John Calvin Commentary Zechariah 8:12

"For [there shall be] the seed of peace; the vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things." — Zechariah 8:12 (ASV)

Here Zechariah promises the continuance of God’s favor, which the Jews had now begun to taste. God then had, in part, openly shown that he was a Father to the Jews by dealing liberally with them; but, to strengthen them more fully in their perseverance, Zechariah says that this favor would be continued.

And he says first, that there would be the seed of peace. Some think that it is called the seed of peace because the cultivation of the fields was deserted while enemy assaults were dreaded; no one dared to bring out his oxen or his horses, and even when the farmers sowed their fields, it was not done as it would be in times of quietness and security.

So, just as fields badly cultivated in wartime do not produce a full crop, they think it is called the seed of peace when farmers are permitted to perform necessary labor, are free from all fear, and can securely devote their labors to cultivating and sowing their fields. Others explain the seed of peace to mean this—that it occurs when neither storms, nor tempests, nor mildew, nor any other evils harm the grain and fruit.

But since שלום, shelum, often means prosperity in Hebrew, we may understand it here that the seed of peace means that the seed would be prosperous; and this interpretation seems less strained to me. It shall then be the seed of peace; that is, it shall prosper according to your labor, and what is sown shall produce its proper fruit.

An explanation is added: The vine shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and the heaven shall yield its dew. From this we conclude that it was called the seed of peace because farmers achieved their goal when the earth, irrigated by the dew of heaven, was not sterile, and when the produce was abundant—when there was plenty of grain and wine, and of other things.

There is then peace or prosperity for the seed when the grain grows according to our wishes and comes to maturity, and when heaven responds to the earth and does not withhold its dew, as we have seen in another place. In short, God testifies that the remnant of his people should abound in all good things, for heaven would not withhold its rain from them, nor the earth shut up its bowels.

But God always recalls his people to himself, that they may depend on his blessing; for it would be a cold doctrine if we were not persuaded of this: that the earth is fruitful only as God gives it the power of generating and bringing forth. We ought therefore always to regard the blessing of God, and to ask him to supply us with food, and to pray to him every day, as we are taught, to give us our daily bread. But few do this from the heart, and hardly one in a hundred turns his thoughts to God’s hand so firmly as to believe that he daily receives his daily food from him. We now understand what the Prophet means in these words.