Zechariah 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Zechariah describes a day of the LORD in which all nations are gathered against Jerusalem, the city is taken and looted, and then the LORD goes out to fight those nations. His feet stand on the Mount of Olives, which splits in two, and the land is changed: living water flows out from Jerusalem year-round, the LORD is king over all the earth, and the city is inhabited in safety. The nations that attacked are struck with a wasting plague and panic, and the survivors among them go up each year to worship the King and keep the Feast of Tabernacles, with rain withheld from those who do not. The chapter closes with ordinary horse bells and cooking pots marked as holy to the LORD.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • A day belonging to the LORD is coming.
   • Your spoil will be divided in the midst of you.
2. 14:2
   • The LORD says he will gather all nations against Jerusalem for battle.
   • The city will be captured.
   • The houses will be plundered.
   • The women will be raped.
   • Half of the city will go out into exile.
   • The rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.
3. 14:3
   • The LORD will go out and fight against those nations.
   • He will fight as on a day when he fights in battle.
4. 14:4
   • On that day the LORD's feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.
   • The Mount of Olives lies east of Jerusalem, facing it.
   • The Mount of Olives will split in half from east to west.
   • A very great valley will be formed.
   • Half of the mountain will move toward the north.
   • Half of the mountain will move toward the south.
5. 14:5
   • You will flee to the valley of the LORD's mountains.
   • The valley of the mountains will reach as far as Azal.
   • You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.
   • The LORD my God will come.
   • All the holy ones will come with you.
6. 14:6
   • On that day there will be no light.
   • The text is ambiguous as to what happens to the luminaries: either the light will not be clear nor dark, or the bright ones will congeal or be withdrawn.
7. 14:7
   • There will be one particular day.
   • That day is known to the LORD.
   • That day will be neither day nor night.
   • At evening time there will be light.
8. 14:8
   • On that day living waters will flow out from Jerusalem.
   • Half of the waters will go toward the eastern sea.
   • Half of the waters will go toward the western sea.
   • This will happen in summer and in winter alike.
9. 14:9
   • The LORD will be king over all the earth.
   • On that day the LORD will be one.
   • On that day his name will be one.
10. 14:10
    • All the land will be turned into a plain like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem.
    • Jerusalem will be raised up.
    • Jerusalem will remain inhabited in her place.
    • Jerusalem will extend from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate.
    • Jerusalem will extend from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.
11. 14:11
    • People will dwell in Jerusalem.
    • There will never again be a ban of destruction there.
    • Jerusalem will dwell in safety.
12. 14:12
    • The LORD will strike with a plague all the peoples that made war against Jerusalem.
    • Their flesh will rot away while they are standing on their feet.
    • Their eyes will rot away in their sockets.
    • Their tongue will rot away in their mouth.
13. 14:13
    • On that day a great panic from the LORD will be among them.
    • Each man will seize the hand of his neighbor.
    • The hand of one will rise against the hand of his neighbor.
14. 14:14
    • Judah also will fight at Jerusalem.
    • The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered.
    • The gathered wealth will include gold, silver, and garments in great abundance.
15. 14:15
    • A plague like this one will strike the horse, the mule, the camel, and the donkey.
    • The plague will strike all the animals that are in those camps.
16. 14:16
    • Everyone left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year.
    • They will go up to worship the King, the LORD of hosts.
    • They will go up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
17. 14:17
    • Any of the families of the earth that does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, will receive no rain.
18. 14:18
    • The family of Egypt may fail to go up and fail to come.
    • Egypt receives no rain.
    • The text is ambiguous whether what will not be upon Egypt is rain or whether what will be upon them is the plague.
    • The plague is the one with which the LORD strikes the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
19. 14:19
    • This will be the punishment of Egypt.
    • This will be the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
20. 14:20
    • On that day the bells of the horses will bear the inscription "Holy to the LORD".
    • The cooking pots in the house of the LORD will be like the sprinkling bowls before the altar.
21. 14:21
    • Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts.
    • All who sacrifice will come and take some of the pots and boil in them.
    • On that day there will no longer be a Canaanite, or trader, in the house of the LORD of hosts.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

"The day of the LORD" is a fixed phrase in the Hebrew prophets. It does not mean a date on a calendar but the occasion when God acts decisively and publicly, sometimes to rescue, sometimes to judge, often both at once. Older prophets used it to warn Israel that the day would go against them, not for them.

14:2

Dividing the plunder inside the captured city, rather than carrying it off, was the normal end of an ancient siege: the attackers stripped the houses in front of the surviving inhabitants. Deporting part of a conquered population while leaving the rest behind was standard imperial practice, used by both Assyria and Babylon.

14:3

"As when he fought in the day of battle" points back to stories the audience knew, above all the escape from Egypt at the sea, where Israel's writers described God himself as the warrior who fights while the people mostly watch.

14:4

The Mount of Olives is the ridge immediately east of Jerusalem, separated from the city by the narrow Kidron Valley and standing somewhat higher than the temple platform. It was the road by which travelers approached Jerusalem from the east, and anyone standing on it looked straight down into the city.

