A verse by verse commentary on Zechariah 3 dealing with clean garments for the high priest.

1. ZECHARIAH 3 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Clean Garments for the High Priest
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest
standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan
[a] standing at his right side to accuse him.
BAR ES, "And He - God, (for the office of the attendant angel was to explain, not to
show the visions) “showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the Angel of the
Lord;” probably to be judged by him ; as in the New Testament, “to stand before the Son
of Man;” for although “standing before,” whether in relation to man or God, , expresses
attendance upon, yet here it appears only as a condition, contemporaneous with that of
Satan’s, to accuse him. Although, moreover, the Angel speaks with authority, yet God’s
Presence in him is not spoken of so distinctly, that the high priest would be exhibited as
standing before him, as in his office before God.
And Satan - Etymologically, the enemy, as, in the New Testament, “your adversary
the devil” 1Pe_5:8, etymologically, the accuser. It is a proper name of the Evil one, yet its
original meaning, “the enemy, was not lost. Here, as in Job, his malice is shown in
accusation; “the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God, day and
night” Rev_12:10. In Job Job_1:8-11; Job_2:3-5, the accusations were calumnious; here,
doubtless, true. For he accused Job of what would have been plain apostacy Job_1:11;
Job_2:5; Joshua and Zerubbabel had shared, or given way to, the remissness of the
people, as to the rebuilding of the temple and the full restoration of the worship of God
Ezr_3:1-13; 4. For this, Haggai had reproved the people, through them Hag_1:1-11.
Satan had then a real charge, on which to implead them. Since also the whole series of
visions relates to the restoration from the captivity, the guilt, for which Satan impleads
him with Jerusalem and Jerusalem in him, includes the whole guilt, which had rested
upon them, so that for a time God had seemed to have cast “away His people” Rom_11:1.
Satan “stands at his right hand,” the place of a protector Psa_16:8; Psa_109:31; Psa_
121:5; Psa_142:4, to show that he had none to save him, and that himself was victorious.
CLARKE, "And he showed me Joshua the high priest - The Angel of the Lord
is the Messiah, as we have seen before; Joshua, the high priest, may here represent the
whole Jewish people; and Satan, the grand accuser of the brethren. What the subject of
dispute was, we perhaps learn from Jud_1:9. Michael and Satan disputed about the body

2. of Moses. This could not refer to the natural body of the Jewish lawgiver, which had
been dead about owe thousand years; it must therefore refer to that body of laws given to
the Jews by Moses, for the breach of which Satan, who was their tempter to
disobedience, now comes forward as their accuser; that, exciting the justice of God
against them, they may be all brought to perdition. There is a paronomasia here: -
Satan standing at his right hand to resist him - ‫שטן‬ Satan signifies an adversary.
‫לשטנו‬ lesiteno, to be his adversary, or accuser.
GILL, "And he showed me Joshua the high priest,.... Who was one that came up
out of the captivity, and was principally concerned in building the temple, and had many
enemies to obstruct him in it; and who falling into sin, or his sons, in marrying strange
wives, Ezr_10:18, which he might connive at, Satan was ready to catch it up, and accuse
him before God; though rather Joshua is to be considered, not personally, but typically,
representing the state and condition of the priesthood, in which office he was; and which
was very low, mean, and abject, under the second temple; or the church of God, which
the priests, especially the high priest, were representatives of: and indeed this vision
may be accommodated to the case of any single believer, fallen into sin, and accused by
Satan, and whose advocate Christ is:
standing before the Angel of the Lord; not any created angel, but Christ the Angel
of God's presence, who is called Jehovah, Zec_3:2 is the rebuker of Satan, and the
advocate of his people; and who takes away their sins, and clothes them with his
righteousness: and "standing before" him does not mean barely being in his sight and
presence, but as ministering to him; this being the posture both of angels and men, the
servants of the Lord, Dan_7:10, either he was offering sacrifice for the people, or asking
counsel of God for them; or rather giving thanks for his and their deliverance from
captivity, being as brands taken out of the fire; and praying to be stripped of his filthy
garments, and to be clothed with others more decent, and becoming his office; and for
help and assistance in the building of the temple, and against those that obstructed him:
also he was brought and placed here as a guilty person, charged with sin, and to be tried
before him,
Satan standing at his right hand to resist him; either to hinder him in his work of
building the temple, by stirring up Sanballat, and other enemies; or rather to accuse him
of sin, and bring a charge against him, and get sentence passed upon him; so the accuser
used to stand at the right hand of the accused. The Targum paraphrases it,
"and sin standing at his right hand to resist him:''
when the people of God fall into sin, Satan the accuser of the brethren, their avowed
enemy, observes it, and accuses them before the Lord, and seeks their condemnation.
Maimonides (p) understands this of his standing at the right hand of the angel; but it
was not usual for the prosecutor, accuser, or pleader, whether for or against a person
arraigned, to stand the right hand of the judge: indeed, in the Jewish sanhedrim, or
grand court of judicature, there were two scribes stood before the judges; the one on the
right hand, the other on the left; who took down in writing the pleadings in court, and
the sentences of those that were acquitted, and of those that were condemned; he on the
right hand the former, and the other on the left hand the latter (q). The prince or chief

3. judge of the court sat in the middle; and his deputy, called "Ab Beth Din", or father of the
court, sat at his right hand; and a wise man, a principal one, at his left (r); but it was
usual for the pleader, who was called ‫ריב‬ ‫,בעל‬ "Baal Rib", to stand on the right hand of
the party cited into the court, whether he pleaded for or against him (s): and to this
custom is the allusion here, and in Psa_106:6 where Satan, who is the accuser of men,
and pleads against them, is placed at the right hand, as here; and God, who pleads the
cause of his poor people, is also represented as standing on their right hand. The
business of Satan here was to accuse, to bring charges, to plead for condemnation, and
endeavour to get the sentence of it passed against Joshua; for he was at his right hand, to
be an "adversary" to him, as his name (Satan) signifies, which he has from
the word here used; being an enemy to mankind in general, and especially to the people
of God, and more especially to persons in sacred public offices; to whom he is αντιδικος,
"a court adversary", as the Apostle Peter calls him, 1Pe_5:8 who appears in open court
against them, and charges them in a most spiteful and malicious manner; and is a most,
implacable, obstinate, and impudent one, as his name signifies, and the word from
whence it is derived (t); though Maimonides (u) thinks the name is derived from ‫,שטה‬
which signifies to decline, or go back from anything; since he, without doubt, makes men
to decline from the way of truth to the way of falsehood and error.
HE RY 1-2, "There was a Joshua that was a principal agent in the first settling of
Israel in Canaan; here is another of the same name very active in their second settlement
there after the captivity; Jesus is the same name, and it signifies Saviour; and they were
both figures of him that was to come, our chief captain and our chief priest. The angel
that talked with Zechariah showed him Joshua the high priest; it is probable that the
prophet saw him frequently, that he spoke to him, and that there was a great intimacy
between them; but, in his common views, he only saw how he appeared before men; if he
must know how he stands before the Lord, it must be shown him in vision; and so it is
shown him. And men are really as they are with God, not as they appear in the eye of the
world. He stood before the angel of the Lord, that is, before Christ, the Lord of the
angels, to whom even the high priests themselves, of Aaron's order, were accountable.
He stood before the angel of the Lord to execute his office, to minister to God under the
inspection of the angels. He stood to consult the oracle on the behalf of Israel, for whom,
as high priest, he was agent. Guilt and corruption are our two great discouragements
when we stand before God. By the guilt of the sins committed by us we have become
obnoxious to the justice of God; by the power of the sin that dwells in us we have become
odious to the holiness of God. All God's Israel are in danger upon these two accounts.
Joshua was so here, for the law made men priests that had infirmity, Heb_7:28. And, as
to both, we have relief from Jesus Christ, who is made of God to us both righteousness
and sanctification.
I. Joshua is accused as a criminal, but is justified. 1. A violent opposition is made to
him. Satan stands at his right hand to resist him to be a Satan to him, a law-adversary.
He stands at his right hand, as the prosecutor, or witness, at the right hand of the
prisoner. Note, The devil is the accuser of the brethren, that accuses them before God
day and night, Rev_12:10. Some think the chief priest was accused for the sin of many of
the inferior priests, in marrying strange wives, which they were much guilty of after their
return out of captivity, Ezr_9:1, Ezr_9:2; Neh_13:28. When God is about to reestablish
the priesthood Satan objects the sins that were found among the priests, as rendering
them unworthy the honour designed them. It is by our own folly that we give Satan

4. advantage against us and furnish him with matter for reproach and accusation; and if
any thing be amiss, especially with the priests, Satan will be sure to aggravate it and
make the worst of it. He stood to resist him, that is, to oppose the service he was doing
for the public good. He stood at his right hand, the hand of action, to discourage him,
and raise difficulties in his way. Note, When we stand before God to minister to him, or
stand up for God to serve his interests, we must expect to meet with all the resistance
that Satan's subtlety and malice can give us. Let us then resist him that resists us and he
shall flee from us. 2. A victorious defence is made for him (Zec_3:2): The Lord (that is,
the Lord Christ) said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee. Note, It is the happiness of the
saints that the Judge is their friend; the same that they are accused to is their patron and
protector, and an advocate for them, and he will be sure to bring them off. (1.) Satan is
here checked by one that has authority, that has conquered him, and many a time
silenced him. The accuser of the brethren, of the ministers and the ministry, is cast out;
his indictments are quashed, and his suggestions against them as well as his suggestions
to them, are shown to be malicious, frivolous, and vexatious. The Lord rebuke thee, O
Satan! The Lord said (that is, the Lord our Redeemer), The Lord rebuke thee, that is, the
Lord the Creator. The power of God is engaged for the making of the grace of Christ
effectual. “The Lord restrain thy malicious rage, reject thy malicious charge, and revenge
upon thee thy enmity to a servant of his” Note, those that belong to Christ have him
ready to appear vigorously for them when Satan appears most vehement against them.
He does not parley with him, but stops his mouth immediately with this sharp
reprimand: The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan! This is the best way of dealing with that
furious enemy. Get thee behind me, Satan. (2.) Satan is here argued with. He resists the
priest, but let him know that his resistance, [1.] Will be fruitless; it will be to no purpose
to attempt any thing against Jerusalem, for the Lord has chosen it, and he will abide by
his choice. Whatever is objected against God's people, God saw it; he foresaw it when he
chose them and yet he chose them, and therefore that can be no inducement to him now
to reject them; he knew the worst of them when he chose them; and his election shall
obtain. [2.] It is unreasonable; for is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Joshua is
so, and the priesthood, and the people, whose representative he is. Christ has not that to
say for them for which they are to be praised, but that for which they are to be pitied.
Note, Christ is ready to make the best of his people, and takes notice of every thing that
is pleadable in excuse of their infirmities, so far is he from being extreme to mark what
they do amiss. They have been lately in the fire; no wonder that they are black and
smoked, and have the smell of fire upon them, but they are therefore to be excused, not
to be accused. One can expect no other than that those who but the other day were
captives in Babylon should appear very mean and despicable. They have been lately
brought out of great affliction; and is Satan so barbarous as to desire to have them
thrown into affliction again? They have been wonderfully delivered out of the fire, that
God might be glorified in them; and will he then cast them off and abandon them? No,
he will not quench the smoking flax, the smoking fire-brand; for he snatched it out of the
fire because he intended to make use of it. Note, Narrow escapes from imminent danger
are happy presages and powerful pleas for more eminent favours. A converted soul is a
brand plucked out of the fire by a miracle of free grace, and therefore shall not be left to
be a prey to Satan.
JAMISO , "Zec_3:1-10. Fourth Vision. Joshua the high priest before the angel of
Jehovah; accused by Satan, but justified by Jehovah through Messiah the coming
Branch.
Joshua as high priest (Hag_1:1) represents “Jerusalem” (Zec_3:2), or the elect people,

