Do you know about the Hebrew Prophet Zechariah?

 His Prophecies being Fulfilled TODAY!

The Vision of Zechariah

Of all the Minor Prophets, Zechariah (זְכַרְיָה) reveals the clearest and the largest number of passages referencing the Messiah, many of which have already been fulfilled. Zechariah, for instance, prophesies that the Messiah will ride on a donkey into Jerusalem as a humble, victorious king: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  (Zechariah 9:9) Of course, this prophecy was fulfilled when Yeshua (Jesus) entered Jerusalem for the last time just before the Passover (Matthew 21:1–11).
 

Yeshua's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

This passage is not just concerned with Yeshua’s first coming, however, but also His second.  It goes on to reveal that this humble King will one day magnificently rule “from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:10) Zechariah tells us that Messiah will come again as savior, judge and, ultimately, as the righteous King of Kings and Lord of Lords ruling His people from Jerusalem (14:8–9). This Hebrew prophet reassures us that in the Last Days, when the Messiah returns to His people, they will finally recognize Him, realize that they have “missed it” and react with a spirit of mourning. The people of Jerusalem at that time will be moved by the “Spirit of grace and of supplication” that will be poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem at the Messiah’s coming. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.  They will look on Me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”  (12:10) The Messiah will return to Jerusalem and finally be recognized by His people.  Each family and clan will mourn together.
 

The above piece by Israeli artist Dalia Rosenfeld depicts
the return of Messiah to His people.  In the painting the
Hebrew text of the Book of Zechariah is shown in the
form of the tablets of the Law as mourning is seen
throughout the city.  The unblemished Lamb of God slain
for the sins of His people appears at the center above
the mourning inhabitants.  The stark red background
symbolizes the blood poured out by Yeshua and the cost
of redemption.

Who was Zechariah?

Zechariah, whose name literally means the LORD has remembered, is one of 

the twelve Minor Prophets of the Tanakh (Old Testament), so called because the length of his writings (14 chapters) are not as vast as that of Isaiah or Ezekiel, for instance, who are classified as Major Prophets. Zechariah prophesied to the kingdom of Judah with the distinction of being the grandson of Iddo the High Priest, making him of priestly extraction.  In Nehemiah 12:16, he is even described him as being the head of Iddo’s priestly family. He began his ministry preaching repentance saying,  “This is what the Lord  Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ … ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’”  (1:3–4) Zechariah 1:1 and Haggai 1:1 reveal that he began his ministry around the month of November in 520 BC, two months after Haggai had begun his. This was about 16 years after the return of the first group of Jews from Babylonia with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 12:4) when Cyrus issued his edict for the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Zechariah is thought to have been a motivating force toward its completion, as well as instrumental in the reestablishment of the Temple priesthood. His chief concern, however, was the establishment of spiritual priorities among those who had returned from exile to Zion. He guarded against the establishment of pagan cults and taught repentance and submission to the Lord as the basis for redemption from sin, restoration of God’s blessings, and the outpouring of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). Although Zechariah addressed the issues of his day, his prophecies reach far beyond them into the time of Yeshua and, to a large extent, the end times in which we are living. We see that this so-called minor prophet figure is prominently remembered in the Brit Chadashah (New Testament), which contains 41 citations or allusions to his prophecies. (ldolphin) Yeshua describes Zechariah as a rejected prophet, martyred “between the temple and the altar.”  (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51)

Some contend that this tomb cut out of the rock at the foot of the Mount of
Olives is the tomb of Zechariah.

The Man Among the Myrtle Trees

The Lord spoke to Zechariah through visions rich in symbolism, including one in which the Angel of the Lord was standing among myrtle trees (1:10). Myrtle is one of the four species of plant used to make the temporary shelters people live in during Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles; see Nehemiah 8:15).  This plant was also carried around the altar in the Temple and is mentioned five times in this vision. The symbolism of numbers is significant in Jewish interpretation of Scripture.  The number five, for instance, is considered to be “the numeric expression of a group, gathering its divergent parts into a complete unit.”  (Jewish Wisdom in the Numbers, p 89) This number, therefore, may hint at the return of the Jewish People to the Land.  Indeed, Zechariah is addressing the people who have returned to Jerusalem and begun to rebuild.

The myrtle, palm, willow and citron of Sukkot.

In the vision, the Angel of the Lord explains to Zechariah that He is not happy with the nations.  Although He had allowed them to punish Judah for their sins, they went too far (1:14).

Throughout the Book of Zechariah, the nations are presented as being indifferent and even hostile to Jerusalem and the Jewish People. How very like our times when the nations are silent regarding those who terrorize Israel.  Though God’s thoughts are of Israel, the nations’ thoughts are far from the mind of God.  We can understand from Zechariah that God does not want us to be indifferent to Jerusalem.  He certainly is not. In fact, chapter 14 of Zechariah describes the triumphant return of Messiah to His Land — not humbly riding on a donkey but victoriously standing on the Mount of Olives. On that day, “Living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, ...  The Lord will be king over the whole earth.  On that day there will be one Lord, and His name the only name.”  (14:8–9) Messiah will reign from Jerusalem and each year the people of all the nations will go up to Jerusalem to “worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.”  (14:16)

 

Tourists on the Mount of Olives look toward Jerusalem. 

Sukkot is a week of joy as those who celebrate it remember how the Lord Himself tabernacled with His children in the wilderness and will do so again in the last days. Yet, the seventh day of the feast has special end-time significance: “Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot, has a solemn undertone, it is closely linked to Yom Kippur, for it is on this day that the final seal is placed on the verdict that was pronounced on Yom Kippur,” writes Avraham Finkel in Essence of the Holy Days. It is fitting then that the Lord would require the celebration of this end-time feast during the Messianic reign to remember the glorious salvation He has given those who did not reject Him. “This final day of celebrating the Harvest, and Ingathering, therefore, pictures the final stage of God's plan of salvation — the ‘Last Great Day,’ or the ‘Great White Throne Judgment’!  It literally pictures the final day of ‘judgment’ and sealing those who will receive eternal life (compare Revelation 20:11–15), as opposed to those who will suffer the second and final death penalty (v.14–15).”  We see a foreshadowing of this end-time event with the annual Tabernacles Festival, which is organized by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem.  This October, 5,000 Christians representing 85 countries celebrated it for the 36th consecutive year.

 

Many from nations around the world come to be a blessing and celebrate
God's plan for Israel at Sukkot.

Jerusalem and the Divine Presence

The Lord calls Jerusalem “My house” and promises that He will rebuild it (1:16). This is a clear assurance of His Divine Presence among His people in Jerusalem.  Furthermore, He also promises that through His Divine blessing, He will return prosperity in many manifestations. “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.’”  (1:17) The Lord calls for the Jewish People to return to the Land — not merely from Babylon but from the “four winds of heaven” where the Lord says, “I have scattered you.”  (2:6) “Whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye,” declares Zechariah. (2:8) Adonai's protection of Jerusalem and His people is so personal that He says in the Last Days, “I myself will be a wall of fire around it ... and I will be its glory within.’”  (2:4) “Shout and be glad, Daughter Zion.  For I am coming, and I will live among you.”  (2:10) At that time there will be a one-state solution that wipes out all strife in the Land, which the Lord will rule over — “The LORD will inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem.”  (2:12)

Jewish people gather at the Western (Wailing) Wall for prayer. 

The Lord Promises to Bless Jerusalem

Again in chapter 8 the Lord assures us through Zechariah that He has not abandoned His people. “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem.  Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.”  (8:3) Jerusalem will be a place where both old and young are living in peace: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age.  The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”  (8:4–5) The prophet goes on to describe events that have come to pass in our time — “I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west.  I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.”  (8:7–8) Zechariah also prophesies that many from the nations will act on the knowledge that God is with His people: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’”  (8:23)

 

A blessing is recited over two Jewish youth at the Western Wall, also
known as the Wailing Wall and the Kotel. 

