Zechariah 10:5 - Meaning and Application

Here are several precious promises made to God’s people. They reach beyond the Jews in the later days of their church and point to spiritual Israel, the gospel church, and all true believers.

First, they will have God’s favor and presence, and he will accept them as his own. This is the base of everything else: “The Lord is with them” (Zechariah 10:5). He takes their side, stands for them, and defends their cause. If God is for them, who can be against them?

Again, “I will have mercy on them” (Zechariah 10:6). All their honor and joy come only from God’s mercy. Mercy means kindness shown to people who are in misery, and it leaves no room for boasting about merit. They had been cast off, and that could only mean misery. They had deserved to be cast off, so they could claim nothing from God except wrath and the curse.

Yet God promises, “They shall be as though I had not cast them off.” The sins of their fathers, which brought that rejection, will not be visited on them, and will not even be remembered against them. God will be so fully reconciled to them as if he had never been at odds with them. The breaking apart of former love will become the renewing of love.

They will be so sure that God is reconciled to them, and so settled in that peace, that they will be as calm as if they had never been cast off. After he restores them to his favor, their condition will be so happy that no scar will remain from the wounds of that rejection. This is how God deals with returning, repentant sinners, who were by nature far from him and children of wrath. He admits them into such fellowship and freedom that they are as though they had never been cast off.

1. The covenant they enter is the same one it always was: “I am the Lord their God,” according to the original agreement made with their fathers.
2. The fellowship they enjoy is the same as ever: “I will hear them.” They will be just as welcome to speak to him, and just as sure to receive an answer of peace. He has never, and will never, say to Jacob’s descendants, “Seek me in vain.”

Second, they will be victorious over the enemies that try to pull them away from duty to God or comfort in God (Zechariah 10:5). They will be like mighty men, strong in body and brave in spirit, men of strength, courage, and usefulness. Those of Ephraim, as well as those of Judah, will be like a mighty man (Zechariah 10:7), ready for hard tasks and able to finish them. As mighty men, they will trample their enemies in battle, like mud trampled into the street.

They will fight, because the Lord is with them. Some might think that means they can sit still and do nothing, since God can do all things. But no, God’s gracious presence should not replace our effort, it should stir us to work harder. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because God is at work in us, both to will and to do.

They will fight with readiness and resolve, because if God is with them, they are sure to conquer, more than conquer. Then the riders on horses will be shamed. The enemy cavalry will be thrown into confusion by the Jewish foot soldiers. In a wider sense, this also fits the preachers of the gospel of Christ. They went out to fight the good fight with boldness, because God was with them, and the riders on horses who opposed them were shamed, because God chose the weak things of the world to shame the wise and mighty.

Where does all this strength come from? How are they made so able and active? It is in the Lord, and in the power of his might (Zechariah 10:6). “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph.” God saves us by strengthening us, and he works out our happiness by working in us to do our duty. That should make us diligent in using the strength he gives, while still giving God the glory for all of it. God is our strength, and so he becomes both our song and our salvation.

Third, those who are scattered will be gathered into one body (Zechariah 10:6). “I will bring them again to place them,” bringing them from other lands and settling them in their own land. This was a sign that they would be fully restored to all their former privileges. They would again possess their own land.

This was fulfilled when the children of God, scattered abroad, were brought together by faith in Christ into the gospel church, and Jews and Gentiles became one flock (John 10:16). To bring this about, God says, “I will hiss for them,” or rather, whistle for them, as a shepherd calls his sheep with a pipe when they know his voice. In that way, he will gather them. The preaching of the gospel was, in effect, God’s call to souls to come to Jesus Christ, his summons to bring in his scattered sheep to green pastures.

“I will gather them, for I have redeemed them.” Those whom Christ has redeemed by his blood, God will gather by his grace, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. This promise is expanded in Zechariah 10:10: “I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt.” Some think this was literally fulfilled when Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, sent 120,000 Jews from his country back to their own land. Others connect it with a similar gathering from Assyria by Alexander, the son of Antiochus Epiphanes. But its spiritual fulfillment is the gathering of precious souls out of a bondage worse than Egypt or Assyria, and bringing them into the glorious freedom of God’s children, with rich blessings like the fruitful pastures of Gilead and Lebanon.

All the land of promise belongs to them, even Gilead on the far eastern edge and Lebanon on the far northern edge. Yet how can this happen? How can people so scattered be brought together? How can those so far from their own country return? The difficulties seem impossible, but they will be overcome as easily and as fully as the obstacles in the way of Israel’s rescue from Egypt and entrance into Canaan. He will pass through the sea with trouble, as he once passed through the Red Sea, to the great trouble of Pharaoh and his army, or to the sea itself, whose waves he will strike back. The waters will be driven back, as when the sea saw it and fled (Psalm 114:3). And all the depths of the river, even the deepest rivers, will dry up, as the Jordan did, to open the way for Israel into the good land God had given them.

