Shall go up from year to year
To worship the King, Jehovah of Hosts,
And to keep the feast of Tabernacles.
Nations will be left after the tribulation and the wrath—this is clear from many passages of the Word. In the New Testament we have the statement made at the first council in Jerusalem. “Brethren, hearken unto me; Simeon hath rehearsed how God at first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After these things I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called,” etc. (Acts iv: 15-18). Number one is the visitation of the Gentiles, a calling out of a people for His name, and we are still living in number one. Number two is His return, the building again and setting up of the tabernacle of David, which can only come after the calling out of a people is accomplished the fullness of the Gentiles come in; and number two and the events connected with it we have learned from the studies in Zechariah. Then follows number three, the residue of men seeking after the Lord. In verse 16, they that are left of the nations correspond with the residue of men in Acts iv. The temple will then stand in Jerusalem as the house of glory and a house of prayer for all nations. There will be a perfect worship, grand and glorious, and it will not be confined to Israel, but the nations will join in it. We may learn perhaps from this verse that the Lord will leave every year once His place on His throne over the earth and come down to Jerusalem and show Himself in His glory before the worshipping multitudes in the earth, as He is seen in the New Jerusalem above. The occasion is the feast of Tabernacles. It is the millennial feast. It is a feast kept in remembrance of Israel’s wanderings through the wilderness for forty years and all their subsequent wanderings. It stands also for the ingathering of the full harvest. A feast of joy, praise, and thanksgiving. The Jews keep it to the present day, though few know the full meaning of it. Every year when it comes again they read this 14th chapter of Zechariah. It is strange indeed. What a glorious feast that will be, kept there in Jerusalem, when the fullness at last has come! The fullness of the Gentiles has been gathered in, and is in the New Jerusalem; the fullness of Israel has come in the earth, and their receiving has been life from the dead, and the Gentiles know the glory of the Lord. Some find a difficulty here in the fact that it is stated that the nations, the residue of men, are to come up to Jerusalem, and the difficulty is that it will be impossible for all of them to do that. It is not at all necessary that every individual must go up to Jerusalem once in a year. Perhaps every nation will send representatives to the feast of Tabernacles, and they come in the name of the different nations and bring their presents. This seems to be indicated in the visit of the wise men from the East, who came to Bethlehem to worship the new-born King (Matthew ii). They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, In Isaiah lx: 6 we read of the coming of the Gentiles to Jerusalem when the Lord has come again. They shall come from Sheba; they shall bring gold and frankincense (the myrrh is left out here, for it speaks of suffering), and shall proclaim the praises of the Lord. As the wise men who came to Bethlehem were representatives of nations, so during the Millennium the nations will send delegations to the feast of Tabernacles. What a scene that must be! How crowded Jerusalem will be by those from Greenland and from the interior of Africa, from India and the islands of the sea, as well as from the nations which composed the Roman empire. The ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God, and now their praise is heard in the city and mingling with the psalms sung by His own redeemed people.
Verses 17-19. And it shall be that whoso of all the families of the earth
Shall not go up to Jerusalem
To worship the King, Jehovah of Hosts,
Upon them there shall be no rain.
And if the family of Egypt go not up and come not,
Upon them shall be none.