Books of the Minor Prophets

The Prophecy of Micah - Part 1

The prophecy of Micah parallels those of Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos, who were all prophets of the 8th century BC. The ministries of all four of these prophets were focused on forecasting God's impending judgment of the ancient northern Kingdom of Israel, although they all also prophesied of other things, such as the sin and impending judgment of Judah and Jerusalem, of Christ, and of Israel's eventual restoration. The prophet Jonah is earlier than any of these, but he was not concerned with the destruction of Israel. Rather, Jonah sought the preservation of Israel, imagining that Yahweh would destroy the encroaching Assyrians instead. It was demonstrated in our presentation of Amos that Assyria and Israel had been struggling back-and-forth for over a hundred years before the final destruction of Samaria. For instance, we had demonstrated from correlating the Bible with certain ancient Assyrian inscriptions that the restoration to Israel of Hamath, Damascus and the northern plain by Jeroboam II which is mentioned in 2 Kings chapter 14 was in response to earlier Assyrian subjugation of that area. Even earlier than that, we saw in Assyrian inscriptions that the Israelite king Ahab had sent a force of 10,000 foot-soldiers to join a mostly Syrian coalition army against Assyrian expansion into the Levant, something which is not mentioned in the Bible. Ahab was over a hundred years before Jotham, the king of Judah when Micah began his ministry. The lesson of the gourd in Jonah is that Yahweh was indeed going to use Assyria's expanding empire to preserve Israel by taking Israel into captivity. Jonah recorded the lesson of the gourd, but he evidently did not understand it.

The next prophet after Micah is Nahum, a prophet of the 7th century who was indeed focused on Yahweh's revenge against the Assyrians, something which Isaiah also prophesied about at length. The prophet Joel, usually and incorrectly dated to an earlier period, was also a prophet of the 7th century BC, as the third chapter of his book demonstrates. Obadiah is also usually dated to have been written at an early time, but his prophecy could not have been written until after the fall of Jerusalem (verses 10-14). Scholars who dispute the prophecies concerning Edom do not understand who Edom is in the world today, and therefore they cannot understand Obadiah. Aside from these and a few other less significant questions, the King James translators were fair in estimating the proper order of the minor prophets.

The Prophecy of Micah, Part 2

In Micah chapter 1, we saw that the prophet had been chastising Israel for their sins, among which were their intercourse with other nations and their oppression of the poor of their people. We saw parallel prophecies in the writings of the contemporary prophets Isaiah, Hosea and Amos, all of whom were announcing different aspects of the same basic messages. By the many different ways in which their prophecies corroborate one another, as well as by all of the clear fulfillments of these prophecies, we see that these men were truly prophets of God, while at the same time there were many false prophets among the people whose works have not endured. We shall see more of that here in Micah chapters 2 and 3.

Furthermore, in the opening chapter of Micah the prophet uttered oracles against Israel and Samaria and against certain cities of Judah, and then he warned that the judgment of God would come “unto the gate of Jerusalem.” It may be ascertained from the historical portions of Scripture, and from history itself, that the Assyrians who were about to invade Israel in fulfillment of these oracles would indeed take captive all but some small scattered remnants of the Northern kingdom of Israel, and also much of Judah – especially those northern towns of Judah which Micah explicitly mentioned – but that the Assyrians would indeed be stopped at the gate of the Jerusalem, and not take the city itself. Most notable, however, is that the names of the towns of Judah which Micah prophesied against also have meanings, and an understanding of those meanings adds a much greater depth to his message, because they are pertinent to the purpose of his prophecy. Here we shall repeat this portion of Micah chapter 1, from verses 10 through 15, and offer some interpretation. However we will not repeat many of the things which we offered from the Septuagint in our full presentation, although they should not be ignored if one truly wants to study the prophecy in depth:

The Prophecy of Micah, Part 3

In the first three chapters of Micah we saw pronouncements of judgment upon Israel and Judah, judgment which would carry all the way to the “gate of Jerusalem”. We discussed the fulfillment of those judgments in the Assyrian invasions which were not long after Micah had begun preaching. The kingdom of Israel would be lost, and the people of Israel had no recourse in the matter: they would lose all of their possessions and be carried off into captivity. Much of Judah was also decreed by Yahweh to suffer likewise, and they were also carried into captivity by the Assyrians. However in this fourth chapter of Micah the focus of the prophet changes, and his prophesies move from the imminent destruction of ancient Israel and Judah to a vision foretelling what it was that would befall them in their future.