14:5

Azal is otherwise unknown; no one can now say where it was. The earthquake in the days of Uzziah (mid-700s BC) was severe enough to be used as a dating reference generations later, Amos 1:1 dates his own prophecies by it. "All the holy ones" translates a Hebrew word that can mean heavenly beings (angels) or consecrated people; the text does not specify which. The Hebrew of this verse is difficult throughout: the phrase rendered "that mountain valley" reads literally "the valley of my mountains," and by a small change of vowels the opening verb can be read "will be stopped up" instead of "you will flee." The KJV's closing "with thee" reflects a Hebrew reading that most translations correct to "with him."

14:6

This is one of the most damaged sentences in the book, which is why translations diverge so widely. The KJV's "not be clear, nor dark" and the modern "no cold or frost" render two different readings of the same consonants; the traditional Hebrew text and the ancient manuscript tradition disagree here.

14:7

The reversal is deliberate. In ordinary life, evening is when the light goes; on this day, evening is when the light comes.

14:8

"Living water" is the ordinary Hebrew term for water that flows, a spring or stream, as opposed to still water stored in a cistern. Hebrew describes direction as if facing east, so the "former" or front sea is the Dead Sea to the east and the "hinder" or rear sea is the Mediterranean to the west. Streams in that country normally dry up in summer; year-round flow is the point.

14:9

"The LORD" printed in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which Hebrew writes with four consonants and which readers traditionally do not pronounce. A person's "name" in Hebrew usage stands for their identity and reputation as publicly known and invoked, so "his name will be one" means he alone will be named and called on.

14:10

Geba lay at the northern edge of the territory of Judah and Rimmon at the southern edge; naming both is a way of saying "the entire country." The Benjamin Gate, First Gate, Corner Gate, Tower of Hananel and royal winepresses are landmarks around the circuit of Jerusalem's wall, listed to trace the city's full extent.

14:11

"Utter destruction" translates a technical Hebrew term (herem) for something placed under an irreversible ban and handed over to destruction, the sentence carried out on captured cities. The promise is that Jerusalem will never again be put under that sentence.

14:12

The description is of flesh decomposing on a body that is still alive and upright, which is what makes it horrifying rather than merely fatal. Ancient armies genuinely were destroyed more often by disease in camp than by fighting, so a besieging force rotting where it stood was a recognizable nightmare, pushed here to an impossible extreme.

14:13

Panic sent by God to make an enemy army destroy itself is a recurring motif in Israel's battle accounts. The middle clause is grammatically ambiguous: seizing a neighbor's hand can mean grabbing him to attack him, or grasping for help, and the Hebrew leaves both open.

14:14

The Hebrew preposition allows either "fight at Jerusalem" (alongside the city) or "fight against Jerusalem," and interpreters have read it both ways. Where the KJV says "heathen," the Hebrew word simply means "the nations", foreign peoples generally, without the modern implication of being irreligious or uncivilised.

14:15

"Tents" here means the enemy's military camp; ancient armies on campaign lived under canvas alongside their pack and cavalry animals, so a plague in the camp took the animals with the men.

14:16

The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) was the seven-day autumn festival at the end of the harvest, when people lived in temporary shelters made of branches. It was the largest of the three annual pilgrimage festivals, it fell just before the season when the rains had to begin, and prayers for rain were associated with it (which is why withholding rain is the penalty in the next verses. "Go up" is the standard idiom for traveling to Jerusalem, which sits high in the hill country. "LORD of hosts" means the LORD commanding armies) earthly or heavenly.

14:17

In Judah the whole agricultural year depended on rain arriving in the weeks just after this festival; there was no irrigation system to fall back on. Withheld rain meant a failed year, not an inconvenience.

14:18

The difficulty is that Egypt does not depend on rainfall at all (its crops were watered by the annual flooding of the Nile), so a rain penalty would not touch it. The Hebrew of this verse is broken, and translators divide over whether it says Egypt gets no rain, or asks what happens to a country that has no rain in the first place; a separate plague is named for Egypt either way.

14:19

Egypt is a country far to the south. It gets its water from a big river, not from rain.

14:20

The bells were small metal jingles attached to horse harness, everyday, unremarkable gear. "Holy to the LORD" was the inscription engraved on the gold plate worn on the high priest's turban, the single most sacred object of dress in the sanctuary. The bowls before the altar were the basins used to catch and throw sacrificial blood, ranking among the holiest vessels; ordinary cooking pots were at the bottom of that scale.

14:21

"Seethe" is old English for "boil." Worshipers boiled the portions of a sacrifice they were to eat, and until now that had to be done in vessels of the right degree of holiness. The last word is genuinely ambiguous: the Hebrew kena'ani means either "Canaanite", a member of the peoples living in the land before Israel, or "trader, merchant," since Canaanites were known as traders. Read the first way it removes outsiders from the sanctuary; read the second it removes commerce from it. The text supports both.