The Day of the Lord

The last chapter of Zechariah brings the whole book to its end: the great Day of the Lord, when God comes in person to judge the nations and reign over all the earth. All that went before, the return of God to his city, the humble king, the pierced one, the shepherd struck down, leads here to the final coming of God and to universal kingship.

The “Day of the Lord” is an expression that many prophets take up. It names the moment when God himself intervenes in history to judge. Ordinarily God acts in a hidden way, through events; on that day he shows himself openly, brings down the proud, judges the nations and establishes his reign. This Day brings two things together: chastisement for those who have done evil, and deliverance for the people who have remained faithful. And it announces from afar the last judgment, when God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). In Zechariah, this Day is the goal toward which the whole book tends: God comes in person, fights the nations, and becomes king over all the earth. The chapter follows a clear movement: Jerusalem first assailed and half fallen, then God going out to fight, the upheaval of the earth and of the light, the living waters that spring forth, and at last the reign of the Lord, where even the most common objects become holy.

The final battle for Jerusalem

The Day opens on a trial before the triumph. God announces that the nations will be gathered against Jerusalem, and that the city will first be taken and half led away into captivity: “I will gather all the nations before Jerusalem for war; and the city will be taken, the houses will be plundered, and half the city will go into captivity; but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.” Zechariah 14:2. Zechariah speaks to a people that lived this in its own flesh a generation earlier: in 587 before Jesus Christ, the Babylonians had taken Jerusalem and led part of the inhabitants into captivity, while another part remained behind, among the ruins. The prophet takes up this recent memory of the exile and announces that such an assault will happen again on the Day of the Lord, and that the city will come out of it tried yet still standing.

It is then that God himself enters the battle: “The Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fights, on a day of battle.” Zechariah 14:3. And his coming is marked by an immense sign: his feet rest on the Mount of Olives, which splits in two before him: “His feet will rest on that day on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem; and the Mount of Olives will split through the middle, into a very great valley.” Zechariah 14:4. The Mount of Olives rises over Jerusalem to the east, facing the Temple; the hearers of Zechariah have it before them every day. When God sets his foot upon it, the mountain splits from east to west and opens into a wide valley, and this valley becomes a way by which the people reaches safety, apart from the battle God wages for it. The prophet draws this passage near to the great earthquake known under King Uzziah, which had remained in the people’s memory: just as they had then fled the earthquake, so they will escape through this valley. And the verse ends on the glorious coming of God: “You will flee by the valley of my mountains... And the Lord, my God, will come, all the saints with him.” Zechariah 14:5. God comes surrounded by all his saints, for the decisive battle from which his reign will come forth.

A single day

The coming of God overturns the very order of the world. The prophet describes a day like no other, where the rhythm of day and night is suspended: “It will be a single day, and it is known to the Lord; and it will be neither day nor night, and at evening time the light will be.” Zechariah 14:7. Where evening ordinarily brings darkness, that day will see the light at the hour of evening: the usual order is reversed, for the light no longer comes from the sun but from the presence of God. From this day springs a source that spreads toward the two seas: “Living waters will go out from Jerusalem, half toward the eastern sea, half toward the western sea; so it will be in summer as in winter.” Zechariah 14:8. These living waters do not dry up in summer or in winter; gone out from Jerusalem, they carry the life of God to the ends of the land, toward the Dead Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the west. The city from which God reigns becomes the source of a life that never ceases.

The Lord king over all the earth

At the heart of the chapter stands the word that crowns the whole book: “The Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day, the Lord will be unique, and his name unique.” Zechariah 14:9. This is the culmination of all Zechariah. God, who had first returned to Jerusalem alone, now reigns over the whole earth. And his reign is called “unique”: no longer a God among the gods of the nations, but the only one, recognized and adored by all. When God is recognized as the only God, his name alone will be invoked everywhere, and the idols will have vanished. He then transforms the land around the city, lowering the heights into a plain and raising Jerusalem, which rests at last in safety: “It will be inhabited, and there will no longer be any anathema; and Jerusalem will rest in security.” Zechariah 14:11. The anathema is what is devoted to destruction; there will be no more of it, because the city where God reigns no longer knows the threat.

As for the nations that fought against Jerusalem, they are struck by a plague that destroys them in their flesh: “He will make their flesh rot while they are still on their feet; their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth.” Zechariah 14:12. The plague strikes what serves to fight and to live: the body that stands, the eyes that aim, the tongue that commands; the power of the nations undoes itself, gnawed from within. To this plague is added the disorder God sows among them, which turns them one against another: “There will be from the Lord a great panic among them; each will seize the hand of his neighbour, and they will raise their hand against one another.” Zechariah 14:13. Deprived of God, the powers gathered against the city destroy themselves.

The nations at the feast of Tents

Yet the judgment is not the last word for the nations. Among them a remnant survives, and this remnant is converted: it goes up each year to Jerusalem to adore the King. “All those who remain, of all the nations that came against Jerusalem, will go up each year to bow down before the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles.” Zechariah 14:16. The feast of Tabernacles, also called the feast of Tents, was the great feast of joy of Israel, where the people dwelt under huts of branches in memory of the time when God had led them through the desert; it celebrated God present in the midst of his people. That the nations go up to celebrate it means that they enter into the joy of Israel and recognize its God as their own; the former enemies become worshippers. The one who refuses to go up deprives himself of the rain, that is, of the blessing that comes from God: “Whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to bow down before the King, the Lord of hosts, on it there will be no rain.” Zechariah 14:17. The gathering of the nations toward God, sketched in chapter 8, is fulfilled here in common adoration.

“Holiness to the Lord”

The book ends on an image that tells of holiness winning over all things. On the day of the Lord, holiness will no longer be reserved for the Temple and its sacred objects, it will extend to the most ordinary objects. What was written on the diadem of the high priest will now be engraved on the bells of the horses. This diadem was a plate of gold fixed to the front of his headdress, bearing the inscription “Holiness to the Lord,” which the high priest wore when entering the sanctuary as a sign of his consecration to God: “On that day, there will be on the bells of the horses: Holiness to the Lord; and the pots, in the house of the Lord, will be like the bowls before the altar.” Zechariah 14:20. The bowls of the altar were the sacred vessels of the sacrifice; the plain pots of the Temple will become their equals in holiness. And holiness overflows from the Temple onto the whole city and the whole land: “Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be a thing consecrated to the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 14:21. The distinction between the sacred and the common fades away, because God now reigns over all: there is nothing profane left where God is present everywhere. Thus the book of Zechariah ends, on a land entirely holy, where the Lord is king and where everything, down to the humblest utensil, belongs to him.

The fulfilment in Christ

The promise that crowns the book, “the Lord will become king over all the earth,” is fulfilled in the risen Christ. On Easter morning, victor over death, he declares to his own: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” Matthew 28:18. The universal kingship that Zechariah announced is that of Christ, to whom the Father has handed over all things, and who now reigns over heaven and earth. The Day of the Lord, when God will be the one king recognized by all, is inaugurated by the Resurrection and will be completed when Christ hands over all things to his Father, that God may be all in all.