Deeper Commentary
Zechariah Chapter 8
Zechariah 8:1 The word of Yahweh of Armies came to me- After
the heavy condemnation of the returned exiles in the previous verses, we
can but marvel at God's grace in now assuring them that He would still
bring about His Kingdom purpose with Judah: "‘Execute true
judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother.
Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor;
and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart’. But
they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears,
that they might not hear. Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, in
case they might hear the law, and the words which Yahweh of Armies had
sent" (Zech. 7:9-12). Again we see God
seeking to as it were force through His purpose of restoring the Kingdom,
despite the weakness of the people's repentance as lamented in Zech. 7.
Zechariah 8:2 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: I am jealous for Zion with
great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath-
The wrath was with Judah. The allusion is to Jer. 32:37: "I am going to
gather them from all the lands to which I drove them in my anger and my
wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them back to this place". The
wrath was a reflection of His jealousy for her, the wrath of love.
Zech. 7:12
has just stated God's great wrath with Judah. But His wrath against the
Gentile desolators of His people was even greater. See on Zech. 1:2,15.
The even greater wrath He had over Zion's treatment, deserved as it was,
is a reflection of the profound depth of His passionate love for Zion.
It's as if a husband who has an unfaithful wife is more angry with those
who punish her than he is with her. Because, quite simply, he loves her so
deeply. Again we note the title "Yahweh of Armies". The Angels' tremendous zeal for the restoration comes bubbling through. No wonder the Kingdom prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah could have been fulfilled if only the people had worked together with the Angels to their full potential!
Zechariah 8:3 Thus says Yahweh: I have returned to Zion, and will
dwell in the midst of Jerusalem- Many times God says that He will
return to Zion if they returned to Him. They had physically returned, but
not spiritually. And yet He still returned to Zion. Such was and is His
grace, His desire to bring about His promise of the Kingdom and
restoration.
The physical movement of the Angel back to Jerusalem
is suggested here.
The cherubic glory of God, representing His
presence, had departed from Zion in Ez. 1, but Ez. 43:4 envisaged it
returning: "The glory of Yahweh came into the house by the way of the gate
whose prospect is toward the east". But there followed a stern warning to
repent: "Now let them put away their prostitution, and the dead bodies of
their kings, far from Me; and I will dwell in their midst forever. You,
son of man, show the house to the people of Israel, that they may be
ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. If they be
ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the form of the
house" (Ez. 43:9-11). The glory returned by grace, but that grace was to
elicit repentance, and a building of the temple according to the
specifications in Ez. 40-48. But Judah didn't respond to the tremendous
initiative of God's grace.
The language of Israel’s return from captivity as found in Isaiah and Ezekiel all has evident reference to the second coming and the final establishment of the Kingdom. It isn’t just that Israel’s return under Ezra and Zerubbabel was a type of that final homecoming. It could have been the Kingdom- had they obeyed the prophecies. It was all about a potential Kingdom of God. But they were too caught up with their own self-interest, with building their own houses rather than God’s; and so it was all deferred. Using the prophetic perfect, God had prophesied that at the time of the restoration, He would come and dwell in rebuilt Zion- just as Ezekiel’s prophecy had concluded: “The name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there” (Ez. 48:35). Clearly, Ezekiel’s prophecies could have been fulfilled at the restoration; God was willing that they should be. But human apathy and self-interest stopped it from happening as it could have done.
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 (Nehemiah 13:11). 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 (Nehemiah 13:1). Lots had to be drawn to get people to live there (Nehemiah 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 (Zechariah 2:5).
Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the mountain of Yahweh of Armies, ‘The Holy Mountain’- "Truth" is a word associated with covenant relationship. The Mount Zion would be "holy" as opposed to all the abominations being practiced there, both before and after the restoration. But that depended upon whether Judah would be faithful and holy, and they ultimately chose not to be. It is in the Messianic Kingdom that Jerusalem will be called the "city of truth" (Is. 1:26); at the time when Messiah would be enthroned upon "my holy mountain of Zion" (Ps. 2:6; Is. 11:9). This could have happened at the restoration; but Joshua and Zerubbabel failed to be the required Messianic figures, and so the prophecy is delayed in fulfilment until the return of the Lord Jesus to earth. But the city had to be of truth and holy, for these prophecies to come true. And Haggai has just condemned the returnees as "unclean". Jerusalem "shall" be a city of truth can be read more as commandment than prediction. For :16-19 will go on to beg the people to live in "truth", "therefore love the truth" (:19), so that the wonderful potentials might be made possible.
