Commentary on Zechariah 1 part 3/24

for it was not insofar as He is Almighty that He was sent, but insofar as, having emptied Himself in the manner of condescension, He took the form of a servant.

But what does He proclaim beforehand to those who are still, for the moment, under the nations that plunder them? 'Whoever touches you,' He says, 'touches the apple of His eye'—the one who strikes the righteous, or those whom he wishes to harm, harming himself rather, just like one who strikes the apple of his own eye.

One may support this interpretation from many places in Scripture;

Cain, wishing to harm Abel, first slew himself rather than the one he purposed to murder by treachery.

This very thing also happened to Saul, who pursued David in order to kill him, and to Absalom, who tyrannically set himself against his father.

In the prophetic passage before us, 'to touch' signifies to harm, and especially through those words in which God Himself speaks to those who murderously set themselves against His people:

'Touch not my anointed ones, and do no harm to my prophets.' 'To touch' is used in a blameworthy sense of laying hold, as in:

'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'—signifying to approach shamefully and licentiously.

From this saying it is also shown that 'to touch' can mean to make good contact by handling, as in what is said by Jesus:

'Someone touched me'—when the woman with a flow of blood, out of longing to be healed, touched Him, taking hold of the hem of Jesus' garment.

Since so many meanings fall under the word 'to touch' at present, the prophetic expression now before us signifies to harm through maltreatment.

He who purposes to harm those guarded by God touches the apple of the eye of the inner man.

He makes clear how the one who touches God's servants touches the apple of His eye, by saying:

'I will bring my hand upon them'—clearly the chastening power—so that they become plunder to those whom they formerly plundered, leading them into captivity, so that they serve those over whom they themselves tyrannically held sway.

'When this comes about, you shall know that I am the Lord Almighty, sent by the Lord Almighty for the fulfillment of the things foretold.'

The Almighty sent by the Almighty is God the Word, coming to men by the good pleasure of the Father;

for by that Word by which the Father royally rules all the things He made through His Word, by that same Word the Son also rules and reigns over all things that were constituted in Him, He pre-existing them.

The Apostle says that in Christ the visible and invisible things were created, He being before them and all things holding together in Him:

'For He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.' And it is nothing paradoxical if the Almighty is from the Almighty;

for He is also God from God and light from light.

For being of the same substance as the One who begot Him, and being one with the One who begot Him, according to the saying:

'I and the Father are one'—all things whatsoever the Father has belong to the Son.

Now the Father has this: to be God, to be light, to be holy, to be Almighty.

The Son, therefore, is Almighty from the Almighty, all-King existing from the One who reigns over all.

Incontrovertibly, in John's Revelation the Savior is confessed to be Almighty, He Himself speaking thus concerning Himself:

'These things says the faithful witness, the beginning of the creation of God, He who is and who was and who is coming, the Lord God the Almighty.' Being Almighty, He who speaks these things is not a creature, lest He should also rule over Himself.

For this is contrary to reason: that the same one should be at once the one who creates and the one created by himself, both reigning and ruled over;

and even if the One theologically declared is called in the passage cited 'the beginning of the creation of God,' it is as royally ruling and being this very thing—Almighty—that He is the beginning of creation, that is, a kingdom presiding over and leading all creatures.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Zion, for behold, I am coming and will dwell in your midst, says the Lord.

And many nations shall flee for refuge to the Lord in that day, and shall be to Him for a people, and they shall dwell in your midst; and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.

And the Lord shall take Judah as His portion for an inheritance upon the holy land, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.

Just as, when the people of the Hebrews had become captive, there was lamentation and wailing because the Lord had withdrawn far from those who had been captured, so, when they had returned to the spiritual mother called Zion, a command is given to rejoice and be glad, because the Lord has come and has taken up His dwelling in her midst—the temple having again been raised up and God dwelling in it.

'Rejoice and be glad,' says the prophet, 'O daughter of Zion.'

Now in many places of Scripture he calls the citizens who make up each city the 'daughter' of that city.

The delight and gladness which the divine word commands us to possess is the same as the joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, ranged together with divine love and blessed peace, which the sacred Apostle makes plain when he writes thus:

'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.' Having attained this stability, those who were ransomed from captivity say:

'When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we became like those who are comforted.'

