Deeper Commentary
Zechariah Chapter 2
Zechariah 2:1 I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand- To measure is a double symbol, of measuring unto destruction (as in Rev. 11), and also measuring to build up. According to the response of God's people, so His purpose with Jerusalem would be of either destruction or redemption. The "man with a measuring line" is the Angel of Zech. 1:16; cp. Ez. 40:3; 47:3; Rev. 21:15-17.
If the measuring is taken as judgment, as in Rev. 11:1; Mt. 7:12; 1 Cor. 4:21, then we have an Angel beginning to prepare judgements on Jerusalem, but in :3 being interrupted by another Angel who describes God's plan to restore Jerusalem, and quickly correcting the impression made on Zechariah by the first Angel. There, the angel is told to run back and tell Zechariah that "Jerusalem shall yet be inhabited". We see here the conflict between God's judgment and His grace, reflected in the situation amongst the Angels in the court of Heaven; and His mercy rejoices against judgment.
Ezekiel’s temple prophecies begin with a man / Angel with a measuring reed, measuring Jerusalem and the temple. This recurs here, where the Angel again measures the temple and then promises that Yahweh will be a protecting wall of fire around the city, meaning that the Jews should fearlessly return from Babylon (2:5-10). There follows a description of God’s Kingdom on earth, with God Himself dwelling in Zion and all nations converting to Him. Yet the Jews returned with fear from Babylon- or some of them did. And they fussed so much about building a wall to protect them, in studied disregard of God’s promise here. God helped them build the wall- He was still so keen to work with them. And He later encouraged them that “I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth [s.w. used about Judah’s return from captivity, Ezra 2:1; 6:21]: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more” (Zech. 9:7,8).
Zechariah 2:2 Then I asked, Where are you going? He said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its breadth and what is its length- As noted on :1, measuring is a double symbol- measuring in judgment, and in upbuilding. Jerusalem was being measured as it was; the idea here may be that God was assessing the spiritual condition of Jerusalem, and if they were indeed repentant, then the city would be built up into the capital of the restored Kingdom of God in Israel. Ultimately, God's desire to push through His Kingdom purpose with Israel at this time didn't work out. But these prophecies shall come ultimately true, when the new Jerusalem is built and the Angel then finds the length, breadth and height to be "equal" (Rev. 21:15-17).
I discussed on Zech. 1:21 how the potential was for the Kingdom to be re-established there and then whilst Persia was riven with revolt and division in the early years of Darius' reign. But the Jews feared that they had no walls, and wanted to measure their own strength. Hence the man in the vision wanting to do this is effectively stopped from doing this by the promise of :3. And later God addresses the fear that Jerusalem had no walls and could not withstand a siege; Yahweh Himself would be present amongst them.
Zechariah 2:3 Behold, the angel who talked with me went forth, and
another angel went out to meet him- See on Is. 37:36. As explained
on :1, the Angel measuring Jerusalem for judgment is as it were
interrupted by another, who is told to run back and tell Zechariah that in
fact Jerusalem will be reinstated by God, even though Judah were lacking
in their spiritual dimensions.
Zechariah 2:4 And said to him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, ‘Jerusalem will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it- As explained on :1, the 'running' [back] was in jubilation at the good news; Jerusalem had been measured, and although spiritually wanting [as Haggai and Malachi make clear], yet by grace it would be built up and the promised conditions of the restored Kingdom would come about. This was by grace alone. The fact the exiles refused to respond was indeed tragic. We note that Zechariah was a "young man"; God so often uses youth in His service. The language of blessing here is that of Ez. 36:4; these things could have come to pass if Judah had truly accepted the new deal offered them in the new covenant. But they didn't, and so such prophecies are delayed in fulfilment until the last days. “Now the city was large and great: but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded”. They were happier to settle outside of Jerusalem and concentrate on building up their own farms in the villages and small towns of Judah, rather than sense the importance of Zion. Nehemiah 11:1-3 suggests that so few wanted to live in Jerusalem because of the persecution there, that they had to draw lots to get at least a tenth of the total population to live there- in what should have been the capital. If more had returned from Babylon, if more had lived in Jerusalem, then Yahweh would have been a wall of fire to them, and then the Kingdom conditions described in the rest of Zechariah 2 would have come about. Although the restoration prophecies speak as if the increase of Zion’s population was to be unconditional, Ez. 36:37 implies that this would only happen if they prayed for it: “Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock”. But they got on with building their own homes and farms outside Jerusalem, they blessed those who had the courage to live in Zion itself, but didn’t earnestly pray for the fulfilment of the prophecies. They figured that the time for their fulfilment hadn’t come, as Haggai laments; instead of praying for their fulfilment.
