A Study of Zechariah 13
Introduction: Hello everyone, we’re living on the precipice of prophecy and the future is rushing toward us at the speed of God’s providence. Today we’re going to continue our study of the remarkable prediction made by the prophet Zechariah in the next-to-the-last book of the Old Testament. But first, the final book of the Bible is Revelation, and it serves as the culmination of the entire prophetic sweep of Scripture. Many people think they can’t understand the book of Revelation, but I think you can. It’s simpler than most people realize. On my website I have a video course and also a book available, both entitled “The Fifty Final Events in World History.” I’d love for you to check it out.
Now today, before we get to our passage in Zechariah, I thought it might be helpful to give you an overview of the Bible’s teachings about the Last Days.
In our present age, the apocalyptic dangers to our world will increase. If you believe in the imminent return of Christ at any moment, then you believe He will appear in the sky with a shout, with the commanding voice of the archangel, and with a trumpet that will blow loud enough to awaken the dead. All the believers, those who have died and those who are alive, will be caught up with the Lord, donning new glorified bodies. This is likely the event that will trigger a worldwide crisis that will lead to the seven years of Tribulation. This is described sequentially in Revelation chapters 6 through 18.
During the last half of the global Tribulation, the world, led by the antichrist, will turn against Israel and seek to destroy the Jewish people once and for all. This is the Battle of Armageddon. And that’s where Zechariah 12 comes into play.
Zechariah 12:1 says, “The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares: 2 “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 3 On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.”
As the Lord Jesus Christ comes again to the earth, He will pour out on the state of Israel and the Jewish people a spirit of repentance and the awareness that He is truly their Messiah. Zechariah 12:10 says: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.”
That brings us to chapter 13. Let me read the entire chapter for you—it’s only nine verses—and then we’ll exegete it sentence by sentence.
Scripture
13 “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
2 “On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land. 3 And if anyone still prophesies, their father and mother, to whom they were born, will say to them, ‘You must die, because you have told lies in the Lord’s name.’ Then their own parents will stab the one who prophesies.
4 “On that day every prophet will be ashamed of their prophetic vision. They will not put on a prophet’s garment of hair in order to deceive. 5 Each will say, ‘I am not a prophet. I am a farmer; the land has been my livelihood since my youth.’ 6 If someone asks, ‘What are these wounds on your body?’ they will answer, ‘The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.’
“Awake, sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who is close to me!”
declares the Lord Almighty.
“Strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered,
and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
8 In the whole land,” declares the Lord,
“two-thirds will be struck down and perish;
yet one-third will be left in it.
9 This third I will put into the fire;
I will refine them like silver
and test them like gold.
They will call on my name
and I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are my people,’
and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”
Exposition
13 “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
Israel will see the Lord Jesus Christ as He comes again, in the nick of time, to save them and to reign over them as King. They will be stunned and they will mourn and repent of their historical and personal rejection of Him. And the Lord will save them. The ever-flowing fountain of His blood will cover and cleanse them. Paul said in Romans that at the end of the story all Israel would be saved. This doesn’t mean every Jewish person who has ever lived. It’s referring to the contemporary nation and to the Jewish people who are alive when Jesus returns.
The next several verses tell us that when Jesus comes, He will put an end to idolatry and to all false teachings and false prophecies. Look at verse 2:
2 “On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more,” declares the Lord Almighty.
Israel has historically had a weakness for idols. So do we, by the way. Anything that becomes more important to you than the Lord Jesus is an idol. But the Lord will cleanse this habit from the Israeli people. Verses 2 and 3 say the same thing about false prophets:
“I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land. 3 And if anyone still prophesies, their father and mother, to whom they were born, will say to them, ‘You must die, because you have told lies in the Lord’s name.’ Then their own parents will stab the one who prophesies.
The Bible warns about the proliferation of false prophets during the seven years of Tribulation that precede the Second Coming.
