Commentary - Zechariah 2:1-5

Bird's-eye view

In this third of Zechariah's eight night visions, we are given a glorious, Technicolor picture of the nature of the New Covenant kingdom. The vision begins with a man trying to measure Jerusalem, a perfectly reasonable and pious thing to do for a city that needed rebuilding. But Heaven interrupts this well-intentioned human project with a staggering correction. The new Jerusalem, the Church of Jesus Christ, will not be a city defined by stone walls and measurable dimensions. It will be a city that bursts its boundaries, sprawling out over the landscape because of an explosive population of redeemed men, women, and children. Its security will not come from human fortifications but from the very presence of God Himself, who promises to be a wall of fire around His people and the incandescent glory within them. This is a foundational text for a robust, optimistic, postmillennial eschatology. It is a promise that the kingdom of God is not a defensive, walled-off ghetto, but an ever-expanding, global, and ultimately triumphant city, secured and glorified by God Himself.

The core contrast is between man's limited, manageable vision for restoration and God's boundless, supernatural vision for global conquest. The man with the measuring line represents our best-laid plans, our strategic thinking, our attempts to make God's work neat and tidy. God, through His angelic messenger, blows the doors off our little blueprints and tells us to think bigger. The gospel is uncontainable. The Church, when it is healthy, is always overflowing its walls. This passage is God's promise that the Great Commission will not fail; the multitude of the redeemed will be so great that only the infinite God could serve as their perimeter.

Outline

Context In Zechariah

This vision is strategically placed within the sequence of eight visions that God gave Zechariah in one night. The first vision (Zech 1:7-17) was one of comfort, assuring the people that God was jealous for Jerusalem and would restore her. The second vision (Zech 1:18-21) showed God dealing decisively with the horns, the Gentile powers that had scattered His people. Having promised comfort and dealt with Israel's enemies, God now reveals the nature of the promised restoration. This is not just about rebuilding the rubble left by the Babylonians. This is about a new kind of city altogether. This vision of an expanding, un-walled Jerusalem is a crucial step in the prophetic argument, moving from the restoration of the physical city to the nature of the spiritual city that it prefigured, the Church. It sets the stage for the later visions concerning the priestly and kingly leadership (Joshua and Zerubbabel) who would oversee this new work.

Key Issues

God's Urban Sprawl

One of the constant temptations for the people of God is to think small. We see our limited resources, our cultural opposition, and the general mess of the world, and we conclude that the best we can do is hunker down, build some strong walls, and try to ride out the storm. We get out our measuring cords and try to map out a manageable little plot for God's kingdom, a holy huddle that we can keep safe and tidy. But God is not in the business of building holy huddles. He is in the business of building a global, world-encompassing city, and His plans are not manageable. They are gloriously out of control.

This vision in Zechariah is God's great interruption of our small-minded, defensive-crouch Christianity. He sees our blueprints for a tidy, walled Jerusalem and He rips them up. He tells us that the city He is building will be so full of people, so full of life, so full of blessed commotion, that any walls we build would be knocked down by the sheer pressure of the crowds inside. This is a vision of explosive, Spirit-fueled growth. This is God's urban sprawl, and it is a beautiful thing.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Then I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, there was a man with a measuring cord in his hand.

Zechariah sees a man with a measuring cord, or a measuring line. This is the tool of a surveyor, an architect, a city planner. When you are about to build or rebuild, you first measure. You establish the boundaries, you lay out the foundations, you determine the limits. This is an image of human planning, of bringing order and definition to a project. Given the context of the returned exiles standing in the ruins of Jerusalem, this is a vision of hope. Someone is getting ready to rebuild. The work of restoration is beginning. It is a good and necessary task, but as we are about to see, it is an utterly inadequate vision for what God has in mind.

2 So I said, “Where are you going?” And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide it is and how long it is.”

The man's purpose is explicit. He is going to survey the city, to define its limits. He is thinking in terms of length and width, of square footage. He represents the best of human intentions for the kingdom of God. We want to organize it, define it, protect it, and make it a coherent and manageable entity. We want to know where the walls go. We think in terms of budgets and buildings and five-year plans. There is a place for this, but it is not the ultimate reality. The man is measuring what he can see, the physical space. God is about to reveal a reality that cannot be contained in physical space.

3-4 And behold, the angel who was speaking with me was going out, and another angel was coming out to meet him and said to him, “Run, speak to that young man, saying, ‘Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle within it.

Here is the divine intervention. The action is urgent. The second angel tells the first, "Run!" There is no time to waste. The man with the measuring tape is about to start his work, and he needs to be stopped before he even begins. The message must get to "that young man", likely the surveyor, representing the youthful, zealous but limited vision of the restoration community. The message itself is stunning: Jerusalem will be a city without walls. In the ancient world, this was madness. Walls were security. Walls were identity. A city without walls was a village, a settlement, utterly vulnerable to the first passing marauder. But the reason is not vulnerability; it is victory. The population of redeemed humanity ("men") and the prosperity that accompanies them ("cattle") will be so immense that walls would be an impediment, not a protection. The city will be bursting at the seams. This is a prophecy of the nature of the New Covenant Church, which is not defined by ethnic or geographic boundaries, but is a global, expanding body that cannot be contained.

5 Indeed I,’ declares Yahweh, ‘will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.’

If Jerusalem is not to have walls of stone, what will be her defense? God Himself gives the answer, and it is an answer that ought to make the church bold and fearless. Yahweh declares that He Himself will be her wall. And not a static, passive wall, but a wall of fire. A wall of fire is the ultimate defense. Nothing can pass through it. It consumes all that comes against it. It is a living, active, terrifying protection. This is the God who descended on Sinai in fire, the God who led Israel as a pillar of fire. The security of the church does not rest in her political influence, her cultural respectability, or her institutional strength. Her security is the direct, personal, and fiery protection of Almighty God. But God is not only the circumference; He is the center. He will be the glory in her midst. The Shekinah glory that once filled the tabernacle and temple is now promised to the entire city. The central reality, the defining feature, the ultimate treasure of the people of God is the manifest presence of God Himself. This is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, who is Immanuel, God with us, and who has filled His church with His Spirit. The church's protection is God's fiery presence without, and her life is God's glorious presence within.

Application

The message of this vision is a direct assault on a fearful, defensive, and minimalistic Christianity. It calls us to throw away our little measuring tapes and to lift up our eyes to see the glorious, global, and growing city of God. We are not called to be caretakers of a historical museum, carefully preserving the boundaries of a bygone era. We are citizens of a metropolis that is constantly and relentlessly expanding.

This means we must reject the temptation to build walls. These can be theological walls that keep us from fellowship with other believers, cultural walls that keep us from engaging our neighbors, or personal walls of fear that keep us from bold witness. The church is meant to be an open, sprawling, welcoming city, not a fortified compound. Our confidence must not be in our walls, but in our God. He is our wall of fire. When we are tempted to fear, fear of cultural decay, fear of political opposition, fear of being overwhelmed, we must remember that our perimeter is guarded by consuming fire. No weapon formed against us shall prosper.

And finally, we must be a people captivated by the glory in our midst. The central business of the church is not activism, or social programs, or entertainment. It is the worship of the triune God. It is the faithful preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, and the fellowship of the saints, because it is in these things that the glory of God is made manifest among us. When the church is secure in her fiery wall and captivated by her central glory, she will naturally become the city without walls, drawing a multitude from every nation, tribe, and tongue into her glorious, ever-expanding life.