The Jews were asked to leave Babylon so that Jerusalem would have an "abundance of peoples", in language evidently appropriate to the Messianic Kingdom. And yet they for the most part remained in Babylon, and thus showed they didn't want to do their part in making that prophecy of the Kingdom come true in their experience.
Jerusalem could have been a city without walls, with God's protection (2:4-6). But Israel lacked faith, and therefore God came down to their lower level and allowed them to build a wall, and worked with them in this. The exercise of building that wall was a display of great faith and zeal on Nehemiah's part; yet in fact the work he did was a result of Israel's limiting God by their lack of faith, even though Nehemiah himself had faith. Indeed the whole failure of Israel became "riches for the world." (Rom.11:12) Nothing is ultimately wasted or lost. Nothing can be done against the Truth (2 Cor. 13:8).
So the Jews built a wall and appointed human guards over them (Neh. 4:15,22), even though Yahweh Himself had promised to be their wall and their guard (Zech. 2:4,5). And Zech. 12:8 had repeated it: “In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David”. But they didn’t want to believe it, as they cowered in fear from those who “came to fight against Jerusalem” (Zech. 4:8), whom Zechariah prophesied would be destroyed by Yahweh. And yet He graciously worked with them in their plan to build a physical wall, just as He worked through their desire for human kingship and a physical temple in earlier days, even though it was not His ideal intention.
"Villages without walls" is s.w. “unwalled villages" in Ez. 38:11. The restoration could have happened as outlined in Ez. 37 and then the unsuccessful attack upon Zion spoken of in Ez. 38, followed by the glorification of the temple spoken of on Ez. 40-48. But instead Nehemiah built a wall and the people preferred to live in their homes and get on with their own petty materialism, as decried in Malachi.
Zechariah 2:5 For I’, says Yahweh, ‘will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory in the midst of her-
The walls of Jerusalem were destroyed by the fire of God's
judgment (Jer. 49:27; Am. 1:7,10,14); now this is reversed, and His fire
will protect the city. But this didn't happen, hence the tragedy of the
pictures in Nehemiah of Jerusalem's walls broken down and consumed by
fire. The allusion would be to the Persian ritual capital at Pasargadae, a
city without walls and with fire altars on its perimeter, which was built
by Cyrus to celebrate his victories. It would have been familiar to the
exiles who returned. Yet some years later, Nehemiah was to rebuild the
physical walls of Jerusalem, ignoring the potential spoken of here- in a
prophecy he was surely aware of. And yet he did that work in faith and
with God's amazing blessing- for God is always open to taking an
alternative, suboptimal path with His people if that is what it takes to
keep moving forward with them towards the restored Kingdom. And yet the
command to rebuild the temple in Ez. 48:30-35 speaks of a city with gates,
implying it had walls. The exiles had laid the foundations for the
restored temple far smaller than Ezekiel had commanded. So we can conclude
that God was so eager for the ultimate project of the Kingdom to be
realized, that through Zechariah He offers yet another possible scenario.
Ezekiel saw the glory of Yahweh specifically within the temple: "This is
the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will
dwell in the midst of the people of
Israel forever". But here in Zech. 2:5 He implies His glory will dwell
generally within the entire rebuilt city of Jerusalem. Likewise there is
no High Priest in Ez. 40-48 only "the prince"; whereas Zech. 3 is clear
that Joshua will be cleansed and forgiven, and then resume his work as
high priest, in tandem with a Davidic king as political ruler [the vision
of the two olive trees makes this clear].