5. put on its trial, and “plucked” narrowly “out of the fire.” His attitude, “standing before
the Lord,” is that of a high priest ministering before the altar erected previously to the
building of the temple (Ezr_3:2, Ezr_3:3, Ezr_3:6; Psa_135:2). Yet, in this position, by
reason of his own and his people’s sins, he is represented as on his and their trial (Num_
35:12).
he showed me — “He” is the interpreting angel. Jerusalem’s (Joshua’s) “filthy
garments” (Zec_3:3) are its sins which had hitherto brought down God’s judgments. The
“change of raiment” implies its restoration to God’s favor. Satan suggested to the Jews
that so consciously polluted a priesthood and people could offer no acceptable sacrifice
to God, and therefore they might as well desist from the building of the temple.
Zechariah encourages them by showing that their demerit does not disqualify them for
the work, as they are accepted in the righteousness of another, their great High Priest,
the Branch (Zec_3:8), a scion of their own royal line of David (Isa_11:1). The full
accomplishment of Israel’s justification and of Satan the accuser’s being “rebuked”
finally, is yet future (Rev_12:10). Compare Rev_11:8, wherein “Jerusalem,” as here, is
shown to be meant primarily, though including the whole Church in general (compare
Job_1:9).
Satan — the Hebrew term meaning “adversary” in a law court: as devil is the Greek
term, meaning accuser. Messiah, on the other hand, is “advocate” for His people in the
court of heaven’s justice (1Jo_2:1).
standing at his right hand — the usual position of a prosecutor or accuser in
court, as the left hand was the position of the defendant (Psa_109:6). The “angel of the
Lord” took the same position just before another high priest was about to beget the
forerunner of Messiah (Luk_1:11), who supplants Satan from his place as accuser. Some
hence explain Jud_1:9 as referring to this passage: “the body of Moses” being thus the
Jewish Church, for which Satan contended as his by reason of its sins; just as the “body
of Christ” is the Christian Church. However, Jud_1:9 plainly speaks of the literal body of
Moses, the resurrection of which at the transfiguration Satan seems to have opposed on
the ground of Moses’ error at Meribah; the same divine rebuke, “the Lord rebuke thee,”
checked Satan in contending for judgment against Moses’ body, as checked him when
demanding judgment against the Jewish Church, to which Moses’ body corresponds.
K&D 1-4, "In this and the following visions the prophet is shown the future
glorification of the church of the Lord. Zec_3:1. “And he showed me Joshua the high
priest standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan stood at his right hand to
oppose him. Zec_3:2. And Jehovah said to Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; and
Jehovah who chooseth Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a brand saved out of the fire?
Zec_3:3. And Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.
Zec_3:4. And he answered and spake to those who stood before him thus: Take away
the filthy garments from him. And he said to him, Behold, I have taken away thy guilt
from thee, and clothe thee in festal raiment. Zec_3:5. And I said, Let them put a clean
mitre upon his head. Then they put the clean mitre upon his head, and clothed him with
garments. And the angel of Jehovah stood by.” The subject to ‫י‬ִ‫נ‬ ֵ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ַ ַ‫ו‬ is Jehovah, and not
the mediating angel, for his work was to explain the visions to the prophet, and not to
introduce them; nor the angel of Jehovah, because he appears in the course of the vision,
although in these visions he is sometimes identified with Jehovah, and sometimes
distinguished from Him. The scene is the following: Joshua stands as high priest before
the angel of the Lord, and Satan stands at his (Joshua's) right hand as accuser. Satan

6. (hassâtân) is the evil spirit so well known from the book of Job, and the constant accuser
of men before God (Rev_12:10), and not Sanballat and his comrades (Kimchi, Drus.,
Ewald). He comes forward here as the enemy and accuser of Joshua, to accuse him in his
capacity of high priest. The scene is therefore a judicial one, and the high priest is not in
the sanctuary, the building of which had commenced, or engaged in supplicating the
mercy of the angel of the Lord for himself and the people, as Theodoret and
Hengstenberg suppose. The expression ‫י‬ֵ‫נ‬ ְ‫פ‬ ִ‫ל‬ ‫ד‬ ֵ‫ּמ‬‫ע‬ furnishes no tenable proof of this, since
it cannot be shown that this expression would be an inappropriate one to denote the
standing of an accused person before the judge, or that the Hebrew language had any
other expression for this. Satan stands on the right side of Joshua, because the accuser
was accustomed to stand at the right hand of the accused (cf. Psa_109:6). Joshua is
opposed by Satan, however, not on account of any personal offences either in his private
or his domestic life, but in his official capacity as high priest, and for sins which were
connected with his office, or for offences which would involve the nation (Lev_4:3);
though not as the bearer of the sins of the people before the Lord, but as laden with his
own and his people's sins. The dirty clothes, which he had one, point to this (Zec_3:3).
But Jehovah, i.e., the angel of Jehovah, repels the accuser with the words, “Jehovah
rebuke thee;... Jehovah who chooseth Jerusalem.”
(Note: The application made in the Epistle of Jude (Jud_1:9) of the formula
“Jehovah rebuke thee,” namely, that Michael the archangel did not venture to
execute upon Satan the κρίσις βλασφηµίας, does not warrant the conclusion that the
angel of the Lord places himself below Jehovah by these words. The words “Jehovah
rebuke thee” are a standing formula for the utterance of the threat of a divine
judgment, from which no conclusion can be drawn as to the relation in which the
person using it stood to God. Moreover, Jude had not our vision in his mind, but
another event, which has not been preserved in the canonical Scriptures.)
The words are repeated for the sake of emphasis, and with the repetition the motive
which led Jehovah to reject the accuser is added. Because Jehovah has chosen
Jerusalem, and maintains His choice in its integrity (this is implied in the participle
bōchēr). He must rebuke Satan, who hopes that his accusation will have the effect of
repealing the choice of Jerusalem, by deposing the high priest. For if any sin of the high
priest, which inculpated the nation, had been sufficient to secure his removal or
deposition, the office of high priest would have ceased altogether, because no man is
without sin. ‫ר‬ ַ‫ע‬ָ, to rebuke, does not mean merely to nonsuit, but to reprove for a thing;
and when used of God, to reprove by action, signifying to sweep both him and his
accusation entirely away. The motive for the repulse of the accuser is strengthened by
the clause which follows: Is he (Joshua) not a brand plucked out of the fire? i.e., one who
has narrowly escaped the threatening destruction (for the figure, see Amo_4:11). These
words, again, we most not take as referring to the high priest as an individual; nor must
we restrict their meaning to the fact that Joshua had been brought back from captivity,
and reinstated in the office of high priest. Just as the accusation does not apply to the
individual, but to the office which Joshua filled, so do these words also apply to the
supporter of the official dignity. The fire, out of which Joshua had been rescued as a
brand, was neither the evil which had come upon Joshua through neglecting the
building of the temple (Koehler), nor the guilt of allowing his sons to marry foreign
wives (Targ., Jerome, Rashi, Kimchi): for in the former case the accusation would have
come too late, since the building of the temple had been resumed five months before
(Hag_1:15, compared with Zec_1:7); and in the latter it would have been much too early,

