Zechariah 7:8 - Meaning and Application

What was said in Zechariah 7:7, that they should have listened to the words of the earlier prophets, is now explained more fully. This is a warning to these hypocritical questioners, who kept on sinning while asking, with great care, whether they should continue their fasts. The prophet had already reminded them of their fathers’ disobedience to the prophets and of the result of it (Zechariah 1:4-6), and he does so again here. What happened to others should warn us, and God’s judgments on Israel long ago were written to teach us Christians (1 Corinthians 10:11).

The prophet repeats the main points of the sermons the former prophets had preached to their fathers, because the same duties were still required of them now (Zechariah 7:9, Zechariah 7:10). “The Lord of hosts” speaks to you now as he spoke to your fathers, saying, “Judge fairly.” What God required was not fasting and sacrifices, but justice and mercy. These duties were binding by the light of nature and the law of nature, even if no prophets had ever been sent to press them. They also served the good of society and peace, and the people themselves would benefit from them, not God.

Civil rulers must administer justice fairly, according to the law and the facts of each case, without favoring anyone. They must “judge true judgment” and carry it out after they have judged it. Neighbors must care tenderly for one another, not only avoiding harm but being ready to do every good they can. They must show mercy and compassion to every man and his brother, as the need arises. Even the weaknesses of others, not just their sufferings, should move us to pity. They must also not press hard on people when they have the advantage and know those people cannot defend themselves. In business or in court, they must not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the stranger, or the poor (Zechariah 7:10). The weakest must not be forced aside just because they are weak. It is easy not to deny justice to those who can demand it and recover it, but we must give people what is due to them, even for conscience’s sake, when they have no power to force it from us. This also means that what is only strictness with some becomes harsh oppression with widows and orphans. In fact, failing to help them as we should is, in effect, oppressing them.

They must not only avoid wronging others, but even avoid wishing it. “Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.” Do not plan it, do not want it, and do not even enjoy the thought of it. God’s law reaches into the heart. It forbids not just evil actions, but also the welcoming of cruel or bitter thoughts. “Be careful that there is not a thought in your wicked heart against your brother” (Deuteronomy 15:9).

The prophet then describes the stubborn disobedience of their fathers, who kept on in all kinds of evil and injustice despite many warnings given in God’s name (Zechariah 7:11, Zechariah 7:12). These repeated phrases show the stubbornness of the carnal mind, that is, the sinful human mind, which is hostile to God and does not submit to God’s law, nor can it. They were stubborn and resistant, continuing in sin out of a spirit of opposition to God’s law.

They did not want to come near the prophets if they could avoid it, or, if they heard them, they would not listen. They turned away as if the prophets had not spoken to them. If they did hear and seemed for a moment ready to obey, they soon pulled back when action was required. Like a young ox not used to the yoke, they shook off the burden and would not submit to the easy yoke and light burden of God’s commandments. They gave a “withdrawing shoulder,” meaning they seemed to put their shoulder to the work, but quickly pulled back, like those in Jeremiah 34:10-11. They were like a dishonest bow, or like the son who said, “I will go, sir,” but did not go.

They filled their own minds with prejudice against God’s word and were ready with some objection against every sermon they heard. They stopped their ears so they would not hear, like the deaf adder (Psalm 58:4). No one is so deaf as the person who refuses to hear and makes his own ears heavy. They were also determined that nothing said to press these commands on them would affect them. They made their hearts like an adamant stone, like the hardest diamond, or like flint that a mason cannot shape. Nothing is so hard, so stubborn, or so unbending as the heart of a proud sinner. And those whose hearts are hard have only themselves to blame. They have hardened themselves, and it is just for God to give them over to the hardness and unrepentance they have chosen.

These stubborn sinners hardened their hearts on purpose so they would not hear what God said through the written law of Moses and through the words of the prophets. They had Moses and the prophets, yet they refused to listen to either. They would not have been convinced even if someone had risen from the dead. The prophet’s words were ignored, though they were the words the Lord of hosts sent to them and directed to them, spoken immediately by his Spirit through the prophets. So in despising those words, they insulted God himself and resisted the Holy Spirit. The reason people are not good is that they will not be good. They will not think, they will not obey, and so, if they scorn wisdom, they alone will bear the result.

This is why great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. God was deeply displeased with them, and rightly so, because he asked nothing of them except what was reasonable and good for them. Yet they refused, and they did so in a bold, insulting way. What master could endure being treated that way by his own servant? Such settled hatred of the gospel, like the hatred these people showed toward the law and the prophets, brought the full weight of wrath on the last generation of the Jewish church (1 Thessalonians 2:16). Great sins against the Lord of hosts, whose authority cannot be questioned, bring great wrath from the Lord of hosts, whose power cannot be resisted.

The result was this. Just as they had turned a deaf ear to God’s word, God turned a deaf ear to their prayers (Zechariah 7:13). In their good times, he had called them to leave their sins, but they would not listen and kept going in their wrongdoing. So when trouble came and they cried out for relief, he did not listen, but let their suffering continue. Those who had challenged God in their pride then cried out to him when pain came on them. In trouble they visited him, but God had already said, and would stand by it, that if a person turns away from hearing the law, even his prayer will be hateful to God (Proverbs 28:9; Proverbs 1:24). Sin cherished in the heart will surely ruin prayer’s success (Psalm 66:18).

Since they had left their duty and loyalty to God and had become restless and unsettled, God scattered them, as chaff is blown before a whirlwind. He scattered them among nations they did not know, so they could not even hope for kindness from them (Zechariah 7:14). Just as they broke God’s law in every way, so he took away the glory of their land. Their land was left desolate behind them, and no one passed through or returned. After the rest of the Jews were taken away, especially after Gedaliah was killed, the land of the two tribes was left empty. There was no man, woman, or child there until the Jews came back at the end of seventy years of captivity. Even the roads through the country seem to have been deserted, with no one passing back and forth.

This had a quiet mercy in it, because the land was kept empty for their return. But for the moment it made the judgment look even more terrible. What a dreadful wilderness a land becomes when it has been uninhabited for so many years. They had only themselves to blame. It was their own wickedness that laid the pleasant land waste, not merely the Chaldeans. The ruin of a land comes from the sin of its people (Psalm 107:34). This was the result of their willing disobedience to God’s law. Even then, the people of that time could see how sin had made that pleasant land desolate, and still they would not learn from it.