This is the situation foreseen in Ez. 48, where God's
presence and glory would be in Zion because the cherubim which had
departed in Ez. 1 would return there. Ezra had recognised this promise,
that God would be a wall to them (Ezra 9:9). Note how this prophecy is
introduced by an Angel with a measuring reed measuring out the rebuilt
Zion (Zech. 2:1), just as we have in Ezekiel 40. But Judah disbelieved the
promise of a Divine wall of fire, and insisted on building a physical wall
to protect them; and the record in Nehemiah has plenty of reference to
their setting up of bars and gates in their fear (Neh. 3:3,6,13-15). By
doing so they disallowed the fulfilment of Ez. 38:11, and thereby
precluded what was prophesied as subsequently following. If they had
trusted Him and paid their tithes, their cattle would have multiplied, and
the Scythian tribes would have come down to seek to take them, as Ez.
38:12,13 foretold. But as it happened, their cattle were diseased and
their agriculture not blessed because of their dilatory attention to
Yahweh’s house that lay waste (Haggai 1:11). So therefore there was no
invasion, and no victory against the nations, and no Kingdom established
at that time.
The reference to fire has reference to the Angels' part in the restoration
and protection of Zion. As the Angel had been a pillar of protecting fire to Israel previously, He would be to them instead of a physical wall as they started rebuilding Jerusalem amidst great opposition, with no physical wall to protect them.
The Angelic language continues: "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts (Angels)... I will come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee" (2:8,10
AV)- i.e. the Angel and the associated shekinah glory would physically return to Jerusalem. The primary fulfilment of this was in the return from Babylon- the Angel led them back across the deserts, physically moving with them, to enter Jerusalem;
as foreseen in the cherubim visions of Ezekiel. This would explain the restoration from Babylon in terms of the wilderness journey and the Angel's guidance of them then- because this very same Angel was involved in leading them through a different wilderness, back to Israel.
Joshua didn’t live up to the conditional prophecies made about him in Zechariah. Ezra and Nehemiah seem to have taken over the priestly and kingly work of Joshua and Zerubbabel respectively. Nehemiah’s record concludes on the negative note that Judah had forsaken Zion (Neh. 13:11)- even though God promised to come and dwell in the midst of Zion! Nobody wanted to live in Jerusalem because of the persecution there; the Levites even went and lived outside it where they had “fields”, because they weren’t given their tithes (Neh. 13:10). Lots had to be drawn to get people to live there (Neh. 11:1). It became a ghost town, when it should have been inhabited as a town without walls for the multitudes of returned exiles joyfully dwelling there (:5). It was God’s intention that ten men (a reference to Israelites of the ten tribes?) would take hold of the skirts of a Jew (i.e. one of Judah) and come with him to worship in the new temple (Zech. 8:23). But in fact the opposite happened. So few wanted to live in Jerusalem, that the rulers had to cast lots to force one in ten Jews to go and live in Jerusalem (Nehemiah 11:1). And the ten tribes didn’t really unite with Judah, but went off and got lost in the Gentile world.
Zechariah 2:6 Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north’, says Yahweh- By Zechariah's time there had already been ample opportunity for the people to return from captivity. But most remained there. A greater return was required for the restoration prophecies to come true, but that depended upon whether they wished to quit their idolatry and comfortable life which arose especially after the history of Esther. Fleeing is the word so often used of fleeing into a city of refuge(Num. 35 etc.). The implication would be that indeed Judah had sinned in the land of the north, but they were to flee to Zion as the ultimate city of refuge, protected by a wall of Divine fire. "Come!" translates the word usually used for "woe" or "alas". The idea was that if they remained in the land of the north, they were under threat for their lives. But when Babylon fell, the Jews prospered under Cyrus [consider how the Jews came to popularity at the end of Esther]; so much so that he eagerly encouraged them to return to their homeland. The threat was therefore of spiritual death; that was the danger, and it came true for them. Thus Jer. 51:6 urges flight from Babylon "and deliver every man his soul" (Jer. 50:6).
‘For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the sky’, says Yahweh- Zech. 1:21 made it clear that it was the Angelically controlled "horns" who had scattered Judah. Again God assures His people that it was He who had done this; all that had happened to them had been under His direct control, and was all part of His wider purpose in preparing them for the wonders of the restored Kingdom of God on earth. The "four winds" connect with the four horns; and God makes His Angels spirits or winds (Ps. 104:4). The number four recalls the four living creatures of the cherubim Angels. The four horsemen and the four workmen of Zech. 1 had worked to prepare these "four winds of the sky", or perhaps they are parallel with these four winds / Angels.
