Day 188 – May 3, 2024: Zechariah 11-14 and Psalms 83-84

We find a shocking image in Zechariah, an object lesson, two of them actually, which set up the coming of Jesus as Lord and Savior. Zechariah is told to take two staffs. The first represents the covenant that God made with his people, this one was called Favor. The second staff represented the oneness of the people of God even though they were divided between North and South, Israel and Judah, this staff was called unity. Zechariah is commanded to break the staff of favor and thus breaking the covenant that God had with his people. The favor of God no longer rested upon a single people, but in the coming of Jesus it rests upon the whole world, all of creation, every single person who was created and had the life of God breathed into them. This is super significant. The breaking of unity is less significant because we know that the diaspora of the Jews created all sorts of different nationalities and races and tribes within the Jewish family. There are Jews literally from all over the world. But there does remain unity and that is in their understanding of being Jewish.

But the breaking of that first staff, the covenant, required that there be a new way, a new covenant, in which God interacts with his people and saves them from His wrath so that he would not destroy them. We even see two clear references to Jesus who will be coming up in a few centuries in the same chapter when it describes the same amount of silver that Judas was paid to betray Jesus. In chapter 12 we read about mourning for the one that they have pierced. Again, the breaking of the covenant by God, because it had been broken previously by the people, requires a new covenant, this new covenant that Jeremiah had discussed which is one that is written upon our hearts and not on tablets.

Psalm 84 reminds me of this song that is nice, but not a classic.