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Zechariah 2:1–5. And my eyes lifted up, and I saw, and behold, a man, and in his hand there was already a land survey. And he said to him: where are you coming? And he said to me: measure Jerusalem, and see how much its breadth is, and how long it is. And behold, an angel spoke in me, standing, and another angel came forth to meet him. And he spoke to him, saying: 10 fathers, and fathers to this young man, saying: Jerusalem will be fruitful with a multitude of men and beasts 11 in the midst of it: and I will be unto it, saith the Lord, a wall of fire round about, and I will be in the midst of it unto glory. And that the horns were not sharpened against Israel, but against those who took and devastated Jerusalem and Judea - this was quite clearly shown by the previous vision. Then the prophet again lifts up his eyes, and, of course, not physical eyes, but spiritual eyes - and then he says that he saw someone in the form of a man holding a surveying rope and again asked him why he was going and what his goal was. When he said that he was going to measure Jerusalem..... When the most divine church was burned and houses and cities were destroyed throughout Judea, it was as if the hope of being able to restore it again was destroyed. So God shows that after the horns, that is, nations or kingdoms, were sharpened, and after they waged war against each other, Israel will again be restored and will live in an enlarged Jerusalem and protected by divine power and surrounded by heavenly favor, as if by an impregnable flame. So the Angel hurries to measure Jerusalem and, as it were, determine its latitude and longitude. This is the historical meaning of the prophetic words. But I can say that this vision of the prophet can rightly be understood in relation to the Church of Christ itself: Satan cruelly ruled over everyone living on earth and, having bowed under his yoke, we became his captives. But the grace of the Savior crushed his horn and humbled his pride; for He triumphed over the principalities and powers and rulers of the world, the forces hostile to us, but He delivered us and freed us from that bondage: He built our church, a truly holy and glorious city, wide and very long, which we fruitfully inhabited, people and animals, that is, those who have reached conformity with the Word 12 and have not yet reached this measure, but striving for this and being secretly guided. They inhabited the city that Christ Himself fences, scorching opponents with indescribable powers and filling it with His glory and, as if standing among its inhabitants, he expressed a promise to them, saying: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The Holy Prophet Isaiah also remembered this holy city, saying: “Your eyes will see Jerusalem, the rich city, the tabernacles will not be shaken, and its churches will be moved for eternity, and it will not be broken” (Is. 33:20). He says to him: “Expand the place of your tabernacle and your coverings, set them up, do not spare, stretch them even on your right hand and on your left” (Is. 54:2); for the church of Christ expands and spreads into infinity, receiving into itself an innumerable multitude of those who worship Him. Zechariah 2:6–7. Oh, flee from the land of the north, says the Lord; I will gather you from the four winds of heaven, says the Lord: flee to Zion, you who dwell in the daughters of Babylon 13. He grieves, as it were, for those subjected to captivity, as if they were suffering a grave calamity, and finally commands them to leave the Chaldean country, because no one is stopping them from doing this and He is gathering together those scattered from everywhere by enemy attacks. He calls the country of the Chaldeans the daughter of Babylon and the land of the north: for the main cities in relation to other cities that were subordinate to them were recognized as their mothers. More northern and lying to the east was the country of the Chaldeans. This is what we should have said about the historical meaning (of these words). But the word moves on to spiritual contemplation and is already introduced to the face of the Savior, in some way enjoying and, as it were, mourning those living on earth for the fact that they submitted to the ministry of Satan, who ruled over all, and endured such cruel slavery that they seemed suppressed by his arbitrariness. So, it encourages us to flee from the northern land, that is, the cold country, so that by it we can indirectly understand a certain worldly disposition of spirit and state of morals, which if someone has and finds himself living in it, then he cannot be on fire in spirit, nor have the fiery word of God dwelling in him. Therefore, David nowhere sings to God: “Your word is kindled, and your servant has loved it” (Ps. 119:140). So, one who does not have the ardent and fiery word of God within himself would be cold and dead: for Christ said that as a result of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). Sin is called, and very rightly, the daughter of Babylon, if it is true that Babylon means confusion: for sin can be the work not of a calm and firm mind, but rather of a mind that is confused and, as it were, intoxicated with an inclination to impurity. So we must move away, as if from the northern land, from the cold and dead mood of the spirit and move to Zion, that is, to true contemplation, meaning by it the Church of Christ, in which, being located, we will see what is pleasing to God and hear the teaching of the holy