The Prophecy about Alexander the Great

Zechariah 9:1-8

Zechariah 9:1-8 Human conqueror- Alexander the Great!

Zechariah 9:1-8, The burden of the word of the Lord Against the land of Hadrach, And Damascus its resting place (For the eyes of men And all the tribes of Israel Are on the Lord); 2 Also against Hamath, which borders on it, And against Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise. 3 For Tyre built herself a tower, Heaped up silver like the dust, And gold like the mire of the streets. 4 Behold, the Lord will cast her out; He will destroy her power in the sea, And she will be devoured by fire. 5 Ashkelon shall see it and fear; Gaza also shall be very sorrowful; And Ekron, for He dried up her expectation. The king shall perish from Gaza, And Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. 6 “A mixed race shall settle in Ashdod, And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. 7 I will take away the blood from his mouth, And the abominations from between his teeth. But he who remains, even he shall be for our God, And shall be like a leader in Judah, And Ekron like a Jebusite. 8 I will camp around My house Because of the army, Because of him who passes by and him who returns. No more shall an oppressor pass through them, For now I have seen with My eyes.

A great prophetic word comes to us in this chapter. One of the great proofs of the Scripture is that God knows the future.

Why you can trust your Bible? The greatest proof of the truth of the Bible is fulfilled prophecy. What God predicted that came to pass with such amazing accuracy. Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world and the King of Kings, is going to return to earth for the purpose of establishing the kingdom promised to Israel and all those who have trusted in Him.

We, as Christians, anticipate this, Kingdom. We anticipate the reversing of the Adamic curse and the creating of an earth that is all that God ever designed it to be, where Jesus Christ reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Many of the details of that coming Kingdom and of Jesus Christ’s return to establish it, are indicated to us in Scripture. A major element in the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament deals with the coming of the Kingdom.

The prophets talked frequently. How is history going to come to an end?

How are the nations going to be judged? How God’s King, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, will come and reign supreme?

How will that God fulfill the promise to David given in 2 Samuel chapter 7? How will that God fulfill the promise given to Abraham? This one will come and not only conquer the nations, He will redeem Israel and into that Kingdom will go all the believing saints of all the ages. This is a great theme in the Bible.

The New Testament is full of statements like “The coming of the Lord is at hand.” Christians have always believed they lived on the edge of the return of Christ. There are things that are happening today that make us convinced more than ever that this is true.

Ezekiel has much to say about the coming of Jesus Christ, and particularly about what is going to happen in regarding a great war that will occur. Ezekiel 39, we find something of the aftermath of Armageddon. The great battle of Armageddon will occur at the end of the Tribulation, just before the Lord Jesus returns to establish His Kingdom.

The battle of Armageddon, described in the book of Revelation, as well as in Ezekiel and in Zechariah, will be a battle where all the nations of the world are at war.

Christ will come and defeat them all and establish His Kingdom. There are some interesting things about the phases of that particular battle.

Ezekiel 39:1-3, “And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal; 2 and I will turn you around and lead you on, bringing you up from the far north, and bring you against the mountains of Israel. 3 Then I will knock the bow out of your left hand, and cause the arrows to fall out of your right hand.

God is going to destroy five-sixths of this great army from the north that descends upon Israel in the Tribulation.

Ezekiel 39:4-5, You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. 5 You shall fall on the open field; for I have spoken,” says the Lord God.

The first thing we read in this prophecy is that the ravenous birds will devour the carcasses of the five-sixths of the remains of this northern army.

Revelation 19:17-19, Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, 18 that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.” 19 And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. After the Armageddon, God calls the birds of the heavens, the ravenous birds, to come and to feed on the flesh of the kings and the captains and the great men and the hosts of all of those that have been slain in this great battle. So, there is a great feast of the birds at that time. As we look at the Book of Zechariah, not with a sort of a different eye but with a great amount of interest.

We hear the prophet Zechariah begin to tell us what is going to happen when Messiah comes. We know He is coming, we believe it could be very nearby. Zechariah 9 is about the overthrow of world power and the establishment of Jesus Christ as the King.

