A crown for Joshua
The word of the LORD came to me: 10 “Take silver and gold from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon. Go the same day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. 11 Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak. 12 Tell him this is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD. 13 It is he who will build the temple of the LORD, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.’.”
Verses 9 to 15 speak about coronation. Zechariah was to take gold and silver for the crown from people who returned from Babel (Babylonia). He was to fashion a crown and put it on the head of the high priest, Joshua. With the crowning comes a proclamation, a reference to the Branch.
Jesus is the only one who can fit the description of these verses. (See comments on the Branch in 3:8.) He had the duty of building the church, and it obviously wasn’t just a physical temple that he was going to build. He looked at the physical temple in Jerusalem and said, “I will destroy this man-made temple” (Mark 14:58). Saint Matthew tells us, “Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ‘Do you see all these things?’ he asked. ‘I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down’” (24:1,2).
This is not to say that the temple building was unimportant. God himself made the plans for it. God commanded it to be built. But the temple of Solomon would have remained a meaningless monument of stone and cedar had not the glory of the Lord filled it and God taken up his residence there among his people. In the temple that Zechariah describes, “He will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne.”
The temple of the Lord would not be built with cold, dead stones but with living stones. We think of what Saint Peter wrote to Christians centuries later: “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). John, by the miracle of revelation, actually saw this temple in a vision: “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Revelation 21:22). Jesus will gather those together who will be his glory, those whom he will live among for eternity.
Not only will Jesus gather them. He will use people to do it. “Those who are far away will come and help to build the temple of the LORD.” World mission work is done. Today, even Third World countries are themselves sending missionaries. The prophecy of Zechariah is being fulfilled before our eyes!
Verse 13 speaks about the priest also ruling, and with the ruling there is harmony. There is no confusing the roles of church and state. The catechism explains this about Jesus when it describes his work as Prophet, Priest, and King. Priest and King—“He will be a priest on his throne”—seems like a mixed metaphor of church and state until we understand what the catechism and the Bible teach about Jesus’ work.