Micah 4:1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.

The phrase “the last days”, as it is often rendered in the King James Version, contains the Hebrew word achariyth, Strong's Hebrew Lexicon number 319, and it is defined by Strong to mean “the last or end, hence the future; also posterity”. For reason of its meaning it was translated in the King James Version in a wide variety of ways, but it does not only pertain to the very end of the age, which in the Christian worldview means the time imminent to the Second Advent, although achariyth is generally and wrongly interpreted in such a manner. In fact, the apostles called their very own time the “last days” (Acts 2:17, Hebrews 1:2, 1 John 2:18), while at the same time they also considered the “last days” to be far off in the future in relation to their own time (2 Timothy 3:1, James 5:3, 1 Peter 1:5, 2 Peter 3:3, Jude 18). Therefore the meaning of the phrase is relative to its context. This is also evident in Genesis chapter 49, where in Jacob's prophecy concerning his sons he says “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.” If the things that befell Jacob's sons happened throughout all of the time immediately subsequent to Jacob and continued to happen well into the future, then the same thing is true here, and the references to “the last days” in Micah and in Isaiah, where we find a similar prophecy, began in the period of time following the judgment and deportations of ancient Israel.

The Prophecy of Micah, Part 4

In Micah chapter 4 we see that Yahweh God in the time of His choosing ultimately prevails over all of His enemies, because even though His people Israel were going into captivity, they would indeed be established as a great nation which in the “last days” would be exalted above all other nations. However we also saw that first the children of Israel must go to Babylon, and there they must await their redemption, where suffering many things they were portrayed as a woman in travail. We discussed how Babylon in that vision is not a reference to the place itself, but rather it must be a reference to something which transcends geography. That woman, we pointed out while discussing Micah 4:10-11, is the same woman as the woman of the visions in Revelation chapters 12 and 17, where Israel the bride flees into the wilderness, for which we can also compare Micah 4:7, and later becomes the whore of Babylon. Yet Micah chapter 4 holds out a promise of hope for the children of God, that they shall one day indeed “arise and thresh”, to be the instruments by which Yahweh gathers His enemies as “sheaves to the floor”.

However here in Micah chapter 5 the focus of the prophecy seems to once again be on the more immediate trials which the children of Israel must face, where a siege is laid against them and where the “judge of Israel”, which must be a reference to God Himself, is smitten upon the cheek. Yet this would be an incomplete assessment. Rather, here in Micah chapter 5 apparently we see a prophecy of the more immediate results of those judgments which were pronounced upon Israel by the prophet in the first three chapters of his writing, however the elements of this chapter are also relevant to Micah chapter 4, and what we have here is a Hebrew parallelism. Parallelism is a common element of Biblical literature, whereby the same subject is described twice using somewhat different terms. A simple form of parallelism is found in Psalm 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The phrases “lamp unto my feet” and “light unto my path” both essentially mean the same thing, and both describe “thy word”, but the parallelism is a poetic device used for emphasis, which can also make for beautiful poetry. The Bible, both New Testament and Old, is replete with such language. From Revelation 1:8: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” Here we shall hopefully see that while much of Micah chapter 5 is pertinent to the time immediate to Micah and what was to befall Israel at the hand of the Assyrians, elements of it are also parallel to the prophecy of Micah chapter 4, the Assyrians being a type for the nations to be gathered against Israel in the “last days”. This is parallelism on a grander scale that the simple one-verse forms which we have just illustrated.

The Prophecy of Micah, Part 5

In the first three chapters of Micah, we saw the prophet pronounce the judgments of God upon Israel, and also upon Judah, for the many transgressions they committed against both Him and their kinsmen. For those transgressions they would lose all of which they had, because they dealt deceitfully with their God and their nation. From Micah 1:6 and 9: “6 Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. 9 For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.” The Assyrians did take away all of Israel and all of the fenced cities and towns of Judah, but they were stopped at the gate of Jerusalem. While Micah also prophesied later, at the end of his third chapter, that “Jerusalem shall become heaps,” that judgment was reserved for execution until the time of the later Chaldaean invasion.

