Prisoners of Hope

    The title above is a phrase from Zechariah 9:12. I have been pondering it ever since it came up in last week's Bible study. The words were too beautiful not to make into a poem (in Hebrew, it already is), but I needed to know what it meant first. After consulting several commentaries and praying for guidance, I found myself thinking about a Longfellow poem I have shared here before, "The Children's Hour," in which the author compared his daughters climbing onto his chair as an adorable assault on his castle. The last verses are so beautiful I memorized them, and I wondered if the Lord was bringing it to my mind to help me understand the phrase "prisoners of hope."

  

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

because you have scaled my wall,

such an old mustache as I am

is not a match for you all.

 

I have you fast in my fortress,

and will not let you depart,

but put you down into the dungeons

in the round tower of my heart.

 

And there I will keep you forever

yes, forever and a day,

till the walls shall crumble to ruin

and moulder in dust away!  

 

   Longfellow's fortress and dungeon symbolize the place he keeps precious memories of his daughters. Not all prisons are places of punishment, they can also be places of protection. Though I refer to prison in a negative sense earlier in the poem, in my final stanza, I decided to stay in the context of Zechariah 9 and relate prison to the fortress the Lord is urging his people to return to in verse 12. And I made hope reflect the coming king prophesied in verse 9.

 

Prisoners of Hope

 

Prisoners were we in Babylon

far from our home, our freedom gone. 

Seven long decades we have been

exiled there because of sin. 

 

Prisoners are we, though now returned

to Jerusalem's splendor--ravaged, burned,

 temple destroyed, and walls are gone,

our days spent barely holding on. 

 

Enemies mocked and wrote to bring,

libelous charges to our king,

as if those scoffers could not tell

we had no power to rebel.

 

Prisoners are we of our despair

yet in Jerusalem's disrepair,

a prophet proclaims Israel's coming

lowly, victorious, Savior King.

 

Our land is overrun with men

who mock our God and scorn his plan,

but our fortress is this prophecy.

Prisoners of glorious hope are we.

 

(Zech. 9:12) 

 

3/1/26