Lesson 21 - Zechariah Chapter 10 Continued
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THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH
Lesson 21, Chapter 10 Continued

The opening 5 verses of Zechariah Chapter 10 painted us a vivid picture of
divine providence and a stark contrast between God's power and goodness and
the failings of false leaders who are either self-deceived, or lie and manipulate
for their own benefit. The prophet begins with a call to the common people,
urging them to seek the life-giving rain from Yehoveh… the true and only
source of blessing and abundance. God, who controls the storms and the
seasons, promises showers of rain, coming at the right times, which will
nourish the land and provide lush pastures for all. Judah depended on rain, as
opposed to Egypt and the Mesopotamian nations that had rivers of water to
irrigate their field crops.

In stark contrast to seeking God’s blessings, this chapter highlights the futility
of relying on idols, diviners, and false prophets. These deceivers offer empty
visions and false comfort, leading the people astray like sheep without a
shepherd. The absence of true guidance results in wandering and suffering
among the flock.

God's anger burns against these false leaders—described as corrupt or absent
shepherds—who have neglected their duties. Understand: these are Judah’s
shepherds. These are the covenant people’s shepherds… these are Hebrews
God is speaking of and not gentiles. In His righteous wrath, God promises to
intervene, bringing justice and restoring His people… His people symbolized as
the sheep. He will strengthen the House of Judah and redeem the House of
Ephraim through them, transforming their despair into hope through His
unchanging love and His sovereign power.

When we ponder all of this deeply, we see something that is disturbing that
none of us would prefer to face, but at some point it has to be dealt with… and
considering the lateness of the hour of the inescapable historical timeclock,
that time must be now. The reality is that there is no point to studying the

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Bible if we don’t use what God’s Word teaches us in our lives. Simply
“knowing” is not useful. God gives us His Word not as an interesting history
book, but as a book of instruction and wisdom. It is a book of truth, with which
we can hold it up as a mirror to compare all that we hear and see and think
and believe.

These false shepherds were the highly regarded religious and civic leaders of
the Hebrews. Yet, they had taken the Torah and the words of the earlier
Prophets, and either ignored them or twisted them to suit their agendas.
These leaders professed to be God fearers and truth tellers, and those who
followed in obedience to God’s Torah. They did worship God, and they did not
think of themselves as wicked. And, no doubt at the core of the faith they
oversaw and taught there was a nugget of truth. But, as the old axiom states,
a truth wrapped in lies becomes a lie.

God designed humans to require leaders. It is how He structured human and
animal society, even the creatures of Heaven. He created mostly followers,
and a far fewer number of leaders. So, He put grave responsibility upon the
shoulders of these relative few… which in Zechariah 10 is symbolized as
shepherds… but being a leader is no guarantee of inherent honesty or
integrity. It is the fallen human nature to be tempted to take truth and then
slowly to evolve its practice to suit the leader. Eventually, it is like a ship with
a defective compass that is but a degree or two off. The further away from its
departure point, the further off course it gets… but at the time it is very nearly
undetectable to all but the most perceptive. Only a long time later when the
ship arrives at a certain destination do the passengers realize that this is not
the place that was intended or promised. But, now what?

Within months after Yeshua died then arose, the truths He taught began their
journey in the hands of a few leaders, some of whom had good accurate
compasses… but also some of whom who had defective ones. Around 3
centuries after His advent, a major shift happened in which a person… a

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powerful gentile leader… who embraced the core truth that Yeshua was Lord
and Savior… took that core truth and placed it in the hands of some gentile
religious leaders who began to fashion a new faith that wrapped this truth in
layer after layer of manmade doctrines and political concerns, which took this
ship of truth well off course. It has been sailing, and off course, for a very long
time... about 1600 years.