7. since these misalliances did not take place till fifty years afterwards. And, in general,
guilt which might possibly lead to ruin could not be called a fire; still less could the
cessation or removal of this sin be called deliverance out of the fire. Fire is a figurative
expression for punishment, not for sin. The fire out of which Joshua had been saved like
a brand was the captivity, in which both Joshua and the nation had been brought to the
verge of destruction. Out of this fire Joshua the high priest had been rescued. But, as
Kliefoth has aptly observed, “the priesthood of Israel was concentrated in the high
priest, just as the character of Israel as the holy nation was concentrated in the
priesthood. The high priest represented the holiness and priestliness of Israel, and that
not merely in certain official acts and functions, but so that as a particular Levite and
Aaronite, and as the head for the time being of the house of Aaron, he represented in his
own person that character of holiness and priestliness which had been graciously
bestowed by God upon the nation of Israel.” This serves to explain how the hope that
God must rebuke the accuser could be made to rest upon the election of Jerusalem, i.e.,
upon the love of the Lord to the whole of His nation. The pardon and the promise do not
apply to Joshua personally any more than the accusation; but they refer to him in his
official position, and to the whole nation, and that with regard to the special attributes
set forth in the high priesthood - namely, its priestliness and holiness. We cannot,
therefore, find any better words with which to explain the meaning of this vision than
those of Kliefoth. “The character of Israel,” he says, “as the holy and priestly nation of
God, was violated - violated by the general sin and guilt of the nation, which God had
been obliged to punish with exile. This guilt of the nation, which neutralized the
priestliness and holiness of Israel, is pleaded by Satan in the accusation which he brings
before the Maleach of Jehovah against the high priest, who was its representative. A
nation so guilty and so punished could no longer be the holy and priestly nation: its
priests could no longer be priests; nor could its high priests be high priests any more.
But the Maleach of Jehovah sweeps away the accusation with the assurance that
Jehovah, from His grace, and for the sake of its election, will still give validity to Israel's
priesthood, and has already practically manifested this purpose of His by bringing it out
of its penal condition of exile.”
After the repulse of the accuser, Joshua is cleansed from the guilt attaching to him.
When he stood before the angel of the Lord he had dirty clothes on. The dirty clothes are
not the costume of an accused person (Drus., Ewald); for this Roman custom was
unknown to the Hebrews. Dirt is a figurative representation of sin; so that dirty clothes
represent defilement with sin and guilt (cf. Isa_64:5; Isa_4:4; Pro_30:12; Rev_3:4;
Rev_7:14). The Lord had indeed refined His nation in its exile, and in His grace had
preserved it from destruction; but its sin was not thereby wiped away. The place of
grosser idolatry had been taken by the more refined idolatry of self-righteousness,
selfishness, and conformity to the world. And the representative of the nation before the
Lord was affected with the dirt of these sins, which gave Satan a handle for his
accusation. But the Lord would cleanse His chosen people from this, and make it a holy
and glorious nation. This is symbolized by what takes place in Zec_3:4 and Zec_3:5. The
angel of the Lord commands those who stand before Him, i.e., the angels who serve
Him, to take off the dirty clothes from the high priest, and put on festal clothing; and
then adds, by way of explanation to Joshua, Behold, I have caused thy guilt to pass away
from thee, that is to say, I have forgiven thy sin, and justified thee (cf. 2Sa_12:13; 2Sa_
24:10), and clothe thee with festal raiment. The inf. abs. halbēsh stands, as it frequently
does, for the finite verb, and has its norm in ‫י‬ ִ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫ב‬ ֱ‫ע‬ ֶ‫ה‬ (see at Hag_1:6). The last words are
either spoken to the attendant angels as well, or else, what is more likely, they are simply
passed over in the command given to them, and mentioned for the first time here.

8. Machălâtsōth, costly clothes, which were only worn on festal occasions (see at Isa_3:22).;
They are not symbols of innocence and righteousness (Chald.), which are symbolized by
clean or white raiment (Rev_3:4; Rev_7:9); nor are they figurative representations of joy
(Koehler), but are rather symbolical of glory. The high priest, and the nation in him, are
not only to be cleansed from sin, and justified, but to be sanctified and glorified as well.
CALVI , "We have said at the beginning that Zechariah was sent for this end — to
encourage weak minds: for it was difficult to entertain hope in the midst of so much
confusion. Some, but a small portion of the nation, had returned with the tribe of
Judah: and then immediately there arose many enemies by whom the building of the
city and of the temple was hindered; and when the faithful viewed all their
circumstances, they could hardly entertain any hope of a redemption such as had
been promised. Hence Zechariah labored altogether for this end — to show that the
faithful were to look for more than they had reason to expect from the aspect of
things at the time, and that they were to direct their eyes and their thoughts to the
power of God, which was not as yet manifested, and which indeed God purposely
designed not to exercise, in order to try the patience of the people.
This is the subject which he now pursues, when he says, that Joshua the priest was
shown to him, with Satan at his right hand to oppose him (33) God was, however,
there also. But when Zechariah says, that the priest Joshua was shown to him as
here represented, it was not only done in a vision, but the fact was known to all; that
is, that Joshua was not adorned with a priestly glory, such as it was before the exile;
for the dignity of the priest before that time was far different from what it was after
the return of the people; and this was known to all. But the vision was given to the
Prophet for two reasons — that the faithful might know that their contest was with
Satan, their spiritual enemy, rather than with any particular nations — and also
that they might understand that a remedy was at hand, for God stood in defense of
the priesthood which he had instituted. God, then, in the first place, purposed to
remind the faithful that they had to carry on war, not with flesh and blood, but with
the devil himself: this is one thing. And then his design was to recall them to himself,
that they might consider that he would be their sure deliverer from all dangers.
Since we now perceive the design of this prophecy, we shall proceed to the words of
the Prophet.
He says that Joshua was shown to him. This was done no doubt in a prophetic
vision: but yet Zechariah saw nothing by the spirit but what was known even to
children. But, as I have already said, we must observe the intentions of the vision,
which was, that the faithful might understand that their neighbors were
troublesome to them, because Satan turned every stone and tried every experiment
to make void the favor of God. And this knowledge was very useful to the Jews, as it
is to us at this day. We wonder why so many enemies daily rage against us, and why
the whole world burn against us with such implacable hatred; and also why so many
intrigues arise, and so many assaults are made, which have not been excited through
provocation on our part: but the reason why we wonder is this, — because we bear

9. not in mind that we are fighting with the devil, the head and prince of the whole
world. For were it a fixed principle in our minds, that all the ungodly are influenced
by the devil, there would then be nothing new in the fact, that all unitedly rage
against us. How so? Because they are moved by the same spirit, and their father is a
murderer, even from the beginning. (John 8:44.)
We hence see that the faithful were taught what was extremely necessary, — that
their troubles arose from many nations, because Satan watched for their ruin. And
though this vision was given to the Prophet for the sake of his own age, yet it no
doubt belongs also to us; for that typical priesthood was a representation of the
priesthood of Christ, and Joshua, who was then returned from exile, bore the
character of Christ the Son of God. Let us then know that Christ never performs the
work of the priesthood, but that Satan stands at his side, that is, devises all means
by which he may remove and withdraw Christ from his office. It hence follows, that
they are much deceived, who think that they can live idly under the dominion of
Christ: for we all have a warfare, for which each is to arm and equip himself.
Therefore at this day, which we see the world seized with so much madness, that it
assails us, and would wholly consume us, let not our thoughts be fixed on flesh and
blood, for Satan is the chief warrior who assails us, and who employs all the rage of
the world to destroy us, if possible, on every side. Satan then ever stands at Christ’s
right hand, so as not to allow him in peace to exercise his priestly office.
Blayney, as well as Kimchi, thinks that Sanballat is meant by [ ‫השטז‬ ]; but the article
[ ‫ה‬ ], as it has been observed by Marckius and Henderson, seems to point out the
great enemy of God and man, as ὁ διαβολος in Greek. — Ed.
COKE, ". And he shewed me Joshua, &c.— We have here the fourth vision.
Zechariah relates in this chapter, that he saw the high-priest Joshua or Jesus the son
of Josedech, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan accusing him; of
which accusation Joshua was acquitted, and was raised to honour; when God tells
him that he was going to bring forth the Branch, that is, the Messiah, and that he
should be as a stone upon which there were seven eyes or fountains. See the notes on
Zechariah 3:9. Joshua the high-priest stands here for the whole Jewish people. The
reader is to consider that what is related here passed in vision. Satan is said to stand
at the right hand of Joshua, to resist him; that is, to be his accuser, as he is called,
Revelation 12:10. So here he is represented as aggravating the faults of Joshua, the
representative of the body of the Jews, in order to prevail upon God not to suffer
them to proceed in the building of the temple, but to continue them still under the
power of their adversaries. It was the custom in the ancient courts of judicature, for
the accuser to stand at the right hand of the accused. See Jude 1:9 and Job 1.
TRAPP, "Verse 1
Zechariah 3:1 And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of
the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
Ver. 1. And he showed me Joshua the high priest] In a vision doubtless; and that for
this end, that both the prophet, and by him the people also, might be advertised that

10. they wrestle not against flesh and blood, men like themselves, but against spiritual
wickednesses, or wicked spirits, who did act them and agitate them against the
Church; ride them and spur them to do mischief; as he did that bloody Farnesius,
one of the Pope’s champions, who, coming with an army into Germany, swore that
he would ride his horse up to the spurs in the blood of Protestants, Scito
persecutorem tuum ab ascensore daemone pernrgeri (Bern.). It was the devil that
stirred up the spirit of Tatnai, Shether-Boznai, Sanballat, &c., to hinder the good
work now in hand; like as he did Eckius, Cajetan, Cochlaeus, Catharinus, and many
other great scholars (besides the two kings of England and Hungary), to write
against the Reformation begun by Luther, and Charles V with all the strength of the
empire to withstand and hinder it. But all in vain. Here he bends his accusation
chiefly against the chief priest; but, through his sides, he strikes at the welfare of the
whole Church. Ministers are the main object of his malice; a special spite he bears
to such; singling them out and sifting them to the bran, as he desired to do Peter;
stirring up unreasonable and wicked men against them, as he dealt by Paul when he
fought with beasts at Ephesus, with breathing devils wherever he came, being in
deaths often. When the viper hung upon his hand, Acts 28:3, the devil doubtless
thought to have dispatched him, but he was deceived. So he is ever; when he
attempts as an accuser of the brethren, he is sure to be non-suited, and his plea to be
cast out of the court by our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,
who appears for us (as he did here for Joshua) to put away sin, Hebrews 9:24;
Hebrews 9:26, and to take away the iniquities of their most holy things.
Standing before the angel of the Lord] i.e. Before Christ, his best friend, and doing
his office as a high priest. Such is Satan’s malice and impudence (saith an
interpreter here) to hurt and hinder us most in our best employments; and to accuse
the saints even to their best friend, Christ Jesus. He knows well, that as Samson’s
strength lay in his hair, so doth a Christian’s strength lie in his holy performances:
perfumed and presented by Christ. Hence his restlessness in seeking to set a
difference, and to breed hate. Hence also, as the fowls seized upon Abraham’s
sacrifice, and as the Pythoness interrupted Paul and his company when they were
praying and well-doing, Acts 16:16-17, so deals he still by God’s best servants and
that sometimes so, that if, after duty, they should put that question to their own
heart, as God did to Satan, Unde venis? Whence comes thou? it would return
Satan’s answer, From compassing the earth.
And Satan] That adversary, the devil, as St. Peter calleth him; the accuser of the
brethren Revelation 12:9, that trots between heaven and earth as a teaser, and
makes a trade of it. Once the name Satan is applied to a holy angel going forth as an
adversary to wicked Balaam, Satan spelman, as one calleth him.
Standing at his right hand] Why there? Be cause, say some, the accusation was as
true: vehement; and so Satan had the upper hand For Joshua was clothed with
filthy garments, Zechariah 3:3, and there was cause enough why his own clothes

