MSB Note:
There are 29 men in the OT with the name Zechariah.  Both Jews and Christians endorse Zechariah as this book's author.  "This book is second only to Isaiah in the breadth of the prophets' writings about Messiah."  I had no idea...
Zechariah is a priest, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  Tradition says he was a member of the Great Synagogue, a group of 120 originated by Nehemiah and presided over by Ezra.  These later developed into the Sanhedrin.  Zechariah was born in Babylon and returned to Israel with the first group of exiles under Zerubbabel and Joshua.  He is often spoken of as the son of this Grandfather, which may well mean that his father died at an early age.
His opening words are time stamped 520 BC, first year of Darius I.
Some history thrown in from the MSB:  King Cyrus had died, and was succeeded by Cambyses, who conquered Egypt.  He had no son, he killed himself, and Darius I rose to power by quelling a revolution.
Zechariah is a contemporary of Haggai, starting his ministry only two months after Haggai.  We aren't sure how long his ministry lasted.  The last time stamp is in Chapter 7.  In Mt 23:35 it says he was murdered between the temple and the altar, much like an earlier Zechariah (2Ch 24:20,21) who had been stoned to death.

While Haggai's encouragement to resume building the temple had a tone of rebuke, Zechariah keeps them going with a call for repentance and reminders of God's promises.  Haggai said "build it now", Zechariah reminds them that Messiah is coming to dwell in the temple.  He tells them God will keep His promises to them.

The book has three major divisions (1-6, 7-8, and 9-14.  Each starts at the current time, and moves forward prophetically to the Second Advent, when Messiah returns to His temple to set up the Millennial kingdom.  So each is "near and far", always a difficulty for me.

I am quoting this from MSB, because I had no idea of the impact and importance of this book.  MSB is putting it above Daniel in terms of end time prophecy, to wit:  "This book is the most messianic, apocalyptic, and eschatological in the OT."  Goes on to say it is filled with "visions, prophecies, signs, celestial visitors, and the voice of God..."
Two big interpretive challenges:  Who are the three shepherds killed in 11:8, and who is it that has "wounds between your arms" in 13:6.  MSB puts his thoughts in the note.  I will wait until I've read these passages, and then come back to MSB's interpretation.

2024 - Definition of "horn".
Another measurement, like in Ezekiel and Daniel.
In 4:10, the seven eyes.  Another indication of 7 "districts" in the spiritual realm.

Chapter 1
Year 2, month 8 of Darius.  So October/November, 520 BC.  Tells us in vs 1 that Zechariah is the son of Berechiah, and grandson of Iddo.  We have seen Iddo several times before, but this one must be different given the 70 year captivity.  There is an interesting MSB note.  Says most prophets who dated their work did so according to the reign of a King of Israel, King of Judah, or both.  Haggai and Zechariah date theirs according to a Gentile King, indicating that the Age of the Gentiles had begun.  As I have said before.  Once Israel was divorced, the Age of the Gentiles was in progress.  The remaining question is whether the church also began to coincide with the Gentiles, or is the church an institution started by Jesus during his time.  
The first message is this:
3 Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. [Zec 1:3 ESV]  So simple, so unchanged right down to the present day.  2020-The problem for me is that God was angry with Israel, but all Israel are the sons of Abraham.  So who is being asked to return?  Israel, Abraham's seed, or both?  We know they are working on the temple, that sacrifices will be re-started, which would indicate Israel...but how can the divorced return?

Note the repeated "says the Lord".  God sets the terms for them, and terms for himself.  This sentence is like a "binder".  Beginning in vs 7, Zechariah has a vision.  This is still the second year, three months after the first prophecy.
First Vision: He sees a man on a red horse.  Three colors of horses behind him - another red, a sorrel, and a white.  He asks an angel what they are, and the angel interprets.  "These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth."  So these are not the four horses in Revelation that appear sequentially.  They are all here together.  They patrol the earth - which would mean they go to and fro and observe the developments of things on earth, and report back.  That's what patrols do, I think.  They answer and say that they have done so, and all the earth is at rest.  This is said during the time Persian Kings are conquering the world.  The angel who is interpreting the scene asks the Lord how long He will withhold his mercy from Judah and Jerusalem.  After all, it has already been 70 years.  Maybe the earth is at rest in that God's wrath was implemented and nothing new has happened.  Spiritually, the earth is at rest because we are not in any kind of transition from blessing to curse or vice versa.  Forces are stable.  I would think this might also mean Satan is not stirring things up.  He is likely happy with the situation as it stands at the time.

2025 - Surely it is implied that the other horses also have riders.  Else in vs. 11 it is those horses that answer.  This seems very unlikely.  We might consider the possibility that these same horses ARE in fact the ones in three of the first four seals.  For now, they only patrol, but in Revelation they will go out with a mission.  But the black horse is missing from this scene.  

God's answer to the angel is "gracious", but we aren't told what that answer was exactly.  BUT, the angel turns to Zechariah and tells him what to prophesy.  God is very angry with the nations that are "at ease".  Perhaps meaning they have no fear of Him, nor do they realize all that has been going on is from God.  MSB says it means they are occupied with their own business, going about their tasks.  This is in contrast to Jerusalem, where there are no walls, and there is no temple.  Jerusalem is in a very precarious situation, and the nations pay no attention.  Thus God is angry with them.  Also this MSB note:
"Zech. 1:15 Moved by his great love for his people, the Lord acted in anger (cf. v. 2) against the nations that mistreated his people. Although they were his instrument of judgment against Israel, they had exceeded God’s instructions in meting out punishment. They did not understand that God’s intention was to punish for a time and then show compassion (cf. Isa. 54:7–8)."
Zechariah is to say that God has returned to Jerusalem with mercy, that His house WILL be rebuilt, and the measuring line stretched out.  My guess is that this means they get another chance to do things right, but the measuring line over it means the standard will be high and exacting.  No slack will be given.  God has returned, but so have His covenant requirements.  He will see how they do this time - He will measure them.  Then verse 17 says that Israel will again overflow with prosperity.  This is sort of a repeat of vs 16, indicating a near, then a far fulfillment.  Vs 17 starts with "cry out again", also indicating a second fulfillment of the same prophecy.  Israel does get rebuilt, as does the temple, but never ever is the nation or the city or the temple like they were before Babylon.  There is a rudimentary restoration of the people, perhaps as a sign that God's promises to Abraham are not forgotten.  But remember that 70 AD is still coming.  It is all going to be wiped out again.  Why this interlude?  Maybe to show that even after Babylon the people did not truly look to God.  Maybe it had to be rebuilt so the punishment could be double.  In hindsight, this rebuilding after Babylon seems a sad thing.  

Verse 18 starts another vision:  Second Vision:  Four horns.  (MSB says this is the second of 8 night visions.  MSB is just crammed with notes through here.  More is note than is text.)  MSB says these horns are symbols of power (as in Daniel and Revelation, NOT horns that you blow and make noise!).  In this case, they represented the nations that had scattered Israel.  So very possibly they refer to Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Medo-Persia (since Greece was not yet in the picture), or more likely to the four world empires of Daniel - which would be Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.  Next, four craftsmen are seen.  The craftsmen have come to "throw down the four horns".  Spiritual warfare in the heavenlies?  The MSB notes on the craftsmen are unsatisfactory to me.  Essentially though, the craftsmen mean that each of the four nations that scattered Israel will in turn be scattered.

2020- Zechariah's prophecies must be about the time remaining before 70 AD, and then about Trib/Great Trib possibly, and then the Millennial.  Nothing is prophesied by any prophet about events between 70 AD and the start of the tribulation.  So Zech is no different.  His near prophecies have to be about the next 600 years or so - very short horizon as prophets go.  It should be quite possible to connect his prophecies with real events.  And perhaps the four horsemen are there just to sort of watch over Jerusalem during that 600 years until the double part of the punishment is fulfilled.

2025 - The short version as I read this year seems to be that Israel will return home from Babylon.  The Temple will be restored.  God will return to Jerusalem as the city of his name and will protect the through the restoration.  That's the first vision.  The second one about the craftsmen is more difficult.  Craftsmen?  The middle class, the merchant class.  There will be no King in Jerusalem - not to this day - so Israel is not led by nobility, not by a descendant of David at this time.  They are flailing around.  Ezra and Nehemiah are not Kings - appointed governors at best.  And it's going to stay this way.  Israel's leaders are to come from the "second quarter" so to speak.  Under this unusual leadership, Israel will thrive, will grow in power, will be divinely protected.  The craftsmen will throw down the horns.  This may just mean that Israel will regain her independence after Babylon.  She will be a sovereign nation again, though without a King.

Chapter 2
Third Vision: of a man with a measuring line.  Zechariah asks where he's going and he says to measure the length and width of Jerusalem.  (There is a lot of measuring in the Bible....2020 - Ezekiel's temple was measured, the Temple in Revelation is measured, this measuring is of the city of Jerusalem.  The measuring in all three cases is of a yet future place.).  The angel Zech had been talking to goes forward, and is met by another angel who says to tell that "young man", Zechariah, that Jerusalem will be so full it will be as if it has no walls.  But God will be to her a wall of fire all around and the glory in her midst.  (I am practically paraphrasing every verse.  Not my purpose...)

2024 - There was that verse about the city and the camp that I thought was about Jerusalem and Megiddo.  Maybe just about the city and the unwalled villages around it?  That would move that story to end of the Millennial.
2024 - There is also this reference to fleeing from the north,  from the daughter of Babylon.  The language in Rev is similar.  Also Isaiah.

God's people are urged to flee from the "north", because God will visit his wrath on those who scattered Jerusalem.  A near prophecy.  Ultimately, the Jews will return home, and God will dwell with them again, and many other nations will join themselves to Israel.
Question is, who is it that says this:
11 And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. [Zec 2:11 ESV]
This almost has to be a reference to Christ as King in the Millennial reign.  But where exactly did he begin to speak?  Is he the second angel who came forward?  Is Jesus here referred to as an angel?  Could be.  That's how he is referred to when he talks with Abraham as he is on his way to Sodom and Gomorrah.

