Welcome to the July 2023 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal!
We’re starting a series on the Night Visions of the prophet Zechariah, many of which deal with God’s protection and plans for His people, but some have broader eschatological significance, as well. We kick-off that series with two articles in this edition: one introducing Zechariah and the second discusses the first of Zechariah’s night visions.
We also present our usual mishmash of topics: The U.S. Supreme Court’s lunges toward greater freedom, an article about all the books mentioned in the Bible that are not in the Bible, a delightful Mozart piano piece, and a review of a recent Eric Metaxas’ book. All this and more here in the July 2023 edition.
You may not agree with every article or perspective, but if you like the free exchange of ideas and civil discussion, please give our Facebook page a “like.” Feel free to leave a comment on any of our articles there or to respond to any of our posts.
Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic!
PROVERBS TO PONDER: What’s Worse than a Fool? Proverbs 26:12
Proverbs 26:12: Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
It seems like the news today is just a chronicle of foolishness. A woman on a plane that was about to travel from Dallas Fort Worth to Orlando recently made a scene and tried to get off the plane claiming that one of the other passengers was “not real.” Her expletive-laced and probably alcohol-inspired rant demonstrated her high level of folly. A recent dine-and-dash individual in Georgia may have gotten away with it if he hadn’t left his phone on the table, with a selfie on the lock screen. Police easily identified the man and also connected him to a murder earlier this year.
Foolish people are highlighted in the news, on TikTok, and on Facebook videos. We laugh at them, but in some cases, the act of foolishness results in something that is not so funny. We see folly from high-ranking individuals down to the most foolish of fools. Some folly is humorous, and some is tragic. There are clearly classes and levels of folly, and some fools are evidently worse and more destructive than others to themselves and to those around them.
So, what’s could be worse than a fool? Proverbs 26:12 gives us the answer.
It is interesting and ingenious that this proverb places the reader not in the seat of being judged, but in the seat of the observer. It is not about you, but about you watching someone else. This is disarming, but eventually, it does make us want to “see” that the person described here could be us, if not initially.
This person that we see in Proverbs 26:12 is “wise in his own eyes.” The first twist of this verse is that while Proverbs has been extolling wisdom, it here clearly points to a wisdom that is so narrow and self-absorbed that it is really not wisdom any longer.
For all the positive descriptions of chakam, “wise” in this book (60 out of 165 OT occurrences), this one may be more ironic. Wise in one’s own eyes indicates that they are not wise in other people’s eyes.
We all have our own internal logic that we use to justify our actions, whether they are wise and foolish. Ideally, what we should do is work to match our fallen and selfish internal logic with the reality of God’s revelation and especially with the truths provided in Proverbs. Aligning our internal logic with God’s Word will help make our internal logic more honest, more realistic, and more godly.
But some people have an internal logic and self-justifying system that defies what is wise, good, or honest. This is a person who is “wise in their own eyes,” and that phrase is never used as a compliment in Scripture (see, for instance, Prov 3:7; 12:15; 28:11; Isaiah 5:21). You are either wise, or you are wise in your own eyes, which means that you are a delusional fool. This person’s internal system of right and wrong may not always be wrong, but it often is, and it is wrong to the detriment of that person’s opportunities, success, and relationships.
But there is another twist in this verse. Proverbs doesn’t look too favorably on the class of individual that it refers to as a “fool,” the Hebrew word kesil; in fact, 49 of the 75 instances of this word for “fool” in the Old Testament occur in Proverbs. But this verse is one of the few places where the foolish person serves as a positive foil for something far worse.
The sage notes that the person who only abides by their own system of internal logic and wisdom is worse than a fool; there is more hope that a fool will stumble into wealth, renown, and good relationships than the person who is self-deluded. The word “hope” is tiqvah, and in the context of the Old Testament or of Proverbs, “hope” is usually not about the next life but about looking forward to a long fruitful life here on earth. We should discipline our children while there is “hope,” that is, an aspiration that they would not become a fool in this life (Prov 19:18). The fear of the Lord (22:17) offers us the hope that we will have a future and a legacy (22:18; see also 24:14).
There is little hope for a foolish or wicked person. However, there is even less hope for the person who is wise in their own eyes, who allow their internal logic to justify their folly, or wickedness, or incompetence. It is interesting to note that this same phrase, “there is more hope for a fool than for him” is used also at the end of Prov 29:20. There the author notes that what is worse than a fool is someone who is hasty in their words. As it turns out, there are different levels of folly, and some of these are even worse than being a regular old fool.
