{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ZEC","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Zechariah","commonName":"Zechariah","introduction":"THE name Zechariah means one whom Jehovah remembers: a common name, four others of the same name occurring in the Old Testament. Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he was a priest as well as a prophet, which adapts him for the sacerdotal character of some of his prophecies (Zac 6:13). He is called \"the son of Berechiah the son of Iddo\" (Zac 1:1); but simply \"the son of Iddo\" in Ezr 5:1; Ezr 6:14. Probably his father died when he was young; and hence, as sometimes occurs in Jewish genealogies, he is called \"the son of Iddo,\" his grandfather. Iddo was one of the priests who returned to Zerubbabel and Joshua from Babylon (Neh 12:4).\n\nZechariah entered early on his prophetic functions (Zac 2:4); only two months later than Haggai, in the second year of Darius' reign, 520 B.C. The design of both prophets was to encourage the people and their religious and civil leaders, Joshua and Zerubbabel, in their work of rebuilding the temple, after the interruption caused by the Samaritans (see Introduction to Haggai). Zechariah does so especially by unfolding in detail the glorious future in connection with the present depressed appearance of the theocracy, and its visible symbol, the temple. He must have been very young in leaving Babylonia, where he was born. The Zechariah, son of Barachias, mentioned by our Lord (Mat 23:35) as slain between the porch and the altar, must have been the one called the son of Jehoiada in Ch2 24:21, who so perished: the same person often had two names; and our Lord, in referring to the Hebrew Bible, of which Second Chronicles is the last book, would naturally mention the last martyr in the Hebrew order of the canon, as He had instanced Abel as the first. Owing to Mat 27:9 quoting Zac 11:12-13 as the words of Jeremiah, MEDE doubts the authenticity of the ninth through the fourteenth chapters, and ascribes them to Jeremiah: he thinks that these chapters were not found till after the return from the captivity, and being approved by Zechariah, were added to his prophecies, as Agur's Proverbs were added to those of Solomon. All the oldest authorities, except two manuscripts of the old Italian or Pre-Vulgate version, read Jeremiah in Mat 27:9. The quotation there is not to the letter copied from Zechariah, Jer 18:1-2; Jer 32:6-12, may also have been in the mind of Matthew, and perhaps in the mind of Zechariah, whence the former mentions Jeremiah. HENGSTENBERG similarly thinks that Matthew names Jeremiah, rather than Zechariah, to turn attention to the fact that Zechariah's prophecy is but a reiteration of the fearful oracle in Jer. 18:1-19:15, to be fulfilled in the destruction of the Jewish nation. Jeremiah had already, by the image of a potter's vessel, portrayed their ruin in Nebuchadnezzar's invasion; and as Zechariah virtually repeats this threat, to be inflicted again under Messiah for the nation's rejection of Him, Matthew, virtually, by mentioning Jeremiah, implies that the \"field of blood\" (Mat 27:8-9), now bought by \"the reward of iniquity\" (Act 1:18) in the valley of Hinnom, was long ago a scene of prophetic doom in which awful disaster had been symbolically predicted: that the present purchase of that field with the traitor's price renewed the prophecy and revived the curse--a curse pronounced of old by Jeremiah, and once fulfilled in the Babylonian siege--a curse reiterated by Zechariah, and again to be verified in the Roman desolation. LIGHTFOOT (referring to B. BATHRA and KIMCHI) less probably thinks the third division of Scripture, the prophets, began with Jeremiah, and that the whole body of prophets is thus quoted by the name \"Jeremiah.\" The mention of \"Ephraim\" and \"Israel\" in these chapters as distinct from Judah, does not prove that the prophecy was written while the ten tribes existed as a separate kingdom. It rather implies that hereafter not only Judah, but the ten tribes also, shall be restored, the earnest of which was given in the numbers out of the ten tribes who returned with their brethren the Jews from captivity under Cyrus. There is nothing in these characters to imply that a king reigned in Judah at that time. The editor of the Hebrew canon joined these chapters to Zechariah, not to Jeremiah; the Septuagint, three hundred years B.C., confirms this.