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Prisoner of What?

In the past two years, many have felt restrained and confined while living under this still present dark cloud of COVID.  Perhaps it’s been through the:

 

·         Social distancing and the unintended consequences it’s had on relationships;

 

·         Shelter at home orders or the lockdowns that ended up isolating people;

 

·         Requirements of wearing face coverings that diminished our ability to communicate;

 

·         Vaccination mandates that have put some at risk of losing employment.

 

Restrained and confined, it sounds like and actually fits the definition for the word “prisoner”.

This word “prisoner” appears in Zechariah 9:12 (ESV).  Some versions have translated the word as “captives” or “exiles” or even “hostages”.  None particularly sound like something that I would want to  be!

However, if you look at the verse, and this is where you will find the word used in a surprisingly counter-intuitive way, it refers to a prisoner of hope:  “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.”

Those who are restrained and confined as prisoners normally do not experience a whole lot of hope.  In fact, their situation is often quite the opposite, that of hopelessness.  So what is going on here?

Zechariah was a prophet to Israel around 500 BC.  This is when the Jews had started to return to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon. The ‘stronghold’ is believed by many to be the city of Jerusalem.

It’s likely a good interpretation that these prisoners of hope were prisoners with hope.  After all, God had told them He was returning them to a stronghold where they would experience a double fold restoration. 

But I still find the words “prisoners of hope” quite intriguing.  I’m wondering if it is possible to feel so restrained and constrained by hope that one feels locked up into it and a captive of it.  If so, could it also mean that when one is held in this mighty stronghold of hope that discouragement and despair cannot even enter in?

I do know that the opposite has been true for me.  At times, instead of being a prisoner of hope, I’ve been a prisoner of discouragement and despair!

Oh, may it be that as I put my hope in Christ, I can become a prisoner of hope.  And, may it be that I am so hemmed in by hope that when despair and discouragement come to drag me away, they can’t even penetrate the hope that so tightly surrounds me!

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