The book starts by encouraging the Jewish people not to be like their forefathers but to turn from evil and follow Him. It is my understanding here that the sins of the pre-exile Jews caused the Lord to allow them to be captured by the Babylonians. The thing that sticks out to me instantly is the emotion that is fuelling Gods actions – His anger caused them to be exiled and His compassion and love for them is what is driving God to fight for their attention. In verse 14 God openly admits He is jealous for Jerusalem. Sometimes it is easy to forget that as we were made in Gods image, there are things that make us tick – like our emotions – that also make God tick.
Zechariah then launches into his first vision. Zechariah had eight visions in all – and they all occurred in the same night! In the words of Vallie Frankie, “Oh what a night”… The first vision talks about a ‘Man amonst the myrtle trees’. The man is riding a red horse surrounded by other brown and white horses in a ravine. There is also another person there – an angel who chips in with useful information now and then.
It actually gets quite confusing who is talking to who here as while their appears to be Zechariah, an interpreting angel and a man, I think the man is also known as ‘the angel of the Lord‘. He asks the Lord how long Jerusalem will be oppressed – as while the region was currently stable and at peace, the Jewish people were still being oppressed. Then the interpreting angel instructs Zechariah to proclaim the Lords jealousy over Jerusalem and Zion (another word for God’s Holy city) and then says that the Lord will return to Jerusalem and His house will be rebuilt there. This is an obvious reference to the completion of the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The Lord also promises prosperity onto the Jewish people once again.
The second vision then details four horns and four craftsmen. Horns often turn up in visions like this (we saw some in Daniel 7) and they are a symbol of strength. It is not clear whether the four horns should be taken literally (i.e. representing four entities or nations – some suggest they could represent Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia and Medo-Persia) but the vision states they are ‘horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem‘. Then come the four craftsmen – again it is not clear whether it should be taken literally (some suggest they could represent Egypt, Babylonia, Persia and Greece) but they described as coming to terrify the horns. What is clear from verse 21 is that all Judah’s enemies will ultimately be defeated.
The thing I pick up from this passage is that God is acting in sort of a fatherly manner – whilst it is clear that He has compassion and love for His nation and will go out of His way to prosper them, He is not afraid to allow them to get their ‘come-up-ence’ if they continue to walk away from Him. I love it that our God does not force our affection – but allows us to choose to follow Him or not.
Any other thoughts?
At the beginning Gaz you highlighted that God has emotions, for example angry at their sin.
I have recently come across some theology called openness. One of the things it suggests is that some of the future in unknown to God. An interesting idea to most people and by no means the classical view. Part of the thinking behind it is because God so often shows these emotions, e.g. anger, surprised, jealous etc and changes his mind. How can he do this authentically if he knows exactly what is going to happen?? What are your thoughts?
The passage that sprang to mind when i read your thoughts Rich was Genesis 6:5-7. God reacted in grief to what he had done, and man’s wickedness had become unbearable to Him, so he decided to destroy and begin again. Was it just the obedience of Noah and his family that appeased God from destroying everything permanently? Did God see hope in man in Noah?
From one point of view, you could ask how could God place emotions, reactions and thoughts in us if He didn’t first understand them Himself? God created us with full wisdom, knowledge and understanding. He must know these things first before He created them in us.
But i think you’re right Gaz, God wants our hearts first. I believe He has every right to feel distraught when we turn away from Him, seeing as He’s poured so much into us, and given so much for our lives to have a purpose
But here\’s the questioned Dan, if God knew already that the people of Noah\’s time would be so wicked why was he in so much grief. Did he make a mistake creating us? was there regret? Why did he need to start over? Or did it turn out differently to how God planned??
Good questions….
Anyone…?!?!
do you copy this from books or do you know it all
Spoony – one main book, the Bible, and just our thoughts on it. We certainaly don’t claim to know it all.
Rich and Dan, I think it all boils down to a couple of things here. The first is that when God created humans He created them with free will. That is, that human beings would not be like ‘God-created Robots’, but would infact make decisions and do things that they wanted to do. Free will is an awesome gift and brings immense freedom but if it is mis-used then it can bring anarchy – as it did in the time of Noah.
There comes a time for a parent when they have to let their children get on with things and do what they think is right. I believe that is what God has done with us after He created the earth. Of course God doesn’t just watch on at a distance – we have a relationship with Him and He is living and working in the lives of all who allow Him. But, we still have free will to do what we want. This means that some times we will do things that God will be chuffed with and sometimes things that God will be less than chuffed with. In the case of Noah, I imagine God would have had to have been seriously chapped to resort to destroying the planet and starting again. The fact that we humans messed it up is not an indication of failure on God – it is simply the working out of a fallen world.
As to whether God knows in advance about these things – I kind of think that becomes less important here. I mean, if you have a child and you are letting them run their own life and you find out that they have done something wrong then it doesn’t really matter when you find out about it (i.e. if you know they are going to do it, or if you catch them red-handed) as you are still going to be upset – probably even more so if you saw it coming and tried to warn them. Just because God is outside of time doesn’t mean that His emotions are anything less than geniune. I believe God has a perfect plan and is always less than happy when that is not fully worked out.
Thinking about all this does raise an interesting point in my mind about heaven. The bible tells us that in heaven there will be no more pain and suffering – does that imply that we will have no ability to sin against God and against others? In which case are we forefitting some of our free will? Is heaven therefore full of robots?! I guess part of me thinks that if we are in Gods presence as is described in Revalation then perhaps it is not that we won’t be able to sin, but we just won’t want to… Any other thoughts?
Rich, I donââ?¬â?¢t know anything about this theology (except what you have told me) but as far as God’s emotions go I think we need to look at Jesus for the answer.
It’s clear that God has emotions as described above. They are commented on in the Bible and we are indeed made in his image. We have emotions therefore God does too.
However, we must remember that our experience and understanding of emotion comes through our fallen state. If we are to see how God interacts with His emotional side we need to look at the perfect example. The unfallen Christ.
Jesus was completely human. 100% human, not half and half, not 60-40, but 100% human. At the same time he was also 100% God. That’s a crazy concept which I don’t claim to begin to understand but that’s the way it is. 100% human at the same time as being 100% God.
Jesus had a completely authentic emotional experience while on earth. He was happy, sad, afraid, angry, he wept etc etc. Just like a human does. The difference was that he was not controlled by his emotional state.
Jesus had knowledge of future events. It was after he had told his disciples (although they didn’t understand) about his death and resurrection that he went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He was clearly in an emotional state even though he knew he was going to have the victory.
We his friend Lazarus died. Jesus cried, even though he knew that he would come back to live.
I think we need to not confuse an authentic emotional experience with emotions controlling us. Which is generally the position we are in.
Gods love doesn�t control Him, it flows out of who he is. Gods anger does not control Him, it flows out from who he is.
What am I trying to say? God can still be happy, sad, angry whatever and not have his response based upon that. So while Iââ?¬â?¢m not sure Iââ?¬â?¢m well informed enough to enter this discussion on ââ?¬Å?openness theologyââ?¬Â I defiantly think that you cannot clime a lack of authentic emotional experience if one has knowledge of future events.