Commentary - Zechariah 7:8-14

Bird's-eye view

We come now to the didactic, or teaching, portion of Zechariah. The people had come to the prophet with a question about their religious observances, specifically their fasts (Zech. 7:3). But God, as is His custom, refuses to answer the question they asked, choosing instead to answer the question they should have asked. Their question was about the external trappings of their religion, but God is always concerned with the heart. This is not a new message; it is the constant refrain of the prophets. The issue is not whether they should maintain a particular fast, but whether they have maintained the covenant. God redirects their attention from their liturgical calendar to His unchanging moral law. He reminds them of the message of the "former prophets," a message their fathers ignored to their own ruin. This passage is a stark reminder that true religion is not found in outward performance but in heartfelt obedience that flows from a right relationship with God. It is a lesson in cause and effect, a divine history lesson with a final exam that nobody wants to fail twice.

The structure of God's response is straightforward. He first reiterates the positive commands, the very heart of the law: justice, kindness, and compassion (vv. 9-10). This is what God has always required. Then, He recounts the negative response of their fathers: refusal, rebellion, and a resolute hardening of their hearts against the very Word of God delivered by His Spirit (vv. 11-12). Finally, He lays out the grim consequences of this rebellion: a terrifying divine reciprocity where God refuses to hear those who refused to hear Him, resulting in wrath, scattering, and desolation (vv. 12-14). The pleasant land became a wasteland, not because of Babylonian military might fundamentally, but because of Israel's covenantal infidelity. This is a sober warning for any generation, including our own, that mistakes the forms of worship for the substance of it.

Outline

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 8 Then the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah saying,

The formula here is standard, but we must never let it become commonplace. The ultimate authority for what follows is not the prophet's insight, or his analysis of their cultural moment. The authority is the revealed Word of God. "Thus saith the Lord" is the foundation for all true reformation and all genuine worship. Zechariah is not offering his opinion on their fasting schedule. He is a conduit for a direct communication from the sovereign Lord of hosts. This is what separates the true prophet from the court prophets, the hirelings who tell the people what they want to hear. The Word of Yahweh comes, and it cuts.

v. 9 “Thus has Yahweh of hosts said, ‘Judge with true justice and show lovingkindness and compassion each to his brother;

Here is the heart of the matter. Before God addresses their fasting, He lays down the non-negotiables of covenant life. Notice the progression. It begins with "true justice." The Hebrew is emphatic: mishpat emet. This is not the squishy, relativistic "social justice" of our day, which is little more than sanctified envy. This is true, righteous, objective judgment based on God's revealed law. It is the kind of justice that protects property, honors contracts, and punishes evil. But biblical justice is never divorced from mercy. It must be accompanied by "lovingkindness" (hesed) and "compassion" (rahamim). Hesed is that covenant loyalty, that steadfast love. Rahamim is a deep, gut-level compassion, the kind a mother has for her child. These are not optional add-ons for the spiritually elite. They are the required fruit of a people in covenant with a just and merciful God. And this is to be shown "each to his brother," emphasizing the horizontal, communal nature of true faith.

v. 10 and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the sojourner or the afflicted; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’

God's law has a particular concern for the vulnerable. The widow, the orphan, the sojourner, and the afflicted are the four classic examples of those who could be easily exploited in an ancient society. A nation's righteousness can be measured by how it treats those who lack power. To oppress them is to show contempt for the God who identifies Himself as their defender (Ps. 68:5). This is a practical, street-level application of the justice and mercy commanded in the previous verse. Then God goes deeper, from outward action to inward motive. "Do not devise evil in your hearts." Sin begins in the heart, in the imagination, in the schemes and grudges we entertain. True righteousness is not just avoiding the act of oppression, but refusing to even plot it in the secret chambers of the heart. This is what Jesus would later expound upon in the Sermon on the Mount.

v. 11 But they refused to give heed and turned a stubborn shoulder and dulled their ears from hearing.

