Zekharya 14 | "On That Day the Lord Shall Be One and His Name One"

We'll mention several key themes in this final prophecy of the Book of Zekharya:

The Battle over Jerusalem: The chapter opens with the image of all the nations gathering against Jerusalem, and with a statement that the spoils of war will be divided. At first glance, one might assume this refers to the spoils Israel will seize from its enemies after God will defeat them, similar to the prophecy in Mikha (4:11–13), where the gathering of Jerusalem's enemies is part of God's plan to strike them down, or the war of Gog and Magog in Yechezkel (Chapters 38–39), in which Gog is defeated without any account of the destruction. But here, it is the enemies who succeed in their scheme: “I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem in war: the city will be taken, the houses will be plundered, and the women will be raped; half of the city will go into exile, but the remainder of the people will not be cut off from the city” (14:2). The unexpected turn intensifies the pain of Jerusalem’s downfall, and only then, from within this calamity, does God intervene and overturn the natural order of the world.

“The Lord Shall Be One and His Name One”: God reveals Himself on the Mount of Olives, causing a great earthquake and an unnatural darkness. Out of this, living waters will flow from Jerusalem toward both the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. Later in the chapter, we also read of a plague that strikes the nations who had come against Jerusalem. This image of living waters is mentioned in Yechezkel 47 as well, where the waters flow eastward toward the Dead Sea, healing the curse that has lingered there since the days of Sedom. In Zekharya, however, the waters flow toward both the eastern sea and to the western sea – all directions. This expansion of living waters is part of the direct revelation of God, leading to one of the most exalted visions of redemption, which we recite in prayer several times each day: “Then the Lord shall be King over all the earth; On that day, the Lord shall be One, and His Name One” (14:9).

"Cannot be definitely known by man until they occur": The Rambam (Laws of Kings and Wars 12:2) writes that we cannot truly know what the redemption will look like until it actually unfolds. Perhaps the earthquake and the spring that emerges from Jerusalem describe real physical events. Perhaps they are metaphors for the Shekhina, for Torah, or for something else entirely. Still, if these prophecies were written in the Torah, then we are meant to study them and reflect on the messages they hold, even from these kind of prophecies.

“The Lord Shall Be One and His Name One”: Even without invoking 'Kabbalistic' concepts, we can understand that God's Name refers to the way human beings perceive and know God. The promise that “His Name shall be One” means that all people will come to recognize that there is one God, realize that He is the Lord, and they will believe in Him. When divine providence becomes so direct, when reward and punishment will be clear to all, even the nations of the world will turn to serve God, and Israel will dwell in safety.

The Festival of Tabernacle: In the final scene of the prophecy, the nations once again ascend to Jerusalem, but this time, to celebrate the festival of Tabernacle (Sukkot) and to bow before God. Sukkot is the universal festival, where we celebrate God’s governance of the world and includes prayers for rain and sustenance. (This is unlike Passover which centers on the covenant between God and the people of Israel). In the Midrash, Chazal teach that the total number of sacrifices offered over the course of Sukkot, seventy, corresponds to the seventy nations of the world. Even today, the universal character of Sukkot finds expression in the procession of nations that takes place in Jerusalem during the festival.

“Every Pot in Jerusalem and Yehuda will Be Sacred”: At the conclusion of the prophecy, Zekharya emphasizes that every pot in Jerusalem will serve the Temple. This reflects not only the abundance of sacrifices, which will require all the pots to be enlisted for sacred use, but also symbolizes the unity that will exist between the sacred and the mundane, when the entire secular realm will be mobilized in service of the Temple.