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Covenant Structure in Zechariah 11

“The meek will eventually inherit the earth but the wicked will always have to buy it.”

Reading the book of Zechariah, like most Bible prophecies, is like tuning in to Season 3 of any good TV series without watching Seasons 1 and 2. Our problem today is not that we haven’t actually read the books of Moses (well, I hope we have) but that we haven’t been taught to read them into the prophets and the New Testament. We treat them like we’ve now switched channels, or shows, and the authors are starting with a blank canvas! However, the canvas isn’t blank. The prophets were God’s repo men, and their messages were all framed in the context of the Covenant contract. What amazes me is how inventive the prophets are (or the Spirit is) in coming up with something new and surprising using the patterns laid down in Moses.

Another strange habit we have is tracing Old Testament quotations in the Gospels and sticking a “Messianic prophecy” label on them without much attempt to understand what those verses meant in their original context. It used to bother me that nobody seemed interested in what they meant and why on earth a particular verse would come to the author’s mind in the first place in support of his case for Jesus. The answer is that God does not work in “snapshots” but in stories, through processes, and within architectures.

One of the more complex references is the mention of “the potter” in Zechariah 11 and Matthew 27:7. Not only is the reference intriguing but the original passage is just as confusing. Zechariah 11 is just plain weird to us, because we think like the viewer who has only just tuned in. If we take the structure into account, it may answer some burning questions.

Firstly, it seems to me that the ‘cycle’ in Zechariah 11 actually starts in v. 4, so vv. 1-3 belong to the previous section. Why do I say this? It concerns the destruction of the “cedars” of the Temple, as an ironic cloudy Tabernacles! (The other name for the feast is Booths, which is more literally “clouds.”) So those verses are the end of the previous cycle.

TRANSCENDENCE – Creation (Genesis)

So verses 4-5 begin the cycle. It begins with a new Initiation. The Lord asks Zechariah to “lead” the flock of God. He condemns the kings who have exalted themselves against the Law. So we have the Call, and also a reference to Divine Authority (the tablets in the Ark of the Covenant).

HIERARCHY – Division (Exodus)

After Initiation comes Delegation, or in sacrificial terms, the cutting of the sacrifice. In verse 6, the Lord pronounces a “Passover,” but one from which no one will escape. The “king” has become a king like Pharaoh, murdering God’s “firstborn”, Israel, so the Lord Himself will not intervene. However, He has commissioned Zechariah for an ironic “tour of duty”: he would lead the flock, not to green pastures, but to slaughter.

ETHICS 1 – Ascension (Leviticus/Priesthood) – Law given

In 7-9, Zechariah becomes the blameless “firstfruits” with two staffs, Favor (Church) and Union (State). Staffs are an extension of a man’s reach, and are “legal” tools. The left and right “hands” of the Tabernacle are the Table and the Lampstand, priesthood and kingdom. Once united in a Man they lead to prophecy, true legal witness.

Zechariah tends the sheep. He destroys the “three shepherds” in “one month”, which is possibly a reference to Numbers 18:15-16:

Everything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the Lord, shall be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn of man you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

The subject is the redemption of the firstborn, and if we notice that the price was specified in sanctuary silver, it will help us with what comes later on in the passage.

The word “destroyed” is the word used in Exodus 9:15, in the words Moses is to speak to Pharaoh before the seventh plague, because he has exalted himself:

For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.

The theme is “Levitical,” the tithe. Festally-speaking, it is the Feast of Firstfruits, pointing to the Ascension of Christ. But who are the three shepherds? When Jesus appears as the ‘firstfruits lamb” in Revelation 5, He is a union of priest (lamb – forming), king (seven eyes – filling) and prophet (seven horns – future), or in architectural terms, a combination of the three pieces of furniture in the Holy Place. So it would seem the “triune office” is in Zechariah’s cross hairs. Many commentators believe these shepherds are those rulers upon whom Christ pronounced Covenantal “woes.” Instead of being advocates for the people, they were legal accusers, just like their true father, Satan. They had exalted themselves as kings and they would be thrown down. The difference was that Satan knew he only had a short time. From Barnes’ notes:

And I cut off three shepherds in one month – Jerome: “I have read in some one’s commentary, that the shepherds, cut off in the indignation of the Lord, are to be understood of priests and false prophets and kings of the Jews, who, after the passion of Christ, were all cut off in one time, of whom Jeremiah speaketh, “The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew Me not; the pastors also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things which do not profit” Jeremiah 2:8, and again, “As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests and their prophets” Jeremiah 2:26; and “they said, Come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet” Jeremiah 18:18.

