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Zechariah, Prophet of God's remembrance, part 24

After prophesying to other nations, God then turns His attention back to Judah and Ephraim. Zechariah 9:11 says,

¹¹ As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

This is a direct reference to the Mosaic covenant with Israel, mentioned in Exodus 24:7, 8,

⁷ Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!” ⁸ So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Even as God had set the people free from Egyptian bondage in the days of Moses, so also will He set Ephraim free from the Assyrian captivity and Judah from the Babylonian captivity. Zechariah, of course, prophesied after the fall of Babylon. The people had been allowed to return to the old land to rebuild their lives. Yet they were still under Persian rule. God’s judgment had been lessened from an iron yoke to a wooden yoke.

The Persians would rule for nearly two more centuries, and then the captivity was to continue under the Greeks, followed by the Romans. The little horn portion of this long captivity would be the longest phase, bringing us to the end of the age (today). Therefore, the deliverance prophesied by Zechariah was not imminent at the time of the prophecy itself but was to have a latter-day fulfillment. It was to end with the overthrow of Mystery Babylon, a prophetic repeat on a spiritual level of the original Babylonian captivity.

Running parallel to the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem was the Assyrian captivity of Israel and its ruling tribe, Ephraim. Both of these captivities were to end at the same time after thousands of years. The two captivities were distinct in their beginnings, but by the time of the end, both were brought under the oppression of Mystery Babylon. The Israelites themselves migrated from Assyria into Europe, where they eventually came under the power of the “mystery” (secret, hidden) Babylonian system with its economic slavery.

Hence, both captivities began to merge into a single captivity to the hidden masters of world government that rules from Europe. The way in which God is setting the captives free today follows the prophetic pattern of the past when God used “the kings from the east” (Revelation 16:12) to overthrow the city of Babylon. Those kings were from Media and Persia, namely Darius and Cyrus. Today these eastern “kings” are the rulers of China and Russia, along with Iran, which is modern Persia.

The Waterless Pit

The people were to be saved “from the waterless pit” (Zechariah 9:11). This was a prophetic metaphor which pointed back to Joseph (Genesis 37:24), representing the Israelites, and to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38:6), representing Judah. On both occasions, a waterless pit was used as a prison, and this came to be a metaphor of captivity.

Yet God said, speaking of future things as though they were already past, “I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.” It is the word of God that “calls into being that which does not exist” (Romans 4:17). The moment God speaks, the event comes into existence as far as God is concerned; yet it takes time for it to manifest in the earth.

Restoring Double

Zechariah 9:12 says,

¹² Return to the stronghold [bissaron, “fortress, stronghold”], O prisoners who have the hope; this very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you.

A stronghold is a place of safety and defense from the enemy. It is a metaphor for God Himself, and this is an appeal for the people to repent and return to God. The implication is that prisoners will return to God only if they have hope. If they believe that their condition is hopeless, they will be too discouraged to believe that God could deliver them.

The prophecy then treats their captivity as theft, saying “I will restore double to you.” This is based on the law in Exodus 22:4,

⁴ If what he stole is actually found alive in his possession, whether an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double.

Every time God brought Israel into captivity during the time of the Judges, he says that He “sold them” into the hands of various nations. (See Judges 3:8; 4:2; 10:7, etc.) Hence, these were not cases of theft (kidnapping). However, when the people repented, then their captivity legally ended. This is the point in time when God remembers His covenant. But the nations did not recognize this court order, so when they continued to hold the people in captivity, it became a case of kidnapping.

Another way to view this is to think of a godly judge who has sold a thief into slavery if he lacks the means to pay double restitution. The judge then sentences the sinner to work for a specific number of years to pay his debt to sin. When he has concluded the years of his sentence, what would happen if the master refused to release the slave? That too would constitute theft, and so the slave master would then owe his slave double restitution.

Such slave masters, who steal the labor and assets of their captives, must “pay double” restitution. So in regard to Mystery Babylon we read in Revelation 18:6,

⁶ Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.

Beast nations are ruled by rebellious children of the flesh who do not know God well enough to comply with His laws. In their arrogance, they seek to hold on to their slaves for as long as they can, rather than comply with the great Judge of all nations. They do not respect the verdicts of the Judge but seek only their own advantage. This is why the nations are judged in the end, even though God originally authorized them to have dominion.

This shows the importance of understanding the law of God and knowing the laws of time which establish the length of judgment upon Israel and Judah. One may argue that those nations had never received the law in the way that Israel received it. God does indeed take such ignorance into consideration in His judgments. Those who did not know the will of God are less accountable than those who knew (Luke 12:47, 48). Hence, Jesus said that some will receive “many lashes” while others “will receive but few.”

God has sent representatives to all nations in the modern world, but most world leaders have failed to listen to them. Hence, in many cases their ignorance is willful. In such cases, ignorance does not fully excuse them for their actions.

In the end, God is a righteous Judge, and we, as believers, are responsible to agree with Him, whether we understand or not.