Let Your Hands Be Strong
9 Yahweh of Armies says: “Let your hands be strong, you who hear in these days these words from the mouth of the prophets who were in the day that the foundation of the house of Yahweh of Armies was laid, even the temple, that it might be built. 10 For before those days there was no wages for man nor any wages for an animal, neither was there any peace to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbor. 11 But now I will not be to the remnant of this people as in the former days,” says Yahweh of Armies. 12 “For the seed of peace and the vine will yield its fruit, and the ground will give its increase, and the heavens will give their dew. I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. 13 It shall come to pass that, as you were a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Don’t be afraid. Let your hands be strong.” 14 For Yahweh of Armies says: “As I thought to do evil to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I didn’t repent, 15 so again I have thought in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Don’t be afraid. 16 These are the things that you shall do: speak every man the truth with his neighbor. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates, 17 and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbor, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate,” says Yahweh. 18 The word of Yahweh of Armies came to me. 19 Yahweh of Armies says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.” 20 Yahweh of Armies says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come. 21 The inhabitants of one will go to another, saying, ‘Let’s go speedily to entreat the favor of Yahweh, and to seek Yahweh of Armies. I will go also.’ 22 Yes, many peoples and strong nations will come to seek Yahweh of Armies in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of Yahweh.” 23 Yahweh of Armies says: “In those days, ten men out of all the languages of the nations will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”
The fasting question finally gets its answer, and the answer converts the four fasts into feasts and hands the delegation an instruction instead of a ruling.
Let your hands be strong opens the section and closes it four verses later Zechariah 8:9 Zechariah 8:13, and both times the encouragement is addressed to people doing manual work on a building.
The grounds offered are economic and recent. Before the work resumed there was no wages for man nor any wages for an animal, and no safety in coming or going. Now the ground will give its increase and the heavens their dew. The reversal is described in terms of wages, harvest, and rain — the things a discouraged laborer can check.
Verses 14 and 15 set the two intentions side by side in the same grammar: as I thought to do evil to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath... so again I have thought in these days to do good. The parallel is the argument. The judgment that fell was not erratic, and neither is what follows it; the same deliberateness stands behind both.
Then the instruction, and it is the same instruction the fathers were given Zechariah 7:9–10: speak every man the truth with his neighbor. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate. A false oath was one of the two offenses the flying scroll went out to punish Zechariah 5:3–4.
And now the delegation's question is answered — not by a ruling on whether to fast, but by a change in what the days are for. The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts Zechariah 8:19.
Four fasts named where the delegation had asked about one. Each marked a stage of the city's fall, and each becomes a feast — the calendar of grief kept, with its meaning inverted. What is asked in exchange is a disposition: therefore love truth and peace.
The chapter then widens past Judah entirely. Peoples from many cities urge each other, let's go speedily to entreat the favor of Yahweh, with one man's I will go also caught mid-conversation.
And it ends on a number and a gesture: ten men out of all the languages of the nations will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying we have heard that God is with you. The pull comes from outside, and what it grips is the hem of an ordinary man's clothing.
settled What this mark means