Someone who is otherwise considered by others to be a fool will fare better than someone who cannot recognize the faultiness of their self-oriented thinking. Arguably, this person is himself a fool, but perhaps a more foolish and self-deluded class of fool than the typical fool described in Proverbs. We need to be people who pursue wisdom from others and from God’s Word so that we won’t just be wise in our own way of thinking (Prov 12:15; 13:10; 19:20). We need to exhibit some humble self-evaluation to make sure that our internal logic lines up closely with divine truth (1 Cor 11:28; 2 Cor 13:5; Gal 6:4). The hope for each of us, then, is to move away from deeper and darker levels of folly and to enjoy a wise and successful life that mirrors the truth of Scripture.
SOCIETY/ POLITICS: Lunges at Freedom from SCOTUS
by Matt Kasper with Les Kasper
Misperceptions and lies surround several recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions; pundits discuss why the justices made the decisions they did, and describe the allegedly catastrophic results that may ensue. Some claim that the High Court is against women because the Court hates abortion, and others see that they are discriminating against homosexuals because the Justices supported someone who didn’t want to make a website for a gay wedding.
But these Supreme Court decisions have less to do with those issues and more to do with the rights of a citizen, or whether or not a person or group has the right according to the U.S. Constitution to proceed or behave in a certain way. Also, it is more important to the Court to decide whether or not the federal government has the ability to mandate rulings that bind all states, all citizens, and all institutions.
Four decisions in the last year, three of which occurred in the last few weeks, demonstrate that our U.S. Supreme Court is taking valuable lunges toward making our government conform more closely to the U.S. Constitution. People may attribute sexism or racism or other ridiculous motives to these decisions, or blame Bush or Trump for appointing certain justices to the Supreme Court. However, we need to cut through the politics and agendas and see that these decisions are attempts by the High Court to judge and not to legislate from the bench, and to restore more freedoms to states, businesses, universities, and individuals.
A case study in not confusing the issue with the notion of rights is last year’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Again, the issue here is not about abortion, the morality of it, or the rights and protections of women. The decision was primarily about what the federal government could or could not impose upon the rest of the country. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was a 6-3 decision handed down by the Court in June 2022. In this decision the Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution did not explicitly provide individuals a right to an abortion, and that the federal government didn’t have the authority to mandate those rights to all. Whatever else you believe about the abortion issue, this Dobbs decision was a victory for states’ rights, that is, for each individual state to determine how they want the abortion issue to be handled in their state. It was a decision for liberty, because it granted liberty to the states and their citizens and representatives to make these decisions for themselves. The Court rejected the alternative of allowing the federal government to mandate abortion rights and restrictions for all states and individuals, a right which the federal government doesn’t have.
Reporters and pundits in the media are guilty of poorly framing or unfairly discussing these kinds of decisions. They often reported that the Dobbs decision was against abortion rights rather than for states rights. There is a monumental difference between the two.
It is perhaps helpful here to remind ourselves that the U.S. Constitution is a document that limits the power of the federal government. It is beneficial to have a document like this that tells a central government what it cannot do, rather than a government deciding on its own what it wants to do. This is one aspects that made our U.S. Constitution unique at the time of its writing: it focused on limiting federal government rights rather than granting rights to the federal government or extending them. The Constitution is clear that any function not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution was given to individual states to decide.
The trio of recent decisions includes the June 29 ruling on Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, wherein the Supreme Court ruled that race-based considerations for admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were unlawful. In addition to being unlawful and unconstitutional, most of us think that these considerations are racist, as did the Asian Americans who thought that they were being discriminated against through use of affirmative action policies. Affirmative action may have been a beneficial mechanism at one point in our history, although there is, of course, great debate over that. But again, race or affirmative action is not the issue. The issue at both a private educational institution and a public one is the use of admissions policies that favored one race over another and the reality that this is unlawful and unconstitutional.
Another recent decision also illustrates the High Court’s lunge toward freedom. Biden v. Nebraska dealt with President Biden’s desire to forgive all student loans, a cheap campaign promise that he probably knew he couldn’t legally fulfill. Again, debates about whether college costs are too high or about how much debt students carry out of college are irrelevant. In a 6-3 vote, the justices decided that no president has the right to forgive student loans via an executive order or through any other means since such debt forgiveness was not authorized by the U.S. Congress. And we should all be grateful for this legislative check on executive authority: if an American president had this kind of power, what else would she or he try to accomplish?
A third beneficial decision for freedom is the 6-3 decision on June 30 that a website designer had the Constitutional right to refuse to make a website for a same-sex wedding (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis). In this instance, the High Court recognized that the constitutional freedom of the website designer took precedence over some of Colorado’s non-discrimination laws. Some news outlets suggested that this was a blow to LGBTQ+ rights. But does anybody, straight, gay, or otherwise, have the right to force a small or large business to take them on as a client? What organization or governmental function should have the unparalleled power to force large or small businesses to take on clients that it doesn’t want to, thus forcing the business (or individuals owning the business) to express something which violates the religious beliefs of that individual? Isn’t that kind of power the sort of tyranny that our Constitution was crafted to avoid?