These phrases are used:
vs 5, I will be a wall of fire
vs 5, I will be the glory in her midst, these could be Jesus speaking.
vs 6, attributed to "declares the Lord".  This is God, not Jesus.  2020-This is often the case, and speaks of the Trinitarian nature of God.
vs 6, I have spread you abroad.  Still God speaking.
vs 7, not sure.
vs 8, Whomever is speaking is quoting what God said "after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you".  So the speaker in this verse is not God.  Could this second angel be the avenger toward the overzealous invaders of Israel?
vs 9, God's words to the one speaking.  But it ends with "Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me".

I give up...thought I think I'm on the right track.  I think this is mixing near and far which is always confusing.  Near in that Babylon was going to fall and the Jews would be safer at home.  Safer in that God is once again with them, keeping their enemies away despite the city's poor condition.  Future in that Jesus will come to avenge the Gentile nations who persecute "the apple of his eye" over the centuries, and Jesus himself, after the great battle, will dwell in the restored Jerusalem.  Let's leave it at that, and not get hung up on each and every word.  The chapter ends this way:
13 Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. [Zec 2:13 ESV]
Which trumpet is it that results in silence in heaven for half an hour, before judgement begins in earnest?  Is this a reference to that?
2020-This year, this seems to me to be Jesus talking of his coming triumph in the Millennial.  It is he who will protect Jerusalem in that time, he who is on the throne, and he that is high priest.  The Jews were spread abroad then and still are, but they will be brought home.  Many nations will look to Israel in the Millennial to resolve disputes, to learn wisdom, and so on.  Look at vs 12:
12 And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem." [Zec 2:12 ESV]  Jerusalem chosen "again".  It was chosen, it was cast off, but it will again be chosen. This time perhaps as the capital not of Israel, but of Abraham's seed?

Chapter 3
A fourth vision: of Joshua, the high priest who came back with Zerubbabel.  He and Satan are standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan is accusing Joshua.  This verse:
2 And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" [Zec 3:2 ESV]
This is how angels talk, but I don't think this is Jesus  here.  Maybe this is the passage referred to in the NT when it says even angels don't take on Satan directly.  But MSB says "the angel of the Lord is identified as the Lord".  I get God referring to Himself in first or second person.  As I or We.  But I don't buy that God refers to Himself as third person "He rebuke you?"  Nope.  Can't buy that, MSB.

Pushing on through...Later... This is very like "the Lord said to my Lord".  God addressing Jesus in Psalms.
I think a brand plucked from the fire is about Joshua, for one, but also about the remnant that returned.  God had almost entirely destroyed Israel for their unfaithfulness.  They deserved annihilation.  But the promises to Abraham don't allow that.  He could have let them stay in Babylon, and gradually be diluted down to nothing as a people.  But He DOES NOT DO THAT!  He brings some back, to preserve and keep, and to ultimately restore in the Millennial.  2020-But he is going to scatter them again, just as he did in 586 BC, in 70 AD.  

This verse:
4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments." [Zec 3:4 ESV]
It is Jesus that takes away the sin of the world.  This seems to be both God, and Jesus, represented as separate but the same, in the last of two through this part of 3 so far.
Then the angel of the Lord (I think this is Jesus at this point) tells Joshua what God says to him.  God wants Joshua to know that he still must follow the rules, the covenant is in place, and the covenant is conditional...as it has always been with the nation.  God says Joshua - as priest, and I think further that Israel as nation - will have direct access to God though Satan do his worst to cut them off.  God then says, through Jesus, that Jesus is coming.  The Branch, the Messiah, is yet to come.  They should expect him.
Then vs 9 talks about a stone and seven eyes.  Removing iniquity in a day...that day when there's silence?

2020-
4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments." [Zec 3:4 ESV]  A picture of God forgiving the nation of Israel?  Or for restoring them, for another chance, which they will again squander, and end up in 70 AD?  Or a picture of salvation?  
Vss 6-8, IF.  So what is about to be said is conditional.  Perhaps not a full blown covenant, but a covenant with Joshua the High Priest.  He can be in charge of the rebuilt temple. That is all that is promised.  He keeps the sacrifices, and in return, he has the right of access.  The coming of the Branch is prophesied.  Joshua's charge, his access, will continue until the coming of the Branch.  At that time, this temporary "reprieve" will end, and the veil will rip, and then access will not be exclusive anymore, but open to all men.  The stone with 7 eyes?  The Messiah is the stone, the eyes symbolic of his omniscience?  Showing that though he is man, he is also God?  Yes.  I think that's what this was to foretell.  
Vs 9, iniquity removed in a single day.  Surely that refers the day Jesus is crucified.  On that day, sins are forgiven.

Chapter 4
A fifth vision: of  a golden lampstand.  Now the angel who originally talked with Zechariah "wakes" him.  I don't think this angel is Jesus.  So Zechariah says he does not understand the vision of the lampstand, the lamps, and the olive trees - two olive trees, not just one - though he sees it clearly.  The angel explains.  I do not understand the explanation.  The explanation is an instruction to Zerubbabel.  I believe from other reading that this lampstand, with a bowl on top, and seven lamps each having seven lips, is the Holy Spirit.  It represents the third person of the Trinity.  I think.
vs 8 says Zerubbabel laid the foundation of the temple, and he will complete the rebuilding.  In his time.  This is near only.
10b seems to jump back to the vision.  The seven are the eyes of the Lord in all the earth.  Is the Holy Spirit elsewhere referred to as "the eyes of the Lord"?  TCR doesn't pick up on it if so.
Seems Zechariah asks twice what the olive trees are.  Twice because they are men with "two lives".  Men who lived, and were taken up?  Perhaps they are Elijah and Moses?  They were here once before, and they will come again.  So ask twice about them to get an answer?  The olive trees are beside two golden pipes from where the golden oil comes out.  Here is the answer:
14 Then he said, "These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth." [Zec 4:14 ESV]
First time I read this, I thought of the two witnesses.  Also, the two at the Mount of Transfiguration.  Moses and Elijah.  ESV says "anointed ones".  TCR notes says literal Hebrew is "two sons of new oil".  MSB says they represent the priestly and kingly offices through which the coming blessings will flow.  So...new covenant, Jesus, who is both our King and our High priest?  Wow!  MSB agrees with that part about Jesus combining the two.  However, this would mean it has nothing to do with the two witnesses in Revelation.  Nor is it about Moses and Elijah.

So far in 2020, I am thinking Zechariah is far more in depth and complex than I though even as recently as last year.  I don't think I have ever seen a book about Zechariah.  There are 8 chapters left.  Will they all be so complicated?  I have to think that the explanation for the whole Abraham's seed/Nation of Israel covenants will be found in this book, if I can just pull it out.  As noted before, the state of Israel from this time of returning until 70 AD is very sad.  These promises of prosperity have never really come to pass.  Certainly they didn't before 70 AD, and the Bible skips all this in between we are having now.  So what exactly is it that they are to hope for?  The Branch.  Not power, not a return to prosperity, not Solomon's time, but for the Messiah.  That is the sole hope of the Jews who return here from Babylon.  They will prove once again that they cannot maintain the demands of the Mosaic covenant, prove again that they should be dispersed  - wiped out really - as a nation.  And it should be - it seems to me - the Abrahamic covenant that is continued in Trib/Great Trib and the Millennial. 

Chapter 5
Starts with the sixth vision: of a flying scroll.  This is interpreted as the curse that goes out into the whole land.  One side is about thieves, the other about those who curse.  It goes into the houses of these and remains until the house is consumed, both timber and stones - rich and poor?  So this is about...stopping sin at the most fundamental point?  As theft is sort of the "entry drug" to a life of crime, disrespecting the name of God is the entry to complete defiance of His will?  MSB says the scroll symbolizes the Word of God.  It's size matched the size of the Holy Place.  All will be judged by God's Word, in all the land, and those who fall short are to be consumed.  Doesn't say burned, but I don't know Hebrew, either.  That may be what it refers to.  Here's a description:
3 Then he said to me, "This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. [Zec 5:3 ESV]
MSB notes that "thou shalt not take the name..."  and "thou shalt not steal" are the 3rd and 8th  commandments, respectively, and may represent that five were on one side and five on the other.  Further, then, the sides may represent man's relationship with god on one side, and man's relationship with man on the other, and so encompass all the righteousness that God demands of those who would follow Him.  Disdaining these rules leads to destruction, not just in one place, but throughout the land.

The seventh vision:  A vision of a basket, with a leaden lid, and a woman sitting in it.  Here is the verse:
6 And I said, "What is it?" He said, "This is the basket that is going out." And he said, "This is their iniquity in all the land." 7 And behold, the leaden cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the basket! 8 And he said, "This is Wickedness." And he thrust her back into the basket, and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening. [Zec 5:6-8 ESV].  
2025 - It is much the same in NASB:
6 I said, "What is it?" And he said, "This is the ephah going forth." Again he said, "This is their appearance in all the land 7 (and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah." 8 Then he said, "This is Wickedness!" And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening. [Zec 5:6-8 NASB95].
2025 - So in Rev 17 we get the scarlet woman riding the scarlet beast.  I balked at the possibility that the vision mean that Satan uses, and has always used, women to undermine the originally intended leadership of men, and so steer mankind away from God.  Our culture today would scream that this is misogyny and error and pathological.  And now we get these verses - and they say it outright.  The woman in the basket is given a name.  Her name is Wickedness.  There is no denying this symbolism.  It would be foolish not to link Zech 5 and Rev 17 - these two visions of Satanic master strategy - despite what our culture says.  Why wouldn't Satan's most fundamental strategy strike directly at the most fundamental aspect of God's creation?  Wouldn't we expect him to attack the relationship between men and women - the foundational basis of all authority?  And if we were to give Satan a grade as to how successful he is in today's culture, wouldn't we have to give him high marks?  Not only are women walking around with this "innate" assumptions of equal authority with men in all things, but he's undermining the relationship even further by perverting the sexual relationship.  If marriage is not fundamentally between a man and a woman, but is open to the whole LGBTQ+ movement, authority in the basic unit of human organization comes down to individual expedience, and has nothing at all to do with the created order.  The proof is in the difficulty and the fear of getting "caught" saying such things.  This is what these two visions, each reinforcing the other, are about.
2025 - Here is the question:  If this whole concept is offensive to you, is it your sense of Biblical truth that is offended, or is it your cultural truth - the worlds opinion - that is offended?  This ought to be an easy question to answer.

