Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD'S house should be built.
Ver. 2. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying] This title is oft used in these three last prophecies (eighteen different times in that eighth of Zechariah) because, being to build, they had many enemies; therefore had need of all encouragement. And Jerome, in his prologue, noteth it as an act of great courage in Haggai and Zechariah that, against the edict of King Artaxerxes (or Cambyses) and the oppositions of Sanballat, and other potent adversaries, they should stir up the people to build the temple; and as an act of heroic faith in the prince, priest, and people, to set upon the work, and finish it, "Not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts," Zechariah 4:6. See more of this title. See Trapp on " Mal 3:17 " Doct. 1.
This people say] Words then have their weight; neither are men's tongues their own; but there is a Lord over them, Psa 12:4 that will call them to a strict account of all their waste words, Matthew 12:36, and hard speeches, Judges 1:15, and then they shal1 experiment that by their words (which they haply held but wind) they shall be justified, and by their words condemned, Matthew 12:37. How good is it, therefore, to carry a pair of balances between the lips? Nescit poenitenda loqui qui proferenda prius suo tradidit examini, saith Cassiodore; He that weighs his words before he utters them shall prevent an after reckoning for them.
The time is not come, the time, &c.] He repeateth their frivolous and frigid excuses in their own very words; that he may the better confute them, and the sooner bring them to a sight of their sin, Usus est μιμησει ut rei indignitatem amplificaret. Sin and shifting came into the word together, Genesis 3:12. And this is still the vile poison of our hearts, that they will needs be naught, and yet never yield, but that there is reason to be made, and great sense in sinning. These Jews, likely, had both Scripture and reason to plead for their backwardness (as there is no wool so coarse but will take some colour; and the sluggard is wiser in his own eye than seven men that can render a reason, Pro 26:16). For Scripture: To everything there is an appointed time, a set season, such as we can neither alter nor order, Ecc 3:1 Haggai 1:3 "There is a time to break down, and a time to build up." And that this time to rebuild the temple was not yet come, some might pretend that the seventy years foretold were not yet fully expired; others (with more show of reason) that they had been too hasty in laying the foundation long since, as appears by their ill success and many adversaries; that God, who had dwelt so long in a tabernacle, and was now worshipped at his newly created altar, would bear with them, if they first built their own houses, and then be more free to build his house, which they intended to do hereafter, with great care and cost. This is still the guise of graceless procrastinators, to future and fool away their own salvation. Hereafter, say they, may be time enough, and what need such haste to build the spiritual temple? In time comes grace, God is more merciful than so; and at what time soever a sinner repents from the bottom of his heart, &c. Fools and blind men (as our Saviour calls the Pharisees, Mat 23:17), that thus stand trifling and baffling with God and their souls, being semper victuri, as Seneca saith, always about to do that which, if not well done, they are utterly undone for ever; for upon this little point of time hangs the crown of eternity. The gales of grace are uncertain, the day of grace (which is very clear and bright) is usually a short one. Non licet in belle bis peccare, It is not permitted to error twice in wartime, said Lamachus to a soldier of his brought before him, and pleading he would do so no more: so God will not suffer men twice to neglect the day of grace, which, if once past, will never dawn again. Let none, therefore, when pressed to the present now of meeting God by repentance, answer as Antipater, King of Macedonia, did, when one presented him a book treating of happiness, ου σχολαζω, I am not at leisure. Or as Archias, the Theban, when forewarned of a conspiracy against him, cast the letters by, with In crastinum seria, and was slain ere the morrow came. Or as these Cunctators in the text, that had often in their mouth, "The time is not come, the time," &c., lest the very next minute they be cut off by death from all further time of repentance, acceptation, and grace for ever. Men may purpose, promise, expect a time of healing and happiness, when they shall be deceived, and find a time of terror and torment, Jeremiah 14:19. Some, when a dying, would have given a world for time: as I have heard (saith a reverend man) one crying day and night, call time again; but that could not be. As in war, so here, none are permitted to err twice. Time must be taken by the forelock, as being bald behind, Posthac occasio calva.