Zechariah 7:9-12

Zechariah 7:9-12. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts Or did speak, that is, to your fathers, and thus he speaks to you now; Execute true judgment I often put your fathers in mind that judgment and mercy were more acceptable to me than fasting, or any external performances; (see the margin;) and I repeat the same admonition to you of the present age. And let none of you imagine evil against his brother, &c. Neither think ill of, nor wish ill to, nor plot evil against one another. But they refused to hearken But your fathers refused to obey the admonitions of the former prophets, and were often reproved by them for their refractory disposition; and pulled away the shoulder Withdrew their shoulder from the yoke of the law. The metaphor is taken from oxen that refuse to put their necks under the yoke. See the margin. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant-stone So that no arguments could make any impression upon them; lest they should hear the law Of God by Moses, which they were peremptorily required to do, but to do which they as peremptorily refused; and the words The counsels and commands; which the Lord hath sent in his Spirit by the former prophets Inspired and commissioned his prophets to declare; therefore For this great obstinacy; came a great wrath Which consumed the whole land, and burned against the people that had inhabited it seventy years together in Babylon; from the Lord of hosts In all which the hand of the Lord was most evidently seen, rendering unto them according to their ways.