Mostly 2020 update:  The translation in ESV says basket and iniquity.  NASB says ephah and "appearance in all the land".  Iniquity, as used in this verse in the ESV, is found in only one Hebrew manuscript.  The rest say "eye",  as in "this is their eye".  So an ephah and this is their eye.  An ephah was a standard unit of volume.  So it could be a specifically sized basket.  It might signify a standard - as the scroll symbolized a standard via the Ten.  I am reminded of Silence of the Lambs.  What do you covet?  You covet what you see.  So the eye may represent what they covet, their object, their obsession.  MSB implies that they see the Babylonian commercial system.  Accumulation as the end of all activity.  The leaden cover on the basket is lifted to reveal a woman inside.  The woman is interpreted as "Wickedness", with a capital W in both NASB and ESV.  She is shoved back down inside and the lid replaced immediately.  The leaden lid is heavy to keep her in.  So the basket is the container for the core desire of the people of Israel, and what it contains is Wickedness - as a system, as the best way, as the optimum method and philosophy for achieving their ends.  I believe the idols are gone after the captivity, but now Satan has switched strategies from distraction through idolatry and misdirection, to materialism and worldliness and success as measured by wealth.  Perhaps Capitalism is a better word.  Wealth is not an idol, but is the "eye" of the people, then and now.  And as it took God's out poured wrath to bring down idolatry, it will take wrath during Trib/Great Trib to bring down materialism.  So here I am again, back to believing the Babylon in Revelation is the world commercial system and not so much a single place...though a city might in the future come to be the embodiment and center of that system.  Babylon is fallen...Babylon was portrayed as the great harlot - a woman that symbolizes a system.  A system that must be contained by careful watching and a leaden lid.  
From 2019, MSB says the people of Israel brought the commercialism of Babylon with them when they returned home from captivity.  Then two women come forward, with wind in their wings, wings like storks, and they take the basket up in the air.  When asked, the one interpreting says they are taking it to Shinar, where a house will be built for it, and when the house is ready, they will set it down.  Babylon?  Where is Shinar?  We've seen that name before...MSB notes point out that Shinar is the "old" name for Babylon.  Also, storks are unclean, so these are "demonic" forces taking the basket to a place prepared for it.  They set it down on a base - a pedestal - to make it an idol.  Even without the pedestal/base reference - which isn't 100% clear to me in the ESV, this still has to be looking forward to that final system called Babylon.  
2020-The unclean women taking the eye and what it contains to Babylon, and setting it up to be worshiped certainly fits with the first part of this vision.  And it fits very very well with what Revelation says about Babylon.  The vision here, and the vision of John seem to be very much on the same page.  
I believe this whole chapter is now much more clear to me than it was the first two times.  Things just "fit" better now.

2024 - They are taking the basket to the land of Shinar:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F4925880829315226%2F&psig=AOvVaw16IEfv6Ip1nXDOcI_iU9u8&ust=1708701882621000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCOiD29-gv4QDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAs

2025 - This is MOSTLY Iraq, edging over into Iran, and a little bit of SE'ern Turkey. 

This is the eastern part of the fertile crescent.  Ur is south of Shinar, Haran is north of it.  Several other maps focused on this same area.  Shinar is not a city, it is a region.  Notice that Babylon itself is in Shinar, along with the Euphrates. The woman IN the basket is being taken to Shinar where the basked will be set down there on it's base.  As long as the lid stays on, then "Wickedness" cannot get out.  What does the lead lid represent then, and how does it get off the basket.  
2024 - This surely seems to connect this vision with Revelation 17-18.
2024 - Note that the basket is carried by two women.  This is hugely unusual.  We don't see anything like it anywhere else that I can recall.  Angels are not women.  Perhaps men would be two tempted, perhaps even angels would be at risk within the sound of the voice of such "Wickedness".  Perhaps these two women are part of the system - allies of Wickedness, taking her "home"?  And that whole "to build a house for "it".  
2024 - Hmmm...I wondered if "it" as a neuter pronoun, was really there.  As it looks to me in the interlinear, the pronoun is not there, but SOMETHING must be there.  Compare the ESV and the NASB95 to get an idea of the variations possible in the Hebrew:
11 He said to me, "To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it. And when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base." [Zec 5:11 ESV]
11 Then he said to me, "To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal." [Zec 5:11 NASB95]
I looked up the word used for "temple" in NASB95, and it is a VERY RARE translation of a word that is overwhelmingly translated house.  I think temple is a real push...that might well be right.  Note that NASB says the temple is for "her" not "it".  The Hebrew word translated base in the ESV and pedestal in the NASB appears only once in the entire Old Testament.  Just this once.  NASB seems to really be pushing the line on interpretation instead of translation.  ESV seems bent on NOT interpreting, even at the expense of changing pronouns to prevent it.  That seems very very odd to me.
Last but not least, Shinar is Babylonia.  It is the land from which Abraham migrated with his father.  There are many many modern archeological mysteries here.  Gobeckli-Teppi is at the extreme north end of this.  Ur is at the south end.  Uruk is here.  These places are the oldest ruins - the earliest "cities" - on the face of the earth.  And to this place the basket is transported, and a house is built, and the basket (or its contents) will be set on a base/pedestal there.  I think you have to be pretty dense to NOT see this as the cornerstone of end times Babylon.  
2024 - Why here?  Wasn't Eden here also?  It is here because this is the origin of mankind.  This is where God established "man", and this is where Satan began trying to destroy God's creation, made in God's own image.  This is ground zero.  That's why here. AND, this settles it for me.  The Babylon in Revelation is a real city, a real place, it is NOT Jerusalem under control of the MoL, it is old Babylon itself under the puppet government of the MoL, but run by Satan with pure original evil permeating the whole place.  Why is "Wickedness" a woman?  They learned about being tempted in the garden, and now they tempt.  They have much more to offer than do men when it comes to tempting men.  If that is right, then these verses are is explained:  
1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk." [Rev 17:1-2 ESV].
This is about temptation of all kinds, promises of all kinds, fake love of all kinds, supported, backed, and promoted not only by physical temptation but by spiritual evil.
2024 - And one more thing, while I'm letting my imagination run:  Shinar is a land of "first civilizations", which implies "first kings".  This place is EAST of Jerusalem, EAST of Megiddo.  So when the frogs are turned loose and the Euphrates dries up to prepare a way for the kings of the east, we are talking about kingdoms east of the Euphrates.  Not north and east into China and Russia.  EAST.  Note that almost all of the cities on this map of Shinar are EAST of the Euphrates river!  It is from here that the Kings of the east will come.  Might even be that the rest of the world is dead.  Every single person on the rest of the planet might be dead, making this the last and only place for Satan to recruit the final army.  

Chapter 6
The eighth and final vision:  This is the seventh I think ( MSB says this is the eighth.  What did I miss?).  Four chariots come out from between two bronze mountains.  Red, black, white, and dappled horses.  In chapter 1 it was red, sorrel, and white.  In Revelation the horses are white at the first seal, bright red at the second, black at the third horse, and the fourth is a pale horse.  The interpreter doesn't say what they are, but says the black horses are going north, and the white ones will follow.  The dappled horses will go south.  We are not told where the red horses go.  Before going, they have presented themselves before the Lord.  So they are doing as He wills - or are patrolling and reporting on the things that happen on earth.  Can't tell exactly, but it looks like the red horses, being impatient, went on ahead to patrol the whole earth, while the other three go to specific places.  To Babylon and Assyria - or Assyria and Greece!, and to Egypt maybe.  This vision concludes with this verse:
8 Then he cried to me, "Behold, those who go toward the north country have set my Spirit at rest in the north country." [Zec 6:8 ESV]  Some justice finally brought?  Or at least a lessening of the rebellion?  Again, this might be the state of things following the destruction of Babylon.  These chariots are sent to accomplish God's will.  Babylon and Egypt seem to be in view.  And the chariot with the red horses keeps order everywhere else.  The rest don't get out of line as badly as Shinar and Egypt perhaps.  MSB says I'm on the right track with these.  It refers back to explanation of the horses in Zech 1:8.  It says each chariot is going not to watch, but to deal out God's justice. Two for Babylon, one for Egypt, and one for the rest of the planet.  But they are "winning the battle" that God will have over all the Gentile nations at the end of the world.  And they correspond to the four horses of the apocalypse.  

After the eight vision, we return to Zechariah's time.  To narration instead of revelation.  Zechariah told from the Lord to go to three men returning from exile, take gold and silver from them, and make a crown for Joshua the High Priest.  He is to be crowned "the Branch" and is to complete the temple.  He is "a" branch, I think, because "the" Branch is Jesus.  There is also to be a priest on the throne with Joshua.  But Joshua is already high priest...?  Foretelling of the combining of those two offices in Christ?  Per MSB, the clue is that Zechariah was to make a crown, as a King wears, and not a turban, as the priests wore.  As I suspected...But God is setting this up in the OT.  This leaves Zerubbabel out, he is not, nor is he ever, made a king.  This because God said no descendant of xxxxx would ever sit on the throne and Zerubbabel is his "son".  MSB lists 8 facts about Messiah in vs 12-15.  They are worth reading.  The one that struck me most is the phrase "Those who are far off will come and build the temple..."  That is, Gentiles will be allowed in this city.  Gentiles who have weathered Great Tribulation and remained true to God.

2025 - First and foremost, this is about Zechariah's time, and about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem at that time.  However, we know also that the Branch is ultimately Christ.  I think we might read into these verses that once Jesus arrives and sets up his kingdom, HE, the Branch, will build a new Temple in Jerusalem.  This might be where the Ezekiel's Temple comes from.  The Jews will return to the Millennial Kingdom, with Christ as both King and High Priest, and worship in that new Temple.  This would further imply that the AoD, standing where he ought not, is in fact standing in some "other" temple, constructed by the beast as some kind of compromise with the Jews to restore peace and order to the world, and since he built it, he will be - claim to be - justified in being the one worshiped there.