The Righteous Branch

“I am going to bring My servant, the Branch.”  (Zechariah 3:8) Before this glorious reign of the Messiah, He must first deal with sin and establish a way for those who are not His people to become His people. The Lord does this because He loves all mankind and does not want anyone to perish. In the third chapter of Zechariah, the prophet sees a vision concerning God’s servant, the Branch, which promises that the “sin of this land” will be removed in a single day. Likewise, chapter 13 describes a fountain of water opening up to the house of David with waters that will cleanse the people from their sins. God promises to forgive His people and restore them to their rightful place through this Righteous Branch. In chapter six, “the Branch” is identified as being the high priest Joshua, son of Jozadak and it is said that he will build the Temple of the Lord and rule from it as king —“he will be a priest on his throne.”  (6:13) And yet, Zechariah clearly tells us that Joshua and his associates are merely “men symbolic of things to come.” Joshua is an image of Yeshua (a name derivative of Yehoshua or Joshua) who the Bible tells us will reign “in the order of Melchizedek” who was both high priest and king of Salem (Jerusalem).  (Hebrews 6:20) Zechariah does not present the only vision concerning the Branch.  Isaiah prophesies that the Branch will come from David (Isaiah 11:1–5).  Jeremiah prophesies that the Righteous Branch will reign as king and that king will be called the LORD our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5–6; 33:14–17). Messianic prophecies throughout the Tanakh reveal this Righteous Branch to be Yeshua HaMashiach.

A Jewish teen wearing a tallit (prayer shawl), tefillin
(phylacteries), and a kippah (head covering) prays
at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem. 

The Lord Will Care for Judah

“I will restore them because I have compassion on them.  They will be as though I had not rejected them.”  (Zechariah 10:6) Since the regathering of His people from the “four winds of heaven” into the Land of Israel, we have seen God’s promise of protection fulfilled.  No Arab country has been able to conquer the State of Israel in modern times.  Politically and diplomatically, for the United Nations and the European Union, Israel is a constant source of frustration.  Western nations try to sanction, boycott, and hurl accusations of war crimes at Israel.  At the same time, Arab nations and regional terror groups devise plans to wipe Israel off the map. While God’s promise of protection is true and Israeli children are indeed playing in the streets of cities without walls, it is tragic that these same children must flee to bomb shelters and endure post traumatic stress from terror and rocket attacks, just because they are Jews — chosen by God to fulfill His grand plan in the earth. The good news is that the Lord's plan ends in victory for His people and His Land: “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling.  Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem.  On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations.  All who try to move it will injure themselves.”  (12:2–3) That prophecy is, even now, unfolding.  And as the nations continue to come against Jerusalem and the Jewish People, they will find that they are making war on the Lord of Hosts — a losing proposition.

The Father's Will

 Who Inherits the Holy Land?

"The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."  (Genesis 17:8)

The Holy Land, promised to Abraham by Adonai, has a recorded history that stretches over thousands of years.  Despite that history, the Promised Land is today one of the most contested areas of the Earth. This was not always the case.  Jews, Christians, and Muslim all recognized the Jewish history of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount years before an alternate history was created in the 20th century.

A woman examines a model of what the Temple Mount (upper
left hand corner) and Jerusalem would have been like during the Second
Temple period.

As recently as 1924, the Supreme Muslim Council, which controlled the Temple Mount area, published its first English-language tourist guide which stated: “The site is one of the oldest in the world.  Its sanctity dates from the earliest times.  Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.  This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.”  Even with this admission of the Jewish connection to the Land, the guide made it clear that the Jewish and Christian narrative had now evolved into the Muslim narrative.  Islam claims to reveal the final chapter of God’s eternal plan for mankind. Coupled with that sentiment is the belief that the Land and all holy sites now rightfully belong to the Muslims.  But since that is not a strong enough claim to the Land, a new narrative has since been written that disputes Jewish history in the Holy Land.

This model of how Jerusalem is believed to have looked in AD 66 shows
that the Western (Wailing) Wall of the Temple Mount was the wall closest
to the Temple itself. 

The Land Is Mine

"The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you reside in My land as foreigners and strangers."  (Leviticus 25:23)

Though Israel is no bigger than the state of New Jersey, it is the most contested area in the world.  According to Leviticus 25:23, however, Adonai retains ownership of the Holy Land. As owner, He has every right to determine who will live there and He promised it to Abraham.  When Abraham entered the Land in obedience to God's call, He promised that the land would belong to him and his descendants as an everlasting possession. "The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."  (Genesis 17:8)

 
 

An Israeli family hikes near the Sea of Galilee.