By the way, not all SCOTUS decisions of late were entirely down “party lines.” Conservative justices Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett sided with the three Liberal justices, Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagen, in a June 27 decision (Moore v. Harper) that prohibits state legislatures from setting their own rules for federal elections. Similarly, all nine justices sided with a postal worker who refused to work on Sunday for religious reasons (Groff v. DeJoy). That these other four lunges for freedom were down “party lines” doesn’t in any way make them less legitimate than any other decision by the Supreme Court.
The tendency of governments and political mechanisms is to take more power and to defy accountability. In our country, the federal government has over the centuries taken more freedoms from states and citizens, and has created a ghastly amount of regulations that it imposes on schools and businesses. Whatever else one thinks about abortion, or homosexuality, or student debt, these U.S. Supreme Court decisions minimize the authority of the federal government and restore rights to states and individuals.
Whatever side of the aisle you are on, these decisions and their implications are good for all Americans, and will benefit us for years to come.
ZECHARIAH’S VISIONS: Breaking the Habit, Zechariah 1:1-6
Life now is unsustainable: a $31 Trillion debt, gender confusion, the manufacturing of race tensions, politicians who don’t care about solving problems but only about getting re-elected.
Do you ever feel like God has forgotten His people and that this world is just out of control?
So did the Jews in the post-exilic period. Along with Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and later Malachi, Zechariah ministered to the Jews returning from Babylonian exile. After coming back to Jerusalem and Judah, God’s people struggled to rebuild the temple, to rebuild their society, and to make God’s laws and their purity top priorities. Zechariah leverages long-range prophecies to encourage and exhort the post-exilic community to accomplish short-term tasks of rebuilding, living by the Law, and accomplishing social justice.
Of the four apocalyptic books in the Bible, Zechariah is the shortest and most neglected. However, it still has some gems that can help us as we consider our Christian doctrine and practice today.
Zechariah was a professional prophet and of the priestly lineage (Neh 12:12-16). His grandfather was Iddo (Zech 1:1, 7), who himself was a seer and an author (2 Chron 9:29; 12:15; 13:22). Zechariah writes in 520-518 BC, during the second and fourth years of the reign of the Persian ruler Darius (Zech 1:1, 7; 7:1). The structure of Zechariah is fairly straight-forward: a series of night visions in chapters 1-6, four half-chapter messages in chs. 7-8, and two longer messages, called “oracles” or “burdens” spanning chs. 9-11 and 12-14. The goals are mainly to encourage the post-exilic Jews to rebuild the temple (1:16; 6:12, 13, 15; 8:9), to remind them of God’s sovereignty (1:10; 3:9; 4:10; 6:7) and compassion (1:12, 16; 7:9), and to anticipate a future messiah (9:9; 14:4). He also wanted to issue warnings to not repeat the rebellion, idolatry, and defiance of previous generations (7:8-14), and it is this topic that Zechariah addresses in the introduction in 1:1-6.
Before Zechariah launches into a series of strange, apocalyptic night visions starting in 1:7, he urges his audience in 1:1-6 to break the habits and patterns of previous generations. The Jews’ rebellion and defiance against God, His Law, and His prophets resulted in their Babylonian deportation. Verse 2 serves almost as a summary of God’s relationship with the OT believers: He was consistently angry with them because of their sin. This verse has a fascinating structure, but we will deal with that in an upcoming article of our “God of the Second Verse” series.
Verse 3, then, notes that in light of God’s past anger at His people, the post-exilic community should break that pattern and return to the Lord. The idea of “Return to Me . . . that I may return to you,” or similar language, is seen several times in the OT (Neh 1:9; Isa 44:22; Jer 3:7, 10; 4:1; 24:7; Hos 11:5; Joel 2:12), and it even occurs in the NT, as well, such as in James 4:8. Another interesting feature of verse 3 is the repetition of the phrase “Lord of hosts” or “Lord Almighty,” which is meant to convey God’s power and resources. This phrase occurs over 239 times in the OT, including 53 times in Zechariah. While it is easy to doubt God’s sovereignty and omniscience when the world starts to fall apart, we can trust in God’s strength and inexhaustible resources.
In verse 4, Zechariah mentions the “former prophets” who exhorted previous generations to adhere to God’s Law and to exhibit compassion for the poor and needy. Even with the law, the Psalms, and the prophets, there was still evil ways and evil deeds in the people’s lives. But it is not just what they did, but what they didn’t do, specifically, they didn’t “heed” or “listen to” and attend to God and His revelation. Sometimes our job as believers is not much more difficult than to listen and to obey.