Along the way there have been those who sounded the alarm; but mostly they
were thrown overboard as trouble makers and heretics. Today, as we are
closer than ever to that once-distant shore, and we’re starting to be able to
have a glimpse of our landing place, many are starting to see that something’s
not right. The alarms are again going off, and the ship’s officers once again
respond by wanting to throw overboard those who are sounding the alarm. So,
now we are all faced with a critical question: do we stand with those sounding
the alarm and take action, or with those that have been guiding the ship in the
wrong direction, off course, for all these centuries?

This is the dilemma the Hebrews were facing in Zechariah’s day. The earlier
biblical Prophets are those whom God used to sound the alarm that the
leaders had led the people off course, and Zechariah quoted or paraphrased
several of them. Most of the whistle blowers were thrown overboard…
marginalized or even martyred… for their efforts. And, I must admit, that’s a
pretty effective deterrent to keep others from challenging the leadership about
where they are leading their people. Then as now… in ancient times as in the
21
st
century… God’s one remedy for His people is simple and one that few will
ever do: get off that ship and get yourself onto one that has a working
compass.

This reality is front and center, and a huge topic, that is addressed in
Zechariah chapter 10. And, since this is mostly looking ahead to the End
Times, then it makes it at least as relevant to us as it was for the Hebrews of
Zechariah’s era.

Lesson 21 - Zechariah Chapter 10 Continued
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Let’s open our Bibles to re-read chapter 10, staring at verse 6 of this short
chapter.

RE-READ ZECHARIAH 10:6 – end

Verse 6 explains something that sounds so very simple, and yet the largest
number of people who profess faith in the God of Israel deny it: it is that
Yehoveh is going to strengthen Judah and then use them to rescue what is
here called the House of Joseph. The House of Joseph is an alternate name for
the House of Ephraim or the Northern Kingdom or, as it is better known today,
The 10 Lost Tribes. It has been the Constantinian Church position since its
inception that God is through with Israel. That His ancient promises to them…
and therefore the prophecies concerning them… have been abolished or re -
worked. Or, that the positive things contained in those prophecies have been
transferred to the gentile Church, while the negative things remain with Israel.
This ship is sailing using a faulty compass.

It is interesting how back in Egypt, there was a transformation in which the
House of Joseph became the houses of Joseph’s 2 sons, Ephraim and
Mannaseh, at the hand of no less than the Patriarch Jacob. From the time of
the exodus forward, the concept of the House of Joseph was set on the shelf,
and replaced by the 2 houses (the 2 tribes) of Ephraim and Mannaseh. Even
this eventually coalesced into only the House of Ephraim not long after King
Solomon’s death. However, as redemption history progresses, at one point in
the future the designation “House of Joseph” returns to replace the
designations of the “houses of Ephraim and Mannaseh”. While odd, it seems to
operate similarly to the use of the 2 terms Zion and Jerusalem. While on the
one hand they are 2 terms for the same place, on the other hand Zion is used
mostly when Jerusalem is spoken of in its redeemed and/or restored condition.

Speaking of Judah and Joseph instead of Judah and Ephraim essentially circles
all Israel back to a time of their original unity before they sojourned in Egypt;

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first as welcome guests but then as oppressed slaves. It is a way of saying
that a future transition is going to happen. The conditions of the past several
centuries will be reversed to the state God had intended. Really, I think that
this is truly poetic in nature, and that is how we have to view it. Poetry counts
emotion and inspiration as more important than clear, cold historical narrative
and fact. It’s not that it is not the truth; it is only where the emphasis lies. If
you were a Hebrew in Zechariah’s era, this poetic statement would be music to
your ears. It represents a longed-for hope that dwells deep in every Hebrew’s
psyche. And there exists no better way to express it than using poetry.