Here is the tragic pivot. God spoke clearly, but "they refused." The sin of their fathers was not one of ignorance, but of willful defiance. The imagery is potent. They "turned a stubborn shoulder," like an ox that refuses the yoke. This is active resistance. They "dulled their ears," or literally, "made their ears heavy." They deliberately stopped them up. It is one thing not to hear; it is another thing entirely to make yourself deaf. This is the picture of a people actively suppressing the truth, working hard to remain ignorant of their duty. This is the essence of all rebellion against God.

v. 12 And they made their hearts diamond-hard so that they could not hear the law and the words which Yahweh of hosts had sent by His Spirit by the hand of the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of hosts.

The rebellion goes from the shoulder and the ear down to the very heart. They made their hearts like adamant, or diamond, the hardest of stones. This is not a state they stumbled into; it was a work of perverse craftsmanship. And the object of this hardening was specific: "the law (torah) and the words" of God. Notice the Trinitarian hint here. Yahweh of hosts sent His Word by His Spirit through His prophets. To reject the prophets was to reject the Spirit who spoke through them, and to reject the Father who sent them both. This is high-handed sin. And the consequence is stated plainly: "therefore great wrath came." The exile was not a geopolitical accident. It was the righteous, covenantal judgment of God upon a people who had made their hearts impenetrable to His grace.

v. 13 And it happened that just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says Yahweh of hosts;

This is the terrifying logic of divine retribution. God deals with us as we deal with Him. This is the principle of lex talionis applied to worship. He called to them through the prophets, pleading with them to repent, and they stopped their ears. So, when they were in distress, when the Babylonians were at the gates, they called out to Him, and He in turn refused to listen. As Proverbs 1 says, "Because I have called and you refused... I also will laugh at your calamity." This is not pettiness on God's part. It is the awful outworking of justice. A god who can be ignored with impunity is not the God of the Bible. He will not be mocked. He establishes a relationship of reciprocity. If you honor Him, He will honor you. If you despise His call, He will despise yours.

v. 14 “but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one was passing through and returning, for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

The consequence of God not listening is tangible and devastating. He scattered them "with a storm wind." The exile was a divine whirlwind, a violent, sovereign act of judgment that flung them across the known world. The land, God's good gift, was left "desolated." The curse of the covenant, threatened long ago in Deuteronomy, came to pass. The final line is a chilling summary. "They made the pleasant land desolate." God is saying that the Babylonians were merely the instrument. The true cause of the desolation was the sin of the people themselves. Their hard hearts, their stubborn shoulders, their evil imaginations, these were the things that laid waste to the land of promise. It is a profound reminder that sin always has consequences, not just for us individually, but for the very ground beneath our feet. A rebellious people will always create a desolate land.

Application

The message of Zechariah to his generation, and by extension to ours, is that God is not interested in our religious busywork if our hearts are far from Him. We can have our fasts, our conferences, our worship bands, and our meticulously planned programs, but if we are not executing true justice, showing mercy, caring for the vulnerable, and rooting out malice from our hearts, our religion is a sham. It is an offense to God.

The progression to a diamond-hard heart is a cautionary tale. It does not happen overnight. It begins with turning a shoulder, then dulling an ear, and finally, the heart becomes impenetrable. We must be vigilant to keep our hearts soft before the Lord, and the only way to do that is to be constantly under the authority of His Word. Hard teaching makes for soft hearts; soft teaching makes for hard hearts. The words of the former prophets were not smooth, and that is why the people rejected them. We must ask ourselves if we have an appetite for the hard words of Scripture, the words that confront and convict.

Finally, we see the absolute seriousness of sin and the certainty of God's judgment. The desolation of the land was a direct result of the people's covenant infidelity. We cannot break God's laws without breaking ourselves and our culture against them. But in this, we also see the gospel. The only one who ever had a perfectly soft heart, who perfectly executed justice and mercy, was Jesus Christ. He is the true Israel who fulfilled all the demands of the covenant. And on the cross, He cried out, and it seemed as though the Father would not listen. He endured the scattering storm of God's wrath for us, so that we, who had made our hearts hard, could be given new hearts of flesh. Our only hope is to abandon our own attempts at religious performance and cling to His perfect obedience, which is credited to us by faith. Then, and only then, can we begin to truly judge with justice and show lovingkindness to our brother.