The Story of Two Conquerors, Part 1
Zechariah 9:1-8
Take your Bible, if you will, and look with me at the book of Zechariah 9.
One of the great proofs of the Scripture is that God knows the future. As Christians, we're all committed to the belief that Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world and the King of Kings, is going to return to earth for the purpose of establishing the kingdom promised to Israel and all those who have trusted in Him.
As Christians, we anticipate this Kingdom. We anticipate the reversing of the Adamic curse and the creating of an earth that is all that God ever designed it to be, where Jesus Christ reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Now many of the details of that coming Kingdom and of Jesus Christ's return to establish it, are indicated to us in Scripture. A major element in the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament deals with the coming of the Kingdom. The prophets talked frequently, for example, of how history is going to come to an end, of how the nations are going to be judged, of how God's King, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, will come and reign supreme, how that He will fulfill the promise to David given in 2 Samuel chapter 7, how that He will fulfill ultimately the promise given to Abraham.
This one will come and not only conquer the nations who oppose God, but He will redeem Israel and into that Kingdom will go all the believing saints of all the ages. This is a great, great theme in the Bible.
And as we come to the ninth chapter, and we hear the prophet Zechariah begin to tell us what is going to happen when Messiah comes.
In this ninth chapter, Zechariah writes about the overthrow of world power and the establishment of Jesus Christ as the King. In fact, from chapter 9 through the end of the book, that whole section is prophecy related to the downfall of the nations and the salvation of Israel.
Now let me set the scene for you: Remember now that when Zechariah lived, the children of Israel had just returned from the Babylonian captivity. They had come back to a land that was just in rubble. It had been destroyed and it had been taken off for 70 years of captivity.
They had begun to rebuild but they had been halted in the process and their land was pretty well a shambles. It was in ruins. The former glory was only a memory. The nations all around them were not only indifferent but threatening because there was no way that they would be able to defend themselves against an attack.
They knew nothing of what they had once known and so God wanted to encourage them to rebuild the city and to encourage them with the fact that He was still their God and He was still on their side and He would still take care of them and He would still protect them.
And so He sent along two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, both of them were to encourage the people to return and continue the building.
And both of them were saying to the people, "God will be with you, God will help you rebuild, the city will be restored, the nation will be protected, you will gain a measure of reputation back that you used to have. God will take care of you."
And so, Zechariah begins his letter in chapter 1 and verse 13 by saying, "And the Lord answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comforting words." This book was written to be a comfort to Israel. And verse 17, "Cry yet saying, Thus saith the Lord of host, My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad and the Lord shall comfort Zion and shall yet choose Jerusalem."
In other words, the message was a comforting message. God is comforting them in the confidence that though they've come back from captivity, though their land is a rubble, their great and glorious city of Jerusalem is in ruins, though this is true, God is going to comfort them in restoring all the things that are needful.
And so, all throughout those first nine chapters, we heard the message of Zechariah as he said, "God is with you...God will help you rebuild."
And then as we move to the ninth chapter through the fourteenth chapter, that vision expands into a prophetic future. And what the prophet now sees is not the immediate rebuilding of Jerusalem in the time of Zechariah, but the great restoration of the whole Kingdom of God that comes in the end times.
And so he just moves in one great giant step from history to the fulfillment of prophecy at the end of the age. And so, the emphasis here is that God loves Israel and that because God loves Israel, He will fulfill His promise. And His promise is not only to rebuild Israel historically, but His promise is to fulfill the promise of the Kingdom in the end time and that becomes the theme of the end of this wonderful prophecy.
There was an historical fulfillment just a few decades after Zechariah's time. God promised them that and He made it come to pass.
But notice this, this was only designed by God as a token or a pledge of what God was planning to do in the end. It was simply a way to prove to them that God meant His promises. So that every Jew from then on could say, "Well, when somebody asks me whether God will bring a Kingdom, I remember that He also said He would restore our city in history and He did that and if He kept His word then, I have confidence He'll keep His Word in the future."
And we'll see this as we go through the text, but this is something you want to remember in studying the Old Testament. Very, very frequently whenever God gave a future prophecy, He also at the very same time gave an historical element to that prophecy so that there would be like a signpost along the way and when they saw the historical part come to pass, they would then believe God for the future prophetic element. We'll see that as we move.
