CRITICAL NOTES.]
Zechariah 10:8. Hiss] Whistle as bee-keepers call back swarms to the hive. The extraordinary increase of Jews after this is a familiar fact of history (cf. Josephus’ Wars, Bk. 3 ch. 3. § 2).
Zechariah 10:9. Sow] broadcast, with a design to multiply (Hosea 2:2-5; Jeremiah 31:27). Remember] Return to right mind (cf. Luke 15:17; Psalms 22:27). Live] in political and spiritual life.
Zechariah 10:10. Egypt] the house of bondage, and Assyria] the scene of captivity, represent all lands in which they are now scattered. Gilead and Lebanon] Their old dwellings east and west of Jordan. This territory, though fertile and large, should not be able to support them.
Zechariah 10:11. The sea] personified, shall not hinder their return. God will march at their head, trample down all its proud waves, and the depths shall become dry. Assyria’s pride] and Egypt’s sceptre] (rod of task-master), shall be smitten.
Zechariah 10:12. I] God will strengthen Ephraim. They will walk] in his name, and enjoy his protection; find the past a pledge of the future, and see the Divine perfections more illustrious than ever.
HOMILETICS
THE RESTORATION, SETTLEMENT, AND INCREASE OF GOD’S PEOPLE.—Zechariah 10:8-12
To remove all doubt concerning the promises just given the restoration is more minutely described.
I. The restoration of God’s people. “I will gather them.”
1. From different places. From “the land of Egypt,” a type of all lands of bondage. “Out of Assyria,” a type of all lands of exile. They shall be sought and found in all quarters of the world.
2. By Divine call. “I will hiss for them and gather them.” As bee-keepers whistle back the bees to the hive, or as sheep flock together at the well-known call of the shepherd, so God will bring them back to himself and their inheritance. “He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth; and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly” (Isaiah 5:26).
3. Without hindrance. (a) Distance shall not keep them back. Out of lands far and near. (b) Distress shall not hinder them. At the Red Sea Israel thought they were lost. The sea of affliction shall be opened up. Its smitten waves shall overwhelm the foe, “for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians” (Exodus 14:24-25); or sink into silence at the command of its Maker and Ruler. “All the deeps of the river shall dry up.” (c) Enemies shall not impede them. “The pride of Assyria shall be brought down.” The rod of Egypt shall be broken. The wonders of old shall be repeated, and the first deliverance shall be eclipsed by the last.
II. The settlement of God’s people. “I will bring them into the land of Gilead” beyond Jordan, the eastern, “and Lebanon,” the northern, boundary.
1. Settled them in Divine strength. “I will strengthen them in the Lord.” Strengthen them to resist temptation, discharge duty, and endure trial. “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”
2. Settled them in delightful freedom. “I have redeemed them” (Zechariah 10:8): spiritually and temporally, the type of the true Israel. “I gave Egypt for their ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.”
III. The increase of God’s people. “And they shall increase as they have increased.”
1. Increase by sowing them in other nations. As seed sown in the ground they were scattered, not merely to spread the knowledge of God, but to be quickened in themselves, and to quicken others. “The word is used of sowing to multiply,” says Pusey, “never of mere scattering. A rich harvest was to spring from them.” “I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.”
2. Increase with unparalleled degree. “Place shall not be found for them.” “A promise of such increase is a promise that includes much more than it expresses. It implies in it all that contributes to such rapid multiplication.” “The children of thy bereaved estate shall yet say in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place, that I may dwell.”
3. Increase in permanent duration. “They shall live with their children and turn again.” The gift would be a continual gift. “They and their children, and their children’s children for ever” (Ezekiel 37:14). The blessing would not be transient, but abiding; the chartered privileges would be as before the dispersion. “The promise is unto you and to your children.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Zechariah 10:9. Here we seem to have their dispersions, their penitent recognition of God, and their consequent preservation and return [Wardlaw]. Sow them, partly to keep them as winter seed in the ground till the spring-time of their conversion and restitution; and partly making them seed to bring in an increase of the fulness of the Gentiles at their conversion. Further, the Lord promiseth that scattering should not hinder their conversion, for the veil shall be taken away, and they shall remember the Lord, and they and their children being preserved shall return to God [Hutcheson].
