Zechariah2chapter 2

Zechariah 2:1-5

with a measuring line in his hand: The third vision shows a man setting out to measure Jerusalem's breadth and length, the ordinary work of a city planner fixing its bounds, but the angel overrules the survey before it finishes: run, tell this young man, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, for the multitude of men and cattle therein, a city too full of returning life to be walled in the old way. The Lord supplies what the missing wall would have supplied, I will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her, defense and presence in one promise. The bench reads the fire-wall as protection outward and the glory as the Shekinah inward, a city measured not by masonry but by whom it holds.

Zechariah 2:6-9

flee from the land of the north: The vision breaks into a direct summons: come forth, and flee from the land of the north, Babylon named the north because her armies came that way though the city itself lay east, a call to exiles still lingering there after the first return had already gone up. The tenderness of the appeal turns on one clause, he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye, covenant affection stated in the most physical figure available, and it is followed by judgment on the nations that plundered Zion, they shall be a spoil to their servants. The refrain ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me repeats at verse 9 and again at verse 11, authenticating the messenger's own commission, and the older writers note the phrase after the glory hath he sent me as language in which the sent one speaks as one with the Lord who sends him, a reading named rather than pressed to a verdict.

Zechariah 2:10-13

The chapter turns from summons to song: sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, an indwelling the bench applies at more than one horizon, the second temple's rebuilding, the incarnation, and a fuller future dwelling, the readings named without a house verdict fixing the promise to one alone. Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people joins the Gentiles to the covenant without displacing Judah, whom the same verses still call the Lord's portion in the holy land, chosen again rather than set aside. The chapter closes on hushed awe, be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation, all creation quieted before an act of God too large for comment.