Bible Commentaries

A FOURTH VISION is recorded in chapter 3, concerning Joshua the high priest, and the removal from him of all that was defiling. In verse Zechariah 3:8, we read of him and his fellows that they were 'men wondered at', or, as Darby's New Translation puts it, 'men of portent', with the note, 'men to be observed as signs, or types'. Regarding Joshua therefore as a type, we see a plain prediction that it will only be as cleansed from their filth that the people will enjoy the blessing connected with the dwelling of Jehovah in Zion, as just foretold. There can be no nearness to God without deliverance from the filth of sin. No change of dispensation alters this fact.

It is worthy of note that Zechariah saw. not some erring and disreputable man clothed in filthy garments, but a man who had been used of God and in a place of special privilege. We are reminded that David exclaimed, 'Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity' (Psalms 39:5).

If Joshua needed cleansing from filth, then they all did. Now Satan was there to resist this cleansing, but he was rebuked since Joshua was 'a brand plucked out of the fire'. This vision supplements what Haggai had to say to the people, in his second chapter about their uncleannesses. But Joshua in this vision was not only delivered from his filthy garments, but was clothed in what was clean with a fair mitre upon his head. He was thus established in his priestly position. God does not only remove evil; He also crowns with good.

But all this will really be established when God brings forth His Servant 'the Branch' who had been predicted under this figure nearly a century before, as we see in Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 23:6, where the Branch is revealed to be 'Jehovah tsidkenu' — the Lord our righteousness. We have to travel back to old Jacob for the first reference to 'the stone of Israel' (Genesis 49:24). He is not only the One who will introduce and establish righteousness, but also the foundation stone, upon which will be built everything that is going to stand unshaken, for He who is the stone has complete power of perception, represented in the 'seven eyes', so that nothing unclean can ever creep in. So, in that day, as the last verse indicates, there will be quietness and assurance for ever.