Zechariah flow together. Haggai's first oracle is going to get preached on the 29th of August of 520 BC. The second oracle is going to get preached the 17th of October of 520 BC. And then Haggai is going to come back again on the 18th of December, 520 BC. And then the 18th of December, 520 BC, we're going to get another oracle from Haggai, same day. And then the 15th of February, 519 BC. We're going to get some more preaching by Zechariah, and then a year later, the 7th of December, 518 BC, we're going to get more preaching from Zechariah. So, from 520 to 518 BC, we're going to see the active ministry of Zechariah. And a lot of his prophetic words are interwoven with his prophesying pal, Haggai. A lot of people also believe that Haggai is an older man, that he's probably in his 70s or 80s, and Zechariah is a young man, probably in his 20s. So, it's really cool that Zechariah and Haggai have totally different prophetic styles, but God teams them up together, from totally different generations, but God teams them up together. And I don't want to steal my thunder all my timeless truth, but man, it is so the heart of God to team people up with different personalities, different skill sets, different gifts, but who compliment each other really, really well. Alright, family, the weight is over, my brand new book, "Crushing Chaos", is out now, and available everywhere books are sold. Literally, today, I walked into a Barnes & Noble, and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So, you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble, or you can go to a books a million, or Amazon, or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book, and if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life, I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller! I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. Alright, back to the episode. Let's actually get into the meat of the book, okay? I've given you a lot of context for the person of Zechariah, the time period, the history, let's actually get into some nerdy nuggets. Zechariah is going to get split into three sections.

Zechariah chapter one to six are all about these night visions, these dream visions, and Zechariah is going to have eight of them. He's going to have eight dream visions in the first six chapters of the book. Then, in Zechariah chapter seven and eight, we're going to actually get a conclusion for all of those dream visions. And then Zechariah chapters nine to fourteen, we're going to get apocalyptic visions from Zechariah. I actually want to dive into the eight visions that Zechariah receives in Zechariah chapters one through six. Obviously, today, we're only covering Zechariah chapters one, two, three, one to three, tomorrow, we're covering four to six, which means we'll knock out half today, half tomorrow, and whatever we don't cover today, we'll cover tomorrow, because why in the world would you watch day two, forty six and not watch day two, forty five? So, there was ever a day where you weren't going to watch multiple videos in tandem with each other, today should not be the day, okay? So, dream visions, these eight dream visions are actually a mirror of their match, okay? So, we're going to get vision number one is Zechariah chapter one versus eight to seventeen, which actually matches up with vision number eight. So, vision number one and vision number eight are actually a reflection of each other. What we're going to see in vision number one are four horsemen on patrol, and then in vision number eight, which is Zechariah chapter six versus one through eight, we're going to get four horsemen on patrol, so those match up with each other. Vision number two is also out of chapter one, and we're going to get four horns and four blacksmiths, and that matches up with vision number seven, which is found in Zechariah chapters five versus five to eleven, and that vision is a woman and a basket, okay? So, the four horns and the four blacksmith match up with the woman and the basket. Vision number three and vision number six are going to match up with each other. Vision number three is a vision where Jerusalem is measured. That is going to have the same meaning as vision number six, which is from Zechariah chapter five versus one through four, and that vision is going to be able to fly and scroll. And then vision number four, which comes from Zechariah chapter three versus one and ten, is going to be all about Joshua the high priest, which is going to match up with vision number five, which can be found in Zechariah chapters four versus four, one through fourteen. Okay, so these visions all match up. Visions 1, 2, 3, and 4 find their mirror counterpart in visions 5, 6, 7, and 8. Okay, so that should orient you. That should help you kind of map out these visions.

