The View from God’s Mountain: Imaginative Notes on Zechariah 2:1-5

1 "And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line¹ in his hand!

2 Then I said, “Where are you going?” And he said to me, “To measure² Jerusalem, to see³ what is its width and what is its length.”⁴

3 And behold, the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him

4 and said to him, “Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages⁵ without walls,⁶ because of the multitude of people and livestock⁷ in it.

5 And I will be to her a wall of fire all around,⁸ declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst.”⁹

History and Grammar

Zechariah, began his visionary prophecies "on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius" (Zech. 1:7). He prophesied to the returned remnant of Israel as they stood among the ruins of Jerusalem. Surrounded by the unsmoldering long-ago ruination of the righteous judgment of God, the people found little encouragement to rebuild the temple or the city. And yet, in the midst of this discouragement, God gave Zechariah a vision. A vision the people of God would know all too well in the hopes of their fathers: a vision of Ezekiel's sacred and holy temple-city.

A young man with a measuring line goes forth to measure Jerusalem, but before he begins, the angel of God (no doubt a pre-incarnate literary depiction of Christ who later calls himself Yahweh in verse 5) puts a stop to the young man's endeavor. But why? Because, just as with their eyes they see a city with no walls, so with faith the people of God are called to see a New City with no walls but the sanctifying protection of God Himself. This New City will be unmeasurable, with width and length brimming with people and livestock. To look to this city—the holy city of Zion—in faith is the call of verses 6-7, and the intention of the Divine as He interprets the works of His redemption and prophetic word in times before.

But what will make this city so great? What will be the grandiose radiance drawing forth all the nations and multitudes and the faith of the saints of Israel? The Glory of God in her midst! Not one pious Israelite hearing these words would think of anything but the former temple and its unmoved paradigmatic genesis throughout all of time: the Garden of Eden (Ezek. 28:13-19). Here, the pre-incarnate Christ, calls the people of God, standing despondent among the ruble of that once great city of Zion—he calls them to faith in the serpent-crushing Abrahamic promise of the One to come, who will bring His people back to the garden-presence of God (Gen. 12:1-3). This is the faith of the people of God throughout the ages: faith in Emmanuel, God with us.

Redemptive-Historical Notes

¹ Zechariah is exegeting Ezekiel  40-48 throughout 2:1-13 (see Ezek. 40:3 for the measuring line). Both instances reference God's measuring with a line as an act in creation (see Job 38:5 and Isa. 40:12), serving to prophecy, through an imaginative inner-Biblical exegesis, the New Creation realities of the New Covenant in Jer. 31:39 and seen in Rev. 11:1.

² This Hebrew word (לָמֹד֙ lā-mōḏ) is used 35 times throughout Ezekiel's vision of the New Creation Temple (Ezek. 40-48).

³ Meredith Kline: "As expressed in Zech. 2:2, the purpose of the measurer was 'to see' ([hebrew] ra'ah) its breadth and length. This might suggest that he was to ascertain the dimensions of a city already in existence (in the visionary world). If so, the situation would be analogous to that in the creation narrative. There, a sevenfold refrain states that God 'saw (ra'ah) that it was good.'" Here again, we see a second reference to creation in this visionary account (see [1] above), depicting God as the Maker of the New Creation (2 Cor. 5:17).

⁴ "Width" and "Length" are often used together in measuring the wilderness tabernacle (Exod. 25:17), Solomon's temple and palace (1 Kings 6:2), and Ezekiel's temple and city (Ezek. 40:5). Here we see reference to God's covenant presence with Israel in the wilderness, in Jerusalem, and in the future temple-city of the New Creation.A presence now in Christ (Matt 1:23; 1 Cor. 3:16).

⁵ Beginning here we see the language of great reversal that remains so central to Zechariah's system of prophecy and visionary eschatology: these unwalled "villages" reflect Ezekiel's prophecy of God's just judgement against Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38) as the eschatological enemy of God's people (cf. Rev. 16:14-6, 20:7-10) who boastfully proclaimed he would "go up against the land of unwalled villages," and would "fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates" (Ezek. 38:11). See also a possible connection to Ester 9:19 and the exilic motif of reversal.

⁶ This promise of a wall-less Jerusalem, given intent and explanation in verse 11, finds its beginning in Noah's blessings upon Shem and Japheth (Gen. 9:25-27) as Shem's decedents (Abram) would take in those of Japheth (the others/Gentiles). This blessing comes to covenant promise, bringing about new-creation re-naming, in Gen. 22:17-18 (cf. Gen. 17:5, 16). A blessed covenant promise of eschatologico-messianic import as Isaiah in 54:2-3 and 60:11-14 shows; a blessing Zechariah himself foretells in verse 11 of this same chapter as well as 14:20-21; a foretelling fulfilled in Christ (see Acts 14:27, 1 Cor. 16:9, and Rev. 21:24-25) as the nations come to God in covenant loyalty and holiness through His sovereign calling.

⁷ See Ezek. 36:10-11; Isa. 49:19; Jer. 31:27. A great eschatological multitude of people (literally, ’ā-ḏām in Hebrew) as foreshadowed in Zechariah 14.