Zechariah 9-14 the whole section is prophecy related to the downfall of the nations and the salvation of Israel. When Zechariah lived the children of Israel had just returned from the Babylonian captivity. They had come back to a land that was just in rubble. It had been destroyed and they had been taken off for 70 years of captivity. They had come back and they had begun to rebuild.

But they had been halted in the process. It was in ruins. The former glory was only a memory. The nations all around them were not only indifferent but threatening because there was no way that they would be able to defend themselves against an attack.

They knew nothing of what they had once known, and so God wanted to encourage them to rebuild the city. To encourage them that

• He was still their God,
• He was still on their side,
• He would still take care of them,
• He would still protect them.

God sent two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, both of them were to encourage the people to return and continue the building.

Both of them were saying to the people, “God will be with you, God will help you rebuild, the city will be restored, the nation will be protected, you will gain a measure of reputation back that you used to have. God will take care of you.”

Zechariah begins his marvelous letter with that great promise.

Zechariah 1:13, And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words.

Zechariah 1:17, “Again proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “My cities shall again spread out through prosperity;

The Lord will again comfort Zion, And will again choose Jerusalem.” ’ ” The message was a comforting message. God is comforting them in the confidence that though they have come back from captivity, though their land is a rubble, their great and glorious city of Jerusalem is in ruins, though this is true, God is going to comfort them in restoring all the things that are needful.

All throughout those first nine chapters, we heard the message of Zechariah as he said, “God is with you. God will help you rebuild.”

As we move to the 9 -14 chapters, that vision expands into a prophetic future. The prophet now sees is not the immediate rebuilding of Jerusalem in the time of Zechariah, but the great restoration of the whole Kingdom of God that comes in the end times.

He just moves in one great giant step from history to the fulfillment of prophecy at the end of the age. The emphasis here is that God loves Israel and that because of that He will fulfill His promise. His promise is not only to rebuild Israel historically, but His promise is to fulfill the promise of the Kingdom in the end time.

This becomes the theme of the end of this wonderful prophecy. God had promised them a temporal restoration. God had promised them a historical city that would be built, and it was built just a few decades after Zechariah’s time. God promised them that and He made it come to pass.

It was simply a way to prove to them that God meant His promises. So that every Jew from then on could say, when somebody asks whether God will bring a Kingdom, remember that He also said He would restore our city in history and He

did that. If God kept His word, then, have confidence He will keep His Word in the future. But this is something we want to remember in studying the Old Testament. Frequently whenever God gave a future prophecy, He also at the very same time gave an historical element to that prophecy so that there would be like a signpost along the way.

When they see the historical part come to pass, they would then believe God for the future prophetic element. Zechariah 9- 14 can be divided into two parts.

• Zechariah 9-11 deals with political.
• Zechariah 12-14 deals with Spiritual.

Zechariah 9-11 deals with the destruction of the nations, establishing of Israel in priority and prominence. Zechariah 12-14, is primarily emphasizing the spiritual or the salvation of the nation, drawing them back to God.

Chapter 9, although we will see salvation here, the main emphasis is on the political picture. God often when referring to a future promise or a future judgment, secured people’s faith and confidence that it would happen in the future by adding a more immediate historical

fulfillment so that they could see tangibly a token of God’s promise for a long, long distant future. Daniel prophesied the Antichrist in the end time. But he also prophesied the coming of a willful king not many years after he lived who did come. his name was Antiochus Epiphanes. He was the Greek who was prophesied by Daniel.

Daniel picturing the Antichrist way at the end of history, and yet not so far from him predicting another man who came and desecrated the temple by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus is given in the prophecy as a signpost so that when people say, that part came to pass then the next part is also guaranteed by the token of God’s fulfillment of part number one.

Very often in prophecy, you have a localized or historical element which keeps us on the track and keeps our confidence up that what God promised for the future, He will also perform. So, God connects us to the future with historical fulfillments.

Zechariah chapter 9 distinguish two major points. This is about two conquerors. 1. Conqueror number one is in V 1 to 8. 2. Conqueror number two is in V 9 -17.

