John Calvin Commentary Zechariah 14:5

"And ye shall flee by the valley of my mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azel; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah; and Jehovah my God shall come, and all the holy ones with thee." — Zechariah 14:5 (ASV)

The Prophet says again, that God’s presence would be terrifying, so that it would put all the Jews to flight; for though God promises to be the deliverer of His chosen people, yet as there were still hypocrites mixed with them, His language varies. But we must further observe, that though the Lord may appear for our deliverance, it is still inevitable that His majesty will strike us with fear, for the flesh must be humbled before God.

What the Prophet then says is essentially that the coming of God, which he had just mentioned, would be terrifying to all—not only to open enemies whom He would come to destroy, but also to the faithful, though they knew that He would exert His power to save them.

And thus the Prophet seems to reason from the lesser to the greater: for if the faithful, who look anxiously for God, yet tremble and quake at His presence, what must happen to His enemies, who know that He is against them? As, then, the Prophet here urges the faithful to be prepared to reverently look for God, so also he shows that God will be terrifying to all the ungodly, in order that the elect might not hesitate to flee to His aid and to rely on Him.

Flee, he says, shall ye through the valley of the mountains. Some imagine this to have been a valley so called because it was very long, stretching through chains of mountains; but we read nothing of this in Scripture. It seems to me probable that “valleys of the mountains” was the name given to all those places that were rough, impassable, and intricate.

Since, then, there was much wood and no easy passage through these regions, the Prophet says that there would be a long valley, which had never existed before, but which the rending he had spoken of would produce. And for the same purpose he adds, Reach shall the valley of the mountains to Azal.

I think this is a proper name of a place; yet some translate it as “next,” but I do not see for what reason. The meaning then is that where there were previously many hills that were not passable, or even mountains through which it was difficult to penetrate, there would be one continuous and level valley to a very distant place.

And he says that the flight would be hasty, as in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah; for it appears from sacred history that Judah was then shaken by a terrifying earthquake. The Jews, as they are bold in their conjectures, suppose that this happened when Uzziah approached the altar to burn incense to God; and Jerome has followed them.

But at what time that earthquake happened is not certain. Amos says that he began to prophesy two years after an earthquake (Amos 1:1), but we do not read anywhere for what cause the earth was then shaken. And yet we learn from this as well as from other passages that it was a dreadful sign and presage of God’s vengeance.

God then intended to announce to the Jews a dreadful calamity when He thus shook the earth. And for the same purpose, Zechariah now also says that the flight would be precipitous, as when the Jews took to flight, as it were in extreme despair, in the time of Uzziah.

As, then, ye fled from the earthquake, so shall ye flee now. A long time had indeed passed between the death of Uzziah and the return of the people; hence the Prophet intimates that it would be an unusual calamity, for nothing like it had happened that had caused so much terror to the Jews for many ages.

But we must remember what I have said—that this coming of God is not described as terrifying for the purpose of threatening the Jews, but rather to show that the ungodly would not be able to stand in the presence of God, as He would terrify even those for whose aid He would come forth. And we must also observe what has been stated: that God varies His address through His Prophets. For now He speaks to the whole Church, in which hypocrites are mixed with the sincere, and so threats must be blended with promises; and then, He directs His words especially to the elect alone, to whom He manifests His favor.

Finally, he says, And come shall Jehovah, my God. The Prophet repeats what he had said shortly before—that God’s power would be made evident to the Jews, as if they saw it with their own eyes. There is indeed no need to suppose that God would actually descend from heaven; but he teaches us, as I have said, that though God’s power would be hidden for a time, it would at length appear in the deliverance of His elect, as if God descended from heaven for that purpose.

He calls Him his God in order to gain more credit for his prophecy. He no doubt thus courageously assailed all the ungodly, to whom promises as well as threats were a mockery; and he also intended to support the minds of the godly, that they might not doubt that this was promised to them from above, though they heard only the voice of a mortal man.

The Prophet then with great confidence claims God here as his God, as if he were saying that there was no reason for them to judge what he said by any worldly circumstance or by his person. In short, he declares here that he was sent from above, that he did not rashly intrude himself to promise anything he himself had invented, but that he had received a divine mission, so that he represented God Himself.

And this also is the purpose of the conclusion, which has been overlooked by some: All the saints with thee. There seems to be here a kind of indignation, as though the Prophet turned away from his hearers, whom he observed to be somewhat prepared to obstinately reject his heavenly doctrine; for he turns his discourse to God.

The sentence indeed seems to lose a portion of its gracefulness when the Prophet speaks so abruptly, Come shall Jehovah my God, all the saints with thee. He might have said, “all the saints with Him,” but as I have said, he addresses God, as though he could not, on account of disgust, speak to malignant and perverse men. This greatly serves to confirm the authority of his prophecy, for he not only boldly declares to men what was to come, but also appeals to God as his witness.

Indeed, he seems as though he had derived by a secret and familiar conversation what he certainly knew was entrusted to him by God. By “saints,” I think, he means the angels, for to include the holy patriarchs and kings would seem unnatural and far-fetched. And angels, we know, are called saints or holy in other places, as we have seen in the third chapter of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3:1); and they are sometimes called elect angels. In short, the Prophet shows that the coming of God would be magnificent; He would descend, as it were, in a visible manner together with His angels, so that people’s minds might be roused to admiration and wonder. This is the meaning.