SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/9/2016 8:20 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Messiah will strengthen His People
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 10:2-12
Message of the verses: “2 For the teraphim speak iniquity, And the
diviners see lying visions And tell false dreams; They comfort in vain.
Therefore the people wander like sheep; They are afflicted, because there is no
shepherd. 3 "My anger is kindled against the shepherds, And I will punish
the male goats; For the LORD of hosts has visited His flock, the house of
Judah, And will make them like His majestic horse in battle. 4 “From them will
come the cornerstone, From them the tent peg, From them the bow of battle, From
them every ruler, all of them together.
5 "They will
be as mighty men, Treading down the enemy in the mire of the streets in battle;
And they will fight, for the LORD will be with them; And the riders on horses
will be put to shame. 6 "I will strengthen the house of Judah, And I will
save the house of Joseph, And I will bring them back, Because I have had
compassion on them; And they will be as though I had not rejected them, For I
am the LORD their God and I will answer them. 7 "Ephraim will be like a
mighty man, And their heart will be glad as if from wine; Indeed, their
children will see it and be glad, Their heart will rejoice in the LORD. 8 “I
will whistle for them to gather them together, For I have redeemed them; And
they will be as numerous as they were before. 9 “When I scatter them among the
peoples, They will remember Me in far countries, And they with their children
will live and come back. 10 “I will bring them back from the land of Egypt And
gather them from Assyria; And I will bring them into the land of Gilead and
Lebanon Until no room can be found for them. 11 "And they will pass
through the sea of distress And He will 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. 12 “And I will strengthen
them in the LORD, And in His name they will walk," declares the LORD.”
Studying
the book of John’s gospel, especially chapter ten has given me insight into
some of the things that are going on in this section of Zechariah, for
Zechariah speaks of Israel as God’s sheep like John also does of Jesus in John
10, and also John 8-10 speak of the terrible spiritual leaders that were
leading the people of Israel during the time when Jesus Christ was on planet
earth.
Dr.
Wiersbe’s commentary for this section is very short and the next sub-section
covers only one verse, but is a lot longer, something we will look at in our
next SD, but even though he only covers verse three at the beginning of the
commentary he will also cover the rest of the verses too.
So as we
look at these verses we see once again the prophet uses the image of the flock,
however the flock this time is led by awful, sinful leaders. I want to focus in on the word teraphim found in verse two and in all of the
other translations that I looked at the word idol is used. The following is what the Hebrew/English
dictionary says of this word: “a kind of
idol used in household shrine or worship.”
When we
look at Exodus 28:30 we read “"You shall put in the breastpiece of
judgment the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be over Aaron’s heart when he
goes in before the LORD; and Aaron shall carry the judgment of the sons of
Israel over his heart before the LORD continually.” Also we will look at Lev. 8:8 “He then placed
the breastpiece on him, and in the breastpiece he put the Urim and the
Thummim.” Next Ezra 2:63 “The governor
said to them that they should not eat from the most holy things until a priest
stood up with Urim and Thummim.” First
of all we see the words Urim and Thummim in these verses and they were
something that the priest wore to help determine what the Lord wanted the
people to do. The dictionary tells us
that both of these were stones that the priest would have with him to determine
the Lord’s will. The point in all of
this is that the spiritual leaders, and in this case the High Priest was there
to get direction from the Lord so that they could pass in onto the people,
however we can see that idols were being used instead which is what got the
Lord upset.
I have to
say that although I thought that this section was speaking of the Millennial
Kingdom, I am not as sure about that as I read these verses. I will continue to try and determine what
time period this section is talking about and put in onto a Spiritual Diary
when I find it.
8/9/2016 8:49 PM
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