\n\nThe prophecy consists of four parts: (1) Introductory, Zac 1:1-6. (2) Symbolical, Zac 1:7, to the end of the sixth chapter, containing nine visions; all these were vouchsafed in one night, and are of a symbolical character. (3) Didactic, the seventh and eighth chapters containing an answer to a query of the Beth-elites concerning a certain feast. And (4) Prophetic, the ninth chapter to the end. These six last chapters predict Alexander's expedition along the west coast of Palestine to Egypt; God's protection of the Jews, both at that time and under the Maccabees; the advent, sufferings, and reign of Messiah; the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, and dissolution of the Jews' polity; their conversion and restoration; the overthrow of the wicked confederacy which assailed them in Canaan; and the Gentiles' joining in their holy worship [HENDERSON]. The difference in style between the former and the latter chapters is due to the difference of subject; the first six chapters being of a symbolical and peculiar character, while the poetical style of the concluding chapters is adapted admirably to the subjects treated. The titles (Zac 9:1; Zac 12:1) accord with the prophetic matter which follows; nor is it necessary for unity of authorship that the introductory formulas occurring in the first eight chapters should occur in the last six. The non-reference in the last six chapters to the completion of the temple and the Jews' restoration after the captivity is just what we should expect, if, as seems likely, these chapters were written long after the completion of the temple and the restoration of the Jews polity after the captivity, in circumstances different from those which engaged the prophet when he wrote the earlier chapters.\n\nThe style varies with the subject: at one time conversational, at another poetical. His symbols are enigmatical and are therefore accompanied with explanations. His prose is like that of Ezekiel--diffuse, uniform, and repetitious. The rhythm is somewhat unequal, and the parallelisms are not altogether symmetrical. Still, there is found often much of the elevation met with in the earlier prophets, and a general congruity between the style and the subjects. Graphic vividness is his peculiar merit. ChaldÃ&brvbrisms occur occasionally. Another special characteristic of Zechariah is his introduction of spiritual beings into his prophetic scenes. \n\n\n\nNext: Zechariah Chapter 1\n\n","order":38,"numberOfChapters":14,"sha256":"d1c647660fec77e6b63ae1f1ed01101ef9ff627de36526793f2ddb3e2416cdd2","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ZEC/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ZEC","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":14,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ZEC/14.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ZEC","chapter":14},"totalNumberOfVerses":189},"chapter":{"number":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["candlestick--symbolizing the Jewish theocracy; and ultimately, the Church of which the Jewish portion is to be the head: the light-bearer (so the original is of \"lights,\" Mat 5:14, Mat 5:16; Phi 2:15) to the world. \n\nall . . . gold--all pure in doctrine and practice, precious and indestructible; such is the true ideal of the Church; such she shall be (Psa 45:13). \n\nbowl upon the top--In the candlestick of the tabernacle the plural is used, bowls (Exo. 25:1-31:18). The Hebrew implies that it was the fountain of supply of oil to the lamps. Christ at the head (\"on the top\") of the Church is the true fountain, of whose fulness of the Spirit all we receive grace (Joh 1:16). \n\nhis seven lamps--united in one stem; so in Exo 25:32. But in Rev 1:12 the seven candlesticks are separate. The Gentile churches will not realize their unity till the Jewish Church as the stem unites all the lamps in one candlestick (Rom 11:16-24). The \"seven lamps,\" in Rev 4:5, are the \"seven Spirits of God.\" \n\nseven pipes--feeding tubes, seven apiece from the \"bowl\" to each lamp (see Margin) [MAURER and CALVIN]; literally, \"seven and seven\": forty-nine in all. The greater the number of oil-feeding pipes, the brighter the light of the lamps. The explanation in Zac 4:6 is, that man's power by itself can neither retard nor advance God's work, that the real motive-power is God's Spirit. The seven times seven imply the manifold modes by which the Spirit's grace is imparted to the Church in her manifold work of enlightening the world.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["two olive trees--supplying oil to the bowl. The Holy Ghost, who fills with His fulness Messiah (the anointed: the \"bowl\"), from whom flow supplies of grace to the Church. \n\nby it--literally, \"upon it,\" that is, growing so as somewhat to overtop it. For the explanation of the \"two\" see Zac 4:12, Zac 4:14.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["The prophet is instructed in the truths meant, that we may read them with the greater reverence and attention [CALVIN].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Knowest thou not, &c.--Not a reproof of his ignorance, but a stimulus to reflection on the mystery. \n\nNo, my lord--ingenious confession of ignorance; as a little child he casts himself for instruction at the feet of the Lord.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Not by might . . . but by my Spirit--As the lamps burned continually, supplied with oil from a source (the living olive trees) which man did not make, so Zerubbabel need not be disheartened because of his weakness; for as the work is one to be effected by the living Spirit (compare Hag 2:5) of God, man's weakness is no obstacle, for God's might will perfect strength out of weakness (Hos 1:7; Co2 12:10; Heb 11:34). \"Might and power\" express human strength of every description, physical, mental, moral. Or, \"might\" is the strength of many (an \"army\"); \"power,\" that of one man [PEMBELLUS] God can save, \"whether with many, or with them that have no power\" (Ch2 14:11; compare Sa1 14:6). So in the conversion of sinners (Co1 3:6; Co2 10:4). \"Zerubbabel\" is addressed as the chief civil authority in directing the work.