The Surveyor

In his night visions Zechariah saw four horns and four craftsmen (1:18, 20). The horns Zechariah

saw represent four kingdoms or kings “which have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem” (v.19).

The four craftsmen have come to throw down the horns of the nations who has lifted up their horns against the land of Judah in order to scatter it (1:21). This was encouraging news.

In chapter one verse sixteen, the Lord said, “I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it,...and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.” In this chapter we have that promise illustrated and confirmed. Zechariah saw a man with a measuring line.

Zechariah asked the man with the measuring line, “Where are you going? And he said , ‘To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide it is and how long it is.” He is going to measure Jerusalem in its present state so that it might be determined what additions were necessary for the receiving and containing the multitudes that will come to Jerusalem (Isaiah 60:4).

The angel who was speaking to Zechariah was told, by another angel, to tell Zechariah Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle within it. The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall increase, and multiply so that it shall extend itself far beyond the present dimensions. The purpose of the walls of a city was used to defend it. They also keep the inhabitants confined within the boundaries of the walls. But Jerusalem, even when it is walled, to keep out the enemy, shall be inhabited as a city without walls. It shall be extended as freely as if it had no walls at all, and yet shall be as safe as if it had the strongest walls. When Zechariah saw this vision Jerusalem had no walls about it. She lay naked and exposed.

When she had walls her enemies not only broke through them. Now the Lord will be to her a wall of fire. Some think it alludes to shepherds that made fires about their flocks, or travelers that made fires about their tents in desert places, to frighten wild beasts from them. The Lord will do much more. He will make a hedge around Jerusalem as He did Job (Job 1:10). He will not only make walls around her, walls can be battered down. The Lord will be a wall of fire round her which cannot be broken through, nor scaled, nor undermined, nor the foundations of it undermined nor can it be attempted, or approached, without danger to the assailants. The Lord will not only make a wall of fire about her, but He will Himself be such a wall; for the Lord is a consuming fire to His enemies and the enemies of His children.

Jerusalem will not only be protected by a wall of fire, she will be a great city because the Lord

Himself will be the glory in the midst of the city. His temple, his altar, shall be set up and attended

there, and his institutions observed, and there shall the blessings of His presence and favor be, which will be the glory in the midst of them and will make them truly admirable in the eyes of all about them. The people will honor the Lord and He will put honor upon them.

Those that have the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for their God have Him for their glory; those that have Him in the midst of them have glory in the midst of them. Therefore the church is said to be all glorious within. The people and places that have the Lord in their midst have Him for a wall of fire round about them. All this was fulfilled in part in Jerusalem, which in process of time became a very flourishing city, and made a very great figure in those parts of the world, beyond what could have been expected, considering how low it was brought and how long it laid in ruin.

One would have thought that Cyprus’ proclamation, which gave liberty to the captive Jews to return to their own land, would have brought them all back to their homeland, as when Pharaoh gave them permission to leave Egypt and their house of bondage. There were about 50,000 whose spirits God stirred up to leave Babylon. The greater part of the captives stayed in Babylon. The land of their captivity was to most of them the land of their birth and they had taken root there, had gained a settlement, and many of them a very comfortable one; some perhaps had gotten estates and business. They didn’t think they could better themselves by returning to their own land. They had no great affection to their own land, and considered the difficulties they would encounter if they returned to Judah and Jerusalem beyond what they cared to experience.