God’s Word for You
Zechariah 6:7-8 The straining horses
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, July 20, 2022
7 When these strong horses came out, they were straining to go and range through the earth. And he said, “Go, range through the earth.” So they ranged through the earth. 8 Then he cried out to me, “Behold, those who go toward the land of the north have set my spirit to rest in the land of the north.”
Horses are family creatures and they understand and follow a hierarchy. Essentially, the man who tames and rides the boss horse becomes the boss of the horses. Horses, like dogs, have an innate desire to be helpful to their human masters. So when there is a journey to take or a battle to be fought, horses begin to strain, neighing their excitement and pawing at the turf. These horses, pulling the chariots of angels, are not depicted any differently than what Zechariah would expect. The horses of angels want to do the bidding of their Master, but the angels are merely the drivers. “Man is the lord of all the creatures of God,” but God is the Master over all (Ephesians 4:6).
The order comes: “Go, range through the earth.” The word “range” is in the remarkable hithpael Hebrew stem. The hithpael carries the action of a verb back and forth, so that the idea of “go” (the root word) becomes “go back and forth, here and there, throughout the whole earth.” I have translated it “range through” for our purposes here, knowing I would be able to explain the word now.
In verse 8, the speaking angel reveals that he is the Lord himself, because he says, “They have set my spirit to rest in the land of the north.” This mission, one of many that continually take place, is at God’s direction. He allows his angels to make a spiritual report of the activities of mankind. What is wickedness doing in the world? What are the fruits of faith in the world? These are the details God is truly interested in. Additionally, the Lord hears the prayers of his people, and he answers and acts on those prayers.
Why is the north the focus of attention here? This was the direction out of which the Babylonians came, as we see in Jeremiah’s vision of the boiling cauldron tipped out of the north (Jeremiah 1:14). Even though Babylon was more or less northeast of Judah, there was no road across the desert, and travelers, armies and exiles had to travel north, beyond Damascus, and follow the arc of the fertile crescent, traveling between the rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, to arrive in Babylon. This is why the Lord gives special attention to that direction, to comfort his people and show them that he knows their worries and their cares. Luther is marvelous here:
“For no man will believe how much effort is needed if one is again to comfort and console a conscience that is despairing and intimidated, and again, what effort is needed to terrify a hardened conscience and bring it to fear. To our view both tasks are impossible. God must perform them himself. Therefore, as we can see, he uses so many words and visions here and yet cites them all for the comfort and strengthening of the poor, timid little flock of his people. For when God once gets angry and punishes, the human heart cannot forget it; it will flee from him forever and think that God will always be angry, and it will tremble even at the rustling of a leaf (Leviticus 26:36) and worry that the sky will fall down upon it.” (LW 20:252)
So, God sees all, and God is Lord over all. He so moves and controls human history that his plan of salvation will be completed. Here his words are there to comfort the worried and the troubled, and so he speaks an amazing sentence: “My spirit is at rest, even in the land of the north.” This means that the victory is completed in the mind of the speaker, and since the speaker is God, the words are true in every sense. There is nothing that can put a stop to God’s plan of salvation. Man’s sin will be atoned for; the sins of all will be paid for in full.
When we read the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures, we should not be surprised at how often they zero in on the cross. It is there, at the cross of Calvary on a Friday, that our salvation was carried out. Zechariah will return to this scene again and again, from the thirty pieces of silver that betrayed the Savior (Zechariah 11:13) to the stares of the soldiers who pierced him (Zechariah 12:10) and the ascension of Jesus from the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4; Acts 1:9-12). You are saved by grace, not by works, by the will of God through Jesus Christ. We return and return to that scene in our hearts and in our worship, for it was there on Calvary that our sins were paid for with the blood of God’s Son. “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice” (Romans 3:25). So, Paul says, “Through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you” (Acts 13:38), and we are blessed because our sins are covered. The encouragement of Zechariah is the same encouragement of the Gospels. We have forgiveness through the one who was ridiculed, mocked, tortured, and killed on our behalf (Luke 23:11). He is the one who cannot suffer, and yet for our sakes, he did suffer. By standing firm in our faith in him, we will have eternal life.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.