Based on what follows in the text, this “disempowerment” refers to Jesus’ ministry to the Jews. In each case He was the “firstborn” son who received the Father’s blessing: 1) circumcised as a Priestly Lamb and baptized as a Priest; 2) anointed as a Shepherd King after His baptism and received as the Son of David in Jerusalem; 3) commissioned as Divine Prophet at His transfiguration (just prior to the triumphal entry, which explains the “Hear ye Him” in Matthew 17:5) and authorized to speak the Father’s words to the rulers of the city. At each stage, His qualification disqualified the leaders of Israel, just as David’s anointing disqualified Saul.

However, the three stages of qualification would be “fractally” replicated in Israel. The process of destruction here is Ethical, Social, Physical, a reverse of Genesis 1-3.

ETHICS 2 – Testing (Numbers/Kingdom) – Law Opened

At the centre of the cycle (vv. 10-11), Israel’s Covenantal Favor is broken. The kingdom comes and her priesthood is no longer effectual. The priesthood and kingdom (forming and filling), are like the two bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple.: they will be broken up. We saw the same action when Moses broke the first set of stone tablets. What is interesting is that these are not Mosaic tablets but Davidic staffs. The Word of the Lord is vindicated among the “peoples,” in this case, the tribes of Israel. The feast here is Pentecost, when many Jews believed. Revelation presents them as saints “sealed and numbered” (only Jews are numbered, and one of the themes here is the book of Numbers). The Covenant has been de-formed, but Israel would be given a chance to “fill up” her sins or her sufferings before the future age arrived..

ETHICS 3 – Maturity (Deuteronomy/Prophethood) – Law Received

This next stage corresponds to the feast of Trumpets, where Israel’s warriors are mustered and “redeemed.” Trumpets are silver. They summon Israel and they warn God’s enemies. It was at this point in Genesis 23 that Abraham purchased a cave and field from Ephron with “bridal” silver, and also at this point in Joshua 7 where Achan revealed his plunder, including silver, was hidden “in the earth” under his tent. Again, something to take note of for later.

The redemption price comes from Exodus 21:32. It is the price for a murdered bull or slave, which actually ties Zechariah’s service to the Bronze Altar (binding) rather than the prophetic Incense Altar (loosing). Remember, these two altars correspond chiastically in the pattern, one being the earthly country (bloody Adam) and the other the heavenly country (fragrant Eve). Silver has to do with loosing, with redemption. It is bridal, and military. It is also the plunder for Covenant obedience, and the legal witness (as fragrant, silvery smoke) that the Law has been satisfied.

The money is thrown into the Lord’s House, however, it is designated “to the potter.” Rather than ascending to heaven, it will be returned to the earth, hidden in the clay under Achan’s “Tabernacle.” The JFB commentary mentions that the Temple employed its own potter, and any “unclean” money went to pay him. It was a “talent” hidden in the ground. The idea is that the Covenant Head is not multiplied as a Body, bearing fruit, as desired by God. The potter worked in the Valley of Hinnom, where Jeremiah threatened the rulers of Judah by shattering pots (Jeremiah 19). This valley was where child sacrifices took place, and God judged Israel for this crime by filling it with their bodies. We see the same thing in the first century, beginning with Herod the Great’s slaughter of the innocents and ending with the Roman siege. The valley of the potter came to be known as Gehenna, a rubbish tip filled with fire and maggots.