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["All mountain-like obstacles (Isa 40:4; Isa 49:11) in Zerubbabel's way shall be removed, so that the crowning top-stone shall be put on, and the completion of the work be acknowledged as wholly of \"grace.\" Antitypically, the antichristian last foe of Israel, the obstacle preventing her establishment in Palestine, about to be crushed before Messiah, is probably meant (Jer 51:25; Dan 2:34, Dan 2:44; Mat 21:44). \n\nbring forth the headstone--Primarily, bring it forth from the place where it was chiselled and give it to the workmen to put on the top of the building. It was customary for chief magistrates to lay the foundation, and also the crowning top-stone (compare Ezr 3:10). Antitypically, the reference is to the time when the full number of the spiritual Church shall be completed, and also when \"all Israel shall be saved\" (compare Rom 11:26; Heb 11:40; Heb 12:22-23; Rev 7:4-9). \n\nGrace, grace--The repetition expresses, Grace from first to last (Isa 26:3, Margin). Thus the Jews are urged to pray perseveringly and earnestly that the same grace which completed it may always preserve it. \"Shoutings\" of acclamation accompanied the foundation of the literal temple (Ezr 3:11, Ezr 3:13). So shoutings of \"Hosanna\" greeted the Saviour in entering Jerusalem (Mat 21:9), when about to complete the purchase of salvation by His death: His Body being the second temple, or place of God's inhabitation (Joh 2:20-21). So when the full number of the saints and of Israel is complete, and God shall say, \"It is done,\" then again shall \"a great voice of much people in heaven\" attribute all to the \"grace\" of God, saying, \"Alleluia! Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God\" (Rev 19:1, Rev 19:6). Psa 118:22 regards Him as \"the headstone of the corner,\" that is, the foundation-stone. Compare the angels acclamations at His birth, Luk 2:14. Here it is the top-stone. Messiah is not only the \"Author,\" but also the Finisher (Heb 12:2). \"Grace\" is ascribed \"unto it,\" that is the stone, Messiah. Hence the benediction begins, \"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ\" (Co2 13:14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Zerubbabel . . . shall . . . finish it-- (Ezr 6:15) in the sixth year of Darius' reign. \n\nLord . . . sent me unto you-- (Zac 2:9). The Divine Angel announces that in what He has just spoken, He has been commissioned by God the Father.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["who . . . despised . . . small things--He reproves their ungrateful unbelief, which they felt because of the humble beginning, compared with the greatness of the undertaking; and encourages them with the assurance that their progress in the work, though small, was an earnest of great and final success, because Jehovah's eye is upon Zerubbabel and the work, to support Him with His favor. Contrast, \"great is the day of Jezreel\" (Hos 1:11) with \"the day of small things\" here. \n\nthey shall rejoice . . . with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord--rather, \"they, even those seven eyes of the Lord (compare Zac 3:9), which . . . shall rejoice and see (that is, rejoicingly see) the plummet (literally, the 'stone of tin') in the hand of Zerubbabel\" [MOORE]; the plummet in his hand indicating that the work is going forward to its completion. The Hebrew punctuation, however, favors English Version, of which the sense is, They who incredulously \"despised\" such \"small\" beginnings of the work as are made now, shall rejoicingly see its going on to completion under Zerubbabel, \"with (the aid of) those seven,\" namely, the \"seven eyes upon one stone\" (Zac 3:9): which are explained, \"They are the eyes of the Lord which,\" &c. [PEMBELLUS]. So differently do men and Jehovah regard the \"small\" beginnings of God's work (Ezr 3:12; Hag 2:3). Men \"despised\" the work in its early stage: God rejoicingly regards it, and shall continue to do so. \n\nrun to and fro, &c.--Nothing in the whole earth escapes the eye of Jehovah, so that He can ward off all danger from His people, come from what quarter it may, in prosecuting His work (Pro 15:3; Co1 16:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Zechariah three times (Zac 4:4, Zac 4:11-12) asks as to the two olives before he gets an answer; the question becomes more minute each time. What he at first calls \"two olive trees,\" he afterwards calls \"branches,\" as on closer looking he observes that the \"branches\" of the trees are the channels through which a continual flow of oil dropped into the bowl of the lamps (Zac 4:2), and that this is the purpose for which the two olive trees stand beside the candlestick. Primarily, the \"two\" refer to Joshua and Zerubbabel. God, says AUBERLEN, at each of the transition periods of the world's