'Then was our mouth filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation.' And in another Psalm words in harmony with these are brought forward:

'When the Lord turns again the captivity of his people, Jacob shall exult and Israel shall be glad.' For those who had lamented, being dragged away from their own homeland by the law of captivity, it follows fittingly that, having returned to it, they should delight and be glad, because the Lord has taken up his dwelling in the midst of it, he who is the cause of their delighting and being glad.

And what is the cause of this gladness and delight, but the enjoyment of the streams of the river that is full of waters, concerning which it is written:

'The river of God is full of waters'; and again:

'The streams of the river make glad the city of God';

'God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved,' since he no longer removes himself far off nor forsakes her, because by his own goodness he abides with her.

greatly repenting toward the Lord in the day that is illumined by the sun of righteousness; of which day the patriarch Abraham, having conceived a longing, saw it and rejoiced, and together with him those who by faith and by his works have become his sons and children, so as to give thanks and say:

'This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and be glad in it.' And there shall follow this, that the many nations who have taken refuge in the Lord shall be named the people of him to whom they have fled for refuge, no longer remaining godless and without hope;

concerning these things God speaks in the prophet:

'I will call that which was not my people my people, and he shall say:

"You are the Lord my God," so that they are addressed as a holy nation, a holy priesthood, a race of God.

For he says to those who have fled to God in the aforesaid manner, by the very One to whom they have fled for refuge:

'But you shall be to me a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, my people whom I have acquired to declare my virtues.'

And what follows for those who have become the people of God, but to make their dwelling in the midst of the heavenly and blessed Zion? For then, then shall she know, by a divine and exact contemplation, that the Lord Almighty sent the one who ransomed her, saying concerning his own Father:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives.' For it was for the sake of preaching good tidings to the poor in spirit that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and the power of God — he who dwells in the midst of Zion, proclaiming release to her children who had been taken captive by unseen enemies.

For thus shall the all-ruling benefactor of her take Judah as his inheritance, namely those who make confession.

For 'Judah' is interpreted as 'confession.'

He will therefore first inherit those who are called to salvation;

for from of old they were his portion, even before they suffered the dispersion and the captivity.

And where shall he take Judah, who is his portion, as his inheritance, but upon the holy land, in which he who has honoured his father God and his mother the Church — who is Jerusalem — shall be long-lived and prosperous; which land he shall yet again choose, taking her back to himself and reigning in the midst of her, as she knows that he has come to dwell in her midst, sent from the Lord Almighty, when, bowing the heaven, he came down to us who are men, saying:

'I have come down from heaven that I may do the will of him who sent me, to seek and to save that which was lost.'

For thus those on whose behalf he has come, that he might become to them the cause of eternal salvation, shall no longer remain in perdition.

And it shall belong also to Jerusalem — which is being made complete by us, being the Church of the living God — to have such faith and works productive of blessedness, that he who has washed her clean and made her radiant by his own blood may yet choose her.

'Let all flesh be reverent before the face of the Lord, for he has been raised up out of his holy clouds.'

The appellation 'flesh,' being an equivocal term, signifies many things, as is established from the God-inspired Scripture itself.

For when it is said in the Psalms that God gives 'food to all flesh,' all the mortal living creatures that are sustained in life by food are meant, as also in the passage:

'All flesh is gathered according to its kind.' But when the Apostle writes:

'For who ever hated his own flesh? but nourishes and cherishes it' — there the body that is joined to the rational soul is signified, as one may learn from the apostolic wording itself, which runs thus:

'So ought men to love their own wives as their own bodies.'

'For who ever hated his own flesh?' and what follows.

And there are times when human beings alone are indicated by the appellation of 'flesh,' as in the passage:

of the Spirit, by him who says:

'I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.' This flesh, so called, being rational, is receptive of divine reverence;

it is commanded, therefore, to be reverent before the face of the one who appears to it, concerning whom the pure in heart send up their prayer, saying:

'Cause your face to shine, and we shall be saved.' And next he renders the reason why all flesh ought to be reverent before the face of the Lord God, adding:

'Because he has been raised up out of his holy clouds.' Now the holy clouds are not those that rain down the sensible shower, but those that bear the spiritual rain, according to what is said in Isaiah concerning Israel — which by way of allegory is called a vineyard — from the person of the Lord:

'I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it,' because it has borne thorns and not the grape as its fruit.

For since the vineyard is being allegorized, fittingly the clouds also may be understood — at one time raining so as to water it, at another time being hindered from doing this.

Concerning such rain-bearing clouds, again in the same prophet it is commanded by God:

'Let the clouds rain down righteousness.' For righteousness, being a virtue of the rational soul, is not rained down by the sensible clouds, but by the divine prophets, who are by anagogy called 'clouds.'