Conqueror number one is predicted as the historical element of the prophecy to keep you on the track. The real message is conqueror number two. But God gives the first prophecy, which we can look back at and know was fulfilled to the very letter, as a guarantee or a pledge that He is going to fulfill part two.

The first conqueror is a human conqueror. His name is not given in the text but his name is readily obvious, Alexander the Great. God predicts the details of the conquering of Alexander the Great and says this human conqueror will come and when you see him, you can know that you are on the right track to seeing the fulfillment of part two.

But there’s a further element. Alexander the Great who was an unrighteous, ungodly pagan, and he was only a human being, was used by God as an agent to destroy the nations and to save Israel. A pagan godless apostate human being named Alexander the Great was a tool of God to punish or judge the nations and to save Israel.

In doing so, he is a picture of what the future Christ will be.

The message the prophet is giving is this. If God can judge the nations and save Israel, and do it through a godless pagan human being, imagine what He will do in the end time through God in human flesh, the divine conqueror when He comes.

V 1, The burden of the word of the Lord Against the land of Hadrach, And Damascus its resting place (For the eyes of men And all the tribes of Israel Are on the Lord); The word “burden” is Massa in Hebrew it means to take up or lift up and it was a word that was used as a burden, a heavy burden.

It came to be used for something that was a great burden on the back of a prophet. He would literally take up a cause and he would unbear his heart, he would unbear his burden, he would declare a woe, or a heavy judgment.

The word came to be synonymous with a prediction of a threatening act of judgment, a judgment oracle, a judgment prediction, a judgment prophecy. So here is the prophecy of judgment. This particular judgment is coming from the Word of the Lord to the land of Hadrach.

Now this is a very obscure place. We don’t really know what this is. Archaeologically, we can’t identify Hadrach. Some think it is the ancient village of Hatarikka which is similar mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian kings which was around Damascus in the Syrian area to the east and north of Palestine.

If you take the two terms, “had” and “rach,” had means sharp and rach means soft. So, it is the land “sharp soft.” This could be a reference to the dual kingdom that existed in that day which was the kingdom of the Medes the Persians.

The Medo-Persian Kingdom. The Medes were sharp. They were like swords. They were the conquerors that produced Cyrus and Darius. The Persians were the effeminate softies that turned the whole thing into a debauchery. In fact, the Persians became a synonym for effeminacy which is man behaving like a woman.

The Medes and the Persians hidden in the Hebrew word Hadrach. The reason it’s hidden here is so that they don’t start a war when Zechariah pronounces the prophecy. A possibility.

So, it’s either a place or it’s a title for the Medo-Persian area. But no matter what, it’s talking about the area of Syria, the Medo-Persian area. We notice the place where this judgment is going to rest, is in Damascus.

But Damascus is a very ancient city. That city was to be the seat where this judgment fell. Now this was one of Israel’s worst enemies. Syria, in which the capital was Damascus, from the time about 900 to 721 B.C. was a terrible fearful opponent of Israel.

The target of judgment is going to be Damascus and it will hit Damascus and then it will spread. Now, this is precisely where Alexander comes into the picture. At the battle of Issus 333 B.C. This battle in southeast Asia Minor, Alexander defeated Darius, he defeated the Persians and began to break the back of the Medo-Persian Empire.

Immediately when he defeated them, that just threw open the door to Syria. Alexander then moved east from Greece and he moved through Syria. When he had knocked off Syria, Damascus and Hadrach in that area, he then swept to the coast and he swept through the Phoenician countries.

Alexander came to the south part of the land of Israel, to the Philistine cities. He swept through there and he was on his way to Egypt, on his way to conquer the great powers of the world. Lightning swift conquests moving toward Egypt occurred after he had won the battle of Issus and broken the back of the Medo-Persian Empire.

The Holy Spirit here in this chapter reveals the whole plan to us. Incidentally, this is written centuries before Alexander was born. That’s why it doesn’t name him. He didn’t exist. Yet every detail of his crusade is here.

Alexander first defeats the Medes and the Persians and the city of Damascus. V 2, Hamath is also a very important city. Hamath was like a territory within the Medo-Persian Empire which was like a kingdom state, and Hamath was the capital city. It may be well that the modern village of Hama is the place where ancient Hamath existed.

Alexander comes in and for all intents and purposes he just wipes out the great power of Syria, the great city of Damascus. V 1, “When the eyes of man as of all the tribes of Israel shall be toward the Lord.”

This judgment is going to come and when it comes, the eyes of human kind, the eyes of people, tribes of Israel shall be toward the Lord.

What does that mean? When Alexander began to sweep to the east, the whole world in fear began to fix their gaze on him. The Gentile countries, Syria, Phoenicia, the great sailors of the world, the merchants of the world, Philistia, the great army, those nations began to look at Alexander with fear and trembling, and even Egypt and Pharaoh were shaking in his boots. The tribes of Israel were looking.

They were looking toward the Lord. Looking at Alexander, they were seeing the instrument of God. They were seeing the Lord coming in judgment through this man. God throughout history has used ungodly men to act in judgment.

Read the book of Habakkuk. God uses the ungodly Chaldeans as His instruments. Remember how Cyrus, who was an ungodly pagan, was used by God to open the door to lead Israel back to its land. God again and again has used the ungodly.

Herod became a servant of the Lord. In his own unwitting, foolish rebellion against God, God used him to bring about what ultimately amounted to the death of Jesus Christ, the act that redeemed all the redeemed of all the ages.

God has always used the wrath of men to praise Him. God has often used pagan people to bring about His judgment. God uses Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was a tool of God to accomplish God’s judgment against pagan nations.

He was simply God’s servant. The prediction is that God is going to do this. First Syria, Then Phoenicia, Then Philistia on the way to Egypt. V 2, Also against Hamath, which borders on it, And against Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.

Now Tyre and Sidon. Sidon, incidentally, was a small city, its only significance being in its proximity and attachment to Tyre which was the great city. Tyre and Sidon were the capital cities of the country of Phoenicia. Phoenicia was the land of the great maritime

accomplishments, great ships and ship building and merchantry went on in Phoenicia. This was a great empire. Tyre was the main city and Sidon was seen only as it accommodated itself to Tyre. V 3-4, For Tyre built herself a tower, Heaped up silver like the dust, And gold like the mire of the streets. 4 Behold, the Lord will cast her out; He will destroy her power in the sea, And she will be devoured by fire.

Amazing incredible statement. Even though Tyre and Sidon were first of all very wise. They had all worldly wisdom. They really felt themselves invincible. They felt nobody could conquer them. Years before Alexander ever got there, they had been conquered. When they were conquered by the Babylonians, they proceeded to move their city from the mainland to an island a half mile off shore. They had set up housekeeping on that island. It was a very small island. It was a fortress. It was literally a rock.

Stronghold built herself a stronghold. The city was built on a fortified rock. In addition to that, they built a wall around the entire island 150 feet high.

150 feet wall around Tyre. To say nothing of the fact that it was a half-mile off shore. The fact that the Phoenicians were the greatest sailors with the greatest navies in the world to defend it. They felt they were invincible.

But they were evil. It was a vile evil city.

Ezekiel 28:1-2, The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 2 “Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Because your heart is lifted up, And you say, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, In the midst of the seas,’ Yet you are a man, and not a god, Though you set your heart as the heart of a god.

The human prince really had an ego problem. I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the sea. Nobody can do anything with me. He attacks this proud king.

Ezekiel 28:11-17, Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. 14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain

of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. 17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you.

This is Satan. Satan is not omnipresent. He can only be at one place at one time and he chose to set up his kingdom in Tyre. That will give you some idea of how rotten it is. Before you judge God for judging these nations, you have to realize what they had stooped to. Satan was the king of Tyre.

The man who was the human instrument was a possessed man, possessed by the devil himself. So corrupted, so God- opposing, so dishonoring, so debauched that God used Alexander the Great to judge. So, though they were smart and fortified. They were loaded with money. They piled up silver and gold like the dust.

They were proud, they were invincible and they were wealthy. But worldly wisdom and natural strength and fortification and

material resources are absolutely useless when God comes in judgment.

V 4, Behold, the Lord will cast her out; He will destroy her power in the sea, And she will be devoured by fire. Every single detail in that verse was accomplished by Alexander the Great! He came there and he got very upset. He sent a boat out and said, “I want supplies from you,” and they said, “Forget it, Alexander, who are you?”

