Digging into Zechariah 6:9-15
Introduction
Hello, everyone! Today we’re continuing our study into the book of Zechariah. This is an old Testament prophet—his book is in the group that we call the minor prophets—and his book is next to the last in the Old Testament. There are three prophets that we call post-exilic. That is, they ministered in Judah after the Babylonian exile to the remnant of Jews who returned to try to repopulate the territory of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Haggai and Zechariah worked side by side to encourage the remnant to finish building the temple. And Malachi came along about a hundred years later to close out our written account of Old Testament history. Malachi can be dated roughly 400 years before Christ. In very rough terms, Haggai and Zechariah lived about 500 years before Christ—a full half millennium. Malachi lived roughly 400 years before Christ. And after him there were 400 silent years before the age of the Gospel accounts. We know the history that unfolded during that time, but in terms of God’s active work and voice, there are four centuries in which He was not overtly seen or heard.
I mention this because Zechariah, despite preaching five centuries before Christ came, is full of information about Jesus. In an earlier episode I gave you a list. Now we’re coming to an incredible passage, which I want to read and then discuss.
Scripture—Zechariah 6:9-15
9 The word of the Lord came to me: 10 “Take silver and gold from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon. Go the same day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. 11 Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jozadak. 12 Tell him this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord. 13 It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.’ 14 The crown will be given to Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah and Hen son of Zephaniah as a memorial in the temple of the Lord. 15 Those who are far away will come and help to build the temple of the Lord, and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.”
Review:
In terms of the architecture or blueprint of the book, this paragraph is a transition. In chapter 1 through 6, there was an introductory message followed by eight visions. Now we come to this paragraph, which is a symbolic action. And from chapter 7 to the end of the book, Zechariah is going to give us his sermons and prophecy.
So this symbol act is the hinge that connects his visionary pictures with His verbalized prophecy. So we have an opening message in the first paragraph of the book. Then eight visionary pictures, and then this transitional paragraph with its symbolic action, followed by eight chapters of verbalized preaching or prophecy.
This symbolic event is very simple to understand. The Messiah will be the Branch, the one stemming up from the line of David, and He will combine within Himself the offices of priest and king.
I think you’ll see that clearly as we work through the passage.
Let’s start with verses 9 and 10 9 The word of the Lord came to me: 10 “Take silver and gold from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon.
Twenty years before Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua had led a group of about 50,000 Jews out of their communities in Babylon, where they had been living in exile, and back to Israel. The area was populated by Palestinians who had moved in and were living in the area. Jerusalem was a mess and the Jewish Temple was nothing but a rubble of stones. But they had worked hard and the Second Jewish Temple was progressing.
From time to time, other Babylonian exiles would make the 900 mile trip from Babylon to Jerusalem, and one day a new group came. Among them were three men who were bringing silver and gold to help finance the work in Jerusalem. We don’t know anything about these three men. Their names are not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. But they had gathered silver and gold coins or jewelry and were bringing it as an offering from those still in exile.
The Lord said to Zechariah: “Go and take the gold and silver from them. I have a special purpose for it.”
It’s amazing to think that when a man or woman or child in Babylon contributed a coin or a piece of jewelry or a piece of silver, the Lord knew exactly what He was going to do with it. He had a special purpose for it. Don’t you think that’s the way it is with all our tithes and offerings?
The Lord said, “Take that silver and gold down to Josiah the metalworker. And have him melt it down and craft it into a beautiful crown and then place it on the head of Joshua, the High Priest.”
There is something that seems, at first glance, to be very wrong about that. In Old Testament traditions, priests and kings occupied two different offices.
This goes all the way back to Moses and Aaron. These two men were brothers, but Moses was the civil ruler and Aaron was the high priest. These were two different branches of government, as it were.
These were two separate offices, and they had to be separate to create a system of checks and balances in the government. This is really the biblical foundation for what we call today the separation of church and state. The church and state should both work side by side with the other, but one should not dominate the other or try to usurp it.
On two different occasions in the Old Testament, there were kings who tried to usurp the role of the high priest—King Saul in 1 Samuel 13 and King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26—and both were quickly punished by God.
And yet, here we see the prophet Zechariah putting a royal crown on the head of the high priest Joshua! How could this be? It was symbolic of the fact that one day the Messiah—the Branch—would come. He would branch up from the dynasty of David and serve as King, but He would also be a high priest.
The Lord was giving Israel another picture of the coming Messiah.
Let’s read the whole passage one more time.
9 The word of the Lord came to me: 10 “Take silver and gold from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon. Go the same day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. 11 Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jozadak.
12 Tell him this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord.
Zechariah had already used the title Branch to describe the Messiah. We looked at that in chapter 3. That was the title for the Messiah that we find in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Lord Jesus will be a branch that springs up from the line of King David, He will branch out, and He will provide fruitful blessings for His people. Now, verse 13:
13 It is he who will build the temple of the Lord
In other words, this coming Messiah will build the temple of the Lord. He is the real temple builder. Now, this could refer to His body, which He called a temple. He told His critics, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up three days later.”
Or He could have been talking about His church, which, in 1 Corinthians, is described as the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
But in this context, I think the reference is to the Millennial Temple, which is described in detail in the last section of Ezekiel. Beginning in Ezekiel 40, we have chapter after chapter of detailed descriptions of the temple in Jerusalem that Jesus Christ will build in the city of Jerusalem when He returns. At the end of the Battle of Armageddon, Jesus will come again and His feet will descend to the Mount of Olives. Zechariah is one who tells us this, and we’ll look at it in a later episode. Jesus will build a vast Temple, make Jerusalem the capital of the earth, and sit as King ruling from His temple for a thousand years. According to Revelation 20, this will last for a thousand years. It is a bridge leading to eternity. It is the prelude to the New Heavens and New Earth.
So Zechariah says:
12 …this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord. 13 It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.’
That is, between the two offices of priest and king. Jesus Christ will be both.
There is only one other man in all the Bible who was both priest and king. Do you know who he was? He was that mysterious figure of Melchizedek, whom we read about three times in the Bible—near the beginning of the Bible, in the middle of the Bible, and near the end of the Bible. That is, he is mentioned in Genesis 14, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 5 through 7. Next week, I want to present an excursus to this message and talk about Melchizedek. But for now, let’s just go one with this text.
14 The crown will be given to Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah and Hen son of Zephaniah as a memorial in the temple of the Lord.
In other words, this crown was to be placed on the head of High Priest Joshua for a few moments to signify the coming of a Messiah who would be both priest and king, but then it was to be placed in the temple as a museum piece to remind everyone of this coming Messiah. Verse 15 says:
15 Those who are far away will come and help to build the temple of the Lord, and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.”
The final prediction is that the Gentiles, too, would have a part in the work the Messiah was coming to do. So let me sum it all up like this.
As the Jews were struggling to rebuild the temple of the Lord in the days of Zechariah, some fellows showed up from Babylon. They were fellow pilgrims, Jews of the Diaspora, who were coming to help. They brought some silver and gold with them, which had been contributed by the Jews still in Babylon. The Lord told Zechariah to have it fashioned into a crown and to place it on the head of Joshua, and then to display it in the temple. It was a prediction of a coming Messiah who would be both priest and king—who would intercede for us with the blood of a priesthood, but who would rule over us with the authority of a king.
It’s all about Jesus!