Zechariah 6 sees the end of Zechariahs eventful evening of visions.

This eighth and last vision talks about chariots coming down from mountains of bronze and then a messianic prophesy where the coming Messiah is given the title ‘the branch’. If you want excitement, then clearly you are in the right place.

A Quick Re-cap?

I don’t know about you but I get easily confused - and yes, bored and distracted when reading even the most exciting parts of the old testament. I wonder if it is my expectation on what will happen when I read God’s word - maybe I expect that everytime I read it I will feel challenged to my very core and spend much time on the carpet, before getting up and carrying on with my day. Now I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all - I pray God would put me on the carpet more often; but I think that we need to understand where we have come from and where our faith has come from to fully appreciate where it is going to. Therefore, parts of the bible are written there not to challenge us, but to show where our faith has been and where it is going to. And so I approach Zechariah 6 in this same light. This is Zechariah’s final vision and starts off predicting the fall of the nations that have opressed Israel.

Four chariots

The last vision here is quite similar to Zechariah 1 although there are a couple of differences. The vision speaks of four chariots coming from between two mountains - these chariots are thought to be angelic spirits of divine judgment that will be poured out on Israel’s enemys. The chariots are pulled by horses of different colours and the order of these horses differ slightly from chapter 1.

One thing I noticed was a particularly odd thing in verse 7:

When the powerful horses went out, they were straining to go throughout the earth. And he said, “Go throughout the earth!” So they went throughout the earth.

What an odd way to write. So the horses are having trouble going throughout the earth until they are told ‘Go throughout the earth’?? Yes I think this is exactly what is happening here! The whole theme of this vision is that it is God who is pouring out judgment on Israel’s enemies - and so without the angel encouraging the horses along their way they will struggle to do the work of the Father.

This is something we can clearly apply in our own lives as it doesn’t matter what God is calling you to do - whether it be to make a cup of tea in 10 minutes, to go to work tommorow morning or go and save the world next week; if we do it without God’s say-so, without God’s backing then we will struggle to do it. Lets make a conscious effort to check our human efforts against what the Father wants - otherwise we will be straining our way through life - and that just sounds knackering.

The Messiah

The final part of this passage is where Zechariah relates what he was talking about in the fourth and fifth visions to the Messianic King Priest. He prophesys that one who is called The Branch will come and build the temple of the Lord. The one who does this will be a King and Priest (for further reading on this check out Hebrews 7-8 - where Paul expands on this idea) and there is a perfect harmony between those two roles. This is a clear prophesy of Jesus, the Messiah and also gives some insight into why people like the Pharisees (and others) rejected Him when He came. The Jews of 1st century Palestine were expecting a King and a Priest - some of them were even expecting two Messiahs, and the ones who were expecting one expected someone to literally quash their enemies in an instant as well as minister to their souls. As is often Gods way, this is not how the Father chose to play things out. For Jesus came bringing a message of love, rather than one of vengence; a message that allows ‘those who are far away to come and help to build the temple’ (Zechariah 6:15) rather than a message of certain death.

No Straining Please

Man there is a lot in that small passage - much more than I thought. Lets take the time to digest God’s word - even the sometimes tricky Old Testament as God has powerful things to show us through His words.