Zechariah 14:17

"And it shall be, that whoso of all the families of the earth goeth not up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Jehovah of hosts, upon them there shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, neither shall it be upon them; there will be the plague wherewith Jehovah will smite the nations that go not up to keep the feast of tabernacles."

"There shall be no rain ..." Literal rain cannot be the subject here; the word is used metaphorically. Christ himself took special precautions to destroy the old Jewish prejudice that God sent his rain only upon the righteous, saying:

"The Father... maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust" (Matthew 5:44).

Of course, in the history of Israel, there had indeed been a special providence of God in withholding rain from Israel during the idolatrous times of Ahab; but the miraculous interposition on the part of the Father, attempting to rescue Israel from the head-long plunge into idolatry, did not change the eternal law of God.

Therefore, we must look for some ether meaning here; and it is not far to seek. Rain stands for the precious showers of God's grace upon his people. And the full impact of these verses is that it is available nowhere else in the universe except in Jesus Christ our Lord. "The Father... hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).

What has this to do with "the feast of tabernacles?" That feast was the response of the Old Israel to the blessing and commandment of God; but the Old Israel is no more. God divorced her in the days of Hosea and has married another, the New Israel is Christ; and in this passage the duties of the Old Israel are mentioned as typical of those of the New Israel. After all, the mention of those specific obligations of the New Israel could not have been understood until "the fullness of time"; hence the necessity of speaking about them in terms of the Old.