The Diamond Heart and the Deaf Ear Text: Zechariah 7:8-14
Introduction: The Weight of the Word
We live in an age that is drowning in words. We have more words, more messages, more opinions flying at us than any generation in human history. And because of this, we have developed a kind of spiritual deafness. We have become experts at filtering, at scrolling past, at dismissing. But the great tragedy is that we have applied this same skill to the Word of God. We treat the pronouncements of the Almighty as though they were just another notification to be swiped away.
The context for our passage is a question about religious observance. A delegation comes to Jerusalem to ask the priests and prophets if they should continue the fasts that commemorated the destruction of the Temple (Zech. 7:2-3). They had been doing this for seventy years, and now that the exiles were returning and the Temple was being rebuilt, they wanted to know if they could stop. It seems like a pious question. But God, through Zechariah, cuts straight through their external religiosity to the heart of the matter. Before He answers their question about fasting, He first reminds them of what He had required of their fathers, and why their fathers’ religious activities were an abomination to Him.
God is not interested in the liturgical calendar of men who have no regard for His law. He is not impressed with the fasting of those who feast on injustice. This is a timeless lesson. Our generation is obsessed with what is often called "social justice," but it is a justice untethered from the law of God. It is a justice that seeks to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic of human rebellion. The passage before us this morning is a divine corrective. It shows us what true justice is, what true religion is, and what the catastrophic consequences are for a people who listen to God’s Word with a closed heart.
This is not just a history lesson about ancient Israel. This is a covenant lawsuit, and the charges leveled here are charges that can be leveled against any people, in any age, who pretend to honor God with their lips while their hearts are far from Him. This passage is a divine diagnosis of a spiritual condition, a condition of willful deafness and cardiac sclerosis, that leads inevitably to judgment.
The Text
Then the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah saying, “Thus has Yahweh of hosts said, ‘Judge with true justice and show lovingkindness and compassion each to his brother; 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.’ But they refused to give heed and turned a stubborn shoulder and dulled their ears from hearing. 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. 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; “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.”
(Zechariah 7:8-14 LSB)
The Unchanging Standard (vv. 8-10)
God begins by restating the core requirements of the covenant. This is not new information. This is the constant refrain of the law and the prophets.
"Thus has Yahweh of hosts said, ‘Judge with true justice and show lovingkindness and compassion each to his brother; 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.’" (Zechariah 7:9-10)
Notice the structure here. God lays out both the positive and negative requirements of covenant life. The positive command is to "judge with true justice." The Hebrew is mishpat emet. This is not the flimsy, relativistic "social justice" of our day, which is really just a codeword for institutionalized envy and ideological score-settling. Biblical justice is rooted in the unchanging character of God. It means rendering to each man his due according to God's righteous standard. It is impartial, objective, and blind to status, wealth, or group identity. You are to apply God's law equally to all.
But this justice is not a cold, mechanical legalism. It is to be clothed in "lovingkindness and compassion." The word for lovingkindness is hesed, that great covenant term that speaks of loyal, steadfast love. The word for compassion is rachamim, which comes from the word for a mother's womb. It is a deep, gut-level empathy. So, true justice is not just about getting the verdict right; it's about having the right heart toward your brother. It is a justice that is firm in its standard but tender in its application. You are to be tough on sin, but you are to love the sinner.
Then comes the negative command, which specifies what this justice looks like in practice. "Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the sojourner or the afflicted." Why these four groups? Because they were the most vulnerable members of society. They lacked the social power and protection of a husband, a father, or a kinsman. A society's true righteousness can be measured by how it treats its most helpless members. God is saying that a just society builds guardrails to protect the weak from the strong. Oppression is the abuse of power, and God hates it. He identifies Himself throughout Scripture as the defender of the fatherless and the judge of the widow (Psalm 68:5).
And the prohibition goes deeper than mere external actions. "Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another." God is not just concerned with your deeds; He is concerned with your thoughts, your motives, your intentions. Justice begins in the heart. Oppression begins in the heart. Murder begins in the heart (Matthew 5:21-22). God is telling them, and us, that true religion is not about external performances like fasting; it is about an internal transformation that produces righteous and loving relationships.
The Determined Rebellion (vv. 11-12)
God has stated His clear and gracious standard. Now He describes the people's response. It is a multi-layered, deliberate, and comprehensive rejection of His authority.
"But they refused to give heed and turned a stubborn shoulder and dulled their ears from hearing. 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..." (Zechariah 7:11-12a)
This is a portrait of total insubordination. Look at the cascading verbs of rebellion. First, they "refused to give heed." This is a conscious act of the will. They heard the command, they understood it, and they said no. Second, they "turned a stubborn shoulder." This is the image of an ox that refuses the yoke. It stiffens its neck and turns away from its master. It is an act of active resistance. They would not submit to God's authority.