What was the result of this? As verse 5 notes, the previous generation of Jews passed away. Whether they complied with or defied God’s Word, they died and God’s Word persisted. Truth doesn’t cease to be true because people stop believing in it. When we disobey Scripture, we just hurt ourselves and those around us. When we obey, however, we bring great benefit to ourselves, and those around us, such as prosperity, ministry opportunities, and joy now and reward later.
Finally, verse 6 gives us a good definition of God’s faithfulness. God did what He said he would do; the Jews were punished but they eventually repented. Commentator Joyce Baldwin says, “Once they were in exile it was impossible to delude themselves any longer into thinking that they were right. Overcome by events, they had to confess that the words of the prophets had been justified and admit their own failure” (Joyce Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, 91).
The promises, and purposes of the Lord will come to fruition. When the post-exilic community was not experiencing the Davidic dynasty they thought would occur, they wondered if God had forgotten His promises. Some today wonder if God has forgotten His people and His promises. But we need to remember the active presence of God even in times of the apparent absence of God. We, too, should repent of our sin, and break habits and patterns of sin of our past and of the church’s past. Baldwin continues: “To sum up this introductory message, Zechariah is making a plea for a whole-hearted response to the Lord’s invitation to return to him. . . . If they will do so the covenant relationship will be renewed, and spiritual restoration will accompany the material restoration of the Temple” (Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, 92).
The church today should recognize the many ways in which we have made mistakes over the centuries and even in recent decades. Rather than showcasing the Gospel of Christ, we tried to influence our culture through legislation and politics. We resorted to raising pretty buildings rather than pursuing precise Biblical doctrine. We tried to get more pants in the pews rather than pursing discipleship and spiritual growth in every believer’s life. We exhibited condescension when we should have ministered with grace, truth, and peace.
Perhaps like those Jews returning from Babylonian exile to reconstruct the temple and their society, churches today, too, can pursue strong doctrine, expositional preaching and teaching, substantive worship, and concern for the legitimately poor and needy in our community.
Zechariah and his prophetic peers had powerful lessons to God’s people then, and, as we will see in this series on Zechariah’s night visions, those lessons continue to strike true for God’s people today.
MAGNIFICENT MOZART: Help Me, Rondo, Help, Help Me, Rondo
Good music is usually about a good melody, and Mozart is the master of the simple melody. At a time when composers were trying to impress with their Baroque complexity and ostentatious coloratura, Mozart provided simple and enduring melodies that continue to delight audiences today.
Like the Beach Boys song alluded to in the title (“Help Me, Rhonda” for anyone who still doesn’t get it!), the basic melody of Mozart’s Rondo in D. Major (KV 485) is catchy and playful. In fact, his Rondo in D Major is a workshop on all the different things you can do with a simple melody.
The song is written just for piano, the speed is allegro, meaning moderately fast, and it lasts about seven minutes. You can listen to a good version of it here or here. The piece begins with the basic melody in D Major, starting from the fifth note of the scale and descending down to D. The first note is a half note, and the next two quarters each have a grace note attached to them, or a note played quickly before the main note; this injects a playfulness and lightness into the melody. Mozart loves scales, and he ends the first half of the first section with a rapid descending and ascending scale in sixteenth notes that catapult the listener right back toward the melody. After a brief transition, the melody is resumed, but followed by a slightly different echo in the second measure; it is the same rhythm as before but the middle note drops down to a half step below the final note of the phrase, as though it is playfully scooping the melody back up to where it is supposed to land. But the melody in some form or another keeps being played in the first third of the song, sometimes, even being played by the left hand, and there is an option to repeat those first fifty-nine measures before proceeding.
The section after the repeat begins with the melody, but this time, it is being played on the A Major scale. Not only that, but it the second measure of the melody is echoed in slightly different forms two more times. A clever and playful riff sends us back to the melody, but playing it in G Major this time.
It is honestly difficult to explain all of the charming twists and turns that take place in the next page or two: the delightful tumult of measures 86 through 94, the haunting version of the melody played in a minor key starting in measure 103, and a section where the left hand once again champions different forms of the melody. But none of these variations ever make you feel like Mozart or you as the listener are lost. You feel like he is intentionally taking you on a ride and that there is a specific destination that he has in mind.
In the last page or two of this work we indeed careen toward that destination. The melody is resumed in B-flat Major, an odd choice, but it somehow sounds regal and ennobling. A few more scales and trills demonstrate that the song is nearing conclusion. And finally we are back to the melody. And after all that Mozart has done with this melody, the last few measures highlight the simplicity and delightfulness of that original tune. And the song ends; it ends quietly, contentedly, and purposefully as though everything that Mozart wanted to do with the melody he has done, and there is simply nothing left to say. The entire piece is a delightful ride that both begins and ends quite properly and intentionally.