Now, interestingly, while at first glance it might seem as though the subjects
of this verse are Judah and Joseph, in reality it is God. God is front and center
as the one who sets all this into motion. It is He who makes the House of
Judah mighty. It is He that will save the 10 Lost Tribes from their almost 3
millennia oblivion of being scattered into the gentile world. And, yet we must
not over-spiritualize this. Judah’s newfound strength will not be supernatural
strength; it will be through their powerful military, although it is God that is
going to make all the conditions for this possible so it can happen. Judah…
physical Judah… (today, the re-born nation of Israel) is going to be the lead-
dog to save the House of Joseph (here referring to the 10 Lost Tribes), and it
no doubt will involve armed conflict… probably several… yet, this, too, while
not being a supernatural saving, will be at the hand of God.

One of the important things to be alert about when studying books of the
Tanakh (the Old Testament) is that the word “save” has a different meaning
than what Christians give it. Although it is the tendency of Bible teachers and
Pastors to anachronistically assign the word “save” to mean salvation from our
sins through Yeshua, this is incorrect when applied to the books that come
before Matthew. Saved meant to be physically delivered from one’s enemies or
from some kind of predicament or danger. It was a military and political
concept for the most part; not a religious one. Most often it had to do with
being rescued from the domination of some foreign political power. But, when
we get to the later times, then there is legitimacy to giving that word “save” a
spiritual salvation meaning, and (often) a dual meaning of also referring to
being saved from a political power. Folks, in the End Times, being saved is
going to be just that: a dual meaning. We are going to have a wicked world

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leader who oppresses us, and we also still have the need to be rescued from
our sins. Yeshua will do both. Those who came to believe when Yeshua was
still alive… and even throughout the time Rome dominated the Holy Land… still
waited for God’s promise of being saved from their political oppressors to
come about.

Frankly, it is pretty interesting that in the midst of all these military metaphors
like bows and arrows and horses and heroes (of the few first verses of this
chapter), that suddenly the language turns to that of love. God is going to do
this for Judah and Jospeh because He has compassion for them. It is the
motivation of love and compassion for His covenant people that He is going to
act powerfully on their behalf. I want to point out something technical, but it
would have been inherently noticed by the Hebrews hearing or reading
Zechariah’s prophecy.

The words of war in Hebrew are given in the masculine gender. But, here with
the introduction of the word “compassion”, we encounter a verb in the female
gender. The word for compassion is racham, and it comes from the root word
rechem, which means a mother’s womb. This, of course, has the sense of
nurturing, protecting life, and gentleness the way a mother cares for her baby.
It brings forth a “feeling” that we’re supposed to get from reading these words
of just how loving and kind and protective God “feels” towards Israel. And like
typical mothers, despite what their children may have done… and as much as
she might want to just give up on them… she can’t. It’s not in her nature. And
neither will God give up on His people, Israel, so deeply is He bonded through
covenant to them. Now, please don’t take this too far. These are poetic
metaphors meant to convey a depth of love that God has for Israel, rather
than heightened emotion. God has boundaries that are more firm than those
of a mother, and never paints Himself into a box in which He cannot act in
justice.

As verse 6 continues, it says that God will treat Israel as though He had never
rejected them or had not driven them out or had not cast them out…
depending on your Bible version. This is meant to show a reversal of condition;
a restoration from Israel’s state of rejection and exile to their previous state
before God poured out His righteous wrath upon them. There is a most serious

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point of theological teaching that needs to be learned, here. The standard
(though not universal) mantra of the Christian Church is that God has rejected
Israel… permanently. What Scripture shows us on several occasions is that
God indeed DID reject Israel on more than one occasion, but always with the
promise that one day He would take them back and restore them. God said He
would never permanently reject or banish Israel, even though there will be
times of rejection and banishment as a means of just punishment for the
purpose of correction.