Zechariah 2:7 ‘Come, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of
Babylon’-
This call to flee Babylon was made by Zechariah in the second year of Darius, at the time of Ezra 5 when the exiles were forbidden to continue rebuilding the temple and Zechariah and Haggai prophesied to them. Soon afterwards, there was another return led by Ezra as recorded in Ezra 7. This may well have been in direct response and obedience to the call to "flee from the land of the north!" made in Zech. 2:6,7.
The prophets clearly link the exodus of the Jews from Babylon and the destruction of Babylon. But the Jews didn't leave Babylon as commanded, or at least, not in significant numbers. And this affected the Divine program for Babylon's destruction. On two occasions in the reign of Darius, Babylon rebelled against the Persians and made an effort to regain its independence. These rebellions are recorded in the great inscription of Darius cut into the rock at Mount Behistun, and they appear to have happened in the fifth year of the reign of Darius (two or three years after this prophecy was given in the second year of Darius). These two attacks upon Babylon could have flattened the city. They would have done, had all the Jews left as commanded. But they didn't, and so the potential destructions didn’t happen as planned. God's love put Him as it were in a hard position. He didn't want to destroy His disobedient people and so He delayed or ameliorated the potential destructions of Babylon.
As noted on :6, the need to "escape" was not from literal extermination, but from spiritual death there. “Come out from among them and be separate” (2 Cor. 6:17) is picking up this language (also of Is. 48:20; 52:11; Jer. 50:8) concerning the return of the exiles from Babylon. The edict of Cyrus for the Jews to return to the land is in a sense pointing forward to God’s command to us to leave the spirit of Babylon, the Gentile world, and go up to do His work. The returned exiles are us. Those who left Babylon did so of their own freewill (Ezra 7:13), and yet providential events stirred up their spirits to do this (Ezra 1:5); and the way was prepared in miraculous way. And so it is for us, in our exodus from this world and from the flesh. In spiritual terms, Judah in Babylon were as captives in the prison cell, waiting to be released and return to their land, according to Isaiah’s images. And these pictures are picked up and applied to all who know the redemption and restoration of Christ.
"The daughter of Babylon" is contrasted with "the daughter of Zion". 'The daughter of' means having the characteristics and spirit of the father or mother. The daughter of Zion, identifying with Zion, could not dwell with the daughters of Babylon- unless she had become a daughter of Babylon herself. The fact most of the exiles chose to remain in captivity speaks sadly so much of their sense of identity.
Zechariah 2:8 For thus says Yahweh of Armies: ‘For honour He has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye-
AV "after the glory" would refer to how the Divine glory could have entered Zion and then the nations would have been converted into God's Kingdom. But the glory didn't enter.
The idea of someone being the "apple of His eye" alludes to how a person, by looking into the eye of another, will see his own image perfectly expressed in the pupil, though in extreme miniature. If we are the apple or pupil of God's eye, it means He closely looks at us and our person and image is ever impressed on His pupil. This is one of the most profound expressions of intimacy between God and man. David asked to be kept as the apple of God's eye (Ps. 17:8) by God's grace. Yet God still kept disobedient Judah as the apple of His eye. In Hebrew, the eyelid is literally 'the keeper'. This is alluded to in how Ps. 121:3 speaks of how "He who keeps you will not slumber". The slightest dust, or even possible approach of a foreign object, causes the keeper, the eyelid, to come down to protect the apple of the eye. This is how sensitive God was and is to His people. And yet when God says Judah are the apple of His eye (Zech. 2:8), He appeared far off, distant, disinterested in the fact that the life of the returnees hadn't turned out well. Haggai bluntly tells them that this was because they had strayed from God; Zechariah takes another tack in showing that God is still totally sensitive to His people and so loves them.
The GNB is close to the correct sense here: "Anyone who strikes you strikes what is most precious to me. So the LORD Almighty sent me with this message for the nations that had plundered his people". Verse 9 then becomes Zechariah's message to the Gentiles, which presumably he actually took to them. As explained on Zech. 1:2, God's great anger with Judah was less than His anger against those who had plundered them. Even in their suffering and punishment, God's people were still the apple of His eye. "The apple of His eye" speaks not only of God's extreme sensitivity toward His people; this phrase was a Hebraism for a man's wife. Who would a man be more angry with? His wife because she cheated on him repeatedly and is exposed; or a bunch of hoods who rape her after her infidelity has been exposed? The man who truly loved his wife would be more angry with the rapists, and so it was with God.
Isaiah had prophesied that God would not rest until Zion be
restored. Watchmen would be set upon Zion’s walls who would give Him no
rest until the walls be rebuilt (Is. 62:1,6,7). At this time, Zion was
felt by God to be the “apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). This prophesy
started to be fulfilled straight after the Babylonian invasion when
Jeremiah urged the desolated people to pray: “O wall of the daughter of
Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest;
let not the apple of thine eye cease” (Lam. 2:18). The prayerful remnant
were to
give themselves no rest; and thus was fulfilled the prophecy that
God would have no rest. Sincere prayer according to God’s will
would have meant that there was a strange mutuality between the Father and those who
prayed to Him. Both He and they would consider Zion to be the apple of their
eye; and thus the prayers would ultimately be answered and Zion was restored.
Zechariah 2:9 For, behold, I will shake My hand over them- An idiom for direct Divine action in the destruction of Babylon (:7). Although Babylon had fallen to Cyrus, he left the city intact. The total destruction of the city envisioned in the prophets didn't happen at that time- perhaps because God's people weren't ready to leave as they should have done. For the exit of the Jews from Babylon was envisaged as preceding Babylon's total destruction (Isaiah 13,48; Jeremiah 50,51). Although the people hadn't left Babylon, God now gives another scenario- they could leave now, and then Babylon would fall as predicted. Ezra leads another group from Babylon in response to this call (Ezra 7), but again there was very limited response to his efforts to get the Jews to leave. We marvel at God's desire to somehow make it all work out. We note too how what happens amongst nations is directly related to the readiness of God's people to respond. Thus the Persians reversed the decree to rebuild the temple because God's people didn't really want to build it. Darius could easily have failed to regain control of Persia and Persia would have fallen before Zerubbabel; had the Jews left Babylon, the city would have been reduced to rubble as prophesied.
And they will be a spoil to those who served them-
Zechariah 2:10 Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion; for, behold, I come, and I will dwell in the middle of you’, says Yahweh-
NET "I have come; I will settle in your midst” says the LORD". Yahweh had returned to Zion but His glory did not settle down there. But things were really so close to the Kingdom being restored.
God had already returned to Zion by grace even though they had not returned to Him (Zech. 1:3; see on Zech. 1:16), and yet He promises a far greater 'return' if His people rejoice at that prospect and repent. He did the same in Zech. 1:3: "‘Return to me’, says Yahweh of Armies, ‘and I will return to you’". God's glory would have dwelt not only in the temple but in the whole city of Jerusalem, according to Isaiah's prophecies. But there is no evidence that the shekinah glory ever actually returned to the rebuilt temple let alone was visibly present over the whole rebuilt city of Jerusalem.
Baruch 1:12 records the exiles praying “that we may
live long under the protective shadow of [the] king of Babylon”. This is
in sad contrast to Daniel’s prophecies that the sheltering tree of Babylon
was to be cut down! There ought to have been an urgency about the need to
flee from Babylon. Zech. 2:10 speaks of the need to "flee" and "escape"-
the language of crisis. And the call "Ho!" means quite literally "Hey!!".
The urgency to flee was spiritual rather than physical- for there's no
evidence that when Babylon fell to the Persians, the Jews were punished.
Indeed they appear [from Esther] to have prospered even more. Hence the
urgent appeal was to flee from the spiritual crisis which they faced in
Babylon. And yet they didn't perceive the danger, just as so many today
don't. For the call to leave Babylon is applied in New Testament passages
like 2 Cor. 6 to our call to leave the world in which we live. The urgency
of 'fleeing' from Babylon was understood by Nehemiah, when he referred to
those who had returned to the land as those who has "escaped" from Babylon
(Neh. 1:2)- even though they had returned with every blessing from the
authorities. He perceived as few did the vital danger of remaining in the
soft life of Babylon. Ezra likewise had referred to the Jews in Babylon as
those "in bondage... bondmen" (Ezra 9:9)- when historical records, as well
as the book of Esther and the fact Nehemiah the Jew was the king's
cupbearer, show that the Jews were very far from being servants in
Babylonian society. Yet Ezra perceived the spiritual poverty and
servanthood of remaining in that affluent society.
