When Jesus rules over this earth, His reign will be universal. The entire earth will be under His authority. Many Bible scholar refer to this reign as the millennium reign, the thousand-year reign of Jesus on this earth. Here is the curious question: will Israel’s rejection of their King last forever?
So, consider today’s message as a continuation of the four sermons produced from the answers Zechariah gave to the Israelites through their delegates. We have dealt with two already in the previous chapter 7.
If you claim to be fasting and praying and you are very good in being bitter towards your fellow human beings, perverting justice, keeping malice, planning on how to harm one another, engaging in all forms of immorality, oppressing the widows, orphans and even foreigners living among you, then your fasting and prayer are mere exercises and are definitely in vain.
He was instructed to make an elaborate crown and set it on the head of Joshua, the high priest.
This sounds odd as it is odd to crown a priest as king and vice versa.
As a matter of fact, the king that tried to function as a priest in the bible was stricken with leprosy according to 2 Chronicles 26. This happened because fundamentally speaking, there was a clear dichotomy between the responsibilities of a king (political) and a priest (spiritual) in the land of Israel.
In fact, it would have made more sense humanly speaking if it were to be Zerubbabel (the governor) who was nominated to be crowned the king instead of Joshua the high priest.
However, looking at that statement figuratively…
Again, this represents the purging of the land from possible contamination they got while in captivity. It’s like pressing a reset button to format the people back to their original identity before their exile experience.
“You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my spirit. 7Obstacles as great as mountains will disappear before you. You will rebuild the Temple, and as you put the last stone in place, the people will shout, ‘Beautiful, beautiful!’”
“Return to me, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors. Long ago the prophets gave them my message, telling them not to live evil, sinful lives any longer. But they would not listen to me or obey me. Your ancestors and those prophets are no longer alive.”
