Amazing passage:
Zechariah 3Clean Garments for the High Priest
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?" 3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." Then he said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you."
Some notes:
1. I was amazed to read this passage because despite 10 years of reading the Bible, I have no recollection of ever encountering it.
2. Here, it's the high priest who is clothed in iniquity. This is something like it being the Pope or Billy Graham: all have sinned and fallen short.
3. 'Joshua' here is 'Yeshua,' which of course is where we get 'Jesus.' It seems hard to discount the coincidence.
4. Hebrews 4:15 describes Jesus as a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses.
3 comments:
This passage amazes me too, and I've loved it from the first time I encountered it, but I don't know why. I immediately associated Joshua with Jesus, but I don't recall ever reading whether in some way this passage is a prophetic type of Jesus Christ or not. Because Joshua is the High Priest, it always seemed there had to be a connexion.
And Zechariah is one of my favorite prophets, if you can actually say such a thing. His commemoration is February 8 in the Orthodox calendar, which is also my birthday. If my parents had been "on the ball" they would've noticed and called me after Zechariah. Oh well… (My dad's name is Roman, and I'm a first-born, so guess what…)
I believe that Yeshua means "The LORD Saves." This has symbolic meaning for both Joshua and Jesus, though in different ways.
This is the line that I find interesting. God, speaking in the third person: The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan!
Incidentally, Joshua was also Moses' brother and successor. Jesus was named after this Joshua (the names are the same in Hebrew and Aramaic, as you pointed out). Good call on the name meaning, Dave.
Funny you should post this on Yom Kippur, the day Jews are supposed to fast and be cleansed of their sins. On that day, the Cohen Gadol (high priest) would enter the Holiest of Holies in the Temple dressed in a simple white garment and make atonement - first for his own sins, then for the sins of the priesthood, then for the sins of the entire Jewish people. That's the ritual being represented in this vision. I don't know if that was intentional on your part, but I'm still entertained.
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