Chapter 7
Time stamped 4th year of Darius. 9th month, 4th day.  A short chapter.  Seems that several men came and asked if they were to fast instead of feast in the fifth and seventh months.  These were "big" months because they had set feasts in them.  During the exile, since they could not sacrifice, and there was no temple, they had fasted during this time.  God's answer was to remind them that in the old days, they kept the feasts, but they were evil, and kept it not for God but for themselves, ignoring the prophets sent to call them to repentance.  God says that the "ritual" of the set feasts is not the point anyway.  Just like their fathers, they are about to make the same mistake.  If they feast, it should be for God, NOT just to say they are following the law!

Chapter 8
This unequivocal statement that God is still looking after Israel:
3 Thus says the LORD: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts, the holy mountain. [Zec 8:3 ESV]
He returned to Jerusalem with the exiles, and He dwells there to this day.  The last of the verse is still future, but will be fulfilled in those last days of the Millennial reign.  This is why I want to go to Jerusalem.  God is there!

2020-I believe the selection of Jerusalem as the place where God will dwell is formally re-chosen here, because God at this point had completely rejected Israel as a nation under the Mosaic covenant.  Now, we are dealing with the seed of Abraham and we are moving towards fulfillment of the unconditional promises God made to Him.  Jerusalem is still the city God chooses.  There will still be the same Holy Mountain as the nation of Israel had.  But it is not about the nation anymore, but about the descendants.  If the Mosaic Covenant was to be in any way preserved, there would be sacrifices today in Jerusalem, and there are not.  In the Millennial, sacrifices of remembrance will be made.  They will look back at the covenant that was broken as motivation to hold on the Abrahamic, and not to do anything that might delay still further the consummation of that covenant.  The Millennial sacrifices are reminders of past failures, and of the results that are guaranteed when we rebel against God.  I really think this makes good sense.  This verse:
11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the LORD of hosts. [Zec 8:11 ESV]  The Mosaic is gone.  Different rules now.

In the future, very old men and women will sit peacefully in the streets, and children will play there.  Vss 7,8 foretell the return to Jerusalem, from east and west (remember that the chariots went north and south...) and then repetition of the ancient covenant between God and Israel - "...And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
Then begins some encouragement.  God says that once they began to lay the foundation of the second temple, hearing the words of the prophets God had sent to urge them on, things changed.  This verse:
11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the LORD of hosts. [Zec 8:11 ESV]  God's wrath toward them is spent.  They are not restored to former glory, but He is no longer against them, as He was during the long decline from Manasseh to the exile and back.  
They are to work on this temple, to build it and the land, because the days are coming...days of restoration to the former glory.
Seems to me that vss 16, 17 contains the "interim covenant", setting forth the behavior required to continue preservation of the remnant, until the original covenant is reinstated in the Millennial:  
16 These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; 17 do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD." [Zec 8:16-17 ESV]
Many questions as to whether those who at least keep this much - who are faithful to God in their hearts though still denying the Messiah - will be saved for heaven, or are just "connectors" from the covenant at Sinai to the reinstatement in the Millennial.  As a rule, I think they are keeping this interim covenant even today.  They are a pocket of righteousness in the midst of evil.  They are surrounded by those who would replace God with Allah.  Yet He protects them.  They must be keeping this covenant!
2020-Or does this speak instead to the requirements during the Age of the Gentiles?  Is this about NT salvation, as opposed to the sacrifices made year by year.

Vss 18, 19 say that the fasts of the 4th, 5th, 7th, and 10th months are to be kept with joy.  Are these the four that will continue into the Millennial?  Are these the four that Ezekiel lays out in those last few chapters?  I bet there is complete consistency here.  THIS IS A NEEDED STUDY!
From vs 20 to the end of the chapter is the explanation for why so many of us, including me, want to go to Jerusalem.  And this inner urging to do so is I think only an inkling of the attraction to that city that will overtake all who live in the Millennial age.  I have got to go there!


Chapter 9
This chapter switches to "verse" format, and is titled in the ESV "Judgement on Israel's Enemies"
First, Damascus, Tyre, and Sidon.
Then Ashkelon - Gaza.  
vs 6 - 6 a mixed people shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of Philistia. [Zec 9:6 ESV]
Then this amazing verse, that surely describes the current situation:
7 I will take away its blood from its mouth, and its abominations from between its teeth; it too shall be a remnant for our God; it shall be like a clan in Judah, and Ekron shall be like the Jebusites. [Zec 9:7 ESV]  This speaks of Philistia.  Of Palestine, if you will.  They will be like the Jebusites.  Go back and read about them.  Even these will ultimately be converted.  They will turn to God.  Now there's a thought!

Then we turn from judgement to the coming triumph of the coming of the King.  This miraculous verse, written nearly 500 years before the event:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. [Zec 9:9 ESV]

2024 - So in vs 9 we see Jesus entering.  Then between 9 and 10 we have the current age, the age of the Gentiles, the church age.  Zechariah did not see it.  It skips right over all that and goes to vs 10 where the Jews live in peace in Israel.  We are not there yet.  From Zechariah's time until now, there has been no such time.
2024 - This is another example of how these are not near/far prophecies.  You have to look for the "gap" into which the church age goes.  The OT prophets saw the coming of Christ the first time, and they saw him coming the second time...but did not see - were not told - that there was at least 2000 years in between.  The heuristic is that to interpret these passages, you do NOT try to make them apply to something that was going on then AND something in the future.  You look for prophecy up through the life of Jesus - in this prophecy up until he enters Jerusalem as King - and then you expect the skip to the second coming.  Jesus entered Jerusalem and was celebrated, but there was no throne, no crown, no ruling with an iron rod.  We look for these the next time he enters.

2024 - This verse:
11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. [Zec 9:11 ESV].  This surely connects with the message Jesus sent back to John the Baptist when he was in prison.  Jesus sends to John that miracles of healing are happening, as foretold.  But Jesus does not say he is setting any prisoners free - so John was not released.  Based on the interpretation method above, we see that we have now switched to the second coming.  At that time, prisoners will be freed.  And what is this reference to a waterless pit?  I think that is something that will come, but is not yet.

2024 - This verse also:
12 Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. [Zec 9:12 ESV].  I believe this says that after the completion of the double punishment of Israel - of Judah - that came from the two rejections of God - one before the Babylonian conquest and again when they rejected Christ the New Covenant - God says here that he will also RESTORE DOUBLE to them.  They will receive two restorations also.  I did that study showing that it does not mean double in intensity, but two times.  So what are the two times of restoration of Israel?  One at the beginning of the Millennial, and a second after the final battle at the end of the Millennial?  Maybe.  Need to watch more closely for clues about this.

2024 - One more in this chapter that we have not seen elsewhere:
13 For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword. [Zec 9:13 ESV].  Surely there is no mistaking what this says.  Israel at war with Greece AFTER the second coming.  Where in the world is that coming from?  How can we fit that in?  We know there is a reference in Daniel to the Prince of Greece:  20 Then he said, "Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. [Dan 10:20 ESV].  Not sure this answers any questions, but it surely creates a few more.  But I think these two verses are connected.  They reference the same event, the same time....or maybe not.  In Daniel we may be talking about how when Babylon falls, the next great Kingdom is Greece under Alexander the Great.  But Zechariah wrote from about 520 BC.  Alexander the Great comes to power in like 320 BC.  However, I don't think Israel went out to war against Alexander, though they may  have been under his power.  I think therefore, that this passage is yet future.  
2024 - BUT, MSB says the "initial" fulfillment of this prophecy was when the Maccabees defeated the Greeks in 167 BC.  MSB says that victory was but a preview of Israel's final triumph over all her enemies.  Even with that interpretation, we see the prophecy of Greece and Israel at war around the time of the second coming.  There is nothing like that potential right now.  It is something to watch out for as a sign that the end may be near.  

2024 - The more of these I see, the less inclined I am to believe that the end is upon us.  This is disheartening in the sense that the trajectory of the US screams descent into chaos, and most likely conquest by a foreign power.  It is heartening in that the tribulation more intense than any the world has even known that will come upon the church - upon all believers - is not just around the corner either.  There is time to preach, time to witness, time to evangelize - those we love, and those we haven't met yet.

Vs 14 and 16 imply a great battle - forces arrayed on both sides, but with the anti-Semitic side far superior, and the appearance of Jesus, of the second coming, just in time to save Israel by wiping out the opposing forces.  If we tie that to Armageddon, at the beginning of the Millennial, then we see Greece as the primary power coming against Israel.  This does not line up with any theory I've heard before.  MSB note indicates Armageddon, but he makes no big deal at all about Greece.  These verses cannot be about the Maccabees, because there was nothing but a very short-lived peace after that.  Israel was not restored double after that battle.  This is the end times, and this is Greece, one of the seven regions.

God Himself will be Israel's protector in the days of this King - Jesus.  They will dominate the world, and none can come close to unseating them. 

Chapter 10
2024 - This seems to start an entirely different prophecy.  This is not a continuation of the things going on in Chapter 9.  This thing about rain seems more about the return from Babylon, and the people not restoring the Temple but doing their own thing.  
1 Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. [Ezr 5:1 ESV]
14 And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia; [Ezr 6:14 ESV]
I can't find it now, but I know there is a place where a prophet chastises the people for living in their own houses and trying to grow crops while the walls of Jerusalem were still in ruins.  They are told that God is withholding the rain and that their crops are poor because of this.  I looked a long time.  I cannot find it.  (2025 - Still cannot find it.  I know it's there.)

Begins by telling the people to look to God for answers to prayer, ask the maker of storm clouds for rain, not diviners and idols.
In vs 2b, it says the people wander for lack of a shepherd.  We saw this before, almost exactly this same accusation.  Here are a couple of those verses and several more are in Eze 34:
2 "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? ... 10 Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. [Eze 34:2, 10 ESV].  And in Zechariah, it is phrased like this:
2 For the household gods utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; they tell false dreams and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd. [Zec 10:2 ESV]
This contrasts prayers to the living God with the fake "power" of both idols and diviners.  In the absence of those who speak God's truth, man does what he can to fill the void.  The void is there in each person, and the need to fill it is overwhelming.  We will place things there that no rational person would ever believe had any power - idols of wood, stone, and metal, which are completely inanimate - and people who claim special insight and powers beyond mere men, who can be tested and proven false very easily.  But a true shepherd leads the sheep to real pasture, to where he can prosper and grow - to God Almighty.  Possible FB post here.