So, he took all the rubble that was left from the ancient city, threw it in the sea and he built a causeway, one half mile. He built a causeway, that’s how serious he was about this. He got irritated. He did it in seven months. He marched his army out there and defeated the city.

He also got all of the surrounding nations which he had conquered, to get all of their navies together and used them to help in the effort. In seven months. Listen. Shalmaneser couldn’t do it in five years. He did it in seven months. Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t do it in 13 years.

He did it in seven months. Because it was time for God’s judgment.

The city came crashing down. It was the end. Today there is absolutely nothing there of any significance whatsoever. God is saying to the people that, I am going to judge the nations in the end. I am going to come in judgment with My Messiah. To show you that I can do it with the Messiah, look what I could do with a pagan.

I could knock off the most fortified impregnable invincible city in the world. Now when My Messiah comes, there will be no escaping. When this came to pass with Alexander the Great, it was like a great big signpost saying, “You are on the right track, God will keep His promise.”

God kept it here in part one of the prophecy, you can be sure for part two. Alexander wiped out Syria. He has done with Phoenicia. Moving south, the next place he comes is to Philistia. V 5, Ashkelon shall see it and fear; Gaza also shall be very sorrowful; And Ekron, for He dried up her expectation. The king shall perish from Gaza, And Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.

The Philistines are shaking in the proverbial sandals. They have watched Alexander wipe out the Medo-Persian power in the battle of Issus. They have seen him sweep with lightning swiftness to the east. They have seen him do in Syria, and in seven months, wipe out an impregnable fortress and take for all intents and purposes the whole nation of Phoenicia.

Now they see him coming south and they panic and they have well right to panic because he comes right to Philistia and accomplishes the same thing. He conquered them. History records something of Alexander’s defeat of Gaza in detail.

All the other cities kind of went down easy, they didn’t want to get too involved in fighting Alexander. They did the best they could for a little while. They gave up. But Gaza tried to resist and it took him five months to get to Gaza. By the end of the five months, he was very angry.

To show his anger, he gave them no semi-independence which he did for nations that knuckled under. He took their king, took great spikes and drilled holes through the feet of the king, wrapped thongs through the holes and dragged him through the streets of the city till he was dead. The annals of Alexander even give his name, his name is Betis.

We see it in both ways. Exactly what verse 5 said, hundreds of years before Alexander was ever born.

V 6, “A mixed race shall settle in Ashdod, And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.

The Philistines would lose their country to some kind of scavengers, some mongrel people.

Why? Because they were proud and God broke their pride with Alexander. They have never been anything since. Their name doesn’t even exist. There is a little bit of grace in verse 7, because even in the terrible destruction of the Philistines, there was something good.

V 7, I will take away the blood from his mouth, And the abominations from between his teeth. But he who remains, even he shall be for our God, And shall be like a leader in Judah, And Ekron like a Jebusite. The Philistine nation in verse 7 is pictured like a man.

This man has blood in his mouth and abominations between his teeth. Philistines in their pagan worship used to make blasphemous sacrifices. They would drink the blood and eat the sacrificial meat. Like in 1 Corinthians 8, meat offered to idols and drinking blood. Acts 15 talks about the pagans that did that.

Literally drinking blood and eating abominating sacrifices. He says here that this purging by God, this use of Alexander to wipe out their country will cause them to spit out their idolatry, to take the blood out of their mouths and the abominations from between their teeth, and he that remains, those who remain after this shall be for our God.

It had a redeeming effect on a remnant of the Philistines, so that at the time of Alexander some of the Philistines turned to God. In any time of God’s judgment, there’s always a place for the repentant remnant, Remember in Malachi when God said I am going to come in judgment and some gathered together and began to pray. And He said, “I haven’t forgotten you. I have a book of remembrance for you, and you shall be Mine in the day that I make up My jewel.”

