Blogging the Bible 240 – Zechariah 10-14

It’s hard not to see in these chapters the narrative that follows on when Jesus fulfils the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9.
11:13, the Shepherd’s price of thirty silver shekels thrown into the Treasury;
12:10, the people mourning over the one they have pierced;
14:9, the ascended king will reign over the whole earth.
I’d never been aware of the power of this sequence of verses in linking God’s action before and after the coming of Jesus to Jerusalem. And there’s one more echo of what’s to come in Holy Week right at the end of the book. Perhaps the chief priests heard it clearly and feared as Jesus cleansed the Temple courts.
14:21, And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the LORD on that day.
For that verse follows immediately on the prophecy that on that day all things will become as holy as the bowls in front of the altar. Every cooking pot will be sacred; for the time of the Temple will be over. God will be at large in the world, open equally to all without needing priests to stand between him and the people any longer.
No wonder Caiaphas would be worried when the moneychangers’ tables were overturned. I’d always thought he says just worried about the profits. It turns out he may have been more worried about the prophets.