What choice do we make between loyalties? (Zech 13:2-6)

I remember reading the testimony of a Jewish man who, on reading the New Testament, came to believe that Jesus was indeed God’s Messiah. Yet for a long time, he struggled with conflicting loyalties. He had relatives who died in Auschwitz for being Jewish and family members persecuted by so-called Christians as ‘Christ-killers’. How could he join the ranks of such enemies to his people and thereby betray his own family? Our passage likewise presents us with a tension between what God requires and family loyalties. How can parents pierce through (and kill) their son even if he is a false prophet (Zech 13:3)? Such an attitude smacks of fanaticism and we feel shocked, even revolted. Could God really expect us to behave this way?

God’s enabling

Before tackling this question, we need to backtrack a little. Zechariah continues to reflect on future restoration and describes how God is going to deal with idols and false prophets (Zech 13:2). Although the latter are not called ‘false’ explicitly, the context makes this clear (they speak falsely and deceive; Zech 13:3-4). Prophets are spokespersons for God or the gods and if their message is not from the Lord, then inevitably, they will lead people astray and into relying on something or someone other than God, hence the connection between false prophecy and idolatry. God, then, will act decisively and remove harmful spiritual influences including ‘the spirit of uncleanness’ (v.2) that corresponds to the positive giving of ‘a spirit of grace and supplication’ earlier (Zech 12:10). In other words, the Lord will eradicate external stimuli that could lead astray and simultaneously renew people’s outlook, so that they will no longer be drawn to what is unclean and sinful.

Two shocking pictures

This changed attitude is reflected in two imaginary scenarios. On the one hand, parents will give priority to God over loyalty to family, on the other, false prophets will feel so ashamed of their former profession that they will pretend to be a lowly slave and a manual labourer rather than admit to their past (Zech 13:4-5). When questioned about the wounds that can identify them as false prophets (cutting oneself to get the gods’ attention was common practice among pagans; see the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:28), they will give a lame excuse to cover up the truth (Zech 13:6).[1] The harshness of the first and the deception of the second example are disturbing, but their purpose is to shock. The law required the stoning of false prophets and parents of such were instructed to be first in doing so (Deut 13:6-11), but we have no evidence that such a command was ever obeyed. In fact, God Himself faced this choice with His idolatrous son, Israel, and could not bring Himself to eliminate His people (Hos 11:1-2, 8-9). Yet the presence of such a law underlines the extreme seriousness of idolatry and the vivid pictures in Zechariah are meant to shake us up.

The challenge of loyalties and our hope

The point is not to rush out and try to imitate these examples, but to allow ourselves to be challenged by them. How uncompromising is our loyalty to God? How deep our mortification over sin? Zechariah’s approach is similar to Jesus’ who confronts us with hard sayings about ‘hating’ family members for His sake (Luke 14:26) or gouging out offending eyes and cutting off offending limbs (Mk 9:43-48). Zechariah uses the same word (daqar) for piercing a false prophet (Zech 13:3) as piercing God/His representative in the previous chapter (Zech 12:10). This implicitly creates an either-or choice. If we do not pierce and eradicate sin, then we will pierce and eliminate God from our lives. Jesus echoes the same principle when He says that we cannot serve two masters, we either love the one and hate the other or vice versa (Luke 16:13). Hard, even impossible, this may sound, the point is that it is God who enables our loyalty and heals our wayward heart. We have a foretaste of it now, but one day, He will make all things new. We work together with Him but also rest in Him with hope.

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[1] Some suggest that the wounds are the discipline of parents and link it to the piercing in Zechariah 13:3, but the latter means death (‘you shall not live’, v.3). The law requires the stoning of false prophets (Deut 13:6-11), so physical discipline would be inconsistent here. The explanation this former false prophet gives is confused; it literally reads, ‘I was wounded in the house of those who love me’ (Zech 13:6). But why would they hurt the speaker if they love him? It probably illustrates the embarrassment of such people as they scramble to find a reasonable explanation and only end up giving an incoherent one.

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