And I shall certainly gather all the nations against Jerusalem for the war; and the city will actually be captured and the houses be pillaged, and the women themselves will be raped. And half of the city must go forth into the exile; but as for the remaining ones of the people, they will not be cut off from the city.

Those divine words are addressed to a higher city, to “a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem,” to which the Christian congregation of spiritual Israelites has approached. (Hebrews 12:22) But how can that be? How can Jehovah of armies gather all the earthly nations against the “heavenly Jerusalem,” and this city be captured by them and its houses be pillaged, its women be raped, and half of the city go off into the exile?

4. In his Sermon on the Mount, what did Jesus call Jerusalem, and to what did earthly Jerusalem renounce its right at the time of his triumphal ride into it?

⁴ Let us recall to mind what was represented by the ancient Jerusalem down to the days of Christ’s apostles. Remember Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not swear at all, neither by heaven, because it is God’s throne; . . . nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.” (Matthew 5:34, 35) Down till the year 607 B.C.E., “Jehovah’s throne” used to be there in Jerusalem, it being a material throne occupied by an anointed royal descendant of David with whom Jehovah made a covenant for an everlasting kingdom in his family line. In the year 33 C.E., when Jesus, the spirit-anointed descendant of King David, rode in a triumphal procession into Jerusalem, that city did not want him as King. Thus the earthly Jerusalem renounced its right to have the Permanent Heir of King David sit upon a royal throne within it. Its Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, had Jesus Christ put to death on an execution stake just outside the walls of Jerusalem.​—Matthew 21:1-43.

5. How was God’s promise of an everlasting kingdom in the line of David not allowed to fail because of Jesus’ violent death?

⁵ Was the divine promise of an everlasting kingdom in the royal line of David to fail because of this violent death of David’s spirit-anointed Permanent Heir? Impossible! The unbelieving Jews, led by their religious shepherds, took Jesus to be a false Christ. But not so! For on the third day the Almighty God of heaven did the humanly impossible. He raised the real Permanent Heir of King David from the dead, not giving him back his forever-sacrificed fleshly body, but giving him spirit nature, the “divine nature,” clothed with immortality. That is the meaning of the Christian apostle Peter’s own words: “Even Christ died once for all time concerning sins, a righteous person for unrighteous ones, that he might lead you to God, he being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit.”​—1 Peter 3:18; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 Corinthians 15:42-45, 53, 54.

6. (a) To whose presence did the resurrected Jesus ascend, and what did he do there? (b) How did the apostle Peter’s words to the inquiring Jews at Pentecost indicate that the right to have Jehovah’s throne in her had passed from earthly Jerusalem?

⁶ On the fortieth day therefrom this transformed Jesus Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem to the invisible heavenly presence of Jehovah God, to present to the Supreme Judge the ransoming value of his perfect human sacrifice. Ten days later, on Sivan 6 of 33 C.E., or the festival day of Pentecost, Jehovah God used his returned Son Jesus Christ to pour out the holy spirit upon the apostle Peter and over a hundred other waiting disciples assembled in an upper room in earthly Jerusalem. Consequently, under the dynamic force of that outpoured spirit, the apostle Peter said to the crowd of thousands of inquiring Jews: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for a certainty that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you impaled.” (Acts 1:12-15; 2:1-36) Those words signified that the right to have a representative throne of Jehovah occupied by the Permanent Heir of King David had passed from the earthly Jerusalem to the “city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem.”​—Matthew 21:42-44.

7. In view of the Jerusalem involved, what questions arise as to fulfillment of Zechariah 14:2?

⁷ None of the nations of earth, either Jewish or Gentile, can dethrone Jesus Christ from his royal seat in the “heavenly Jerusalem.” Neither can any nation or gathering of nations actually capture the “heavenly Jerusalem” and pillage it. How, then, can the prophecy of Zechariah 14:2 be applied to the “heavenly Jerusalem” and find a fulfillment in it? How, if at all, has it been fulfilled in the case of the “heavenly Jerusalem”? If so, when?

