Zechariah 3:7

judge my house This may mean "my people," Numbers 12:7; Hosea 8:1; the Jewish Church being spoken of, like the Christian, as the house of God, 1 Timothy 3:15. "Judgment, in the place of God, was part of the High Priest's office." (Pusey.) See Deuteronomy 17:8-13. But it may be used in its more obvious and restricted sense (comp. "my courts," in the parallel clause) of the Temple with its priests and ministers.

places to walk a place of access, R. V. text; meaning presumably of access to God. Thou shalt be admitted to the immediate presence and throne of God. There is no need, however, to depart from the rendering of A. V. and R. V. margin. Comp. Ezekiel 42:4 for the word, and see next note.

among these that stand by i.e. among the angels, who were still standing round the Angel of Jehovah, in attendance upon Him as He spoke, Zechariah 3:4. The courts and chambers of the material house, so the promise runs, shall be places where angels ever come and go. The obedient priest shall realise in his ministry their presence and their fellowship. The material and the sensible shall fade away as it were from his sight, lost in the higher glory of the spiritual and the heavenly. The promise directly refers to the ministry of Joshua and his fellows and successors on earth; even if it includes a pledge of a higher ministry after death: "In the resurrection of the dead I will raise thee to life, and give thee feet walking among these Seraphim." Targum. To one priest, we know, who walked in the ways and kept the charge of the Lord (Luke 1:6), the promise was literally fulfilled by the appearance of an angel to him in the Temple (Luke 3:11); and the readiness with which the people surmised what had happened (Luke 3:22) might seem to shew that his was not an altogether singular and unheard of experience.