2020- 3 "My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the LORD of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like his majestic steed in battle. [Zec 10:3 ESV].  This verse is even more like the verses in Ezekiel.  But look at what is next.  The Lord cares for His flock - the house of Judah.  It does not say Israel here.  Zechariah is writing as Judah returns from Babylon.  Hmm...these captives were originally taken from Judah as the northern kingdom had been gone a long time.  So perhaps it is meant in that sense.  At that time, it was pretty much ONLY the Southern Kingdom coming back home.  (Except for that sermon on the radio last Sunday, talking about the verse that says they returned home, each to his own city, and when they  had the gathering of returned exiles, some came to Jerusalem from northern cities.  That preacher used that story to say that Jews returned to all of Israel at that time, all 12 tribes, and therefore there are no lost tribes of Israel.  So the US is not those 10 tribes was his point.  We do know that when the Kingdom split, and Jeroboam built the two calves for the north to worship, that many many people left the north and moved into Judah.  But given the Jew's penchant for genealogy, they would certainly know where their original city was, and what tribe they descended from.  So maybe this is how the 12 tribes are all preserved - by that mass migration out of the north when the Kingdom first split.  This seems to make a LOT of sense, and answers a lot of question.  It was once again the faithful from the north that were preserved, and the unfaithful families went into Assyrian captivity, never to be heard from again.  Those houses of Israel were annihilated, but not their tribes.  The tribes had to be preserved.  Those returning to northern cities as they came home from Babylon prove that they had been preserved, and explains the animosity of the Samaritans toward them "resettling" their ancestral lands.  Those in Samaria at the time had been resettled there by the Assyrians.  We have those stories.  And then in Zechariah's time, the descendants of the true tribes resettled there, creating long term resentment that we see still present in Jesus' time.)

This verse:
4 From him shall come the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler--all of them together. [Zec 10:4 ESV]
We hear a lot about the cornerstone, not so much about tent pegs, battle bows, and rulers.  NT calls Jesus the chief cornerstone - so there may be many, but I've not seen these others used.  MSB makes them also symbols of the Messiah...though none quoted from NT.  The whole chapter so far is referencing a future time - and still future to us I believe - when God will judge the shepherds, and send one of His own to feed the sheep.  This is what Jesus was referencing when he told people He was the good shepherd.  I never realized he was tying himself to these prophecies.

This promise to the house of Judah:
6 "I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the LORD their God and I will answer them. [Zec 10:6 ESV]
Still another reference to the severity of the judgement on Judah and Jerusalem.  The "double repayment" required of them because they had fallen so very far.  
2020-Joseph is added to Judah here.  Joseph is Ephraim and Manasseh, and in the blessing that Jacob gave his grandsons back in Egypt, it was said that Ephraim would be synonymous with national Israel. Judah here may be about the Davidic covenant, and Joseph about the Abrahamic, since Jacob "adopted" Ephraim and Manasseh to inherit from him directly.  The whole Joseph thing was long before the Exodus, so God may be saying here that He is going back to before the Mosaic Covenant, to the Abrahamic, and also preserving the Davidic.  So as we saw previously in reference to God renewing his choice of Jerusalem as the city where He will dwell, here, He reminds us that it is only the Mosaic that has been abrogated, while the Abrahamic and the Davidic will continue into the future.

2024 - Judah and Joseph.  So is this about Zechariah's time or a prophecy of Jesus' time.  Jesus was pretty hot at the shepherds.  But I think it would be unusual to have a prophecy of Jesus' life.  We see his coming, but not much about his life.  We know that Nehemiah got pretty hot at the shepherds for allowing a merchant to keep inventory in the Temple.  Zechariah, Haggai, Ezra, and Nehemiah were contemporaries.  So it would make sense that they have similar messages.  I think the best bet is that Zech is talking here about the same things that Nehemiah chastised the priests about.

2024 - But if it is about that time, what is this about Judah and Joseph?  Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh.  I am not aware of them assuming leadership at that time, and in reality, Ephraim and Manasseh were in the Northern 10.  Yet Zechariah repeatedly says Judah, not Israel.  Hmm....there is that line that seems to say E and M will be as though God had never rejected them.  

More about the coming restoration:
8 "I will whistle for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as they were before. [Zec 10:8 ESV]
A reference to the calling home of the children of Israel.  We have seen this countless times now.  At the end, God will restore Israel - it population, it's bounty, it's divine protection - to what it once was.  I believe the "yard stick" for completion of this promise will be comparison to Solomon's kingdom.  This continues in the next verse:
9 Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return. [Zec 10:9 ESV].  So...there could be Jews who don't know they are Jews out there still.  Overriding the speculation above that the 12 tribes all returned from Babylon.  Of course...they are to be scattered yet again in 70 AD, and perhaps it is from that scattering that they will ultimately realize their heritage and come home to Israel.  The next verse continues this whole theme of bringing home the descendants of Abraham:
10 I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till there is no room for them. [Zec 10:10 ESV]  Many fled to Egypt ahead of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion.  Many were already gone to Assyria.  Zech would surely know about those still scattered in those areas.  Perhaps the way to look at it is that those returning from Babylon represented all 12 tribes, and then these verses - 8 to 10 - are about the regathering at the end, prior to the Millennial.  They will be brought to Lebanon...perhaps Lebanon is ultimately to be annexed into Israel?  Where exactly is Gilead?  East side of the Jordan from Galilee down to the Dead Sea.

2024 - Vss 8-12 seem to be looking way out again.  It is possible that the reference to Joseph is in fact about restoration of the Northern 10, not exclusively about the two half-tribes.  The implication is that there are countless Israelites scattered abroad since the Assyrian captivity, when many were taken away and others fled to Egypt.  If we do that, we can fit these verses into the end times when the Jews come home.  I think this is during the Millennial that they will return.  
2024 - In verse 11, we have Assyria mentioned and Egypt mentioned.  These words look like prophecy to me.  Put these together with Greece, and you have three of the spiritual realms, and Israel is a fourth.  There are only three others.  What are they?  Will Zechariah name them also before this is over?  So...looking back at where the four chariots went, two went north, one south, and we have no idea about the red horses.  I believe one that went north went to Assyria.  The other, at this point, I would suggest went to Greece.  But Magog and Rosh are up there too.

Chapter 11
This chapter is titled "The Flock Doomed to Slaughter"
Starts off in "verse" format, and seems directed specifically at Lebanon.  Much ruin is coming to Lebanon.  In vs 4, back in plain format, Zephaniah is told to "Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter..."   The land, of Lebanon, literally I believe, is going to fall.  The land will be crushed and none delivered.  
In vs 7, Zechariah says he assumed this role, shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter by the sheep traders.  MSB infers that this looked forward to the conquest of the whole area by Rome, and ultimately to 70 AD.  I don't see that yet...Sheep traders could refer to warring, powerful enemies, with the "sheep" the common people, being little more than livestock in the way of armies - run over, devastated, slaughtered without a thought.  Notes in MSB continue to reference 70 AD.  Talks about how Israel is called "sheep for the slaughter", about how a million Jews died in the assault in 70 AD.  Could be...

MSB notes totally allegorize the two staffs.  Not very satisfactorily though.  This verse, which must reference a specific event(s), and tie to the near fulfillment:
8 In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. [Zec 11:8 ESV]  MSB says very difficult to interpret.  A challenge.  Possibly refers to the three "classes" of leadership in Israel, which were eliminated at this crucifixion:  Priests, elders, and scribes.  Certainly all played their negative parts in the life of Christ.  All three were regularly rebuked.

2025 - The idea from MSB is that this is about the elimination of priests, elders,and scribes - the leaders of the people at the time of Christ since there'd been no King since 586 BC, and who would not recognize their Messiah - and their replacement with the New Covenant - a nation of priests.  One month means God brought this about quickly - from the crucifixion to 70 AD was what, about a month of years?  

9 So I said, "I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another." [Zec 11:9 ESV]
The words of Zechariah, but certainly these same words could have been from Jesus as he looked over the city of Jerusalem when he arrived for that last Passover:
37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! [Mat 23:37 ESV]
They were not willing, Jesus went to the cross, and the second destruction descended on the city.  The second destruction of God's temple, which remains destroyed to this day.

2025 - Surely this is about God abandoning Jerusalem, and leaving them to their fate.  If they die they die.  After the crucifixion, God walked away from his city and his people, for the second time.  First it was Babylon, now Rome.  He has not returned.  They still suffer from blind eyes and deaf ears.

Oh my!!! Every verse is a revelation.  I have not seen this one before:
10 And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. [Zec 11:10 ESV]
Annul, as if it never was.  Required sacrifices annulled.  Priesthood annulled.  Dietary restrictions annulled.  All that was contained in the Covenant of Sinai is annulled - because the line was crossed by Manasseh, and the people just got worse and worse.  The temple was only rebuilt to be destroyed again even as it was replaced by the New Covenant!  The remnant is only protected as it is because of the unconditional promises to Abraham.  Else there would be no Jews at all.  And yet...the Sinai covenant will be renewed, reinstated, put back into full force and effect for the thousand years of the Millennial reign.  HOW CAN THERE BE DOUBT given this, just a few verses later:
12 Then I said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them." And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. 13 Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter"--the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. [Zec 11:12-13 ESV]
400 years in advance.  The good shepherd was rejected, and "priced" as if he were nothing at all.  A peripheral incident to those who did it, and yet this sealed the annulment in vs 10.  And this staff, Favor, takes on more meaning.  Israel would no longer be a special nation in God's eyes, it would no longer be favored as the covenant nation.

2025 - Note that the crucifixion, the betrayal of Jesus by the religious leaders of Israel at that time, and the annulment of the covenant are tied together here in that the verses are consecutive.  Yes, the New Covenant to the Gentiles came in at this time, but we ought to be keenly aware that this is also the "cutting of favor" toward the Jews.  To say that they are favored to this day is to ignore these verses.  They will come back - I think even now they are the "resurrected soldiers in the valley of dry bones", but they breath earthly air, and the breath of God is not in them.