The house of God and “clay” are both Ascension symbols concerning the firstfruits. Adam is lifted from the miry clay and made to stand upright. So perhaps the idea is that the “ascended” bridal Land is to be covered in sacrificial blood. The prophet himself has been redeemed and he has purchased a burial cave for the Bride. She will rest in the bosom of Abraham until his heavenly country is a place “prepared” by Jesus.

This section ends with a familiar “Trumpets” symbol of the brothers. Judah (the head) and Israel (the body) are divided. The reference is to the “new Covenant” made with these two houses, as predicted in Jeremiah 31 (known by some as the “Restoration Covenant”). It takes us from the beginning of Zechariah to the first century. Here they are not united but separated. There would be no real outcome in history in the first century. The point is that this “tribal” unity would be replaced by a greater unity, the one between Jew and Gentile, as Hebrews 8 explains.

“In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13)

This brings us to the end of the triune “Ethics” section of the prophecy. At Ascension, the prophet united priesthood and kingdom, enabling him to speak as a prophet (Adam was to be the third tree in the Garden, whose fruit was righteousness, representing God as His Word). At Testing (Pentecost), the face of God stopped shining upon Israel-according-to-the-flesh. Maturity is about a “many” which are united with one mind. Here, the old Feast of Trumpets was annulled forever through the legal witness of the apostles, the testimony of Jesus, who like Joseph was sold by his brothers to the Gentiles. The Trumpets warned of the old walls coming down.

SANCTIONS – Conquest (Joshua/The Triune Man)

Now we come to the Day of Coverings, when the High Priest approached God for the Priesthood and the People, the head and the body. Atonement is about healing the Land, but God was raising up a shepherd who would not heal but devour. At this point in Jesus’ pattern, the High Priest exalted himself against the Son of God, the veil was torn, and a Roman soldier testified to Him. In the larger apostolic cycle, the Temple was completed (in defiance of Jesus’ words) and then destroyed only a few years later by armies of Roman soldiers. But it seems that the prophet is still speaking hear of the ministry of Jesus.

SUCCESSION – Glorification (Judges: Israel serves the Gentiles)

The cycle has covered de-forming and de-filling (Days 1-6) and now moves to de-future! The worthless king will be cut off. The right side of the Adam/Tabernacle is the kingly side. The sword-arm and the eye of judgment will be taken away. Israel will no longer have her own king sitting at court. Because she would not be a priest to the nations, she will serve a Gentile Solomon, the emperor (an ironic Booths). The initial fulfillment of this was the death of Herod on his throne, sitting in the Temple of God. The Lord turned him into a human Gehenna, filled with worms.

Jesus or Judas?

This brings us to an interesting aspect of the prophecy. Is the prophet predicting the actions of Jesus or Judas? Zechariah was from the tribe of Judah, and Judah would be divided like the two goats on the Day of Atonement. Judas (Judah) was himself a sign of what was coming upon all Judah. The Last Supper follows the order of Israel’s annual festal calendar, with Judas being expelled as the second goat, filled with the devil and carrying the sins of the nation to destruction. [1] Jesus and Judas are the positive and negative coordinates of the prophet’s “formula.”

Whose purchase?

Matthew 27 says that the chief priests and elders bought the potter’s field with Judas’ silver, as a place to bury Gentiles, the unclean.  Acts 1 implies that it was Judas’ purchase, but the theme that unites these two statements is Covenantal. Abraham purchased a parcel of the Land but his children would later inherit it as a gift. The meek eventually inherit the earth but the wicked will always have to buy it. [2]

The Valley of Hinnom

The Jews were no longer merely murdering their sons in a horrific reenactment of Passover, they were once again giving them to foreign armies in a horrific reenactment of the fall of Jericho. After Pentecost, the children they were killing were the children of God, that is, the regenerate. [3] The idea is that they were not honoring the firstfruits and redeeming the firstborn at all but slaughtering them and keeping the money, just like our own culture is today. God would cut them off for their theft of a tongue of gold (the false prophet, Adam) [4], a robe from Babylon (the deceived harlot, Eve), and the redemption silver (the beast, the offspring of the shining Serpent), them and their children, like the family of Achan.

Why Silver?

