Zechariah 4:7 Commentary and Bible Study

The great mountain is ‘project temple’. It is a great mountain: it is worse than climbing a great mountain. It cannot be done: there are too many enemies. The obstacles before the people of God are like a great mountain, but they will become a plain. These obstacles are personified and addressed by God and commanded to become a flat plain, easily passed over as God turns difficulties faced by the church into a pathway before them. God will bless his people as they are obedient to him and they will find grace, favour from him. The headstone, or capstone, is the stone placed on the very top of the building. It is special and is specially prepared because it is to be so prominent. It can only be placed there once all other stones are in place. Its placement therefore marks the completion of the building. This is God’s promise that the building work will be completed in spite of all obstacles. But so too will the church of Jesus Christ. For their further encouragement Zechariah is told to prophesy that as Zerubbabel had laid the foundation stone of the temple, he would also lay the capstone just spoken of. He would see the work through to completion. Seeing that, the Jews would know that God had sent Zechariah to them – the final ‘you’ of the verse is plural – because his word was fulfilled perfectly. This prophecy is fulfilled in the person of Christ, for he laid the foundation of the temple which was his body, in shedding his blood on the cross of Calvary. ‘Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus’ (1 Corinthians 3:11). But he will also gather in every last one of the elect, until none is missing (Revelation 7:4; 14:1). Then the spiritual temple will be complete, and we will know that not a word of prophecy has failed to come to pass.