14 Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. [Zec 11:14 ESV]  Hmm...Oh!!!!  The unconditional covenant with Israel via Abraham, is here separated from the Covenant with the Nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai!!!  MSB says this one symbolized the nation's unity.  NOT SO!  That was broken under Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and was never restored.  YET, all 12 tribes receive land in the Millennial.  This is about covenants!  In light of the verses above, that spoke of Judah and Joseph being restored, Israel here represents the nation under the Sinai covenant.  So the superimposing of the nation of Israel (Sinai covenant) on the underlying Abrahamic Covenant is removed.  THIS IS HOW YOU EXPLAIN IT!  First, Israel's status as a nation favored by God is annulled by breaking Favor, in Zech 11:10.  Then National Israel's place as conflated with (in union with) the promises to Abraham's descendants, is undone.  We are back to the Abrahamic only.

2025 - Oh my...First, Favor is broken.  The NATION of Israel is no longer receiving special protection from God.  Whoever dies dies.  Then, with the breaking of "Unity", the promises of the Sinai Covenant are separated from the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant.  The Sinai Covenant is just gone, fallen under it's own terms.  God exercised his exit clause when the religious leaders - who were in charge of compliance with the contract terms - in fact killed the Messiah sent to fulfill the contract on God's part.  Up until here, both the Abrahamic and the Sinai covered the same people.  The Sinai fell and Favor was broken.  Then Unity is broken, to show that even though the Sinai fell, the Abrahamic remains!  What we will see fulfilled in the Millennial Reign are the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant - the descendants of Abraham.  

The first (Favor) removes the Sinai Covenant completely.
The second (Union) removes Israel from her place as the people ruled exclusively by the line of David.  Now, Gentiles too will ultimately be ruled by the Davidic line, which is exactly what the church age is about.  And note the two verses just before the breaking of Union!  They speak to the betrayal of the Davidic line of Kings, with Jesus the current heir apparent.

The conditional covenants that were offered to those assembled at Sinai were NOT offered to the whole world, but exclusively to what would be the NATION of Israel.  They didn’t hold up their end, so it was their exclusivity that they lost at the Babylonian conquest.  Perhaps God’s side continues, however, such that at least some of the sacrifices are still continued into the Millennial.
They were given exclusive rights to receive the blessings of the Davidic covenant also, but that exclusivity went away when they rejected Jesus in the first century and were destroyed in 70 AD.

The good shepherd is to be replaced - for a time - by one who cares nothing about the sheep.  This is how the bad shepherd is described:
17 "Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be wholly withered, his right eye utterly blinded!" [Zec 11:17 ESV]
I am thinking this is a physical description of the Antichrist who will rise and lead the Jews astray at the end.  I am thinking that the "wound miraculously healed" is here identified.  He will lose the use of one arm and his right eye.  Doesn't say which arm, but one arm and a right eye should be easy to identify.  
2020-MSB pretty much agrees that this is Antichrist.  There was another verse, not long ago, that spoke of Antichrist and had another clue about who he is or how he can be recognized.  I cannot remember where that was or what it said, and this morning I have not been able to find it.  It was something along the line of  "description....this is wisdom".  Searched for "this is wisdom" and did not find the exact phrase.  But it was something like this.  My point is that there is more than the one trait for identifying Antichrist.  666 is just one.  Here are two more - an eye patch maybe and a withered arm.  And there was at least one more in these OT prophets that I cannot find.  I really really want to pull that one back up. 

2024 - Is this why Arafat wore the eye patch?  But his arm was fine, so far as I know.  He was not 666.

Chapter 12
Titled "The Lord Will Give Salvation" in the ESV.
This begins talking about "that day".  Seems to me, from vss 1-5, that this is a reference to the battle between the forces of Antichrist and Jesus immediately preceding establishment of the Millennial Kingdom.  This battle will be over, I believe, in only minutes, as Jesus himself will do the fighting.  Antichrist - the human part - will be killed, and the beast and false prophet thrown into the pit.  What will happen will be so "unearthly" that the whole world will know, and recognize, and no longer have any doubt, that there is a God in Israel.  This seems to confirm it:
9 And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. [Zec 12:9 ESV]

These next verses speak to the restoration of the Sinai covenant.  As is the case with grace, it will be God who initiates, God who makes 
His chosen able to receive what He offers.  In our sin and corruption, we are not capable of seeing the decision before us.  We haven't got the ability to choose the right way.  This is the whole point in all creation - from angels to Israel.  There is none righteous, no not one!  Only God can give us the insight to choose Him.  And that is what is going to happen as the Millennial opens.  This is how restoration of the covenant will come about.  Those who were blinded will be able to see, and they will finally keep the promises they made at the mountain.  Here:
10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. [Zec 12:10 ESV]  A national revival.  None will be skipped.  All Jews, where ever they are, will know that Jesus was the Christ they had awaited.

Hadad-Rimmon is the place where King Josiah was killed.  That's why the mourning there was so great.  So interesting that he was killed on the plain of Megiddo.

Chapter 13
No title for this chapter.  Pushed together with 12 in the ESV as if the division is arbitrary, and need not be there.
1 "On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. [Zec 13:1 ESV]  Perhaps the brook coming from the Third Temple will begin to flow?  

2024 - Or is this a new dispensation.  Old Covenant, New Covenant, Jewish Return Covenant?  Jesus said he was living water.  This description makes sense in light of that.

Then, a division, titled "Idolatry Cut Off".  So maybe it is only vs 1 that should have stayed with 12.
vs two references "that day".  This term is used many times through here....
Even the memory of the names of idols will be cut off.  There will be no more prophets.  They'll be removed.  False prophets will be killed, even by their own parents.  Prophecy will not be tolerated.  False prophets will deny that they were ever prophets, even claiming they were stolen as babies and brought up to declare false prophecy.  

2024 - What does "that day" mean?  It doesn't say IN that day, but ON that day, as if a single day is what is in view.  In Zech 2:11 and 3:10, we have IN that day.  Then follow 18 occurrences of ON that day.  One of those, only one, seems to be a reference to something that happened in Zechariah's time.  Here is that one:
11 So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. [Zec 11:11 ESV].  In context, this is part of Zechariah's description of events after God tells him to become shepherd of a doomed flock. The staffs Favor and Union are part of this.  This is a very symbolic, very difficult passage for me, but it reads like some of the passages in Jeremiah where Jeremiah was told to go and do something in front of the people, a symbolic act, and then to explain what he was telling them.  So I think Zechariah is talking here about one specific day.  If that is so here, then we can perhaps project that same idea to the rest of the "on that day"'s in Zechariah.  
2024 - Continuing..."In that day" in Hebrew is "yom hu".  "Yom" is "in day", "hu" is that, in Zech 2:11.  Exactly the same in 3:11.  But "on that day", which first appears in 9:16, it is...exactly the same as far as transliteration.  Are the cantillation marks different?  No.  Exactly the same. And in fact, NASB95 translates them all "in that day".  So there is nothing here, and I have spent 30 minutes on a difference in translation that implied a "difference" to me, when in fact there is no difference at all, and in fact, we don't know if "that day" refers to a single day or a period of time.  I think I am much more inclined to say it is a period of time, since my "trigger" that it means something different turned out not to be there at all.
2024 - So.  A period of time.  Is it about the Millennial?  Or does it start immediately after the rapture as the Jews begin to move from all over the world toward Jerusalem?

2024 -This verse:
2 "And on that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness. [Zec 13:2 ESV].  A future time when there are no idols in memory and no prophets in Israel, nor any spirit of uncleanness.  This seems to include prophets as of a kind with idols and the spirit of uncleanness.  So I don't think we're talking about "true" prophets here, but false ones.  It gets really serious after that.  The implication is that in this time the people, Israel, will have not only a perfect discernment of false prophecy, but also a complete intolerance of it, to the point where parents will kill their own children for claiming to be prophets.  Israel will know that no prophets exist at all in that time, so any prophet, even their own child, is false and deserves death.  To me THIS kind of environment ties in with the prophesy in Jeremiah where God says he will "put a new spirit in you", and that "all will know me", and that "no one will be taught by his brother".  None of these things will be necessary, because they will ALL have inerrant, total discernment.  Prophets will be a complete waste of time.  While the New Covenant that we have is partially like this, with the indwelling Holy Spirit, Zechariah is talking about something an order of magnitude more intense.

2025 - This strange verse:  4 "On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies. He will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive, [Zec 13:4 ESV].  Surely this references both Elijah and John the Baptist.  This is to show unmistakably that not even one identifying himself as these two will be a true prophet.  Is this about the Millennial where no prophet is needed because Christ is present?  It can't be about the intertestamentary period can it?  I mean, John showed up out of that period.  His appearance ended that period.  Jesus warns about false prophets twice in Matthew 24.  In 24:5 where I believe he is speaking of the time between his crucifixion and 70 AD, before the Temple stones are thrown down, and again in 24:24-26, when I believe he is talking about the time between the appearance of the AoD and second coming - on the white horse with his armies. Could Zechariah be talking about one of these?  I think the attitude of mothers and fathers towards the prophets Zechariah means tells us that this period of time has not happened yet, in our day.  So not the time between crucifixion and 70 AD, and surely there has been no other time like this.  So we have to say this time is yet future...but not the Millennial if it ties to 24:24-26.  Zechariah is talking about the time between the AoD and the second advent.  And yet...the next verse is quoted by Jesus in the garden.

The chapter changes to verse format.  This must all be discussed:
7 "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me," declares the LORD of hosts. "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones. 8 In the whole land, declares the LORD, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. 9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people'; and they will say, 'The LORD is my God.'" [Zec 13:7-9 ESV]
Vs 7 looks ahead to the crucifixion of Jesus.  The man who stands next to me affirms the deity and equality with God of Jesus Christ.  "Strike the shepherd..." Jesus quoted this in Gethsemane (Mt 26:31?).  
Vs 8 I believe moves on ahead to the Tribulation and Great Tribulation.  All these are in thirds.  The first several trumpets affect one third of earth, a third of the trees, crops, grass, waters, and so on.  Many will die as a result.  Two thirds of the world will die.  Very likely two thirds of the Jews alive at that time will prove unfaithful as they are refined.  At the end of great trib, which is to say "on that day", only the faithful third will remain to enter Jerusalem and the Millennial kingdom with Christ.