Zechariah 8:4 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Old men and old women will
again dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his
hand for very age- The prolonged lifespans envisaged are those of the
Messianic Kingdom in Isaiah 65. As noted on :3, this could have happened
at the restoration, but it was delayed until the coming of the Lord Jesus
in glory. The dwelling of Yahweh in the midst of Jerusalem would be the
time when aged men and women would likewise dwell there. The significance
of very old people in the immediate context was that these were those who
would have seen Zion before the Babylonian invasion. But this never came
about. Instead those older ones wept as they realized the
rebuilt temple was far smaller than the first temple, and not according to
the prophecies of Ezekiel they had heard during the captivity.
Zechariah 8:5 The streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in its streets- Jeremiah in his Lamentations had lamented the murder of the children in its streets. This was now to all be reversed. But instead, Nehemiah records how hard it was to get the returned exiles to dwell in Jerusalem. They preferred to build their own homes and farmsteads outside of Jerusalem. They thereby precluded the fulfilment of such prophecies. This is the undoing of the judgment of Jer. 9:21, that children would be cut off from the streets of Jerusalem. The same concept is found in the final visions of the Kingdom in Revelation; the curses upon earth for human disobedience will be reversed. Likewise the turning of fasts to feasts in :19 reverses Am. 8:10 "I will turn your feasts into mourning". Long life (:4) and prosperous children (:5) were the blessings of obedience to the old covenant, and are alluded to in Is. 65. But Judah had broken the old covenant and had been offered the new covenant by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They had refused that, and focused instead on trying to keep the Mosaic law as best they could. And yet still God is eager to move ahead with them even on that basis. The new covenant had offered "the sound of merrymakers. I will make them many, and they shall not be few" (Jer. 30:18,19), which in essence is the picture here in Zechariah, of children playing safely in the streets.
Zechariah 8:6 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: If it is too hard in the
eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be too
hard in My eyes? says Yahweh of Armies- Here again is
a timeless
challenge; we can assume that what is hard for us must therefore be hard
for God. This is the root psychological problem we have which is the basis
for our lack of faith in His abilities.
They
reasoned that “the time” of which he spoke hadn’t come (Hag. 1:2)- even
though the temple had miraculously been enabled to be rebuilt, for no
human benefit at all to Cyrus (Is. 45:13 “not for price nor reward”). They felt that
all the prophecies were “marvellous” (AV) or "too hard" in the sense of something incapable
of concrete fulfilment in their experience. This is why
Hag. 1:2 rebuked them for saying “the time is not come… that the Lord’s
house should be built”. They didn’t want the prophecy to be fulfilled,
because it would mean ‘going up’ from their ceiled houses- both in Babylon
and in the farmsteads they had built in Judah- to build the temple. They
thereby brought God down to their level of capability and potential; and
this is what we do likewise through our lack of faith in His ability. And
note that it was "the remnant", those who by grace God was prepared to
accept, who suffered this lack of faith. "Too hard" is surely an allusion
to how Abraham and Sarah felt that God's covenant promises were "too hard"
to be fulfilled, earning the rebuke of Gen. 18:14 (s.w.). The exiles
likewise were precluding the fulfilment of the covenant by the same
attitude. Note the connection between the "covenant" and God's "marvels"
[s.w. "too hard", Ex. 34:10]. Nehemiah had lamented that the exiles were
not mindful of God's previous "marvels" (s.w.), His historical doing of
that which was "too hard" for man, time and again (Neh. 9:17). This is why
we have Biblical history; to remind us that God repeatedly achieves that
which is "too hard" for men.
"These days" are the day of small things of Zech. 4:10. There seemed too large a divide between present experience and the glorious future promised. Lack of faith in our day is likewise a sense that it is a bridge too far, over too much troubled water, between present realities and the promised future. But because we tend to feel that way doesn't mean God sees it that way, and faith is the ability to see things from God's ultimate perspective. The equivalent in Jeremiah's prophecies of the restoration is Jeremiah's comment that "Nothing is impossible for You" (Jer. 32:17), confirming God's comment: " is anything impossible for Me?" (Jer. 32:27).
