Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 10

Ask ye of the Lord rain – “Ask and ye shall receive,” our Lord says. Zechariah had promised in God’s name blessings temporal and spiritual: all was ready on God’s part; only, he adds, ask them of the Lord, the Unchangeable, the Self-same, not of Teraphim or of diviner, as Israel had done before (Isaiah 2:5–22; Jeremiah 44:15–28). He had promised, “If ye shall hearken diligently unto My commandments, to love the Lord your God, I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, and I will send grass in thy field for thy cattle” (Deuteronomy 11:13–15). God bids them ask Him to fulfill His promise. The “latter rain” alone is mentioned, as completing what God had begun by the former rain, filling the ears before the harvest.

Both had been used as symbols of God’s spiritual gifts, and so the words fit in with the close of the last chapter, concerning both things temporal and eternal. Osorius says: “He exhorts all frequently to ask for the dew of the divine grace, so that what had sprung up in the heart from the seed of the word of God might attain to full ripeness.”

The Lord maketh bright clouds – (Rather, “lightnings, into rain”), as Jeremiah says, “He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He maketh lightnings into rain” (Jeremiah 10:13; Jeremiah 51:16); and the Psalmist, “He maketh lightnings into rain” (Psalms 135:7), disappearing, as it were, into the rain which follows them. “And giveth them.” While man is asking, God is answering. “Showers of rain,” “rain in torrents,” as we would say, or “in floods,” or, inverted, “floods of rain.” “To every one grass,” rather, “the green herb, in the field,” as the Psalmist says, “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men” (Psalms 104:14; Genesis 3:18).

This He did with individual care, as each had need, or as would be best for each, just as conversely He says in Amos, “I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city; one piece was rained upon, and the piece, whereon it rained not, withered” (Amos 4:7; see note).

The Rabbis observed these exceptions to God’s general law, by which He “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:49), though expressing it in their way hyperbolically: “In the time when Israel does the will of God, He does their will; so that if one man alone, and not the others, wants rain, He will give rain to that one man; and if a man wants one herb alone in his field or garden, and not another, He will give rain to that one herb; as one of the saints used to say, ‘This plot of ground wants rain, and that plot of ground wants not rain’” (Cyril).

Spiritually, the rain is divine doctrine, bedewing the mind and making it fruitful, as the rain does the earth. So Moses says, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb and as the showers upon the grass” (Deuteronomy 32:2). Cyril says: “The law of Moses and the prophets were the former rain.”

For the teraphim have spoken vanity - Rather, they “spoke vanity.” He appeals to their former experience. Their father had sought from idols, not from God; therefore they went into captivity.

The “teraphim” were used as instruments of divination. They are united with the “ephod,” as forbidden, in contrast to the allowed means of inquiry as to the future, as in Hosea, without an ephod and without teraphim (Hosea 3:4). They were united in the mixed worship of Micah (Judges 17:5; Judges 18:14, 17-18, 20). Josiah put them away together with the workers with familiar spirits and the wizards (2 Kings 23:24), to which are added the idols. It was probably a superstition of Eastern origin.

Rachel brought them with her from her father’s house, and Nebuchadnezzar used them for divination (Ezekiel 21:21). Samuel speaks of them, apparently, as things which Saul himself condemned: Rebellion is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness as iniquity or idolatry, and teraphim (1 Samuel 15:23). For it was probably in those his better days that Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits and wizards out of the land (1 Samuel 28:3).

Samuel then seems to tell him that the sins to which he clung were as evil as those which he had, in an outward zeal like Jehu, condemned. In any case, the “teraphim” stand united with the “divination” which was expressly condemned by the Law (Deuteronomy 18:13–14).

The use of the teraphim by Rachel (Genesis 31:19, 34-35) and Michal (1 Samuel 19:13, 16) (for whatever purpose) implies that it was some less offensive form of false worship, though they were probably the strange gods (Genesis 35:2, 4) which Jacob bade his household to put away, or, at least, among them, since Laban calls them my gods (Genesis 31:30, 32).