Does the pride of Assyria stand in the way of their rescue? God will check it, the one who sets limits to the proud waves of the sea, and Assyria will be brought low. Does the royal power of Egypt oppose it? That too will pass away, so it will not block the gathering of God’s Israel when the time comes for him to act.

When the gospel church was gathered from all nations by the preaching of the gospel, the angry powers of earth and hell strongly opposed it. The obstacles seemed impossible to overcome. But with divine power working through the message of Christ, it became mighty to tear down strongholds and to bring thousands to conversion and salvation. Then the sea fled, and the Jordan was driven back at the Lord’s presence.

They will also multiply greatly, and the church, this new world, will be filled (Zechariah 10:8). They will increase as they once did in Egypt, and as in the days of David and Solomon, there will be great additions to their number. When God gathers his redeemed people to himself, they will help gather others with them, and their journey home will be like a snowball rolling downhill, growing larger as it goes. The further it moves, the more it grows by gathering more.

I will gather them, and they shall increase. The church of Christ is a growing body as long as it remains in this present stage of weakness, until it reaches the full measure of Christ’s likeness. Every day, the Lord adds to it those who are being saved. It will spread to distant places. It will fill Canaan, even to Gilead and Lebanon, so that there will be no more room for it there (Zechariah 10:10). In Judah alone God was known, and only in Israel was his name great. There alone did he reveal his laws and judgments. But in gospel times that place will be too small, so the church’s tent must be enlarged and its cords stretched out.

Then I will sow them among the peoples (Zechariah 10:9). Their scattering will be like seed sown in the ground, not to bury it, but to make it grow and bear much fruit. The Jews were scattered into every nation under heaven (Acts 2:5). Some were driven out by trouble, while others likely moved into colonies because the land of Israel was too small for them. Many were also born in other nations, but had accepted the Jewish religion. In that way, they were sown among the peoples (Hosea 2:23). This helped spread the gospel greatly.

The Jews who came from all over to worship at Jerusalem carried the light and fire of the gospel back to their own countries, as in Acts 2, and the eunuch did in Acts 8. Their synagogues in the cities of the Gentiles were also the first places where the apostles preached, wherever they went. So when God sowed them among the peoples, he did not intend the Gentiles to harm them, but to do them good. He also made sure they would remember him and speak of his name in distant lands. By preserving knowledge of God among them, as he had revealed himself in the Old Testament, he prepared them the more readily to receive the knowledge of Christ in the New Testament.

The church will also last into future ages. It will not be a passing thing, only for one generation, but a seed will serve the Lord (Zechariah 10:7). Their children will see it and be glad, and they will live with their children and return (Zechariah 10:9). Those converted to Christ will have their children with them. They will teach them the knowledge of the Lord and bring them with them as they return to the holy land and the way of holiness. To those first preached to, the promise was for them and their children (Acts 2:39). They will be so spread among the peoples that they will never be wiped out. Christ’s family on earth will never die out, and his people will never be lost for lack of heirs.

God himself will be both their strength and their song. In him they will find comfort and great satisfaction (Zechariah 10:7). Their heart will rejoice as if through wine, for Christ’s love, which is their joy, is better than wine. They will be like a mighty man, and their heart will rejoice. When we firmly resist and overcome our spiritual enemies, our hearts rejoice. But we harm our own joy when our resistance is weak and we give in to Satan’s temptations. Their heart will rejoice, and then they will be like a mighty man, for the joy of the Lord is our strength. Their grace and their joy will also spread to their children. Their children will see it and be glad, and their hearts too will rejoice in the Lord. It is good to teach children early the pleasures of religion and to make its duties as pleasant as possible, so that, learning early to rejoice in the Lord, they may firmly hold to him.

God will also carry them forward with energy and a wide heart in his service (Zechariah 10:12). I will strengthen them in the Lord, he says, strengthening them for their walk and work, as well as for their fight. The God of Israel gives strength and power to his people. He strengthens all their powers and abilities for spiritual work, beyond what nature gives and against what the corruption of nature resists. Notice how this strength comes to them: I, the Lord, will strengthen them in the Lord, in the Messiah, who is Jehovah our strength as well as Jehovah our righteousness. Strength is stored up for us in Christ, and from him it comes to us. It is through Christ strengthening us that we can do all things, and without him we can do nothing. His strength is given to him for this very purpose (Psalm 68:28).

Now notice how they will use this strength: They shall walk up and down in his name. If God strengthens us, we must stir ourselves to action. We must walk in all the duties of the Christian life, active and busy in God’s work, not wasting time or missing chances. Yet we must always walk in the name of Christ, doing everything by his authority and in dependence on him, with his word as our rule and his glory as our goal. For us, to live must be Christ, and whatever we do in word or deed, we must do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, so that we do not receive God’s strengthening grace in vain (Psalm 80:17, Psalm 80:18).