So let's dive into the visions, okay? Vision number one, we got four horsemen. This is Zechariah chapter one versus seven to 17. These probable angelic figures are based on a common image in the ancient world. The vast empire, seriously, it stretched from the edge of Greece to the borders of India. Okay, what's the Persian empire? Massive empire was kept connected by a series of dispatch riders. They would have had bases throughout the empire all with fresh horses so that a messenger could reach one and then jump straight on a new horse and gallop to the next. These messengers are reporting obviously to their commanding officer and who's on these horses angelic figures and they are all reporting to the angel of the Lord. This idea of four horsemen and Zechariah, we've got a red one, a brown one, a white one. This is gonna get used heavily in the book of Revelation. My pet peeve are people who try to interpret Revelation without going to the source that John is pulling from. So you gotta kinda understand what's going on in Zechariah in order to understand Revelation. So anyway, my other pet peeve is people trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back, but then we won't go there. All right, these messengers are reporting to the angel of the Lord. The message is that the wars are over.

The exile has finished and now Yahweh will choose Jerusalem again. This choice is a reference to Deuteronomy where Yahweh speaks of the place where the tabernacle in the temple will be as the place I choose to bear my name. This is Deuteronomy chapter 14 verse 23. Yahweh had chosen Jerusalem for this because of David, but Yahweh left during the exile. Remember Ezekiel sees the spirit of the Lord in exile in Babylon with him and the rest of the exiles. But now Yahweh has chosen Jerusalem again and Jerusalem will have the temple of Yahweh and it will be the place that bears God's name. Okay, so that's the first vision, first the four horsemen. It's gonna have a counterpart in vision number eight, but we'll get into that tomorrow. Then Zechariah chapter two. Oh sorry, the second vision is also in Zechariah chapter one and we're gonna get four horns and four blacksmiths. Now remember, in the Bible, horns are a symbol of authority. Okay, so Daniel is gonna be full of horns. Okay, an animal is gonna have 10 horns and then there's a little horn, okay? Horns are a symbol of leadership, authority, power. The book of Revelation is gonna lean heavily on this imagery because remember Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah are like the forefathers of apocalyptic literature and John is gonna run with apocalyptic literature. So the four horns are actually not that hard to interpret. The four horns are Babylon, Persia, Macedon,

which is Greece and Rome. And then the four smiths are the people groups that God raises up to destroy those horns. So the smith for the first horn is Persia. So the horns are Persia, sorry, the horns are Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, but then the smiths are Persia, Macedon, Rome and then the kingdom of God, okay? So each smith has a horn, why? Because it is the Persian kingdom that destroys the Babylonian kingdom. It's the Greek kingdom that destroys the Persian kingdom and the Roman empire that destroys the Greek empire. You get it? So you got four horns and then four smiths that destroy those horns. So the next horn is always the smith in the next vision. I hope that kind of makes sense. If I had some pictures, it would probably make a little bit more sense, but there we go. All right, the third vision that Zechariah sees is a man with a measuring line. And this man with the measuring line actually should bring back some memories of Ezekiel. Remember, there's an angel that appears to Ezekiel and measures out the new temple. And we need to know that in order to know what's going on here. Remember, in Ezekiel, he's measuring out the new temple.

But here, man, Zechariah gets a vision of a man measuring out Jerusalem, which is good news. That means that not only is God gonna grow the temple, but he's gonna grow the whole city of Jerusalem, okay? And if you think about it, in this day and age, back in the ancient world, Jerusalem was probably four to six acres. I mean, it just wasn't a lot of land. When you go to Jerusalem today, oh my gosh, it's hundreds of square miles. So God was faithful to us. He has grown the city. So that's the next vision, the third vision, is a man with a measuring line. And then the fourth vision comes out of Zechariah chapter three and we get image of Joshua the priest. The vision shows us a heavenly courtroom where the high priest Joshua stands accused, representing the remnant that had returned. His dirty clothes show the sins of the people, their uncleaness that had brought about their exile. He is accused by Hasatan, which is the Satan. I'll get to a nerdy nugget about that in a second. He's accused by Hasatan, the Satan. By the way, in the Bible, it is not Satan, it's the Satan. But anyway, that'll turn into a whole 'nother video by itself. This is the same title from Job, okay, Hasatan, the Satan? It is used in the same way, not as a name, but as a position, job, so to speak. It is not Satan, Hebrew, but the Satan.

