Bible Commentaries

Zechariah 10:1. Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain, as stated in Deuteronomy 11:14. This rain fed the plant and made the harvest luxuriant. This chapter is therefore a continuation of the preseding, which describes the young men and maids in the fullest joys of rural labour, threshing the corn, and pressing the grapes. For the harvest shall then last to the vintage, and the vintage to the seedtime, as Joel says, in Joel 3:18; and thus the seasons shall give each other the hand. Then shall the earth bring her plenary encrease, and God even our own God shall give us his blessing. Psalms 67:6.

Zechariah 10:2. The idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie. They prophesied of peace, of abundant harvests, and of red wine; but war, famine, and captivity were the results. From their lies, truth is inferred; in those recent calamities God glorified his true prophets, and shamed the lying seers.—In the latter day he will also glorify the word of prophecy by heaping on the christian Zion glory which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, but which had long before been foretold.

Zechariah 10:3. Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds. Against the four last kings of David’s house. Jeremiah 23:1. But it shall burn more still against the infidel hosts who shall despise the grace and glory of the latter day.

Zechariah 10:4. Out of him [Judah] came forth the corner, out of him the nail, the battle bow, and every oppressor together. As Eliakim, a great general and minister, was a pillar in David’s house, and supported the throne, much as the corner stone unites the wall, and as the pin or nail unites the roof of the building, so the Lord will give Zion pastors after his own heart.

Zechariah 10:5. They shall be as mighty men which tread down their enemies. It is also said in Zechariah 14:14, that Judah shall fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the heathen shall be gathered together. It is in vain that the less enlightened critics send us here to Judas Maccabeus, and his brothers: their victories were but sparks, compared with the grand and final contest between philosophy and revelation, in the war of the Lamb.

Zechariah 10:8. I will hiss for them, and gather them. To hiss, is to despise; whereas אשׁרקה esherikah, sibilabo, I will whistle, as on a shepherd’s reed. Lowth reads, hist, of which Minshew, a learned schoolmaster of London, has the following definition. Hist, nota silentii; הסה hissah, siluit. This note of silence being wide of the mark, the shepherd’s reed conveys the true idea, equivalent to the Hebrew word of calling, as Isaiah 10:5. Ho, to the Assyrian. Also in Ruth 4:1. Ho, such a one, turn aside.

Zechariah 10:9. I will sow them—in far countries, during what modern rabbins call the Roman captivity. In anger God has said, go, oh rebellious people, wander on the face of the whole earth, and under the whole heaven; go, and teach all nations the consequences of rejecting the gospel. But go as my witnesses against idolatry, and to spread the knowledge and worship of the true God. Go into India, to Persia, and suffer poverty. Go to other nations, even to christian nations, where your execrations of the Holy and the Just One will bring persecution upon you, and the reproaches of the religious world. Go and wander, till, as a world of missionaries, you shall remember me in far countries. Then the promise shall be sure,

Zechariah 10:10. I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon, and will so multiply them that place shall not be found for them. They shall ask to go in colonies to the less inhabited districts of the earth. Israel shall rise to glory, when Assyria and Egypt shall be denationalized.

Zechariah 10:11. He shall pass through the sea with affliction—and all the deeps of the river shall dry up. Here is an evident allusion to the passage of the Israelites through the Red sea, when brought out of Egypt, and of their crossing the Jordan into the promised land. And if the lost tribes are to be finally recovered and brought back again to Palestine, this prediction would seem to intimate that they will be driven out of the countries they now inhabit, as they were driven out of Egypt, “with affliction,” and that while struggling to pass the Euphrates with great difficulty and danger, “all the deeps of the river shall be dried up.” It is in strict accordance with the tenour of prophecy to expect that there will yet be some miraculous interpositions of providence in favour of the jewish people, as in former times, when they shall be gathered together from their present dispersion over all the earth, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter day. This prediction in Zechariah appears also to synchronize with that of the apostle, where it is foretold that the waters of the Euphrates are to be dried up, to prepare the way for the kings of the east. Revelation 16:12.

Zechariah 10:12. I will strengthen them in the Lord. This promise was eminently fulfilled in the apostles of Christ, who were greatly strengthened for labour and for suffering, in introducing and extending his kingdom over all the earth. It is applicable also to the church in all ages, more especially when religion shall attain a fuller growth, when he that is feeble shall be as David, and David as the angel of the Lord. Our strength for labour and for warfare is not in ourselves, but “in the Lord.” He is the repository of all spiritual blessings, which are derived from him by faith; and when any of his servants are prepared for some great undertaking, it is by their being made strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

And they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord. During the captivity the jews had been like prisoners, but on their return from Babylon they should walk at large, and enjoy all the sweets of civil liberty, an emblem and a presage of that righteous and holy liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free. And oh how good and delightful is it to be able also to walk up and down in the name of the Lord, seeking the advancement of his kingdom, and doing all we do to his glory.—Now, though we concede much to the christian doctors, who contend for a final gathering of all the jews to their own land, we must not join the rabbins who destroyed christianity in Galatia, by contending that all the grace promised to Zion in the latter day respected the terrestrial Jerusalem. We must not put St. Paul in the list of heretics for unbelief. We must not discard the list of critics cited by Poole on the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah. We must not harden the jews to persist in unbelief, till Christ shall visibly appear. We want their aid as missionaries; and whenever they shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken from their hearts. Christian powers will then aid the partial return of that people to inherit lands and houses; then the church shall rejoice, as with life from the dead, and God will destroy their enemies with unexampled destruction. Ezekiel 39. Zechariah 14. Isaiah 60:12.