I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze. – Zechariah 6:1

 Today's Scripture Reading (August 27, 2020): Zechariah 6

Mount Zion. Just the name fills readers acquainted with the biblical record with emotion, although the name has not always meant the same thing. Sometimes, the Bible uses Zion to indicate the whole nation of Israel. At other times, it is used to refer to a particular mountain – or one of three mountains. The first reference to Mount Zion is in reference to the fortified city of Jebus, which was built on the lower part of Jerusalem's Eastern Hill. It was this area that would eventually be referred to as the City of David. But when Solomon built his Temple on the upper portion of the Eastern Hill, the name Mount Zion migrated to the place where the Temple had been constructed. For the next thousand years, it was this home of Solomon's Temple that was called Mount Zion. But then the mountain, or at least the name, moved again. Today, the hill that biblical writers knew of as Mount Zion is simply known as Temple Mount. Mount Zion has shifted one more time, this time to the more dominant Western Hill, located just outside the Western Wall of the old city of Jerusalem. The reason for the shift was that the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the first century C.E. felt that the dominant Western Hill was more worthy of the name Zion than the lower Eastern Hill, especially after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. And on the Western Hill, the name Mount Zion has stuck.

Zechariah looks up and sees four chariots emerging from between two mountains – mountains he says are "of bronze." The idea that the mountains are bronze indicates that strength and judgment are present in the mountains. And most scholars agree that the mountains are the Mount of Olives, located just to the east of the old city of Jerusalem, and today's Mount Zion, or the Western Hill, located just to the west of the old city.

But Zechariah wouldn't likely have recognized the Western Hill as Mount Zion. In the mind of Zechariah, the four chariots were emerging, not from between Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives, but out of Mount Zion itself, which was located between the two mountains of bronze – the Mount of Olives and the dominant Western Hill. On Mount Zion, Zerubbabel was going to build his Temple. On that mountain, God would rule once again over Israel and the earth. Not only on the two mountains of bronze but on the mountain that existed between them, the world would recognize the strength and judgment that flows from the throne of God, flowing out of Mount Zion.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Zechariah 7