Zechariah 8 — John Wesley
8:1
They laid the land desolate - By their sins.
8:2
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.
8:3
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.
8:4
Old men - Formerly war, or famine or pestilence, and wasting diseases, cut off men and women before they came to old age.
8:6
Marvellous - These things may seem strange to this people.
8:7
The east - country - Persia and Media, which lay east from Jerusalem, and were now masters of Babylon.
8:8
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.
8:9
The prophets - Haggai and Zechariah.
8:10
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.
8:11
I will not be - That is, I will not deal with them as in former days.
8:14
I repented not - I did not fail to do it.
8:15
So - So with like steadiness of mind I have purposed to do well to you.
8:16
Judgment of truth - True judgment. Peace - That may restore, and settle peace among you. Gates - The places of judicature, where the judges sat.
8:19
Thus saith the Lord - This verse is a final decision of the case: provided they do these things required, ver.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.
8:20
People - Multitudes.
8:21
I will go also - The invited, shall with as much zeal embrace the motion, as others made it.
8:22
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.
8:23
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.