and consubstantial Trinity and find Christ himself, who gathers us in every possible way and spiritually binds us with unanimity: for He said about us that “other sheep are the imam, which are not from of this court: it is fitting for me to bring you also, and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). Zechariah 2:8. The Lord Almighty says to you: in the wake of the glory of sending me to the tongues of you who have taken you captive, touch you before, as if you touched the apple of his eye. And that Christ protected and delivered the ancient peoples, no one can doubt this if he has a mind that loves the truth. After all, if He was the stone that gave water to thirsty Israel in the wilderness, and if He is the One through Whom all things are from God the Father; then how can one doubt that through Him every deliverance was accomplished at every time and every way of help? However, we affirm that in these words He Himself proclaims to those justified by faith and sanctified in the Spirit and indicates the image of the incarnation; for he says that He was sent in the wake of glory, and can never lie. If, in the form of God and the Father, He is from Him and in Him God the Word “was not equal to God by admiration” (Phil. 2:6-8), as it is written, but condescended to the form of a servant, and humbled Himself, becoming a man like us, then did He not find himself behind (below) the glory most due to Him? What was the reason why He needed to suffer temporary disgrace? He came in order to deprive the spoils of the robbers and those who subordinated those living on earth to their yoke, that is, us, who were cruelly robbed by the evil and enemy forces. But they are being deprived of prey now, when the Savior of us all, Christ, brought us to Himself through faith, and made us His worshipers - us, burdened by the brutality of those (enemy forces) - and granted us such security that whoever wants to upset us seems to touch the apple of His own eye. Thus, the outcome of events always turns to the detriment of the persecutors of the Church, and about each of them one can say what is said in the psalm: “a pit of destruction, and a pit of fossils, and he will fall into the pit that he made. His sickness will return to his head, and unrighteousness will come down upon him” (Ps. 7:16-17). So, he says, the one who plots evil against the souls of those who believe in Him will touch Him, which He also says through the mouth of the Psalmist: “Touch not my anointed, and do not deceive my prophets” (Ps. 104:15). If we (all together) are the body of Christ, and the members are (each) separately (1 Cor. 12:27): then how can He deliver His own body to sinners? Or how can He allow His members to be filled with evil? On the contrary, will not those who wickedly plot against those under His control be subject to the most severe punishment? Zechariah 2:9. Therefore, I will lay my hand on you, and they will gain profit for those who work with them, and you will understand that 14 The Lord Almighty sent me. Christ defeated the rulers of the world of this age and, with an irresistible hand, crushed the heads of the killer of the serpent and gave us “the power to tread on the serpent and the scorpion and all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19): and they, once terrible and very dangerous and possessing indestructible power, became self-interested to those who worked for them; for we, who of old were under the dominion of sins, were justified in Christ and finally achieved such spiritual consolation that we can shine with every virtue and lead a life in Christ and angelic life: then we were filled with His gifts and received power over unclean spirits and the power to restrain (from the snares) unclean demons, because Christ cast down and crushed under the feet of the saints both Satan himself and the forces subordinate to him malice. But we can deprive those who once dominated us of the spoils in another way: namely, when we conquer our own passions and consider it worthy of all respect to dominate worldly and carnal pleasures and over all unreasonable and unnatural lust: then we defeat our former conquerors, although we recognize ourselves as guilty of them. It is then, precisely by experience, that we learn that God’s Word was sent with flesh into this world from God the Father and found himself behind glory for no other purpose than to bind the broken, strengthen the weakened, restore the prostrate, make the weak strong, and heal the perishing. Zechariah 2:10–12. Rejoice 15 and be glad, daughter of Zion, behold, I am coming and will dwell in your midst, says the Lord. And many nations will run to the Lord on that day, and they will be his people, and they will dwell in your midst, and you will understand that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. And the Lord will inherit Judah, his share in the holy lands, and will choose Jerusalem. And from here you can learn that the coming of the Savior will be the basis of the highest joy for those living on earth; for He commanded that the spiritual Zion, which is the living church of God, or the most sacred multitude of those saved through faith, should be glad and rejoice. He promised that He would come and constantly be in the midst of it: for the divine John tells us that He was in the world and, being God the Word, did not separate from His creatures, but gave life to everything capable of life and supported everything for happiness and life. But “the world does not know it” (John 1:1–4, 10), but he