Since, therefore, it is out of these clouds that the Saviour who has come to fulfil the law and the prophets has been raised up, for this reason let all flesh be reverent before the face of the Lord God, which he made manifest and displayed when the prophecy was fulfilled that runs thus:

'The God of gods shall appear in Zion,' and he shone forth so that we beheld his glory, as of the only-begotten from the Father.

Having been raised up out of the holy clouds — which have been interpreted to be Moses the great hierophant and the prophets who were possessed by the Holy Spirit — he sojourned, mounting upon a light cloud, in the world according to us, which by anagogy is called Egypt.

And the prophecy concerning these things runs thus, beginning from here:

'Behold, the Lord sits upon a light cloud, and shall come into Egypt, and the things made by her hands shall be shaken together.' Now, since Egypt is taken to signify the region about the earth, fittingly the light cloud also shall be applied to the incarnation of the Saviour, the God-Word having taken his seat upon him who came forth from Mary.

For what light cloud, having no weight of sin, could there be, but the flesh of Jesus, which was constituted not from the union of man with woman — which is a most heavy thing — but from the Holy Spirit who came upon the Virgin who had no experience of a man, and upon whom the power of the Most High overshadowed, so that what was born without marriage was called holy?

And still more is the lightness and buoyancy of the Lord's cloud made manifest by the fact that the soul of Jesus neither committed sin nor knew it.

For nothing else drags down and weighs upon the soul of men as does lawlessness, which is compared to a talent of lead, because it presses down and drags down those who work it toward what is below;

but the soul of Jesus did not experience this weight, having loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;

nor did it have any guile in its mouth — guile, which of all sins drags down the soul of him who possesses it.

It was necessary, therefore, that the Saviour, raised up out of his holy clouds, having fulfilled the foretellings concerning himself, should be established royally upon the light cloud that has been rendered, which rains the evangelical rain so as to bring saving fruits upon the inhabited world and to shelter it from that scorching heat from which the man of understanding is preserved, according to the proverbial oracle that runs thus:

'A son of understanding is preserved from scorching heat.' And he also shelters from the cold of sin, concerning which it is written:

'As a cistern keeps water cool, so her wickedness keeps it cool.' In this respect you shall take it allegorically:

having grasped it in the mind according to contemplation, and having obtained a heart of flesh that yields to God's ordinances and commandments, let us set aright the reverence that is toward God, so that God, still further conferring benefits, may inscribe upon these fleshly and not stony hearts, by his living Spirit, a divine writing, through which, being profited, we may be perfected so as to encounter the truth face to face, having passed beyond beholding it as in an image and in part.

'And the Lord showed me Jesus the great priest standing before the face of the angel of the Lord.'

'And the devil stood at his right hand to oppose him.'

The things that God shows, being great and surpassing nature, are neither sensible nor human.

This being so, God shows to the prophet Jesus the great priest — not in a human manner, but in a divine one — standing before the face of the angel of the Lord; not so much the son of Josedek as the one signified through him, the truly great high priest, who has passed through the heavens, who is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, not according to the power of a fleshly commandment laid down for a certain season, but according to an inviolable priesthood:

'You are a priest for ever.' And Jesus the great priest was not shown by the Lord in any casual way, but standing unshaken and firmly established, similarly to what is said in the Gospel:

'Jesus stood and cried out, saying:

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink."' For on this account everyone who comes to him drinks: because he stands abidingly.

But besides seeing him standing — since God showed him before the face of the angel of the Lord — the devil also was seen standing at his right hand to oppose him.

But whom must the devil oppose and set himself against, but the right-hand things of the one shown by the Lord, who stood before the angel of great counsel? And he stood also at the right hand of Judah, as is said in the one hundred and eighth Psalm:

'Set a sinner over him, and let the devil stand at his right hand.' But observe indeed a great difference in the wordings:

for in the case of the one who betrayed the Saviour, he stands among the right-hand things, having taken possession of them beforehand — that one having given place to the devil.

For it is said that he put it into his heart to betray the one who had chosen him, the best of teachers and Saviour alike.

And after putting it into his heart, he entered into him, so as to work the deeds of betrayal in him, just as he works in the sons of disobedience.

For it is written that after the morsel Satan entered into him.

But the great high priest stands at his right hand in no other way than by opposing him, especially when he attempts to ravage those who are being helped and instructed by him.