⁸ Once again, we see Zechariah's motif of eschatological reversal. This reversal motif is exactly what helps us to see his inner-Biblical exegesis as one of Christ-centered exposition of Ezekiel as well as Jeremiah's literary work, both of which find origin in the creation narrative of Genesis. Here, God Himself promises to be a wall of fire "all around" (sā·ḇîḇ in Hebrew) Jerusalem (cf. Psalm 125:2).  Jerusalem remained without walls due to God's burning with fire "all around" (sā·ḇîḇ) the city in judgement (Lam. 2:3-8); a fire that sanctified in judgement just as the flaming sword did for Adam (Gen. 3:24; cf. note [7] on ’ā-ḏām). This sanctifying fire-wall of the New Jerusalem is an eschatological reversal of the fiery garden-judgement of Adam that served as protological paradigm of the exilic judgement of Israel seen in Jeremiah and Lamentations, and foreshadowed the judgment of Christ's cross as well as the final judgement of evil in the Eschaton.

⁹ This sanctifying fire-wall is the glory of God in the midst of His people. Elsewhere we see a depiction of this glory-fire in the exodus motif as God led the people out of slavery and into the promised land that Jerusalem signifies (Exod. 13:21); a glory-fire that was present at creation (Gen. 1:2), hovering over the chaos to bring unto it the peace of creative fiat. This glory-fire sheltering presence of God was promised in eschatological portions through Isaiah (4:2-6) and Ezekiel (43-44); a sheltering presence fulfilled in Christ: the Emmanuel, God with us (cf. Rev. 7:15) as he shelters us, his bride and New Creation, throughout the persecution of the last days.

Practical Considerations

The central event of this vision is the correction of the human perspective. As the young man (possibly Hebrew for temple official) goes out to measure Jerusalem, he is stopped by the Angel of God—The Jerusalem of God cannot be measured. This too highlights the Israelite perspective and its needed correction. With their eyes set on the earthly realities around them (a city destroyed and in ruins) they remained despondent and weak of heart, but God sought to correct their gaze from that of what is seen to that which is unseen (ie. heavenly realities of the eschatological New City promised in Christ). The Lord always seeks to kindle our imagination with the call to faith. That is, we are ever and always called to picture that which is not seen, and this is the work of the imagination. We Christians today often need a correction in perspective as well. This vision, and all prophetic visions, poses a question to us that we should take to heart and hear today: from what source will we find our perspective on the Church and the Christian life? The unbothered and bored impetus of sight, or the imaginative playfulness of faith? Often, current circumstances would have us believe that the Church is dying out, or that she is full of abusive pastors. Statistics keep telling us that God is not preserving His Church, or at the very least, keeping her holy. Just the same, our own sin and doubts would have us believe that we too are dying out, abandoned by the grace and care of our Father. It is most often in the face of trials, temptations, and our own failings, that we seek to measure our status before God with a measuring line of sight rather than of faith. Satan likes to use our suffering to kill our fancy with boredom, but the Lord calls us to the adventure of faith in the midst of the pilgrimage where the war-song echoes forth. Let us this day hear the correction of God that we too might set our eyes on, and picture unseen, the heavenly Jerusalem that is already ours in Christ (Eph. 2:4-5; Phil. 3:20); and let us not judge our progress or our position before the Father by what we see with eyes set on earthly things. In short, the visions of Zechariah call us to play make-believe, to a holy pretending that embraces, not a fanciful lie, but the true myth of the gospel promise for us all.

This vision not only confronts us with our need for a heavenly perspective on the Church and ourselves, but also upon the work of the gospel. Far too often we hear of churches closing their doors, of pastors failing and resigning from the ministry. Far too often pastors themselves see so very little of the work they do among the saints of God in their local contexts. But here again we must rest in God's promises and not in our performance; to picture what is not seen. Although the world remains at war with the Church in persecuting the saints (and Christ promised as much), we must find in the promises of God our solace that Christ himself will accomplish the work he set out to do in and for the Church. The Church will continue to prosper in the face of adversity, and so too will your work, pastor, in the ministry. It is God Himself who will remain, throughout all of time, a wall of fire around His people. Not you. God and God alone.

Finally, let us take great comfort and peace in this, the grand vision of the heavenly city to which we now belong in Christ. For our union with Christ is such an unbreakable bond that we too, just as Christ himself, are seated in the heavenly places with God—even now. We must not fear or fret that God will find us right with Him on the last day. No, that heavenly Jerusalem, and the reconciliation that comes with it, is ours this very day. As the apostle Paul said in Romans 5: we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God, we have now been justified by his blood, and we are reconciled because through him we have now received reconciliation. Your entrance into this New City that Zechariah foresaw is an already eschatological reality in Christ, and any doubt that this might be true must, as we have already seen, be placed before the call of God. This call, a call to turn our eyes from that which is seen (our sin, our weaknesses, our doubts) to that which is held by the imaginative act of faith, is the call of Christ to his Church—a call to behold the crucified and risen Lord: Emmanuel, God with us.