God’s Word for You

Zechariah 9:14-15 The tornadoes of the south

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, August 12, 2022

14 Then the LORD will appear over them,
  and his arrows will dart like lightning.
  The LORD God will sound the ram’s horn
  and he will dash out with the tornadoes of the south.

An appearance of the Lord is called a theophany, such as when he showed himself in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2) or the pillars of cloud and of fire (Exodus 13:21). This prophecy is about an appearance in a storm. Severe storms make changes. They bring down branches and trees, they shatter rocks and flood rivers and streams. They cause dams to overflow and they can ruin crops or save them (if there had been drought).

Here God’s word is depicted as lightning. An arrow might be blocked or stopped by a shield, but there is no stopping lightning. When it strikes, it strikes. God’s word breaks out and leaps from place to place. It works suddenly and often unexpectedly in human hearts. The verse that follows the giving of the Ten Commandments, the very next verse, describes the word of God working with the same imagery: “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear” (Exodus 20:18). There, too, the voice of God is in the thunder and the trumpet, the power of the word of God is in the lightning flash, and the smoking mountain, where Moses received the tablets of the Law, was a theophany for the people and for Moses himself.

The ram’s horn is often sounded for a special call to worship. Isaiah said: “In that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13).

Here I have once again translated “whirlwind” as “tornado” as I did in chapter 7, because that’s the word we use in America. The tornadoes or whirlwinds of the south are extremely powerful. When Lieutenant Lynch of the U.S. Navy made his survey expedition down the Jordan and the Dead Sea in 1849, he experienced such a storm and described the “live thunder leaping from cliff to cliff.” He wrote: “Between the peals of reverberating thunder we soon heard a roaring and continuous sound. It was the torrent from the rain cloud, sweeping in a long line of foam down the steep declivity, bearing along huge fragments of rocks, which, striking against each other, sounded like mimic thunder.”

And Job’s chattering friend Elihu said about such a storm: “Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice, to the rumbling that comes from his mouth. He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth. After that comes the sound of his roar; he thunders with his majestic voice. When his voice resounds, he holds nothing back. God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding” (Job 37:2-5).

Luther prefers to describe God’s action with law and gospel: “Like a whirlwind and a storm, it will snatch up nations and peoples. It will humiliate and scatter them in such a way that it will first mortify and condemn them and then bring them back to life and save them” (LW 20:100).

15 The LORD of hosts will protect them,
  and they shall devour, and trample the slingers,
  and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine,
  and be full like a bowl,
  drenched like the corners of the altar.

In a brilliant little poem, Zechariah couples the success of the gospel with the judgment of the godless both in the present moment and on the Last Day. First, there is the protection of the messengers as they carry the gospel from place to place. God’s ministers and missionaries receive all kinds of rejection, push-back, hostility and even violent oppression on account of the gospel, but the Lord’s hand will be over them. This doesn’t mean that sinners will not violate the laws of God and man and cause physical harm to God’s servants. “For your sake we face death all day long” (Psalm 44:22). When this happens, they become the prisoners of hope Zechariah described in verse 12, and again he says, “whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8). They can harm or kill the body, but not the soul (Matthew 10:28).

The rest of this verse is at the same time about the conversion of the heathen and the judgment of the wicked. As unbelievers are brought into God’s kingdom, they can be depicted as being devoured by the ever-advancing church of God (this is a good picture, even if it seems frightening and strange—prophecies and visions are strange sometimes). Then the converted heathen will make a great disturbance, like rowdy drunken men pouring out into the streets, taking part in preaching themselves and bringing down opponents (“slingers”). They will be presented as an offering to the Lord. “‘And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 66:20). God’s servants teach and instruct the heathen so that what was a plaything for them, bowls of blood offered to false gods, becomes the true worship of the Lord, “a holy and acceptable sacrifice to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). This is the image of the blood drenching the corners of the altar, which was something only a priest could do (Leviticus 4:7). These Gentiles and pagans who were once outside God’s kingdom now “join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27).

But in what way do God’s people also take part in judging the wicked on the Last Day? Jesus says: “You will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:30), and Paul says: “do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And that we will judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:2,3). Surely it is God who judges, and Christ in particular, but we can say this:

1, Christians will serve as assistants to Christ, the judge.
2, We will judge by publicly approving the sentence of the judge, perhaps by casting our own vote, or some other approval.
3, Also by testifying, bringing testimony about the kindness and generosity shown to us by the godly and their other good works, which are evidence of faith.
4, Finally by condemning the ungodly and the evil angels by the example of their constant opposition and unbelief, confessing: “thou hast sworn against religion.”

To the condemned, this will sound like the roaring of drunken men and worse, it will mean that they will be devoured by the pit of hell. This is God’s justice, which shows fury toward unbelief, and everlasting compassion, reward, and peace to the faithful. Praise God and thank him for his blessings to you and to your soul. For in Christ you have rest for your soul, forever.

“Be at rest, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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