In the prophet Zechariah’s fourth vision, recorded in Zech 3:1-10, we
read the following:
Then he showed me the
high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at
his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, "The Lord rebuke
you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand
plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he
stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him,
"Take off his filthy clothes." And to him he said, "See, I have
taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you with festal
apparel." And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head."
So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with the apparel; and
the angel of the Lord was standing by. Then the angel of the Lord assured
Joshua, saying "Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways
and keep my requirements, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my
courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing
here. Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before
you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the
Branch. For on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with
seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I
will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. On that day, says the Lord
of hosts, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig
tree." (NRSV)
Most modern biblical scholars holds that this is set in the Divine
Assembly/Council of the Gods. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer offers some of the reasons
why modern exegetes of this scene hold to such a view:
[A] few scholars
maintain that the scene in Zech 3:1-5 takes place in the earthly temple in
Jerusalem. Yet this kind of interpretation does not sit well with the
appearances of God, the Adversary, and the various angels. Rather, the whole
layout, with divine dramatic personae aplenty, suggests a non-earthly setting.
More specifically, Zech 3:1-2 belongs to a larger group of interconnected descriptions
of the Divine Assembly:
1. First, the
description in Zech 3:1-2 shows familiarity with the description in Isa 6. Jeremias
highlights six conceptual similarities between the two vision accounts. In both
accounts, (1) the heavenly court is gathered; (2) one named human individual is
present; (3) members of the Divine Assembly (e.g., the seraphim, the Adversary, and the Angel of YHWH) act; (4) the key
question is the impurity of a human being (Isa 6:5; Zech 3:3); (5) the human
being is cleansed form his impurity (Isa 6:6-7a; Zech 3:4a); and (6) the human
being is presented with a task. These similarities are unlikely to be
coincidental. One the contrary, Zech 3 is probably influenced by Isa 6 in both
form and structure.
2. The description in
Zech 3:1-2 is reminiscent of the prologue of the book of Job. Both the setting
of Zech 3:1-2—the Divine Assembly—and the dramatic personae—God and the
Adversary—are known from Job 1-2. In many ways, Zech 3:1-2 is an amalgamation
of the imagery from Isa 6 and Job 1-2.
In addition, Parker
has shown how the structure of Zech 3:1-7, as well as the narratives about the
Divine Assembly in Isa 6:1-3; 1 Kgs 22:19-22; and Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7a, conforms
to the structure of many Mesopotamian accounts of the Divine Assembly. This
kind of text typically features a dialogue between the supreme deity and the
members of his council. God asks who will undertake a certain mission, members
of the council offer various suggestions, and one individual finally makes a
proposal which God accepts whereupon he commissions the proposer to carry out
his/her suggestion. In Zech 3:1-7, the Angel of YHWH represents God and the
topic of interest is the priest. God or the Angel (v. 2) rebukes one member of
the council who is maligning the priest, directs others to dress the priest,
and then gives the priest a charge. (Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, Zechariah and His Visions: An Exegetical Study of Zechariah’s Vision
Report [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 605; London: Bloomsbury
T&T Clark, 2015], 118-19)
For a
discussion of Zech 3 and the Council of the Gods from a Latter-day Saint
perspective, see:
