Zechariah 8:10

For before these days,.... That the temple began to be built: there was no hire for men, nor any hire for beasts; that turned to any account; the wages earned by the one, and with the other, were as

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of

For before these days, for eighteen years together, there was no hire; reward or recompence, no profit by the labour of man or beast, sowing or planting: see 2:15-17 ,11. Or else, though the poor Jew laboured and received wages, it profiled him not, God blasted it. Neither was there any peace; no safety, or content, and rest, at home or abroad; nothing prospered as might be hoped, in field or house; if they went out it was trouble to see all unprosperous there, if they came home it was not one whit better: perhaps it may intimate troubles by war, but I incline to interpret Mwlv Nya as I have done, with respect partly to the Hebrew, partly to the 12th verse. Because of the affliction; distress, or straitness, and want, through such great barrenness as attended all their labour. For I; God just and holy. Set all men every one against his neighbour; let out or took off the restraints which kept men in some order; and when they were thus let out, they did discompose all, fell into seditions, and taking of parties, and breaking their own and others’ peace. For before these days, for eighteen years together, there was no hire; reward or recompence, no profit by the labour of man or beast, sowing or planting: see 2:15-17 ,11. Or else, though the poor Jew laboured and received wages, it profiled him not, God blasted it. Set all men every one against his neighbour; let out or took off the restraints which kept men in some order; and when they were thus let out, they did discompose all, fell into seditions, and taking of parties, and breaking their own and others’ peace.

Zechariah 8:10 For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither [was there any] peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour.Ver. 10. For before these days] sc. During those forty and four years, wherein they ceased from the work, minding only their own houses and managing their own affairs, their labour was unprofitable, their state unquiet through foreign foragers and homebred malcontents. There was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast] Nulla emoluments laborum. Both man and beast did their parts, but to little purpose. “ Ludit qui sterili semina mandat humo ” ( Ovid). They sowed much, and brought in little; they earned money, but put it into a bottomless bag, Haggai 1:6; the gains did not countervail the pains, the wages the work. Neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in] Whether a man were within doors or without, he was in danger of the enemy (see the like 2 Chronicles 15:5), he did eat the bread of his soul in the peril of his life, being wholly at the enemy’ s mercy, which is mere cruelty. "For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go away?" said Saul, 1 Samuel 24:19; I think not, till he have his pennyworth of him; as that monster of Milan, as the bloody Papists in the massacre of Paris, as the merciless Spaniards on the harmless Indians (50,000,000 of whom they have murdered in 42 years, as Acosta, the Jesuit, testifieth), as Ptolemy Lathurus, King of Egypt, on these poor Jews, 30,000 of whom he cruelly killed, and compelled the living to feed upon the flesh of the dead; and, lastly, as the Jews themselves, of whom Tacitus takes notice, and gives them this character, that there was misericordia in promptu apud suos, sed contra omnes alios hostile odium, that they were kind enough to their own, but cruel to all others, whom they look upon as idolaters, and therefore think they may safely kill, as they did the Cyprians and Cyrenians in Trajan’ s time to the number of 240,000; and as they still do Christians where they can without danger of being discovered; whom also they curse in their daily prayers with a Maledic Domine Nazaraeis; and by whom they are everywhere so contemned and hated, that they are exiled out of the world, cast out of many countries, and where they are suffered (as in Turkey) they are at every Easter in danger of death. For Biddulph telleth us that if they stir out of doors between Maundy Thursday at noon and Easter eve at night, the Christians among whom they dwell will stone them; because at that time they crucified our Saviour, derided and buffeted him.

(10) Before . . . there was no hire for man, or cattle, because the land was so unproductive (Haggai 1:6, Haggai 1:9-11); but “from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid . . . from this day will I bless you” (Haggai 2:18-19). LXX., ὁμισθὸς . . . οὺκἔσταιεἰςὄνησιν, “the hire . . . would not be profitable,” reading the Hebrew verb, “was not,” as an Aramaic future, “will not be profitable.” The affliction.—Better, the enemy. Not only were they oppressed by their neighbouring adversaries, but also during the time previous to their energetic resumption of the work of re-building, there took place the expedition of Cambyses against Egypt, when the march of the Persian hosts southwards through Palestine must have caused much distress to the Jews in their narrow circumstances.

Verse 10. For before these days there was no hire for man] Previously to this, ye had no prosperity; ye had nothing but civil divisions and domestic broils. I abandoned you to your own spirits, and to your own ways.

10. these days] Rather, those days, in which you began to build again. hire] i.e. return for his labour. See Haggai 1:6; Haggai 1:9-11. the affliction] Rather, the adversary. Ezra 4:4. every one against his neighbour] This was the third evil which prevailed—dearth, harassing by their enemies, their own dissensions—in those days when the Temple lay neglected.

There was no hire for man - Literally, “hire for man came not to pass.” It was longed for, waited for and came not. So little was the produce, that neither laborer nor beast of burden were employed to gather it in.

10. Another ground for being of good courage may be found in the improvement in conditions which has taken place since the people began in earnest the rebuilding of the temple. How different is the present from the past.