I will save My people from the East country, and from the West country
A two-fold Divine restoration
I. A Divine temporal restoration. The reference here is to those Jews who had been scattered abroad over various countries through the Babylonian Captivity and other disastrous causes. The point is, that the restoration here promised is a temporal restoration to their own land and country. God is constantly restoring His people to those temporal blessings they have lost. He restores often--
1. To lost health;
2. To lost property;
3. To lost social status.
In all His people’s distresses He bids them look to Him.
II. A Divine spiritual restoration. This may mean, I will become their God in good faith or in reality, both on their side and on Mine. This is incomparably the most important restoration.
1. Man may lose his God, and be “without God in the world.”
2. The loss of God is the greatest loss. A man separated from God is like a branch separated from the root, a river from the fountain, a planet from the sun.
3. Restoration to God is the transcendent good. He who can say, “The Lord is my portion,” possesseth all things. This restoration the Almighty is effecting now in the world. “He is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” (Homilist.)
And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem--
The future of the Jews
The terms of this prediction carry us beyond any facts at that time existing, and refer to events then future. It predicts a return of the Jews from the West as well as the East, whilst at this time the only dispersion existing was toward the East in Babylon. Hence an universal dispersion is implied in this universal restoration, the terms, from East to West, being inclusive of the entire earth. This general dispersion did not occur until the final fall of Jerusalem, since which there has been no general restoration of the Jews, either in a literal or a figurative sense. Hence the main facts predicted are yet future. That they include a literal restoration of the Jews to their own land is probable, but that this is the main purport of the prophecy is just as improbable. There is something more than a mere political restoration required by the general drift of the prophecy, which is spiritual, not temporal, and which therefore demands a spiritual reunion to the spiritual theocracy, or the blood-bought and blood-washed Church of God. And this is particularly demanded by the covenant formula of Zechariah 8:8, “They shall be My people, and I will be their God,” which is always the exponent of spiritual blessings, and the fact is put beyond all question by the explanatory addendum, “in truth and righteousness,” which expressly affirms that this restoration and union are not to be outward, visible, and temporal, but inward, invisible, and spiritual. They will be a sincere and justified people, as He will be a true and pardoning God. (T. V. Moore, D. D.)