Zechariah 8:1-23

Zechariah 8:2. I was jealous for Zion with great fury, to purge her sins, and with great compassion and special mercy to bring back her children and restore her temple. What other nation, overrun and destroyed by the Chaldeans, were made like her the equal heirs of grace?

Zechariah 8:3. Thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Zion, and will dwell in Jerusalem a city of truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. To this day, Jerusalem is called the holy city in all the east.

Zechariah 8:4. There shall yet old men and women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem and boys and girls playing. A dense population is here promised, as in Isaiah 65:19. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. If we understand these promises temporally, as the jews mostly do, why did Antiochus cruelly slaughter them, and profane their temple for three years and six months. And why were the jews driven to pray for the iron yoke of the Romans, to deliver them from the galling yoke of the Syrian kings. Assuredly the blessings of the new Jerusalem are to be understood here; for though the clouds of Jehovah's mercy richly watered Jerusalem after the return from Babylon, they still reserve the plenitude of benediction for the hill of Zion in the latter day. With this agree the comments of Paul, in Galatians 4; Hebrews 12.

Zechariah 8:7. I will save my people from the east country. From the provinces of Babylon, from Tyre and Greece, from the isles, or Chetim, when they hear that Jerusalem flourishes under the government of Persian kings.

Zechariah 8:10. Before these days, when Baal and Moloch were the gods of Judah, there was no hire for man or beast. There was no trade, no money in circulation: meat only was the reward of labour. It was the same with the monks of Italy, England, and Spain, during their ascendency. They grew rich in gold, silver, and cattle, and made the people poor.

Zechariah 8:13. As ye were a curse among the heathen so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing. The jews have hitherto been abhorred for their extortion and deceit; but as soon as they shall embrace the gospel and the Saviour, the nations will rejoice over them as brethren, and help them in the Lord.

Zechariah 8:20. There shall come people and inhabitants of many cities saying, let us go speedily to pray before the Lord. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem. Daniel describes the fourth empire as exceedingly strong, that is, the power of the Roman nations, who embraced the christian religion. Churches were planted at a very early period in all their principal cities, and from them the sound of the gospel went forth into all the earth.

Zechariah 8:23. Ten men shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a jew. So eager shall the nations be to embrace the true religion, that they shall rush into the kingdom of heaven, and take it as it were with violence.