Gilbert House Fellowship #217: Zechariah 3-4

WE OPEN 2019 with a study of two of the shorter prophetic chapters of the Old Testament, but they are rich with multiple layers of meaning — messages that point forward to the end times, but also back to Babel and the spirits behind it.

We discuss the Angel of Yahweh, another appearance in scripture of the Second Power of Heaven; the symbolism of Joshua, the first high priest of the remnant that returned from exile in Babylon; the role of “the satan” (and whether that job has been held by more than one entity); the parallels between the golden lampstand and the lampstands of the first chapter of Revelation; and the stone with seven eyes.

Then we turn to the significance of the “great mountain” in Zechariah 4:7.

Commentators who interpret the mountain as a challenge or difficult task, Dominionists who see it representing one of the seven mountains of societal influence that must be conquered in Jesus’ name, and those who take it as a literal reference to the rubble from Solomon’s temple completely miss a historical reference that would have been familiar to the Jews of Zechariah’s day.

Remember, the Jews had just returned from seventy years in the heart of Babylonia. It’s not a coincidence that the chief god of the ancient Sumerians was Enlil, “the Great Mountain.”

In the city, the holy settlement of Enlil, in Nibru (Nippur, a city in ancient Sumer), the beloved shrine of father Great Mountain, he has made the dais of abundance, the E-kur (“House of the Mountain”), the shining temple, rise from the soil; he has made it grow on pure land as high as a towering mountain. Its prince, the Great Mountain, father Enlil, has taken his seat on the dais of the E-kur, the lofty shrine. No god can cause harm to the temple’s divine powers. Its holy hand-washing rites are everlasting like the earth. Its divine powers are the divine powers of the abzu: no one can look upon them.

Enlil in the E-kur. Translation from the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

Note that the abzu (“abyss”) was the home of the god Enki, which Derek argues in his book The Great Inception was the site of the real Tower of Babel.

And who led the Jews to rebuild the Temple on Zion? Zerubbabel, whose name meant something like “sown in Babel.”

We also talk about the importance of sacred stones in the ancient world and explain the connections between Bethel (Hebrew ḇêṯ’êl), the betyls (stone idols) of Petra in Jordan, and the Ka’ba in Mecca, the bayt allah.

Click here for the complete archive of our New Testament Bible studies to date, click here for the Old Testament studies to date, and click here for our studies of the Book of 1 Enoch to date. Or go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship for all of the audio.