My personal connection with this song is that it was the first one that I performed at a solo-and-ensemble competition in eighth grade. I was more nervous than I ever though I could be when I went up on the big imposing stage to be graded by three people sitting in a darkened audience. I played my heart out, even feeling at the end that I didn’t do too badly. However, I was given the lowest score available, and I think that the one judge who marched up to the stage and stood menacingly next to me would have made up new categories of failure for me if that were possible. His main, and apparently sole, criticism was that the grace notes in the melody should be played evenly like eighth notes. “That’s how Mozart intended them to be played,” the judge intoned sagaciously. He made me play the beginning of the song again the “right” way, which I dutifully did, even though it sounded like it was very much lacking in Mozart’s playfulness. And for all that, they still gave me a low score.
Not to be a snob or a sore loser, but every rendition that I have ever heard of this song treats those grace notes in the melody like grace notes, and not eighth notes! Mozart’s playful melody beats a judge’s pomposity every time.
Despite that traumatic experience to my adolescent musicians’ psyche, it didn’t dull my enjoyment of this song, and I still take it out and play through it once in a while.
I hope that you, too, will listen to this song a few times, enjoy all of the amazing and brilliant things that Mozart does with a simple melody. Maybe you, too, will experience the same delight that it has offered to me over the last few decades.
BOOK REVIEWS: Review of Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas
by Mike Jogan
Eric Metaxas’ newest book is an attempt to wake up American churches today by pointing to the past. He sees a direct parallel between the lack of moral courage demonstrated by the German church in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s day, and the modern American church.
Metaxas dramatically illustrates mind-boggling similarities between today’s American Church and the German church of the 1930’s when certain disdainful evil actions against the weak and vulnerable go unchallenged. He is sounding the alarm to remind church leaders that every Christian has a direct role in forming the culture of our nation.
According to his 2022 work Letter to the American Church, the most dramatic move the Christian Church leaders did in 1934 was to publish the Barmen Declaration. It declared the German [Nazis] state “could not co-opt the Church and the sanctity and separation of the Church from the state must be clear.” Yet shockingly most (12,000 of 15,000) pastors refused to sign the document thinking their institute would not be touched by the Nazis. While publicly hiding his hate for Christianity, Hitler surreptitiously worked to undermine the German Church and his future co-opting intentions, to fundamentally change Germany.
Then Metaxas makes the comparison with “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience” drafted in 2009 which sought to rally Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians in the U.S.A. around biblical principles like the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The purpose of the document was to call Christians to stand up for these biblical principles, especially in response to the federal government’s pro-abortion ideology and our culture’s cheapening of marriage. Metaxas even cited Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” where Christians were obligated to be civilly disobedient if the state forced Christians to violate their consciences. Just like the 1930’s, many (American Church) high-profiled pastors demurred in signing “The Manhattan Declaration.”
In his book, Metaxas describes what happens when one is silent rather than uphold a God-given requirement to speak up. If one does not speak out, a so-called “Spiral of Silence” occurs. This phrase was coined by Elisabeth Noelle Neumann, a German sociologist and political scientist while studying what happened in the 1930’s. The bottom line is when people fail to speak, the price of speaking rises. As this price to speak rises even higher, fewer people will speak out, until the whole culture or nation is silenced. Thanks to Nazi history, we have an example of the high price of not speaking out and acting. According to Metaxas, either we fight evil or promote it, for there is no neutral ground.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer presented a sermon at the Kaiser Wilheim Memorial Church two months before Hitler became chancellor, on Reformation Sunday in 1932. Already a renowned theologian, Bonhoeffer’s message to the German congregation was to awaken them to forcefully speak out against what was happening to the church of Luther. Dietrich declared that the church was dying because it was playing church instead of living out its faith. The German church members would not repent despite hearing even more ongoing events. Even as Dietrich Bonhoeffer shared his main concern with the membership it fell on deaf ears, “Protestantism is not about us and our protest against the world but rather about God’s protest against us.”
Metaxas’ book highlights four principal ways in which our misunderstandings have led us to the current status of fear and silence within Christianity, based on Bonhoeffer’s teaching. First, he points to a misunderstanding of the word “faith,” next he tackles what he calls the “idol of evangelism.” He also states that the church is scared by a faulty premise of not mixing politics and faith, which he calls “Be Ye Not Political.” Finally, he states that Christianity is not just about avoiding sin, and such a pietistic focus wrongly places personal holiness above all other virtues. Bonhoeffer said, “Either we speak and thereby help others to speak truth, or we cower in silence and thereby lead others to do the same.”
