THE MAN WITH THE MEASURING LINE

Chapter 2:5-17 (In Hebrew)

The dishorning of the nations is now followed by the surveying and measuring of Jerusalem. For despite the ruined condition of her walls she was still the inheritance or portion of Jehovah in the holy land. In the expressive language of ver. 12 (Heb.) she was regarded as "the apple of His eye." What is seen in the eye of a man is not the image of the man himself, but the babhah, the tiny reflected image of the observer. And, in like manner, what was seen in Israel was not the nation as such, but the people of Jehovah in its ideality, bearing the image or far-off reflection of the Divine; and therefore worthy of being restored, beautified, and kept as the apple, the pupil, the little man (cf. Deut. xxxii. 10) of his eye.1 Obviously the humbling of the great world-powers was not sufficient: there must be the depiction of positive blessing for the sorely-distressed people of Jehovah.

1. The Present Necessity.

To say, with Orelli, that "there is not the slightest suggestion here of the rebuilding of the still ruined walls" is, to the present writer, in the highest degree unwarrantable. Whatever may have been the higher meanings suggested by the work of restoration, it was simply indispensable to the struggling Jewish community that the rebuilding of the city-walls should be faced forthwith. To be inhabited as villages without walls (ver. 8) would be, for a city like Jerusalem, not strength but weakness, not a blessing but a peril; for so long as the Jewish capital remained unwalled, she was in perpetual fear of molestation, and openly exposed to the taunts and hostility of her continually active foes. Hence when Nehemiah finally completed the walls seventy-three years later, that redoubtable patriot, instead of regarding the building of the walls as outwith the scope of the divine intenion, added, "all the heathen that were about us feared, and were much cast down in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God" (Neh. vi. 16).

This, indeed, was Jerusalem's urgent necessity, and all the time that Zechariah was visiting the myrtle-grove he was fully cognisant of the fact. True, the building of the temple had to be undertaken first, for they had returned to Jerusalem as essentially a religious community: but the work of restoration could not rest there; it must go on, as occasion offered, until the whole city was fortified. And as the days came and passed the prophet had the satisfaction of seeing his earnest call to repentance beginning to bear fruit. The theodolite and chain were at last brought out into the open; and time and again, as he went to the grove of myrtles, he beheld the surveyors busily at work, taking measurements for the laying out of the streets and walls and ascertaining what could be made of the ruins. This supplied him with the necessary imagery for his third midnight vision. "I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof and what is the length thereof. And behold the interpreting angel was standing by (cf. LXX) — as if in doubt regarding the significance of this action — but another angel (the angel of the Lord) went forth to meet him, and said, Run, speak to this young man, who so well represents the efforts of the youthful community, and tell him, not indeed to desist from his undertaking, but to realise the higher meanings suggested by the work of restoration."

Why commentators in general should have concluded that the angel was sent to prevent the young surveyor from carrying out his intention, we cannot profess to explain. There is nothing in the language itself to favour this interpretation; and in view of Jerusalem's necessitous condition, surrounded as she was by powerful and unscrupulous foes, the idea, as thus expressed, is quite inadmissible. The angel was sent forth, not to prevent the young man from accomplishing his task, but to remind him of the greatness of Israel's spiritual ideal — not to tell him that his present project was altogether futile, but to show him that any reconstruction engaged in at that time was only the divine foreshadowing of a far more glorious destiny. The surveyor's task, indeed, could not thus be set aside. It was the one pressing necessity of the hour; and no dreams of a possible increase of population in the future could justify them in neglecting it. Every generation, it is true, has a clear duty towards the future, even though, as some retort, posterity has done nothing for us. Still, the present duty must always have the prior consideration; and to suggest that because of some problematic increase of population, municipal corporations, in any age, should provide not 6imply for the present necessity but for future possibilities as well, is nothing better than the proverbial half-truth which is never independent of some necessary qualification. Former generations might have produced more ideal systems, and made fuller provision for later developments, both in sanitation, education and theology; but in so doing, what would have been left for us to perfect, or to bring into closer adjustment with modern requirements? Would not earlier idealism have necessarily implied diminished opportunity in the present? It may be the duty of the State to-day, let us say, to begin a scheme of afforestation for the sate of posterity; but that would not mean the mapping out of the entire area during the first year. If it be a national concern at all, it must be approached in a truly scientific spirit — not by mapping out the entire area at the outset, but by doing first things first, inserting the thin end of the wedge in a limited and even local experiment, and then allowing the project to expand and ripen with the growing demands and capabilities of the nation.

The situation at the founding of the second temple was precisely similar. Israel could well afford to peer into the future and think on the greatness of her coming destiny; but the present duty of the returned exiles was clear and urgent. It was not to arrest the youthful surveyor in his efforts to map out the city walls, but to begin at once the work of restoration, that having secured a firm footing in the land of their fathers, they might be ready for all eventualities.

2. The Future Ideal.

Zechariah, like a wise teacher, was intensely interested in the plans of the builders; but, at the same time, he tried to fire their imagination by emphasising the greatness of Israel's calling. As the people of Jehovah, she was destined to hand on to future ages, not a political economy, but a religion. She was summoned to hold aloft the torch of revelation, and thus fulfil the part of a great missionary people. Her ideal was not political, but religious. She was not an empire, but a Church.