2025 - Right or wrong, I resist interpreting a passage that appears to be chronological as if it goes way out to the tgt FIRST, and then comes back to the crucifixion after that.  I prefer to make the adjustments to interpretation in such a way that the passage remains chronological - even if it is about a sequence of events far in the future.  What we have is that idols will be removed, prophets will be removed, unclean spirits will be removed, all at some future time.  We can, without any problems, have these three things occur together or in close sequence.  Zechariah was after the return from Babylon, so that bookends  the earliest time about which he could be talking.  We have "in that day" in vs 1, and again in vs 4, with "also".  So the characteristics of vs 1 will be accompanied by the characteristics of vs 4, where no one will want to be recognized as a prophet.  
2025 - Hmm...Once the MoL declares himself god, worshiping any other idol than the AoD will have a death penalty.  Even fake prophets will be arrested and killed.  Real prophets will deny that they ever were prophets lest they be arrested and killed.  To this point, things fit with AoD to Second Advent.  So I am left then with there being two fulfillments of "Strike the shepherd..."  Could the second one be the two witnesses?  They will be killed, after the AoD is set up if I have the timing right, and after the Jews have begun to recognized Christ, and recognize what they've done.  This can fit.
    (2025 - Later.  No, I don't think this is about real prophets pretending to not be prophets.  Zech 13:2-6 are about God shutting down idols, demons, FALSE prophets once and for all, and about Israel - the Jews - no longer tolerating false prophets.  This is akin to what we see Jeremiah promise about no one needing a brother to tell him what scriptures mean.  Everyone will just know.  This looks to me like it could be starting up BEFORE the Millennial actually arrives.  But somewhere along here Joel's old men dreaming dreams has to show up also.  I don't see how this prophecy in Zechariah and Joel's prophecy can overlap.  They must be separate.  
    
2025 - The thirds then in vs 8.   We see one third in Revelation 8, during the trumpet judgments.  A third of the grass and trees, a third of the oceans, a third of the fresh water.  It might be that the seals take out a third, and then the trumpets take out a third...but then there is this too, right after the two witnesses:  13 And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. [Rev 11:13 ESV]...This is still during the trumpets, but it is hard to get a third out of 7000.  Maybe though, "that hour" is when the persecution of the Jews stops.  Maybe this is the failure of the plan the MoL had in place for genocide of the Jews?  With the "resurrection" of two witnesses and the earthquake, some "group" of Jews, though 2/3rds have been murdered, will be released...maybe even by the earthquake.  Locked up prophets?  The 144,000?  

2025 - It is surely a true statement that the end of the trial is at the Second Advent.  After that, all are protected.  That's what this means.  

Chapter 14
The last chapter of this little book, titled "The Coming Day of the Lord".
Vss 1, 2....possibly 70 AD.  The end of Jerusalem as they had known it.
This is the passage about the Mount of Olives splitting to north and south.  That's not in Revelation (or I can't find it there this morning).  This is on "that day" when Christ appears on the white horse.  I imagine the attacking armies surrounding Jerusalem will be some put off by the appearance of Christ, arrayed as for battle, with one foot on each half of the newly split mountain.  That stream from the temple is going to flow through that newly created valley, getting ever deeper as it goes, and providing food for those who make it into the Millennial Kingdom.  
There will be no night, because God is there.
The Dead Sea will get part of the water from the temple, and become fresh, and the rest of the water will flow to the Mediterranean.  This verse:
9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one. [Zec 14:9 ESV]
This is the culmination of "that day".  I am more convinced that all this happens on a single 24 hour day.

2024 - Backing up just a little...these verses:
1 Behold, a day is coming for the LORD, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. [Zec 14:1-3 ESV].  This is a chronology.  What we don't know is how "tight" is the chronology?  Vss 1,2 might be about 70 AD, or 136 AD.  I don't know enough about 136 to say, but the conquest of 70 AD saw a lot of very angry Roman soldiers bent on retribution for the loss of so many to the Jews defending Jerusalem.  I am sure there was rape, there was spoiling, there was horror of all kinds.  And the Temple was burned to the ground that day.  But note also that "nations" is plural here.  BLB says it is plural in Hebrew.  Were other nations with Rome in 70 AD?  I don't think so.  Let's follow the trail that starts with "this is NOT about 70 or 136".  When is it then?  
2024 - How about right after the rapture when the MoL declares himself to be God.  How about right after the Dragon is thrown down and sets out to make war on all the remaining Jews?  How about the battle in Megiddo just prior to the Millennial.  And finally, is it the time of the post-Millennial battle?
Here is the thing.  This says Jerusalem will fall.  The nations attacking it will win, overcome it, spoil it, and rape its women.  This is devastating loss, which does not happen either at Megiddo or at the end.  But it sure might go down this way as the MoL consolidates all power to himself.  There should be verses that describe this.  Perhaps here:
15 "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ... 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. [Mat 24:15, 21 ESV].  The holy place is in Jerusalem.  The intervening verses say to get away if you can.  It goes on to say that at the end of this time, the elect will be gathered from the four winds.  BUT, hmm...The church will still be here in Matthew 24.  Zechariah didn't know about the church, and he would not be prophesying about the church.  
2024 - So that makes these verses post-rapture.  What about this verse:  
17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. [Rev 12:17 ESV]...not really.  This is generic as to Satan's strategy.  It does not say he will go and plunder Jerusalem.
2024 - Ahhh...what about these:
2 I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, ... 12 Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. [Joe 3:2, 12 ESV].  This valley is just outside the NE wall of Jerusalem.
Here are a couple more:
14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. [Joe 3:14-15 ESV]. 
These from Joel seem to be about a direct attack on Jerusalem - they are outside the NE wall attacking.  It says nations, not nation.  Could it be that these armies at first sack Jerusalem, and as Jerusalem falls, the rapture occurs.  The Jews within the city are massacred, enslaved, exiled...the city is plundered and the women raped.  But the church is out.  For another 3 1/2 years this goes on, with the MoL and his government buying and selling Jews like they're cattle.  This is what all those verses are about - the last 3 1/2.  And at the end of that time, Jesus shows up at Megiddo, conquers that massive army, and rides into Jerusalem as King.  All the captives from that battle are placed into the Valley of Jehoshaphat for safekeeping until Jesus himself judges them - those who survive, those who are living.  I think this makes good sense.  

2025 - What about these verses:  15 "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. [Mat 24:15-18 ESV].  Don't these warnings sound like they are about the same kind of circumstances we see in Zech. 14:2?  The peak of persecution, of refinement like gold and silver through the absolute worst kind of trials as those who took refuge in Jerusalem - despite the warning of Matt 24:15-18 - are overrun, abused, chained up and marched off into exile?  

2024 - So...does this splitting of the Mt of Olives in vs 4, creating a valley through which those entrapped in Jerusalem by the surrounding armies flee, tie to this verse:
6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days. [Rev 12:6 ESV]?  If so, we know very accurately when these events will occur!  At the rapture, half way through the 70th week.  And look at the next verse, the last part Zech 14:5:  
5 And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. [Zec 14:5 ESV].

2024 - So then it gets complicated.  Azal.  This is the word used in the Masoretic text.  In the Septuagint, it is Yasol, and if you translate according to the Septuagint, it is quite different.  You get this:
The valley between the hills will be filled in, yes, it will be blocked as far as Jasol, it will be filled in as it was by the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah,
— "Zechariah 14:5". New Jerusalem Bible. Retrieved March 13, 2016.
These two passages are just pretty much opposites.  So be careful about "life changing decisions" based on this verse.  
According to Wikipedia, no one really knows where Asal is.  This makes it a good place to have a lot of Jews hide out for 3 1/2 years.  Perhaps they fled through this "created" valley opened up for them to keep them safe from the MoL, and like the Red Sea, the Valley was filled in and it's ultimate destination hidden after the Jews passed through.  Perhaps this valley led down into the earth - like into a cavern or passage - think Carlsbad.  The MoL tries to excavate it with water pressure, but there are cracks and crevices which siphon off so much water that they cannot continue.  And then they get furious and go after the rest of the Jews.  This goes on for 3 1/2 years, and then, as in vs 5b, Jesus comes with his army.

2024 - Zechariah is hard because it contains so much end times prophecy!  Yet we never include it with Daniel and Revelation.  We usually put Joel before Zechariah in terms or prophecy.  I suspect the reason is that Zech is difficult!

This promise:
11 And it shall be inhabited, for there shall never again be a decree of utter destruction. Jerusalem shall dwell in security. [Zec 14:11 ESV]

12 And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. [Zec 14:12 ESV]
This must have been the "source" of the special effects in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  They "melt" from fervent heat while still on their feet.  

2024 - This is the judgment of those who war with Christ at Megiddo.  Here is how Revelation describes it:
21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh. [Rev 19:21 ESV].

Each verse a prophecy of that time.  Of the Millennial.  Too many for me to grasp them all.

This in vs 16:
16 Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. [Zec 14:16 ESV]
The survivors of the attacking nations.  I doubt that many, if any, that actually attack will survive.  But "back home", they will be afraid, and they will show up as ordered, and keep the feast commemorating the wandering in the wilderness.  They will commemorate the NATION of Israel, the inheritors of Abraham's promises, and the participants in the Sinai Covenant.

A plague is described in vs 13, and mentioned again in 14 and in 18.  For those who still refuse to go up to Jerusalem and worship the King, their countries will receive no rain, and the plague of vs 13 will fall on them.  They will turn on each other and kill each other.  Pure chaotic killing.

2025 - 14:17 is connected to Lev 26:4
The last verse of the book says this:
21 And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day. [Zec 14:21 ESV]
Jesus cleansed the temple when he was here.  He threw out the "traders" who were making the House of God a den of thieves.  This won't happen again.  All that is in that city will be sacred because of geography, not because of priestly blessing.  By proximity, not by "approval".
 

