You mean how the partial-preterist handles Zechariah 14:
4.
Partial-preterists endeavor not to rip individual verses from their surrounding text and their inherently provided contexts. We endeavor to read each and every verse together and understand the passage as a whole. We definitely do NOT try to force the text to fit any already-existing view of end times we may have prior too reading the text of Zechariah 14. So, for example, we might read the entire chapter, or the larger narrative in which that chapter exists and take note of any temporal markers and audience affiliations the text might contain. We would
then garner any understanding of
when based upon those markers, on what is
stated in the larger passage. We would also seek to understand what is written in the Zec. 14 text by what is written in the New Testament pertaining to the events described in Zec. 14. We make doctrine from scripture, not scripture from doctrine, especially not any man-made doctrine that was invented in the 19th century.
So, for example, the entire passage is entirely about events that occur at the coming of the LORD. That is the coming of YWHW, not Jesus
. It is the Tetragram that is explicitly stated in verse one of chapter 14. It is LORD, not Lord. Verse 9 tells the reader the LORD will be king over all the earth, which is a curious statement because if the LORD is God then, logically speaking, there has never been a moment in creation when the LORD was not King overall the earth. That verse, therefore, contains a redundancy that has to be explained, and the reader should then work the "hermeneutical spiral" - work from the immediate text, through the book as a whole, the prophets as a whole, the Bible as a whole, and that will inevitably lead to what the New Testament states about this Old Testament text. The New Testament repeatedly states Jesus is NOW the only rule and all other existing rules are subordinate to his..... except that of his Father's.
More importantly, we do not read Zechariah 14 literally because to do so would mean the destruction of Jerusalem and the text makes it explicitly clear the entire passage, the prophecy as a whole is about the remaking of Jerusalem. A person would have to do some investigation to understand the verse cannot be read literally, but that investigation isn't difficult. Simply follow the markers provided by the Zec. 14 text to find the earthquake that results from the LORD setting foot on Mount Olive would extend almost to the coast and several kilometers ot the west and if it were literally so violent that it moved the mountains north and south the Jerusalem would be destroyed and all the people in the city would die. In other words, a literal reading of the verse would literally contradict everything else stated in the rest chapter. Christians in general try to avoid making scripture contradict itself. It has nothing to do with preterism.
Then when we look to the New Testament we find a lot that could be read to
allude to Zechariah 14 but that runs the risk of eisegesis. There are only two mentions of Zechariah in the NT, and both occur in the gospels, and both are references to judgment being brought upon the scribes and Pharisees.
Matthew 23:34-36
"Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. "Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation."
Luke 11:45-52
One of the lawyers *said to Him in reply, "Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too." But He said, "Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. "Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. "So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. "For this reason also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.' "Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering."
Both the charges and the guilt of their past would come upon the generation of those scribes and Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking. Both statements explicitly state the judgment to be received for killing Zechariah (and the other prophets) would be meted out in that generation, not some generation two (or more) millennia later. Preterists, whether partial or full, read that exactly as written and believe it exactly as written. We do not impose some extra-biblical doctrine on the text to make it say anything other than what is plainly stated. We let the NT explain the OT.
While I couple consume a handful of posts with additional information the Bible gives us about Zechariah 14:4 (for example, Jesus did set foot on the Mount of Olives and dictate the destruction of Jerusalem). I will mention only two other examples. Revelation mentions an earthquake BUT there's no mention of Jesus or God being
physically on the planet. According to the book of Revelation everything that happens on earth is commanded from heaven and Jesus is not explicitly reported to come to earth until chapters 21 and 22 (which necessarily means Jesus physical return is post-millennial). If the earthquake of Revelation 16 is the same as the earthquake of Zechariah 14 then, again, the city of Jerusalem and all ife therein is literally destroyed and that would be antithetical to the plain reading of both the Revelation and Zechariah texts. The second example has to do with something modern futurists often teach because they often draw a line from Zechariah 14:4 to Revelation 14:1 where the Lamb stands on Mount Zion. There are a number of problems with this interpretation because the LORD stands on the Mount of Olives and the Lord stands on Mt. Zion, and
the Mount of Olives and Mt. Zion are not the same mountain. They are close, but not the same. One is to the east of Jerusalem and the other to its south (with the Kidron Valley in between. In the prophesied earthquake these two mountains would move further way from one another and one of them, the Mount of Olives, would likely be destroyed since the earthquake's destruction moves west and east. So, again, Christians in general try not to make scripture contradict itself and that has absolutely nothing to do with preterism of any kind.