Now, and then he's given new clothes and the vision axi mirrors the vision of Zerubbabel. So both visions are about leadership and that God is gonna bring restoration to the remnant through the representative leader by the name of Joshua. All right, our last nerdy nugget is that the use, this use of Satan is one of the earliest in scripture. There's only three books in the Bible that use the term the Satan and that is Zechariah, Chronicles, and Job and all three were written in the Persian period. I know people like to say Job is one of the oldest books of the Bible, that's just, that's not true. I don't know. In school, nobody ever says that, but in church, people say that all the time. Anyway, this video's getting longer. All right, they are not clearly using the term of the proper name as the New Testament will. So in the New Testament, it's not the Satan, but Satan. But in the Old Testament, in Chronicles, Zechariah, and Job, it is the Satan. We'll see from these books an important step in the development of spiritual language in the Bible. You can see a shift has begun away from the sea and dragons to represent chaos and evil. And the language is turning towards that which will become Satan, the devil, demons, et cetera. The culture and worldviews are shifting. And so the language of spiritual warfare is also shifting.

And you can see that just historically. And that's the power of kind of reading the Bible chronologically as you can begin to see certain changes that are occurring in vocabulary. All right, what's our timeless truth for the day? Our timeless truth is that nothing beats a good team. Man, if you were with us yesterday, it took us a day to cover the whole book as Haggai. And today we're getting into the book of Zechariah. Haggai doesn't have dream visions, but Zechariah does. And they're prophesying during the same time, which means God loves to team people up from different generations, different personalities, different specificities like Zechariah and Haggai have different ways of prophesying. Haggai is pretty like kicking the butt, like kick your rear in gear. And Zechariah is just way more of an encouraging, visionary prophet. And I think a lot of times people will begin to, I don't know, criticize people that are not like them. But the reality is that we're not here to criticize, we're here to complete one another. And God knew that it wasn't just Haggai that was necessary or Zechariah that was necessary, but both were necessary. Zechariah was called to capture the people's imagination. And Haggai was called to kick their rear in gear. And so often, when you're Haggai, you could be like, live Zechariah over there,

wasting time, you're having dream visions. He needs to do what I'm doing. And I met a lot of people who are like, everybody needs to focus on marriage. Nah, bro, you need to focus on marriage 'cause that's your part to play in the body. And I met people who are like, we need to focus on outreach. No, that's your part to play in the body. We need to do prison ministry. No, that's your part to play in the body. Just 'cause that's your part to play doesn't mean it's my part to play. We need to do social justice. No, that's your part to play in the body. How about you play your part? Let me play my part. I think that there's a critical spirit that rises up, especially like in the evangelical world. Man, people have all this trash to say. I can't believe my dog is doing this and this and this and this. How about you shut up? Like Mike Todd's playing his part. Joe Lostein, don't preach the Bible. How about you shut up? Like Joe Lostein has a part to play and Mike Todd has a part to play. And just 'cause they don't do what maybe other people are good at doesn't mean that they're not playing their part. Everyone's playing their part. And everybody really needs to drink water shut up

in mind their business. Doesn't everybody really needs to do. And Haggai is giving Zachariah space to be the kind of prophet that God wants him to be. And Zachariah is giving Haggai the space to be the kind of prophet that he's gonna be. And I think we need more of that in the body. That's not just true for Zachariah and Haggai. That's not just true in 520 BC. That's true today for all of us. We all just need to put pop-ups on and cheer everybody on. Get your pom-poms, man, I'm happy. I may not be called to do outreach, but you are doing outreach and I'm so happy you're doing outreach. I'm not out here like why? Everybody don't have a Bible literacy podcast. No, that's my, that's my, that's my role. I played that part in the body. I'm not out here like every pastor needs to be teaching the Bible first by verse. Nah, everybody needs to mind a business. And I'm doing what I'm called to do as my part in the body and everybody else is gonna do their part. And we need to celebrate everybody for doing their part. And that's my timeless truth for the day. Tomorrow, we've got day 246. We got Zechariah chapters four through six. Zechariah's gonna have four more dream visions.

We're gonna talk about those and how they match up with the dream visions from today. If you're on a streak, I am proud of you. If you are on a streak, don't break it. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we continue to trek through the fantastic strange and odd book of Zechariah. See you tomorrow, love you, peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment? Share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebobaldapartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]