Today’s Scripture Reading (June 17,
2014): Zechariah 2
One of the
most famous battles in history is the Battle of Marathon. The battle took place
in 490 B.C.E. It was the beginning of the first Persian invasion attempt of
Greece. Persia arrived in ships at coast near the city of Athens. The Persian
army had superior numbers and to the Athenians it must have looked like the
future was bleak. Legend has it that as soon as the ships were spotted, a
runner was dispatched from Athens to run to Sparta to tell the Spartans of the
attack and seek their assistance in the battle. While Sparta was a rival city,
the Spartans had helped Athens before, and now their futures seemed to be
together. The runner, a man named Pheidippides, made the 140 mile run in two
days. As it turned out, the help wasn’t needed. Athens repelled the Persians in
a decisive victory. But the story illustrates the ancient practice of running
news and requests from place to place.
In a
conversation two angels are having with each other, the one angel tells the
other to run in order to deliver a message to a certain young man. The identity
of the young man has caused a lot of speculation, but the only interpretation
that makes any sense is that the young man is Zechariah himself. And the angel’s
instruction to run indicates that the news was important – this was a message
that Zechariah had to understand.
But the news
itself was figurative in nature. While the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed
twice, the walls around the city came down for only a short period of time, and
it only happened once. And by the time of Zechariah’s prophecy, if the walls
had not already been rebuilt, the process was close to being finished. But it
is also important to notice that the reason the city would be without walls is
that the city would have outgrown the walls – not because the walls themselves
had been destroyed.
The other
part of the prophecy concerns the inhabitants of the city. Zechariah says that
the city is filled with men and animals, or actually quite literally men and
cattle. And while it is possible that Zechariah meant exactly what he said, it
is also possible that his mention of cattle is really an indication of the
Gentiles present in the city – Gentiles were likened to cattle in the prophetic
books.
So Zechariah’s
prophecy would seem to be that this city which had just finished its walls,
would one day once again be a city without walls, because in that day the city
would have become a great multicultural center – filled with both Jews and Gentiles.
And the
prophecy is an important one, because in that day, with that multicultural group
of people, God would take the place of the walls and become the protector of the
city.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:
Zechariah 3
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