Indeed, does he not stand as an adversary at the right hand when he demands those who have been called to faith and the rest of virtue, according to what was said:

'Behold, Satan has demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, O Peter, our disciple, that your faith may not fail.' Besides not being harmed by those whom he opposes, they also receive authority against him, so as to tread upon all the power of the enemy who opposes them, suffering no harm whatsoever, because they hope in him who crushes beneath the feet of the saints the rebellious and destructive devil.

Everyone who has his hope in God shall remain unassailable and unshaken, for the evil one neither touches nor lays hold of him who is helped and sheltered by the right hand of God.

See, then, what the psalmist sings out to the one who is thus under the hand of God:

'You have made the Most High your refuge; no evils shall come near you, and no scourge shall approach your dwelling, for he shall command his angels concerning you.'

...the serpent. Concerning the lion and serpent so named, it is said in the Apocalypse of John that this is the ancient Satan.

By way of parallelism, in such a contemplation it will seem that 'devil' and 'Satan' are said to be one and the same; and 'Satan' being a Hebrew word signifies 'adversary' in the Greek tongue.

These things being thus contemplated, it is a blessed thing to have the devil as an enemy and adversary, and not as a friend;

for his companionship is harmful and drags one down to destruction.

Thus, for instance, having drawn near to Judas, he made him a son of perdition and his own child, so that he even shared in his appellation.

For the Saviour says concerning him to the twelve disciples:

'Did I not choose you, the twelve? And one of you is a devil.' And to Jesus himself, in that he had become man, having taken up a human soul and body, in the wilderness the adversary stood at his right hand while he fasted forty days and as many nights.

Indeed, did not the adversary, having led him up to the pinnacle of the temple, deceitfully say:

'Cast yourself down from here'; and, having shown him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory:

'All these will I give you,' he said, 'if you will fall down and worship me.'

Yet even though he said these things with guile, he was overturned and cast down, becoming utterly defeated by the one who was tempted in all things like other men.

And may God, the helper of the helpless, also grant to us, who wrestle against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness and the spiritual forces of wickedness, to remain unstricken and unfallen, the evil one not touching us at all.

: And the Lord said to the devil:

'May the Lord rebuke you, O devil, and may the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you.'

'Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?' The Lord, it says, said to the devil:

'May [the Lord] rebuke you, O devil.'

And in the present passage, the Lord speaks concerning the Lord, the Father concerning the Son, as has been said before.

But how and what the Lord says to the devil must be considered.

The Master of all does not converse with the devil by employing uttered speech according to some one of the human dialects;

for neither does he himself use vocal organs, being an incorporeal and intellectual nature, nor does the devil, to whom the word is addressed, have a hearing that is struck by sounds composed of syllables—especially when it is God who speaks.

When we come upon the book of Job, and find there God speaking to the devil and the devil to God, we are not so small-minded as to suppose that the questions and answers take place according to the utterance of a human dialect;

rather, it befits and suits the persons set forth in another manner.

For God speaks whenever he makes manifest what he wills to those whom he has judged worthy to hear him, just as, in turn, he hears those who converse with him, knowing what they have in their own ruling faculty.

And so in the passage before us the Lord said to the devil, having made manifest to him the thing declared, which runs thus:

'May the Lord rebuke you, O devil,' all but saying:

'You shall be a vessel of wrath, in whom and through whom those deserving of punishment are rebuked, worthily according to the evils they have wrought.'

But if the words 'in you' are said with reference to him himself, the saying has this meaning:

since you sin in a hidden manner within yourself, yet do not escape notice in doing this, God, who anticipates that which is hidden in you and in all, rebukes 'in you,' knowing the wickedness concealed within you.

That the devil thus works wickedness, and many of those begotten by him in wickedness, God says to him in Isaiah:

'But you said in your mind:'

'I will ascend into heaven,' and so forth up to the words...

In harmony with this is also what is said in the Psalms:

'The lawless one says, so as to sin, within himself.' For sinning within himself and saying in his mind:

'I will ascend into heaven'—not escaping notice within himself—he receives the rebuke.

Equivalent in force to what has been said is this:

'The fool said in his heart:'

'...there is a God.' Having shown that even he who sins in secret does not escape punishment, he next shows who it is that rebukes—namely, that it is he who has chosen Jerusalem.

