The Fountain and the Fire Text: Zechariah 13:2-6
Introduction: The Great Housecleaning
The prophet Zechariah, speaking to a people who have returned from exile, is painting a picture of a future cleansing. This is not a minor touch-up job. This is a complete renovation, a radical scouring of the house of God. The previous verse promised a fountain opened for the house of David to cleanse them from sin and impurity. And what is the very first consequence of this gospel fountain being opened? It is a holy intolerance for all that is false. The grace of God in the gospel does not make us soft on sin; it makes us sharp. It does not make us tolerant of idols; it gives us a sledgehammer.
We are told what will happen "in that day." Now, we must be careful here. Our dispensationalist friends have trained generations of evangelicals to see phrases like this and immediately think of a far-distant future, a seven-year tribulation, and newspaper headlines. But the New Testament writers teach us how to read the Old Testament prophets. "That day" is the day of Christ. It is the gospel era, the age of the new covenant, inaugurated at the first coming of Jesus and continuing until He returns in glory. This is the great day of salvation and judgment, the time when God began His great housecleaning project in the world, starting with the house of Israel.
This passage describes a deep, cultural, and even familial repentance. It is a portrait of a society so thoroughly washed by the gospel that it develops a holy allergy to falsehood. The idols are not just smashed; their very names are forgotten. The false prophets are not just ignored; they are exposed and shamed. And the loyalty to God's truth becomes so fierce that it overrides even the most fundamental natural affections. This is what happens when the fountain of grace truly begins to flow. It doesn't just wash away sin; it washes away the memory and the tolerance of sin.
What Zechariah prophesies here is the effect of the gospel on a people. When the Spirit is poured out, the unclean spirit is driven out. When the true Word is proclaimed, the false words are silenced. This is a picture of revival, of reformation, of a people whose love for Christ has become so white-hot that they cannot bear the presence of anything that dishonors Him.
The Text
2 “And it will be in that day,” declares Yahweh of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass away from the land. 3And it will be that if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken falsely in the name of Yahweh’; and his father and mother who gave birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies. 4And it will be in that day, that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies, and they will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive; 5but he will say, ‘I am not a prophet; I am a cultivator of the ground, for a man sold me as a slave in my youth.’ 6And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds struck here between your arms?’ Then he will say, ‘Those with which I was struck in the house of my friends.’
(Zechariah 13:2-6 LSB)
The Purge of Idols and Spirits (v. 2)
We begin with the Lord's declaration of what He will do in the day of the gospel.
"And it will be in that day,” declares Yahweh of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass away from the land." (Zechariah 13:2)
Notice the active agent here. It is Yahweh of hosts. The cleansing of a land, a culture, a church, is not a grassroots humanistic project. It is a divine invasion. God Himself will do this. And His work is thorough. He will "cut off the names of the idols." This is more than just tearing down the statues of Baal and Molech. It is a cultural exorcism. The goal is not just cessation of worship, but complete amnesia. "They will no longer be remembered." This is the ultimate victory of the gospel: when the allure of the old sins, the old gods, is so broken that they are not even a curiosity anymore. They are forgotten foolishness.
And see how God links two things together: the false prophets and the unclean spirit. These two always hunt in a pack. False prophecy is not simply a matter of bad information or a mistaken opinion. It is demonic. It is sourced in the unclean spirit, the spirit of falsehood. The Apostle Paul warns of "doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1). Behind every idol, there is a demon (1 Cor. 10:20). And behind every false teacher, there is the spirit of antichrist. When the Holy Spirit is poured out, as He was at Pentecost, the unclean spirit is driven out. The coming of the Spirit of truth necessarily means the expulsion of the spirit of error. This is spiritual warfare, and in "that day," the day of the Spirit's power, God promises to cleanse the land of this demonic influence.
Covenant Loyalty Over Family Blood (v. 3)
The prophecy now becomes shockingly personal, illustrating the radical nature of this cleansing.
