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1 Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars! 2 Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen; the stately trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan; the dense forest has been cut down! 3 Listen to the wail of the shepherds; their rich pastures are destroyed! Listen to the roar of the lions; the lush thicket of the Jordan is ruined! ~ Zechariah 11:1-3
Today, we transition into Zechariah 11, and in these three verses we see three different sections of land: Lebanon, Bashan, and Jordan. This prophecy describes the descending nature of the wrath and fury of God on the sin of man which starts in the north in Lebanon and descends to the south in Jordan. Here, in today's text, God describes His judgment on those who reject His free offer of forgiveness. This prophecy, as with most in the Old Testament, has multiple fulfillments.
You'll remember that in John 3:17-18 the Lord Jesus said, "17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."
Today's text is quite a contrast to what we've read in the previous chapters of Zechariah. We've read a lot about the messianic blessings that will accompany the second coming of Christ. Zechariah 11 brings us squarely to the consequences of Israel's rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ at His first coming.
In v.1 of our text today, we read, "Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!"
Lebanon was told to open its doors, because no one ever resists the will of God. There is no sense in fighting God's plan. We might as well just throw open the doors to our hearts and let God have His way, so that we can evade the very wrath of God.
The imagery in today's passage is of a rapid forest fire moving from north to south. This does not fit the Babylonian captivity which, at this point, was long gone. This prophecy was written by Zechariah to provide a warning of God's judgment through the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. This passage also will be fulfilled a second time at the end of the Tribulation.
In v.2 of today's text we read, "Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen; the stately trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan; the dense forest has been cut down!"
Lebanon was and is on the north border of the land of Israel. The area of Bashan was an area just south of Lebanon. Bashan was populated by huge healthy oak trees. The trees are metaphoric for the people of Israel who were in danger of resisting the grace of God which would come shortly through the arrival of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. After Israel rejected their Messiah, Titus surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and 1.1 million Jews were slaughtered in 70 AD by the Romans. This was the fulfillment of this prophecy.
In v.3 of today's text we read, "Listen to the wail of the shepherds; their rich pastures are destroyed! Listen to the roar of the lions; the lush thicket of the Jordan is ruined!"
There is, here, the voice of the roaring of the lions. After the captivity of the northern kingdom, wild beasts began to multiply around the Jordan. It literally became a place where lions dwelt in the thick foliage. This refers to lions that had been weaned and they were young and they had great appetites and their roar was very fierce due to the destruction that occurred.
The point here is not that the trees got burned up and lions lost their homes. The point is that they were metaphoric of the wailing that awaited unbelieving Israel when it was devastated. Three times in these three verses the verb for destroy is used, giving the idea of permanent and devastating destruction.
The one human response in today's text is found in v.3: "the wail of the shepherds." The result of the unbelief of the people was the total destruction of the city and the people. You see, in our sinful condition, man is unable to withstand the pressure that comes when the righteous demands of the truth come calling.
All of this in today's text, refers to days after the Lord Jesus was crucified at Calvary. In addition, today's passage describes the ultimate destruction of those who reject God's free gift of salvation at the end. And the reason for this judgment is due to the fact that man is dead in his sins and trespasses. We were born as enemies of God. This means that man's sinful condition has separated him from God and all that is substantive. As a result, sinful man can not withstand the demands of righteousness and truth.
You may wonder why would God punish people. When mankind rebelled against God, man became the ownership of Satan. God's wrath is the absence of God's love. Man chose to be on Satan's team, and in so doing, we rejected God and His love. And, the love of God is the flip side of His justice. In our sinful condition, the righteous demands of God are crushing to us. In fact, we do not understand the penalty of God's wrath and fury upon our rebelliousness. The greatest display of God's love and wrath was seen at the cross of Christ.
The punishment of God can be evaded when we trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way that heaven will be filled with real people is through the sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:19 we learn "that through Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them." It is my sincere prayer that you will be counted in on God's team in the end.