Besides the obvious references, silver is an Old Testament type. It is bridal. Under Solomon, the great bridegroom, Jerusalem was filled not only with gold but silver.

“And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone…” (1 Kings 10:27)

The silver of Abraham was a downpayment on a heavenly country, the silvery smoke on the Incense Altar of resurrection. The silver of Achan and Judas fell like ashes through the grate in the Bronze Altar, into the earth like the sons of Korah, the false priests whose incense was rejected. Like Adam, like Judas, like Judah, an earthly altar without Pentecostal fire will only ever be a place of death, a field of blood. It always splits open in the end and returns to the dust (1 Kings 13:1-5). [5]

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[1] See One Taken, One Left Behind and Fool’s Gold.
[2] James Jordan sees the fulfillment of the Jubilee in the conquest of the world by the Gospel. All the Land is returning to its original owner, and His brothers.
[3] See Provoking the Dragon.
[4] See A Tongue of Gold.
[5] See Bridal Men for how Esau and Jacob correspond to the two altars.

An excerpt from Bible Matrix III:

Just as Esau was the line of Cain rolled into one, so Jacob was a true son of God. In fact, being blameless as Noah was, the Lord granted him a vision of the true Gate of God, a tower reaching to heaven.

In Bible Matrix, we mentioned the significance of Jacob’s “ziggurat” vision as it relates to the mountain of God. [1] Jacob was laid out on the ground like Adam. His slumber brings a “Bridal” vision.

He was also a priestly Tabernacle in the wilderness. Jacob’s head rested upon a horizontal (dead) stone. He “ascended” and received a vision of the house he would build. The pillar he erected was a model of what he had seen, a Head lifted up and given a triune Body, anointed as a “living” stone.

Prostration and uprightness are key factors here. The “elevation” occurs firstly in Jacob’s head, then in his body. On either side of this (chiastically), Jacob chooses one of the stones (Delegation) and then sets it up (Vindication). [2]

The structure of events also underlines that Israel’s kinghood would be founded upon the priestly obedience of the faithful son. Unlike Cain, Jacob made God his refuge, so God would make Jacob a tent, a household and a city, which we see prefigured in the life of Joseph.

(Genesis 28:10-22)

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[1] Bible Matrix, p. 101. For a full explanation of the significance of the architecture of Jacob’s dream, see James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes, pp. 87-89.
[2] This footnote won’t be in the book, but even here there is evidence for credobaptism. The New Testament uses an identical structure to contrast circumcision with baptism. Baptism is only for the upright, the blameless in Christ, those who have been invested with Jesus’ triune office as His robed Body. There is also support here for the “baptistic” mode of baptism: prostration and then uprightness. Credobaptism is built into the warp and woof of the Bible, in every passage, at every level.

“Jacob didn’t steal the future. He rescued it from a Man who put food first and whose eyes were not yet opened.”

James Jordan has done the Church a great service by rehabilitating the reputations of Noah the drunk, Abraham the liar, Jacob the swindler and Moses the murderer. He has shown us that the context of these so-called sins and crimes mean that they are nothing of the sort. [1] By this, I don’t mean “cultural context” but Covenant context. The reason these great men of God (and their wonderful women) get such a bad rap is because their stories are treated like a bunch of separate things that occurred, from which we must draw obvious and disconnected morals, rather than a single narrative begun in Genesis 1.

Matthew Mason recently wrote about Jacob’s being, not a quiet man, but a blameless man. [2] This puts him in the company of Noah, Abraham, Job, and other “sacrificial” men, men to whom God entrusted the future of His Covenant. The failure by translators to recognize the ongoing theme of blamelessness has meant that Jacob is seen as sneaky and perhaps a little effeminate. He is a mother’s boy who gets his way through deceit. In fact, Jacob was a man who outsmarted the serpent at every turn with the wisdom of God. He was “wise as a serpent” but “harmless as a dove.” Esau, who rolled the sins of Adam (gave up his birthright for food), Cain (desired to murder his priestly brother) and the sons of Seth (married idolatrous women) into one single life, got his animals around the wrong way. Worse, his blind father was willing to hand the future of the Covenant, and therefore the world, over to this entirely “natural” man.

