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.

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- 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.

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.

 

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

Zechariah 8:9 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Let your hands be strong- 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), 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. 

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.

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).

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- 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.

And I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things- The remnant referred to those who had returned at Zechariah's time. They could have experienced this. The latter chapters of Ezekiel stress how Israel were to “inherit” the land; yet the same word is used in other restoration prophecies, about Messiah causing Israel to “inherit” the land again after their return from “the north country” (Zech. 2:12; Is. 49:8; Jer. 3:18). When Judah returned from the “north country”, then Jerusalem would be the universally recognized “throne of the Lord” (Jer. 3:17,18). The Kingdom could have come when Judah returned from Babylon. It was therefore potentially possible for the returning exiles to inherit all the land outlined in Ez. 47:13-21 and share it out between the 12 tribes. But they grabbed every man for himself, his own farmstead, his own mini-Kingdom. They had no interest in the wider vision, nor in subduing extra land; and the majority of the Jews didn’t even want to inherit it; they preferred the soft life of Babylon, the Kingdom of men rather than the Kingdom of God. And thus the Kingdom made possible was never actually fulfilled at that time.

Zechariah 8:13 It shall come to pass that, as you were a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Don’t be afraid- The Divine intention was that the ten tribes along with Judah would be a blessing to the nations living in the eretz promised to Abraham. It was "fear" which held them back from realizing this, just as it was fear which stopped God's people possessing that same land at the time of Moses and Joshua. But all this was conditional upon their wanting to leave the lands of their captivity, and to live according to the spirit of :16.

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.

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.

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- These were the conditions for God's insistent desire to reestablish the Kingdom to come about immediately. They seem petty demands compared to the magnitude of what was on offer. But this is the major message of the minor prophets- that things like truth, justice and peace are of utterly paramount importance. And upon them stands or falls the part of men in God's Kingdom. And Judah at this time failed. The Levites were to judge justly in the restored temple (Ez. 44:24). But here and in Zech. 7:9, the same word is used to effectively exhort them to stop judging unjustly.

Zechariah 8:17 And let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbour, and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, says Yahweh- As explained on :15,16, in return for apparently petty changes, God was prepared to reestablish the Kingdom in glory there and then. But to God, these things were not petty. They were requests for attitudes of mind, not loving falsity, not scheming in their hearts against their neighour. It is mental attitudes that God hates. This itself sets up the colossal importance of being spiritually minded, and the primary importance of the heart over any external religious rituals. God was looking for them to love truth and peace (:19); rather than loving falsity. The same phrase for 'devising evil' is used of how the opponents of the exiles 'devised evil' against them (Neh. 6:2; Esther 8:3). Yet the exiles were doing to their brethren what had been done to them. This is the classic cycle of abuse; to do to others as was done to us. Only repentance and a response to Divine grace will break it. God had 'devised evil' against His people (:14; Mic. 2:3). But they were devising evil against that same people, their brethren. They were unconsciously playing God, responding to their own rightful receipt of God's judgment by judging others; instead of accepting guilt and the rightness of God's judgment.

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- The Jews had instituted their own fasts: the ninth day of the fourth month, in memory of the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; in the fifth month, in remembrance of the burning of the temple and city (see on Zech. 7:3); in the seventh month, to mourn the murder of Gedaliah (Jer. 41:1,2); and in the tenth month, in memory of the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. But the only fast required by God was that on the day of atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month. That fasting was intended to elicit repentance; and it was exactly that which was lacking in Judah. Instead they had fasted basically out of self pity, lamenting their national judgment as a tragedy, but without personal repentance. We see here the human tendency towards religion; and even when ostensibly based upon spiritual things, it can end up a totally separate religion to the one God desires. In their case, fasting to lament Gedaliah's death took precedence over fasting in repentance for personal sins, which was what God wanted.

 

Therefore love truth and peace- Without loving truth, these feasts would not be joyful to the Jews who had returned. The prophecy was conditional. As noted on :17, they had loved falsity; God was and is intensely concerned with the state of the human heart. What do we really love and aspire to? Hene all who truly love the Lord's appearing, with all that entails, shall be saved (2 Tim. 4:8).

 

Zechariah 8:20 Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Many peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come- 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 into 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.

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- Perhaps Nehemiah was some kind of potential Messiah- for the surrounding Gentiles ‘came up’ to him and shared in the luxurious temple meals (a common Kingdom prophecy- the same Hebrew words are used for the Gentiles ‘coming up’ to the temple in Is. 60:5,11; Jer. 16:19; Hag. 2:7; Zech. 8:22). Those meals could have been the Messianic banquets. See on Mal. 1:10.

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.