Now the final section is divided into two parts. Part number one is 9 through 11 and in that, the prophet deals with the political setting up of the Kingdom.
He deals with the politics of it, the destruction of the nations, establishing of Israel in priority and prominence, etc. Then 12 through 14 primarily emphasizes the spiritual or the salvation of the nation, drawing them back to God.
So, as we begin in chapter 9, I want to distinguish between two major points. We could call this section the Story of Two Conquerors. Conqueror number one is in verses 1 to 8; conqueror number two is in verses 9 to 17. We’ll look at the first half tonight, and the second half next time.
Now note this: conqueror number one is the predicted historical element of the prophecy. The real focus is conqueror number two. But God gives the first prophecy which we can look back at and know was fulfilled to the very letter as a guarantee or a pledge or a token that He's going to fulfill part two.
Now the first conqueror is what a "human" conqueror.
Verses 1 to 8
His name is not given in the text but his name is readily obvious, and it is Alexander the Great.
And here is the whole idea: God predicts the details of the conquering of Alexander the Great and says this human conqueror will come and when you see him, you can know that you're on the right track to seeing the fulfillment of part two.
But there's a further element. It's this, Alexander the Great, who was an unrighteous, ungodly pagan and he was only a human being that was used by God as an agent to destroy the nations and to save Israel. Now keep that in mind. A pagan godless apostate human being named Alexander the Great was a tool of God to punish or judge the nations and to save Israel.
And in so doing, he is a picture of what the future Messiah will be. And the message the prophet is giving is this, if God can judge the nations and save Israel, and do it through a godless pagan human being, imagine what He will do in the end time through God in human flesh...the divine conqueror when He comes. And that's the thrust of chapter 9.
Let's look at verse 1 and see the human conqueror.
Verse 1
That is a rather difficult verse to understand.
I always start by looking at each word. And the first word I looked up was "burden" and it's the word massa. And it means to take up or lift up and it was a word that was used as a burden, a heavy burden. You lifted up and you take it up. And it came to be used for something that was a great burden on the back of a prophet. And he would literally take up a cause and he would unbear his heart, he would unbear his burden, he would declare a woe, or a heavy judgment. And the word came to be synonymous with a prediction of a threatening act of judgment, a judgment oracle, a judgment prediction, a judgment prophecy. So here is the prophecy of judgment, the messa on the mind of Zechariah.
This particular judgment is coming from the Word of the Lord to the land of Hadrach. Now this is a very obscure place. We don't really know what this is. Archaeologically we can't really identify Hadrach. Some think it is the ancient village of Hatarica(?) which is similar mentioned in the annals of the Syrian kings which was around Damascus in the Syrian area to the east and north of Palestine. From the Sea of Galilee you'd go east and north a little.
But there's another explanation that's very interesting. If you take the two terms, had and rach, had means sharp and rach means soft. And so it is the sharp soft. You say, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Well, some Old Testament scholars believe this is a reference to the dual kingdom that existed in that day which was the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. The Medo- Persian Kingdom. The Medes were sharp, they were like swords, they were the conquerors that produced Cyrus and Darius.
And the Persians were the effeminate softies that turned the whole thing into a debauchery. In fact, the Persians became a synonym for effeminacy. They were kind of like the San Francisco of the ancient world. And so it may well be that in a veiled way, you have the Medes and the Persians hidden in the Hebrew word Hadrach.
And the reason it's hidden here is so that they don't start a war when Zechariah pronounces the prophecy. That's a possibility. So it's either a place or it's a title for the Medo-Persian area. But no matter what, it's talking about the area of Syria, the Medo-Persian area.
You'll notice also though that the center of it, the place where this judgment is going to rest, is in Damascus. Now Damascus is a famous city, maybe the most ancient city in the world. And that city was to be the seat where this judgment fell. Now this was one of Israel's worst enemies. Syria, in which the capital was Damascus, from the time about 900 to 721 B.C. was a terrible fearful opponent of Israel. And so the resting place or the target of judgment is going to be Damascus and it will hit Damascus and then it will spread.
Now this is precisely where Alexander comes into the picture. There was a famous battle in 333 B.C. called the battle of Isis in southeast Asia Minor. There Alexander the Great defeated Darius, and began to break the back of the Medo-Persian Empire. And immediately when he defeated them, that just threw open the door to Syria.