God always remembers the repentant no matter what the circumstance of judgment. He says this is going to have a good effect. They will spit out their idols. They will be taken out of their mouths and the remaining ones shall be for our God. They will be like ruler or –

or like a commander, a man who has authority over a thousand in Judah. They will become like a ruler in Judah. They will become like a big shot. They will move into Judah. These Philistines, as pagan as they were, once they spit out their idols and come to God, they will be in Israel like a ruler.

God exalts that. Remember who dwelled in the city of Jerusalem when David took it from Jebusites. When David took the city and made it the city of God, many of the Jebusites believed in the true God and they remained in that city. He is saying the same thing here.

They are going to be accepted just like the Jebusites. There would be a revival there and there would be those who would be a part of Israel’s life because they worshiped Israel’s God. It would be not unlike 2 Samuel 24 where you have Araunah, who was the Jebusite who became a respected and beloved friend of David.

So, judgment is coming, says Zechariah. It is going to come in a marvelous way. It’s going to come sweeping to the east through Syria, Phoenicia, Philistia and south to Israel. But nobody in history can fulfill that except

Alexander the Great and he did. It’s one of the greatest signposts of prophecy in the Bible. If you go right south, Phoenicia, Philistia next stop would be Jerusalem. V 8, I will camp around My house Because of the army, Because of him who passes by and him who returns. No more shall an oppressor pass through them, For now I have seen with My eyes.

This is God talking. The first part of the verse is precisely describing the exact advance against Palestine. “God will encamp about mine house.”

What would that be?

Where was God’s dwelling place? Jerusalem. God would encamp and the army would pass by and then it would do return. Most interesting. Alexander would never conquer Jerusalem. God would encamp it and protect it. Says nothing about a conquering of Jerusalem. Mine house, God will encamp.

What happened? Alexander sent word to the Jewish high priest at that time, whose name was Jaddua. He said, “You must pay tribute to me.” Jaddua was caught in between because he had his allegiance to Persia because Persia was ruling the world at that time and it was just in the middle of the conquering there. So, he refused to do that.

Alexander went in a rage and he said, “I am coming and I am going to destroy Jerusalem to its foundations as soon as I am finished with the rest of these cities on the way.” So, after taking Gaza and dragging King Betis clear through town, wiping out that, he planned to go to Jerusalem.

The high priest called all the people of Israel together, according to Josephus, and he demanded that they all sacrifice to God and fall on their knees and pray for deliverance. One night God gave the high priest a dream and He told him in the dream to go out and meet Alexander on the road and welcome him to the city, which would have been a little strange.

So, he did. Alexander and his army were marching along to the city and the high priest went out to meet him. He led a procession.

The high priest put on his purple robes and his scarlet robes and his miter with its gold and the inscription, the name of God engraved. He had all the attendant priests. There were priests all over the place in Israel. So many priests, because you had to wait your turn, so many of them. They were all there, marching in white. When Alexander saw this, he was literally bowled over by it and he saluted with respect to God and he bent down and bowed and he said that he had recently had a dream while he was in Macedonia and in that dream. He had seen this very priest and this procession. As a result, he said, “I will treat Jerusalem with kindness.”

He passed by to Egypt. He returned right back by again and never touched the hair of a head of anybody in Jerusalem. Alexander judged the nations but he also was used to save the city of Jerusalem. What God is saying in this text is, if God can use a pagan king in such a miraculous way to judge the ungodly and to save God’s people, imagine what He can do with a divine King yet to come in the future.

The judgment will be all the greater, as much greater as Christ is than Alexander. The salvation will be all the greater, as much greater as Christ is than Alexander.

V 8, “and no oppressor shall pass through them anymore.” Can only refer to the Second Coming. There is the transition in the chapter. All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit takes us in a huge leap from Alexander to Jesus Christ.

When Jesus comes and destroys the nations and saves His people, then no oppressor will ever pass through them anymore for God has seen with His eyes. Jesus will come and He will judge the nations in a judgment infinitely beyond anything Alexander ever dreamed, with a might and a power beyond the conception of man so that the whole earth will literally fall in judgment.

Alexander is a signpost of salvation. As we see him save and spare the people of Israel, so shall we see in the day that Jesus comes that He will spare His people Israel. The Bible says God will redeem Israel and give them their Kingdom.