Zechariah: The Rancher Prophet

The best way to read Scripture is as a Rorschach of our own mental, emotional and spiritual state, as well as for its history of generations of people in Western culture -- Jews, Christians and Moslems alike -- who have all been inspired by the Bible and have attempted to create themselves in response to, and through the creation of, this grand literary amalgam.

Literature is never purely entertainment; we go to it to stimulate our imaginations as much as for relaxation; we go to it for transport out of the ordinary of our daily lives. The wisdom literary traditions (the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, the Greek pre-Socratics and birth of Western philosophy, the Tao te Ching, the Bible and Koran, etc.), are all sources human beings have created and turn to for guidance and meaning. But to a great extent, the pond we look into reflects back to us our own image: a Christian reading a Bible verse is prone to seeing it as Christ-centered, apocalyptic and church-relevant; a Jew sees the mythical and very real history of her people and nationhood, as it unfolded in a relationship with God. An atheist may just see a chaotic but interesting tale.

The only way we can come to grips with Who or What is God has been through our literary traditions and personal, sometimes intuitive and mystical, encounters which are as varied and fascinating as human beings themselves; I love hearing and reading conversion stories and Bible interpretations, and can only wonder at the vast range of meaning-making we have generated out of our encounters with one another, the planet and its living beings, and that great Source, what some experience as a Holy Being or Divinity.

When “interpreters” take on a voice of authority and proscribe their meaning onto these fantastical and challenging works it creates distance between us, particularly when that authority is rigid and didactic, certain of its own claim to meaning. Out of this we get the Crusades, pogroms, the Inquisition, and suicide bombers.

Zechariah is a relatively late book in the Hebrew Bible, post-exilic which means it was recorded after the Jews had been captured and exiled by the Babylonians. The marker for this period in Jewish history is 586/587 BCE when the Temple--the center for ancient Israelite ritual life. The book of this prophet has led to many wild interpretations and attachments of meaning, as a book of prophecy is often wont to do. In Torah class, a student commented that “We are projecting our own idea of God back on an earlier society.” Ah yes, and the fact is that the canonized scriptures were also a projection of an idea of God layered over earlier ancient religion. In each generation, we take the raw materials of our culture and come to terms with their value for bringing us closer to each other, our selves and our souls, and our idea of God.

As a daughter of the American west, growing up around farms and cattle ranches with livestock and horses, it is not surprising that I “project” my interpretation of Zechariah as a rancher. Here’s the background and the initial images of this book, written around 520-518 BCE.

The Jews of ancient days were roustabouts by their own choice and the choice others made for them. In fact, the Bible stories have sometimes been seen as a representation of a society moving from one phase of its development as nomadic herders to an agricultural, therefore more “grounded” one.

It seemed, every time we got a bit settled down, some power came and upset the apple cart. First the Egyptians and their Pharoahs, then the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hellenistic-Syrians, and finally the Romans. The first five books of the Bible tell how ancient Israelites became a relatively settled people who made a covenant with one particular God whose name is unutterable.

Alas, the ancient middle/near east was not a quiet place and the land was coveted by others. The Babylonians became a great power and conquered Judah, destroying the Temple and carrying off the population to Babylon. Years go by, Jews survive, that’s what we do. Quite a few were comfortable and thriving in the Babylonian centers. But another power arose: this time, the Persians, who were both liberators and instigators for Jews to return to the Holy Land. There is some evidence that not everyone wanted to go back.

Darius appointed Zerubbabel as governor of Judah. Jews were allowed to return and to rebuild the Temple, thus restoring the priesthood and the old religion. Zechariah and Haggai arise as prophets during this time and share the job of exhorting the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem. But, traumatized people don’t usually want to move: they hunker down, dig in, try to keep their heads down and their movements circumspect. Zechariah, one of the last in a series of prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, is considered by many as a prophet of restoration. His name means “God has remembered” and his preaching is a kind of “round-up” of recalcitrant Jews not so eager to go home.

Zecharias’ book begins in medias res, as the prophet converses with an angel; the prophet sees a man on a bay-colored horse, with three horses standing beside, bay, sorrel and white. “What are these, my Lord?” he asks and the angel/man standing among the myrtle trees, tells Zechariah, “They are the ones who will go throughout the earth.” In fact, they tell the angel/man (it isn’t clear if there is more than one “man,“ or if the angel is a man, or if the horses are also doing some of the talking) but the reply comes: “We have roamed the earth, and have found all the earth dwelling in tranquility.”

The angel speaks out and asks God how long He is going to be angry with his people. Adonai, Lord of compassion says that he is very angry with those who punished Judah and promises to restore Jerusalem. There is a bit of irony to this since the exile, as seen in the story of the Bible, was punishment for straying from God‘s rules; it was as much an instrument of God’s wrath as the oppressors themselves. But, here at least--whether God is showing signs of remorse or the overlords screwed up on God‘s Stanley Milgram experiment--we now see that God’s plan is to restore us to our beloved Jerusalem.

Zechariah sees “four horns” which are explained as the horns that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Next Zechariah sees four craftsmen who have come to terrify the “horns of the nations that scattered Judah” and who will now be punished in their turn. A man/angel being appears, bearing a measuring line and says he is going to measure Jerusalem; he is reminded by an angel that the new Jerusalem will be a place without walls because there will be so many people in it, and that God  Himself will be a ring of fire around Jerusalem.

Messianic religion takes prophecy as a signal for the rebuilding of the Temple and the coming of the Messiah (in Christian terms, the Second Coming of Christ). In Zechariah, there is a foreshadowing of this given by the report of the man on the horse who found peace and tranquility throughout the earth. For Jews, the Messiah will only appear when the earth is at peace and all humankind is perfected; this is a quite different vision from the world of chaos and destruction imagined in the Book of Revelation as the precursor of the return of Christ.

Zechariah 3 presents the prophet’s vision of the high priest Joshua; he is wearing filthy and torn rags and Satan, the Accuser, is standing beside Joshua and attempting to restrain him. God rebukes Satan, pointing to “a brand taken from the fire.” The angel affirms that if the prophet and the people walk in God’s ways, they will be restored to Jerusalem and to God living among them.

The imagery of Zechariah 1:1-3 is of someone familiar with horses, horns (as on bulls), and brands. That’s why I think ol’ Zechariah just might have been a rancher or cowboy. His job is to round-up the disparate Jewish from their places of exile and corral them back in Jerusalem which will be “fenced off” by the flames of God’s spirit.

Zechariah claims he is from a line of priests, but in exile, priests had to turn to other professions. Is it possible he took up ranching? What I love about this idea is that ranchers make uneasy truces with the wild: they work with domesticated animals but fear the predators that still share the wild pasturelands; they keep fences but must turn their herds onto untrammeled fields to gain the nutrition they need; the act of branding binds an animal to them, reflects their ownership, but to brand an animal is to inflict pain and wariness on the very ones you seek to possess and protect. The prophet speaks in beautiful natural imagery, of horses, horns, brands and myrtle trees. In my view, these early chapters of Zechariah, the restoration prophet, God can be understood as the first steps of an exiled people being ranged in and returned to their Home on the Range.