Our society is currently being inundated with cultural issues that Christians are ignoring including gender identity and transgenderism. We have a fear to speak the truth that God states clearly in Genesis that He made male and female people in his image and that those are the only two options. Metaxas wonders where the American pastors are today on the issue of sexuality and transgenderism? The news is filled with men proclaiming to be women, who are now taking home top prizes at women’s sporting events. This is as nonsensical as the phrase “pregnant people” slipping into government speeches. Where are the pastor leaders who should be speaking fearlessly on these moral issues?
Christianity is about speaking the truth in love. Metaxas reminds us to speak now, before the spiral of silence takes a permanent hold.
ZECHARIAH’S VISIONS: A Global Patrol, Zechariah 1:8-17
The Jews returning from exile struggled with rebuilding the temple, and rebuilding their society. The glory days of David, Solomon, and Hezekiah were far behind them. The Persian empire was thriving while they were struggling.
Had God forgotten His people and His covenant with them? Was God aware of what was going on?
Zechariah’s first vision in Zechariah 1:8-17 answers those questions fairly definitively. And those answers provide help and comfort for us today, as well.
This first vision begins with a man who is riding a red horse standing among the myrtle trees, followed by other horses, who presumably also had riders (v. 8). There are three other places where diversely-colored horses are mentioned, specifically in the horses or sets of horses in Zechariah 6:2-3 and Revelation 6:1-8, which are obviously mirroring this verse. However, the colors in these three contexts don’t exactly match up. Of course, they don’t really have to; ether way, they are a startling array of horses and riders.
Between standing among the myrtle trees and being down in a ravine, we sense that these individuals are trying to lay low. They surveyed and patrolled the earth, but don’t want that to be known or obvious. In Revelation 6:4, the patrolman on a red horse was given the power to take peace from the earth. Here, this horseman on a red horse will report that the earth was peaceful and quiet (v. 11).
Not surprisingly, Zechariah responds “What are these?” to an to whom we had not previously been introduced (v. 9). We sometimes encounter passages and images in the Bible that are confusing; it is somewhat comforting to know that the prophet Zechariah found Biblical imagery confusing, too! The angel offers to show him what these are.
The horsemen are those God sent to patrol the earth (v. 10). The word “to patrol” is the ordinary word halak, meaning “to go,” “to walk,” but in the particular stem here it means “to walk around” or “to go to and fro” (also used in Job 1:7; 2:2; Psa 56:13, and Zech 6:7). Odd that the omniscient God employs patrolmen and informants; that is, He doesn’t need creation (people or angels) to help Him, but He invites His creatures to be part of His sovereign oversight. Additionally, this vision confirms that God has double knowledge and awareness of reality: intrinsic knowledge of things because He is divine and omniscient, and external knowledge because He has set up a system where many of His angels report information to Him. This double-awareness opposes our concern that God doesn’t know what is happening or our sense that He may not be aware of what we are going through.
The report is that the horsemen had done their regular patrol of the earth and they have found everything generally peaceful (v. 11). This doesn’t mean that there is no sin, but there are occasionally times where there is less international turmoil, perhaps more internal turmoil than actual war and fighting. This peace, however, is a bad thing. Occasionally in the OT, the word shaqat, “quiet” or “undisturbed,” is associated with complacency or a false sense of security (Ezek 38:11; see Isa 47:8, Jer 49:31, Amos 6:1; see also Zech 1:15). It may also point to a lack of concern for those who are suffering, which prompts the angel’s outburst in v. 12. What that angel was concerned about is that it was hard to swallow that the world was at peace, while Jerusalem and the temple was in ruins, and the Lord didn’t seem to be doing anything about that. In our own context, it seems that some forms or expressions of evil are very well organized, have a long-term plan, and are unified in their efforts, and that God’s people are experiencing regular defeat. Perhaps the success of different forms of evil gives that much more reason for the Church to be unified, effective, and deliberate.
The angel interprets the report about the ease of the nations as a complaint against Israel’s suffering. The notion of why the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper was evidently a concern to the post-exilic people (Mal 3:15; 4:1; see also Jer 12:1; Hab 1:4). One commentator notes, “A belief distinctive to postexilic theology [is that] the kingdom would dawn only after an upheaval among the nations” (Thomas McComiskey, “Zechariah,” An Exegetical & Expository Commentary on the Minor Prophets, 1038). The angel recognized that the Jews had been back for more than seventy years and were still not experiencing the glorious Davidic dynasty apparently promised by the prophets.