In the account of Jacob and Esau, there’s also a very strong “architectural” undercurrent as well, and it has to do with the Tabernacle. Esau is the Red Man outside the tent (the bloody Bronze Altar, symbolizing the Land). Esau smells like the field. He is of the earth, earthy. He is a hunter, a man of blood (“Cain” means “spear”), and cares nothing for the future. Jacob listens to his mother, who isn’t a deceived Eve. She understands that Isaac’s blindness is more than simply natural. Jacob is the Bridal Man inside the tent, the Incense Altar. Like Adam, he is clothed in animal skin to “deceive the curse.” It is a miniature Day of Atonement, goats and all, and the blessing of Isaac is not squandered as it would have been. Like Adam, Jacob was a man with the Bride inside.

The Old Testament gives us quite a few “bridal” men, that is, Adams who have an Eve inside ready for God to construct in history. David is one (music is bridal). I believe Jacob is another. He is the one who ascends as a Covenant sacrifice. His serpentine wisdom is also “bridal,” an eye for eye judgment upon the various serpents he encounters as he is qualified by God. Both brothers ended up with two wives (like Lamech) but only one brother concerned himself with God. Jacob didn’t steal the future. He rescued it from a Man who put food first and whose eyes were not yet opened.

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[1] Jordan’s Primeval Saints is a good place to start.
[2] Matthew Mason, Jacob was a ___________ Man.

“What is the meaning of ”one is taken and the other left’? This is commonly thought to refer to the rapture — one taken up into heaven, and the other left on earth to kick himself for not praying the sinner’s prayer when he had a chance. On the bright side, there will be a lot of free, unmanned cars available” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 104).

Matthew 24 is a prediction of the Covenant curses falling upon Judah for the last time. One being taken and the other left has to do with displacement. Titus enslaved the best Jews and took them in ships to Egypt.

“And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.” (Deuteronomy 28:68)

It’s one thing to get the historical fulfilment correct, but there’s a whole lot more going on here. In His speech, as the fulfilment of Israel, Jesus is working through the Bible Matrix, a combination of the Creation week, the weekly and annual Feasts, and the process of Dominion. This means that He is using examples of all the previous historical Covenant structures to make His point. The Covenant cycle has snowballed through history and picked up a lot of events on its way.

At this point, He’s using Atonement symbols (Covenant Sanctions). So (if you have a copy of Bible Matrix) you can see how He’s linking many previous Sanctions events together to describe the oncoming storm. [1] Visually, it looks like this:

Atonement concerns the distribution of the Covenant blessing and the Covenant curse. It is a two-edged sword, vengeance and redemption, two goats. Jesus’ words looked forward, but they also looked backwards in time. Based on that, what can we see beyond the (now) historical fulfilment?

Who were the first two men working in the field? One slew the other, but only the slain one was left behind. The other was exiled as the second goat. The blood of Abel would finally be avenged — and on that generation.

Then we have two women grinding at the mill. This is often a euphemism for sex (as is the threshingfloor – Pentecost. At the first Pentecost, Israel committed Covenant harlotry.). The question is, who is the true Bride? Lamech failed to decide. Jesus, like Solomon, wasn’t going to fail to pick the true mother.

We have a choosing of the true Adam (working the Land) and a choosing of the true Eve (the childbearer), head and body, the two approaches of the High Priest on the Day of Coverings. God was coming to judged the Temple, and, as in Eden, there was nowhere to hide.

It’s architectural, too. Adam is outside the house, Eve is inside. All these types are wrapped up in Jacob and Esau. Esau took two wives (“daughters of men”) and he worked outside. Jacob, who did not despise the Covenant, was inside the tent: Esau the bloody bronze altar and Jacob the fragrant golden altar, who had to wear goat skin to smell like… the field.

Matthew 24 is about the end of Herodian, that is, Idumean (Edomite), worship. It was the end of Cain, the end of Lamech, and the end of Esau. Jesus would return as the True Husband to single out the true mother and the true brothers.