Zechariah 8:7 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Behold, I will save My people from the east country, and from the west country- At that time, the Jews were in the south (Egypt) and what was called "the north". Hardly any of them were in the West. This could have come true in Zechariah's time in the sense of their regathering from the sun's rising [east] to it's setting [west]. But they didn't want to be regathered, for the most part, and remained in captivity. The allusion is to how God both saved and brought (:8) His people out of Egypt and to the promised land. But in their hearts they returned to Egypt. And so the prophecy will have a latter day fulfilment, when as today, the majority of Jews are located to the west of Palestine. The context is of God forcing through His saving purpose. The calls to flee from the land of the north alluded to in Zech. 2 had gone unheeded. Now it seems God has a plan to recall the Jews in the west and east. God had earlier said that the exiles would return from all points of the compass: “I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Keep not back” (Is. 43:5,6). But those in the north and south, Babylon and Egypt, hadn't returned in any great numbers. And there were very few Jews literally to the west and east of Palestine at that time. And even they it seems didn't come; for the prophecy eventually will be fulfilled in the Gentile converts: "Many shall come from the east and from the west [note no mention of north and south], and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 8:11).
Zechariah 8:8 And I will bring them, and they will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness- The connection is with :3; when God dwelt in the midst of Jerusalem, so would His people. Zion would be "the city of truth" (:3) in that truth and righteousness would characterize God's people and His relationship with them. God did indeed "bring them" from exile through stirring up the spirit of Cyrus by His Spirit to enable them to return. But the majority resisted that call, that 'bringing'; likewise it was His intention that they would return not just physically but also spiritually, in repentance. And those who did return likewise resisted that potential bringing back to Him. Just as so many of all ages have resisted the series of Divine nudges throughout their lives, designed to bring them to Him. "In truth and in righteousness" meant the people could preclude this by not living in truth and righteousness- which is the basis for Zechariah's appeal a few verses later. "I will be their God" is the language of the new covenant and restoration prophesied, or offered, in Jer. 30:22,25. It is the language of the promises to Abraham, which are the basis for the new covenant. But if they didn't live in truth and righteousness, then God would not be their God in the sense offered.
Zechariah 8:9 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Let your hands be strong-
The context of Zechariah is that the hands of those
rebuilding the temple had been weakened (Ezra 4:4). The idea is 'let your hands be strengthened'. There had to be some
conscious volition on the part of the temple rebuilders; but God would
strengthen their hands. We recall God strengthening the hands of Lot to
leave Sodom whilst he himself delayed (same phrase in Gen. 19:16); the
call was to those still in Babylon to likewise flee lest they be
spiritually consumed there. The very phrase "let your hands be strong" is
used repeatedly in the record of the rebuilding in Nehemiah 3, rendered in
the AV "Next [s.w. "hands"... repaired [s.w. "strong"]", literally 'their
hands strengthened'. Nehemiah had prayed "let their hands be strengthened"
(Neh. 6:9), just as initially they had "strengthened their hands to this
good work" (Neh. 2:18), just as Ezra had been strengthened by God's hand
(Ezra 7:28). God has turned the heart of the king to strengthen their
hands (Ezra 6:22 "[God] had turned the heart of the king of
Assyria to them, to strengthen their hands in the work of God’s house"), and yet by this point in time they needed the
encouragement to again be strengthened. And that strengthening was
mediated through the words of the prophets.
You who hear in these days these words from the mouth of the prophets who were in the day that the foundation of the house of Yahweh of Armies was laid, even the temple, that it might be built- As noted on Zech. 7:10,13,14, God's word is a living word and speaks to subsequent generations rather than solely to the initial audience; and that is surely why the relevant prophetic words have been preserved for us in the Bible. The prophets who had predicted the laying of the foundation stone of the restored temple should still be listened to. That prophetic word of purpose was still capable of fulfilment in later years. The prophets in view therefore may not necessarily be Haggai and Zechariah. The idea is that the essence of the prophetic message through Zechariah was the same as that of the earlier prophets. The restoration wasn't happening, despite all the potential, because that generation of Jews were just repeating the basic errors of their ancestors who had also rejected God's appeals for true repentance. That is exactly the point made in Zech. 1:4; 7:11,12. They had laid the foundations of the temple, and not according to the commands of Ez. 40-48. But God urges them to go ahead, He would accept and work through that smaller version. And so Zechariah reminds them that the foundations had been laid that the temple might be built.
