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Zechariah 2:14-17
Third vision: the measurer
[13] Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from his holy
dwelling.
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Commentary:
2:1-13. What the prophet now sees and hears concerns the city of Jerusalem. It
is going to be remodeled as an open city, without walls; its defence will be provi-
ded by God himself and therefore more people will be able to live there. The man
with the measuring line is an angel, as are the other two figures mentioned. The
idea of measuring the city in order to rebuild it is also found in Ezekiel 40-42 and
Jeremiah 21:38-40 and, later, Revelation 11:1.
The vision is followed by an oracle (vv. 6-10) in which the Lord speaks through
the angel. He invites the Jews to leave Babylon and return to the holy land. This
is a call that is also found in Isaiah and Jeremiah (cf. Is 48:20; Jer 50:8; 51:6). It
could be that some were reluctant to move. God promises that in Judah they will
be safe from other nations because they are his beloved people, the “apple of his
eye” (v. 8), and his angel will defend them. Moreover, he will settle there, and ma-
ny nations will become his people (vv. 10-11).
Presence of the Lord, security against enemies and a way for the nations to be-
come people of God – these are the features that Judah and Jerusalem will have
following the return from exile. In this sense, they prefigure the Church. Commen-
ting on v. 4, St Jerome points out: “Reading in a spiritual sense, all of these things
are to be found in the Church, which is ‘without walls’, or, as the Septuagint puts
it, ‘katakarpos’; that is, filled with an abundance of fruit and a great multitude of
men and asses […]. The men and the asses [cattle, animals] stand for the two
people, the Jews and the Gentiles; those who came to faith in Christ through the
fulfillment of the Law are called men; we, however, who were idolatrous and lived
as though in a wilderness, being far from the Law, and alone, because of our dis-
tance from the prophets who suffered, are the asses […]. But these animals hear
the voice of the good shepherd, and know him, and they follow him” (”Commenta-
rii in Zachariam”, 2, 4).
2:10. This call for rejoicing, similar to that made by the prophet Zephaniah (cf.
Zeph 3:14) and one made later (9:9), is repeated in the angel Gabriel’s greeting
to the Blessed Virgin when he tells her that she is to conceive the Messiah (cf.
Lk 1:28). That event will truly bring about what is said here, for Mary is “the mo-
ther of him in whom ‘the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col 2:9)” (”Cate-
chism of the Catholic Church”, 722). Bl. John Paul II sees Mary, the Mother of
the Redeemer, prefigured in the title “daughter of Zion” found here: “Her presence
in the midst of Israel — a presence so discreet as to pass almost unnoticed by
the eyes of her contemporaries — shone very clearly before the Eternal One, who
had associated this hidden ‘daughter of Sion’ (cf. Zeph. 3:14; Zeph. 2:10) with the
plan of salvation embracing the whole history of humanity” (”Redemptoris Mater”,
3).
2:13. The “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 2143, interprets the silence as
one “of loving adoration”. This is the attitude that all will have when they see what
God will do for Judah and Jerusalem; for Christians, it is the attitude they will have
towards the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of our Lord and towards
what God does for his Church.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.