Zechariah3chapter 3

Zechariah 3:1-5

Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord: The fourth vision moves from open country to courtroom: Joshua the high priest stands before the angel of the Lord, and Satan, the accuser, stands at his right hand to resist him, the nation's own priestly representative arraigned in filthy garments, the defilement of exile carried on the man who should stand cleanest. The Lord's rebuke rests on two grounds rather than on Joshua's own merit, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, sovereign election, and is not this a brand plucked out of the fire, an image the bench traces to Amos 4:11, a people nearly consumed yet snatched back. The filthy garments are stripped, the iniquity declared passed away, and a change of raiment given along with a fair mitre set on his head, full reinstatement to office rather than a private pardon.

Zechariah 3:6-7

The reinstatement carries a charge rather than standing alone: if thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts. Restored office is conditioned office, priestly authority renewed on the same terms it was ever held on. The last clause promises Joshua a place to walk among these that stand by, meaning the angelic attendants of the vision itself, a remarkable grant of access the bench reads variously, some weighing it as the high priest's own reward, others hearing in it the pattern later given to every believer through the greater priest the vision anticipates.

Zechariah 3:8-10

Joshua and his fellow priests are named men wondered at, living signs pointing past themselves to my servant the BRANCH, the title shared with Isaiah 4:2 and Jeremiah 23:5 and here joined to the priestly scene, the royal and priestly branch-lines converging in one figure the way Zechariah later joins them outright at 6:11-13 when a priest is crowned. The stone laid before Joshua, engraved with seven eyes, draws the readings the bench names, a foundation stone for the rebuilt temple, a jewel of the priestly breastplate, or the messianic stone of Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22, and upon it the Lord removes the iniquity of that land in one day, which the older writers read as the single, sufficient day of the cross. The chapter's last picture, every man calling his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree, is the peace-formula of 1 Kings 4:25 and Micah 4:4, the messianic age pictured in its most domestic terms.