View Zechariah 8 in the note window.
A promise that Jerusalem shall be restored, ver. 1 - 8.
That the whole church shall be established and increased, ver. 9 - 23.
2: Jealousy - With great care that she should not, as formerly,
sin against my love, and her own welfare, and with a great desire to
do her good, and to rescue her from her enemies. Fury - With heat of
anger against her enemies.
3: Shall be called a city of truth - Her citizens shall love the
truth and speak it, shall worship me in truth of heart, as well as in
the true manner prescribed to them.
4: Old men - Formerly war, or famine or pestilence, and wasting
diseases, cut off men and women before they came to old age.
6: Marvellous - These things may seem strange to this people.
7: The east - country - Persia and Media, which lay east from
Jerusalem, and were now masters of Babylon.
8: In truth and in righteousness - This signifies both God's part,
and their part; on God's part truth, on their's righteousness, obedience
to God's righteous law.
9: The prophets - Haggai and Zechariah.
10: Before these days - For eighteen years together.
No hire - No profit by the labour of man or beast, no sowing or planting.
Affliction - Distress, and want, through the barrenness, which attended
all their labour.
11: I will not be - That is, I will not deal with them as in former
days.
14: I repented not - I did not fail to do it.
15: So - So with like steadiness of mind I have purposed to do well
to you.
16: Judgment of truth - True judgment. Peace - That may restore,
and settle peace among you. Gates - The places of judicature, where
the judges sat.
19: Thus saith the Lord - This verse is a final decision of the case:
provided they do these things required, ver.(Zec 8:16,17), then shall the
fasting cease, and turn into joyful feasts. The fourth month - Wherein
the city was taken by the Babylonians. The fifth - In which the temple
was burnt. The seventh - Wherein Gedaliah was killed.
The tenth - On the tenth day whereof the king of Babylon's army sat
down before the city.
20: People - Multitudes.
21: I will go also - The invited, shall with as much zeal embrace
the motion, as others made it.
22: In Jerusalem - Literally understood, you have the first
fruits of them mentioned, (Ac 2:10-12).
Mystically, Jerusalem is the church of Christ. To pray - To perform
all gospel - worship.
23: Ten men - That is, many men. All languages - No nation is any
longer excluded. A Jew - To whom the gospel was first preached.
We have heard - And now see, and are assured. That God - The true God,
the only true God, whom to know is life eternal.
