Zechariah 2

2. It imports the relation of a husband (Isaiah 54:5). your Maker is your husband. If God be our husband, he esteems us precious to him as the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8). He imparts his secrets to us (Psalm 25:14).

God has a dear affection to his people, they are his Hephsibah or delight (Isaiah 62:4). The apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8). To express how dear they are to him, and how tender he is of them, Nihil charius pupilla oculi, Drusius. They are his spouse, adorned with the jewels of…

As when one string in a lute is touched, all the rest of the strings sound: When God's children are stricken, his bowels sound. He that touches you touches the apple of my eye (Zechariah 2:8). 4. If God be our Father, he will take notice of the least good he sees in us; if there…

Question. But how can it stand with Christ's glory now in Heaven, to have a fellow-feeling of our miseries and temptations? Answer. This fellow-feeling in Christ arises not from any infirmity or passion, but from the mystical union between him and his members (Zechariah 2:8). He…

When he says, for I was hungry, he means his poor and distressed members upon earth: and thereby he signifies to us that the miseries of his servants are his own miseries. Thus the Lord says in Zechariah, He who touches you, touches the apple of my eye (Zechariah 2:8). And when…

Though they are scoured with affliction, yet it is to make them brighter (Daniel 12:10). 5. God calls them the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8). The apple of the eye is the tenderest part of the eye, to express God's tenderness of them, says Salvian.

Rule 2. Remember that this God in whose hand all creatures are, is your Father, and is much more tender over you than you are or can be over yourselves. 'He that touches you, touches the apple of my eye' (Zechariah 2:8). Let me ask the most timid woman: is there not a vast diffe…

And as to his providences, wherein his sovereignty is also manifested. It is said (Zechariah 2:13), Be silent O all flesh before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his habitation. It is spoken of his providential working in the changes of kingdoms, and desolations that attend…

Let us therefore be assured that we are so under the protection of God, that whoever does us wrong, shall have God for his enemy. 'He that hurts you,' says the Lord, 'hurts the apple of my eye' (Zechariah 2:8). He also testifies that he dwells in the midst of the Church (Psalm 4…

This place is worthy our diligent observation, for God here shows the great care he has over his chosen, seeing he is as greatly moved with the wrongs done to them, as with those which are directly against his own Majesty. As in Zechariah he witnesses, that as often as his child…

We must therefore comprehend all these things together, if we will attain to the true meaning of the Prophet's words. And in this sense it is that Zechariah, Malachi, and Haggai do encourage the people touching the hope of their estate to come, while they thought they lost so mu…

He is full of bowels, as the word in James 5:11 signifies. Yea, there are not only bowels of compassion in our God, but the tenderness of bowels, like those of a Mother to her sucking child, Isaiah 49:15 He feels all our pains as if the apple of his eye were touched, Zechariah 2…

So verse 5, when God is angry with his vineyard and will destroy it, it is thus expressed, I will (says he) take away the hedge thereof, that is, I will take away my protection from it. In the same sense (Zechariah 2:5), I will be (says God) a wall of fire round about; that is,…

The devil fain would, but by his own confession could not, break over that hedge to touch Job, till God's permission made a gap for him. Yea, he not only makes a hedge, but a wall about them, and that of fire (Zechariah 2:5). He sets a guard of angels to encamp round about them…

Which notes (says Calvin) God's assiduous and constant help and succour, which is extended in all dangers, as constantly as the Sun arises. And this assiduous succour to his people, and their great security thereby, is set forth in the Scriptures by a pleasant variety of Metapho…

He speaks as one intimately affected with the state of poor Jerusalem. He has bid all the world take notice that what is done to them is done to him, Zechariah 2:8 — to the apple of his eye. Second, in gracious supply he abounds.

These prayers, if sincere, are never in vain; if they profit not others, they promote the kingdom of God in ourselves. 2. The preservation and defense of the churches already planted, frustrating the plots and power of the enemies: that God would be a wall of fire round about th…

There are in the Word of God promises that we may believe, and then, promises because we do believe: promises to invite faith and hope; and then, promises because we believe in God, and hope in his word; promises for faith, and to faith. As for instance, God has promised to be a…

This is what it means to keep close to God, and hold fast our integrity. Elsewhere the Lord expresses himself to be a wall of fire round about his people (Zechariah 2:5), which should affright at a distance, and consume near at hand. In those countries, when they lay in the fiel…

God takes us for his portion, and therefore you should take God for your portion (Deuteronomy 32:9), For the Lord's portion is his people. (Zechariah 2:12) And the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. If God shall choose a comp…

So that sin is against the good of man, in putting out the sight of his eyes, which is worse (in a spiritual sense) than if it had put out the eyes of his body. Man's eyes are very dear to him, God expresses the tenderness he has for his people by this, that they are to him as t…

The secure sinner who is so far from seeking and coveting deliverance that he will not take it when it's offered, but is content to be in the prison of his natural condition and to lie in the bolts and [illegible] of his sins still. Of this temper were those Jews in captivity th…

The wicked are but lumber serving only to cumber the ground; but God's children are his jewels, locked up in the cabinet of his decree from all eternity. God's children are the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8) — very dear and tender to him — and the eyelid of his special provide…

It is God then that is here called the Savior of all by deliverance and protection in danger of which the Apostle treats, and that by his providence, which is peculiar towards believers; and what this makes for a universal mediation I know not. Now the very context in this place…

First, by direct descriptions of his glorious Person and incarnation. See among other places, Genesis 3:15; Psalm 2:7-9; Psalm 45:2-6; Psalm 68:17-18; Psalm 110; Isaiah 6:1-4; Isaiah 9:6; Zechariah 2:8; John 1:1-3; Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 1:1-3; Hebrews 2:14-16; Revelation 1:…