Zechariah 10:5 Commentary and Bible Study

What will it be like as God makes his people the instrument of his victory over the world? It will not be fought with literal riders, of course. The prophets make use of poetic language, and we are not to be so stilted in our understanding that we insist that everything is literal. If we would accept powerful figures of speech from a secular writer, why can we not do so when God’s inspired prophets speak to us? When the new order comes, the church will be victorious over the religions and philosophies of the world, ‘for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).‘And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them, for I have mercy upon them; and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them.’ God will be faithful to the house of Judah all the way to the coming of Christ, and many of them will be called on the day of Pentecost, and come to Christ. Ephraim was one of the ten tribes of Israel, which by now had long since gone into exile at the hands of the Assyrians. It was no longer an identifiable entity when Zechariah spoke, but he uses language as if it still existed. After the division of the kingdom, this largest of the tribes was used to stand for the whole of Israel, the northern kingdom, and although only Judah remained in the land at the time Zechariah spoke, the symbolic importance of Ephraim and of Israel continued. The typical people of God still stood for the true people of God, the church of Jesus Christ. The point is that the new Israel will not be divided, but one unit. Some say it definitely sounds as if literal Israel will be physically restored to the land, and that it will be as if it had not been cast off. But no, Ephraim had been crushed, and the meaning is those gathered in from among the Jews and Gentiles to form the international church of God will be gathered out of a down-trodden and lowly state. ‘And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the LORD.’ But they are in captivity. How can they be part of this new order? Yes, he says, ‘I will hiss [or whistle] for them, and gather them’, from wherever they are, ‘for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased.’ So what is this? A time when Judah and Israel will be united once again? Yes, but the time is in the age of the gospel, in the time of Christ, in this present age that we live in, when such Israelites as will be saved, and such Judeans who will be saved, will come into the church of Jesus Christ, and the predictions of their being joined together will be fulfilled in that way. God will hiss. How? Either as a beekeeper hissed into the hive, or in a low whistle to get a dog to round up sheep. ‘For I have redeemed them:’ not like Israel of old, for they were only redeemed in typical terms. ‘Yet’, Moses had to say of most of them, ‘the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day’ (Deuteronomy 29:4). The new covenant does not allow for any such ignorance and deadness. ‘And they shall increase as they have increased.’ This is a reference to Egypt where Israel increased tremendously from the time that Jacob’s family came down to the time of the exodus. They knew accelerated growth, and so will the New Testament church in the early days.