John Calvin Commentary Zechariah 2:13

"Be silent, all flesh, before Jehovah; for he is waked up out of his holy habitation." — Zechariah 2:13 (ASV)

Here is a sealing of the whole prophecy. The Prophet highly exalts the power of God, so that the Jews might not still doubt or fear concerning things uncertain. He says that whatever he had until now declared was undoubted, for God would exert His power to help His Church and to remove whatever obstacle there might be.

We have seen similar expressions elsewhere, that is, in the second chapter of Habakkuk and in the first of Zephaniah (Habakkuk 2:1; Zephaniah 1:1). These Prophets had nearly the same object in view. For Habakkuk, after having spoken of the restoration of the people, thus concludes: that God was coming forth to command silence to all nations, so that no one might dare to oppose when it was His will to redeem His Church. So also Zephaniah, after having described the slaughter of God’s enemies, when God ordered sacrifices to be made to Him as if from the whole world, uses the same mode of expression, as if he had said that there would be nothing to resist the power of God. It is the same here; Silent, he says, let all flesh be before Jehovah. It is, in short, the shout of triumph by which Zechariah exults over all the enemies of the Church and shows that they would rage in vain, as they could accomplish nothing, however noisy they might be.

By silence, as elsewhere observed, submission is to be understood. The ungodly are not indeed silent before God in such a way as to willingly obey His word, reverently receive what He may bid or command, or humbly submit under His powerful hand. For these things are done only by the faithful.

Silence, then, is what especially belongs to the elect and the faithful, for they willingly close their mouths to hear God speaking. But the ungodly are also said to be silent when God restrains their madness. However much they may inwardly murmur and rage, they still cannot openly resist. Thus, He completes His work, and they are eventually made ashamed of the swelling words they have vomited forth, when these words vanish like smoke.

This is the sense in which the Prophet now says, silent be all flesh. He means, in short, by these words that when God goes forth to deliver His Church, He will be terrible. Consequently, all who had previously furiously assailed His chosen people will be compelled to tremble.

Regarding the habitation of holiness, I interpret it as the temple rather than heaven. I indeed allow that heaven is often called this in Scripture. It is called the palace or temple of God because we cannot think as we should of God’s infinite glory unless we are carried above the world.

This is the reason why God says that He dwells in heaven. But as the Church is spoken of here, Zechariah, I do not doubt, means the temple. It is indeed certain that there was no temple when God began to rise as one awakened from sleep to restore His people. However, just as the faithful are said in Psalm 102 to pity the dust of Sion because the place remained sacred even in its degradation and ruin, so also in this passage Zechariah says that God was roused—from where? From Sion—from that despised place, exposed to the ridicule of the ungodly. Yet God continued to dwell there, so that He might rebuild the temple, where His name was to be invoked until Christ appeared. We now see that the temple or Sion is intended, rather than heaven, when all circumstances are carefully considered.