Joshua the high priest and the Branch: the priesthood cleansed, the Servant promised

Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, was a prophet, and apparently from a priestly family (Zechariah 1:1; Nehemiah 12:16). His ministry began in the eighth month of the second year of the Persian king Darius, which is 520 BC, in the same season as Haggai (Zechariah 1:1; Haggai 1:1; Ezra 5:1; 6:14). The eight night visions of chapters 1 to 6 are dated to the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month of that year, February 519 BC (1:7). Most scholars agree that chapters 1 to 8 come from these years. The authorship and date of chapters 9 to 14 are debated: some hold that Zechariah wrote the whole book, and others see a later hand or hands.

The setting is the community that returned from the Babylonian exile after 538 BC. They had laid the foundation of the temple under Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest (Ezra 3), but opposition stopped the work (Ezra 4). In 520 BC Haggai and Zechariah called the people to resume (Ezra 5:1-2), and the temple was finished in 516 or 515 BC (Ezra 6:15). Joshua (in Ezra and Nehemiah, Jeshua) was the son of Jehozadak, who had been taken into exile (1 Chronicles 6:15). His grandfather Seraiah, the chief priest, had been executed by Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah (2 Kings 25:18-21). Joshua was the high priest of a community just out of judgment, and his own family carried the memory of it.

The first hearers were small, poor and discouraged (Haggai 2:3; Zechariah 4:10). The vision answers a question that sat under the building project: would God accept a priesthood from a people whose priests had been part of the sin that sent them into exile?

Zechariah 3 is a prophetic vision report. The prophet sees a scene, hears speech inside it, and in verses 8 to 10 the speech turns to an oracle about the future. In visions of this kind, the pictures stand for realities: the filth for guilt, the clothing for status and office. The interpreter asks what each picture meant to a returned community and then asks how the Bible's later writings pick it up. The vision is the fourth of eight and belongs with the fifth, in chapter 4, where Zerubbabel appears. The two chapters together present the two leaders of the community, the priest and the governor, as a pair under God (4:14, 'the two anointed ones').

A courtroom is the background. Satan (the Hebrew is ha-satan, 'the accuser') stands at Joshua's right hand, the place of the accuser in court (Psalm 109:6). The angel of the LORD presides. The charge, the verdict and the sentence all follow. Joshua stands before the court as the high priest and representative of the people, so the filthy garments belong to the priesthood and to the community whose priest he is. Two phrases need care. The speaker who says 'the LORD rebukes you' (3:2) is both distinguished from the angel and identified with the LORD, a pattern found elsewhere in the angel of the LORD passages (Genesis 16:7-13; Exodus 3:2-6). Some Christians read this figure as a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ; others read an exalted angel who speaks for God. The class does not need to settle it.

Verses 1–2

The prophet is shown 'Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him'. Joshua is not on trial for a crime in the story. He is standing as the people's priest, whose uncleanness would disqualify the whole sacrificial system. The word 'Satan' has the definite article, 'the accuser', as in Job 1 and 2. It is a title before it becomes a name. The accusation itself is not recorded. 'The LORD rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you!' The grounds of the rebuke are God's choice of Jerusalem and the rescue of Joshua: 'Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?' The firebrand is a half-burned stick pulled from the flames. Amos 4:11 uses the same image of Israel after judgment. Joshua, a survivor of the exile, is the remnant in person.

Verses 3–5

Joshua is wearing 'filthy garments'. The Hebrew word (tsoim) is strong. It is connected to the word for excrement, and Isaiah 4:4 uses a related noun for the filth of Zion that the LORD will wash away. The garments are not a minor stain. The angel orders those standing before him to take them off, then says to Joshua: 'See, I have removed your iniquity, and I will clothe you with splendid robes.' The removal of guilt is stated first and without condition. The word for iniquity is awon, the same word as in Numbers 18:1 and Exodus 28:38, where the priests bear the people's guilt. In Zechariah 3 the one who bears the guilt of others is himself cleansed by God.

Then comes a verse in which the prophet speaks: 'Let them put a clean turban on his head.' In the Hebrew text it is Zechariah's own request, though some ancient translations read it as part of the angel's command. The turban (tsanif) is a word close to the priestly one, and in Exodus 28:36-38 the high priest's turban carried the gold plate engraved 'Holy to the LORD', by which Aaron bore the iniquity of the holy gifts. Joshua is being re-clothed for office as Aaron was in Leviticus 8, but here the cleansing precedes the robing.

Verses 6–7

The angel charges Joshua. 'If you walk in My ways and keep My instructions, then you will govern My house and will also have charge of My courts.' This is conditional, but the condition does not purchase the cleansing, which has already been given. It governs the exercise of the office. 'Govern' (din) means to judge or administer, and the priest's role as teacher and judge is described in Deuteronomy 17:8-13 and Malachi 2:7. 'Charge' translates a verb for guarding, used of the Levites in Numbers 18:5. God also promises Joshua 'a place among these who are standing here'. The Hebrew word for place is built on the verb 'to walk', and it points to access among the attendants who stand in the heavenly court. The priest who was accused at the court is promised standing in it.

