Zechariah 14

Today’s Passage: Zechariah 14

Here at the last chapter of Zechariah, and the last of the Twelve Minor Prophets we walk through together, the whole book gathers itself up and lifts its eyes to the far horizon. Zechariah has already shown us the humble King coming to Jerusalem on a donkey, and the shepherd who would be pierced and mourned. Now he sets before us the end of the whole story: a great and final Day of the LORD. It opens dark, with all the nations gathered against Jerusalem and the city half-plundered, and for a moment it looks as though evil will have its way. But then the LORD Himself goes out to fight, His feet standing on the Mount of Olives, splitting it wide to make a way of escape. From that day living water flows out of the city in summer and winter alike, and the great declaration rings from the mountaintop: the LORD will become King over all the earth, the LORD alone, and His name alone. The chapter, and the book, and the Twelve, all come to rest on that one certain truth, and then take one step further still, to a world so filled with God’s presence that even the bells on the horses and the pots in the kitchen are marked HOLY TO THE LORD.

As you read, hold this: History is moving toward the day when the LORD is King over all the earth, one LORD with one name, when living water flows from His presence and even the commonest things are holy to Him.

Zechariah 14:1–2 (BSB)

¹ Behold, a day of the LORD is coming when your plunder will be divided in your presence. ² For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

The chapter opens in the deepest shadow, and we should not rush past it, for the glory that follows shines all the brighter against this dark beginning. A day of the LORD is coming, Zechariah says, and it comes first as crisis. All the nations are gathered against Jerusalem, the city falls, the houses are stripped, terrible violence is done, and half the people are carried off. It is a sober and honest picture of a world in which evil is permitted, for a time, to gather its full strength and press hard against the people of God. Yet even here, notice the hand that holds the reins. It is the LORD who says, I will gather all the nations. What looks like the triumph of the enemy is in truth being drawn up into God’s own purpose, and even in the darkness a remnant is kept: the rest of the people will not be removed from the city. The night is real, but it is not the end of the story.

Zechariah 14:3–5 (BSB)

³ Then the LORD will go out to fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. ⁴ On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half the mountain moving to the north and half to the south. ⁵ You will flee by My mountain valley, for it will extend to Azal. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with Him.

And now the whole scene turns on a single word: then. Then the LORD will go out to fight. When His people are at their weakest and the enemy at its strongest, the LORD Himself steps onto the field, the Warrior-King coming out as He fought of old for Israel. See where His feet come to rest: on the Mount of Olives, that ridge east of the city, and at His standing there the mountain itself splits open to carve out a valley of escape for His fleeing people. There is deep comfort in this picture. God does not rescue His people from a distance or send help by proxy; He comes down and stands upon the earth to save them, opening a way where there was no way. And He does not come alone. The LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with Him, heaven emptying itself onto the scene of rescue. The One who once entered Jerusalem lowly on a donkey will one day set His feet on that same eastern hill in unmistakable power.

Zechariah 14:6–8 (BSB)

⁶ On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. ⁷ It will be a unique day known only to the LORD, without day or night; but when evening comes, there will be light. ⁸ And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike.

That great day of the LORD’s coming will be like no other, a day so unlike the ordinary rhythm of our world that the very light behaves strangely, neither plain day nor plain night, a day known only to the LORD. We are not meant to work out the mechanics of it so much as to feel its uniqueness, that when God acts to save and to reign, the created order itself is caught up in the wonder. And when evening comes, there will be light, for the shadows will not have the last word; the day that seems to darken will end in brightness. Then comes one of the loveliest images in all the prophets: on that day living water (מַיִם חַיִּים) mayim chayyim, pronounced MAH-yeem khah-YEEM. Strong's H4325, living water, flowing/fresh water. The phrase means, quite literally, living waters, the ancient way of speaking of fresh, running, spring-fed water as opposed to the still water of a cistern. To a people who lived where the summer sun could dry a stream to dust and where a failed rain could mean a failed harvest, water that never stopped flowing was nothing less than a picture of life itself. So when Zechariah sees living water streaming from Jerusalem in summer and winter alike, he is telling us that where God takes up His reign, life springs from His presence in a way the world has never known, tireless and unfailing. It is no accident that the Lord Jesus took up this very image and made it His own, promising that from the one who believes in Him would flow rivers of living water, and speaking of a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Zechariah’s river finds its true fountainhead in Christ, from whom the life of God pours out to a thirsty world, in every season, without end. will flow out from Jerusalem, running east to the Dead Sea and west to the Mediterranean, and here is the marvel of it, in summer and winter alike. The streams of the land dry up when the hot months come, but this river never fails. Where God reigns, His life pours out unceasingly, refreshing a whole world in every season, from a source that cannot run dry.

Zechariah 14:9 (BSB)

⁹ On that day the LORD will become King over all the earth—the LORD alone, and His name alone.

Here is the summit of the chapter, the verse toward which everything has been climbing, and I would have you slow down and read it twice. On that day the LORD will become King over all the earth, the LORD alone, and His name alone. This is the certain center, the truth we may hold with both hands and no hesitation. Every rival throne will fall, every idol will be exposed as nothing, every proud kingdom that set itself against God will be gathered up and undone, and the LORD will reign openly over the whole earth, not over one nation only but over all. And He will reign alone, one LORD with one name, no god beside Him and no name whispered alongside His own. There is a quiet glory in that word alone. It is not that God becomes King on that day as though He were not King before, for He has always reigned; it is that His reign, so long resisted and so often hidden, will at last be seen and confessed by all. History is not wandering in circles. It is moving, surely and unstoppably, toward the day when the whole earth acknowledges what has been true from the beginning: the LORD is King, and there is no other.

