Zechariah 8 - Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Jealousy — With great care that she should not, as formerly, sin against my love, and her own welfare, and with a great desire to do her good, and to rescue her from her enemies. Fury — With heat of anger against her enemies.

Shall be called a city of truth — Her citizens shall love the truth and speak it, shall worship me in truth of heart, as well as in the true manner prescribed to them.

Old men — Formerly war, or famine or pestilence, and wasting diseases, cut off men and women before they came to old age.

Marvellous — These things may seem strange to this people.

The east — country — Persia and Media, which lay east from Jerusalem, and were now masters of Babylon.

In truth and in righteousness — This signifies both God's part, and their part; on God's part truth, on their's righteousness, obedience to God's righteous law.

The prophets — Haggai and Zechariah.

Before these days — For eighteen years together. No hire — No profit by the labour of man or beast, no sowing or planting. Affliction — Distress, and want, through the barrenness, which attended all their labour.

I will not be — That is, I will not deal with them as in former days.

I repented not — I did not fail to do it.

So — So with like steadiness of mind I have purposed to do well to you.

Judgment of truth — True judgment. Peace — That may restore, and settle peace among you. Gates — The places of judicature, where the judges sat.

Thus saith the Lord — This verse is a final decision of the case: provided they do these things required, Zechariah 8:16-17, then shall the fasting cease, and turn into joyful feasts. The fourth month — Wherein the city was taken by the Babylonians. The fifth — In which the temple was burnt. The seventh — Wherein Gedaliah was killed. The tenth — On the tenth day whereof the king of Babylon's army sat down before the city.

People — Multitudes.

I will go also — The invited, shall with as much zeal embrace the motion, as others made it.

In Jerusalem — Literally understood, you have the first fruits of them mentioned, Acts 2:10-12. Mystically, Jerusalem is the church of Christ. To pray — To perform all gospel — worship.

Ten men — That is, many men. All languages — No nation is any longer excluded. A Jew — To whom the gospel was first preached. We have heard — And now see, and are assured. That God — The true God, the only true God, whom to know is life eternal.