Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 10:1

"Ask ye of Jehovah rain in the time of the latter rain, [even of] Jehovah that maketh lightnings; and he will give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field." — Zechariah 10:1 (ASV)

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.”