Structure and architecture aren’t everything. But for Moses, the prophets, Jesus, the apostles, and their audiences, they were the first thing to be aware of not only when composing a text but when hearing a text. Sadly, often it’s the last thing we look at, so we have trouble figuring out what room we’re in and whether something is a bed or a table.

It’s the reason many speeches are so long. The prophet is building a house. Here, Jesus is tearing it down.

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[1] Another example discussed elsewhere on here is Jesus’ reference to vultures gathering. It is an ironic take on the Feast of Booths (aka Ingathering). Because Israel would not put food on the table for the nations, she would be the food on the table. The Gentiles would be unclean scavengers instead of footwashed guests.)

“Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’” (Matthew 18:21-22)

Genesis 4 seems to contain two “feast” cycles. Near the end of the first, at “Atonement”, the Lord set a mark upon Cain to protect him from vengeance. As on the Day of Covering after Adam’s sin in Eden, the full weight of the law was withheld. Cain complained that his “liability” was greater than he could bear. Cain was covered but he still went from the presence of the Lord, as the goat which carried the sins into the wilderness. It seems Cain despised mercy.

Just as the Lord and the Land were two witnesses against his crime, he now fled from the face of the Lord and the face of the Land. Only the High Priest could face God, standing in the Veil, the firmament between heaven and earth. Abel was the true facebread, the authorised priest. [1]

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The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.

See also Joseph as Torn Veil.

The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the [Land] came to the help of the woman, and the [Land] opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. (Revelation 12:15-17)

Satan mimicked the expanding gospel dominion with counterfeits at every step. Here, not only did he forge the water chariots of the true Temple (a false baptism), he would bring Noahic “rest” to the Land by destroying God’s mighty men. He would bring about his own twisted “new earth” by deluging the church with bogus teaching.

His plan backfired. “The Land” swallowed the false worship, alluding to Korah’s rebellion. These Jews had heard the gospel but would not obey it. They could not stomach an undefiled religion that stood against oppression (James 1:27). Israel was specifically accountable before God in a way that other nations were not: for her treatment of the poor (Exodus 22:21-24). This was the major charge Amos had brought against a previous Israel, and the reason for the death of that nation. 

Like the saints, the unbelievers had drunk the pure water of Christ (2 Peter 1:4), but in their lusts their faith was choked by thorns and thistles. The true woman passed the jealous inspection by eating the scroll and becoming fruitful. However, to the false woman the riches of Christ became a cup of destruction (Numbers 5). Instead of living waters flowing from her belly (John 7:38), she vomited up the kingdom and her subsequent barrenness exposed her adultery.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.  (Hebrews 6:4-8)

The rich desired a different cup—a glory they could see. Like Esau, they gobbled down fool’s gold—false glory—and sold their eternal inheritance—resurrection “mansions”—for houses and lands. They “ascended” to receive Satan’s Oral Law scroll from Herod’s throne for a religion they could stomach, and sent out Wormwood chariots (Jeremiah 23:15). But they would not be able to keep down this false gospel, the gold and silver for which they sold the Son of God. Like Judas, their bowels would be torn open for buying land with the rewards of iniquity (Acts 1:18). In AD70, Jews—dead or alive—were cut open and searched by Syrians and Romans scavenging for the gold that many had swallowed before attempting to escape the siege.1

…Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue, though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth, yet his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him. He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds. He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment. For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build.  (Job 20:12-19)

This was a charge from Zophar, who accused Job of being a self-exalting hypocrite, one who in his head arrogantly ascended “to the clouds” in defiance of death, but who would perish like his own dung (Job 20:1-11). Like the boys from Bethel, these Jews ridiculed the ascension of Christ and scoffed at God’s prophets, the men who reminded them of Jesus’ words concerning the real flood that was coming to bring a real new Land with true peace (Daniel 9:26; Luke 17:26-27).

For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.  (1 Thessalonians 5:3)

Like Adam, they lost both the flowing “honey and curds” kingdom and the riches they had sold Him for.

