Weep Between the Porch and the Altar – Part 1

Recently I have been reading the book of Zechariah, which is a fascinating book, to say the least. Zechariah had some pretty intense visionary experiences and insight into the end of the age, as well as a unique glimpse into the jealousy of God for Israel. On a completely different note however, I became especially intrigued when I stumbled across a verse in Matthew 23 that appeared to reference this Old Testament prophet. In verse 35, Jesus is coming to the end of a rather harsh rebuke to the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and their false belief of their own innocence in regards to the slaying of the prophets of old. He proceeds to dispense judgment by prophesying that they will persecute and kill the messengers he is going to send them, as a way of filling up the measure of their forefathers’ sin, saying “and so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.”

Now, to start off, I’m going to take a rather scholastic approach to this subject in this first blog entry with some research information to help set the foundation for the more applicable content that I will write about in the subsequent entries. Ready? Here we go!

At first it seems obvious that Jesus is referring to the prophet Zechariah who in his book, in the first verse, is identified as the “son of Berekiah”. Logically, this also makes sense for Jesus to start his account of shed blood with the first murder of Abel and end with one of the last of the prophets recorded in the Old Testament. And although there is no record of Zechariah being murdered, here is a possibility mentioned in Matthew Henry’s Commentary…

Perhaps what Zechariah spoke in his prophesying concerning Christ of his being sold, his being wounded in the house of his friends, and the shepherd being smitten, was verified in the prophet himself, and so he became a type of Christ. Probably, being assaulted by his persecutors, he took sanctuary in the court of the priests (and some think he was himself a priest), and so was slain between the porch and the altar.

Alternatively, some find Jesus’ reference to be obviously connected to the story of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, found in 2 Chronicles 24. According to Matthew Henry, the name Jehoiada is very similar to the name Berekiah and it was common for Jewish men to be referred to by more than one name. The clincher however, is that there is a clear account of this Zechariah being murdered “in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple” (vs. 21), or as Jesus said, “between the temple and the altar”.

So which Zechariah is it? I don’t know – and I don’t think anyone can prove either case conclusively. For the sake of this particular series, I will mostly refer to the priest Zechariah, son of Jehoiada in 2 Chronicles 24, but may reference the prophet Zechariah as well, just for argument’s sake.

The next scripture I want to introduce is found in Joel 2:17, which says…

Let the priests, who minister before the LORD,
weep between the temple porch and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD.
Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’ “

I think you can already see where I’m going with this, noting the obvious connection this verse has with our story of Zechariah, as Joel is calling for the priests to weep “between the temple porch and the altar”, which is the exact same location of Zechariah’s slaying. However, before we can go there, I want to examine yet another dilemma we encounter as to the differing opinions on the timing of Joel’s writing…

1. 9th century BC- During the time when Joash was too young to govern and the priest Jehoiada did so in his place (2 Kings 11; 2 Chronicles 23-24). One of the reasons for this argument being the focus on the elders and priests as being the leaders Joel appeals to, instead of a king. This also happens to be the same period as our priest Zechariah.
2. 8th century BC- Roughly contemporary with Amos who prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah (also called Azariah) of Judah and Jeroboam II of Israel (Amos 7:10; 2 Kings 14-15). This school of thought is due to Joel’s placement in the Bible and some similarities in language used by Joel and Amos.
3. 7th-6th century BC – Roughly around Josiah’s reign (2 Kings 22-23; 2 Chronicles 34-35). Since Joel prophesies only to Judah and Jerusalem, it implies a timing after Israel was no longer a political kingdom (722 BC). This school of thought would argue that Joel’s references to the temple are because it was written before the temple was destroyed by the Babylonian invasion in 586 BC. Many of Joel’s references to the “day of the Lord” and the warnings of a great army also point to the coming destruction of Jerusalem at this time.
4. 6th-4th century BC – Roughly contemporary with the prophet Zechariah. This opinion uses the same argument of the lack of mention of a monarchy, since Judah had no king after the exile. This opinion believes that the references to the temple are actually the second temple which was rebuilt around 515 BC.

Now, I read many different articles on the dating of Joel and nobody seemed to agree with each other. Everybody has their reasons for believing one of the theories above. I found it particularly interesting that two of the opinions line up with both of our Zechariahs, yet ironically I have chosen to go with neither of these, and will be writing from the point of view of the third theory, which places Joel’s writings just prior to the Babylonian invasion – the view that is used in Mike Bickle’s Studies in Joel as well as David Malick’s article (see sources below).

So, I realize this was a lot of facts and possibly uninteresting information, but I wanted there to be an understanding of where I am coming from and the research and reasoning behind my particular point of view for the next parts of this series. Stay tuned!!

Read Part 2
Read Part 3

Sources:
Matthew Henry’s Commentary – Zechariah 1, Matthew 23
Bible.org – An Introduction to the Book of Joel – by David Malick
Hosea, Joel and Amos – by Bruce C. Birch (pg. 126)
Studies in Joel- by Mike Bickle (pg. 4)
Wikipedia – Book of Joel