‘Christian Zionists’ are wrong: Zech. 13:8-9 does not substantiate Nazi-Jew theology

The refutation continues!

Introduction: timeline

As many of you are probably aware, the Unchristian Christians™’ amorally bogus defense of (Na)tional (zi)onist Holocausticaire ideology is devotedly premised upon the view of Christian Zionism (a.k.a. dispensationalism) that “the Jews must be relocated back to Palestine so two-thirds of them will be sent to hellfire at the Second Coming of Christ.” This notion is in turn based on a co-opted grave misunderstanding of the concluding two verses of chapter 13 of the Book of Zechariah, but before diving into that section let’s first look at the preceding v. 7:¹

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.

This prophecy is quoted in two out of the three Synoptic Gospels:²

Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.

Who is “the shepherd”? Jesus answers this question for us:³

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. … I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

Let’s compare the prophecies spoken by Ezekiel…⁴

And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

…

And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.

…to what Jesus also makes abundantly clear in John 10:⁵

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Slam-dunk confirmation:⁶

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep…

Obviously—needless to say—Zech. 13:7 was a messianic prophecy fulfilled in the circumstances of Calvary when Jesus was arrested and His disciples fled the scene. Let’s now continue to vv. 8-9:⁷

And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

Note that this prophecy begins with the phrase “and it shall come to pass,” implicitly hinting chronological succession. So it’s clear that the fulfillment of Zech. 13:8-9 transpires after the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ which occurred in 31 A.D.

I: ‘the land’

Allow us to decode and understand the prophecy bit by bit. Firstly (v. 8):

And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.

Is this literal or symbolic? Well, remember that the Mosaic Jewish “type” shifts to New Testament “antitype” in the long span of the Christian Era—the literal Passover lamb was a type for Christ as Lamb of God,⁸ the literal unleavened bread is a type for Christ as the unleavened Bread of Life,⁹ ancient Israel as a nation typified God’s body of believers as the apostolic Christian church,¹⁰ etc. etc.

Note that in Ezekiel 38-39—which obviously is a prophecy of the “end times” conflict between God’s people and the nations of the world—the antichrist king of the north¹¹ is described as launching an encroachment upon the land [of Israel]:¹²

Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.

…

And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.

Remember now that in antitype the true biblical “Israel” is not any collectively “racial” body of literal ethnic Jews, but rather the apostolic Christians. The Mosaic Covenant was eternally broken for good in 70 A.D. when the Second Temple was destroyed, hence why the Apostle Paul wrote to a Jewish audience in a letter dated (obviously) before 70 A.D. (since Paul was martyred prior to the Roman siege):¹³

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Obviously, if Zech. 13:8-9 is an “end times” prophecy of the same broader timespan category as Ezek. 38-39, then just as in those two Ezekiel chapters the phrase “land of Israel” (Eretz Israel) in actual meaning is symbolic and not literal: it refers to God’s faithful body of believers (and their temporal abode).

II: trying in the fire

Let’s now consider the next subsection (v. 9a):

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried…

What does gold symbolically represent? Turn to the Lamentations of Jeremiah:¹⁴

How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

One of Malachi’s oracle provide additional insight:¹⁵

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

Not to mention the comforting words of the Apostle Peter:¹⁶

…that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ…

…

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

And what are the “sons of Levi” in antitype? Peter explains:¹⁷

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

IOWs, the true Christian body of believers as a holy priesthood is antitypical Levi, failing not to “do good and communicate” because “with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”¹⁸ Let’s now look at the lynchpin of the answer solving the puzzle of Zech. 13:8-9 on the part about trying by fire—letter #7/7 to the angel of the Laodicean church in the Book of Revelation:¹⁹

I [Jesus] counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

Therefore, if Zech. 13:8-9 is an “end times” prophecy about the last days whereby two-thirds of a populace perish and the remaining third is sanctified and purified into eternal redemption, then this is more than evidently a reference to the trials of the Christian church, not Nazi-racial-literalized “Jews” as Zionist dotards believe. In Revelation, the seven churches constitute a timeline, Laodicea representing—as the seventh—the last era of Christianity before the probation window for repentance in the temporal realm of humanity is eternally closed and everyone is conclusively, definitively sealed either unto redemption or perdition.

III: God’s people

Let’s now look at the last part (v. 9b):

…they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

This is a conspicuous paralleling reference to one of the oracles from Hosea:²⁰

And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

As Paul explains in Romans:²¹

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

As he saith also in Osee [Hosea], I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.

Simply put, God’s [true] people are His faithful believers who repented in the atoning shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ—there is no respect of persons with God!²²

Conclusion

While Zech. 13:8-9 does transpire prophetically in the “end times” of biblical prophecy, it in no wise substantiates Futurist/dispensationalist/“Christian Zionist” bunkum purporting a central emphasis on racially literalized “Jews.”

TRY HARDER with your unchristian Zionist propaganda… SHILLS!

1. Zech. 13:7.

2. Matt. 26:31; cf. Mk. 14:27.

3. Jn. 10:11, 14.

4. Ezek. 34:23, 37:24.

5. Jn. 10:16.

6. Heb. 13:20.

7. Zech. 13:8-9.

8. Cf. I Cor. 5:7-5.

9. Cf. Jn. 6:35, 48, 51.

10. Cf. Jer. 9:25-26; Phil. 3:3.

11. Ezek. 38:15; cf. Dan. 11:40-45.

12. Ezek. 38:9, 16.

13. Heb. 8:13.

14. Lam. 4:1-2.

15. Mal. 3:2-3.

16. I Pet. 1:7, 4:12-13.

17. I Pet. 2:5.

18. Heb. 13:16.

19. Rev. 3:18.

20. Hos. 2:23.

21. Rom. 9:22-26.

22. Rom. 2:11.