The Shaking of All Things Text: Zechariah 14:1-5
Introduction: Apocalyptic and the Present Age
We live in an age that is drunk on the apocalyptic. Our movies, our books, our political discourse is filled with visions of the end of the world. But it is a cheap, godless apocalyptic. It is a vision of chaos without a king, a judgment without a judge, and a future without a hope. It is the terrified shrieking of a culture that knows, deep in its bones, that it cannot stand. This is because every man knows he is a creature, and every creature knows there will be a reckoning.
The prophet Zechariah gives us a true apocalyptic. It is not a vision of random chaos, but of covenantal judgment and sovereign deliverance. It is a vision of God Himself stepping into history to shake the nations, to judge His enemies, and to save His people. But we must be careful here. Our dispensationalist friends have trained generations of Christians to read passages like this with a newspaper in one hand and a prophetic checklist in the other, trying to map these verses onto helicopter gunships and the European Union. But this is to fundamentally misread the nature of prophecy. Prophecy is not a crystal ball for satisfying our idle curiosity about the future. It is a covenantal word, spoken into a specific historical context, that reveals the character and purposes of God. And it almost always has a much nearer fulfillment than we are accustomed to thinking.
This chapter, Zechariah 14, is one of the anchor points for the New Testament's understanding of the "last days." Jesus Himself, standing on the Mount of Olives, takes up this very language in His great discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 24). What Zechariah sees in shadowy vision, Jesus declares as an imminent reality. This passage is not primarily about something that will happen thousands of years in the future. It is about the great cataclysm that would end the old covenant world and inaugurate the kingdom of the Messiah: the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
This was the ultimate "day of the Lord" for the old covenant. It was the day God came in judgment against the apostate city that had rejected and crucified His Son. It was a day of terrible wrath, but it was also a day of glorious salvation for the true Israel, the Christian church. This is not to say the passage is exhausted by A.D. 70. Prophecy is like a mountain range; there are near peaks and far peaks. The judgment on Jerusalem is a pattern, a type, of the final judgment at the end of history. But we cannot understand the far peak if we ignore the one standing right in front of us. To do so is to rip the prophecy out of its biblical context and turn it into a speculative playground. Let us, therefore, approach this text with sobriety, recognizing that we are reading about the violent birth pangs of the new covenant age in which we now live.
The Text
Behold, a day is coming for Yahweh when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. Indeed, I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city will go forth in exile, but those left of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against those nations, as the day when He fights on a day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. And you will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; indeed, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then Yahweh, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him!
(Zechariah 14:1-5 LSB)
The Covenantal Lawsuit (v. 1-2)
The prophecy begins with the announcement of a coming day of judgment, a day that belongs to Yahweh.
"Behold, a day is coming for Yahweh when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. Indeed, I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city will go forth in exile, but those left of the people will not be cut off from the city." (Zechariah 14:1-2)
The "day of Yahweh" is a common prophetic theme. It is a time when God steps into history to settle accounts. It is a day of darkness and gloom for His enemies, but a day of salvation for His people (Amos 5:18). But here, the judgment falls upon Jerusalem. This is a covenantal lawsuit. God is bringing charges against His own people for their unfaithfulness. The strange phrase, "the spoil taken from you will be divided among you," points to the horrific civil strife and internal chaos that would characterize the siege of Jerusalem. The Jewish historian Josephus, an eyewitness to the events of A.D. 70, describes in gruesome detail how rival factions of zealots butchered one another inside the city walls, plundering and killing their own countrymen even as the Roman armies surrounded them. The spoil was divided right there in their midst.
God says, "I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem." This is crucial. The Roman army was not an accident of history. God gathered them. The Roman legions, along with their auxiliary forces from across the empire, were God's instrument of judgment, His rod of anger, just as Assyria and Babylon had been centuries before. The language here is stark and brutal: "the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished." This is the terrible reality of ancient warfare, and it is the curse of the covenant coming home to roost (Deut. 28:30-32). This is precisely what happened in A.D. 70. The Romans showed no mercy.
But there is a promise of preservation in the midst of the judgment: "but those left of the people will not be cut off from the city." Who are these people? They are the remnant, the true Israel. Jesus gave His disciples a clear warning: "when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" (Luke 21:20-21). The church historian Eusebius tells us that the Christians in Jerusalem, remembering this warning, fled the city before the final siege and were preserved. They were not cut off. They were the remnant who escaped the destruction of the old Jerusalem to become the foundation of the New Jerusalem, the Church.
The Divine Warrior and His Theophany (v. 3-4)
Just as the judgment seems total, the scene shifts dramatically. God, who gathered the nations for judgment, now turns to fight against them for the salvation of His people.
"Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against those nations, as the day when He fights on a day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east..." (Zechariah 14:3-4a)
This is the language of the Divine Warrior. God Himself enters the fray. How does God fight against the very nations He just used as His instrument? This is the paradox of God's sovereignty. He uses the wicked for His purposes, and then He judges them for their wickedness (Isaiah 10). The Romans, in their pride and brutality, were storing up wrath for themselves. Their destruction of Jerusalem was a great sin, even as it was God's righteous judgment. And God did fight against them. The Roman Empire, which seemed invincible, would eventually be brought to its knees, not by swords and spears, but by the quiet, relentless advance of the gospel of the kingdom.
Then comes the stunning vision: "His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives." Dispensationalists want to take this as a literal, physical landing of Jesus on a mountain that will then literally split in half. But we must read apocalyptic literature as it is intended to be read. This is the language of theophany, of a divine appearance. It is symbolic, picture language meant to convey a theological reality. The Mount of Olives is hugely significant. It is where David fled from Absalom (2 Sam. 15:30). It is where the glory of God departed from the temple in Ezekiel's vision (Ezekiel 11:23). And most importantly, it is where Jesus gave his great discourse predicting the temple's destruction, and it is from where He ascended into heaven (Acts 1:12). For Yahweh's feet to stand on the Mount of Olives is for Him to return to the very place from which His glory departed and from which the Messiah ascended. It signifies His return in power and authority to judge and to save.
The effect of this divine appearance is earth-shattering:
"...and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south." (Zechariah 14:4b)
Mountains in Scripture are symbols of kingdoms and established power. For a mountain to be split and moved is a picture of a radical upheaval of the entire world order. This is not about geology; it is about geopolitics and redemptive history. The coming of Christ in judgment in A.D. 70 was an earthquake that leveled the old covenant world. The temple, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, the entire edifice of ethnic Israel as the center of God's purposes, all of it was thrown down. What was this great valley that was created? It was a new way of access to God. The old way, through the temple, was now closed forever. The new and living way was opened through the finished work of Christ (Hebrews 10:20). This great valley is the gospel. It is a way of escape from judgment and a path into the presence of God for all peoples, Jew and Gentile alike. The mountain of Old Covenant Israel was split apart to make way for the global mountain of the Kingdom of God (Daniel 2:35).
The Way of Escape (v. 5)
This newly created valley serves as a means of deliverance for God's people.
"And you will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; indeed, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then Yahweh, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him!" (Zechariah 14:5)
The people of God are commanded to flee through this valley. As I mentioned, this is exactly what the Christians did in A.D. 70. They fled the doomed city and escaped the judgment. The gospel is our valley of escape. We flee from the wrath to come by running to Christ. The reference to the earthquake in the days of Uzziah (Amos 1:1) is a historical anchor. It reminds the people of a real, terrifying event when the only sane thing to do was run. The coming of God in judgment is like that. You do not stand and argue with an earthquake. You flee.
The chapter then culminates with a glorious declaration: "Then Yahweh, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him!" The prophet, overwhelmed by the vision, cries out in personal faith, "my God." This is the climax. The coming of the Lord is not just a terrifying event; it is the arrival of our God. He comes with His "holy ones," which in the Old Testament context refers to His angelic armies (Deut. 33:2). Jesus picks up this exact language, saying the Son of Man will come "and all the holy angels with Him" (Matt. 25:31). This coming in A.D. 70 was a coming in judgment and power, a vindication of Jesus' authority over the nation that rejected Him. It was His enthronement celebrated not in the sky for all to see, but demonstrated on the ground by the utter destruction of His enemies and the preservation of His church.
Conclusion: Living in the Valley
So what does this mean for us? It means we are living in the age that was inaugurated by this great shaking. We are living in the time of the great valley. The old mountain of Jerusalem has been split, and a highway for the nations has been opened to God. The kingdom of God is no longer tied to a particular place or a particular ethnicity. The gospel is the valley, and it reaches from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
The judgment that fell on Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is a paradigm for all of God's judgments in history. God will not be mocked. Nations, cultures, and civilizations that set themselves up against Christ and His law will be broken. They will become a desolation. We see the foundations of our own civilization cracking and groaning, and we should not be surprised. The same Lord who stood on the Mount of Olives in judgment then is seated on His throne in heaven now, and He is putting all His enemies under His feet.
Our task is not to huddle in fear, trying to predict the exact date of the final curtain. Our task is to live faithfully in the valley of the gospel. We are to proclaim this way of escape to a world that is under judgment. We are to flee from sin and run to Christ daily. And we are to be confident. The Lord who came with His holy ones to judge Jerusalem is the same Lord who is with us, His holy ones, by His Spirit. He has won the decisive battle. The old world is passed away; behold, the new has come. And He will continue to shake the nations, to topple the proud, and to extend His kingdom until that final day, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.