Zechariah 10:1

Zechariah speaks to the people who had come back from exile in Babylon. They were rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple in hard times, with little money, enemies around them and a spiritual dullness among themselves. They lived from the land, and every harvest depended on the rain coming when it should. Into that life the LORD speaks a plain command: “Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain.”

The verb shâʼal means to ask, inquire, request or require. Here it stands in the imperative and the plural, so it is a command to the whole people to bring their request to God. The verse names the LORD twice, first as the one they ask and then as the one who acts, and so it sets him apart as the one source of what they need.

The latter rain, malqôwsh, was the spring rain that fell just before harvest. It filled out the grain and brought the crops to maturity. If it failed, the harvest failed with it and famine followed. The command places the request at exactly the point where the people’s need was sharpest. God had tied this rain to his covenant long before, when he promised his people rain in its season as they loved and served him (Deuteronomy 11:13–14).

The promise answers the request. “So the LORD shall make bright clouds”: the word chăzîyz means a flash of lightning or a thundercloud, the storm cloud that brings heavy rain. The LORD makes the storm, and he gives “showers of rain”, enough to reach “every one” with grass in the field. Green pasture fed the flocks and herds, and through them the people, so the promise reaches every household that lives from the land.

The command also settles who is to be asked. The Canaanites worshipped Baal as the god they believed sent rain and made the fields fruitful, and the command to ask the LORD confronts any pull toward mixing that worship with his. The God of Israel rules the sky and the seasons and gives his people all they need. A psalm puts that trust into words, setting the name of the LORD our God above every other thing people rely on (Psalm 20:7).

The rain in this verse is real rain for real fields. Scripture also uses the latter rain as a picture of God’s Spirit poured out on his people, bringing them fresh life and fruitfulness. Joel speaks of the former and the latter rain among God’s promises to restore his people (Joel 2:23), and in the New Testament the ascended Christ pours out the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4). The fruit that grows from that outpouring is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Jesus offered the woman at the well living water, which quenches the thirst of the soul and brings eternal life (John 4:10–14).

So the command to ask for rain also teaches us to ask the Lord for the refreshing of his Spirit. Paul gives the promise that stands behind every such request: God shall supply all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).

Verse 2 opens with “For”, and gives the reason the people must ask the LORD. Everything else they had turned to had failed them.

“The idols have spoken vanity.” The idols here are tᵉrâphîym, household gods or family idols, which people kept for protection and consulted for guidance. What they spoke was ʼâven, a word for nothingness that also covers trouble and wickedness and is used for an idol itself. Their answers were empty, and emptiness of that kind leads on to trouble and sorrow.

“The diviners have seen a lie.” The diviners (qâçam) claimed to see the future or hidden things by practices God had forbidden, such as reading omens and consulting the dead. The law of Moses names these among the abominations of the nations (Deuteronomy 18:9–12). What the diviners saw was sheqer, a lie, and their visions were false whether they were deceived themselves or deceiving others.

They also “told false dreams”, dreams of shav, emptiness or ruin, and “they comfort in vain”. The verb for comfort, nâcham, means to console, and the comfort they gave was hebel, empty and soon gone, because it rested on falsehood. Idols, visions and dreams all ended in the same place.

“Therefore they went their way as a flock.” The people are pictured as tsôʼn, a flock, the common picture of God’s people in Scripture. The verb nâçaʻ means to set out or move away, and here it describes a flock wandering off with nobody leading it. “They were troubled”: the verb ʻânâh means to be pressed down, afflicted or humbled, and it speaks of real suffering that came from following false guides.

The cause comes last: “because there was no shepherd.” The word râʻâh means to tend a flock, to pasture it, and also to rule. In Israel the shepherds of the people were its leaders, kings, priests and prophets alike, and a shepherd’s work was to guide, feed and protect. Where the leadership God appoints is missing, his people are left open to harm, scattered and without direction. Jeremiah pronounces woe on the shepherds who scattered God’s flock (Jeremiah 23:1–2), and Ezekiel brings the same charge against Israel’s shepherds, who fed themselves and left the sheep to wander (Ezekiel 34:1–6).

The lament leads into a promise. The rest of the chapter condemns the false leaders and tells of God raising up true ones, gathering his people and setting them free from those who oppressed them. The chapter before has already announced the coming King (Zechariah 9:9–10), the Shepherd-King to whom this lament points.

The New Testament shows this lament answered in Jesus. When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). He said, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11), and he came so that his sheep might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Where the idols and diviners spoke emptiness and lies, he speaks truth and gives real comfort.

Isaiah confesses, “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6), and Jesus by his death takes away the sin that scattered the sheep. Raised from the dead, he is the great shepherd of the sheep (Hebrews 13:20), who knows, gathers, guides and keeps his flock.

These two verses set the LORD beside everything people turn to in his place, and he alone gives. He sends the rain at the time it is needed, and he wants his people to ask him for it. The idols, the diviners and their dreams speak emptiness, and the comfort they offer leaves a flock still wandering. Our needs are many, for the body and the spirit alike, and the God of Zechariah is the one who meets them and delights to hear his children ask. He has also given the Shepherd that the troubled flock lacked, and in Christ his people are found, fed and led.