Episode 26 - The Daughter of Zion

The first of a Bible study series on the Daughter of Zion. Episode 26 of the Outside of Sunday Podcast - available on Spotify and Apple Podcast. 

Something that I have been thinking about and studying over the break is the ‘daughter of Zion’. I was thinking about it because there’s this song on my kids spotify playlist that just sings word for word Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

And I just did what I do - I got curious. Who is the daughter of Zion? Where else in the bible is the daughter of Zion mentioned? What does she symbolise? Is there any connection to Christ and the daughter of Zion? So I got to work and have been learning all I can about the Daughter of Zion. So that’s what we are going to be going through together on this podcast for the next few episodes.

So let’s break it down for a bit; Daughter of Zion. ‘Bat Tzion’ in Hebrew. It’s a term of endearment. Basically it’s a way to express love for Israel. The daughter of Zion is not one particular person, it’s more like a loving personification of Israel. Zion, being a specific location, a hill in Jerusalem, the Holy city of Israel. So she could be the Daughter of Zion, Daughter of Jerusalem, Daughter of Israel - they’re all basically the same.

The first time the phrase is used was during the time of King Hezikiah, recorded in 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37. It was Isaiah who brought a prophecy, directed to the King of Assyria (Sennacharib), and in the prophecy he speaks of ‘Virgin Daughter Zion’. Now just to be completely clear, ‘Virgin Daughter Zion’ is not referring to a specific daughter of Zion; Israel is the daughter. And Isaiah didn’t coin the term, it’s the name God chose to use for Israel in this instance and in 20 or so other instances across the Old Testament. But this is the first time that it’s used.

Virgin Daughter Zion. What information does that give us? Well we know that Zion is synonymous with Israel. ‘Virgin’ is a symbol of purity. And ‘daughter’ identifies the nation as the child of the Almighty God.

And throughout the Bible, Daughter Zion goes on a journey. It’s a journey that we can follow when we look at the different references to her across the Old Testament.

So I’m looking forward to sharing that with you all in the coming episodes. Today we will be focusing on the birth of the daughter of Israel. The first recorded mention of her, as I said earlier, is in 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37 and the reason that both of these books record the first mention of the Daughter of Zion is because Isaiah was the prophet who brought the word of the Lord in the time of King Hezikiah and that’s why it’s recorded in 2 Kings as well as in Isaiah. So what’s happening when God says this about Israel? Let’s context.

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