Zechariah 8:10 For before those days there were no wages for man, nor
any wages for an animal- The economic situation was so bad that
men
worked for nothing, and there wasn't enough to even feed the beasts of
burden. God could give and take prosperity so easily. This is the
scenario mentioned by Haggai, of earning wages and putting them into a bag
with holes in it. This was all an outcome of their lack of devotion to the
work of restoring the Kingdom.
Neither was there any peace to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbour- This was the state of affairs in the land before the rebuilding started. But through Angelic work, God had made the land peaceful and at rest so that the rebuilding work could start and prosper (Zech. 1:11). We note that God can set men against each other, and also bring about peace between persons. This is all the work of His Spirit upon the spirit of people. There really should be no excuse for disunity and 'every man against his neighbour' when God is willing and eager to create unity amongst His people. This is the unity of or caused by the Spirit, which Paul exults in later. Lack of unity would therefore be due to a resistance to the work of His Spirit.
Zechariah 8:11 But now I will not be to the remnant of this people as
in the former days, says Yahweh of Armies- The terrible situation in
Judah at the time of the founding of the temple (:10) would not continue.
The people had returned motivated by a desire for material betterment, and
God had given them drought and bad harvests (Hag. 1) to try to direct them
to Him in repentance. They hadn't responded, and now God all the same
wants to pour out the covenant blessings of good harvests (:12).
Haggai had made it clear that God's blessings would appear if they
focused on His house rather than their own. And so He had given them
famine and plague to lead them to a better focus. But Zechariah seems to
be saying that God would just pour out His blessings anyway (:12) if they
were willing to accept it. He so wanted to force through His Kingdom
program with them.
Zechariah 8:12 For they will sow their seed in peace and the vine will
yield its fruit, and the ground will give its increase, and the skies will
give their dew- See on Hag 1:9. God was willing to send the Kingdom conditions at
that time, the blessings of keeping the covenant (Dt. 33:28). But
we know that in reality, Judah were not obedient to the heavenly vision of
Ezekiel, and therefore Judah’s agriculture was
not
blessed in this way; the vines cast their fruit, and the fruit of the
ground was destroyed (Hag. 1:6,11; Mal. 3:10,11). The reason was that
Zech. 8:12 was conditional- upon Zech. 8:16,17: “These are the things that
ye shall do [i.e. to bring these prophecies about]; Speak ye every man the
truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your
gates: And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his
neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate,
saith the LORD”. But Judah abused each other, and didn’t fulfil the
conditions for the prophecy.
Let your hands be strong- See on :9. Jerusalem being told not to fear and to have strong hands is a direct fulfilment of the kingdom prophecy of Zeph. 3:16: "In that day it will be said to Jerusalem, Don’t be afraid, Zion. Don’t let your hands be weak". The people of Judah who had returned were on the very cusp of the Kingdom of God being reestablished. It so nearly happened, such was God's enthusiasm for the salvation of that generation. But it didn't happen because they were focused on the immediate and material rather than the spiritual.
Zechariah 8:14 For thus says Yahweh of Armies: As I thought to do evil to you, when your fathers provoked Me to wrath, says Yahweh of Armies, and I didn’t repent- God pronounces "evil", but in the gap between the pronunciation of judgment and carrying it out, there is the possibility of human repentance and God's repentance / change of mind. So this statement that God did not repent is effectively saying that Judah had not then repented. Judah had still not returned / repented, but God had returned them to their land all the same. Zech. 8:14,15 uses the language of the new covenant in Jer. 32:42: "For thus says the Lord... Just as I purposed to
bring disaster upon you... so again I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem... do not be afraid". This matches Jer. 32:40-42: "For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good fortune that I now promise them... I will rejoice in doing good to them". Although the Jews wanted to continue keeping the Old Covenant, God was eager to push forward their entrance into the New Covenant. But all this was conditional upon their 'doing good' (:16,17). They didn't, and remained committed to the [broken] old covenant, and so these things have been reapplied to us who enter the new covenant today.
