Israel Faces the Nations (Zechariah 12:1-9)

Like a divine magnet, Jerusalem will someday draw all the Gentile nations to fight against it—to their great detriment.

Face the Nation, one of the longest-running news programs in the history of American television (1954 to present), informs its viewers concerning political issues and public affairs by having those it interviews “face the nation” (the American public). Today, Israel “faces the nations” as it struggles for its existence among adversarial countries of the world.

We witness this struggle as we hear questions like “Why does the Middle East conflict seem so unsolvable?” and “Why are Israel and the Jewish people under a global attack of antisemitism with calls for their destruction?” and “Why is Jerusalem such a problem?” The answers to these questions cannot be found in any news program, but they can be found in the millennia-old prophecies of the Jewish prophet Zechariah in his account of when Israel faces the nations.

The prophet called his news a “burden” (Zech. 12:1). The Hebrew term is massa (“pronouncement”), which describes oracles concerning future events. In this case, the massa foretells Israel’s experience in the Day of the Lord and, specifically, the Gentile powers’ global attack on Jerusalem (Joel 2:2, 31) during the last half of the yet-future 70th week of Daniel (the Great Tribulation, Mt. 24:21).

The World’s ‘Final Solution’
Zechariah 12:2 describes a “siege” against the city of Jerusalem and its greater territory of “Judah.” Siege warfare is one of the most terrifying in military history. Surrounded by an enemy, with no escape and trapped to suffer starvation, the inhabitants’ only recourse is to wait for the walls to be breached and to fight to the death.¹ The only hope for those under siege comes from without, as deliverance is sent to them from afar.

Zechariah predicted just such a glorious day of deliverance for Israel by the Lord, but only after first proclaiming the grim report of Israel being ravaged by the nations. As in any great story, an impossibly dire situation magnifies the final promised rescue. As I wrote in my book Jerusalem in Prophecy:

Jerusalem is predicted to have a final dark hour before the times of the Gentiles conclude and the dawn of Jewish redemption breaks. After all, the nations will not relinquish their dominion without force, and the force required to make them release their two-and-a-half-millennia-long hold on Israel and the world can be nothing short of Armageddon. From Jerusalem the Jews are destined to rule the world under their Messiah; and consequently, the world under Satan’s rule is determined to ruin Jerusalem and the Jews. Satan’s plan of the hour is to destroy the Jewish people.²

Just as the Holocaust was the Nazis’ “final solution to the Jewish question” in the past, the campaigns of Armageddon will be the world’s “final solution” during the future Tribulation. It will be nothing less than a satanic attempt to annihilate the Jewish remnant to forestall the Second Coming of Christ. Yet it will be this very attempt that will bring Israel’s Messiah back to Jerusalem to rescue His people.

However, these verses indicate concern not only for God’s people, but also for God’s land, the center of which is Jerusalem. The Lord is particularly enraged by the Gentile nations’ failure to recognize that Israel is His Holy Land and that the city of Jerusalem is His chosen dwelling place forever (Ps. 132:13–18). Jerusalem belongs to God Himself. It is “the city of the great King” (48:2; Mt. 5:35).

To attack it is to attack the Almighty Himself and His purpose to reign as King on Earth during the Millennium (Ps. 2:6; 146:10; Isa. 24:23; Mic. 4:7; Lk. 1:33; Rev. 11:15). Therefore, it is against the God of Israel that these nations fight (Ps. 2:2; Isa. 34:2; Zech. 14:3; Rev. 16:14; 17:14; 19:11, 14–15, 19, 21).

The Divine Magnet
In Zechariah 12:3, we first hear the fearful announcement to Jerusalem that “all nations of the earth are gathered against it.” Although the focus here is “the nations,” we must remember that Bible prophecy is not concerned with international affairs except as they relate to Israel—to its people and its land. In other words, the entire global community of Gentile powers is of no real consequence apart from the role it plays in God’s program for Israel.

