Zechariah 14:6 Commentary and Bible Study

These verses, like so many in this chapter, are difficult to understand. Some treat them almost literally and render verse 6 as, ‘And it shall come to pass on that day, there will not be light. The glorious ones will melt away’ (Kyle). This he applies to God’s judgment on the stars, sun and moon, parallel to Joel 2:13; 3:15, etc. This certainly makes it a prophecy which is fulfilled at the end of time, but verse 8, which speaks of the same day, applies to the whole of the gospel age and the effects of the message going out of Jerusalem, and not just to some final day right at the end.This day is the day that we are now living in – the gospel day – which has already been 2000 years long. It is not a bright day, nor is it a completely dark day, but it is one very long twilight day. For Christians there is gloom about that day. They feel the burden of their sin and say, ‘who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Romans 7:24); they ‘are saved by hope’ (Romans 8:24); ‘it doth not yet appear what we shall be’ (1 John 3:2); to them it is said ‘Blessed are they that mourn’ (Matthew 5:4); they experience ‘the sufferings of this present time’, but they are ‘not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18). There must be much anticipation in the believer to sustain him. But neither is it as dark as things were in Old Testament times, for ‘the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light’ (Isaiah 9:2), for Christ, the light of the world, has come and has shown us how God has solved the problem of sin and reconciled us to himself in spite of his perfect holiness. There will be gloom but there will also be sources of joy and happiness. How long will this day last? It has already been 2000 years. The answer given is that ‘it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord’ – its length and its end, which takes place with the return of Christ, is known only to the Lord (Matthew 24:36; 25:13). But how should we interpret the words at the end of verse 7: ‘it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light’? Possibly they mean that when the Mosaic covenant closes, the day that follows will be the brightest day of all: the glorious gospel age. But since the day has already been defined to refer to the gospel age in its entirety, and since the text speaks of the end of that day, it is more natural to interpret it of the very end of history before Christ returns. If this is right, then it means that when the gospel age is ending and one would expect that long day to give way to darkness at its end, there will in fact still be light. The gospel will make significant advances right at the end before Christ returns.