I'm smack out of time, for now. I'll try to make this my final post in this discussion:
I have read through your discusssion of Zechariah 9 three times now, and I still can't find your point and precise interpretation. Sorry to say. Assuming that you and I both agree the passage is fulfilled, I ask you, in what way? What was the nature of the fulfillment? Was Yahweh SEEN doing any of those things as the passage literally reads?
OLD SHEPHERD:
This is another one of those proof texts which, according to the pre-T play book, supposedly proves that God uses apocalyptic language to describe His actions, which are actually fulfilled by humans, in His stead.
GW:
Much of the history of the Jews reads precisely in this manner. When Joshua chased out the seven nations from the territory promised to the sons of Abraham, who did it?
Apocalyptically speaking, Yahweh showed up and did it:
Psalm 44:1-3
O God, we have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us the work that You did in their days, In the days of old. YOU WITH YOUR OWN HAND DROVE OUT THE NATIONS; Then YOU planted them; YOU afflicted the peoples, Then YOU spread them abroad.
For by their own sword they did not possess the land, And their own arm did not save them, But YOUR right hand and YOUR arm and the light of YOUR presence
This is classic apocalyptic/prophetic understanding common in the writings of the Hebrews. The passage tells us that the Jews did not drive out the heathen nations back in the book of Joshua ("they did not possess the land by their own sword").
God himself came down and did it. Jehovah was the mighty warrior who drove out the nations. Of course, we know that Jehovah never OPTICALLY showed up and did this thing attributed to him here.
Here is another classic apocalyptic account of Yahweh's comings in Israel's PAST, but this time by Habakkuk:
Habakkuk 3:3-16
God came from Teman, The Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, And his praise filled the earth. His splendor is like the sunrise. Rays shine from his hand, where his power is hidden. Plague went before him, And pestilence followed his feet. He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midian trembled. Was Yahweh displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers, Or your wrath against the sea, That you rode on your horses, On your chariots of salvation? You uncovered your bow. You called for your sworn arrows. Selah. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you, and were afraid. The tempest of waters passed by. The deep roared and lifted up its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in the sky, At the light of your arrows as they went, At the shining of your glittering spear. You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger. You went forth for the salvation of your people, For the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot. Selah. You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, Gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, Churning mighty waters. I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, Because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, For the coming up of the people who invade us.
Now, OS, I could go line by line through this passage and point out that this apocalyptic language is NOT to be read literally as if Habakkuk means Yahweh was seen OPTICALLY doing any of these things at the time of the exodus and the conquest of Canaan. Do you understand? Yet, again, note all the common apocalyptic metaphors. I should write a book that identifies and defines their use. However, I suppose Milton Terry already wrote the book on it:
"Bibilcal Apocalyptics" .
OLD SHEPHERD:
Was Zechariah 14 and Acts 1 fulfilled in 66-70 AD? Where is any record, scriptural or otherwise, of this occurring? Where is your proof text for the fulfillment of Zech 14?
GW:
As for Zechariah 14, I offer this short paper:
Zechariah 14 & the Coming of Christ
http://www.americanvision.org/page.asp?id=28
It is also interesting to note Matthew Henry's or Adam Clarke's comments on Zechariah 14:1-4.
Furthermore, I should add that the prophet Micah uses virtually identical prophetic language to describe God's judgment -- by means of the Assyrian army -- against Samaria and Israel in the 8th century B.C.: "Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling place; he comes down and treads the high places of the earth. The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope" (Micah 1:3-4; emphasis added). Thus Micah's prophecy describes an apparent physical descent of God, along with the phenomena of mountains melting and valleys splitting,
yet that prophecy was fulfilled in Micah's lifetime when the Assyrians destroyed Samaria and took Israel captive in 722-721 B.C.
OLD SHEPHERD:
Where is your scriptural or historical proof that Jesus returned to Jerusalem, the mount of olives, in the same manner as He departed, i.e. in the clouds.
GW:
Christ's ascension in glory (Acts 1) was in the shekinah cloud:
Daniel 7:13-14
I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him
It also should be no surprise that a variety of divine theophanies did accompany the fall of Jerusalem during AD 66-70:
TACITUS:
"In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightening flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure"
(Tacitus - Histories, v. 13)
JOSEPHUS:
...a few days after that feast, on the one-and-twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals;
for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities...
"Thus also, before the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eight day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day-time; which light lasted for half an hour, and was so interpreted by the sacred scribes as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it."
(The Wars of the Jews Book VI, Chapter 6, Section 3)
Finally, Old Shepherd, during Judah's apostasy, the prophet Ezekiel saw the Glory Cloud depart from the Temple and travel east, to the Mount of Olives (Ezek. 10:18-19; 11:22-23); later, in his vision of the New Jerusalem, he sees the Glory-Cloud returning to dwell in the new Temple, the Church (Ezek. 43:1-5). This was fulfilled when Christ, the incarnate Glory of God, ascended to His Father in the Cloud from the Mount of Olives (Luke 24:50-51), and sending His Spirit to fill the Church at Pentecost. There was a later image of this transfer of God's Glory to the Church when on Pentecost of AD66, as the priests in the Temple were going about their duties,
there was heard "a violent commotion and din" followed by "a voice as of a host crying, 'We are departing hence!'" [see Josephus quote I listed above]. This departure of the Deity from the temple at Pentecost of AD 66 was exactly 36 years (to the very day) after the Holy Spirit was first given in power to the apostles and the others at the first Christian Pentecost recorded in Acts chapter 2. And now, on the same Pentecost day, the witness was given that God himself was abandoning the Temple at Jerusalem. This meant that the Temple was no longer a holy sanctuary and that the building was no more sacred than any other secular building.
Remarkably, even Jewish records show that the Jews had come to recognize that the Shekinah glory of God left the Temple at this time and remained over the Mount of Olives for 3.5 years. During this period a voice was heard to come from the region of the Mount of Olives asking the Jews to repent of their doings (Midrash - Lam. 2:11). This has an interesting bearing on the history of Christianity because we know that Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected from the dead on the Mount of Olives -- the exact region the Jewish records say the Shekinah glory of God remained for the 3.5 years after its departure from the Temple on Pentecost, AD66. The Jewish reference states that the Jews failed to heed this warning from the Shekinah glory (which they called
Bet Kol - the voice of God), and that it left the earth and retreated back to heaven just before the final seige of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD70.
From Pentecost AD 66, no thinking person among the Christians, who respected these obvious miraculous signs associated with the Temple, could believe that the structure was any longer a holy sanctuary of God.
Josephus himself summed up the conviction of many people who came to believe that God "had turned away even from his sanctuary" (Wars, 2.539), that the Temple was "no more the dwelling place of God" (Wars, 5.19), because "the Deity has fled from the holy places" (Wars, 5.412).
Sadly, I may not be able to post much more in response. I have been enjoying our discussion. God's blessings to you, OS.
GW
You gotta love the smilies too!
