A Cup of Reeling
1 A revelation of Yahweh’s word concerning Israel: Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him says: 2 “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and it will also be on Judah in the siege against Jerusalem. 3 It will happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it. 4 In that day,” says Yahweh, “I will strike every horse with terror and his rider with madness. I will open my eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. 5 The chieftains of Judah will say in their heart, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in Yahweh of Armies their God.’ 6 In that day I will make the chieftains of Judah like a pan of fire among wood, and like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will devour all the surrounding peoples on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem will yet again dwell in their own place, even in Jerusalem. 7 Yahweh also will save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of David’s house and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem not be magnified above Judah. 8 In that day Yahweh will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He who is feeble among them at that day will be like David, and David’s house will be like God, like Yahweh’s angel before them. 9 It will happen in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is made dangerous to handle rather than strong to defend, and the weakest in it are the ones compared to David.
The second burden opens with credentials rather than a claim, and they run from largest to smallest: God stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him Zechariah 12:1. Sky, ground, and the inside of one person, listed as work of the same hand — which is the warrant for everything the chapter goes on to say about nations.
Two images follow, and neither is a fortification.
The first is a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples — a cup that makes the drinker stagger. The city is not made hard to take; it is made unsafe to swallow.
The second is a burdensome stone for all the peoples, and the detail is physical: all who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded. A stone too heavy to lift injures whoever tries. Both pictures make Jerusalem's danger passive — the harm comes to those who handle it, not from anything the city does.
And the scale is total in the same verse: all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.
What God then does to the attacking cavalry is directed at perception rather than at bodies. I will strike every horse with terror and his rider with madness, and then every horse of the peoples with blindness. Between those two clauses stands the opposite operation on the defenders: I will open my eyes on the house of Judah. Sight given on one side and taken on the other, in one verse.
Verse 7 guards against the wrong lesson being drawn from the victory. Yahweh also will save the tents of Judah first — the country dwellings before the capital — so that the glory of David's house and of Jerusalem's inhabitants not be magnified above Judah. The order of rescue is arranged to prevent the prestige of a class.
Then the comparison that carries the chapter: he who is feeble among them at that day will be like David, and David's house will be like God, like Yahweh's angel before them Zechariah 12:8. The scale runs upward from the weakest man present. The feeblest becomes the standard the nation once measured its heroes against, and the royal house is set higher still.
And the chapter's last clause is a purpose, not a boast: I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
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