This verse concludes with: “I am Yehoveh their God, and I will hear them”.
Just more reinforcement that if Israel calls, He will respond to them. And, I
think, by saying “I am Yehoveh their God”, this is the motive and reason that
He will hear them. Metaphorically speaking, it is like the mother who heeds
the call of her incorrigible child… yet again… and when asked why she still
hears him, she responds with: “I am his mother”. I think the mothers listening
to me understand this. Similarly, Yehoveh is Israel’s ONLY God. If He will not
respond to them, then who will? Israel has no other god to turn to. The
pagan gentile nations had many gods; so, if your god ignored you, you could
maybe make him or her jealous by approaching a different god. At the least,
you had choices (yes, I realize that this wasn’t so in reality, but it is what they
thought).

In verse 7, the language returns to its former tone. So, once again the term
Ephraim appears, and the term House of Joseph is set back on the shelf. The
remainder of this chapter will now deal only with the Northern Kingdom… the
Kingdom of Ephraim. The people of Ephraim will be like heroes… mighty men…
warriors who fight so expertly and fiercely that defeat is unthinkable. Even
though the way this is phrased (Ephraim will be as a mighty MAN, singular), it
is but a Hebrew literary way of speaking of Ephraim as a collective. Ephraim
will rejoice in their victories because it will bring them restoration.

Ephraim’s exile had been far, far longer than Judah’s. Already by Judah’s
return, Ephraim had been in exile for 2 centuries compared to Judah’s 70
years. What they couldn’t have known is that 2500 more years later, they
would only then begin a return to their homeland. So, of course Ephraim’s joy
would be great, as though they had been drinking wine. Then, this verse

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speaks of how joyful the children will be. This doesn’t mean literal children, as
in the sense of small kids. This means offspring, and in hindsight many
generations of offspring.

Because I have been at the Ben Gurion Airport in Israel and watched a plane
load of returnees from the tribe of Mannaseh coming to their new home, it has
impressed me how people that have known no other place than where they
had been living as their ancestral homeland, are overwhelmed with joy to
come to Israel. My family is originally from England, going back to the
Pilgrim’s landing on Plymouth Rock. That was a mere 400 years ago. I feel no
connection to England. Certainly, I have no desire or urge to immigrate from
America to the UK, in a move to return to my roots (as nice a place to live as
it is). But, the members of the 10 Lost Tribes are people whose ancestors left
their homeland 2700 years ago. How could anyone that far removed in time
and space feel this unquenchable thirst to go “home”? “Home”? It was a home
they had never known, nor had their great grandparents know n, nor had their
great grandparents’ great grandparents. Truly, it had to be God who kept this
desire alive within those many generations of Ephraim for all those centuries.

Verse 8 begins with: “I will whistle”. Some versions say, “I will hiss”. That is a
pretty bad choice of words. Hissing, of course, is negative and reminds us of a
serpent. But a shepherd literally whistles to his sheep. In full disclosure, the
truth is that this Hebrew word sharaq, can mean either hiss or whistle. Of the
many times this verb is used in the Bible, all the rest are meant negatively and
so “hiss” is the best choice of English words in all those other instances.
However, here is the one place where it is meant in the positive sense, and it
is intended to recall a shepherd whistling to his flock in a friendly way.

Continuing the sheep/shepherd motif, God says He will whistle to call them
in… to gather them to Himself. And this because He has redeemed them. The
tense of the verb is the perfect, which means it is an act that has already
happened and is ongoing. So, it is not to whistle and call them in to redeem
them, it is that BECAUSE He has already redeemed them, it is now time for
them to be gathered to Him. Ezekiel expresses the same thought with slightly
different words.

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CJB
Ezekiel 37:11-14
11
Then he said to me, "Human being! These
bones are the whole house of Isra'el; and they are saying, 'Our bones
have dried up, our hope is gone, and we are completely cut off.'
12

Therefore prophesy; say to them that Adonai ELOHIM says, 'My
people! I will open your graves and make you get up out of your
graves, and I will bring you into the land of Isra'el.
13
Then you will
know that I am ADONAI - when I have opened your graves and made
you get up out of your graves, my people!
14
I will put my Spirit in you;
and you will be alive. Then I will place you in your own land; and you
will know that I, ADONAI, have spoken, and that I have done it,' says
ADONAI."