Zechariah 8:15 So again have I thought in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Don’t be afraid- There is no equivalent to "And I didn't repent" in :14. God was not promising that He would not change His mind, because He cannot force through salvation upon people. The conditions of :16 were still required. The gap between Divine statement and its fulfilment still existed, as it did in :14. And there needed to be freewill response from the people, in the terms of :16. The appeals for repentance in :16,17 are likely against a background of the people assuming that since they had some kind of a temple rebuilt, therefore they must be automatically acceptable with God. The repeated assurances "Don't be afraid" beg the question, 'Afraid of what?'. I suggest it was the basic human fear of being taken beyond the narrow confines of their initial vision of life as it is.
Zechariah 8:16 These are the things that you shall do: speak every man the truth with his neighbour. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates
Zechariah 8:18 The word of Yahweh of Armies came to me- See on
Zech. 7:4. This appears to still be in answer to the question posed by the
delegation from Bethel about fasting in Zech. 7:2.
Zechariah 8:19 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The fasts of the fourth,
fifth, seventh and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy and
gladness, and cheerful feasts-
Therefore love truth and peace- Without loving truth, these feasts would not be joyful to the Jews
who had returned. The prophecy was conditional.
Zechariah 8:20 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Many peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come- The "many peoples" could refer to the peoples of Judah / Israel (as in Dt. 33:3,19). Consistently, the restoration prophecies envisaged God's restored people as being a blessing to the nations around them; they would recognize that Yahweh had done great things for His people (Ps. 126:1-3) and would wish to therefore become part of that people. The reality was that Judah and Israel continued worshipping the idols of those nations, and later evolved an exclusivist, superior attitude toward them.
Zechariah 8:21 And the inhabitants of one shall go to another, saying-
"The inhabitants of one" is LXX "five cities", perhaps alluding to the
five cities which were the capitals of Persia and which therefore became a
figure of speech for Persia. Likewise the five cities (the Pentapolis) of
the Philistines may also be in view. The peoples of their captivity could
have turned to the wonderful God of the Jews; but this didn't happen.
‘Let us go speedily to entreat the favour of Yahweh, and to seek Yahweh of Armies. I will go also’- "Speedily" is also rendered 'continually'. This is the picture of the closing vision in Zech. 14; Gentiles coming up at regular intervals to keep the feasts. But we see here how the word of the Gospel spreads; it is by the invitation of those seeking God artlessly passed on to others. We see here a powerful picture of effective evangelism. Those who ask others to go the journey to Zion must themselves lead by example: "I will go also".
Zechariah 8:22 Yes, many peoples and strong nations will come to seek
Yahweh of Armies in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favour of Yahweh-
Zechariah 8:23 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: In those days, ten men will take hold-
It has been estimated that about 20,000 Jews were taken to Babylon. But the population of Babylon was 200,000, indeed it is noted as the first city to pass 200,000 population. This would mean that the population of Babylon was ten percent Jewish. The ideal was that Babylon would turn to Judah's God, 'taking hold of the skirt' in covenant relationship.
Out of all the languages of the nations- Initially the reference would have been to the 127 languages of the Persian empire. They would beg for acceptance by the minority nation amongst them, the Jews.
They will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’-See on Ez. 16:63. 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. The idea was that those Jews still in Babylon and Persia would return, and there would be many Gentiles who would come with them. 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 (Neh. 11:1). Most of the captives chose to stay where they were, in captivity, assimilated into the culture and ways of the world around them. And the ten tribes didn’t really unite with Judah, but went off and got lost in the Gentile world.
"A Jew" is literally 'a Yehudite'- a specific term for a resident of the Persian
province of Judah. They could have had the peoples of all the nations in the
Persian empire grabbing hold of their skirt. Yehud could have
risen up to be the head of all the nations in the land promised to
Abraham, i.e. the Persian empire. These were the very real possibilities.
The LXX hints that even this prophecy is conditional, upon the Gentiles
actually wanting to join the Jews in Yahweh worship: "In those days my
word shall be fulfilled if ten men of all the languages of the nations
should take hold—even take hold of the hem of a Jew...".
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