11. should abhor him, as Job hath it, Job 9:31; what his particular sin objected to him
by Satan was is hard to say. Some will have it to be one thing, some another. It is
plain by Ezra 10:18, that some of his sons and allies had taken strange wives, which
he might have hindered; but that himself had taken a harlot to wife, as Justin
Martyr affirmeth, is no way likely. I should sooner believe, with Theodoret and
Sanchez, that the sins here alleged by Satan against Joshua and laid to his charge
were, not so much his own personal sins as the sins of the whole people:
quodammodo enim totus populus est in sacerdote, et in sacerdote peccat: for the
whole people is, after a sort, in the priest.
To resist him] Heb. To Satan yet against him, to do his kind, by frustrating his
prayers and intercessions for the people, by laying his and their sins in his dish, and
by laying claim to them for his. Carried on still by like hellish hatred of God and his
people, he sins that sin against the Holy Ghost every moment: as Pliny speaks of the
scorpion, that there is not one minute wherein it doth not put forth the sting. Our
comfort is, that, 1. "We have an Advocate with the Father," &c., and "he is the
propitiation for our sins," the patron as well as judge of his saints. 2. That as Satan
stands at our right hand to molest us in holy duties, so do the holy angels stand there
to withstand him, Luke 1:11, whence it was that the curtains of the tabernacle were
wrought full of cherubins within and without. 3. That if we resist the devil, steadfast
in the faith, and strong in the Lord, he will flee from us, James 4:7. For this old
serpent, having his head already bruised and crushed by Christ, cannot so easily
thrust in his mortal sting, unless we daily with him; and so lay open ourselves unto
him. He shall in vain strike fire if we deny tinder. He may knock at the door, but if
we answer him not at the window he cannot get in.
CO STABLE, "Zechariah"s guiding angel next showed the prophet, in his vision,
Joshua (lit. Yahweh saves), Israel"s current high priest ( Zechariah 6:11; Ezra 5:2;
ehemiah 7:7; Haggai 1:1), standing before the angel of the Lord ( Zechariah 1:11-
12). "The accuser" (lit. "the Satan," Heb. hasatan) was standing at Joshua"s right
hand prepared to accuse him before the angel of the Lord (cf. Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7;
Revelation 12:10). The writer made a play on the Hebrew word in its noun and verb
forms here translated "Satan" and "accuse." [ ote: See Sydney H. T. Page, "Satan:
God"s Servant," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society50:3
(September2007):449-65.] Standing at the right hand was the traditional place were
an accuser stood in Jewish life (cf. 1 Chronicles 21:1; Psalm 109:6).
"The term satan, when used without the definite article, usually refers to a human
adversary. The one exception is in umbers 22:22; umbers 22:32, where the angel
of the Lord assumes the role of Balaam"s adversary. In 1 Chronicles 21:1, the term
probably refers to a nearby nation, though some prefer to take the word in this
context as a proper name, "Satan." When the term appears with the article, as it
does here and in Job 1-2 , it is a title for a being who seems to serve as a prosecuting
attorney in the heavenly court." [ ote: Robert B. Chisholm Jeremiah , Handbook
on the Prophets, p460.]

12. ". . . sin exposes the sinner to satanic attack not only in the case of unbelievers (
Matthew 12:43-45), but believers as well ( 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 John 5:16)." [ ote:
Unger, p57.]
Evidently the scene that Zechariah saw took place in the temple.
"The first three visions brought the prophet from a valley outside the city to a
vantage-point from which the dimensions of the original Jerusalem could be seen. In
the fourth and fifth visions he is in the Temple courts, where the high priest
officiated and had access to God"s presence." [ ote: Baldwin, pp112-13.]
"Joshua is standing in a tribunal, where he is being accused of unfitness for the
priestly ministry." [ ote: Merrill, p131.]
Another view is that he was not on trial but simply ministering to the Lord.
ELLICOTT, "Verse 1
(1) And he.—Probably, the angel-interpreter.
Joshua.—The various forms of this name, that of the Saviour of the world, are well
worth noticing. The oldest form of the word is that used here, Yehoshua‘, which was
contracted into Yoshua‘ (Mishnah, passim), also into Yeshua’ (Ezra 2:2), and then
into Yeshu. This last was represented in Greek by ιηοου, and with the nominative
ending s became ἰησοῦν. In the Talmudim the name takes also the forms Îsâ and Îsî,
and in Arabic ‘Îsâ.
Standing before.—There is a great variety of opinion among commentators with
respect to the capacity in which Joshua is represented as standing before the angel
of the Lord. Theodoret, among early expositors, and Hengstenberg, among
moderns, maintain that Joshua is seen in the sanctuary engaged in the work of his
priestly office before the angel of the Lord. Against this view may be urged that,
however high may be the dignity of the angel of the Lord, it is hardly in accordance
with the spirit of the Old Testament to represent the high priest as ministering
before him, as if before God. Observe, too, how in Zechariah 1:12-13, the
personality of the angel of the Lord is distinct from that of the Lord Himself. Ewald
imagines that at this time the high priest was actually accused, or was dreading an
accusation, at the Persian court, and that a defamation and persecution of this kind
may be discerned as underlying this vision. But there is no historical trace of any
such personal accusation, nor could Joshua be looked upon as the people’s
representative before the Persian Court, since Zerubbabel was their civil
representative. Koehler regards Joshua as standing before the judgment-seat of the
angel, while Satan stands at his right hand (Psalms 109:6) to accuse him. But, while
this interpretation is in the main correct, it must be remembered that no formal
judicial process is described in the vision, nor is there any mention of a judgment-
seat. Wright’s explanation seems to us the best: “The high priest was probably seen
in the vision, busied about some part of his priestly duties. While thus engaged, he
discovered that he was actually standing as a criminal before the angel, and while

13. the great Adversary accused him, the truth of that accusation was but too clearly
seen by the filthy garments with which he then perceived that he was attired.”
Satan.—Literally, the adversary, who is, not Sanballat and his companion (Qimchi),
but ὀ διάβολος, the adversary of mankind. A belief in a personal devil was current
among the Jews from, at any rate, the time of the composition of the Book of Job to
Talmudic times. (See Job 1, 2; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Talmud Babli, Baba Bathra, 26 b,
&c.)
At his right hand.—The position of the adversay, or complainant, as represented in
the original passage (Psalms 109:6).
Verse 1-2
A Brand Plucked out of the Fire
And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and
Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan,
The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke
thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?—Zechariah 3:1-2.
The Israelites were engaged in rebuilding the Temple, but notwithstanding their
own zeal and earnestness, and the ostensible permission and encouragement of the
Babylonian king, they found themselves making little progress. They were being
continually thwarted. The work halted in their hands. We can well imagine the
thoughts which may have troubled many at so unexpected an event. Had then God
indeed cast them off? Would the Lord no more dwell upon Mount Zion? Was it a
vain effort to attempt to raise from its ruins their holy place? Meditations like these
may well have swept across their minds, and made their souls disquieted within
them. And now what is the message from the Lord? It comes in a vision to
Zechariah. In this vision is laid bare the whole secret of the hindrances which so
bowed the hearts of the people. In this they are led to trace the radical cause of all
their difficulties. The Jewish Church and nation are suitably represented in the
person of the high priest. Their moral condition contaminated with past idolatry,
and their struggling against opposition to rebuild the Temple, is with equal
precision denoted by the foul garments of the high priest and the close
neighbourhood of Satan. Then follows the consolation. Satan is rebuked; the
inglorious apparel is taken away, the mitre set upon Joshuas head, and a sublime
promise added, that if Joshua, having been thus readorned, shall discharge his
office faithfully, he shall retain a perpetual priesthood; if, in other words, the
Israelites would walk in Gods law, they should never be rejected.
I
The Accused
“He shewed me Joshua the high priest.”
1. This Joshua was a leading figure of the period. In the contemporary prophet
Haggai he is frequently mentioned. There we learn that he was the son of
Jehosadak, and that he was closely associated with Zerubbabel in all the pious and
patriotic undertakings of those days. The one, indeed, was the ecclesiastical and the
other the civil head of the new community.

14. In Ezra and ehemiah this Joshua is called Jeshua. His grandfather, Seraiah, who
was high priest at the time of the capture of Jerusalem, was executed at Riblah by
ebuchadnezzar, and his father Jehosadak was carried captive to Babylon, where
Joshua was probably born. On the arrival of the caravan at Jerusalem, Joshua
naturally took a leading part in the erection of the altar of burnt-offering, and in the
laying of the foundations of the Temple.
2. When it is said that he was seen standing before the Lord, the first notion
suggested by the words is that, as high priest, he was engaged in the duties of his
sacred office; because to stand before the Lord is frequently mentioned in Scripture
as the privilege of the priesthood. It is probable, however, that the image presented
to the mind of the prophet was totally different. It was not in the Temple that
Joshua seemed to him to be, but in the hall of judgment. To stand before the judge is
a phrase used of the prisoner at the bar; and that this is its signification here is
proved by the statement which follows—that Satan was standing at his right hand
to accuse him; for this was the position of the prosecutor in a court of justice. And
the same view is further supported by the fact that Joshua was clothed in filthy
garments—a condition in which the high priest could, under no circumstances, have
appeared before God in the service of his office, but which befits exactly the position
of a criminal.
Josephus says that among the Jews persons who had to appear at the bar of a judge
as accused usually, on such occasions, were habited in black garments. The
garments, however, in which Joshua was seen were not black, but filthy; they may
have been originally white or splendid, but they were unclean, sordid, or befouled.
ow, as clean and white garments betokened purity and righteousness, garments
dirtied and defiled indicated the opposite—a state of humiliation, impurity, and
guilt. The filthy garments, therefore, in which Joshua was attired indicated his
being in a state of moral impurity and sinfulness. Unlike the worthy few in the
Church at Sardis “who had not defiled their garments,” that is, had kept themselves
free and blameless, he had come under sin, and appeared before the Angel of the
Lord as one encompassed with iniquity.
Let a man persevere in prayer and watchfulness to the day of his death, yet he will
never get to the bottom of his heart. Though he know more and more of himself as
he becomes more conscientious and earnest, still the full manifestation of the secrets
there lodged is reserved for another world. And at the last day who can tell the
affright and horror of a man who lived to himself on earth, indulging his own evil
will, following his own chance notions of truth and falsehood, shunning the cross
and the reproach of Christ, when his eyes are at length opened before the throne of
God, and all his innumerable sins, his habitual neglect of God, his abuse of his
talents, his misapplication and waste of time, and the original unexplored sinfulness
of his nature, are brought clearly and fully to his view? ay, even to the true
servants of Christ, the prospect is awful. “The righteous,” we are told, “will scarcely
be saved.” Then will the good man undergo the full sight of his sins, which on earth
he was labouring to obtain, and partly succeeded in obtaining, though life was not