Third, they "dulled their ears from hearing." The Hebrew literally says they "made their ears heavy." This is self-induced deafness. It's not that they couldn't hear; they wouldn't hear. It’s like a child putting his fingers in his ears and humming loudly so he doesn't have to listen to his parents. They intentionally made themselves unreceptive to the Word of God.
And finally, the root of it all: "they made their hearts diamond-hard." The word for diamond here, shamir, refers to one of the hardest substances known. It was used to cut other stones. Their hearts were not just hard like a rock; they were impenetrably hard, actively resistant to any impression from God's Word. This is not a passive condition; it is an achievement. They worked at it. Through repeated acts of disobedience, they calloused their consciences to the point where the law of God, which is meant to be written on the heart (Jer. 31:33), simply could not get through.
And what was it they refused to hear? "The law and the words which Yahweh of hosts had sent by His Spirit by the hand of the former prophets." This is a profound statement about the nature of Scripture. The law (Torah) and the words of the prophets (like Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.) are not mere human writings. They were sent by Yahweh Himself, and they were energized and delivered by the Holy Spirit. To reject the Bible is to reject the triune God. It is the Spirit who inspired the prophets to speak the Father's law. To harden your heart to Scripture is to harden your heart to God Himself.
The Inevitable Consequence (vv. 12b-14)
This determined rebellion could not go unanswered. God's holiness and justice demand a response. Willful disobedience always reaps a harvest of wrath.
"...therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of hosts. 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; “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.” (Zechariah 7:12b-14)
The consequence is stated plainly: "therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of hosts." God's wrath is not a petty, childish tantrum. It is His settled, righteous, and holy opposition to sin. It is the necessary reaction of a good God to evil. A God who did not hate oppression, who was indifferent to the suffering of the widow and the orphan, would not be a good God. The wrath of God is as much a part of His glory as His love is. And here, that wrath is unleashed.
The principle of this judgment is a terrifying, righteous reciprocity. "Just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen." This is the law of the echo. God treats them exactly as they treated Him. They turned a deaf ear to His commands, so He turns a deaf ear to their cries for help. Proverbs 1:24-28 says the same thing. Wisdom calls, but they refuse. So when calamity comes, they will call on her, but she will not answer. This is one of the most frightening principles in all of Scripture. If you refuse to listen to God when He speaks in mercy, you will one day find that He refuses to listen to you when you cry out in misery.
The specific form of the judgment was exile. "I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations." The storm wind is a picture of irresistible, violent judgment. They were ripped out of their land and dispersed. The covenant promised them that if they obeyed, they would be blessed in the land. If they disobeyed, they would be vomited out of the land (Lev. 18:28). This is exactly what happened. The Babylonian exile was not a historical accident; it was a covenantal curse, directly administered by Yahweh of hosts.
And the result was total desolation. "The land is desolated behind them... for they made the pleasant land desolate." The land that was supposed to be a foretaste of Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey, became a wasteland. Notice the final phrase: "they made the pleasant land desolate." Their sin did this. Their hard hearts and deaf ears brought about the ruin not only of their society but of the very creation around them. Sin has ecological consequences. Rebellion against God always leaves a trail of devastation in its wake.
Conclusion: The Gospel for Diamond Hearts
This is a grim passage. It is a stark warning. But it is not a warning without hope. The very fact that God is speaking through Zechariah to the returned exiles shows that His wrath is not His final word. His hesed, His covenant love, endures.
The diagnosis in this passage is the diagnosis for every one of us apart from Christ. By nature, we all have stubborn shoulders. We all have heavy ears. We all have hearts of stone, diamond-hard hearts that are impervious to the law of God. We love our sin, and we refuse to listen. We are all covenant-breakers, and we all stand under the sentence of God's great wrath.
What is the solution for a diamond-hard heart? You cannot soften it yourself. You cannot decide to start listening. The condition is fatal. The only hope is a divine intervention. The only hope is a heart transplant. And this is exactly what God promised in the new covenant: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).
This is the work of the Holy Spirit, purchased for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus took the full force of God's great wrath that we deserved. He was scattered, cut off from the land of the living. He cried out, and His Father would not listen, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He endured the ultimate desolation so that we who were desolate could be brought home.
And when we, by grace through faith, are united to Him, the Spirit who sent the Word through the prophets now comes to live inside of us. He performs the divine surgery. He takes out the diamond heart and puts in a heart of flesh, a heart that is soft, a heart that is receptive, a heart that hears the Word of God and delights to obey it. He unstops our ears. He bows our stubborn shoulder under the sweet and easy yoke of Christ.
The true fast that God requires is not abstaining from food, but abstaining from sin. The true religion is to visit the orphan and widow in their affliction (James 1:27), and this is only possible for those whose hearts have been remade by the gospel. So do not come to this text and think the lesson is to try harder to be just and compassionate. The lesson is to despair of your own diamond-hard heart and to flee to the only one who can give you a new one. Flee to Christ, who is the embodiment of true justice and the ocean of all compassion.