Ho, ho! flee from the land of the north, saith Jehovah; for I have scattered you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, saith Jehovah.
The vision before this showed Jerusalem too full for walls, with the Lord Himself as its guard. Now the prophecy turns and shouts at the people who are not there yet — the exiles still living in the empire that carried them off. Two questions follow. Why is Babylon called "the land of the north"? And how far did God's own scattering reach?
The first word is not a threat. It is the sound a herald makes to turn a crowd's head.
There is little doubt that the first word should be a call to attention, like "Ho," rather than a cry of sorrow. Most often the word carries the force of "Woe."
Babylon lay to the east of Israel. So the direction looks wrong — until you remember which road its armies took.
Verse 6 calls the Jews to flee from the land of the north, and verse 7 shows this means Babylon. So many from Judah had settled down there in captivity. By this time the Medes and Persians had subdued Babylon, and the Jews were free to return to their own land. But many had grown wealthy and did not want to be uprooted again. Babylon is east of Israel. Yet Scripture calls it the land of the north, because Nebuchadnezzar came by way of the north when he attacked Israel. Since then Israel has also been scattered further north, so the north gets special mention in many prophecies about Israel's regathering. Yet in verse 6 the Lord also speaks of spreading Israel abroad like the four winds of heaven — in every direction away from their land.
The call follows straight on from the promise of a restored city, and it carries two edges at once.
In the prophetic vision Jerusalem is restored and lived in once more, and is again the dwelling-place of Jehovah. On that basis an appeal goes out to those who had not yet returned — a summons to come and share in the blessing. And not only this: it is also a warning to escape the judgments about to fall on those who were holding them captive at that time. The land of the north is therefore Chaldea, the Babylonian empire, where the Jews were scattered — "spread abroad as the four winds of heaven." In this way God sounds the trumpet-call to gather His outcast people.
One phrase in this passage settles the timing: "after the glory."
Notice the words "after the glory." No blessing before Christ came could fulfil Zechariah's words. More than that: when Christ presented Himself, that moment did not fulfil these words. Instead came a further sin and a fresh dispersion. So God's dealings after the first coming and the crucifixion pushed this prophecy further off than ever. They brought fresh grounds for a new punishment of Israel, not the fulfilment of the prophecy. This will be "after the glory." Christ must first appear in glory.
The scattering sets the measure for the gathering. Jesus takes up the prophet's own words to say so.
The prophet had also foretold a "great trumpet" as the instrument for gathering the scattered chosen people home to the land (Isaiah 27:12-13). Much of the Lord's own language about that gathering seems taken from the prophet Zechariah. Moses and the prophets had spoken of Israel's dispersion for their sins into all parts of the earth, or to the four winds. So it is natural that Jesus should speak of their restoration in the same, matching terms.
Long after the city of Babylon fell, the same summons still sounds. Babylon is a set of principles, not only a place.
Someone could argue that these prophecies came true when Babylon fell for good under the successors of Alexander. Yet many years after that disaster, we hear the same cry in the New Testament: "Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing" (2 Corinthians 6:17). And in Revelation 18:4, "Come out of her, My people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues." What do these words mean? In the last days the city of Babel will exist as little as it does now. But the godless principles that marked her will take the form of hostility to Christ. A system will rise in politics, business, and religion under the name "Great Babylon" (Revelation 17-18). Faithful believers must flee out of that "Babylon."
- Shout — the verse opens with a herald's cry for attention, not the "Woe" it is often taken for.
- North — Babylon lay east, but its name comes from the road its armies took. God spread the exiles in every direction, "as the four winds."
- Two edges — one cry with two purposes. It invites the scattered to share Jerusalem's blessing. It warns them to get clear of the judgment falling on their captors.
- After the glory — the prophecy's own timing marker reaches past the return from Babylon and past Christ's first coming. Christ must appear in glory first.
- Symmetry — scattered to the four winds, gathered from the four winds at the great trumpet. The cry to leave Babylon still stands wherever her principles do.
Ho! escape, Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
The place named in the call is not where the compass would put it. The reason lies in how the invasion came.
Verse 6 calls the Jews to flee from the land of the north. Verse 7 shows this means Babylon, where a great many people from Judah had settled down in captivity. By now the Medes and Persians had conquered Babylon, and the Jews were free to go back to their own land. But many had grown wealthy and did not want to be uprooted again. Babylon lies east of Israel. It is called the land of the north because Nebuchadnezzar came by the northern route when he attacked Israel.
Exile began as a sentence. By Zechariah's day the door stood open, and the numbers tell what happened next.
God tells Zion to deliver herself, for she was living with the daughter of Babylon. The tie had become a willing one, and it was wrong. When God sent them into captivity, they had no choice but to go (Jer. 39:9). But when the way home opened, they should have taken it, and only 42,360 answered (Ezra 2:64). So God still counted the city, Zion, as settled down with the daughter of Babylon.
The striking thing is the name God uses. He calls these exiles by the name of the city they left.
First, we learn this. Whatever state the people are in, they never lose their character before God. They lose neither their place nor their existence as one people. They belong to Zion just as much as the remnant who went back, and together with them they are Zion. What a contradiction it seems, then, that Zion was living with the daughter of Babylon! What had God's people to do with such a partnership, in such a corrupt scene? Sadly, they had long since become Babylonian in character. That is why the Lord had allowed their enemies to enslave them and carry them off to this home of human corruption and power.
Only one remedy is offered here, and it is distance.
There is only one way to be freed from what traps and enslaves us. We must come right outside the whole scene where it holds authority and power. Even inside what calls itself the Church, we overcome only by separating completely, in the power of the Spirit, from its evil and corruption. This alone was how the daughter of Zion could deliver herself and return to the Lord's dwelling place, Mount Zion. He loved that place. There He showed His glory, and there He encircled His holy dwelling like a wall of fire.
Babylon fell, yet the same cry sounds long afterwards. That tells us what the name really covers.
Someone could argue that these prophecies came true when Babylon fell for good under the successors of Alexander. Yet many years after that disaster, we hear the same cry in the New Testament: "Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you" (2 Cor. 6:17). And in Revelation 18:4, "Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues." What do these words mean? In the last days the city of Babel will no more exist than it does today. But in those days the godless principles that marked her will take shape as open hostility to Christ.
The release under Cyrus did not exhaust this word. One writer sets that first return against a greater deliverance still ahead.
The captivity in Babylon was the real sentence of Lo-ammi, "not My people." The return from there, once God had judged Babylon, was the pledge of a better deliverance from whatever will stand for Babylon in the last days. Zion is delivered from her captivity in Babylon. Cyrus brought that about up to a point, but it was nowhere near the full carrying out of God's purposes.
That first homecoming, then, was a sample of something still ahead — and a picture with a reach wider than Israel.
So that the return at that time was, as a type, the pledge of Israel's return from another, that is, their present dispersion... And they may suitably, in spirit, under certain conditions and experiences, be the utterance of any saint journeying on through the present world to the glory and presence of the Lord — a wayfaring man with Jesus.
- Captivity — Babylon is the land of the north because that is the road the invader took. A large part of Judah settled down there.
- Comfortable — the door stood open, but only 42,360 went home. Staying had stopped being a sentence and become a choice.
- Called Zion still — God names the exiles after the city they left. Their place and standing before Him outlast their worst condition.
- Come out — "Deliver yourself" leaves no middle way. Escape from what enslaves means leaving the whole scene of its power.
- Consummation — the return under Cyrus was only a down payment on a greater rescue. The same call sounds wherever Babylon's principles live on.