Commentary on Zechariah

Commentary on Zechariah 10

COMMENTARY ON ZECHARIAH 10 sk from the lord timely rain, early and late. The Lord caused visions and winter rain, and will give to each one a plant in the field.1 Because the diviners spoke of trouble and the seers spoke of false visions and false dreams, they offered empty consolation. Hence they dried up like sheep, and were abused because there was no healing. My anger is roused against the shepherds, and I shall have regard for the lambs (Zec 10.1–3). Owing to the prevalence of wickedness, drought often occurs at God’s decision . Hence in such circumstances there is need for the one to be propitiated who is angry with the people for falling into godlessness to the extent of appeasing and winning over demons instead of God and so accepting oracles and divinations from them. Such a plight befell the Hebrews in the time of the great prophet Elijah, when there was no rain on the earth for three years and six months, so that there was a complete dearth of produce and as a result people were close to death, and the other living creatures were worse off as a result of shortage of necessities. In view of the prevalence of this wickedness, it would have been logical for Israel, who had frequently been the object of beneficence in such circumstances, to cling to God and beg rain from him so that prosperity might return. It did not do so, because a false belief held sway that the idols were able to grant the petitioners what was asked of them, and in fact they were unable to provide. The source of the folly was Jezebel, wife of the king of the Hebrews, who was so very devoted to idol worship that her husband was also caught up in it. In 1. Didymus’s commentary shows that he has divided the verse this way. The LXX further complicates the meaning by reading Heb. “[thunder]clouds” as “visions.” 231 her time, accordingly, there was a growth in numbers of the prophets of Baal, idol of the Sidonians, and there were seers, diviners, and likewise dreamers peddling their dreams, always bold enough to give false prophecy of future developments they claimed to foretell. When good times came, they took a different tack and claimed there was no longer need to beg rain from “the one who makes the sun rise on good people and bad, and who sends rain on righteous and wicked.”2 Since those under such an influence fell into such awful ignorance , therefore, God had pity on the people in this situation and suggested to the prophet to say, Ask for timely rain in good season “from the one who makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth and turns lightning into rain,” according to the prophetic announcements in Jeremiah.3 To instill confidence in those it urged to ask for rain in season, the verse went on, The Lord caused visions and winter rain; rain would have come not once but many times if the impiety dominating the Hebrews had not brought them to the point where they were rendered unworthy of God-given favors. Since it is God who always allows the land to drink for the sake of human beings, he is the one to be made propitious when drought comes, and not the false seers4 .l.l. the story from Kings. Now that the text of Zechariah has in my view been sufficiently developed at a literal level, there is need to study it also spiritually. The spiritual sense of the rain as God-given teaching appears in Scripture thus: “Let the clouds rain down righteousness ,” clouds that have been given the command not to shed rain when .l.l.5 The apostle in Christ, himself also a cloud in the spiritual sense, writes to the Hebrews, “Ground [that drinks up] the rain 232 DIDYMUS THE BLIND 2. 1 Kgs 17–18; Lk 4.25; Mt 5.45. 3. Jer 10.13. 4. The notion of drought enters the LXX text by a misreading of the verb “wander” in v.2. In a commentary that is now in fragmentary condition, Didymus continues to refer to historical precedents (the reference to the request for rain not being clear even in the Heb. text) such as the Elijah cycle in 1–2 Kings, citing also Jas 5.16–17; Ps 143.9. 5. Is 45.8. There follows a section...