The next prophet in the order of the Old Testament is Zechariah; a book which, like all the preceding, is intimately connected with the Apocalypse of the Anointed Jesus. Zechariah was contemporary with Zerubbabel, Joshua the High Priest, and Haggai, and prophesied about 520 years before the birth of Jesus.
Like John in Patmos, Zechariah had a Vision of Horses of divers colors—red horses, bay horses, and pale horses, ranged behind a Man upon a red horse, standing among myrtle-trees. The branches of myrtle-trees were used in the construction of booths under which Israel dwelt in celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. In their rebelliousness the Jews are regarded as briers and thorns; but in restoration, because of righteousness, they are olive-branches, pine-branches, myrtle-branches, and palm-branches. When, therefore, it is prophesied in Isaiah 55 : 13, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree: and it shall be to Jehovah for a name, for an Aion-memorial that shall not be cut off;” and in Ch. 41 : 19, “I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the olive-tree: I will set in the desert the fir-tree, the pine, and the box-tree together; that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel (Christ) hath created it:”—when these things are declared, it not only imports that the land previously desolate shall become like Eden, the Garden of Jehovah (Ezek. 36 : 35), but that all its inhabitants in Messiah’s Olahm, the Millennial Aion, shall be trees of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah, that he might be glorified”—Isai. 61 : 3.
These considerations fix the time of Zechariah’s horses at rest,—at the Feast of Tabernacles first ensuing, when the Holy One of Israel, the Man on the Red Horse, shall have completed his conquests, and shall be Prince of Peace in the midst of Israel. He and his cavalry march to and fro through the earth with blood, signified by redness, famine by the bay, and pestilence by the pale or whitish, until the earth is reduced to submission, and obtains rest from these calamities. This vision is reproduced in the Apocalypse, only on a more extended scale; but with the same result.
“Thus saith Jehovah of armies,” who, as Moses saith, “is a Man of War” and “a Jealous Power,” “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great jealousy. And I am very sore displeased with the nations at ease; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.” Now, if this were the state of Jehovah’s mind in the days of Zechariah, what must be the intensity of his jealousy for Jerusalem and Zion at this day! The Chaldeans destroyed Jerusalem, and burned the temple, and overturned the kingdom and throne of David; and he punished the Chaldean Babylon with the loss of empire, and a conversion into heaps of ruins as at this day. The Roman nations followed in their steps; and have aggravated the affliction and their own guilt, by great cruelty towards Israel, and slaughters, or rather torments inflicted upon the brethren of Jesus, the Saints. The Little Horn Babylon, therefore, of our times, will be subjected to a more terrible vengeance than hitherto experienced by any power, or confederacy of powers, hostile to the Jews.
The decree of Jehovah concerning Jerusalem and Zion hath gone forth; and he commanded Zechariah to proclaim it, saying, “Thus saith Jehovah of armies, My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and Jehovah shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.” But how shall this come to pass?
In reference to this inquiry the prophet is introduced to another scene—the visions of the Four Horns, and of the Four Carpenters or artificers. He is told that the Horns represent the powers by which Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem are scattered; answering to the Lion, the Bear, the Leopard, and the Fourth Beast of Daniel; whose oppression has so completely scattered the power of Judah, “that no man doth lift up his head.” And in this prostrate condition the Jews and Jerusalem must remain until the “Four Carpenters” are apocalypsed or revealed for the work assigned them. This work the prophet says, is to terrify the horns; to make them afraid; to cast out the horns of the nations.
which lift up their horn, or power, over the land of Judah to scatter it. No such power, with such a mission, has appeared since the days of the prophet: on the contrary, all the powers that have arisen have been Gentile, and ambitious of exclusive sovereignty over Jerusalem and Judea, as at this day. These “Four Carpenters” are, therefore, not Gentile, but of Jewish nationality; and are yet to be apocalypsed, or revealed. We may here say in passing, that they are the Brethren of the Carpenter’s Son; the squadrons of the Man in the midst of the myrtle-trees; the Seraphim of Isaiah; the Four Cherubim of Ezekiel; and the Four Living Ones of the Apocalypse.
These are they by whom the Horns of the Gentiles are to be broken, and the Holy Land and City are to be avenged, and Zion comforted. But the prophet and his friends would, doubtless, delight to know “the times and seasons” when Jerusalem should be exalted to the dignity of “Jehovah’s throne”—Jer. 3 : 17. Might this happen in Zechariah’s day; or when Ezekiel’s 430 years were expired during which Judah and Israel were to eat defiled bread among the Gentiles (4 : 4-6, 13); or were there any times measured off that must expire before the work of the Four Carpenters could be commenced?