MSB Book Notes:
Jewish tradition says the book was written by Malachi, and that he was a member of the Great Synagogue, collecting and preserving the scriptures.  Some argue that since Malachi means "my messenger", Malachi could be a title and not a name.
The book was probably written while Nehemiah was back in Persia, between 433 and 424 BC.  This is based on internal references, which MSB covers, and I will not repeat here.  This would make it almost a century after Haggai and Zechariah.
By this time, many of the priests had become corrupt, the sacrifices had become ritual rather than worship, and the people were not tithing as they should.  Malachi addresses these things, as does Nehemiah at the end of his book when he returns from Persia.
This quote from MSB:  "As over two millennia of OT history since Abraham  concluded, none of the glorious promises of the Abrahamic, Davidic, and New Covenants had been fulfilled in their ultimate sense.
So I have that right.  Three covenants are carried into the NT, and Jesus says the third won't fit into the old skins.  MSB also says that by Malachi's time, 100 years after the first return under Zerubbabel, the people had already sunk to a depth of sin lower than what had brought on both the Assyrian and Babylonian deportations.  Malachi's prophecy is a condemnation, and the last the people heard anything from God for over 400 years until John the Baptist.  (If we take MSB's statement, then a second punishment, like the first, was most certainly already called for in Malachi's time, and yet God let them get worse and worse, as He always does, even to the point of crucifying their Messiah, before the double punishment comes.  They just refuse to to understand that God looks at the heart.  They were determined that merely following the rules, accurately, will usher in the promises of the covenants.  Yet it is in the OT over and over and over that God cares nothing for sacrifices if they are not from the heart.  

Chapter 1
The book opens really in this verse:
2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob [Mal 1:2 ESV]
This sets the format for this book.  God makes a statement, and then the "answer" of the people questions the statement, disbelieves, says they don't see it.
Jacob and Esau.  Playing favorites is what I thought this was always about.  Now, looking at it this morning, I think it really means that God loves all his creation.  But as part of His plan, He selected Jacob for special blessing, Jacob as His people, and He as their God.  Esau had blessing too.  Abraham gave him some pretty good blessings.  He lasted a long time.  But Esau spurned his birthright.  Jacob coveted it.  The birthright was a big deal, not something to be spurned.  Also, remember that Isaac was the son of promise, not Ishmael.  But Ishmael also received blessings.  They are stated specifically.  God loves all the world, but Israel had a special place.  That's what this means.  That's what they should have seen.  God goes on to say that Edom will never be great, that He opposes whatever they do.  He calls them "the people with whom God will be angry forever".  Who are these people, exactly?

The second statement is to the priests, and asks why they don't fear God as master, and honor Him as their father?  They reply, What do you mean?  We don't act like that!?  God really indicts them.  He says they offer polluted food on the altar, and so they pollute Him.  They offer sick, blind, lame animals to God.  A civil official would never accept these, yet they offer them to God.  A civil official would be very angry with them over such gifts, yet they expect God to favor them despite the trash they offer Him.  They have not honor, they have no fear of the Living God.  This verse, so telling in any generation really, but especially telling of those supposedly dedicated to serving God:
13 But you say, 'What a weariness this is,' and you snort at it, says the LORD of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the LORD. [Mal 1:13 ESV]

It's just a job to them, and not an interesting or compelling job.  They take no pleasure in service, they give service to God Himself of no use or value.  

Chapter 2
God tells them that this will not be overlooked, indeed is already being punished.  These various verses:
3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. [Mal 2:3 ESV]
7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. [Mal 2:7 ESV]

8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction." [Mal 2:8-9 ESV]
Surely this right here is the sentiment John the Baptist will express when he calls the Pharisees a generation of vipers.  Jesus says that if people aren't better than Pharisees, they're not going to get into the Kingdom of God.  I never saw that it all ties back to right here.  After the first destruction of the temple, Israel had no more kings.  They were left with only priests to lead them.  And the priests clearly fell short, so since the second destruction of the temple, there have been no priests either.  And look at what they'd turned into by the time of Jesus.  The curse of vs 8 had surely come to pass.  They were despised, corrupt, selling blemished lambs to sacrifice as if they were spotless, and changing money and usury...even in the temple of God.  They no longer had any respect at all as men of God.

So the priests are rebuked, and now the people themselves are addressed.  Though they are kinsmen, they abuse each other.  The people are intermarrying with foreign women.  This was strictly forbidden by Mosaic law.  They are diluting the nation of Israel, weaking, polluting.  This is Satan's plan so that they can be bred out of existence.  It is what the Muslims are saying today.  Oh my!  They want to out-populate us to the point where no one is taught Christianity anymore.  They want every child born to be born into a Muslim family, taught Muslim ways, and they want Jesus cut completely out!  They want him diminished to the role of mere prophet, mere man.  They must deny his titles - Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.  To leave Him these titles is to give Him followers forever.  Satan can't have even one person follow him.  If Satan can get to there, then he doesn't have to worry about hell.  Revelation cannot happen if none follow Christ.  The church - a spiritual construct - has to be demolished, and Islam - a religion - is the hammer Satan is using throughout the world to try and destroy it.

Besides intermarriage, the people also weep and groan that God doesn't regard their offereings.  Why doesn't He?  They see this as God's problem, not theirs.  They treat him like they do the foreign idols of their wives, who "accept" anything offered.  No...I'm off the track here.  These two verses clarify:
14 But you say, "Why does he not?" Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. [Mal 2:14-15 ESV]

Divorce has become rampant in Judah.  It is apparently ubiquitous.  Vs 15 says that marriage has a spiritual aspect that comes from God, making the two one person.  And he does this so that the children will be Godly also.  To divorce spurns the spiritual aspect of marriage, and results in ungodly offspring?  No, I'm  reading too much into this I think.  But still...why are so many of today's generation turning away from God?  Is there a study of how many of these that turn away are from broken homes?  Or from unmarried mothers?  And there doesn't have to be an actual divorce for their to be unfaithfulness.  As adultery is constituted by lust in the heart rather than by actual fact, so divorce may be also...God calls it being faithless - in ESV above.  Not "unfaithful", but faithless.
Look at the solution:  "...guard yourselves in your spirit..."  Be faithful to your wife in spirit, make it your goal, expend effort to do so, just as the priests should have been serving with an attitude of faith and fear.    Why have I never heard this preached????

Another question posed in vs 17, just before the chapter break.  How have we wearied the Lord?  They have done it by saying "God forgives everyone, and by constantly asking why God is unjust.  I think...As it reads, they are labeling as good those who do evil.  The connector is "or", not and.  OR, they ask how God can be so unjust?

2025 - To this point, there is no "future" prophecy really that I can see, other than in the most general sense.  Malachi so far is the kind of prophecy we say we still have today.  A direct, no punches pulled indictment of the sins of Israel in his day.  It was about what ought to be changed today, not about what was going to happen in the future.

Chapter 3
This chapter starts this way:
1 "Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. [Mal 3:1 ESV]

What a change of direction here...The messenger would be John the Baptist.  He prepares the way, and Jesus shows up teaching.  So vs 17 must be about the 1st century.  The people look up to the Pharisees - evil snakes - and they complain about the injustice of Roman rule being imposed on them?  This fits, but am I missing something larger?

It goes on to say he will come as a refiners fire.  That fire purifies polluted, corrupted ore.  It removes the impurities and leaves only pure metal.  They are looking for justice, for deliverance from oppression...but the one who is coming won't give them that.  He will show them that the kingdom is in the heart, not in the world.  They are looking for one to conquer others, and they get one to purify them.

Or is this about the Millennial?  That is, after all, when the daily oblation will return, carried out by priests who are committed.  The whole people will be God's people at that time.  Jesus offered this with his teaching, but they did not turn.  The priests plotted and carried out his murder, and the people cheered them on.  But at the Millennial, it will be different.  This was the kingdom offered.  A Spiritual kingdom of people who will worship in spirit and in truth.  NOT, an earthly, governmental kingdom.  THIS is what that has always meant.

And referring back to those who ask why there is no justice, this answer:
5 "Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts. [Mal 3:5 ESV]
In the Millennial kingdom, justice will be swift, direct, and today.  No delays.  They will get what they are wishing for, but I'm guessing many will be "burned out of the kingdom" by a discerning judge who cannot be fooled by externals.  

This verse, an unusual point:
6 "For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. [Mal 3:6 ESV]
God promised Abraham certain things.  If God were changeable, He would certainly have withdrawn those promises, for the people have done nothing at all to deserve them.  In fact, they'd no longer be a people!  They better be real glad that justice is delayed!

Another question posed:  How shall we return.  I think the implication is that they are "following all the rules", so what more does God want?  God says they return by paying their tithes.  To withhold the tithe is to rob God.  God says if they will tithe, there will be more than plenty for them all.  He asks them to just test Him on this and see if it is not so.  

Another point:  The people speak "hard" against God.  But when accused, they say "What do you mean?  We didn't do that..."  They have said there is no "profit" in serving God, in following His rules.  In taking this position, they have elevated those who openly willfully defy God.  If there is no reason to obey the standards God has set, then God's values are replaced by the world's values.  Good and evil are measured by "success" in the world, rather than by obedience to God.  

How can all this be in this one little short book?!?!?!?

14 You have said, 'It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts? [Mal 3:14 ESV]  This is such a common attitude today!  Devaluing God is not just about being too smart to believe in the supernatural.  Deciding God "is not worth the trouble" creates a vacuum of purpose.  Take God out of the picture and this question lights up neon red:  How should we then live? [Eze 33:10b, KJV]  Something is going to fill that vacuum.  Success in the world as measured by...fame?  wealth?  power?  position?  All the things going on right now in the world are attempts to answer this one question.  These are just strategies to give life meaning in the absence of God.  No wonder the world is so miserable!!  Does anyone really want to live in such a world?  All we have to do is "return".  That's always been the answer.  Turn back to God.  This verse:
7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, 'How shall we return?' [Mal 3:7 ESV]

There has GOT to be a FB post in the above!

Chapter 4
Opens like this:
1 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. [Mal 4:1 ESV]
Not much beating around the bush and hand holding here.  On some future day, it will be too late to choose rightly.  On that day, the evil get run over by the good.  Justice, righteousness, fairness...all these will win on that day.  The book ends, the OT ends, with these verses:
5 "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." [Mal 4:5-6 ESV]

And the NT is going to open with the appearance of Elijah.  Just as promised at the end of Malachi, the last OT prophet for over 400 years.