The Lord responds to the angel to comfort him (v. 13), and apparently some of that comforting content is passed along in vv. 14-17. One of the most important things is that God is “exceedingly jealous” for His people (v. 14); the expression of God’s concern for His people couldn’t be stronger, and could literally be translated, “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.” God feels very protective of His city and His promised people and He demonstrates “a sense of intense devotion and loyalty to the people on Yahweh’s part” (McComisky, “Zechariah,” 1041). Since God’s interest don’t wax and wane, we affirm that God is jealous for Jerusalem, both the people, the Jews, as well as what Jerusalem means, the creation of a uniquely holy group of people who will represent Him and His ways on earth and would be subsequently blessed by Him. Jerusalem in some form or another, and all that it entails, especially abiding fellowship with His people, will last throughout eternity (Rev 21:2-5).
In v. 15, God confirms His anger toward the nations. The prophets received messages of instruction and of condemnation for the pagan nations, and Zechariah will have some things to say about the surrounding nations, as well. The word “angry” is used twice in 1:2, three times here in v. 15 and also in 7:12 and 8:14. And their actions and refusal to repent made Him angrier and “furthered the disaster.”
Rather, God assures the angel, the prophet, and his audience, both ancient and modern, that God will have compassion on Jerusalem (v. 16). He will help them build the temple on the foundation that had been completed over fifteen years earlier. Furthermore, there would be a “measuring line” stretched over Jerusalem; this measurement imagery points to the third vision in Zech 2:1, and we see this imagery extensively in Ezekiel 40-48 and also in Rev 11:1 and 21:15.
Having mentioned the capital city of Jerusalem in v. 16, he now in v. 17 mentions protection and prosperity for “my cities,” specifically the other cities in Judah. The word “prosperity” is simply tov, meaning “good” or “something optimal,” the word used several times in Genesis 1. Here for Zechariah, this tov includes financial, material, social, and spiritual thriving. In fact, they will “overflow” with this tov.
My summary statement for this first vision is this: God has extensive awareness of activities in the world, which includes His direct and unmediated knowledge and omniscience, and angelic patrols who report back to Him and to each other. This vision also teaches that the peace and prosperity of pagan nations does not mean that God has forgotten His own people. God retains jealous protection over His people and will help and prosper them greatly at a future time after the trials and oppression of this age.
For the Jews initially receiving this message, this was encouragement to complete the construction of the temple, and a guarantee that this will happen (v. 16). “This vision contributes to the overarching theme of the book by encouraging the people in their building efforts. . . . The vision spoke as well to their psychological needs. Their uncertainty about God’s attitude toward them drained their resolve” (McComisky, “Zechariah,” 1045). Thus, the words of comfort to the angel and the proclamations in vv. 14-17 were supposed to encourage the people and reassure them of God’s love and care for them.
For believers today, we must remember that God is still in charge and aware no matter how weird this world gets. Also, the church today should do what God has called us to do, specifically, to pursue fulfilling the mandate of the great commission, evangelism, and discipleship, and to not get distracted by other methods or priorities.
BIBLE STUDY: Non-Canonical Books Mentioned in the Canon
Maybe you have noticed when you are reading the Bible that there are other books mentioned that are not in the Bible. The Bible contains sixty-six separate books, or at least that is how they are divided in our canon (“canon” means a “rule” or “standard,” and in this case, it refers the Bible books accepted into Scripture). For instance, originally 1 and 2 Samuel may have been one book, but our standard canon divides them into two.
But these sixty-six books in the Bible are not the only books that are mentioned in the Bible.
So what does this mean? It means that the sixty-six books in the canon are part of the process of divine inspiration, but they were not the only documents that were written or referred to while the canonical books were being written or while the canon was being formed.
Most of the time that there is reference to a “book” in the Bible, it is referring to the Bible, or to a part of the Bible, like the Law, as in Deuteronomy 30:10 or Joshua 1:8.
But there are many other books mentioned in Scripture. For instance, there is “The Book of the Wars of the Lord” (Numbers 21:14), “The Book of Jasher” (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18), and “The Book of the Acts of Solomon” (1 Kings 11:41). We do not know what is contained in these books, but we can assume that there would be elaborations in those books of events in the Bible.
There also seem to be several prophetic works listed in the Bible, mainly in narrative literature including works called “The Records of Samuel the Seer,” “The Records of Nathan the Prophet” and “The Records of Gad the Seer” (1 Chronicles 29:29). One wonders if these works are referring to 1 & 2 Samuel or perhaps to parts of 1 & 2 Kings. Also, there is a work simply called “The Records of the Seers” (2 Chronicles 33:19).