As well, Scripture assures us that God’s eyes are always on the Holy Land: "The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, … It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end."  (Deuteronomy 11:10, 12) Moreover, He guards both the Land and His people: "Rejoice, you nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will take vengeance on His enemies and make atonement for His land and people."  (Deuteronomy 32:43) In Deuteronomy 7:1, Moses tells the children of Israel that God Himself would drive the people out of the Land.  He reassures them that though the nations living in the Land are "larger and stronger than you," "the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations." Because they were afraid and refused to enter the Land, they had to wander 40 years in the wilderness.  When they finally entered the Land, God commanded them to dispossess the people.

Disputing God's Promises

Disputers of the Jewish claim to this Land raise arguments of all kinds to undercut the connection of both the modern state and the ancient tribes to the Land of Promise. Some question if God had the right to remove people from one place in order to give to another.  Others mistakenly believe that Abraham stole the Land from the Canaanites; however, Abraham's descendants only took possession of the Land after they left Egypt. To strengthen the Palestinian claim to the Promised Land, some now unjustifiably claim that the present-day Palestinians are the descendants of the ancient Canaanites and the Jewish People stole their land. For instance, in May of this year, PA Deputy Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council Salwa Hadib declared on official PA TV that Jerusalem "has been a Canaanite city for thousands of years.  The Palestinian people has been present in it for thousands of years, whether it was in Babylon, Assyria or Canaan, they [the Palestinians] gathered in the area before anything else, centuries before the Jewish religion...."
 

Jewish men pray in Jerusalem.

In reality, those who call themselves Palestinians today are a mixed ethnic group.

"In 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there, and the majority of them had arrived in recent decades.  Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country," writes Mitchell Bard in the article "Pre-State Israel: The Jewish Claim to the Land of Israel." Many Palestinians today are actually descendants of people who came from Bosnia, the Balkans, Caucasus, Arabian Peninsula, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.  A great number came to Israel during the British Mandate to find work. Origins are traceable through Arabic last names, which are largely identifiable with clans, tribes, and nationalities. Arabs living in the land before the British Mandate had no united nationalism because they were part of the Ottoman Empire (1517–1917). In February 1919, Palestinian-Arabs in the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations stated, "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it any time.  We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds." In Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, Khalidi Rashid explains that the Palestinian people read into the history of Palestine "a nationalist consciousness and identity that are in fact relatively modern." After the Ottoman Empire ended its 400-year rule of the land in 1920, the name "Palestine" emerged as a general geographic term, which continued beyond World War I under the British Mandate period.

 
 

Muslim Arab women in Jerusalem.

Arab Palestinians did not initially embrace the term Palestine. In fact, in the 1930s and '40s, various Arab voices rejected the term Palestine as an invention of the Zionists. "Leading up to Israel's independence in 1948, it was common for the international press to label Jews, not Arabs, living in the mandate as Palestinians," writes Jewish Virtual Library.  "It was not until years after Israeli independence that the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were called Palestinians." In truth, the title of "Palestine" for the Promised Land originated in the 2nd century AD.  In AD 135, the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed the region called "Provincia Judea" to "Provincia Syria Palaestina" — a name that refers in part to the ancient Jewish enemies, the Philistines. Renaming the land was the first attempt to completely wipe out the name of Israel.  Merely changing the name of the land to Palestine, however, did not make a new nation or a new ethnicity called the Palestinians.

Jewish children play in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Digging for the Truth About Jewish History

While the Bible is an excellent source of history, can the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel be proved independently of the Bible? Archaeological evidence confirms that it can. Richard Elliott Friedman, the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia, points out that thousands of ancient Hebrew inscriptions have been found throughout the Land of Israel.  "They come from hundreds of excavated towns and cities.  They are in the Hebrew language.  They include people's names that bear forms of the name of their God: YHWH," Friedman writes.  "They reflect a widespread community whose dominant language was Hebrew, who didn't eat pork and who worshiped a God named YHWH." Friedman also said he witnessed firsthand the excavation of a 7th century BC tomb in Jerusalem below the Church of Scotland that bore the Priestly Blessing given to the sons of Aaron. The tomb epitaph reads: "May YHWH bless you and keep you.  May YHWH make His face shine to you and give you peace."

An ancient Hebrew inscription found near Tel Rehov in Israel.

