Zechariah 8

Text

Textual witnesses

Restoration of Jerusalem (8:1–8)

Verse 7

• "From … east … west": that is, from every region where they are scattered; to the east, under Nebuchadnezzar mainly to Babylonia, or to the "west", literally, "the going down of the sun", especially countries west of Jerusalem. The restoration of the people includes a spiritual return to God in the future ; also Romans 11:26.

  Verse 8

• "And they shall be My people": God promises to those who were already His people, as Jeremiah says, "I will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart", and, "This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and will write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people".
• "and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem": referring to 'the household of God', with 'no more foreigners and strangers'.

  Prosperity of Jerusalem (8:9–13)

Verse 12

• "The seed shall be prosperous": translated from Hebrew זרע השלום, ha-, literally, "the seed of peace", denoting that the crops sown shall be crops of peace and secure". The Septuagint reads "But I will show forth peace", whereas the Syriac version reads "The seed shall be safe". The consecutive words "For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit" can also be rendered as "For the seed of peace, the vine, shall give its fruit".

  Expectations for Jerusalem (8:14–17)

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem (8:18–23)

• Pilgrimage to Jerusalem: by the Bethelites then by the peoples of the nations in order " to beseech the favor of YHWH"
• Representatives sent: by a single city and by "all languages of the nations"
• Fasting in sorrow will be replaced by 'feasting for joy'.

  Verse 19

• "The fast of the fourth month": Jerome gives the later Jewish traditions concerning the fastings. The fast of the seventh day of the fourth month commemorated the breaking of the two tables of the commandments by Moses, as well as the first breach in the walls of Jerusalem; On the ninth day "of the fourth month" of Zedekiah's eleventh year, Jerusalem, in the extremity of famine, opened to Nebuchadnezzar, and his princes sat in her gate; Jerusalem was taken. It was therefore made a fast day.
• "The fast of the fifth": This fast in the fifth month, the month of Ab, had been established in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The temple was burnt on the ninth or tenth of the month. Jerome wrote that the fast of the fifth month was observed in memory of the return of the spies sent to explore Canaan, and the consequent punishment of forty years' wandering in the wilderness, as well as of the burning of the temple by the Chaldeans.
• "The fast of the seventh" : This fast was in memory of the murder of Gedaliah and those with him at Mizpah, issuing in the dispersion of the Jews.
• "The fast of the tenth": Jerome states that the fast of the tenth month was appointed because it was then that Ezekiel and the captive Jews received intelligence of the complete destruction of the temple. On the tenth month and tenth day, in the ninth year of Zedekiah, the siege began.

  Verse 23

• "Ten men": The number ten is usually used for a large indefinite number. It is also the number of men required to form a synagogue in Jewish tradition.
• "Of all languages of the nations": The day of Pentecost was to be the reversal of the confusion of Babel; all were to have one voice, as God had said, "It shall come to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see My glory" Isaiah 66:18.
• "They shall lay hold of the skirt of one man who is a Jew": Jerome interpret this "one man, a Jew" as Jesus Christ, connecting it with the prophecy: "A prince shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He shall come, for whom it is laid up, and for Him shall the Gentiles wait" and "there shall be a rod of Jesse, and He who shall arise to rule over the Gentiles, to Him shall the Gentiles seek", for it was essential to the fulfillment of God's promises. The Christ was to be "the Son of David" ; Matthew 22:42. "Hath not the Scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the linen of Bethlehem, where David was?". David, "being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne Acts 2:30; "Of this man's seed hath God, according to promise, raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus". Paul also begins his great doctrinal Epistle with this contrast, "the Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power". He was that "one Man among a thousand, whom Solomon says, I found; but a woman among all those have I not found" ; the one in the whole human race. It was fulfilled when "they brought to Him all that were diseased, and besought Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole". "The whole multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue out of Him and healed all".

  Jewish

• Christian