15. long enough to learn and subdue them all. Doubtless we must all endure that fierce
and terrifying vision of our real selves, that last fiery trial of the soul before its
acceptance, a spiritual agony and second death to all who are not then supported by
the strength of Him who died to bring them safe through it, and in whom on earth
they have believed.1 [ ote: 1 J. H. ewman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, i. 48.]
3. It was not, however, his own personal transgressions alone of which Joshua bore
the guilt. He appears here as the representative of a guilty people. The filthy
garments with which he is clothed are the sins of the community; and the charges
urged against him by Satan are its crimes and backslidings. The uncleanness of
Israel which infests their representative before God is not defined. Some hold that it
includes the guilt of Israels idolatry. But they have to go back to Ezekiel for this.
Zechariah nowhere mentions or feels the presence of idols among his people. The
vision itself supplies a better explanation. Joshuas filthy garments are replaced by
festal and official robes. He is warned to walk in the whole law of the Lord, ruling
the Temple and guarding Jehovahs court. The uncleanness was the opposite of all
this. It was not ethical failure: covetousness, greed, immorality. It was, as Haggai
protested, the neglect of the Temple, and of the whole worship of Jehovah. If this be
now removed, in all fidelity to the law, the high priest will have access to God, and
the Messiah will come. The high priest himself will not be the Messiah—this dogma
is left to a later age to frame. But before God he will be as one of the angels, and
himself and his faithful priesthood omens of the Messiah. We need not linger on the
significance of this for the place of the priesthood in later Judaism. ote how the
high priest is already the religious representative of his people: their uncleanness is
his; when he is pardoned and cleansed, the uncleanness of the land is purged away.
In such a high priest Christian theology has seen the prototype of Christ.
Heaven is not a place of sacrifice, and our Lord is no longer a Sacrificing Priest. He
has “offered one sacrifice for sins for ever.” But His Presence in the Holiest is a
perpetual and effective presentation before God of the Sacrifice once offered, which
is no less needful for our acceptance than the actual death upon the Cross. He has
indeed “somewhat to offer” in His heavenly priesthood, for He offers Himself as
representing to God man reconciled, and as claiming for man the right of access to
the Divine Presence. He Himself, as He sits on the Throne, in the perfected and
glorified Manhood which has been obedient unto death, is the living Propitiation for
our sins, and the standing guarantee of acceptance to all “that draw near unto God
through him.”1 [ ote: H. B. Swete, The Ascended Christ, 43.]
II
The Accuser
“And Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.”
1. The rôle played in this scene by Satan is similar to that ascribed to him in the
Book of Job, where he appears in the court of Heaven, to minimize the merits of
good men and to place their shortcomings in the worst of lights. So here he is the
accuser who, with the skill of an advocate, urges the offences of which the people of
God have been guilty and endeavours to secure their condemnation and rejection.

16. It has been contended that in such passages we have a conception of Satan out of
accordance with the later representations of Scripture. Satan, it is said, is not here a
fallen angel and an enemy of God, whose abode is in hell, but one of the sons of God,
enjoying free access to the Divine Presence, and fulfilling a necessary, though
perhaps a disagreeable, function in the Divine administration.
This, however, is a shallow view; because the part played by Satan both here and in
Job is a thoroughly evil one. It is true that to expose sin may be praiseworthy work.
It is the work of the prophet; an Amos, a Malachi, and a John the Baptist had to
make manifest the exceeding sinfulness of the public crimes of their day, and drag
into the light the hidden vices. In all ages this is the duty of the preacher; it was
performed by a Chrysostom, a Savonarola, and an Andrewes; and in no country or
city is it superfluous. The office of conscience itself is to accuse and condemn the
sinner. Yet it does not follow that everyone is praiseworthy who undertakes the
office of accuser. All depends on his motive. The prophets stigmatized sin because
they were jealous for the honour of God; the true-hearted preacher awakens the
conscience in order to save the soul; but it is possible to expose sin merely for the
purpose of gloating over it. The shortcomings of good people may be held up to
ridicule, not for the purpose of correcting them, but in order to prove that no such
things as unselfishness and purity exist. There are those who are never so happy as
when they have discovered something which seems to prove that a profession of
religion or high principle is only the mask under which a hypocrite is concealing his
misdeeds. When Gods work is making progress and its leaders are performing acts
of heroism, such critics are silent; but, when any good cause shows signs of decline
or any good man takes a false step, they seize upon the fact with avidity and publish
it to all the winds of heaven. This is the spirit of the devil, and it is the one attributed
in this passage to Satan.
In a letter to his friend F. J. A. Hort, Maurice writes: “You think you do not find a
distinct recognition of the devils personality in my books. I am sorry if it is so. I am
afraid I have been corrupted by speaking to a polite congregation. I do agree with
my dear friend Charles Kingsley, and admire him for the boldness with which he
has said that the devil is shamming dead, but that he never was busier than now. I
do not know what he is by theological arguments, but I know by what I feel. I am
sure there is one near me accusing God and my brethren to me. He is not myself; I
should go mad if I thought he was. He is near my neighbours; I am sure he is not
identical with my neighbours. I must hate them if I believed he was. But oh! most of
all, I am horror-struck at the thought that we may confound him with God; the
perfect darkness with the perfect light. I dare not deny that it is an evil will that
tempts me; else I should begin to think evil is in Gods creation, and is not the revolt
from God, resistance to Him. If he is an evil will, he must, I think, be a person. The
Word upholds his existence, not his evil. That is in himself; that is the mysterious,
awful possibility implied in his being a will. I need scarcely say that I do not mean
by this acknowledgment of an evil spirit that I acknowledge a material devil. But
does any one?”
In a subsequent letter, Maurice relates that “Mr. Hall, the Baptist preacher, was

17. once accosted by one of his confrères: Sir, do not you believe in the devil? o, sir, he
answered; I believe in God. Do not you? ow he had an intense feeling of the devil
as his personal and constant enemy; but he kept his belief for his everlasting
friend.”1 [ ote: Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, ii. 21, 403.]
Between these two classes, of the happy and the heartless, there is a mediate order of
men both unhappy and compassionate, who have become aware of another form of
existence in the world, and a domain of zoology extremely difficult of vivisection—
the diabolic. These men, of whom Byron, Burns, Goethe, and Carlyle are in modern
days the chief, do not at all feel that the ature they have to deal with expresses a
Feast only; or that her mysteries of good and evil are reducible to a quite visible
Kosmos, as they stand; but that there is another Kosmos, mostly invisible, yet
perhaps tangible, and to be felt if not seen.
Without entering upon the question how men of this inferior quality of intellect
become possessed either of the idea—or substance—of what they are in the habit of
calling “the Devil”; nor even into the more definite historical question, “how men
lived who did seriously believe in the Devil”—(that is to say, every saint and sinner
who received a decent education between the first and the seventeenth centuries of
the Christian era)—I will merely advise my own readers of one fact respecting the
above-named writers—that they, at least, do not use the word “Devil” in any
metaphorical, typical, or abstract sense, but—whether they believe or disbelieve in
what they say—in a distinctly personal one: and farther, that the conceptions or
imaginations of these persons, or any other such persons, greater or less, yet of their
species—whether they are a mere condition of diseased brains, or a perception of
really existent external forces,—are nevertheless real Visions, described by them
“from the life,” as literally and straightforwardly as ever any artist of Rotterdam
painted a sot—or his pot of beer: and farther—even were we at once to grant that
all these visions—as for instance Zechariahs, “I saw the Lord sitting on His Throne,
and Satan standing at His right hand to resist Him,” are nothing more than
emanations of the unphosphated nervous matter—still, these states of delirium are
an essential part of human natural history: and the species of human Animal
subject to them, with the peculiar characters of the phantoms which result from its
diseases of the brain, are a much more curious and important subject of science
than that which principally occupies the scientific mind of modern days.1 [ ote:
Ruskin, Deucalion, vol. ii. chap. ii. § 21 (Works, xxvi. 344).]
2. This is the secret of the slow progress of Christs Kingdom. “He shewed me Joshua
the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right
hand.” Who is this Joshua but the representative of Jesus, our great High Priest
within the veil? The names “Joshua” and “Jesus” are identical, and, being
interpreted, mean “Jehovah, the Saviour.” When the Jews were struggling, amidst
diverse hardships, to build up their Temple at Jerusalem, the prophet was taught
the secret of the opposition they met with by being made to behold in vision the then
head of the Israelitish Church, and Satan close by resisting him. And this vision is
the key which unlocks the secret of the entire history of the Christian Church. The
cause of Christianity is the cause of Christ. He is, and has been throughout, as really