The issue over which that war is to be fought is to be settled at the compelling world situation “that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon.” Already we can see all the political nations being gathered by diabolical leadings to that location for the unavoidable confrontation. (Revelation 16:13-16)

12. What, in this connection, could the nations not directly attack, and so what did they attack, in expression of what feeling?

¹² In defiance of the evidence that began to pile up from 1914 onward, the Gentile nations did not want to believe or choose to believe that their term of world power without opposition from any Messianic kingdom of God had ended. They could not undo what had taken place in the “heavenly Jerusalem” in that year. They could not directly attack that invisible heavenly city and its Messianic King, Jesus Christ. But they could attack what represented it on earth. They could attack the anointed remnant of the “congregation of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens.” They could attack this remnant of “ambassadors substituting for Christ” who were notifying the nations of the end of the Gentile Times in 1914. They could attack this remnant of “heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ.” (Hebrews 12:22, 23; 2 Corinthians 5:20; Ephesians 6:20; Romans 8:16, 17) That is exactly what the war-engulfed nations did. Revelation 11:18 had said, prophetically: “The nations became wrathful.” They expressed their wrath by persecuting the anointed remnant.

13. The nations were in effect attacking the “heavenly Jerusalem” because of what spiritual aspects of the anointed remnant under attack, and when did they think they had ‘captured the city’?

¹³ What the nations did to this remnant of Kingdom ambassadors, Kingdom heirs, enrolled in the heavens, was the same as if done to the “heavenly Jerusalem,” where those of the anointed remnant have their “citizenship.” (Philippians 3:20) Those nations began to war, not just against the anointed remnant, but against all that they represented and what they preached. Jehovah God the Almighty did not prevent this, for he had foretold it. (Zechariah 14:1, 2) He had foretold: “The city will actually be captured.” Was it? As represented by the anointed remnant, it was. There was a confining of many members of the anointed remnant in the military encampments or in prisons. But the nations felt that they had indeed “captured” the spiritual “city” when, during the spring and summer of 1918, they arrested and railroaded off to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., seven outstanding members of the Governing Body of the anointed remnant.a

14. What happened to earthly Jerusalem in the years 1917, 1948 and 1967 C.E. was of what importance to the fulfillment of Zechariah 14:1-4, and why?

¹⁴ The capture of Jerusalem in Palestine some months earlier by British General Allenby, whose troops marched into Jerusalem on December 10, 1917, the next day after its surrender, played no part in fulfilling Zechariah 14:2. Earthly Jerusalem was captured from the Islamic Turks, who certainly do not worship the God with the name Jehovah. The Sovereign Lord Jehovah had decreed the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem of the Jews, and neither before nor after its destruction in the year 70 C.E. did he issue authorization for that earthly city to be rebuilt by his people. What was now of real and foremost importance to him was the higher Jerusalem, the “heavenly Jerusalem.” So in the case of an earthly Jerusalem, that was rebuilt in the second century by non-Jewish or Gentile hands, what happened to it in 1917 C.E., or 1948 C.E. or in 1967 C.E. was of no importance and had no connection with the fulfillment of Zechariah 14:1-4.

15. Besides such imprisonment and detention, what else occurred during World War I to correspond with mistreatment of the inhabitants of the captured “Jerusalem”?

¹⁵ During World War I, besides imprisonments and detention in military encampments, there were widespread mobbings and mistreatment of members of the anointed remnant who represented the “heavenly Jerusalem.” Much of their property was also destroyed. (See The Golden Age, No. 27, as of September 29, 1920, featuring “‘Distress of Nations’: Cause, Warning, Remedy.”) The unchristian injustice and brutality that thus occurred corresponded with what Zechariah 14:1, 2 foretold: “The city will actually be captured and the houses be pillaged, and the women themselves will be raped.”

16. (a) How did some go forth into the exile, as foretold? (b) How was the “spoil” of the city apportioned out in the midst of it according to the prophecy?

¹⁶ Doubtless, this persecution alienated many members away from the anointed remnant, the enemy thus carrying them into spiritual exile; as it was foretold: “And half of the city must go forth into the exile.”

17. Who proved to be the “remaining ones” concerning whom it was prophesied: “They will not be cut off from the city”?

¹⁷ Despite all the misrepresentation, opposition and persecution at the hands of the attackers, there was a faithful part of the anointed remnant that refused to be alienated, exiled, from the Messianic kingdom of God as now set up in the “heavenly Jerusalem.” These are the ones referred to when the prophecy says: “But as for the remaining ones of the people, they will not be cut off from the city.” So these are the ones that survived the hardships and trials of the first world war, which the enemies used as a fine occasion to attack the anointed remnant and despoil them of their ambassadorship for Jehovah’s Messianic kingdom.

18. Was that attack of the gathered nations during World War I the last attack in fulfillment of the prophecy, and what already proves whether or not?

¹⁸ We are not to think, however, that with the close of World War I the prophecy was carried out to the full and there were to be no more mass attacks by the gathered nations. The “heavenly Jerusalem” still remained, and it had a devoted remnant of loyal representatives on earth, to whom the earthly interests of God’s Messianic kingdom had been entrusted. As might well be expected, that World War I attack upon them by the gathered nations was not the last attack launched against the “heavenly Jerusalem” and its spiritual citizens on earth. World War II of 1939-1945 proved that. It provided for the embattled nations an excellent opportunity to resume the attack, yes, on even a more massive scale and with greater violence. More plainly than ever, this atrocious war between the earthly nations was for world domination, in defiance of Jehovah’s rightful sovereignty of the earth. In fighting for the mastery of God’s good earth those nations were in fact fighting against the heavenly government that the Sovereign Lord Jehovah had put in power in the “heavenly Jerusalem.” So once again “the nations became wrathful” against the remnant.

19. How did the attack on the “city” during World War II compare with that during World War I, and what did the Governing Body, from 1942 forward, plan for the future?

¹⁹ The violence and repressive measures against the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses far exceeded what they experienced during the first world war. The persecution flared not just against the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites; it flamed also against those of the “ten men” out of all the languages of the nations who had joined the anointed remnant of spiritual Israel in worship at Jehovah’s spiritual temple. (Zechariah 8:20-23) The faithful ones held firmly to their Christian neutrality toward worldly combats and stuck fast to Jehovah’s theocratic government as the only rightful government of all the earth. Remarkably, although concentration camps and prisons opened their gates to thousands of uncompromising Christian witnesses of Jehovah in the lands at war, none of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses world wide was imprisoned. Instead of yielding to enemy pressures and arranging to close down their God-given work, the Governing Body planned from 1942 forward to expand the witness to Jehovah’s Messianic kingdom to newer regions of the earth, even before peace arrived with its United Nations organization in 1945.

20. Did World War II settle the dominant issue, and what will the nations have in mind in making a final attack on the anointed remnant?

²⁰ Like World War I, so World War II settled nothing. Certainly the issue of world domination has not been settled, but tension over this is mounting among the superpowers. They still rebel against world domination by the Universal Sovereign Jehovah. Resentfully they are against those who proclaim and advocate the world sovereignty of the great Theocrat Jehovah by means of his Messianic kingdom. Those who advocate this are, not the religious churches of Christendom, but the theocratic Christian witnesses of Jehovah. So the time will come, shortly, when all the nations engaged in international rivalry for world domination will decide that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses have no right to a place on earth. In blatant rejection of all that suggests God or divine rulership, they will destroy all religious Christendom and all religious pagandom. Then in a do-or-die effort they will hurl their final attack against the surviving Christian witnesses of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. Will the nations succeed this time?