In verses 2–3, God declares His divine purpose to make Jerusalem an intoxicating influence in order to gather all the nations against it, despite the fact that doing so will bring about their ruin. This prophecy explains why Jerusalem has been and will continue to be a divine magnet, drawing the great iron-willed nations toward this tiny spot on Earth. It also explains why every attempt by the nations (including U.S. presidents) to solve the Middle East conflict has failed over the issue of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem’s status has always been a problem and will remain so until God’s ultimate plan to destroy the global defiance of His program for Israel centered in Jerusalem is fulfilled (v. 9). And what better place for this feat to take place than in Jerusalem itself. God will allow the deceiving spirits of demons to lure the kings of the earth together to do battle (Rev. 16:14). Believing themselves capable of destroying the Jewish people, they will find themselves caught in the trap God has prepared for them; and they will be destroyed in the battle of Armageddon.

Armageddon
When we consider the campaign of Armageddon, we must recognize that this battle between Israel and the nations is comprised of eight stages.³ (See “The 8 Stages of Armageddon”) In Zechariah 12:2—14:2, we are in stage three, when Jerusalem is besieged by an international coalition of Gentile armies. These nations are part of a 10-nation confederation under the Antichrist and will constitute the final form of the fourth great world empire (Dan. 2:40–44; 7:7–8, 19–26; Rev. 13:4–8; 16:16; 17:2).

In this attack, Jerusalem will be besieged and divided. Half the city’s population will be taken captive, with the rest waiting for divine deliverance (Mic. 4:11—5:1; Zech. 12:2–9; 14:2). In the order of future events, the Antichrist will direct his armies to assemble on the Plain of Megiddo (Rev. 16:14–16) before God destroys his capital of Babylon. The report of its fall will compel him to lead his armies to attack the last vestige of a holy hope on Earth: the place of Christ’s future rule (Ps. 2:1–12; Dan. 11:44–45; Zech. 12:3; 14:2, 9). The final deliverance comes at stage eight, when Christ comes to Jerusalem to defend it personally (Zech. 14:3–4; Mal. 3:1–4).

As the final rescue from heaven still awaits, God will supernaturally empower the meager Jewish forces against overwhelming odds (Zech. 12:4–8). God’s divine intervention will hinder the Gentile armies (v. 4) and help the Jewish armies of Jerusalem (vv. 5, 8) and Judah (vv. 6–7). The Lord’s presence will be so pervasive with the Jewish defenders that the situation can only be compared to the Israelites’ victories in the time of King David, when the Angel of the Lord went before them (v. 8).

The Antichrist’s capture of Jerusalem will come at great cost. It will be as if the Jewish defenders “devoured” his armies like fire on dry wood (cf. Mic. 4:11—5:1). These losses will demonstrate dramatically to the Gentile powers that the “times of the Gentiles” are nearly at an end (Lk. 21:24). This declaration is made in Zechariah 12:9, as the Lord says that “in that day” (the Day of the Lord), He will “seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”

In these closing words, we come to realize the prophetic importance of Jerusalem and why we are witnessing today a global rise in antisemitism. Israel is vilified among the nations, and Jerusalem has become the center of a conflict that has many nations calling for worldwide jihad (holy war) to wrest the city from Israel.

Some people claim Israel’s war with Hamas was provoked by Jewish attempts to assert sovereignty over Jerusalem (via prayer and the desire to rebuild the Temple). Israel most fears that the international community will demand a Palestinian state be created, with its capital in eastern Jerusalem, thereby dividing the city as in times past. Zechariah predicted these days will come, and we are seeing the preparation for their fulfillment unfolding in our days.

Israel will indeed face the nations. But just as there is a promise to one day deliver Israel, so God has a promise that can today deliver you. Trust in the promised spiritual deliverance that is in God’s Savior, Messiah Jesus; and you will join those who will see Him return to this world to defeat Israel’s enemies and to reign as Zechariah proclaimed (Zech. 14:4, 9).

ENDNOTES

1. 1. 1. 1. See for details Israel Eph’al, The City Besieged: Siege and Its Manifestations in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 2013), 1–2, 133–4, 153, 159.
         2. Randall Price, Jerusalem in Prophecy: God’s Stage for the Final Drama (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, 2020), 153.
         3. See for details Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of the Messiah: A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events (San Antonio, TX: Ariel Ministries, 2004), 308–57.

Dr. Randall Price is a well-known author and world-renowned archaeologist. He is also the founder and president of World of the Bible Ministries (worldofthebible.com).