To afford them some idea of the fact in relation to this matter, another vision was granted to the prophet. He saw a man with a measuring line in his hand, who told him he was going to measure the length and breadth of Jerusalem. He saw by this that there were measurements, and that the fortunes of the city were not abandoned to accident or caprice. He was told what the line of Jerusalem’s humiliation extended to; but he was not informed of the number of the years that humiliation should continue. He could not discern from what he saw, whether the treading of Jerusalem under foot by the Gentiles should terminate in A.D. 35, when the apostles inquired if the kingdom should then be restored again to Israel; or in A.D. 1864-8, to which we look with earnest expectation. Zechariah was told what the line was for, but he was not informed of the details of the measurements. These details were reserved by the Father, to be communicated afterwards to the Anointed Jesus, that he might send and “indicate them by sign,” represent them symbolically, to his servant John. The apocalypse, however, to which the “measuring line” extended, was communicated to Zechariah. He was told these words, “Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, for the multitude of men and cattle therein:” and the reason given why it should be so secure in such a country was, “Because, saith Jehovah, I will be unto her a Wall of Fire (the Jasper-wall of Apoc. 21 : 12, 14, 18) round about her, and will be the Glory (the Jasper- stone, clear as crystal—ver. 11) in the midst of her.”
He perceived from this, as we may also perceive, that Jehovah would appear in Jerusalem at the end of the measuring line. He found also, by attending to the words spoken, that when he should be therein apoc- alypsed or unveiled, he will make a proclamation to the Israelites dwelling in the countries north of Jerusalem, called “the Land of the North,” the territory under the dominion of Gog, the then Head of the Little Horn Babylon of our future. The Israelites dwelling in this Babylon- Confederacy of Greeks and Latins are thus addressed in the proclamation stirring them up to war, “Ho! ho! Come forth and escape from the land of the north, saith Jehovah; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” Here is a call upon the Jews to rise against the governments of the nations, and doubtless because those governments will not regard the proclamation of the Apoc. 14 : 6, 7. Zion, thus appealed to, will respond to the invitation; and in concert with the Four Carpenters (the resurrected saints and the true believers living at the time of the proclamation) proceed to break in pieces and consume the power of the nations. These are to be spoiled and subjugated by their servants, the Jews; and after that the glory will be apocalypsed. Things will proceed very much upon ordinary principles before the public; only those who carry on the insurrection, or revolution, will know the reality of things. This is the import of the words spoken to Zechariah in connection with the call upon Zion to “arise and thresh the nations”— Mic. 4:13. “After the glory he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Jehovah’s eye.” “For, behold, I will shake my hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants; and ye shall know that Jehovah of armies hath sent me,” the Christ. “After the glory” is apocalypsed in Jerusalem, in other words, after Messiah effects his entrance into Jerusalem, the work begins that is to result in removing the veil from the mind of Israel with respect to Jesus; in their restoration to Palestine; in the subjugation of the nations; and their subsequent enlightenment.
When this work is accomplished the apocalyptic millennary is introduced, in which the things expressed in the following words of Zechariah became the order of the times: “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo! I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah; and many nations shall be joined to Jehovah in that day (the Day of Christ), and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee; and thou shalt know that Jehovah of armies sent me (Jesus) unto thee. And Jehovah shall inherit Judah, his portion in the Holy Land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be at rest, O all flesh, from before Jehovah; for he is risen up from the habitation of his holiness"—ch. 2 : 13.
The mind of the prophet having been thus fixed upon Him who is to deliver Israel, and to rule over them in Jerusalem, becomes the subject of a vision in which is brought before him the Apocalyptic Stone, the Jasper and Sardine Stone, with Seven Eyes, the Head Stone, whose graving is of Jehovah; and which being laid before Joshua and Zerub- babel, men of sign, is representative of the Divine Governor and High Priest of the house of David. He sees Joshua, the High Priest of the Restoration, angelized, and clothed in filthy garments. That is, he represents the Christ, in the capacity of Jehovah’s Messenger, “the Angel of the Covenant,” clothed with “the flesh of sin,” in which, Paul tells us, “dwells no good thing.” While Joshua was in these filthy garments, Zechariah sees the Adversary at his right-hand; that is, in power, standing to resist him. This represents the resistance of power that would be brought to bear against the Christ in the days of his flesh. But that the Adversary should not finally prevail is indicated by the words of Jehovah to the Adversary, saying, “Jehovah shall restrain thee, O Satan; even Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem shall restrain thee: Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” That is, that although the Adversary that possessed Jerusalem might resist the High Priest of the Order of Melchizedec, and wound him in the heel, He shall, nevertheless, wrest Jerusalem from his grasp, and restrain, or bind him, as is apocalyptically represented in ch. 20 : 1-3.
While Zechariah was beholding, he saw the garments of Joshua, the High Priest, changed; and was instructed that the action represented the putting away of iniquity which the priest is supposed to bear. In this we see, by the light of New Testament, the change of nature, or body, in relation to the Christ, “whom,” says Paul, “we know henceforth no more after the flesh.” He was crucified in “flesh of sin;” and then sin was “condemned in the flesh.” But when he rose again he became spirit-body, called by Paul pneuma hagiosunes, spirit of holiness— Rom. 1:4. He is now the Angel-High Priest of Jehovah, no longer oppressed with our filthy nature, but “clothed in a garment white as snow” (Dan. 7 : 9) reaching to the foot (Apoc. 1 : 13): and the words of Jehovah are now addressed to him, saying, “If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house (rule my kingdom), and shalt also keep my courts (be High Priest of Israel), and 1 will give thee places to walk among those that stand by,” the Angel Princes, or Elohim, we read of in Daniel.