18. involved in all that has been done; He has throughout been acting as really, though
invisibly, as when He taught in the streets of Capernaum. And, even as beneath the
outward instrumentality of apostles and preachers we are to trace and appreciate
the unseen hand and the inaudible voice, of the high priest of our profession, so in
the resistance of the heathen, in the cruelties heaped upon the martyrs, in the slow
progress of the faith, we are to feel the presence and energy of the great fallen angel.
It is from hell that the opposition comes. As it is Christ from His throne, in the light
inaccessible, who animates the souls, and influences the hearts of His saints to do
and suffer for His ames sake, so is it the apostate seraph, from his lurid abode,
who stirs up adversaries on every side.
To Luther Satan was no mere influence or principle of evil, but a real personal
foe—the prince of the powers of the air, the ruler of this world—against whom he,
as a captain of the Lords host, had to wage a terrible and constant conflict. The
Diabolus of Bunyans Holy War, the Apollyon of the Pilgrims Progress, was to
Luther also a mighty adversary of Gods saints and of Christ, the Captain of our
salvation.
If enemies abound and dangers are thickening, it is the Devil who is leading his
hosts of evil against the cause of Christ. If there is a time of quiet and of prosperity,
it may only be the craft of the Tempter, to cause want of earnestness and of
vigilance.
Always, it is more of the Devil than of the Flesh and the World that Luther appears
to speak in his spiritual warfare. It was so in his early struggles with sin and with
self-righteousness, and in fighting his way to a position of peace and safety through
faith in Gods righteousness. It was so in the midst of the grand conflict with the
potentates of this world, as when he steadfastly set his face to go to Worms, “though
there were as many devils there as tiles on the roofs!” It was so in the evening of his
life, when sickness and feebleness prevented his maintaining more active conflict for
the cause of the truth.
It may be that, by dwelling upon the fact of the enmity of the devil and his angels,
and allowing the idea of active personal conflict habitually to work in his
imagination, Luther came to give an excessive prominence to this Satanic influence.
The idea may even have exerted at times a morbid effect upon him; amounting
almost to mental disease, in the eyes of those who knew not the Scriptural ground
for his belief, nor understood his spiritual experience. But the charge—that stories
of Luthers conflicts are only proofs of a weakly superstitious or a fanatically
diseased mind—comes with bad grace from those who not only ridicule all belief in
the personal existence and agency of the devil, but who are unable also to
understand Luthers belief in the existence and presence of God, in whose sight he
ever lived, and wrote, and acted.
3. Satans accusations were unfortunately true. Joshua could not refute them. He was
actually clothed in filthy attire. The devil is generally a liar, but he was not a liar in
this particular instance. That which the devil said was perfectly true. It is a grand

19. thing when we are able to face the enemy and say, “You always were a liar, and you
are a liar now”; but it is a terrible thing when we have to say, “The devil himself is
speaking the truth for once.” Joshua has not a word to say. He is perfectly silent.
What can he say? Suppose he were to deny the charge. All that Satan would have to
do would be to point at him with his finger, and say, “Look at these filthy
garments.” What could Joshua reply? And when Satan brings his charges against
the sinner, what has the sinner to say? He himself proves that Satan is correct in
everything that he says. Woe be unto the man when there is no one to speak up for
him and he cannot speak for himself!
Satan stands at his right hand to resist him. In our language we should say that
there is a social embodiment of opposition to goodness which that man has made for
himself; he has created an atmosphere about his own life which is blighting to
reforming efforts, and there is a social power which stands like a Satan, like an
adversary, on his right hand, the hand of action, to paralyse it. Moreover, that sort
of life puts itself in communication with great forces of evil, and altogether the man
feels that a great overpowering adversary is against him. Before God he feels guilt,
but no hope. ow what is there to be said to a man in this condition? He has no hope
for himself, and says that no one who knows him has the least hope that he will ever
be different. His garments are filthy, the devil is at his right hand, and God, so far as
he knows, is only his Judge. That is the difficulty, and it is fearful. Is there any
hope?
In fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Satan is here; in the world, with us, and
within us, mock as you may; and the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely
unprosperous. Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically, or with
any other than literal and earnest meaning of words. Hear me, I pray you, therefore,
for a little while, as earnestly as I speak.
Every faculty of mans soul, and every instinct of it by which he is meant to live, is
exposed to its own special form of corruption; and whether within Man, or in the
external world, there is a power or condition of temptation which is perpetually
endeavouring to reduce every glory of his soul, and every power of his life, to such
corruption as is possible to them. And the more beautiful they are, the more fearful
is the death which is attached as penalty to their degradation.…
ow observe—I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what you like—or to theorize
about it as you like. All that I desire you to recognize is the fact of its being here, and
the need of its being fought with. If you take the Bibles account of it, or Dantes or
Miltons, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual creature, commanding
others, and resisted by others.… If you take a modern rationalists you will accept it
for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral nature exposing it to
loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is capable of mortification or leprosy. I
do not care what you call it,—whose history you believe of it,—nor what you
yourself can imagine about it; the origin, or nature, or name may be as you will, but
the deadly reality of the thing is with us, and warring against us, and on our true
war with it depends whatever life we can win. Deadly reality, I say. The puff-adder

20. or horned asp is not more real. Unbelievable,—those,—unless you had seen them;
no fable could have been coined out of any human brain so dreadful, within its own
poor material sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent—working its way sidelong in the
sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death—this worm that dies not, and fire that
is not quenched, within our souls or around them. Eternal death, I say—sure, that,
whatever creed you hold;—if the old Scriptural one, Death of perpetual banishment
from before Gods face; if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal for us, instant
and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.1 [ ote: Ruskin, Time and Tide,
§ 51 (Works, xvii. 361).]
III
The Vindication
The Lord said unto, Satan The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, the Lord that hath
chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
The speaker here is the Angel of the Lord before whom Joshua stood, and when He
says, “The Lord rebuke thee,” there is the same distinction made between Him, the
manifested Jehovah, and the invisible Jehovah that we find made in the account
given of the destruction of the cities of the plain in Genesis 19:24, where we read,
“Then the Lord [i.e. the Angel of Jehovah who had visited Lot] rained upon Sodom
and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” There is a
distinction between the two, and yet the incommunicable name “Jehovah” belongs
to both, and both are on an equality in respect of attribute, power, and honour. The
language of the Lord here is not that of petition or desire; it is that of performance.
As He “rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up” (Psalms 106:9), so here He
rebuked the adversary, and he was silenced and rebuffed.
1. Satan is silenced, not by argument, but on this simple ground—the election of
God. What though this is a sin-defiled and unworthy servant, shall that hinder the
riches of Gods free grace? Is he not chosen of the Father? and wherefore chosen but
that he should be holy and without blame before Him in love? And shall His design
be foiled, and the very object of His gracious purpose be set aside? What though he
has followed too much the devices and desires of his own heart?—“There are many
devices in a mans heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.”
To our Divine Lord, when on earth, the mystery of election was a theme for praise.
“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so,
Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.” How strange these words sound from the
lips of Jesus! But with His knowledge we could rise to His praise. In heaven it is
Christs silencing answer to the accusing enemy. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth
do right?” That He chooses the sinner assures the righteousness of the choice. Even
Satan is silenced. “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect? It is God
that justifieth.”
Certain theologians have placed the eternal sovereignty in the Divine will, asserting
that God “out of His mere good pleasure” entered into a covenant of grace with

21. men. Others with a greater reach have passed beyond the fiat of God to His infinite
wisdom—“the counsel of His will.” But the heart cannot rest until it finds behind
the wisdom of God the eternal love. “Gods first decree,” said an ancient Dutch
divine, “is the bestowal of Christ.” This is in agreement with the teaching of St.
Paul: “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and without blemish before him in love.” The election of the saints is for life
and service, for holiness and glory. Gods chosen ones are the Divine ambassadors;
they are witnesses to the preciousness of redeeming love. They are commissioned
with the authority of the Master: “As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent
I them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves
also may be sanctified in truth.”1 [ ote: D. M. McIntyre, Life in His ame, 81.]
Chosen not for good in me,
Wakened up from wrath to flee,
Hidden in the Saviours side,
By the Spirit sanctified,
Teach me, Lord, on earth to show,
By my love, how much I owe.2 [ ote: R. M. McCheyne.]
2. Then the Lord appeals to what He has done for Joshua already. Of Joshua, as
representing the people, the Lord said, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
The same expression occurs in Amos 4:11, where it is applied to the people of Israel
rescued by God from amidst the terrible judgments which had been sent upon them,
and by which they had been consumed as in a furnace. The expression is probably
proverbial, and was used to convey the idea of unexpected deliverance from
imminent calamity. Satan would have had the brand kept in “the furnace of
affliction” until it was utterly consumed; but the Lord would not have it so; His
grace and power had interposed to rescue His people from captivity, and He would
complete the deliverance He had begun. The brand had been plucked from the
burning, and was not again to be cast into the fire.
Israel in the Exile had been thrown into the fire of the Divine wrath. Much had been
burnt, and perhaps all deserved to be. But at the critical moment the heart of God
relented, and He snatched the burnt stump out of the fire. It was still defaced with
what it had passed through, and bore the smell of burning. To gloat over the
wretchedness of such a remnant was a shameful thing to do; and, for doing so,
Satan received a sharp rebuke. But God Himself took up the brand tenderly, His
repentings kindling together, to see what might still be made of it. Have I not
already, He seems to say, snatched him from destruction; and shall I not deliver him
from sin? I have delivered his soul from death; shall I not deliver his feet from
falling, that he may walk before Me in the light of the living? I have done the
greater, shall I not do the less? What can Satan answer? He is speechless.
When the prairie catches fire, if the wind is blowing very strongly the prairie fire
will travel faster than a horse can gallop. Those who have settled on the prairies see
the devouring flames come, and they know they cant run away from them. What do
they do? They burn a large space in the vicinity of their home; in a short time a very
large piece of ground is absolutely cleared and blackened. What do they do then?