Zechariah 14:10–11 (BSB)

¹⁰ All the land from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem will be turned into a plain, but Jerusalem will be raised up and will remain in her place, from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses. ¹¹ People will live there, and never again will there be an utter destruction. So Jerusalem will dwell securely.

Once the King reigns, the whole landscape settles into peace under Him. The surrounding country is levelled into a plain while the city itself is lifted high and secure, marked out gate by gate and tower by tower as a place that will stand. And listen to the great promise laid over it all: never again will there be an utter destruction. The city that we saw captured and plundered at the chapter’s opening is now the city that will never be broken again, for the curse of ruin is lifted where the LORD is King. So Jerusalem will dwell securely, at rest under her God. It is the same word of comfort the whole Bible presses toward, that the people of God will one day dwell in perfect safety, no enemy left to fear and no destruction left to dread, because the King who reigns over them cannot be overthrown.

Zechariah 14:12–15 (BSB)

¹² And this will be the plague with which the LORD strikes all the peoples who have warred against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. ¹³ On that day a great panic from the LORD will come upon them, so that each will seize the hand of another, and the hand of one will rise against the other. ¹⁴ Judah will also fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected—gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. ¹⁵ And a similar plague will strike the horses and mules, camels and donkeys, and all the animals in those camps.

Here the chapter turns to the judgment that must fall upon all that has set itself against God and His people, and it is a sober thing to read. The very armies that came to destroy are themselves undone, struck with a wasting plague, seized by a panic from the LORD that turns them against one another so that they destroy themselves. We are not meant to gloat over this, for God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and neither should we. But we are meant to take it seriously. There is a real reckoning coming for evil, a day when all the violence that seemed to prosper will be answered, and the wealth that the nations gathered by force is turned back and gathered instead to the city of God. The justice of God is not a small thing to be waved away. It is the necessary shadow side of His reign, for a King who is truly good cannot let evil stand forever. And so the same holiness that makes the living water flow makes the judgment fall, and both are the acts of the one King over all the earth.

Zechariah 14:16–19 (BSB)

¹⁶ Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁷ And should any of the families of the earth not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, then the rain will not fall on them. ¹⁸ And if the people of Egypt will not go up and enter in, then the rain will not fall on them; this will be the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁹ This will be the punishment of Egypt and of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

And now comes a turn of surprising grace, for out of all those nations that came in war, there are survivors, and they do not merely submit to the King, they come up to worship Him. Year after year they go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, that old harvest feast of joy and thanksgiving when Israel remembered how God had sheltered them in the wilderness. Do you see the wideness of the mercy here? The very peoples who once marched against the city are gathered into her worship, no longer enemies but pilgrims. The gospel has always reached out this far, drawing in the nations to bow gladly before the one true King. And the warnings about withheld rain simply underline that there is no life and no blessing anywhere except in the presence of God; to refuse the King is to refuse the fountain of every good thing. But the heart of the picture is glad: the whole world streaming up to worship, the nations at last come home.

Zechariah 14:20–21 (BSB)

²⁰ On that day, HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the house of the LORD will be like the sprinkling bowls before the altar. ²¹ Indeed, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD of Hosts, and all who sacrifice will come and take some pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of Hosts.

And now, in the very last verses of the book, Zechariah gives us the most tender and homely picture of all, and it is where I want to leave you. In the old temple, only the high priest wore those solemn words upon his brow, HOLY TO THE LORD, engraved on a plate of gold. But on that day, Zechariah says, those very words will be found on the bells that jingle from the harnesses of the horses. The common cooking pots in the kitchen will be as sacred as the holy bowls at the altar, and every ordinary pot in the whole land will be holy to the LORD (קֹדֶשׁ) qodesh, pronounced KOH-desh. Strong's H6944, holiness, a holy thing, sacred and set apart. The word qodesh means holiness, set-apartness, that which is consecrated and belongs wholly to God. These are the very words that were engraved on the golden plate fastened to the turban of the high priest, worn on his forehead as he ministered before God on behalf of the people. In all the old worship, that phrase marked out what was most sacred, set apart, not to be treated as common. So when Zechariah declares that on that day these words will be stamped even on the bells of the horses and every pot in the kitchen, he is announcing something breathtaking: the holiness once reserved for the holiest place will spill out to fill the whole of ordinary life. Nothing will be merely common anymore. This is the end toward which God has been working since the beginning, a people and a world entirely His, wholly consecrated, holy to the LORD, and it is realized in Christ, who makes His people a holy priesthood and will one day fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. of Hosts. Do you feel the wonder of it? When the King reigns fully, holiness is no longer shut up in one sacred room; it floods out into every corner of ordinary life until there is no longer any line between the sacred and the common, because all of it belongs to God. The bells on the horses, the pot on the stove, the plainest tasks of the plainest day, all of it consecrated, all of it holy, all of it His. And no Canaanite, no unclean or unholy thing, will remain in His house at all. This is the world toward which all of history is moving: not a narrow holiness fenced off in a temple, but a whole creation made holy under the reign of its King. It is the hope the Twelve prophets have been reaching toward all along, and it is fulfilled and consummated at last in Christ the King, in whom the presence of God comes to dwell with His people, and every common thing is made holy, and He shall reign forever and ever.