The names of the towns of Judah which Micah prophesied against also told a story in their meanings, from which we can gather deeper insight. For instance, the beginning of sin for Israel was their belief that they were invincible because their God was with them, an idea encapsulated in Micah's utterance concerning Lachish and which is also stated explicitly at Micah 3:11 where it says of the false prophets that “yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.”. The children of Israel cannot sin and feel that they can prevail simply because their God is with them, but this was the attitude which Micah ascribes to them. It must also be observed, that that those who understood and were sorrowful over Israel's sin had hoped for good, but Israel was only worthy of Yahweh's judgment, an idea which we see encapsulated in Micah's utterance concerning Maroth.

The Prophecy of Nahum - 09-19-2014

The prologue concerning the dating of the prophets is found here: Ordering and chronology of the Minor Prophets

Here we shall present the prophecy of Nahum, with some commentary and material from some of the correlating scriptures and history. Not much is known of Nahum himself. The prophet does not date himself except by the conditions expressed in his writing, and only calls himself Nahum the Elkoshite, most likely meaning that he came from a place named Elkosh.

There is conjecture that Capernaum, the New Testament town, was named for the prophet. The Hebrew word which gives us the name Nahum means comfort, and it is fitting for his message since the destruction of Assyria would be a comfort to Israel. The phrase from which the name Capernaum is derived means village of comfort. There are at least four towns named Comfort in the United States, in Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Capernaum may have been named likewise, and there is not necessarily a connection to the prophet.

There is also a place called Alqosh in what is now northern Iraq which allegedly dates to Assyrian times, which is plausible, and for which there has been claimed a connection to the prophet for many centuries. If that is so, then Nahum would be an Israelite of the Assyrian captivity. However while this is a possibility it cannot be taken for granted that it is true, and one may argue that the context of the prophecy, especially in the first chapter, places the prophet in Jerusalem.

The Prophecy of Habakkuk

Habakkuk (LXX Ambakoum) does not date himself or his prophecy. Rather, we must rely on the circumstances of the prophecy itself for a date, and of course that cannot be absolutely reliable since the prophets of the Living God indeed foretold the future before it was inevitable that the events which they spoke of were going to happen. Habakkuk is written from a perspective which is oblivious to the Assyrian empire or the Assyrian deportations of Israel and much of Judah, which had occurred over several decades and well into the 7th century BC. The fall of Nineveh to the Scythians, Medes and Persians occurred right around 612 BC, and Nebuchadnezzar II ascended to the throne of Babylon in 605 BC, from which time Babylon would acquire hegemony over the remaining portions of the old Assyrian empire. This time, from 612 BC to 605 BC, seems to be the most appropriate for the proclamation that Yahweh would “raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation” here in verse 6 of the opening chapter. While it is also possible that Assyria was ignored and the oracle uttered before that time, it does not seem likely that such a prophecy would be uttered during the reign of the good king Josiah, which lasted until about 609 BC. It is much more likely that Habakkuk prophesied these things during the reigns of the three wicked kings which followed Josiah, which were Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. With these and other circumstances both Biblical and historical, the early portion of the rule of Jehoiakim is the most likely candidate for the time of this prophecy, between 608 and 601 BC.

The Prophecy of Zephaniah

If the editors of the King James Version of the Bible sought to order the minor prophets chronologically, then Zephaniah is probably just a little out of place, as it seems that the book should have preceded Habakkuk in order. This is because Habakkuk had made no mention of Nineveh as a world power while in Zephaniah chapter 2 we read an oracle against Nineveh, where it says: “13 And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.” This indicates that Assyria is about to be judged by Yahweh and therefore Zephaniah wrote his prophecy before 612 BC, which is the generally accepted year of Nineveh's destruction. Zephaniah himself tells us that he prophesied during the reign of the good king Josiah, who likely ruled Judah from about 640 BC down to about 609 BC.

We had argued while presenting the prophecy of Habakkuk that he had probably prophesied after the fall of Nineveh, since he never mentions the city or the Assyrians, and even then after the death of Josiah and before the coming of the Babylonians to Judah, which was between 608 and 601 BC. Therefore Zephaniah is probably the next-to-last of the prophets of the Kingdom of Judah whose writings have survived to us, while Habakkuk is probably the last of the Old Kingdom prophets whom we know.

Most of the Book of Zephaniah was also preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we may examine readings from that source and from the Septuagint where they may improve our understanding of the words of the prophet.

The Prophecy of Haggai - 09-25-2015

In the opening passage of Daniel chapter 9 we read this from the prophet: “1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; 2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.” This is where Daniel began that prayer which resulted in his receiving the vision of the 70 Weeks' Kingdom. But when Daniel had written, he was not informing us that the 70 years desolation of Jerusalem which were prophesied in Jeremiah were completed, but only that he had come to understand them. That is because it was also prophesied that within the 70 years something else was to happen, which was the destruction of the kingdom of Babylon. When Babylon fell, Daniel understood that the 70 years should be taken literally, and that since God is true, that Jerusalem would also soon be restored. That is why Daniel had made such a prayer in the first year of the king he calls Darius.

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 1, Visions Near and Far

The writing of the book of Zechariah the prophet can be dated rather accurately to begin about 520 BC, during the reign of the Persian king known as Darius the Great. Zechariah was one of three post-captivity prophets whose writing we have in our Bibles. The others are Haggai and Malachi. According to Haggai himself, the written records of his prophecy were initiated just over two months before those of Zechariah, at the very beginning of the sixth month in the second year of Darius. While the book of Malachi is not dated, from internal evidence it was clearly written some time after both Haggai and Zechariah, as the Levitical priesthood which was reestablished in the time of the first two second-temple prophets was being corrupted in the time of Malachi. Therefore Malachi may have been written as late as the events described in Ezra chapters 9 and 10, and possibly even later.

As we more fully demonstrate in an article at Christogenea entitled Notes Concerning Daniel's 70 Weeks Prophecy, the mission of Nehemiah preceded that of Ezra by many decades. The first captives, unrecorded by Scripture, may have returned to Jerusalem some time after 539 BC, when Cyrus had conquered Babylon. Evidently, some time during this period, some rebuilding in Jerusalem may have begun but was never completely finished. Cambyses, the son and successor of Cyrus who ruled from 529 to 522 BC, was a difficult man. Upon complaints from the Samaritans and others, he had ordered any building activity at Jerusalem to cease. This was recorded by Flavius Josephus. After Cambyses had died from a wound in battle, Darius became King of Persia, in 522 or 521 BC, and by 520 the rebuilding in Jerusalem had commenced. The opening verses of Haggai the prophet records that the temple was rebuilt at this very time.

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 2, Jesus and Satan

Presenting the first two chapters of Zechariah, we saw that the prophet began writing around the start of the building of the second temple in the days of Zerubbabel, about 520 BC. While his prophecy had a meaning with an immediate application in his own time, regarding the building of the temple, it also has far-reaching implications related to the very purpose of the 70-weeks kingdom, which is what we call Judaea as it was in the inter-testamental period. We hope to further establish the proofs of that assertion here, presenting Zechariah chapter 3.

This period which we prefer to describe as the 70-weeks kingdom, from another prophecy which describes it in Daniel chapter 9, is also referred to as the second temple period. However that label is not quite accurate. According to Ezra, the second temple took only four years to build. The temple of the time of Christ was actually the third temple, Herod’s temple, as the second temple was rebuilt from the foundations up. That is how the Judaean historian Flavius Josephus described it, and the building of that third temple is mentioned in John chapter 2 where it is said that the project took 46 years to complete.

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 3, The House of God

Having presented the first three chapters of Zechariah, we hope to have established the fact that there are two perspectives to fully interpreting the words of the prophet and realizing the fulfillment of his prophecy. These we have termed the near vision, which is the immediate application of his prophecy to the rebuilding of the second temple and the initiation of the 70-weeks Kingdom, and the far vision, or the transcendental fulfillment of the prophecy to the birth and ministry of the Christ and the building of His House, which is both His temporal body and the body of His collective people Israel. We would also assert that the entire purpose of the 70-weeks Kingdom was to realize the fulfillment of the far vision, as the Word of God establishes for us both here and in Daniel chapter 9.

Now in Zechariah chapter 4, Zerubbabel, the governor of Jerusalem during the building of the second temple and the high priesthood of Joshua, is only mentioned several times. His name means sown in Babel, or Babylon, and that is important in relation to what we hope to demonstrate is the meaning of this chapter. Especially since the Hebrew word babel also means confusion, and more specifically confusion by mixing. This in itself is a prophecy of ancient Judaea, the birth of Christ and the modern understanding of the origins of both the Gospel and the people of Christ. So the redemption of the children of Israel was sown in confusion.

 The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 4: Sin and Punishment

We have already presented six chapters of this book of the prophecy of Zechariah, and we hope to have fully established that Zechariah was a Christian prophet in many scriptural aspects. First, he prophesied the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem as a type for the rebuilding of the house of God in His people Israel, which is the ultimate purpose of the 70-weeks Kingdom in Judaea. Then, his prophecy uses the first high priest of that rebuilt temple, Jeshua, or Joshua, as a type for Yahshua Christ, the coming Messiah who would be the ultimate high priest of His people. Furthermore, he used Zerubbabel, the first governor of Jerusalem as it was going to be rebuilt, as a type for Christ as Governor over His people. The seven-branched candlestick of Zechariah’s vision was a prophecy foreshadowing the messages to the seven Christian assemblies of the Revelation, and the vision of the two witnesses, or olive trees, which feed their oil to those candlesticks informs us that those assemblies consist of the people of the houses of Israel and Judah. The very purpose of the 70-weeks Kingdom was to achieve the reconciliation of Yahweh God with Israel, and all of these circumstances in its founding were employed by the prophet as allegories representing that purpose, which was ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

An underlying theme of these first few chapters is found in the references to the tribes of Israel. In chapter 1 there is a reference to “the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.” In chapter 2 there is a plea to scattered Israel, where it says “Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon”, and in this case Babylon is symbolic for the captivity of all Israel. That plea is followed by a promise: “10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. 11 And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee. 12 And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again.” This was fulfilled in Yahshua Christ, who told His opponents that “I am He”. The proof is found in the fact that scattered Israel turned to Christ, proving that “thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” From similar visions in the words of other prophets we have explained that this too is a prophecy of Christ and the deliverance of His people Israel from captivity: that the many nations joined to Yahweh are the nations which the children of Israel were prophesied to become in the course of their captivity, and that they were joined to Yahweh in Christ when the nations of Europe, the descendants of the ancient Israelites, ultimately accepted Christianity.

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 5: Scattering and Gathering

In the last segment of this presentation of the prophecy of Zechariah, we left off part way through chapter 8. The theme of that segment, which began with Zechariah chapter 7, we identified as Sin and Punishment. We are calling this segment Scattering and Gathering. In the Biblical context, the two concepts cannot be separated from one another. A major underlying theme of all the Biblical prophets, which is often expressed in very explicit terms, is the scattering of Israel in punishment for their sin, and the gathering of Israel in mercy and reconciliation. Yahweh did not scatter Israel without a purpose, and He promised to gather Israel explicitly and exclusively. By the time of the prophet Zechariah, the scattering of Israel was an accomplished fact. But even before the scattering was accomplished, through the more ancient prophets Yahweh had set forth these exclusive plans by which He would both reconcile Himself to Israel, and gather them together once again (at least allegorically), while at the same time the promises to the patriarchs in relation to the destiny of their seed would be fulfilled. This plan is illustrated in prophecy as early as the books of Moses, so it was a part of Yahweh’s Law and it is His Divine Will for Israel from the very beginning. This is the entire purpose of God set forth in Scripture, and there is no other purpose for the coming of Christ outside of this purpose.

For this precise reason, Paul of Tarsus had written in Romans chapter 8, where he was speaking to some of the descendants of those same scattered Israelites: “28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Those brethren are the children of Israel, as Paul had explained in chapter 2 of his epistle to the Hebrews, “16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. 17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 6: Burdens and Bastards

Discussing the previous 8 chapters of this prophecy of Zechariah, we hope to have established that they are actually a series of rather profound but complex prophetic visions which have two purposes. First, in the interpretation which we call the near vision, they are a prophecy of the immediate circumstances of the building of the temple and the founding of the 70-weeks kingdom. But more importantly, in the interpretation which we call the far vision, they are prophetic of the ministry of the Christ and the building of the Body of Christ which is the true temple of Yahweh. As we also hope to have seen, this true temple was to be built in the captivity of the woman in judgment, in the gathering of scattered Israel through Yahshua Christ in order to reconcile them to Yahweh their God. The purpose of the second temple and the 70-weeks Kingdom was to produce and herald the Messiah, and the overall purpose of Zechariah’s prophecy was to foretell some of the events. Circumstances and the purpose of His coming.

These prophecies of the scattering and subsequent gathering of Israel and the reconciliation of the children of God through Christ culminated in the last passage of Zechariah chapter 8. There we see a clear prophecy of the spread of the Gospel of Christ where it says “23 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a [Judahite], saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.” We have asserted that the ten men must be representative of the scattered so-called “ten lost tribes”, and he who is a Judaean (not a Jew, but a Judahite) must be a reference to the apostles of Christ.

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 7: A Christian Identity Prophet

Presenting Zechariah chapter 9, we concluded that the oracles in the opening verses of the chapter were actually a promise of rest for the captivity of “all the tribes of Israel” who would repent and look to their God, something which is fulfilled in Christ as Paul had asserted in Hebrews chapter 4 that “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” We made this conclusion with the understanding that the message of the prophet is found in the meanings of the words, Hadrach, Damascus and Hamath, and not in the cities themselves. As the prophet wrote, Hamath and Hadrach had already been destroyed by the Babylonians, so the names must stand as allegories.

Following that, we saw oracles prophesying the demise of the once-great maritime cities of Palestine, namely the Tyrians and the chief cities of the Philistines. After these the Word of Yahweh said in verse 8 “And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes.” On the surface, this appears to be talking about Jerusalem, which is the near vision, or immediate interpretation of the prophecy. However it is evident that the old city was indeed filled with oppressors by the time of the ministry of Christ, and for that reason it was destroyed in 70 AD. Rather, it is evident that it is describing Israel in captivity, that as the prophet had written in Zechariah chapter 2, Yahweh would be a “wall of fire” around His people Israel. In Christ, the camp of the saints is ultimately protected from the armies of bastards. Once again we see God Himself promise to be the fortress of His people, which is the meaning of the word Hamath in verse 2 of this same chapter.

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 8: The Broken and New Covenants

Presenting Zechariah chapter 10, we saw in the reference to the House of Judah that there were apparent near vision prophecies, which can seem to have had a partial fulfillment in the 70-weeks Kingdom. But that is only because the remnant in Jerusalem was also a part of the House of Judah. The purpose of the prophecy of Zechariah is still for “all the tribes of Israel” mentioned at the beginning of chapter 9, and most of Judah was taken into captivity by the Assyrians along with the House of Joseph, which is also mentioned along with Judah in that same chapter 10 of Zechariah.

In the words of Zechariah at the beginning of chapter 10, it is clearly evident that the primary focus of the ensuing prophecy is in the far vision, for the “time of the latter rain”. In ancient Israel, the latter rain was the season which preceded the harvest. But prophetically, this is a reference not to a particular time of the year as Zechariah wrote. Rather it must be a reference to the great harvest so frequently spoken of by Yahshua Christ, and also prophesied by Joel, where the children of Israel may expect those remarkable gifts from God which are promised where Yahweh had said that “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.”

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 9: Prophet of the Revelation

Zechariah did not prophecy the Revelation of Yahshua Christ in the sense of revealing its publication or describing it ahead of time, so in that sense our subtitle is purposely in error. What Zechariah did, however, was provide a prophecy through which Yahweh God provided many things that would later also be provided to the apostle John in the Revelation of Yahshua Christ. So the prophecy of Zechariah supplies many parallels to oracles given in the Revelation, and in that manner it acts as a second witness to the Word of God found in the Revelation.