history has sent great men to guide the Church. So the two witnesses shall appear before the destruction of Antichrist. Antitypically, \"the two anointed ones\" (Zac 4:14) are the twofold supports of the Church, the civil power (answering to Zerubbabel) and the ecclesiastical (answering to Joshua, the high priest), which in the restored Jewish polity and temple shall \"stand by,\" that is, minister to \"the Lord of the whole earth,\" as He shall be called in the day that He sets up His throne in Jerusalem (Zac 14:9; Dan 2:44; Rev 11:15). Compare the description of the offices of the \"priests\" and the \"prince\" (Isa 49:23; Eze. 44:1-46:24). As in Rev 11:3-4, the \"two witnesses\" are identified with the two olive trees and the two candlesticks. WORDSWORTH explains them to mean the Law and the Gospel: the two Testaments that witness in the Church for the truth of God. But this is at variance with the sense here, which requires Joshua and Zerubbabel to be primarily meant. So Moses (the prophet and lawgiver) and Aaron (the high priest) ministered to the Lord among the covenant-people at the exodus; Ezekiel (the priest) and Daniel (a ruler) in the Babylonian captivity; so it shall be in restored Israel. Some think Elijah will appear again (compare the transfiguration, Mat 17:3, Mat 17:11, with Mal 4:4-5; Joh 1:21) with Moses. Rev 11:6, which mentions the very miracles performed by Elijah and Moses (shutting heaven so as not to rain, and turning water into blood), favors this (compare Exo 7:19; Kg1 17:1; Luk 4:25; Jam 5:16-17). The period is the same, \"three years and six months\"; the scene also is in Israel (Rev 11:8), \"where our Lord was crucified.\" It is supposed that for the first three and a half years of the hebdomad (Dan 9:20-27), God will be worshipped in the temple; in the latter three and a half years, Antichrist will break the covenant (Dan 9:27), and set himself up in the temple to be worshipped as God (Th2 2:4). The witnesses prophesy the former three and a half years, while corruptions prevail and faith is rare (Luk 18:8); then they are slain and remain dead three and a half years. Probably, besides individual witnesses and literal years, there is a fulfilment in long periods and general witnesses, such as the Church and the Word, the civil and religious powers so far as they have witnessed for God. So \"the beast\" in Revelation answers to the civil power of the apostasy; \"the false prophet\" to the spiritual power. Man needs the priest to atone for guilt, and the prophet-king to teach holiness with kingly authority. These two typically united in Melchisedek were divided between two till they meet in Messiah, the Antitype. Zac 6:11-13 accords with this. The Holy Spirit in this His twofold power of applying to man the grace of the atonement, and that of sanctification, must in one point of view be meant by the two olive trees which supply the bowl at the top of the candlestick (that is, Messiah at the head of the Church); for it is He who filled Jesus with all the fulness of His unction (Joh 3:34). But this does not exclude the primary application to Joshua and Zerubbabel, \"anointed\" (Zac 4:14) with grace to minister to the Jewish Church: and so applicable to the twofold supports of the Church which are anointed with the Spirit, the prince and the priest, or minister.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["through--literally, \"by the hand of,\" that is, by the agency of. \n\nbranches--literally, \"ears\"; so the olive branches are called, because as ears are full of grain, so the olive branches are full of olives. \n\ngolden oil--literally, \"gold,\" that is, gold-like liquor. \n\nout of themselves--Ordinances and ministers are channels of grace, not the grace itself. The supply comes not from a dead reservoir of oil, but through living olive trees (Psa 52:8; Rom 12:1) fed by God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Knowest thou not--God would awaken His people to zeal in learning His truth.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["anointed ones--literally, \"sons of oil\" (Isa 5:1, Margin). Joshua the high priest, and Zerubbabel the civil ruler, must first be anointed with grace themselves, so as to be the instruments of furnishing it to others (compare Jo1 2:20, Jo1 2:27).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Zechariah Chapter 5\n\n"]}],"introduction":"FIFTH VISION. The golden candlestick and the two olive trees. The temple shall be completed by the aid of God's Spirit. (Zac 4:1-14)\n\nwaked me--The prophet was lying in a state of ecstatic slumber with astonishment at the previous vision. \"Came again, and waked me,\" does not imply that the angel had departed and now returned, but is an idiom for \"waked me again.\"\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ZEC/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ZEC","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ZEC/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ZEC","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ZEC/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ZEC","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":12}