So, Ezekiel mirrors this thought in Zechariah that it will be in all the places
where these exiles still live that God will deal with them on a spiritual level,
and only afterward will they be brought home to Israel. This is an important
understanding. It is this spiritual influence of God that gives the descendants
of Ephraim the desire to worship God back in their most ancient of homelands;
a desire that really has no logic to it. A desire I have never heard of in another
people this far removed in time from their ancestors’ homeland that it is so
strong they can’t resist it! I’m quite sure their neighbors (maybe some of their
family members) think they have lost it.

Let’s also be careful not to assign a wrong meaning when we read that God
has redeemed them. As with the word “save”, Christians give a special
meaning to the term “redeem”. The Hebrew word is padah, which can also
mean to ransom. We first meet this word in association with the exodus from
Egypt.

CJB
Deuteronomy 7:8 Rather, it was because ADONAI loved you, and
because he wanted to keep the oath which he had sworn to your
ancestors, that ADONAI brought you out with a strong hand and
redeemed you from a life of slavery under the hand of Pharaoh king of
Egypt.

Here in Zechariah, it has the same meaning as with the exodus. This does not
mean that in whatever foreign land a member of one of the 10 Lost Tribes who

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feels the call to return to Israel has been redeemed in Yeshua. That is, he has
not become a Believer. Rather, it means it in a much more broad and fuzzy
sense. Always keep in mind that chapter 10 is based on Hebrew poetry. So, it
is the emotional EFFECT of the words that has more bearing on their intent,
than it is the precise meaning of the words. In fact, there are language
translators who perhaps don’t recognize the poetic value, and so, they prefer
to see this part of the verse deleted because of the use of the word “redeem”,
thinking it doesn’t belong there. But, clearly when we think of the exodus of
the Israelites from Egypt there is a natural parallel in the 10 Lost Tribes
coming back to their homeland, with both events saying it was due to God
redeeming. Especially this connection makes sense because this sort of End
Times exodus of the Lost Tribes is prophesied to happen in the future, just as
the original exodus from Egypt of all Israel was prophesied to happen in the
future (from Abraham).

The final words of this verse are also affected by their poetic value. We are
told most literally: “and they shall increase as they have increased ”. Or,
in another translation, they shall multiply as they did multiply. Some versions
prefer to say something similar to our CJB that says: they will be as numerous
as they were before. The idea, I think, is to link the future population growth
of the 10 Lost Tribes when God gets ready to bring them home, with the
multiplication of humans after the original Creation. But, it is probably also to
link this with the promise to Abraham that his descendants would become a
numerically great people. Kiel and Delitzsch make a good observation that this
passage seems to be saying that they should increase in exile as much as they
will when their exile is ended, and they have been re-gathered. Again, when
we turn to the Prophet Ezekiel, we find this same thought of population
expansion only expressed slightly differently.

CJB
Ezekiel 36:9-11
9
I am here for you, and I will turn toward you;
then you will be tilled and sown;
10
and I will multiply your population,
all the house of Isra'el, all of it. The cities will be inhabited and the
ruins rebuilt.
11
I will multiply both the human and animal populations,
they will increase and be productive; and I will cause you to be
inhabited as you were before - indeed, I will do you more good than
before; and you will know that I am ADONAI.

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Zechariah 10:9 validates this line of thought about where and how the growth
takes place.

CJB
Zechariah 10:9 and I will sow them among the peoples. In distant
lands they will remember me; they will rear their children and then
return.