Zechariah uses anew the words of Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers (Jeremiah 27:9); and, let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams, which ye cause to be dreamed (Jeremiah 29:8); and from Ezekiel, While they see vanity unto thee, while they divine a lie unto thee (Ezekiel 21:29). These words not only connected the prophet’s warning with the past but also reminded them of the sentence that followed their neglect. The echo of the words of the former prophets came to them, floating, as it were, over the ruins of the former temple.

Therefore they went their way as a flock - This flock, having no shepherd or only those who would mislead them, moved away, but into captivity. They were troubled.

The trouble continued, even though the captivity ended at the appointed time. Nehemiah speaks of the exactions of former governors: The former governors which were before me, laid heavy weights upon the people, and took from them in bread and wine, after forty shekels of silver; also their servants used dominion over the people; and I did not so, because of the fear of God (Nehemiah 5:15).

Because there was no shepherd - As Ezekiel said of those times, They were scattered, because there is no shepherd; and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered: My flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth; and none did search or seek after them (Ezekiel 34:5–6).

Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds - As Ezekiel continued, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand (Ezekiel 34:10).

I punished the he-goats - The evil powerful are called the he-goats of the earth (Isaiah 14:9); and in Ezekiel God says, I will judge between cattle and cattle, between rams and he-goats (Ezekiel 34:17); and our Lord speaks of the reprobate as goats, the saved as sheep (Matthew 25:32). God visited upon these in His displeasure, because He visited His flock, the people of Judah, to see to their needs and to relieve them.

And hath made them as the goodly horse - As, before, He said, I made thee as the sword of a mighty man (Zechariah 9:13). Judah’s might was not in himself; but, in God’s hands, he had might like and above the might of this world; he was fearless, resistless; as Paul says, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4).

Out of him came forth - Or rather, “From him is the corner,” as Jeremiah says, “Their nobles shall be from themselves, and their governor shall go forth from the midst of them” (Jeremiah 30:21). Her strength, though given by God, was to be inherent in her, though from her also was to come He who was to be the head cornerstone, the sure Foundation and Crown of the whole building.

From you the nail - An emblem of fixedness in itself (as Isaiah says, “I will fasten him a nail to a sure place” (Isaiah 22:23)) and of security given to others dependent on Him, as Isaiah says further, “And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, from the vessels of cups to the vessels of flagons” (Isaiah 22:24); all, of much or little account, the least and the greatest. Osorius: “Christ is the cornerstone; Christ is the nail fixed in the wall, by which all vessels are supported. The word of Christ is the bow, from which the arrows rend the king’s enemies.”

From it every exactor shall go forth together - God had promised (Zechariah 9:8) that no "oppressor," or "exactor" (Isaiah 14:2), shall pass through them anymore. He seems to repeat it here. “From you shall go forth every oppressor together; go forth,” not to return, as Isaiah had said, “Thy children shall make haste to return; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee” (Isaiah 49:17).

From it, its cornerstone; from it, the sure nail; from it, the battle bow; from it—he no longer closely joins with this source that which should be from it or of it, but rather—from it shall go forth every oppressor together; one and all, as we say; a confused pell-mell body. As Isaiah says, “all that are found of thee are bound together” (Isaiah 22:3); “together shall they all perish” (Isaiah 31:3); or, in separate clauses, “they are all of them put to shame; together they shall go into confusion” (Isaiah 45:16).

And they - (the house of Judah, of whom he had said, He hath made them as the goodly horse in the battle) shall be as mighty men, trampling on the mire of the streets. Micah had said, she shall be a trampling, as the mire of the streets (Micah 7:10), and David, I did stamp them as the mire of the street (2 Samuel 22:43). Zechariah, by a yet bolder image, pictures those trampled upon, as what they had become, the mire of the streets, as worthless, as foul; as he had said, they shall trample on the sling-stones (Zechariah 9:15).

And they shall fight, because the Lord is with them, not in their own strength, he still reminds them; they shall have power, because God empowers them; strength, because God strengthens them: in presence of which, the goodly war-horse of God, human strength, the riders on horses, shall be ashamed.