“Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates ... are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch” (3:8). Miraculously, the Jews who had been exiled to Babylon were allowed to return to Judah and begin rebuilding Jerusalem and its Temple. God told the high priest Joshua that this amazing restoration pointed toward even greater “things to come.”  The God who rescued His people from exile would bring the Branch, the Messiah, to truly cleanse their sins and remove their shame (3:9).

“'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (4:6). The rescue, healing, and restoration we need does not come by human efforts or power. The Lord, by His Spirit, rebuilds the ruins.