Other Hebrew inscriptions have been found that refer to the kings of Israel, such as David and Solomon, including stamps and seals like the King David Era seal found by Russian 10-year-old Matvei Tcepliaev while sifting dirt taken from the Temple Mount itself. Yet, even these facts are denied by top officials like Hadib, who also declared on PA TV: “An Israeli engineer and an archaeologist brought Israeli coins — shekels and agoras — and threw them on the ground before the renovation [of the Al-Karmi neighborhood in Jerusalem] in order to prove, after dozens and hundreds of years, that 'we (i.e., the Israelis) were present here.'  They are stealing history and geography." And even though the Muslim Council once acknowledged that the Temple Mount was indisputably the site of Solomon’s Temple, when the Jordanian Supreme Awqaf Council gained administration of the Mount after the 1948 War of Independence, Jewish heritage was denied. In the revised 1954 edition of “A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif,” published by the Supreme Awqaf Council, no mention is made of the First and Second Temples or Jewish veneration for the site. “In taking historical control, by discrediting and dismissing Jewish connections to the site, and [by taking] physical command over the Haram al-Sharif and Jerusalem, the Supreme Awqaf Council legitimized their rule and channeled national sentiment," a thesis by Jennifer Koshner states.  This relatively new nationalistic pursuit by Arabs has fueled intifadas and worldwide sympathies for a national Palestinian homeland, even though their claim to the land has no validity.

Jewish women walk along the ancient walls of the Temple Mount.

Divine Ownership and Human Inheritance

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters."  (Psalm 24:1–2)

So who really owns the land within Israel's borders and the Temple site where God’s Shekhinah glory once dwelled, and who really owns Jerusalem, where God chose to put His Name? God remains sovereign over His Creation; still, the Most High has given all "the nations their inheritance."  (Deuteronomy 32:8) To the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, He gave the Land of Israel.  “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you [Jacob] and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and ... all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.”  (Genesis 28:13–14) Adonai is so clear about who gets the land of Israel as an inheritance that the prophet Jeremiah conveys God's oath to "uproot from their lands" those among "all my wicked neighbors who seize the inheritance I gave My people Israel."  (Jeremiah 12:14)

These ruins at the base of the Temple Mount wall include stones that the
Romans toppled from the Temple Mount above.

Although Adonai gave His own chosen property to Abraham and his descendants as an “everlasting possession,” He says He will remove them from the land if they fall into sin.  He also promises to return them. "But after I uproot them, I will again have compassion and will bring each of them back to their own inheritance and their own country."  (Jeremiah 12:15) True to God’s Word, the Jewish People were removed and then returned to the Land; despite that, a remnant has always remained in the Holy Land. "In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years," Mitchell Bard writes in the article "Pre-State Israel: The Jewish Claim to the Land of Israel." "Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile in the 6th century BC, Jewish life in Palestine continued and often flourished," Bard notes. Despite widespread persecution, "large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century.  In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea," Bard writes, adding that the Crusader massacres of the 12th century were not all-destructive, either: Jewish communities continued to grow in the Land over the next few centuries and 10,000 Jews lived in the Land by the early 1800s. By 1920, about 60,000 Jews lived in the Land.  The population increased to over 800,000 Jews by 1948.  Today, over 6 million Jewish people live in Israel.

New immigrants (olim) to Israel dance for joy. 

The Redemption of the Land

God established the inheritance and the boundaries of not just the nations, including Israel, but also each of the 12 tribes of Israel — and of individuals within each tribe. The children of Israel who had settled in their promised inheritance could sell or lease parcels of land, but it could not be permanent.  In the Jubilee year, everyone was to return to his own property.  (Leviticus 25:8–55) Moreover, the land could be redeemed by the Israelite who owns it or by a relative. "Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land."  (Leviticus 25:24; see also 25:47–55) For every people group and every individual, God has set an inheritance — a gift that is irrevocable; for the Jewish People, that gift is the Holy Land. We see this principle at work in the salvation made possible through Yeshua (Jesus).  For those who are the brothers and sisters of Yeshua through adoption, He has bought back their inheritance and redeemed their land. So committed is Adonai to our inheritance that He promised punishment in the end days to those who would divide up "My Land."  (Joel 3:2) God's concern for His Land and His people reminds us that He does not forget or neglect His promises to us over the course of time.  He is faithful and His promises will not fail, though principalities and powers oppose them. And while a false narrative misleads the world regarding the heritage of the Jewish People, in these Last Days we will continue to see God fulfil His purposes among His people—the physical restoration of the Holy Land and the spiritual restoration of the Jewish People.