Zechariah 9:1-11:3 We are in the Exile Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @serenatravis | Donate Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis Lord, today's reading led us on such a wild tour of where the human heart ends up being taken when it has so many priorities .... ahead of you. Give us hearts that are filled with faith; faith that seeks you first.  Amen. The marvelous, mystifying, and exciting verbiage of Zechariah continues as he jumps ahead 200 years to when Greece trounces through the entire Eastern Mediterranean (Israel included). Zechariah jumps further ahead to Christ entering Jerusalem.  Some of what Zechariah says today is illustrative of Israel's becoming a nation; 'could even be talking about the Millennium when "all" Jews are there and it's a mini-paradise for centuries. 'All" Jews? I'm not even going to try to comment as to what 'all' might mean.  Hey, it's Zechariah!  He's all over the map and all over the centuries and all over history as usual! So here we go diving into more visions from the Exile Stream

09 -  Greece came through (200 years after Zech. wrote this) and in the order that the cities are listed in the first half of the chapter, that is the order in which Greece galloped through and took command of these cities. Intriguingly enough however, they spared Jerusalem, .  Verses 8-9 tell of this preservation and also describes what we call "Palm Sunday" - about 450 years before it happened! And this person who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey will one day bring peace to the world - peace that has never been known - someday. And without skipping a beat Zechariah jumps to the Messianic Kingdom era when there is complete victory at the end of the age.

10 - The time will come when the Hebrews, who have been scattered will return to Israel.  So many things that have been a frustration for them will be matters of days-gone-by: poor leadership, shame, looming enemies, gloom, lack, tribes scattered. weakness, fear, instability, aimlessness.  All that is gone now as God is among them in favor of them. 11 - Lebanon and the partnership with Lebanon, especially the First Temple Period, was such a time of mutual blessing. That is all long gone. Lebanon is going to see fire soon. The derelict shepherds are equally doomed.  Their complete waste of their calling and position had caused the Jews to slouch into wretched sinfulness and suffering and the scattering of the Hebrew people.  Yes, some of them were returned from Exile now, but the situation that led to Exile was abysmally unnecessary. They could have obeyed in those days, but the shepherds of God's People did not lead them. And you caught the reference to Judas, right? The thirty pieces of silver in vv. 12,13 that is quoted in Matthew 26 & 27...  Though these people were in a recovery period of rejecting God's leadership, sadly, it wasn't the end of that problem. The Sanhedrin and Pharisees in Judas' day (during Jesus!) didn't want to listen to God either - nor His Son. Their favor is therefore going to be lost as is their unity as a nation. This is thought to be the days that Rome will come and empty Jerusalem, burn it, destroy the Temple and scatter the Jews 70 A.D.  It would be 1,878 years before they would be able to regroup again.  This is the grave results that poor leadership leads to.  This is where the sorry shepherds had led the people of God.