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See Josephus, The Jewish War, 5:13:4. Available for download from www.ccel.org

De-Ascension – the Temple judged

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, 

After the ascension of Christ, Satan was expelled from his “ministry” before God as the Accuser of man. Like the evil twin of the blazing torch that measured Abram’s sacrifices, he was then used by God to bring an end to the Covenant.

and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

These first three trumpets concerned the Land (Judah), the Sea (the world empire) and the springs of water (the Temple). This same order began the song of ascension, Psalm 24:

“The [Land] is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”

These three levels describe the garden of Eden as it was recreated in the Restoration. The firmament above the empire extended over the Land of Israel and the Sea of the nations. Springs of water came up from under the Land (Genesis 2:6) to support the life of the Temple. From there, a single river flowed from the Laver towards the east, towards Babylon. Like Solomon in his marriages, Judah began imitating the daughters of men instead of converting them by her witness. The doctrines of the empire were flowing upstream into the Temple. But with the coming of Christianity, the inadvertent sin became “high-handed”

and God gave them up to their demonic teachings (Mark 7:7; Titus 1:14). James Jordan writes:

“The bitter waters are the poisonous doctrine that flows from the corrupted Temple, in contrast to the laver of cleansing water that God had put there. Here also we find the first of the seven names of Satan in Revelation: Wormwood, a poisonous plant.”1

The reference to wormwood is high calibre and loaded. It takes us back again to the curses upon idolaters in Deuteronomy 29 (v. 18). It also brings the Edomite (Esau) Herods into the picture as the visible cause of the bitterness through their “marriages” with the daughters of men—Hellenistic Rome (Genesis 26:35)2. In Exodus 1, Pharaoh made the Hebrews’ lives bitter with hard bondage. In the wilderness, the Israelites faced death because the waters were bitter (Marah). In Ruth 1, Naomi wanted to be called Mara (bitter) because the Lord had made her barren. There are others, but the most significant might be Numbers 5. The priest administered “the bitter water that brings a curse” to the woman suspected of adultery.

Joseph’s Mara (Mary) was innocent, but Herod’s harlot was guilty.

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1  James B. Jordan, The Vindication of Jesus Christ, p. 49-50.
2  Literally translated, Esau’s wives were “bitterness of spirit” to Isaac and Rebekah.

In 587 BC, the Jews saw the city of Jerusalem fall to the Babylonians and the Temple, built by Solomon nearly 400 years before, destroyed. The experience of this devastating judgment was made all the more bitter because the Edomites, their brothers and next-door neighbours, not only did not come to the aid of the Jews but, far worse, rejoiced in their humiliation, mocked their pain, looted their goods, and handed over their survivors to the Babylonians. The book of Obadiah is a prophecy, probably given shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, which tells of the judgment of Edom and the restoration of God’s people…

Interpretation

The book of Obadiah does not mention the sins of Judah or the destruction of the Temple – it is emphatically not a “sanctuary” book about the relationship with the Father. Similarly, no mention is made of the Babylonians or of what to do in exile – Obadiah is not a “world” book about the relationship with the outsider. Rather, the book of Obadiah is all about the Edomites – about their pride and self-reliance and malice. This is a “land” book about relationship with the “brother”. But who is this “brother” (see vv.10, 12)? The whole book is spoken to or about Edom. But who is Edom?

Edom was the nation which grew from Esau. The story of the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, the younger of whom, Jacob, was destined by God to rule the elder, is well-known, along with the incidents when Esau sold his birthright to Jacob and Jacob deceived his father Isaac into giving him, rather than Esau, the blessing due to the firstborn. Relations between the two nations which grew from Jacob, later known as Israel, and Esau (father of the Edomites) were rarely any better.

Application

The book of Obadiah is about the particular wickedness of those who have been privileged by their closeness to the people of God and who should have known better than to persecute those people. The post-Christian media in the West. The Protestant-persecuting Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox church in some countries. Muslims who persecute Christians. All of these have enjoyed the privilege of being related to the church of Jesus Christ and thus their malice towards the church is all the more reprehensible.

Excerpts from Opening Up Obadiah by David P. Field
Available for download here.