Zechariah 2:4 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Zechariah 2:4
And said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein:
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Run
רֻ֗ץRutz
H7323
to run (for whatever reason · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
speak
דַּבֵּ֛רda.Ber
H1696
perhaps properly · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
this
הַלָּ֖זha.Laz
H1975
this or that · demonstrative particle
man
הַנַּ֥עַרha.Na.'ar
H5288
(concretely) a boy (as active) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
saying
לֵאמֹ֑רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
Jerusalem
יְרוּשָׁלִַ֔םye.ru.sha.Lim
H3389
Jerushalaim or Jerushalem · proper noun, a place name
inhabited
תֵּשֵׁ֣בte.Shev
H3427
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
walls
פְּרָזוֹת֙pe.ra.zOt
H6519
an open country · noun, common feminine plural absolute
multitude
מֵרֹ֥בme.Ro
H7230
abundance (in any respect) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
men
אָדָ֛ם'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · noun, common masculine singular absolute
cattle
וּבְהֵמָ֖הu.ve.he.Mah
H929
properly · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
therein
בְּתוֹכָֽהּbe.to.Khah
H8432
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Zechariah 1:17 Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the LORD shall yet comfort Zion,…
Jeremiah 33:22 As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Lev…
Ezekiel 38:11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelli…
Micah 7:11 In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed.
Isaiah 44:26 That confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and…
Isaiah 49:20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give plac…
Jeremiah 31:27 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of…
Ezekiel 36:10-11 And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builde…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Zechariah 2:1-5
This prophet was ordered, in God's name, to assure the people (Zac 1:16) that a line should be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Now here we have that promise illustrated and confirmed, that the prophet might deliver that part of his message to the people with the more clearness and assurance.
I. He sees, in a vision, a man going to measure Jerusalem (Zac 2:1, Zac 2:2): He lifted up his eyes again, and looked. God had shown him that which was very encouraging to him, (Zac 1:20), and therefore now he lifted up his eyes again and looked. Note, The comfortable sights which by faith we have had of God's goodness made to pass before us should engage us to lift up our eyes again, and to search furth…
this young man--So Zechariah is called as being still a youth when prophetically inspired [GROTIUS]. Or, he is so called in respect to his ministry or service (compare Num 11:27; Jos 1:1) [VATABLUS]. Naturally the "angel that talked with" Zechariah is desired to "speak to" him the further communications to be made from the Divine Being.
towns without walls for the multitude . . . Cattle--So many shall be its inhabitants that all could not be contained within the walls, but shall spread out in the open country around (Est 9:19); and so secure shall they be as not to need to shelter themselves and their cattle behind walls. So hereafter Judea is to be "the land of unwalled villages" (Eze 38:…
Run, speak to this young man - Nehemiah must have been a young man when he was sakee, or cup-bearer, to Artaxerxes.
As towns without walls - It shall be so numerously inhabited as not to be contained within its ancient limits. Josephus, speaking of this time, says, Wars 5:4:2, "The city, overflowing with inhabitants, by degrees extended itself beyond its walls."
John Gill on Zechariah 2:4
And said unto him,.... That is, the other angel said to the angel that had been talking with the prophet,
Run, speak to this young man: meaning Zechariah, who was either young in years, as Samuel and Jeremiah were when they prophesied; or he was a servant of a prophet older than he, and therefore so called, as Joshua, Moses's minister, was, Numbers 11:28 as Kimchi observes:
saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls; this shows that this is not to be understood of Jerusalem in a literal sense, for that was not inhabited as a town without a wall; its wall was built in Nehemiah's time, and remained until the city was destroyed by Vespasian; yea, it had a treble wall, as Jose…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 4 and following) And behold, the angel who spoke to me went out, and another angel went out to meet him, and said to him: Run, speak to this young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls, because of the multitude of people and animals in its midst. And I will be to it, says the Lord, a wall of fire all around, and I will be in the midst of it in glory. LXX: And behold, the angel who spoke to me stood, and another angel went out to meet him, and said to him: Run and speak to that young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited as a fruitful place, because of the multitude of people and animals in its midst. And I will be a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within her. The angel who spoke to the prophet, and stood, or as it is read in Hebrew, went out, this signifies Jasa (the Hebrews think it is Michael). And the other angel who went out and came to meet him, they suspect is Gabriel, who speaks to Michael, so that he may speak to the prophet, about the great abundance of all things, and the multitude of people and animals, and the strength of the walls that Jerusalem will have, which at present seems to be destroyed to ashes and dust. But according to the spiritual sense, we interpret all these things in the Church, which, without a wall, or as they have translated it in the Septuagint, κατάκαρπος, that is, it may be inhabited with the abundance of all fruits and may have a multitude of people and animals, and the Lord of fire may be around it, and He Himself may move in the midst of it in glory. This is the city of which we read elsewhere: Glorious things are said of you, O city of God (Psalm 86:2). And again: Great is the Lord and exceedingly praiseworthy, in the city of our God, on his holy mountain (Ps. VII, 1). Whoever dwells in this place can say: But I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God (Ps. LI, 10). And: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want: he has placed me in a place of pasture, by the waters of refreshment (Ps. XXII, 1). And it shall be inhabited, it says, Jerusalem, because of the multitude of men and animals, without walls, or abundance of all kinds of fruits. A certain one, humans and animals are interpreted as two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, because those who have been versed in the Law and come to faith in Christ are called humans: but we who were in idolatry as if in…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Zechariah — Jehovah is renowned or remembered. (1.) A prophet of Judah, the eleventh of the twelve minor prophets. Like Ezekiel, he was of priestly extraction. He describes himself (1:1) as “the son of…
Protection · Is afforded to: The Church — Is afforded to: The Church
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Zechariah 2:1-4
1. I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand.
1. Et sustuli oculos meos et vidi; et ecce vir in ejus manu funiculus mensurae.
2. Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof.
2. Et dixi, Quo tu vadis? et dixit mihi, Ad metiendum Ierusalem, ut videam quanta latitudo ejus, et quanta longitudo ejus.
3. And, behold, the angel that talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him,
3. Et ecce angelus qui loquebatur mecum egressus est, et alter angelus egressus est in occursum ejus;
4. And said unto him, Run, spe…
Whilst the second vision sets forth the destruction of the powers that were hostile to Israel, the third (Zac 2:1-5) with the prophetic explanation (Zac 2:6-13) shows the development of the people and kingdom of God till the time of its final glory. The vision itself appears very simple, only a few of the principal features being indicated; but in this very brevity it presents many difficulties so far as the exposition is concerned. It is as follows: Zac 2:1. "And I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold a man, and in his hand a measuring line. Zac 2:2. Then I said, Whither goest thou? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see how great its breadth, and how great its length. Zac 2:3. A…
how wide and how long it is (Or how long and wide it is to be): By taking this measurement, God showed that he was planning for Jerusalem’s future.
Rashi on Zechariah 2:4
And he said, saying, “These are the horns” that you first saw.
that scattered Judah and humbled them to the extent that no man lifted his head, and they did not allow anyone of My people to raise his head.
And these came These craftsmen came to cause those horns to quake and to cast them away.
to cast away לְיַדּוֹת