And Alexander then moved east from Greece and he moved through Syria. And when he had knocked off Syria, Damascus and Hadrach in that area, he then swept to the coast and he got to the Phoenician countries and he swept through the Phoenician countries and he came to the south part of what we know as the land of Israel to the Philistine cities and he swept through there and he was on his way to Egypt...on his way to conquer the great powers of the world. Lightning swift conquests moving toward Egypt occurred after he had won the battle of Isis and broken the back of the Medo-Persian Empire.
Now the Holy Spirit here in this chapter reveals the whole plan to us...the whole battle plan is here. And incidentally, this is written centuries before Alexander was born.
That's why it doesn't name him. He didn't exist. And yet every detail of his crusade is here.
Now first he defeats the Medes and the Persians and he knocks off this city of Damascus. And with it, notice verse 2, Hamath. And Hamath is also a very very important city. Hamath was like a territory within the Medo-Persian Empire which was like a kingdom state and Hamath was the capital city. So he comes in and for all intents and purposes, he just wipes out Syria, the great power of Syria, the great city of Damascus.
Now you'll notice at the end of verse 1, it says, "When the eyes of man as of all the tribes of Israel shall be toward the Lord." Now he says, this judgment is going to come and when it comes, the eyes of mankind, in Hebrew...in other words, human kind, people, the eyes of people, the eyes of mankind. This is a collective thing. As well as the eyes of the tribes of Israel shall be toward the Lord. Now you say, "What does that mean?"
Just this: when Alexander began to sweep to the east, the whole world in fear began to fix their gaze on him. The Gentile countries, Syria, Phoenicia, the great sailors of the world, the merchants of the world, Philistia, the great army, those nations began to look at Alexander with fear and trembling, and even Egypt and Pharaoh was shaking in his boots. And the tribes of Israel were looking.
And notice, it says they were looking toward the Lord." And that's the whole point. The point is that in looking at Alexander, they were seeing the instrument of God. They were seeing the Lord coming in judgment through this man.
God throughout history has used ungodly men to act in judgment. Read the book of Habakkuk, God uses the the ungodly Chaldeans as His instruments. Cyrus was an ungodly pagan used by God to open the door to lead Israel back to its land. God again and again has used the ungodly.
Even Herod became a servant of the Lord. In his own unwitting foolish rebellion against God, God used him to bring about what ultimately amounted to the death of Jesus Christ, the act that redeemed all the redeemed of all the ages. God has always used the wrath of men to praise Him. God has often used pagan people to bring about His judgment. And He uses Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great, before you want to give him all the credit, was a tool of God to accomplish God's judgment against pagan nations. He was simply God's servant.
And if you want to see a further word, look at verse 4. It is interesting that it never mentions Alexander. The prediction is that God is going to do this. First Syria, then Phoenicia, then Philistia on the way to Egypt and so forth, and we'll see how it unfolds. It's the Lord in judgment.
Verse 2, after he's done with Syria, it says at the end of verse 2, "He comes to Tyre and Sidon...Tyre and Sidon though it be very wise."
Sidon, incidentally was a small city. Its only significance being in its proximity and attachment to Tyre which was the great city...and Tyre and Sidon were the capital cities of the country of Phoenicia. Phoenicia was the land of the great maritime accomplishments, great ships and ship building and merchantry went on in Phoenicia.
This was a great empire. Tyre was the main city and Sidon was seen only as it accommodated itself to Tyre. But even though it was exceedingly wise, and even though verse 3 says Tyre did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver like the dust and fine gold like the mire of the streets, behold the Lord will cast her out and He will smite her power in the sea and she shall be devoured with fire.
Now, you see, this is a marvelous and amazing incredible statement. And we'll see how it comes to pass in a minute. But even though Tyre and Sidon were first of all very wise. They had all worldly wisdom. They really felt themselves invincible, incidentally. They felt nobody could conquer them.
You see, years before Alexander ever got there, they had been conquered. And when they were conquered by the Babylonians, they proceeded to move their city from the mainland to an island a half mile off shore. And they had set up housekeeping on that island. And it was a very small island. And it was a fortress. It was literally a rock. And when it says there in verse 3, "Tyre did build herself a stronghold," that's a pun in the Hebrew. It's the same word. Stronghold built herself a stronghold. The city was built on a fortified rock.