Verse 8

'Hear now, O high priest Joshua, you and your companions seated before you, who are indeed a sign.' The word for sign (mofet) means a portent, a person or object that points beyond itself, as in Isaiah 8:18 and Ezekiel 12:6. The priests are signs of something not yet present. The thing they signal is announced at once: 'I am going to bring My servant, the Branch.' 'Branch' (tsemach) is a title in the prophets for a coming king from David's line (Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15; compare Isaiah 11:1 and 4:2). 'My servant' ties the Branch to the servant passages of Isaiah (42:1; 52:13; 53:11) and to Ezekiel's promise of 'My servant David' as shepherd (34:23-24; 37:24). In Zechariah 6:12-13 the Branch builds the temple, sits and rules on his throne, and there is a priest on his throne. The Branch unites the two offices the vision has just placed side by side.

Verse 9

'See the stone I have set before Joshua; on that one stone are seven eyes.' The stone has been explained in several ways. Some take it as the foundation or capstone of the temple, which recurs in 4:7 and 4:10. Some link it to the engraved stones on the high priest's garments, because the verb for engraving here is used of engraving signets (Exodus 28:11, 36). Some read it as a messianic stone, alongside Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22. The seven eyes recall the seven eyes of the LORD that range over the whole earth in Zechariah 4:10, and the number suggests complete watchfulness. The promise that follows is clear: 'I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.' The same act that cleansed Joshua is to be done for the land, and it is done once.

Verse 10

'On that day' invites the neighbor to sit 'under your own vine and fig tree'. The phrase describes peace and security in the days of Solomon (1 Kings 4:25) and the hope of the nations (Micah 4:4).

Zechariah 3 states three things about priesthood that the rest of the Bible develops. First, the cleansing of the priest is God's act, not the priest's. Joshua says nothing in the vision. The accuser is silenced by the LORD's own rebuke, the garments are removed by command, and the guilt is taken away. The Old Testament law required priests to offer for their own sins before offering for the people (Leviticus 16:6, 11), but here the problem is deeper than one more offering, and God himself resolves it. This gives the Bible one of its clearest pictures of forgiveness as a gift.

Second, priesthood is for the sake of a promise beyond itself. Joshua and his companions are 'a sign'. They do not complete the story; they point forward to the Servant, the Branch. The same pattern appears in Psalm 110, where a Davidic king is also a priest after the order of Melchizedek (110:4), and in Zechariah 6:11-13, where a crown is set on the high priest Joshua and the prophet then speaks of a man named the Branch. The priest is made a sign of the king-priest who is coming.

Third, the vision gives the Bible's answer to accusation. The accuser's charge is not denied. Joshua's garments are filthy. The answer is the LORD's choice and the LORD's cleansing. Paul asks in Romans 8:33-34 who can bring a charge against God's chosen, and answers that God is the one who justifies and that Christ Jesus, at God's right hand, intercedes. Revelation 12:10 shows the accuser finally thrown down. Jude 9 uses the words 'The Lord rebuke you' in another scene, which Jude takes from Jewish tradition.

The vision points to Christ in three ways. The first is by name. Joshua (Hebrew Yehoshua, later Yeshua) is the same name as Jesus, and the Greek Old Testament calls Joshua here Iesous. The name means 'the LORD saves'. A high priest named Jesus is cleansed to serve; the New Testament presents a high priest named Jesus who needs no cleansing and who cleanses others (Hebrews 4:14-15; 7:26-27). The New Testament does not make an argument from the shared name here, so this is an echo. The stronger link is the vision's own wording, in which Joshua and his companions are called a sign of what is coming.

The second is the Branch. Jeremiah 23:5 and 33:15 speak of a righteous Branch for David, and Zechariah 6:12-13 joins the title to the building of the temple and to a priest on the throne. Whether the Branch is Zerubbabel, who was of David's line and led the building, or a coming Messiah, is debated. Some critical scholars read the Branch as Zerubbabel and the hope as an unfulfilled one. Many Jewish and Christian readers have read it as the Messiah: the Aramaic Targum of the Prophets renders the verse 'my servant the Messiah'. Aide's reading follows the New Testament, in which Zerubbabel was the immediate pledge and Jesus is the one in whom the promise comes to its fullness (many scholars hear Zechariah in Luke 1:78, where the Greek word anatole is the word the Greek Old Testament uses for Branch in Zechariah 3:8 and 6:12; see also Hebrews 7:23-28). Hebrews describes in Jesus the combination Zechariah foresaw, a priest who is also a king, from Judah and not from Levi (Hebrews 7:14).

The third is the 'single day'. Verse 9 promises that God will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. In Israel, the day of removing sin was the Day of Atonement, which came every year (Leviticus 16:29-34). Hebrews contrasts the yearly repeated sacrifices with the one offering of Christ: 'once for all' (Hebrews 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). The day in Zechariah 3:9 is an echo of that single offering. The seven eyes may be echoed in Revelation 5:6, where the Lamb has seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God; this connection is tentative.

The clothing finds a parallel in New Testament teaching: believers are clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27), put on the new self (Colossians 3:9-14), and the saints in Revelation wear robes washed in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14). The same sequence is found in Isaiah 61:10, 'garments of salvation'.