Zechariah 10:9 Commentary and Bible Study

This language would perhaps have been hard for those of Zechariah’s day to understand, for to them the people of God consisted of a single nation, located in a single territory. There is also a positive construction put on what would have been a negative idea in the minds of a Jew: that they would be scattered throughout the nations of the world. They believed themselves to be favoured by God while they were kept in their own territory. The New Testament church is going to be very different from Old Testament Israel and Judah. For us however, who understand that the church is composed of those who are called out of the world from every nation where the gospel is preached, this makes perfect sense. It is a very apt figure to describe God as sowing his people throughout all nations. Truly they are sown in that every individual believer witnesses to family and friends as well as to strangers, and there is a harvest in the form of fruit from that witness in the locality in which they live. Believers are like seed scattered throughout every corner of the world. Christ told the Twelve ‘that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem … ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high’ (Luke 24:47-49). It was to be Jews, initially, who carried the gospel into all the world, for ‘salvation is of the Jews’ (John 4:22). When Paul and the other apostles went to preach in Gentile areas, they found Jews living there, and Paul habitually went to the synagogues first. But not only were Jews converted, but many Gentiles. The Jewish converts who were converted would have greatly helped the believing Gentiles to understand the Old Testament. Now this indicates, significantly, that although in chapter 8 they are all coming to Jerusalem, in this chapter they are all being left in their own lands. How can both things be true at once? Because the Jerusalem spoken of is the spiritual Jerusalem whose existence does not require that people are physically located in the same place. They can all belong to this Jerusalem and yet speak different languages, belong to different countries, live in far separated regions, and never even have met each other. Jerusalem that is from above does not require any of these things in order to belong to it. What is in common between believers from different nations is that they are in Christ. If there are tongues, they will pass away, for in heaven all will speak the same language, and all earthly distinctions will be gone for ever. God says, I want these Jewish people – whether they are descended from Israelites or Judeans – who are going to be saved, among all the nations of the world. Is this referring also to the people who were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, who had come from all the different countries where formerly they had been captives, and came to Jerusalem, and heard the gospel spoken in their own languages to their amazement, and many of them were saved, and they went back to their countries? God had dispersed them for the purposes of the spread of the gospel. ‘And they shall live with their children and turn again. I will bring them again also, out of the land of Egypt, out of Assyria, even Gilead and Lebanon, and place shall not be found for them.’ In other words, they will come to Jerusalem in that they are people who are saved by the message that goes out from Jerusalem. They now look to what comes out of Jerusalem: the gospel of Christ. They looked to the apostles and their teaching and the word of God. In this sense they look to Jerusalem, but their calling is to be spread throughout the world. Zechariah seems to be given all that understanding.