Zechariah 2:11 Many nations shall join themselves to Yahweh in that day, and shall be My people; and I will dwell in the middle of you- The Hebrew grammar is ambiguous, the nations 'shall join themselves to Yahweh', or 'be joined to Yahweh' [the difference between reading as a niphal or a reflexive]. Here we see the mutuality between God and man; He joins us to Himself, but we must be willing to join ourselves. The verb 'to join' is always used elsewhere in the context of joining in a covenant. Clearly the idea is that a new covenant was going to be in operation, which Gentiles could join into. But the returned exiles tried to stick with the old covenant, which had been irreversibly broken- rather than accept the new covenant offered to them in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
The Divine intention was that the Gentile nations in the land would be joined to Yahweh in repentance along with the repentant Jews. But instead, the Jews copied the pagan ways of those nations (as latter Isaiah, Ezra and Nehemiah demonstrate), and became arrogantly exclusive of them personally. And so the fulfilment of this prophecy was precluded by the behaviour of the exiles, and it has been rescheduled to the last days. That Yahweh Himself would dwell in the rebuilt temple is stressed here in Zechariah; it would be the fulfilment of Ez. 48:35, that the name of the rebuilt Zion would be "Yahweh is there". But Judah didn't build the temple according to the preceding specifications in Ez. 40-48; and so Yahweh's intimate presence was not found there.
The implication is that many nations as well as Judah would join themselves to Yahweh. Jer. 50:4,5 had described the possibility after the fall of Babylon: "In those days, and in that time, says Yahweh, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek Yahweh their God. They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned towards it saying, Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten". But Israel and Judah did not then reunite, they did not accept the new covenant offered. The Gentiles' envisaged 'joining themselves to Yahweh' is that spoken of in Is. 56:6, where it is stated that this would involve their keeping the sabbath. Sabbath keeping is now not required for those in Christ; we are therefore reading of a situation envisaged as happening at the time of the restoration which never actually came about. It was a scenario also envisaged in Is. 14:1: "For Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The foreigner will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of Jacob". But instead, Hezekiah joined himself with the spirit of Babylon, rather than the other way around.
And you shall know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me to you- The implication would be that the Jews viewed this young man (:4) Zechariah sceptically, perhaps disliking his message of union with God on an equal footing to Gentiles. But he would be vindicated when the Kingdom prophecies were fulfilled, with the implication being that his generation would live to see this joining of the Gentiles to Yahweh and His presence in a restored Zion. All these things were rescheduled and reapplied to Jew and Gentile being joined together in Christ under the new covenant, to come to literal fulfilment at His second coming.
Zechariah 2:12 Yahweh will inherit Judah as His portion- The
allusion is to Dt. 32:8,9, where Israel are God's personal portion and
inheritance: "When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel. For Yahweh’s portion is
His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance". The metaphor reflects
how intimate is His relationship with them, and how passionate His hope
for them. Despite the other nations being joined to Him (:11), Judah would
still be His special portion.
In the holy land- The idea is that the land would be made holy, cleansed by God's forgiveness; not that it is holy of itself.
And will again choose Jerusalem
For He has roused Himself from His holy habitation!- This implies that God had been dwelling with His people throughout the exile, and was now as it were rousing from that and going out visibly into the world again. This didn't happen at the restoration, although it could have done. But the point to note is that Yahweh was still within His temple, physically broken down as it was. He didn't need a nicely built temple to inhabit His people; just as He had explained when David first wanted to build a temple. And that principle is true today. God dwells in people quite independent of any visible, religious structures.
NET speaks of how God was "being moved to action in his holy dwelling place". Judah were largely indifferent. What was moving God to action? Surely His absolute love and desire for His people. These same feelings are with Him now as He again earnestly seeks to restore all things, despite the indifference of His people.
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