Zechariah 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study

The interpreting angel from previous visions is still with Zechariah, and now goes forth to witness the measuring of Jerusalem. Zechariah has been told that the man with the measuring line is going to measure Jerusalem, and its dimensions are reported to him in the verses that follow, but the answer is not given in cubits or in any other physical unit, but as a description appropriate to the spiritual nature of the entity being measured. This is a spiritual measurement of a spiritual Jerusalem. We have to be very careful here, because we are learning the method of prophecy. We have taken off into the future, and Jerusalem is not now a city for those times which would have to have walls (as every ancient city needed for its defence); it is a spiritual city. It represents the church of Christ, of course: the coming of Christ and the church of Christ. How do you measure the church of God? Not in miles or metres, but in terms of its glory, its righteousness, extensiveness throughout the world, and its preciousness to God.‘Run, speak to this young man,’ – the young man is Zechariah; it is not clear how young he was, but he was clearly young compared to the angel – ‘saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein.’ The prophecy is not looking at the immediate future; it is looking right across the centuries to the coming of Christ, and it becomes more and more clear that this is so. Jerusalem is being measured by a man with a line, most likely representing the Son of God. Jerusalem is going to become massive. It will be so big and its population so large that you couldn't possibly have walls; the city is far too big to be contained within walls. ‘The multitude of men and cattle therein.’ There were not many cattle in the ancient city of Jerusalem. They were out in the pasture lands and the fields, but this is a sort of rural, idyllic city, a place of peace where people live with their farmsteads, all enclosed in the city. This is not capable of an earthly fulfilment in literal terms; this is now talking about the spiritual Jerusalem.