They shall remember me—
1. May be applied to the Jews; and
2. to the conversion of sinners. It indicates—
1. That men have forgotten God, wandered into distance from him.
2. That true conversion is a “turning again” to God in humility and duty. A state of unregeneration is one of forgetfulness. Sinners have lost all sense of God’s glory, authority, and mercy. The first religious exercise of the mind is reflection, fitly represented in the prodigal when he came to himself. Then a return to God the Father. “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord.”
Zechariah 10:12. Security and happiness under Divine protection.
1. Christian knowledge; a knowledge of God’s name revealed to direct and encourage in duty. “The name of Jehovah is a comprehensive expression denoting his glory as manifested in history” (Hengs.)
2. Christian profession. To walk in his name, or maintain a course of life in harmony with God’s will and word.
3. Christian freedom. “They shall walk up and down.” “The expression seems further to imply a state of felt peace, and freedom, and confidence of safety, and happy social intercommunion, arising from faith in God—from unshaken reliance on his power and wisdom, faithfulness and love” [Wardlaw]. I will strengthen them in the Lord. The very assurance we want in the duties and trials of life. Confidently rely upon it, for it comes from the lips of Faithfulness and Truth. But we may err as to manner of fulfilment; our expectation therefore to be regulated accordingly. Observe, that the fulfilment of the promise will not exempt us from all ground of complaint. It will keep us in work, but not cause us to cease—secures help in conflict, but war lasts for ever. It will also be seasonable. “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Look for grace, not for imaginary but real purposes, not for future but present difficulties, to “help in time of need.” These supplies of strength to be sought in God’s own way. In the use of appointed means. Foolish to avoid religious exercises, even when not in a proper, spiritual, and lively frame. Then the means most necessary, as fire when we are cold, and excitement when dull [Jay].
Zechariah 10:10-12. Messianic mercies. Survey the whole promise from ch. Zechariah 9:11 onwards; there are two leading thoughts developed in it. (a) That those members of the covenant nation who were still scattered among the heathen should be redeemed out of their misery, and gathered together in the kingdom of Messiah. (b) That the Lord would endow all his people with power for the conquest of the heathen. They were both fulfilled in weak commencements only in the times immediately following, and down to the coming of Christ, by the return of many Jews out of captivity and into the land of their fathers, particularly when Galilee was strongly peopled by Israelites; and also by the protection and care which God bestowed upon the people in the contests between the powers of the world for supremacy in Palestine. The principal fulfilment is of a spiritual kind, and was effected through the gathering of Jews into the kingdom of Christ, which commenced in the times of the apostles, and will continue till the remnant of Israel is converted to Christ its Saviour [Keil].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Zechariah 10:7-8. “The house of Judah, and the house of Joseph,” spoken of in the first of these verses, signify respectively, the two tribes and the ten tribes—unitedly, the whole house of Israel—the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The declaration, “I will save them, and bring them again and place them,” cannot refer to the return from Babylon; seeing, in that respect, they had been already “saved,” and “brought again,” and “placed.” And the language is much too strong to have reference to any such remaining partial deliverances and returnings—additions only to that from Babylon—which might take place under the Maccabean princes, or at any period of their history between the prophet’s days and the coming of Christ. And if it refers to a period subsequent to the coming of Christ, to what else can the reference be but to their recovery from their present long-continued outcast and scattered condition? [Wardlaw].
Zechariah 10:9-12. The victory described is followed by a large increase of population, not confined to Judah, but also including Israel. Nor is there reason to doubt that the independence achieved by the Maccabees attracted very many of the exiles from the northern kingdom, who forgot the old causes of dissension, and united earnestly in maintaining the re-established national centre in Jerusalem. This fusion at home led to a similar fusion abroad, and wherever Jews were found, who preserved their hereditary faith at all, they still remembered Jehovah as one who had chosen Zion, and considered themselves as constituent parts of one covenant people. So far the predictions of the chapter were fulfilled historically in the period extending from the establishment of Jewish independence to the time of the advent. In the last three verses the prophet describes a far greater, because spiritual, blessing in terms borrowed from the old experience of the people. The drying up of the sea, the humiliation of Assyria, the overthrow of Egypt, simply set forth the removal of all possible obstacles in the way of a spiritual return to God. The Lord will reclaim and bless them by procedures as marvellous as any that ever occurred in their former history [Lange].