And then in addition to that, they built a wall around the entire island 150 feet high. To say nothing of the fact that it was a half-mile off shore. And nothing to the fact that the Phoenicians were the greatest sailors with the greatest navies in the world to defend it. They felt they were invincible.
But they were evil. It was a vile evil city. They were proud, they were invincible and they were wealthy. But worldly wisdom and natural strength and fortification and material resources are absolutely useless when God comes in judgment.
Verse 4
Every single detail in that verse was accomplished by Alexander the Great. He came there and he got very upset. He sent a boat out and said, "I want supplies from you," and they said, "Forget it, Alexander, who are you?" So he took all the rubble that was left from the city, the ancient city, threw it in the sea and he built a causeway, one half mile. He built a causeway, that's how serious he was about this. He got real irritated. He did it in seven months. And he marched his army out there and defeated the city.
He also got all of the surrounding nations which he had conquered to get all of their navies together and used them to help in the effort...in seven months. Listen, Shalmaneser couldn't do it in five years. He did it in seven months. Nebuchadnezzar couldn't do it in 13 years. He did it in seven months because it was time for God's judgment, see. The city came crashing down. It was the end. Today there is absolutely nothing there of any significance whatsoever.
You see what God is saying here, He's saying, "Look, people, I'm going to judge the nations in the end. I'm going to come in judgment with My Messiah and just to show you I can do it with the Messiah, look what I could do with a pagan. I could knock off the most fortified impregnable invincible city in the world.
Now when My Messiah comes, there will be no escaping." You see the point? And so when this came to pass with Alexander the Great, it was like a great big signpost saying, "You're on the right track, God will keep His promise." He kept it here in part one of the prophecy, you can be sure for part two.
Now he's done with Syria, wiped them out. He's done with Phoenicia, wiped them out. Moving south, the next place he comes is to Philistia.
Verse 5
By now the Philistines are shaking in the proverbial sandals. They have watched Alexander wipe out the Medo-Persian power in the battle of Isis. They have seen him sweep with lightning swiftness to the east. They have seen him do in Syria. And in seven months, wipe out an impregnable fortress and take for all intents and purposes the whole nation of Phoenicia. And now they see him coming south and they panic and they have every right to panic because he comes right to Philistia and accomplishes the same thing. He conquered them.
In fact, it's most interesting that history records something of Alexander's defeat of Gaza in detail. It says in this verse, "The king shall perish from Gaza," and do you know that in the annals of Alexander which we have, that is exactly what happened?
All the other cities kind of went down easy. They didn't want to get too involved in fighting Alexander, they did the best they could for a little while, they gave up. But Gaza tried to resist and it took him five months to get to Gaza. And by the end of the five months, he was very angry.
And to sort of show his anger, he gave them no semi-independence which he did for nations that knuckled under. And he took their king, took great spikes and drilled holes through the feet of the king, wrapped thongs through the holes and dragged him through the streets of the city till he was dead. The annals of Alexander even give his name, his name is Betis, B-e-t-i-s, or B- e-a-t-i-s, either one, we see it in both ways. Exactly what verse 5 said...hundreds of years before Alexander was ever born.
verse 6
a foreigner, a mongrel people "shall dwell in Ashdod." In other words, the Philistines would lose their country to some kind of scavengers, some mongrel people. Why? Because they were proud and God broke their pride with Alexander. They've never been anything since. Their name doesn't even exist.
But you know something? There's a little bit of grace in verse 7 because even in the terrible destruction of the Philistines, there was something good.
Verse 7
Now I want you to get the idea here. The Philistine nation in verse 7 is pictured like a man. Now this man has blood in his mouth and abominations between his teeth.
You say, "What's that?" Philistines in their pagan worship used to make blasphemous sacrifices. And they would drink the blood and eat the sacrificial meat. They were literally drinking blood and eating abominating sacrifices.
And he says here that this purging by God, this use of Alexander to wipe out their country will cause them to spit out their idolatry, to take the blood out of their mouths and the abominations from between their teeth, and he that remains, those who remain after this shall be for our God.
You know what it had? It had an actually a redeeming effect on a remnant of the Philistines so that at the time of Alexander, some of the Philistines turned to God. You know, in any time of God's judgment, there's always a place for the repentant remnant.
Time and time again we see that in Scripture.
God always remembers the repentant no matter what the circumstance of judgment. And so he says, this is going to have a good effect, they'll spit out their idols, they'll be taken out of their mouths and the remaining ones shall be for our God and they'll become like a leader in Judah.