In many ways it has been rendered who the elect city of God is;

for the pure soul, which beholds the peace that surpasses all understanding, was called Jerusalem; and also the glorious Church of Christ, holy and blameless, having no spot or wrinkle; and according to the higher allegory, the heavenly city of the living God, according to what is thus written:

'You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal assembly.' What will come from the Lord's rebuking of the devil, he makes plain:

'Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?' A brand is a half-burnt piece of wood, come near to being turned into charcoal, no longer having the strength and firmness of the wood.

Such also were the enemies of the king of the Hebrews, concerning whom God said to him:

'Do not fear, neither let your soul be faint because of these two smoking firebrands.' Just as, then, these were shown to be weak, having fallen under the punishment by fire, so also the one who has received the rebuke from the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem has become weak, so as no longer to bear fruit, having been deprived of the vital power, like the brand plucked from the fire;

for a plant thus scorched can no longer bear fruit, even though it was plucked from the fire so that it might not be wholly consumed and turned to ash, being made useful for other needs to which God takes it up—for the good of things being created, of silver and gold vessels that are melted and beaten out.

For how is he who has been redeemed from the fire of captivity not plucked from it—he who was ransomed by the one who proclaimed release to the captives and granted them return to the homeland which they formerly inhabited, before the enemies came who seized and dragged them away?

: And Jesus was clothed in filthy garments, and stood before the face of the angel.

And he answered and said to those who stood before his face, saying:

'Take away the filthy garments from him.'

'Behold, I have taken away your iniquities; and clothe him with a full-length robe, and set a clean turban upon his head.'

And they clothed him with garments.

It is possible to take the foregoing words in a literal sense concerning Jesus the great priest, who figuratively displays the truly faithful high priest, who holds a priesthood that does not pass away.

For since the saints are loving, they suffer together with those in misfortune, out of compassion weeping with those who weep.

For this reason, while fallen Israel still remained in captivity, the priest to whom the guardianship had been entrusted, mourning and suffering along with them, is clothed in filthy garments, which the angel present with him commands to be taken away from him.

Now the filthy garments are the deeds accomplished apart from the law;

'Take away his filthy garments'—the words that follow fit harmoniously:

'Behold, I have taken away your iniquities.' When the iniquities, which are the filthy garments, have been taken away, he is clothed with the full-length robe, which is the priestly tunic that adorns the one who wears it down to the feet, and a clean turban is set upon the head of him who priestly serves the Lord who has come and taken up his dwelling in the midst of Zion and Jerusalem.

At the restoration and rebuilding of the city and the temple, the leader of those set free from captivity is clothed with a garment of salvation and a tunic of gladness, having cast off the filthy garments, because he no longer mourns but exults and rejoices, since those who experienced captivity have been saved from it.

...to those who had become responsible, in their sinning, for being clothed in such garments. It is possible to understand as divine angels those who receive the command, who encamp round about those who fear God so as to deliver them, so that they no longer be downcast and gloomy over the present adversity.

In addition to what has been said with regard to the literal narrative, the things pertaining to the deeper meaning must also be considered.

Jesus the great high priest, whose type the figurative Jesus—who was passing his life in Babylon among the captives—bears, was clothed in filthy garments, that is, the sins of all men, though he himself did not sin nor experience sin.

That he might strip off and cast away the garment of sin which he had put on for our sake, he ascends the cross, as Peter the theologian, the apostle of Christ, writes:

He who bore our sins in His own body upon the tree, that we, having died to our sins, might live unto His righteousness. In harmony with this, Paul, the chosen vessel, writes as follows:

Having stripped off the principalities and the powers, He triumphed over them openly in the tree, having blotted out the handwriting that was against us, tearing it and taking it out of the way, so that, having triumphed openly, He might strip off the principalities and powers with which He had formerly been clothed.

For how does he who acts upon the baser and evil thoughts which they suggest not clothe himself with these very powers? But the contemplation must be constructed also from the opposite side.

He who does and thinks the things which the Saviour teaches puts on Christ Himself, according to the word:

Put on the Lord Jesus; and the word:

As many of you as have put on Christ. But he who does and devises the things belonging to the wicked principalities and powers, against whom those who contend for salvation wage their struggle, clothes himself with them, receiving the qualities that correspond to them.

These the Lord and our Saviour stripped off, having taken up our sins; for:

He bears our sins and suffers pain for us; and after other things it is said in the prophecy of Isaiah:

And He shall bear the sins of many. If, then, Jesus is seen clothed in filthy garments, these do not belong to Him, for He neither wove them nor fashioned them.