In Matthew 24, Jesus said about those days: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many…. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people…. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect….” (verses 4-5, 11, 23-24)
The coming of Jesus Christ will be unmistakable, and He will silence all these false voices. Going back to Zechariah 13, verse 4 says:
“On that day every prophet will be ashamed of their prophetic vision. They will not put on a prophet’s garment of hair in order to deceive. 5 Each will say, ‘I am not a prophet. I am a farmer; the land has been my livelihood since my youth.’ 6 If someone asks, ‘What are these wounds on your body?’ they will answer, ‘The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.’
In other words, these false prophets, stunned by the appearance of the real Messiah, will be deeply ashamed of themselves. They will take off their distinctive clothes that prophets wore, and they will claim they’re just farmers.
We also know that false prophets often practiced self-mutilation. The clearest example of this in the Bible is when the prophets of Baal appeared before Elijah on Mount Carmel. The Bible says, they slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed (1 Kings 18:28). As the people investigate these false prophets who are ashamed and trying to pretend they’re nothing but farmers, people will say, “Then what about all those scars and wounds. It looks to me like you’ve been cutting on yourself like a false prophet.”
The false teacher will say, “Oh, I was injured at a friend’s house.”
So these first six verses simply tell us that when Jesus returns and Israel sees Him and mourns over Him and is forgiven by the fountain of His blood, He will banish all the idolatry and false teachings that have so harmed His people, the nation of Israel.
That’s the first part of Zechariah 13. The final section of this chapter is in the form of a poem or song. This section is not as easy to interpret. Everything hinges on how we identify the shepherd in verse 7. In the prior chapters, Zechariah said there would be two shepherds who would face off in the future—the Good Shepherd, who is Christ; and the Evil Shepherd, who is the antichrist.
This shepherd here in this song is undoubtedly Christ, and this song recalls what happened to Him when He came the first time. This is a little poem that summarizes what has happened between Israel and its shepherd. Verse 7 says:
“Awake, sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me!” declares the Lord Almighty. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
This was fulfilled at the crucifixion of Christ. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the man close to God, was struck and His sheep were scattered. Jesus Himself quoted this verse in Matthew 26:31: “Then Jesus told them, ‘This very night you will fall away on account of me, for it is written: I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
And what happened as a result? The Romans came and massacred the Jewish people and destroyed the nation of Israel for 1900 years. Verse 8 says:
8 In the whole land,” declares the Lord,
“two-thirds will be struck down and perish;
yet one-third will be left in it.
This is very similar to what the prophet Ezekiel said about the Babylonian invasion. In Ezekiel 5, the prophet Ezekiel shaved off his beard and divided it into thirds. One third he cut up with a sword, and another third he burned with fire. Another third was to be flung into the wind. A few hairs were to be saved and tucked away somewhere safe. Ezekiel was predicting what would happen to the population of Israel during the Babylonian Invasion. A third died in the sword; a third were burned in the rubble; a third were dispersed with the winds; and a few remained safe.
I believe Zechariah may be saying something similar about the coming Roman Invasion after Christ is rejected in Jerusalem. But, in fact, the ultimate fulfillment of this is likely a picture of Israel during the Great Tribulation. Two-thirds of the Jews will perish during the Great Tribulation. One-third will be saved and refined like silver and they will be saved by the return of Christ.
Verse 9 says: This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people, and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”
Conclusion
So let’s wrap up. The first half of Zechariah 13 is a description of the national salvation and cleansing of Israel. The nations of the world will be gathered around the nation of Israel, and the antichrist will think he’s on the verge of achieving Hitler’s Final Solution of the destruction of every last Jew on earth.
But Jesus will return at that moment. The Israelites will see Him and recognize Him at long last as their Messiah. They will mourn and repent, and He will open up a fountain of grace for the forgiveness of sins. And they will sing a song that says, in summary:
When the Shepherd came the first time, He was stricken and the sheep were scattered. Two-thirds of Israel has perished, but one-third remains. We have gone through the fire, but we are now calling on His name and He is answering us. And He says, “They are My people, and at long last they will say, “The Lord Jesus Christ is our God.”
Wow! I wish I could go back and teach chapter 12 and 13 all over again; they are so poignant, so emotional; so prophetic. And they put our current events into context for us. We know where things are headed.
Well, next week we’ll press on into the final chapter of Zechariah and we’ll see how it all ends.