22. For purposes of safety they go and stand on the ground where the fire has been
already. When the great devouring prairie fire comes up it stops there—it can go no
farther—there is nothing to burn. There is but one place where the fire has already
been, and that is the cross of Calvary, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have
only to come to the place where the fire has already been, the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and we shall hear these words: “I have caused thine iniquities to pass
from thee.”1 [ ote: Church Pulpit Year Book, 1909, p. 21.]
3. “And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take the
filthy garments from off him.” The speaker here is the Angel of the Lord, who gave
the command to those that stood before Him, i.e., the attendant angels who waited to
do His pleasure, to remove from Joshua the filthy garments in which he had
appeared. That this symbolized the remission of sins, and the acceptance into favour
of Joshua and the people whom he represented, is seen from what follows.
Addressing Joshua, the Lord says, “Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass
from thee”—I have taken it away and delivered thee from it—“and I will clothe thee
with change of raiment” (festive garments, or rich dress). The Targum explains this
as meaning, “I have clothed thee with thy righteousness”; and such seems to be
substantially the meaning.
One thing alone remained, and Joshuas restoration to favour was complete. “And I
said”—why the prophet should have said it does not appear, but he seems to have
been so overwhelmed with the interest of the vision as to have been carried out of
himself—“And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair
mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments and the angel of the Lord stood
by.” The mitre was the sign and token of high priestly service, and Joshua knew, as
it was placed upon his head, that he was once more “a priest in function,” and that
he was free to serve.
Seldom, if ever, do we find in Scripture the entire plan of Gods salvation shadowed
forth in any one individual; but here we have it all. The man is brought before our
view as a sinner and as a saint, and in this little picture we have all the successive
stages by which he passes from the one state to the other. We see the man brought
step by step from a condition of defilement, shame, and ignominy—a position in
which Satan himself, the accuser of the brethren, points at him and laughs him to
scorn—and accepted before God and made splendid in beauty; and the work is not
finished until—wonder of wonders—a mitre is put upon his head, and he is
qualified for priestly work; and all the while this miracle of grace is being wrought
the Angel of the Lord stands by.
Sainthood is the concrete presentation of the spiritual element in humanity. It is the
incarnation in human personalities of that Infinite Holy which is eternally seeking to
make us share in its blessedness. But here arises a question. How far do the saints of
the past stand for the true expression of the idea? Does sainthood, in the conception
which is to rule the future, consist necessarily, as they imagined, in a withdrawal
from the worlds activities, in celibacy, in semi-starvation, in maiming and torturing
the body, in a denial of the human joy of living? Are saints only of one type, the

23. Church type? Are the men of affairs, the inventors, the captains of industry, the
artists, the musicians, to be by the nature of their calling excluded from the
category? Are their products to be classed as non-sacred? Is sainthood of the cloister
only, and never of the market-place?
That is a swiftly-dying, if not already an actually dead, idea. It is one which shuts
God into one corner of His world. In its place has dawned a conception which is
destined to remain. It is that which regards holiness as essentially a wholeness,
which sees the saint as the complete man, and everything which tends to his
completion as a holy ministration. ot in the torture of his body—as though God
loved cruelty!—but in the development of its highest power; not in the restriction of
his vision, but in such broadening as helps it to take in the whole of things; not in
meaningless austerities, but in a joyous helping of ones fellows; not in the selection
of one class of duties as specially consecrate, but in the pious dedication of our
common work as a service of God: it is on these broader bases that the modern
world will build its saintliness.… The saints are the men and women in whom the
Divine Spirit works, and who in their day and generation listen to its voice and obey
its call.1 [ ote: J. Brierley, The Secret of Living, 126.]
Thomas Olivers was one of the trophies of Whitefields preaching. His conversion
was almost a moral miracle. He was a Welshman, born at Tregaron in 1725. Being
left an orphan at the age of five he early became bold in sin, and mastered the whole
of the blasphemers language, and was familiar with the dialect of hell, in fact, being
considered the most wicked boy throughout the region where he lived. At eighteen
he went as an apprentice to shoe-making, but never learned half his trade. He
plunged into the grossest vices, and his sins were of the deepest dye. With another
young man, wicked as himself, he “committed a most notorious and shameful act of
arch villainy,” which caused them suddenly to leave their neighbourhood. They
went to Bristol, where Whitefield was then preaching. Young Olivers, while walking
out one evening, saw a great number of people all pressing in one direction, and
ascertained that they were going to hear Whitefield.
Says Olivers: “As I had often heard of Whitefield, and had sung songs about him, I
said to myself, I will go and hear what he has to say.” He arrived too late, but on the
next evening he was some three hours ahead of time. He heard the great “son of
thunder,” who thundered conviction into his inmost soul, striking him with the
hammer of Gods word, and breaking a heart of stone. Whitefields text was, “Is not
this a brand plucked from the burning?” Olivers says: “When the sermon began I
was a dreadful enemy of God and all that was good, and one of the most profligate
and abandoned young men living; but during that sermon there was a mighty
transformation in me. Showers of tears poured down my cheeks, and from that hour
I broke off all my evil practices, and forsook all my wicked and foolish companions
without delay, giving myself up to God and His service with all my heart. O what
reason had I to say, Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?”
The Gospel from the lips of Whitefield proved the power of God to the salvation of
young Olivers. His after-life showed how wonderful was the change. He ever

24. afterward remained a true soldier of the Lord. He joined Mr. Wesleys band and
became one of his ablest itinerants, a flaming herald of the cross, an able minister of
the ew Testament. His hymn “The God of Abram praise” is one of inimitable
beauty. James Montgomery, no mean poet himself, says concerning it, “There is not
in our language a lyric of more majestic style, more elevated thought, or more
glorious imagery.” After a ministry of many years, this distinguished convert of
Whitefield died suddenly March 7, 1799, and was buried in the tomb of Wesley,
City Road Chapel, London.1 [ ote: J. B. Wakely.]
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Purification (An Old Testament Vision)
Zechariah 3:1-7
I. Cleansed.—Joshua was clothed with filthy garments (v3). What an anomaly is
here; a priest clothed with filthy garments; a believer indulging in known sin, is this
possible? But mark well Joshua"s conduct; sin-stained as he was, he stood there
still, "he stood before the angel". Happy for him that he did so; Satan might attack,
conscience might condemn, yet would he stand still before Jehovah Jesus. ot one
inch would he remove. Was he sin-defiled, then he would know it, that the filthiness
might be cleansed away.
II. Clothed.—What was this? "He answered and spake unto those that stood before
Him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him He said,
Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with
change of raiment" God"s purpose in electing us was that we should be holy (
Ephesians 1:4); and shall we by our unbelief do what He will not permit the devil to
do, "frustrate the grace of God"? But again—the Lord appeals to what He has done
for Joshua already. "Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?" Have I not
already, He seems to say, snatched him from destruction; and shall I not deliver him
from sin? I have done the greater, shall I not do the less? What can Satan answer?
He is speechless. What can he say? He is overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
III. Crowned.—One thing alone remained, and Joshua"s restoration to favour was
complete. The mitre was the sign and token of high priestly service, and Joshua
knew as it was placed upon his head that he was once more "a priest in function,"
and that he was free to serve.
I believe that as in temporal so in spiritual things there come crises in our lives—
crises when God opens up before our eyes a path that mounts the higher table-lands
of Christian experience, a path illuminated by His own most gracious smile, fanned
by the ever-present breezes of His Spirit We may take it if we will; the responsibility
is ours, but if we do, the cost must well be counted. The path is steep, the last and
least weight must be thrown aside if we are to tread it.
IV. Charged.—And now what follows? Grace had triumphed, Joshua was
restored—Cleansed, Clothed, and Crowned. But do we part from him here? ay,
there must be first a solemn charge... never was Joshua in so responsible and solemn

25. a position as now. The angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua , saying, "Thus saith
the Lord of Hosts, If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge,
then thou shalt also judge My house, and shalt also keep My courts, and I will give
thee places to walk among these that stand by". Honours unspeakable, but for
whom? For the faithful servant.
—E. W. Moore, Life Transfigured, p129.
PARKER, "The "Branch" Promised
Zechariah 3
The next vision that came before the prophet Zechariah is that of "Joshua the high
priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to
resist him" ( Zechariah 3:1). We are to understand by the pronoun in this verse
God, and to read thus: And God showed me Joshua the high priest. The prophet
was attended by an angel; it is important to notice the function of that angel, and to
remember that it was limited to the explanation, and not to the revelation of the
visions. God himself is the revealer of vision, the source of all true dream and
imagination; all that even angels can do is of the nature of explanation. This is
particularly true even of the Christian ministry. Ministers do not invent their facts,
or formulate their own doctrines, or originate their own ideas of redemption and
sanctification. In proportion as they are true and faithful ministers they will go to
the Bible itself to see what God has shown the human family, and will ask of God
power to explain the vision to those who wonder as to its meaning. Joshua the high
priest must be regarded here as standing representatively when we read of him that
he was "clothed with filthy garments." The picture of Joshua and the angel is one of
vivid and impressive contrast; the one was a priestly man representing all the
iniquity of his people, and the other was the radiant angel, typifying in a limited
degree the holiness and beauty of God. A remarkable incident is that of Satan
standing at the right hand of the high priest to resist him, or to be his adversary.
These things are an allegory. We can understand them better by looking at the
painful facts of our own experience. We cannot account for it, but we are bound to
acknowledge that there are in life two wholly different personalities or ministries;
we may even call them influences, and still we shall not lose the effect of the
appalling and instructive doctrine. Satan is always standing at the right hand of the
good man. For some purpose of education, which lies now completely beyond our
apprehension, it would seem to be needful that the devil should accompany us
throughout the whole journey of life. The consolatory reflection is that this hated
companion, this hated shadow, is continually under the rebuke of God.
MACLARE , "A VISIO OF JUDGEME T A D CLEA SI G
Zechariah 3:1 - Zechariah 3:10.
Zechariah worked side by side with Haggai to quicken the religious life of the
people, and thus to remove the gravest hindrances to the work of rebuilding the
Temple. Inward indifference, not outward opposition, is the real reason for slow
progress in God’s work, and prophets who see visions and preach repentance are

26. the true practical men.
This vision followed Haggai’s prophecy at the interval of a month. It falls into two
parts-a symbolical vision and a series of promises founded on it.
I. The Symbolical Vision [Zechariah 3:1 - Zechariah 3:5].
The scene of the vision is left undetermined, and the absence of any designation of
locality gives the picture the sublimity of indefiniteness. Three figures, seen he
knows not where, stand clear before the Prophet’s inward eye. They were shown
him by an unnamed person, who is evidently Jehovah Himself. The real and the
ideal are marvellously mingled in the conception of Joshua the high priest-the man
whom the people saw every day going about Jerusalem-standing at the bar of God,
with Satan as his accuser. The trial is in process when the Prophet is permitted to
see. We do not hear the pleadings on either side, but the sentence is solemnly
recorded. The accusations are dismissed, their bringer rebuked, and in token of
acquittal, the filthy garments which the accused had worn are changed for the full
festal attire of the high priest.
What, then, is the meaning of this grand symbolism? The first point to keep well in
view is the representative character of the high priest. He appears as laden not with
individual but national sins. In him Israel is, as it were, concentrated, and what
befalls him is the image of what befalls the nation. His dirty dress is the familiar
symbol of sin; and he wears it, just as he wore his sacerdotal dress, in his official
capacity, as the embodied nation. He stands before the judgment seat, bearing not
his own but the people’s sins.
Two great truths are thereby taught, which are as true to-day as ever. The first is
that representation is essential to priesthood. It was so in shadowy and external
fashion in Israel; it is so in deepest and most blessed reality in Christ’s priesthood.
He stands before God as our representative-’And the Lord hath made to meet on
Him the iniquity of us all.’ If by faith we unite ourselves with Him, there ensues a
wondrous transference of characteristics, so that our sin becomes His, and His
righteousness becomes ours; and that in no mere artificial or forensic sense, but in
inmost reality. Theologians talk of a communicatio idiomatum as between the
human and the divine elements in Christ. There is an analogous passage of the
attributes of either to the other, in the relation of the believer to his Saviour.
The second thought in this symbolic appearance of Joshua before the angel of the
Lord is that the sins of God’s people are even now present before His perfect
judgment, as reasons for withdrawing from them His favour. That is a solemn truth,
which should never be forgotten. A Christian man’s sins do accuse him at the bar of
God. They are all visible there; and so far as their tendency goes, they are like
wedges driven in to rend him from God.
But the second figure in the vision is ‘the Satan,’ standing in the plaintiff’s place at
the Judge’s right hand, to accuse Joshua. The Old Testament teaching as to the evil
spirit who ‘accuses’ good men is not so developed as that of the ew, which is quite
natural, inasmuch as the shadow of bright light is deeper than that of faint rays. It is
most full in the latest books, as here and in Job; but doctrinal inferences drawn
from such highly imaginative symbolism as this are precarious. o one who accepts
the authority of our Lord can well deny the existence and activity of a malignant
spirit, who would fain make the most of men’s sins, and use them as a means of

