Zechariah 12 is an underrated chapter in evangelical Christian reading. As with many other portions of the prophets, I believe that evangelical bickering over eschatological schema and arguments over the motives behind different hermeneutical methods have distracted rank and file Christians from many comforting details in these texts. I would like to look at what I believe is an overlooked comforting text of hope in Zechariah 12.
I read Zechariah 12 multiples times in multiple Hebrew classes during seminary,1 where we primarily read this text for its Messianic implications in verse 10: And they will look to me whom they pierced. In Christian interpretation, this depicts a future Israel looking upon YHWH, their pierced Messiah. This reflects the overall Messianic overtones and message of salvation throughout the chapter. But verses 2–6 primarily depict a siege of Jerusalem. God promises to deliver the nation. Zechariah describes this in verses 7–8:
And YHWH will save the tents of Judah first in order that the splendor of the house of David and the splendor of the inhabitant of Jerusalem will not boast over Judah. In that day YHWH will defend the inhabitant of Jerusalem, and the one among them who stumbles will be on that day like David, and the house of David like God, like the Angel of YHWH before them.
What is interesting is the way in which Zechariah describes this salvation. Why does he describe it referencing the tents of Judah? Why does he seem to refer to jealousy between the rural parts of Judah represented in tents and the royal and wealthy urban inhabitants of Jerusalem? The commentaries I’ve read do not address this. They tend to point out that the reference to the tents of Judah sets up an egalitarian description of whole nation salvation. While this is true and important, this is not enough to understand why Zechariah describes it this way. That’s what I aim to answer here. I suggest that the answer is three-fold: first, there was a sort of schism already present before Zechariah’s time between Jerusalem and the rest of Judah. Second, historical wars in ancient Israel had exacerbated this schism so that Zechariah’s first readers would have needed to be assured of this salvation extending to the whole nation. Third, by this assurance Zechariah indicates a future shift in God’s mode of covenantal relationship to his people made possible in the Messiah.
1. The Schism
The reference to the tents of Judah is reminiscent of multiple historical references to the tents of Israel associated with the house of David. Each of these had indicated a disconnected between political leader and his people.
…and all Israel fled, each to his tent.
2 Sam 18:17
…but all Israel fled, each to his tent.
2 Sam 19:9
And there was encountered a worthless man whose name was Sheba, son of Bikri, a Benjaminite, and he blew the trumpet and said:
“We have no portion with David, nor do we have an inheritance with the son of Jesse, each to his tent, oh Israel!”
2 Sam 20:1
Each of these verses refers to events during Absalom’s rebellion and its aftermath. Absalom’s political genius had been to gain the hearts of the nation by offering them judgment when his father was unable, driving a wedge between king and people. In the first two contexts, the return of Israel each to his tent was an intentional disassociation of the people with political leader. Likewise Sheba’s call for Israel to return to their tents is a call for each Israelite to refuse to participate in the political leadership of the house of David, claiming that they had not portion with David.
Historically these references portended the division of the kingdom under David’s grandson Rehoboam. At the split of the kingdom and the installation of Jeroboam over the northern kingdom the same language is used:
And all Israel saw that the kind did not listen to them, so the people returned to the king a message saying, “What portion do we have with David? Nor do we have an inheritance in the son oof Jesse. To your tents, oh Israel! Now see to your house, oh David.” And Israel went to his tents.
2 Kings 12:16
The actual schism between northern and southern kingdom is framed in this tent language. That David is the focal point of these calls for Israel to disassociate with their political leadership is important. For Zechariah to use this tent motif ties his picture of national unity in a future salvation specifically to issues that arose regarding the covenantal rule of the house of David and therefore points to the Messiah the writer would then reintroduce in Zechariah 12:10. It is true that Zechariah refers to the tents of Judah not the tents of Israel, but this has to do with historical changes that had taken place since the time of the division of the kingdoms. Many times in the Bible Ephraim is used to refer by metonymy2 to all ten northern tribes. After the fall of the northern and southern kingdoms, only the southern returned as a political entity from exile. Hence now Judah could refer by metonymy to the whole nation. This is confirmed by the superscription in verse 1; “The burden of the word of YHWH against Israel.” Hence the references to the tents of Judah while formally distinct from a reference to the tents of Israel still continues this intertextual motif.
2. The History
Judah had been invaded many times before. In ancient warfare fortified capital cities would sometimes survive while smaller cities and rural areas would be destroyed. Such had been the case in Judah, perhaps most famously during Sennacherib’s invasion during the time of Isaiah. Isaiah described the effects of this war poetically in Isaiah 1 thusly:
Your land is desolate and your cities are burned by fire,
Isaiah 1:7–9
Of your ground in front of you foreigners eat.
And what remains of the daughter of Zion is like a booth in a vineyard,
Like a lodging place in a cucumber field, like a city besieged.
If YHWH of Hosts had not left over for us a few survivors,
We would have become like Sodom and been likened to Gomorrah.
These verses depict the nation destroyed and Jerusalem left alone, isolated, besieged, and preserved as a remnant by God. This describes accurately Sennacherib’s invasion:
So it was in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Senacherib King of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.
Isaiah 36:1
Sennacherib’s invasion was so successful he captured all the fortified cities of Judah and would have destroyed large portions of the rural areas in the land. Historical records from Assyria claim that he “shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage,” which would imply the destruction of the lands outside Jerusalem. The Bible records YHWH’s deliverance of Jerusalem through the work of the Angel of YHWH:
And the Angel of YHWH went out and struck in the camp of Assyria 185,000, and they rose early in the morning, and behold, all of them were dead corpses.
Isaiah 37:36
This returns us to Zechariah 12:7–8. Zechariah describes a salvation not of Jerusalem alone, not of an isolated remnant, but of the whole nation. But he also describes this salvation coming about when the house of David is like this warrior Angel of YHWH before them. Zechariah seems to be clearly evoking comparison to Isaiah and his description of Jerusalem under Assyrian invasion. The prophet promises his hearers that this deliverance will be different; unlike in the past the whole nation would be saved.
3. Remnant and Covenant
But just why this is so significant extends beyond the history of ancient invasions of Israel. Isaiah emphasized the motif of remnant in Jerusalem’s deliverance from Assyria; Judah was destroyed but YHWH left a remnant in Jerusalem. Since the time of Elijah’s going to the covenant mount Sinai to bring charges against Israel, God’s modus operandi focused on preservation of a remnant of his people (1 Kings 19). God’s covenant salvation was brought about through remnant. Zechariah foretells a change to that—a full national deliverance implying a new mode of covenant relationship.
How would that be made possible? Through the Messiah, the member of the house of David, YHWH whom Judah had pierced (v. 10).3 The Messiah would affect a new covenantal relationship fulfilling the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the New Covenants in full restoration of all God’s people when they are all saved from destruction.
Under premillennialism I would read this as a real future salvation of national Israel in which the church participates because of the work of Christ. Amillennialism and Postmillennialism would read this differently, likely emphasizing more strongly the place of the church. Yet I really think these perspectives each distract from the main point of comfort: In the Messiah, that is in Christ, there would come a time when salvation no longer functions primarily through remnant, a time in which the divisions among God’s people cease. In the full realization of that time is our shared common hope. All God’s covenants will be fulfilled in a total salvation for all God’s people, and that salvation comes in that all the covenants are fulfilled in Christ.
1 A highlight of these times was a multiple day long text argument about the function of the direct object marker when immediately followed by the relative pronoun. If you do not have such experiences in seminary, demand all your money back for you have been scammed.
2 That is, a figure of speech in which the part is used to refer to the whole.
3 This is supported by the national extent of vv. 11–14.
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