They were cast into foreign lands as metaphorical “seed” that was sown. And,
it is in those distant lands of their exile where they will remember God. They
will raise their families and have children during their exile, and afterwards
return, where their population increase will continue. Interestingly, the Jewish
historian Josephus who lived during the rebellion of the Jews against Rome
wrote that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were "beyond the Euphrates" and "an
immense multitude, not to be estimated by numbers". I think over the next
few years we are going to begin to get an idea of just how many people are
indeed true descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes. How might that happen? I
haven’t the foggiest idea. But, I suspect modern Israel will face a crisis of lack
of land and economy when these folks begin to flow back to Israel in larger
and larger numbers than they ever anticipated. At the same time, Zechariah 9
seems to have told us that in the future Israel will annex what we today call
the West Bank, Gaza, the southern part of Syria, and a goodly portion of
Lebanon… and probably even part of Jordan. Exciting and earth-shattering
times are just over the horizon. And when we see the upheaval of the Middle
East today, it isn’t terribly hard to accept that such radical changes of borders
and the reordering of territories is more likely than it is to stay the same for
much longer.

Thus, we read this in verse 10:

CJB
Zechariah 10:10 I will bring them back from the land of Egypt and
gather them out of Ashur. I will bring them into Gil'ad and the
L'vanon, until there is no more room for them.

Still speaking about the homecoming of the 10 Lost Tribes, the Prophet lists
some of the places they will return from. Keep in mind that the names of these

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places, and the boundaries of their territories, are not the same today as they
were in the 5
th
century B.C. But, it does help us to a degree to get a general
idea of the nations and territories involved.

Ashur refers to the land mass beyond the Euphrates River to the north. Ashur
is actually the name of the chief god that was worshipped in that region at that
time. So, rather than trying to establish with any detail an actual country
name or names, it really only means “the nations and places where the god
Ashur is or was worshipped”. And that would include much of what used to be
called Assyria. Again, I’ll remind you that we are dealing with Hebrew poetry;
so, precision wasn’t the point. Calling out Egypt, in specific, and then Assyria,
is to essentially speak in terms of directions. That is, Egypt being far to the
south, Assyria far to the north. And so, it represents this enormous land mass
of those places and what is in between as where those Ephraimite exiles were
sent to, multiplied in number, and now will come home from. This is meant to
be VERY general. To put a little finer point on it, Assyria represents the extent
of the known world to the north, and Egypt the extent of the known world to
the south, as far as the Israelites were concerned from their point of
reference. And of course, there are the enormous roles that Assyria (earlier
called Mesopotamia) and Egypt played in Israel’s history. All of this comes into
play when we attempt to understand what verse 10 is telling us.

Equally so, Gilead is on the eastern side of the Jordan River, while Lebanon
sits to the west on the coast of the Mediterranean. Therefore, this is speaking
about the east-west boundaries of the areas to where the Ephraimite exiles
were sent, similarly to Assyria and Egypt being the north-south boundaries.
Don’t pull out a map and start drawing lines. This is simply the crude way that
a person in Zechariah’s day could understand the geography of the earth, and
then express it. Even the 4 compass directions were approximates as they had
no compasses, yet.

And, as we already discussed, words in the verse tell us that their returning
numbers in the End Times will so overwhelm the State of Israel, that their
current territorial boundaries simply won’t accommodate them all.

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One more comment and we’ll move on to verse 11. The term “exiles” must be
defined from God’s viewpoint. Although a portion of Jews (a relatively small
number) returned home from Babylon, those who remained where they were
by choice… the vast majority of Jews… were nonetheless still characterized as
exiles. For the most part, there wasn’t really much to keep members of the 10
Lost Tribes from returning home, either… but so few did return that it wasn’t
worth counting. Despite this earthly reality, from the Heavenly viewpoint, even
though they had and still have freedom of movement (for the most part) they
all remained as exiles, and that’s how the Scriptures see them and describe
them.

I will tell you in advance that verses 11 and 12 have created all sorts of
difficulties such that translations can vary substantially. Some of this comes
because the solutions often proposed require deleting some the words,
changing some to something else, and restructuring verb tenses. However
difficult it is to live with what we have, we probably should, because other
than stumping some Bible translators, there’s nothing inherently wrong about
the grammar to rise to the level of proof of errors or much later editing.