27. separating their doers from God. That is the conception here.
But the main stress of the vision lies, not on the accuser or his accusation, but on the
Judge’s sentence, which alone is recorded. ‘The Angel of the Lord’ is named in
Zechariah 3:1 as the Judge, while the sentence in Zechariah 3:2 is spoken by ‘the
Lord.’ It would lead us far away from our purpose to inquire whether that Angel of
the Lord is an earlier manifestation of the eternal Son, who afterwards became
flesh-a kind of preluding or rehearsing of the Incarnation. But in any case, God so
dwells in Him as that what the Angel says God says and the speaker varies as in our
text. The accuser is rebuked, and God’s rebuke is not a mere word, but brings with
it punishment. The malicious accusations have failed, and their aim is to be gathered
from the language which announces their miscarriage. Obviously Satan sought to
procure the withdrawal of divine favour from Joshua, because of his sin; that is, to
depose the nation from its place as the covenant people, because of its transgressions
of the covenant. Satan here represents what might otherwise have been called, in
theological language, ‘the demands of justice.’ The answer given him is deeply
instructive as to the grounds of the divine forbearance.
ote that Joshua’s guilt as the representative of the people is not denied, but tacitly
admitted and actually spoken of in Zechariah 3:4. Why, then, does not the accuser
have his way? For two reasons. God has chosen Jerusalem. His great purpose, the
fruit of His undeserved mercy, is not to be turned aside by man’s sins. The thought
is the same as that of Jeremiah: ‘If heaven above can be measured . . . then I will
also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done’ [Jeremiah 31:37].
Again, the fact that Joshua was ‘a brand plucked from the burning’-that is, that the
people whom he represented had been brought unconsumed from the furnace of
captivity-is a reason with God for continuing to extend His favour, though they have
sinned. God’s past mercies are a motive with him. Creatural love is limited, and too
often says, ‘I have forgiven so often, that I am wearied, and can do it no more.’ He
has, therefore he will. We often come to the end of our long-suffering a good many
times short of the four hundred and ninety a day which Christ prescribes. But God
never does. True, Joshua and his people have sinned, and that since their
restoration, and Satan had a good argument in pointing to these transgressions; but
God does not say, ‘I will put back the half-burned brand in the fire again, since the
evil is not burned out of it,’ but forgives again, because He has forgiven before.
The sentence is followed by the exchange of the filthy garments symbolical of sin, for
the full array of the high priest. Ministering angels are dimly seen in the
background, and are summoned to unclothe and clothe Joshua. The Prophet
ventures to ask that the sacerdotal attire should be completed by the turban or
mitre, probably that headdress which bore the significant writing ‘Holiness to the
Lord,’ expressive of the destination of Israel and of its ceremonial cleanness. The
meaning of this change of clothing is given in Zechariah 3:4 : ‘I have caused thine
iniquity to pass from thee.’ Thus the complete restoration of the pardoned and
cleansed nation to its place as a nation of priests to Jehovah is symbolised. To us the
gospel of forgiveness fills up the outline in the vision; and we know how, when sin
testifies against us, we have an Advocate with the Father, and how the infinite love
flows out to us notwithstanding all sin, and how the stained garment of our souls
can be stripped off, and the ‘fine linen clean and white,’ the priestly dress on the day
of atonement, be put on us, and we be made priests unto God.

28. II. The remainder of the vision is the address of the Angel of the Lord to Joshua,
developing the blessings now made sure to him and his people by this renewed
consecration and cleansing.
First [Zechariah 3:7] is the promise of continuance in office and access to God’s
presence, which, however, are contingent on obedience. The forgiven man must
keep God’s charge, if he is to retain his standing. On that condition, he has ‘a place
of access among those that stand by’; that is, the privilege of approach to God, like
the attendant angels. This promise may be taken as surpassing the prerogatives
hitherto accorded to the high priest, who had only the right of entrance into the
holiest place once a year, but now is promised the entrée to the heavenly court, as if
he were one of the bright spirits who stand there. They who have access with
confidence within the veil because Christ is there, have more than the ancient
promise of this vision.
The main point of Zechariah 3:8 is the promise of the Messiah, but the former part
of the verse is remarkable. Joshua and his fellows are summoned to listen, ‘for they
are men which are a sign.’ The meaning seems to be that he and his brethren who
sat as his assessors in official functions, are collectively a sign or embodied prophecy
of what is to come. Their restoration to their offices was a shadowy prophecy of a
greater act of forgiving grace, which was to be effected by the coming of the
Messiah.
The name ‘Branch’ is used here as a proper name. Jeremiah [Jeremiah 23:5;
Jeremiah 33:15] had already employed it as a designation of Messiah, which he had
apparently learned from Isaiah 4:2. The idea of the word is that of the similar
names used by Isaiah, ‘a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a Branch out of his
roots’ [Isaiah 11:1], and ‘a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground’ [Isaiah
53:2]; namely, that of his origin from the fallen house of David, and the lowliness of
his appearance.
The Messiah is again meant by the ‘stone’ in Zechariah 3:9. Probably there was
some great stone taken from the ruins, to which the symbol attaches itself. The
foundation of the second Temple had been laid years before the prophecy, but the
stone may still have been visible. The Rabbis have much to say about a great stone
which had been in the first Temple, and there used for the support of the ark, but in
the second was set in the empty place where the ark should have been. Isaiah had
prophesied of the ‘tried corner-stone’ laid in Zion, and Psalms 118:22 had sung of
the stone rejected and made the head of the corner. We go in the track, then, of
established usage, when we see in this stone the emblem of Messiah, and associate
with it all thoughts of firmness, preciousness, support, foundation of the true
Temple, basis of hope, ground of certitude, and whatever other substratum of fixity
and immovableness men’s hearts or lives need. In all possible aspects of the
metaphor, Jesus is the Foundation.
And what are the ‘seven eyes on the stone’? That may simply be a vivid way of
saying that the fulness of divine Providence would watch over the Messiah, bringing
Him when the time was ripe, and fitting Him for His work. But if we remember the
subsequent explanation [Zechariah 4:10] of the ‘seven,’ as ‘the eyes of the Lord
which run to and fro through the whole earth,’ and connect this with Revelation 5:6,
we can scarcely rest content with that meaning, but find here the deeper thought
that the fulness of the divine Spirit was given to Messiah, even as Isaiah 11:2

29. prophesies of the sevenfold Spirit.
‘I will engrave the graving thereof’ is somewhat obscure. It seems to mean that the
seven eyes will be cut on the stone, like masons’ marks. If the seven eyes are the full
energies of the Holy Spirit, God’s cutting of them on the stone is equivalent to His
giving them to His Son; and the fulfilment of the promise was when He gave the
Holy Spirit not ‘by measure unto Him.’
The blessed purpose of Messiah’s coming and endowment with the Spirit is
gloriously stated in the last clause of Zechariah 3:9 : ‘I will remove the iniquity of
that land in one day.’ Jesus Christ has ‘once for all’ made atonement, as the Epistle
to the Hebrews so often says. The better Joshua by one offering has taken away sin.
‘The breadth of Thy land, O Immanuel,’ stretched far beyond the narrow bounds
which Zechariah knew for Israel’s territory. It includes the whole world. As has
been beautifully said, ‘That one day is the day of Golgotha.’
The vision closes with a picture of the felicity of Messianic times, which recalls the
description of the golden age of Solomon, when ‘Judah and Israel dwelt safely,
every man under his vine and under his fig-tree’ [1 Kings 4:25]. In like manner the
nation, cleansed, restored to its priestly privilege of free access to God by the
Messiah who comes with the fulness of the Spirit, shall dwell in safety, and shall be
knit together by friendship, and unenvyingly shall each share his good with all
others, recognising in every man a neighbour, and gladly welcoming him to partake
of all the blessings which the true Solomon has brought to his house and heart.
ISBET, "THE HIGH PRIEST A D THE ADVERSARY
‘And He shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord,
and Satan standing at His right hand to resist Him.’
Zechariah 3:1
The vision of Zechariah appears to us in its secondary and broader interpretation to
be a solemn picture of what is now going on in the Church of Christ. We may trace
its reality in the dispensation of the Gospel.
I. Our first illustration of the text will he taken from the manifestation of Christ to
the Gentile world.—It is impossible to explain the perpetual strife between truth
and error without seeing in fact that which Zechariah beheld in ecstatic trance:
‘Jesus the High Priest, and Satan standing at His right hand.’
II. In this prophetic vision Satan is depicted not as an open enemy of the high priest,
but as standing at his right hand—not, that is, occupying the position of a confessed
foe, but of a false friend.—And just similar has been the resistance of Satan to the
Kingdom of Christ.
—Bishop Woodford.
Illustration
‘From the hour Satan was cast out of heaven, he has been the adversary of God, the
antagonist of good, and the accuser of the brethren. He discovers the weak places in
character, and thrusts at them; the secret defects of the saints, and proclaims them
from the housetop; the least trace of disloyalty, inconsistency, or mixture of motive: