Zechariah 7

7. Should ye not hear the words--rather, "Should ye not do the words," as their question naturally was as to what they should do ( Zechariah 7:3 ); "hearing" is not mentioned till Zechariah 7:12 . The sense is, It is not fasts that Jehovah requires of you, but that ye should keep His precepts given to you at the time when Jerusalem was in its integrity. Had ye done so then, ye would have had no occasion to institute fasts to commemorate its destruction, for it would never have been destroyed ( Zechariah 7:9-14 ) [MAURER]. Or, as the Margin, "Are not these the words" of the older prophets ( Isaiah 58:3 , Jeremiah 14:12 ) which threatened a curse for disobedience, which the event has so awfully confirmed. If ye follow them in sin, ye must follow them in suffering. English Version is good sense: Ye inquire anxiously about the fasts, whereas ye ought to be anxious about hearing the lesson taught by the former prophets and verified in the nation's punishment; penitence and obedience are required rather than fasts.
the plain--southwest of Jerusalem. They then inhabited securely the region most unguarded.

9. speaketh--implying that these precepts addressed to their ancestors were the requirements of Jehovah not merely then, but now. We must not only not hurt, but we must help our fellow men. God is pleased with such loving obedience, rather than with empty ceremonies.

10. imagine evil--that is, devise evil. The Septuagint takes it, Harbor not the desire of revenge ( Leviticus 19:18 ). "Devise evil against one another" is simpler ( Psalms 36:4 , Micah 2:1 ).

11. pulled away the shoulder--literally, "presented a refractory shoulder"; an image from beasts refusing to bear the yoke ( Nehemiah 9:29 , Margin).
stopped . . . ears--( Isaiah 6:10 , Jeremiah 7:26 , Acts 7:57 ).

12. hearts . . . adamant--( Ezekiel 3:9 , 11:19 ).
Lord . . . sent in Spirit by . . . prophets--that is, sent by the former prophets inspired with His Spirit.
therefore . . . great wrath--( 2 Chronicles 36:16 ). As they pushed from them the yoke of obedience, God laid on them the yoke of oppression. As they made their heart hard as adamant, God brake their hard hearts with judgments. Hard hearts must expect hard treatment. The harder the stone, the harder the blow of the hammer to break it.

13. he cried--by His prophets.
they cried--in their calamities.
I . . . not hear--retribution in kind ( Proverbs 1:24-26 , Isaiah 1:15 , Micah 3:4 ).

14. whirlwind--of wrath ( Nahum 1:3 ).
nations whom they knew not--foreign and barbarous.
desolate after them--after their expulsion and exile. It was ordered remarkably by God's providence, that no occupants took possession of it, but that during the Jews' absence it was reserved for them against their return after seventy years.
they laid . . . desolate--The Jews did so by their sins. The blame of their destruction lay with themselves, rather than with the Babylonians ( 2 Chronicles 36:21 ).
pleasant land--Canaan. Literally, "the land of desire" ( Jeremiah 3:19 ).