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Context No. 1300 of 4322 · Zechariah

Context · Reflection

Zechariah 14:1-5: in context

1Behold, a day of the LORD comes, when your plunder will be divided within you. 2For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. 4His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, making a very great valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5You shall flee by the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azel. Yes, you shall flee, just like you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. The LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with you.

Zechariah prophesies a coming day of the LORD. He describes a terrible siege: all nations gathered against Jerusalem, the city taken, houses plundered, half the people going into exile. But then God himself intervenes: the LORD will go out and fight against those nations as on a day of battle. His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, and the mountain will split in two from east to west, forming a great valley through which his people can flee. And the passage ends: the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

The turning point is when God himself comes to fight. The situation is desperate, the city fallen, the enemy triumphant, half the people already dragged away, and it is at that lowest point that the LORD goes out to fight for his people as a warrior. He does not send help; he comes himself, his feet standing on the Mount of Olives, the very mountain from which, the New Testament tells us, Jesus ascended and to which the angels said he would return. And when he comes, he splits the mountain to make a way of escape for his people through the valley. There is a picture of hope here for the darkest hour. When God's people are overwhelmed and rescue seems impossible, the promise is that the LORD himself will come, will stand on the earth, and will make a way through the mountain where there was none. And the passage ends with the great promise of his coming with all his holy ones, the same promise the New Testament attaches to the return of Christ. The day of the LORD is not only judgment; it is the coming of God himself to fight for his people and split the mountain to bring them out. However fallen the city, the LORD my God will come.

In my darkest hour, when rescue seems impossible, can I hold the promise that the LORD himself will come, stand on the earth, and split the mountain to make a way of escape where there is none?

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