This is the second message on this date and is directed to Zerubbabel. The events described here are clearly eschatological. The phrase “I am going to shake” is the same as in 2:6–7 and refers to the great upheavals that will precede the establishment of God’s kingdom. God will overturn royal thrones. The same Hebrew word is used of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in such passages as Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 20:16; and Amos 4:11. As sudden and as final as Sodom’s ruin was, so will it be with the Gentile thrones. Reformation is not in view here, but utter destruction. This is the fate of the “world powers.” The overthrowing of chariots and their drivers is reminiscent of the description of the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the sea (Exod. 15:1, 5). The terror and c…