worshiped the creature. He was with us when He, having taken upon Himself our image, was born of the holy Virgin, when He “appeared on earth and lived among men” (Bar.3:38). And the divine David will testify, saying: “God will come, our God, and will not remain silent” (Ps. 49:3). Then He became known to the pagans: because He taught more than one nation of Israel through that old commandment: on the contrary, the whole universe was adorned with the gospel preaching; and in every nation and in every country His name became great: because He was the “hope of the tongues,” according to the word of the Prophet (Gen. 49:10) and to Him “every tribe of heaven and earth and under the earth will worship, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). They flocked together as a result of faith in Him and dwelt with Him in holy and spiritual Zion from the ends of the earth and clearly knew that “God so loved the world, because He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16): for the Father sent us from heaven His Son, the Savior and Redeemer, so that we, having believed, into Him, in Him they saw the Father and, looking at Him as the exact image of the One who gave birth, they understood from Him the actual prototype. Then Judas became an inheritance of the Lord, that is, everyone who confesses and glorifies Him, for Judas is interpreted, confession 16, as Paul says: “circumcision is not a man who is a Jew, nor a man in the flesh; but a Jew who is a secret Jew, and the circumcision of the heart is in the Spirit, and not in the Scripture: whose praise is not from man, but from God” (Rom. 2:28-29). So those of us who have acquired circumcision in the spirit through Christ have become His inheritance in the holy land, so that we may meditate on the city on high, the spiritual Jerusalem, “and God is its maker and maker” (Heb. 11:10), making it beloved and chosen: for he says: “he will choose Jerusalem again.” Again, there would be nothing implausible if anyone decided to think that even now the church is called Jerusalem, which the divine David calls the city of God, saying: “As I have heard, so have I seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God” (Ps. 47:9). Zechariah 2:13. Let all flesh stand in awe at His presence, 17 and 18 rise up from the clouds of His saints. Here is a beautiful and useful proclamation and a good invitation to those who wish to gain glory for themselves, whether it comes from God himself or from the face of the prophets! But you need to pay attention to the following. Even if some of the completely lost did not believe Him, He still commanded them to revere. Christ Himself said the same to those who did not believe in Him: “Amen I say to you: if you do not have faith, as I am, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24): and again: “Whoever believes in the Son is not condemned: but he who does not believe is already condemned, for he has not faith in the name of the Son of God” (John 3:18). For this reason, Christ is called “a stone of stumbling and a stone of offense” (1 Pet. 2:7); for how wonderful and saving it is to express reverence for Him by faith: so destructive is it not to reverence Him who became like us for our sake, and not for anything else, but in order to “save that which was lost” (Matthew 18:11). And we will understand the expression: “rising out of the clouds of His saints” in the sense that He, as it were, moved from ancient calm and silence to effective care for us, came from the seed of Abraham, Isaac, Jesse and David and others listed with them in the genealogies (Matt. 1: 1-18; Luke 3: 23-38), which He calls clouds, because the mind of the saints strives for heights, turns away from earthly objects and despicable aspirations, on the contrary, seeks the highest and heavenly, and like clouds and spiritual rains, waters others. And what here points to the resurrection is again confirmed by the Savior himself, who through the mouth of the Psalmist says: “for the sake of the passion of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now I will rise again” (Ps. 11:6). So “vosta”, that is, was finally moved to give help to those suffering on earth; He Himself is deliverance from all evils, the end of the ancient oath and the beginning of all good and the giver of hope for a future eternal life. The words: tets and rtsy to the young man thereof, verbs in the text of St. Cyril are omitted, probably by mistake. Slav. Kirill Alex. ed. Vab. IV. 73 and many more codd. cheat των – like, previous. ἐν μέσῳ. Λελογωυένοι from λογόω, like λογωσις, are rare words, found only among the church fathers (Athan. Alex. and Cyrus. Al.) and meaning the achievement by a redeemed man of conformity to the Son of God and the Word of God - the Logos.” Literally: inhabiting the daughter of Babylon. St. Cyrus reads: διοτι, like Alex. and some, but Slav. οτι – just like the majority. τέρπου - Slav. show off. Ἐξομολογησις so Ononast. Vat. § 177.lin. 80–81 u Gloss. Colb. § 203. iin. 95 y Lagarde Onomastica Sacra, eI. 2–a. pp. 206 and 226. Cp. Onom. C oisl: εξομολόγησις ᾿εξομολογουμένου – ib. § 169 82. p. 200. Hieron. Liber interpr. hebr. nom. ib. § 7.lin. 19: Laudatio sive confessio (p. 33) and § 74. 15: confitens sive glorificans cp. 108 or confitens vel laudator (§ 78. 4. p. 112). Comes from י־ה - to praise and confess (from gothal) Cf. Gen.29:35, 49:8. Αυτου, like some, but Slav., like more. and Heb.: The Lord's - Κυρίου. Διοτι, like Alex. etc. but Slav. οτι - like Vat. etc., many others You might be interested in: