Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 100:399 (Jul 1943)
Article: Exegetical Studies in Zechariah Part 12
Author: Charles Lee Feinberg

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BSac 100:399 (Jul 43) p. 390

Exegetical Studies in Zechariah
Part 12

Charles Lee Feinberg

(Continued from the April-June Number, 1943)

IV. The Future of the World Powers, Israel, and the Kingdom of Messiah, 9-14.

The last six chapters of this prophecy constitute an incomparable treasury of prophetic truth. The careful student of the prophetic Scriptures finds himself repeatedly referring to this section of Zechariah for the presentation of God’s plan for the days ahead. Conservative and liberal scholars alike have noted the marked differences both in style and subject matter between this portion of the book and the first eight chapters. The liberal solution to the phenomenon, gained from long practice on the problem of the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and Daniel, is multiple authorship.1 Differences in style and subject matter are explicable upon the grounds that the prophet wrote these concluding chapters at a later period in his life, and that the vision of Zechariah is focussed upon events far beyond his age. Wright, who cannot be said to give this position its full weight, nevertheless holds that “It need not surprise us that prophecies uttered under such peculiar circumstances (the harassing of Judea by the Persian hosts before the conquests of Alexander the Great), and in all probability many years after those recorded in the earlier chapters of Zechariah, should, even if supposed to be written by the same author, be composed in a somewhat different style from that of his earlier productions.”2

The prophecies of the last chapters are couched in two

BSac 100:399 (Jul 43) p. 391

burdens: the first burden covers chapters 9–11, while the second burden includes chapters 12–14. In most general terms the title to this division given above indicates the contents of the remainder of the prophecy now before us. Events of nothing less than cosmic importance are brought to the discerning heart as one views the coming colossal conflict between world powers and Israel with the grand consummation in the inauguration of the Messianic kingdom. Baron summarizes the teaching of the two final burdens thus: “In the first (chapters 9–11), the judgment through which Gentile world-power over Israel is finally destroyed, and Israel is endowed with strength to overcome all their enemies, forms the fundamental thought and centre of gravity of the prophetic description. In the second (chapters 12–14), the judgment through which Israel itself is sifted an...

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