"And it will be that if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken falsely in the name of Yahweh’; and his father and mother who gave birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies." (Zechariah 13:3)
This is a hard saying, and it is designed to be. It is a direct echo of the law in Deuteronomy 13, where Israel was commanded to execute a prophet or even a family member who tried to lead them into idolatry. The point is not to give us a literal instruction for church discipline in the new covenant. Rather, it is to show the intensity of the holiness that the gospel produces. The love for God's truth will become so fierce, so absolute, that it will supersede the most powerful and tender of natural bonds, the love of a parent for their child.
The father and mother who "gave birth to him" are the very source of his life, and yet they become the instruments of his judgment. Why? "For you have spoken falsely in the name of Yahweh." This is the highest treason. To lie in God's name is to attack God's character. In this new day Zechariah sees, the people of God will have such a zeal for the honor of God's name that they would rather see their own son dead than to have him blaspheme the God who saved them. Jesus said something very similar: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). This is not a command to be bitter or hateful, but a statement of ultimate loyalty. Our love for Christ must be so supreme that all other loves look like hatred by comparison. This is what that kind of radical, covenantal loyalty looks like when it is fleshed out.
The End of the Prophetic Costume Party (v. 4-5)
The cultural cleansing is so effective that the business of false prophecy becomes utterly shameful and disreputable.
"And it will be in that day, that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies, and they will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive; but he will say, ‘I am not a prophet; I am a cultivator of the ground, for a man sold me as a slave in my youth.’" (Zechariah 13:4-5)
In the old days, being a prophet was a career path. You could make a good living tickling the ears of kings and telling the people what they wanted to hear. A key part of the uniform was the "hairy mantle," the garment of a prophet, meant to evoke the memory of a rugged man of God like Elijah. It was a prop, a costume to lend an air of authenticity to the lies. But in the day of the gospel's triumph, this whole charade falls apart. The work of the Holy Spirit makes the work of the false spirit so obviously fraudulent that it becomes a source of deep shame.
The false prophet is so embarrassed by his former trade that he denies it completely. "I am not a prophet." He tries to pass himself off as a simple farmer, a common laborer, anything but a man who trafficked in lies. He concocts a backstory about being sold into servitude as a boy to explain his lowly station. The climate has shifted so dramatically that the very thing that used to bring him honor and income now brings him nothing but disgrace. This is what happens when a culture is saturated with truth; the marketplace for lies dries up.
The Wounds of a Friend (v. 6)
The passage concludes with a cryptic and profoundly prophetic statement.
"And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds struck here between your arms?’ Then he will say, ‘Those with which I was struck in the house of my friends.’" (Zechariah 13:6)
On the surface, in the immediate context, the man trying to hide his prophetic past is being questioned. Perhaps these are the ritual cuttings and self-inflicted wounds that were common among pagan prophets (1 Kings 18:28). He is caught, and he deflects with a vague answer about a brawl in a friend's house. It is an excuse, a lie to cover his shame.
But the Holy Spirit, who authored this text, is doing something far deeper here. The language is too specific, too poignant. Like so many places in the Old Testament, we have a prophecy that finds its ultimate and perfect fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. Zechariah has already spoken of the one they have pierced (Zech. 12:10). The very next verse will speak of the Shepherd being struck (Zech. 13:7). Who is this man with wounds between his arms, on his hands and in his side? Who was wounded, not by His enemies in the house of strangers, but in the "house of my friends"?
This is Jesus. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (John 1:11). He was betrayed by His friend, Judas. He was denied by His friend, Peter. He was abandoned by all His friends. He was delivered over to be crucified by the covenant people, the house of Israel, His kinsmen according to the flesh. The wounds in His hands and feet and side were inflicted on Him in Jerusalem, in the house of those He came to save, His "friends."
This verse, then, is a staggering prophecy of the passion of the Christ. The shame of the false prophet in the previous verses serves as a dark backdrop to highlight the glory of the true Prophet. The false prophet is ashamed of his lies and hides his identity. The true Prophet, Jesus Christ, bore the ultimate shame of the cross, and bore the wounds of betrayal, not for His own lies, but for ours. He did not hide His wounds; after the resurrection, He showed them to Thomas. Those wounds, inflicted in the house of His friends, are the very source of that fountain that cleanses us from all sin and impurity. The false prophets are driven out in shame so that the true Prophet, bearing His glorious wounds, might be all in all.