One non-canonical prophet, named Iddo, turned out to be very prolific, writing a variety of works a generation or two before the Babylonian Exile. The works that come from him include “The Visions of Iddo the Seer” (2 Chronicles 9:29), “The Records of Iddo the Seer” (12:15), and “The Annotations of the Prophet Iddo” (13:22). None of these survive, unless they were integrated into other prophetic literature, which is certainly possible. One other note about this Iddo individual is that Iddo’s grandson, or descendant, is the post-exilic prophet Zechariah (Ezra 5:1; 6:14; Zech 1:1, 7).
Now, here’s one that will really confuse you: there are several mentions of “The Book of the Kings” of Judah or Israel (1 Chron 9:1; 2 Chron 16:11; 25:26; 28:26, 32; 27:2; 35:27; 36:8). Since these references occur in 1 & 2 Chronicles, these may be references to Samuel-Kings, as it is commonly accepted that Chronicles was written later. However, there are references to the “Book of Chronicles” in 1 & 2 Kings, mentioned 36 times (including 1 Kings 14:19, 29; 15:7; 23; 2 Kings 1:18; 8:23). In fact, this is usually referred to as “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah” (mentioned 15 times), or the “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel” (mentioned 18 times). However, this is probably not a reference to our canonical books of 1 & 2 Chronicles, which, again, were probably written after Samuel-Kings. The NIV helpfully uses the phrase “The Book of the Annals of the Kings” of Judah or Israel so as not to confuse these works with Chronicles. And a title like this is standard nomenclature for different nations and rulers, for we also have in the Bible the mention of the non-canonical “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia” (Esther 10:2).
So we see that in the Old Testament there are dozens of pieces of historical and prophetic literature that are mentioned in our canon of Scripture, but that don’t make it into the canon as an official book of their own.
The New Testament has fewer references to books that didn’t make it into the canon, but there are some nonetheless. For instance, perhaps not every epistle written by an apostle found a place in the canon. There was a letter from Paul to Laodicea that is mentioned in Colossians 4:16; the churches in those two cities were supposed to read their letter and then trade epistles with the other city. The churches in these two cities were apparently tight, as Laodicea or the Laodiceans are mentioned several times in Colossians (2:1; 4:13, 15, 16). But as far as we know, we do not have a copy of the letter to Laodicea. Some posit that Paul could be referring here to Ephesians which was probably intended as a document that would circulate through the churches of Asia Minor (called a “circular” letter). However, the amount of overlap in content between Colossians and Ephesians makes this unlikely.
There was apparently also another epistle to the Corinthians that has not been preserved. Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 5:9 and 11 that he had written this church a letter previously, and discusses specific instructions in that letter that they apparently did not understand and had, so far, not obeyed. This, then, would make our canonical 1 Corinthians Paul’s second epistle to the church in that city, and then our 2 Corinthians would have been his third letter to them!
One last example from the New Testament: In Luke 1:1, the author says that “many” have tried to compile accounts about Christ. Surely Luke knew of Mark, from whom he borrowed heavily, and he may also have either borrowed material from Matthew or perhaps they had a common document that they both utilized (which scholarship refers to as the “Q” document). John probably had not been written yet, so it seems implausible that Matthew and Mark alone would constitute Luke’s “many.” It does not seem unreasonable that in addition to Luke, Mark and Matthew, there were several additional documents about Jesus including collections of Jesus’ teachings, sayings, and parables. Some of these may have been completed accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry and others perhaps went unfinished. Supporting this is the fact that Luke’s word for “undertaken” or “tried” (the Greek word epicheireo) is only used twice elsewhere of a failed attempt to do something (Acts 9:29; 19:13). Apparently, and unsurprisingly, others attempted to produce documents about Christ’s life and teachings, and whether they completed them or not, from Luke’s perspective the amount of those attempts were “many.” Of course, since these other accounts never made it into the canon in their entirety, we do not consider them inspired or authoritative.
So, other literature was used or referred to by our Biblical authors, but it is not a problem that those documents did not make it into the canon of Scripture. Both the ancient Jews and the first-century Christians were very prolific, but only certain works were inspired by God. Other works were written, and may have had some cultural or devotional value, but God did not intend for those other works to find a place in the canon of Scripture. In the end, we can be confident by faith that the sixty-six books in the Bible are the inerrant, inspired, and authoritative Word of God.
The Eclectic Web Journal is written by Matt Kasper and edited by Martha Kasper. Matt is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently completing a PhD. in reformation history from Georgia State University. Matt is the pastor of a small church northeast of Atlanta called Grace Atlanta Bible Church, and is involved in several other groups and activities in the Atlanta area, as well.
We had written a decade’s worth of articles in our previous web journal, called, The Eclectic Kasper, which we published from 2011 to 2021. Those articles are also arranged topically in our “Eclectic Archive,” which you can access here.
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