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Zechariah 14 and the Coming of Christ
What follows describes events leading up to and including the destruction
of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. God will act as Judge of Jerusalem and its
inhabitants. As the king, He will send "his armies" and destroy "those
murderers, and set their city on fire" (Matt. 22:7).
For I will gather all the nations [the Roman armies] against Jerusalem to
battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered [Matt. 24:17],
the women ravished [Luke 17:35], and half the city exiled [Matt. 24:16], but
the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city" (Zech. 14:2).
This happened when the Roman armies, made up of soldiers from the nations
it conquered, went to war against Jerusalem. Rome was an empire consisting
of all the known nations of the world (see Luke 2:1). The Roman Empire
"extended roughly two thousand miles from Scotland south to the headwaters
of the Nile and about three thousand miles from the Pillars of Hercules
eastward to the sands of Persia. Its citizens and subject peoples numbered
perhaps eighty million."1 Rome was raised up, like Assyria, to be the "rod
of [His] anger" (Isa. 10:5). "So completely shall the city be taken that the
enemy shall sit down in the midst of her to divide the spoil. All nations
(2), generally speaking were represented in the invading army, for Rome was
the mistress of many lands."2 Thomas Scott, using supporting references from
older commentators and cross references to other biblical books, writes that
Zechariah is describing the events surrounding Jerusalem's destruction in
A.D. 70.
The time when the Romans marched their armies, composed of many nations,
to besiege Jerusalem, was "the day of the Lord" Jesus, on which he came to
"destroy those that would not that he should reign over them" [Matt.
22:110; 24:3, 2335; Luke 19:1127, 4144]. When the Romans had taken the
city, all the outrages were committed, and the miseries endured, which are
here predicted [Luke 21:2024]. A very large proportion of the inhabitants
were destroyed, or taken captives, and sold for slaves; and multitudes were
driven away to be pursued by various perils and miseries: numbers also,
having been converted to Christianity, became citizens of "the heavenly
Jerusalem" and thus were "not cut off from the city" of God [Gal 4:2131;
Heb. 12:2225].3
Forcing these series of descriptive judgment to leap over the historical
realities of Jerusalem's destruction in A.D. 70 so as to fit a future
judgment scenario is contrived and unnecessary.
Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He
fights on a day of battle (14:3).
After using Rome as His rod to smite Jerusalem, God turns on Rome in
judgment. Once again, Assyria is the model: "I send it against a godless
nation and commission it against the people of My fury to capture booty and
to seize plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets . . . .
So it will be that when the Lord has completed all His work on Mount Zion
and on Jerusalem, He will say, 'I will punish the fruit of the arrogant
heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness'" (Isa. 10:56,
1213). "It is significant that the decline of the Roman Empire dates from
the fall of Jerusalem."4 Thomas Scott concurs: "It is also observable, that
the Romans after having been thus made the executioners of divine vengeance
on the Jewish nation, never prospered as they had done before; but the Lord
evidently fought against them, and all the nations which composed their
overgrown empire; till at last it was subverted, and their fairest cities
and provinces were ravaged by barbarous invaders."5
And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in
front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its
middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the
mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south
(Zech. 14:4).
It is this passage that dispensationalists use to support their view that
Jesus will touch down on planet earth and set up His millennial kingdom.
Numerous times in the Bible we read of Jehovah "coming down" to meet with
His people. In most instances His coming is one of judgment; in no case was
He physically present. Notice how many times God's coming is associated with
mountains.
"And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of
men had built. . . . Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech" (Gen. 11:5, 7).
"So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and
to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land
flowing with milk and honey. . . (Ex. 3:8).
"Then Thou didst come down on Mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from
heaven. . . (Neh. 9:13a).
"Bow Thy heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, that they
may smoke" (Psalm 144:5).
"For thus says the LORD to me, 'As the lion or the young lion growls over
his prey, against which a band of shepherds is called out, will not be
terrified at their voice, nor disturbed at their noise, so will the LORD of
hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill'" (Isa. 31:4).
"Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains
might quake at Thy presence" (Isa. 64:1).
"When Thou didst awesome things which we did not expect, Thou didst come
down, the mountains quaked at Thy presence" (Isa. 64:3).
In Micah 1:3 we are told that God "is coming forth from His place" to
"come down and tread on the high places of the earth." How is this
descriptive language different from the Lord standing on the Mount of Olives
with the result that it will split? Micah says "the mountains will melt
under Him, and the valleys will be split, like wax before the fire, like
water poured down a steep place" (1:4). "It was not uncommon for prophets to
use figurative expressions about the Lord 'coming' down, mountains
trembling, being scattered, and hills bowing (Hab. 3:6, 10); mountains
flowing down at his presence (Isaiah 64:1, 3); or mountains and hills
singing and the trees clapping their hands (Isaiah 55:12)."6
What is the Bible trying to teach us with this descriptive language of the
Mount of Olives "split in its middle"? The earliest Christian writers applied
Zechariah 14:4 to the work of Christ in His day. Tertullian (A.D. 145220)
wrote: "'But at night He went out to the Mount of Olives.' For thus had
Zechariah pointed out: 'And His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of
Olives' [Zech. xiv. 4]."7 Tertullian was alluding to the fact that the
Olivet prophecy set the stage for the judgment-coming of Christ that would
once for all break down the Jewish/Gentile division. Matthew Henry explains
the theology behind the prophecy:
You will notice that there is no mention of a thousand year reign. Yet, we
are told that "the LORD will be king over all the earth" (14:9). So what is
new about this language? "For the LORD Most High is to be feared, a great King
over all the earth. He subdues peoples under us, and nations under our feet"
(Psalm 47:2, 3). This is exactly what happened with the destruction of
Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Paul told the Roman Christians that "the God of peace
will soon crush Satan under your feet" (Rom. 16:20). The church's adversary
(Satan) were those Jews who rejected Jesus as the Messiah and persecuted His
Bride, the church (see John 16:2). Jesus calls them a "synagogue of Satan"
(Rev. 3:9).
1. Otto Friedrich, The End of the World: A History (New York: Coward,
McCann and Geoghegan, 1982), 28.
2. G. N. M. Collins, "Zechariah," The New Bible Commentary, F. Davidson,
ed., 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1954), 761.
3. Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments,
According to the Authorised Version; with Explanatory notes, Practical
Observations, and Copious Marginal References, 3 vols. (New York: Collins and
Hannay, 1832), 2:955
4. Collins, "Zechariah," 761.
5. Scott, The Holy Bible, etc., 956.
6. Ralph Woodrow, His Truth is Marching On: Advanced Studies on Prophecy in
the Light of History (Riverside, CA: Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association,
1977), 110.
7. "Tertullian Against Marcion," Book 4, chapter XL, in The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, 3:417.
8. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, 6 vols.
(New York: Fleming H. Revell, n.d.), 4:1468.
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