Zechariah 2:1-4 - A city without walls

2:1,2

We continue with the images, this time Zechariah sees a man with a measuring line. He was going to go and see how wide and how long Jerusalem was. Shortly we will see that he is told not to do this. We tend to see things purely in terms of concepts that we are familiar with, and measure and assess everything in these terms. For the most part this works well, but when something completely new arises it will work no longer, and we need to be ready to use new wineskins at the appropriate time.

2:3,4

A second angel arrived and told the first one to stop the man with a measuring line. Remember that David was severely rebuked and punished for counting the fighting men of Israel (1 Chron 21).  The man was not to measure the city for the true Jerusalem would be a city without walls. A walled city would not be able to contain the extent of God’s plans for it. The religious leaders of Israel saw God’s plans purely in terms of Jerusalem and Israel, in reality God’s plans were far greater.