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Zechariah

About this book
Chapter 14

1 A day of the Lord is about to come when your possessions will be divided as plunder in your midst. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to wage war; the city will be taken, its houses plundered, and the women raped.⁠ Then half of the city will go into exile, but the remainder of the people will not be taken away. 3 Then the Lord will go to battle and fight against those nations, just as he fought battles in ancient days.⁠ 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives that lies to the east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in half from east to west, leaving a great valley. Half the mountain will move northward and the other half southward.⁠ 5 Then you will escape through my mountain valley, for the valley of the mountains will extend to Azal. Indeed, you will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come with all his holy ones with him.⁠ 6 On that day there will be no light—the sources of light in the heavens will congeal. 7 It will happen in one day—a day known to the Lord—not in the day or the night, but in the evening there will be light.⁠ 8 Moreover, on that day living waters will flow out from Jerusalem,⁠ half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea;⁠ it will happen both in summer and in winter.⁠ 9 The Lord will then be king over all the earth. In that day the Lord will be seen as one with a single name. 10 All the land will change and become like the rift valley from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be raised up and will stay in its own place from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate and on to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses. 11 And people will settle there, and there will no longer be the threat of divine extermination—Jerusalem will dwell in security.⁠ 12 But this will be the nature of the plague with which the Lord will strike all the nations that have fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will decay while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot away in their sockets, and their tongues will dissolve in their mouths. 13 On that day there will be great confusion from the Lord among them; they will seize each other and attack one another violently. 14 Moreover, Judah will fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered up—gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance. 15 This is the kind of plague that will devastate horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the other animals in those camps. 16 Then all who survive from all the nations that came to attack Jerusalem will go up annually to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, and to observe the Feast of Shelters.⁠ 17 But if any of the nations anywhere on earth refuse to go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, they will get no rain. 18 If the Egyptians will not do so, they will get no rain—instead there will be the kind of plague that the Lord inflicts on any nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Shelters. 19 This will be the punishment of Egypt and of all nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Shelters. 20 On that day the bells of the horses will bear the inscription “Holy to the Lord.” The cooking pots in the Lord’s temple will be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar. 21 Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah will become holy in the sight of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, so that all who offer sacrifices may come and use some of them to boil their sacrifices in them. On that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 66:24 and Zechariah 14:16

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah 66 and Zechariah 14 imagine all nations coming to Jerusalem to worship God. Zechariah pictures yearly pilgrimages for the festival of Booths and Isaiah goes further, describing ongoing worship by all people shaped by the Torah.

Passages

Isaiah 66:24

Hebrew Bible
22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth I am about to make will remain standing before me,” says the Lord, “so your descendants and your name will remain. 23 From one month to the next and from one Sabbath to the next, all people will come to worship me,” says the Lord. 24 “They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, and the fire that consumes them will not die out. All people will find the sight abhorrent.”
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Zechariah 14:16

Hebrew Bible
15 This is the kind of plague that will devastate horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the other animals in those camps. 16 Then all who survive from all the nations that came to attack Jerusalem will go up annually to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, and to observe the Feast of Shelters. 17 But if any of the nations anywhere on earth refuse to go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, they will get no rain. 18 If the Egyptians will not do so, they will get no rain—instead there will be the kind of plague that the Lord inflicts on any nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Shelters.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Zechariah

References

"... Zechariah 14:16 and Isaiah 66:23 are connected by several verbal similarities: ('and it will happen') introduces both of them; ('year after year') in Zechariah, ('new moon after new moon and sabbath after sabbath') in Isaiah; ('in order to worship') in both. The following verse in Isaiah, verse 24, is connected with Zechariah 14:12 by a thematic similarity, the punishment of the sinners in Isaiah and that of the soldiers who have fought against Jerusalem in Zechariah. This punishment is described in a most distasteful manner: 'Their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet; their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths'. Trito-Isaiah's assertion, 'their worm shall not die', appears to be an allusion to the drastic imagery in Zechariah. Claus Westermann notes that the intention in Isaiah 66:23 appears to go even further than Zechariah, since in Zechariah the survivors of the judgment of the nations come up to Jerusalem year by year, but in Isaiah 'all flesh' will worship Yahweh every new moon and sabbath ... Again, Isaiah is dependent on Zechariah ..."
Risto Nurmela, “The Growth of the Book of Isaiah Illustrated by Allusions in Zechariah,” in Bringing Out the Treasure: Inner Biblical Allusion in Zechariah 9–14, ed. Mark J. Boda and Michael H. Floyd, JSOTSup 370 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2003), 257–258.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 66:24 and Zechariah 14:16

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