CHAPTER 3 Dec. 20 
Rich Clothing to Replace Filthy Garments 
He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Yahweh, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. 2Yahweh said to Satan, Yahweh rebuke you, Satan! Yes, Yahweh who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this a burning stick plucked out of the fire?  3Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the angel. 4He answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, Take the filthy garments from him. To him he said, Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with rich clothing.  5I said, Let them set a clean turban on his head.  So they set a clean turban on his head, and clothed him; and the angel of Yahweh was standing by. 6The angel of Yahweh protested to Joshua, saying, 7Thus says Yahweh of Armies: ‘If you will walk in My ways, and if you will follow My instructions, then you also shall judge My house, and shall also keep My courts, and I will give you a place of access among these who stand by. 8Hear now, Joshua the high priest, you and your fellows who sit before you; for they are men who are a sign: for, behold, I will bring forth My servant, the Branch. 9For, behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes: behold, I will engrave its engraving’, says Yahweh of Armies, ‘and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. 10In that day’, says Yahweh of Armies, ‘every man will invite his neighbour to come under his vine and under his fig tree’.

Commentary

3:1 The context in Zechariah 3 was that of the restoration of the Jews to Jerusalem from Babylon under Ezra and Nehemiah. That situation was reflected in the Heavenly court. The Jews were trying to rebuild the temple and re-establish a system of worship there. However, “the people of the land” acted as a satan [‘Satan’ means ‘adversary’] to the Jews. They are actually called “the adversaries of Judah” in Ezra 4:1. They wrote an accusation against the (new) inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem to the king of Persia (Ezra 4:6). The Hebrew word for “accusation” is related to that translated “satan”. 3: 8 tells us that the characters of verses 1 and 2 are ‘men of sign’ i.e. we have to interpret them. So the satans - the adversaries - stood before the angel along with Joshua the High Priest, who “was clothed with filthy garments” (:3) - without a mitre on his head (:5 implies). The inhabitants of the land, the satan, were complaining to God, manifested in the angel, that the new Jewish high priest was not really valid, as he did not wear the proper clothes (they had probably been lost during the captivity). The angel rebukes the satan, and proceeds to clothe Joshua with a set of priestly clothes and a mitre (:4,5), thus showing God’s acceptance of him. The inference behind the complaint was that God had not really chosen Jerusalem for the Jews to rebuild, and that therefore they were going ahead with their plans without God behind them. But the angel says that the Lord has chosen Jerusalem, in the same way as He had chosen Joshua to be high priest. Thus Joshua represented Jerusalem. “Isn’t this a burning stick plucked out of the fire?”, the angel asks satan concerning Jerusalem. This is quoted in Jude 23 concerning saving repentant sinners. Thus the angel is in effect saying, ‘Jerusalem has repented, therefore I have plucked them out of the fire of judgment and destruction; you should not therefore be implying that Jerusalem and the Jews are so sinful that they cannot be restored to their land with Me behind them’.