From Anger to Comfort

Zechariah 1:12-21

12 Then the Angel of the LORD answered and said, "O LORD of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?"

13 And the LORD answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words. 14 So the angel who spoke with me said to me, "Proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts:

"I am zealous for Jerusalem
And for Zion with great zeal.

15 I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease;
For I was a little angry,
And they helped—but with evil intent."

16 'Therefore thus says the LORD:
"I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy;
My house shall be built in it," says the LORD of hosts,
"And a surveyor's line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem."'

17 "Again proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts:
"My cities shall again spread out through prosperity;
The LORD will again comfort Zion,
And will again choose Jerusalem."'"

Vision of the Horns

18 Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns. 19 And I said to the angel who talked with me, "What are these?"

So he answered me, "These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem."

20 Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen. 21 And I said, "What are these coming to do?"

So he said, "These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head; but the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it."

The LORD promised to comfort Zion, His people, after His wrath on their sin was forgotten in the mercy of forgiveness.  This was after their seventy years as captives in Babylon to discipline and correct them.  The Angel of the LORD spoke to the Father and comforted the prophet Zechariah with good words of hope because of the zeal of godly jealously for the welfare of His chosen ones.  This is His desire for all the children of God in Christ that we might in return be zealous for doing good (Titus 2:14) as His own special people who are chosen and called to Himself.  He reserves His anger for the nations opposed to His still in rejecting His word, both written and living (John 1:1, 14, 12:48).  Just as then, some appear to help God’s people but hide an ulterior evil intent to serve their own interests.  God nonetheless promised mercy for His own, which mercy has been poured out fully on us (Titus 3:5-7) now in the fullness of His chosen remnants of Israel and from every nation.  His house was to be built in Jerusalem once again, but that was a mere shadow of the house He planned to build with all of us as the stones (1 Peter 2:5) of an eternal house in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1), the invisible church of the living God in Christ.  Though the word seems to indicate that the cities of Israel would last indefinitely, He really spoke of this mystery in Christ of the legacy of an eternal prosperity in the redeemed who will inhabit the New Jerusalem to come down out of heaven (Revelation 21:2-3) when God will live before our face forevermore.  This passage also talked of horns of the nations which scattered God’s people and took away their strength, but that He would defeat them and reunite His people.  He will likewise defeat all opposed to Christ’s own and deliver us into glory by that same power and promise as His grace moved Him from wrath on our sin to salvation in Him.  Amen!