And he says they'll make Ekron, which is the symbol of the people of Philistia, from the city of Ekron like Jebusites.
Now what does that mean? You remember who dwelled in the city of Jerusalem when David took it? Jebusites. And when David took the city and made it the city of God, many of the Jebusites believed in the true God and they remained in that city. And he's saying the same thing here. They're going to be accepted just like the Jebusites. So literally there would be a revival there and there would be those who would be a part of Israel's life because they worshiped Israel's God.
So, judgment is coming, says Zechariah. And it's going to come in a marvelous way. It's going to come sweeping to the east through Syria, Phoenicia, Philistia and south to Israel. And nobody but nobody in history can fulfill that except Alexander the Great and he did. It's one of the greatest signposts of prophecy in the Bible.
And guess who’s next? Jerusalem. But notice what happens:
verse 8
Now this is God talking.
The first part of the verse is amazing in that it precisely describes the exact advance against Palestine. Alexander would never conquer Jerusalem. Why not? Because God would encamp around it and protect it.
Here's what happened. Alexander sent word to the Jewish high priest at that time,"You must pay tribute to me." Well, that created a difficult situation because Persia was ruling the world at that time and Persia had not yet ffallen.
And so the high priest refused to do that. Well, Alexander went in a rage and he said, "I'm coming and I'm going to destroy Jerusalem to its foundations as soon as I'm finished with the rest of these cities on the way."
So, after taking Gaza and dragging King Betis clear through town, wiping out that, he planned to go to Jerusalem.
And the high priest called all the people of Israel together, according to historian Josephus, and he demanded that they all sacrifice to God and fall on their knees and pray for deliverance. And one night God gave the high priest a dream and He told him in the dream to go out and meet Alexander on the road and welcome him to the city...which would have been a little strange. So he did.
So, Alexander and his army were marching along to the city and the high priest went out to meet him. And he led a procession. The high priest put on his purple robes and his scarlet robes and his miter with its gold and the inscription, the name of God engraved. He had all the attendant priests and, you know, there were priests and priests and priests and priests and priests all over the place in Israel.
They were all there, marching in white. And when he saw this, he was literally bowled over by it and he saluted with respect to God and he bent down and bowed and he said that he had recently had a dream while he was in Macedonia and in that dream he had seen this very priest and this procession. And as a result, he said, "I'll treat Jerusalem with kindness." He passed by to Egypt. He returned right back by again and never touched the hair of a head of anybody in Jerusalem.
Isn't that what it says in verse 8 would happen? "I will encamp about My house because of the army, because of him that passeth by and because of him that returneth. And no oppressor shall pass through them anymore. For now I have seen with Mine eyes."
Isn't it interesting? Alexander..watch this...judged the nations but he also was used to save the city of Jerusalem. And what God is saying in this text is, if God can use a pagan king in such a miraculous way to judge the ungodly and to save God's people, imagine what He can do with a divine King yet to come in the future. The judgment will be all the greater, as much greater as Christ is than Alexander and the salvation will be all the greater, as much greater as Christ is than Alexander. He was really the Lord...the "I will" here refers to the Lord.
Now in the middle of verse 8, we bridge the centuries because when it says "and no oppressor shall pass through them anymore," that can only refer to the Second Coming and there is the transition in the chapter.
All of a sudden the Holy Spirit takes us in a huge leap from Alexander to Jesus Christ. And when Jesus comes and destroys the nations and saves His people, then no oppressor will ever pass through them anymore for God has seen with His eyes.
In other words, the sight of God toward Israel, all of the affliction has been enough and God says, "I've seen all I'm going to see, it's all over. It's all peace from here on out. It's all the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Kingdom, the glory from here on."
And so, we see the human conqueror and he's just a signpost to keep our eyes on the fact that if that part of the prophecy was fulfilled, believe me, the second part will be also.
Jesus will come and He will judge the nations in a judgment infinitely beyond anything Alexander ever dreamed with a might and a power beyond the conception of man so that the whole earth will literally fall in judgment.
And Alexander is a signpost of salvation, as we see him save and spare the people of Israel, so shall we see in the day that Jesus comes that He'll spare His people Israel. And the Bible says He'll redeem Israel and give them their Kingdom. And that's the story of the rest of the chapter and that's for next week.
Let's pray together.