This meant (a) that in this ideal city there was no need of walls; for, like everything spiritual, it was destined to be worldwide. It would overflow, not simply into the adjoining villages and annex the neighbouring towns, but sweep out in everincreasing circles into other lands, and occupy and rule the entire heathen world. Nevertheless in this connection also the duty of Israel was to begin at the centre. Israel herself must first be blessed, before she could hope to become a blessing to all the ends of the earth. The Jews at home and their brethren in other countries must flock to the standard of Jehovah on Mount Zion, else never a heathen nation would be won for His service or help to swell the ranks of His loyal-hearted worshippers. This is the meaning of verses 10-11 (Heb.) — "Ho, Ho, flee from the land of the north (t.e. Chaldea), saith the Lord: for I will gather you (LXX) from the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord. Ho ye, escape to Zion (LXX), ye who dwell with the daughter of Babylon." Let no one say that those who were still in Babylon turned a deaf ear to this appeal. When occasion offered they willingly sacrificed themselves for the prosperity and peace of Jerusalem. Not only did they contribute largely of their wealth when the first caravan set out under Zerubbabel and Joshua; but afterwards they furnished both the men and means for bringing the work in Jerusalem to a successful completion. Many of them were no more unmindful of the home and faith of their fathers than those who first crossed the desert in 537 B.C.

The urgency of the appeal, however, was peculiarly opportune at this juncture. Alike in the condition of unrest which prevailed in Babylon, and in the greatness of their own spiritual ideal, the Babylonian Jews had ample reason for reconsidering their position, and responding, before it was too late, to the urgent call of the homeland. In the opening years of Darius, for instance, Babylon herself was in imminent danger. Having made preparations for a lengthened siege within the city walls, she had openly defied the Persian King, and hoped to wrest from his powerful grasp the coveted prize of her independence. But what could withstand the onset of the Persian troops! Speedily did Darius prove himself equal to every emergency: and Babylon, which had been very leniently dealt with at the hands of Cyrus, was made to bite the dust in the fury of his conquest. In the time of Zechariah, the atmosphere was charged with the electrical fluid of this coming storm; and therefore the summons addressed to the captive Jews that they should return to their own land, was peculiarly appropriate in the circumstances — "Ho, ye that dwell with the daughter of Babylon, escape ye to Zion."

For (b) their true national ideal was also spiritual. If the critical unrest of the times was one urgent reason why they should return to their own land, surely the higher claim of their moral and spiritual faith was indisputably another. Not in the land of the north, where they had been crushed by the spoiler, but in theland and sanctuary of their fathers* God, would they find the opportunity and necessary fulcrum for the attainment of their world-wide ideal. To most of them, indeed, the land of their captivity was also the land of their nativity: but what was life-long association and personal ease to the unparalleled grandeur of their national faith i What was gain or social distinction to the insistent call of their God-appointed destiny? This was the voice of the nation as against the individual life. This was the appeal of the centuries as against the hours. Ho, ye inhabitants of the north, haste ye to Zion! Be an ensign, a lever, a divine signet, in the holy land.

Besides, was not Jehovah Himself the strongest pledge that their spiritual cause would ultimately triumph? Unlike the walls of Babylon which succumbed before Darius, or the walls of Jerusalem which would yet be demolished before the imperious might of Rome, the ramparts of •the spiritual Zion could neither be scaled nor stormed; for Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, was as a wall of fire round about His people (cf. ver. 9). It is a most striking figure. God will not only make a hedge about them (Job i. 10), or walls and bulwarks which may be battered down (Isa. xxvi. 1), or high mountains, which may be got over (Ps. cxxv. 2): he will be a wall of fire around them, which can neither be broken down nor undermined, but which will repel and overwhelm the assailants. Not more safe were the Bedouin shepherds when encircled by a ring of fires to scare off the beasts of prey by night, than were the people of Jehovah safe, even in the midst of their enemies, when surrounded and safeguarded by the holy fire of His love.

Hence in ver. 14 they are called upon to welcome His coming with a perfect jubilee of praise — "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord." Cf. similar invocations in Zeph. iii. 14-15, Isa. xii. 6 and liv. 1. The source of joy is sufficiently instructive: it is a fresh coming of Jehovah, Israel's God. Just as the early Christians were inspired to nobler service by the promise of the Second Advent, so the Jews, at the founding of the second temple, are encouraged to rally round Zion by the hope of a speedy advent of Jehovah. Nay, the promised parousia was already begun. Jehovah had even then set forth from His heavenly abode (ver. 17), and a dreaded manifestation in judgment was about to break forth upon the world.

And what, under a concluding paragraph, was the real significance of this unveiling both for Israel and the nations? The answer is, that the Weltkrisis here depicted was to be a union of judgment and mercy. There was, at once, the might that crushes and appals, and the mercy that rescues and redeems. For when Jehovah appears in judgment, He but smites that He may save, and chastises that He may teach. In fine, the day of the Lord is to be a dishorning of the nations, not a destruction: it is chastisement, the proof of love. Consequently, while the angel of the Lord exclaims in ver. 13, "Behold, I will shake mine hand over them, and they shall be a spoil to those that served them," he immediately adds in ver. 15, "And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be his people (LXX) . . . and thou shalt know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent me." The coming of the Lord, on the one side, and the jubilation of God's people on the other, are to have this as their inspiring result. The dispersed of Israel among the nations, and the converted nations themselves, are to come up as one people to worship the Lord in Zion; and then the ideal of Israel, the covenant people of Jehovah, will be most gloriously realised. The Lord Himself will inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land (ver. 16), and Jerusalem once more will be chosen and kept as the apple of His eye. No more inspiring prospect could fill the mind or fire the imagination of any people. The building of the walls will at last have become an anachronism. "Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for He is waked up out of His holy habitation."

1 Cf. Sermons in Syntax, p. 70.