Through eleven chapters of Zechariah we have illustrated the near visions and the far visions of the prophet, the prophecies which seem to apply to the 70-weeks kingdom, and the prophecies which must transcend the 70-weeks Kingdom, and apply instead to the people of God found in the children of Israel who had long been scattered abroad. However the visions share a common purpose. The very existence of the 70-weeks Kingdom was for the preparation of a place for the coming of the Messiah, and it served as the venue for His coming. This made possible His ultimate reconciliation with the children of Israel scattered abroad, which was the objective of His being. As it says in the 114th Psalm, “Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion”, and thus it has been.

So in the last few chapters especially, we see that Zechariah’s prophecy has been focused upon the woman who was taken off into Chaldea for judgment, which stands for the allegorical Babylon where her house would also be built, and this includes “all the tribes of Israel” both of the house of Joseph, or the ten northern tribes, and the house of Judah, the two remaining tribes. Now here in these closing chapters, on the surface it appears as if only Judah falls within the scope of the prophecy, because names such as Joseph and Ephraim are no longer mentioned. But that is not the case….

The Prophecy of Zechariah – Part 10: Prophet of the Holocaust

This will be the tenth and final segment of our presentation of the prophecy of Zechariah. We will not attempt to summarize what we have seen thus far in its entirety, but we shall mention that throughout the entire book of the prophet it is fully evident that Zechariah’s writing not only contains prophecies which allude to Christ, but rather, in every way he is a Messianic prophet. In his opening chapters his writings employ the two chief figures of the Jerusalem of his time, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, as types for Christ in order to make prophecies concerning both Christ and the nature of His enemies and other aspects of His earthly ministry, and many other similar prophecies concerning Christ are found throughout the subsequent chapters.

It should also be evident that, aside from the coming of the Messiah, a primary subject of Zechariah’s prophecy is the tribes of Israel in their captivity. And aside from statements here and there which may pertain to the 70-weeks Kingdom in part, the Jerusalem of Zechariah is representative of the people of Israel spread abroad in their captivity. Zechariah frequently spoke of these people as they had already been scattered, also promising that they would greatly increase in their numbers, and fully inferring that these things were indeed accomplished by his own time, as he often used the past tense in relation to those people who had been taken away by the Assyrians and the captivity of Egypt (Zechariah 10:8). None of these prophecies have anything to do with the people now called Jews, although Jews are mentioned at the very end of the book.

The Prophecy of Malachi – Part 1, The Prophet of Christian Zionism

The name Malachi [מלאכי] means my angel, or my messenger. The name is from the same exact form of the Hebrew words for the phrase my messenger [מלאכי] which we see in Malachi 3:1, where it says “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me”, and Malachi himself is certainly the prophet and messenger of the angel, or messenger, which would later precede the Christ, and that messenger was John the Baptist. But the prophet Malachi does not tell us who his father was, nor does he inform us of his whereabouts, and does not tell us the name of the high priest or governor or ruler of the time that he wrote. Therefore his prophecy can only be very loosely dated from the circumstances which it describes.

For example, in chapter 3 where the prophet addresses the men of Jerusalem in his own time, we read “7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.” Furthermore, in the opening chapter of the prophecy, in chapter 1 of Malachi, a reference is made to the laying waste of the heritage of Esau, from the viewpoint that it had already happened. During the greater portion of the time of the old kingdom of Judah, Edom was a vassal state, and therefore it was under the protection of Judah. It broke free for a time in the days of Jehoram, and was subjected anew by Amaziah (2 Chronicles 26). Then Edom revolted again in the time of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28), just before Hezekiah became king. So the kingdom of Edom was fully intact until this time. In the Assyrian inscriptions, it is listed as a vassal state in the times of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, which approaches the Babylonian period. The punishment of Edom is prophesied in Jeremiah chapters 25 and 49 and in Ezekiel chapters 25 and 32, which were written as the children of Judah were about to be taken into Babylonian captivity. It was in the period between the fall of Assyria and the time of Malachi that the mountains and heritage of Edom were laid waste, and the passage concerning “the days of your fathers” found in Malachi chapter 3 is a reference to the period before Jerusalem was destroyed.