God’s Word for You

Zechariah 12:6 Jerusalem… instead of Jerusalem

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, September 1, 2022

6 “On that day I will make the leaders of the clans of Judah like a blazing firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And they will consume with fire all the surrounding peoples to the right and to the left. But Jerusalem will still remain instead of ^a Jerusalem.

^a Or “under”

Zechariah presents God’s message with an image of fire, of things that make other things burn: fire in a woodpile, a torch in harvested, drying sheaves of wheat. This is a figure of speech, a prophecy, and we don’t need to think of destruction in the usual way, which is death and pain, but rather fire as a thing that prevails (surely fire prevails over dry wood) and change, since fires make a lot of changes in the world. The idea of consuming is also appropriate, because just as fire consumes wood, so also the gospel consumes what was dead unbelief and changes it into something different, something new. In this way the fire of the gospel doesn’t only kill, but renews and brings to life, just as a fire that kills an old dying forest will also cause new life, a new grove, to grow up in its place. As Luther puts it: “The fire of the Holy Spirit shall devour the Gentiles according to the flesh and prepare a place everywhere for the Gospel and kingdom of Christ” (LW 20:326).

The prophet ends the verse with strange words: “But Jerusalem will still remain instead of (or “under”) Jerusalem.” Just as we saw in chapter 11, references to Israel here are about the new Israel, the Christian church, and the same is shown to be true of Jerusalem. This is the reason the prophet talks about Jerusalem twice in the same sentence as if it is two different things. It certainly is two different things. The old Jerusalem is the one that was attacked by David and his men that became the capital of Israel and the home of the temple. The new Jerusalem is the spiritual residence of God’s people. It will remain safe because the devil cannot prevail against it. The prophet says: “The Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior. So my persecutors will stumble, and they will not gain the upper hand. They will be put to shame completely, because they have not been successful. Their eternal disgrace will never be forgotten” (Jeremiah 20:11 EHV). The new Jerusalem is preserved forever in heaven (Revelation 21:2), but in this world it is also wherever the true church is gathered. So in the Hebrew text, the prophet says that the new Jerusalem will remain instead of the old Jerusalem, or as he says literally: “under Jerusalem.” “Wherever Jerusalem is,” Luther says, “there it will be preserved. It will not perish.”

How hard and how simple it is to grasp the mercy of the Lord our God! It is hard, because it is so alien and foreign to us. The weak sinner cannot grasp how God would offer to us something so majestic, so huge as his mercy, which covers over our hidden faults (Psalm 19:21), the whole obscene, reeking pile of our sins, and changes it all to a thing of beauty, a garden of flowers, with trees bearing fruit and a fountain of flowing water streaming down. I do not deserve this! But God gives it; God promises it. God has done it already in Christ. And this is how simple it is, that the smallest child can understand that Jesus saves. His is the hand that rescues us. “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise” (Psalm 8:2).

The Lord’s victory is won over the brush pile of my own sins. The old man is burned away, and a new man has sprung to life like a young strong oak leaping from the soil after a forest fire. With one hand our Lord waters us, cares for us, trims and prunes us wherever he sees fit. With the other hand he gives us shade and care, for he himself is our sunlight and source of every good thing.

  “Turn to me and have mercy on me,
  as you always do to those who love your name.” (Psalm 119:132)

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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