CJB
Zechariah 10:11 "Trouble will pass over the sea and stir up waves
in the sea; all the depths of the Nile will be dried up, the pride of Ashur
will be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt will leave.

The NAS offers a much better rendering of the Hebrew and is far more literal
while retaining some meaning when spoken in English.

NAS
Zechariah 10:11 "And He will pass through the sea of distress,
And strike the waves in the sea, So that all the depths of the Nile will
dry up; And the pride of Assyria will be brought down, And the scepter
of Egypt will depart.

To better understand this, we begin by transporting ourselves to Zechariah’s
era and the common understanding of the world and the gods. After all, that’s
all they had to go on. So, the picture being drawn here is of Yehoveh moving
over the waters and then hitting them… smiting them… so that they dry up.
Water was mysterious and scary to people in this era, even to those who lived

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in seafaring nations. What was down there? Strange noises could be heard,
often at night. Storms would strike suddenly from nowhere. Ships would sail
out and disappear, boat and crew never to be seen again. And, of course,
there was centuries… even millennia… of myth that had been developed about
the world of deities and their ability to control or even conquer the cosmic
waters. If we know what to look for, not surprisingly we find a thread of this
same mindset in the Bible because it was so usual and prevalent. Listen
carefully to this excerpt from the 74
th
Psalm.

CJB
Psalm 74:13-17
13
By your strength you split the sea in two, in the
water you smashed sea monsters' heads,
14
you crushed the heads of
Livyatan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.
15
You cut
channels for springs and streams, you dried up rivers that had never
failed.
16
The day is yours, and the night is yours; it was you who
established light and sun.
17
It was you who fixed all the limits of the
earth, you made summer and winter.

As with many Psalms this is constructed in Hebrew poetry. Nonetheless this
was not a fanciful tale that the author is telling. He is saying something from
the heart, exactly as he understands it. And, then of course, how can we
forget about Yehoveh parting the Red Sea for the fleeing Israelites to cross
over to freedom. Or, the plagues involving the Nile River that God inflicted on
Egypt to get Pharoah to release the Hebrews from their bondage. None of
these were fanciful myths, but the lens through which the people saw and
understood was ancient and often mythical.

Water was life, and the rivers and streams and even the seas represented life.
What could not be explained rationally was explained mythically. Sea monsters
wrecked ships and ate people. Ocean waves were unstoppable. But… God
controlled the uncontrollable and the untamable. That is how powerful He was
in their eyes. And, that is essentially what is being expressed in verse 11.

These vast and powerful nations… Assyria and Egypt… are no match for God.
Their regional economic successes and their ability to conquer and rule over
other nations in the past is removed from them, and they are “brought low”.

Lesson 21 - Zechariah Chapter 10 Continued
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However, although God is doing this to these powerful nations, He is doing
something else for Israel, and that is expressed in verse 12.

CJB
Zechariah 10:12 But I will strengthen [Isra'el] in Yehoveh; they
will travel here and there in his name," says Yehoveh.

It is God who is going to make the returning exiles strong. It will happen
because of their new, or more likely renewed, relationship with the Lord
beginning with the unmerited compassion He has decided to show them .
Wherever they go, it will be in His name. It can be a little difficult to discern
exactly what “being in His name” meant to the Hebrews of Zechariah’s era.
However, generally, we can say that it meant that His presence was with you.
And, to a world that thought that earthly borders limited where their gods had
any presence, let alone effect, this meant that the power and presence and
authority of Yehoveh was mobile and had no boundaries. Wherever a
worshipper of Yehoveh went, there God was. Especially for the exiles of the 10
Lost Tribes who lived in foreign lands, where they didn’t believe they had any
access to Yehoveh their God, this was news that couldn’t have been more
welcome.

We’ll take up Zechariah chapter 11, next time.