Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem: and every man with his staff in his hand through multitude of days.

Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with his staff in his hand for multitude of days.

Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Again dwell do old men and old women, In broad places of Jerusalem, And each his staff in his hand, Because of abundance of days.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: There will again be old men and old women seated in the open spaces of Jerusalem, every man with his stick in his hand because he is so old.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women sit in the broad places of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand for very age.

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Then elderly men and elderly women will dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man will be with his walking stick in his hand, because of the multitude of days.

Sic dicit Iehova exercituum, Adhuc habitabunt vetuli et vetulae (vel, senes et anus, sed est idem nomen) in plateis Ierosolymae, et viro baculus ejus in manu sua prae multitudine dierum.

He confirms what we have already stated, that the Jews would be safe under the hand and protection of God, as he would dwell among them. The cause of a safe and quiet state he made to be the presence of God. For when we have peace with the whole world, we may yet disturb one another, except the God of peace restrains us; inasmuch as mutual and intestine discord may harass us, though we may be spared by external enemies. It is then necessary in the first place, that the God of peace and salvation should dwell in the midst of us. But when we have the presence of God, then comes full security. Suitably then does the Prophet now say, that yet dwell would old men and old women the midst of Jerusalem: for since the time the Jews had returned, they had been harassed, we know, by continual wars; and it could hardly be expected that they could live long in a state of incessant troubles, while new fears were daily disturbing them. Since then they were thus in incessant and endless dangers, the Prophet gives them relief, and promises that there would be to them yet a quiet habitation, so that both men and women would live to extreme old age. Hence he says, There shall yet dwell, etc Then he adds, a staff shall be to man for his age, or on account of multitude of days. This seems indeed to have been said with no great propriety; for it would have been much better had vigor been given them, so that men failed not through old age. Hence the weakness mentioned here seems to have been a sign of God's curse rather than of his favor; and on this account the Lord promises by Isaiah, that old men would be vigorous and strong, (Isaiah 65:20;) so that they felt not the disadvantage of age. But the design of Zechariah, as we have already reminded you, was here different; for many by their daily complaints depressed the minds of the godly, declaring that they were deceived, and saying that Jerusalem would not long stand, as they were surrounded by so many enemies. Hence Zechariah shows, that the Jews would be in no danger of falling by the hand of enemies, as they would live securely without any external disturbances; for we know that many old men, half alive through age and supporting themselves by a staff, cannot be anywhere seen, except in a state of peace and quietness, undisturbed by enemies. [1] We now then perceive the design of the Prophet, which was to show, that Jerusalem would be tranquil and in peace, and that this would be the fruit of God's presence; for its citizens would die through years, and not through the violence of eternal enemies. To the same purpose is what follows --

Footnotes

1 - "Longevity and a numerous offspring were especially promised under the old dispensation, but uniformly in connection with obedience to the law. Deuteronomy 4:40; 5:16,33; 6:2; 33:6,24; Isaiah 65:20." -- Henderson.

There shall yet dwell old men and old women - Dionysius: "Men and women shall not be slain now, as before in the time of the Babylonish destruction, but shall fulfill their natural course." It shall not be, as when "He gave His people over unto the sword; the fire consumed their young men and their maidens were not given to marriage; the priests were slain by the sword and their widows made no lamentation" Psalm 78:63-64; apart from the horrible atrocities of pagan war, when the unborn children were destroyed in their mothers' womb 2-Kings 15:16; Hosea 13:16; Amos 1:13, with their mothers. Yet (as in Zac 1:17), once more as in the days of old, and as conditionally promised in the law Deuteronomy 4:10; Deuteronomy 5:16, Deuteronomy 5:33; Deuteronomy 6:2; Deuteronomy 11:9; Deuteronomy 17:20; Deuteronomy 22:7; Deuteronomy 32:47; Ezekiel 20:17. As death is the punishment of sin, so prolongation of life to the time which God has now made its natural term, seems the more a token of His goodness. This promise Isaiah had renewed, "There shall no more be an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days" Isaiah 65:20. In those fierce wars neither young nor very old were spared. It implied then a long peace, that people should live to that utmost verge of human life.
The man, whose staff is in his hand for the multitude of days - The two opposite pictures, the old men, Dionysius), "so aged that they support with a staff their failing and trembling limbs," and the young in the glad buoyancy of recent life, fresh from their Creator's hands, attest alike the goodness of the Creator, who protecteth both, the children in their yet undeveloped strength, the very old whom He hath brought through "all the changes and chances of this mortal life," in their yet sustained weakness. The tottering limbs of the very old, and the elastic perpetual motion of childhood are like far distant chords of the diapason of the Creator's love. It must have been one of the most piteous sights in that first imminent destruction of Jerusalem Jeremiah 6:11; Jeremiah 9:21, how "the children and the sucklings swooned in the streets of the city; how the young children fainted for hunger in the top of every street" Lamentations 2:11, Lamentations 2:19.
We have but to picture to ourselves any city in which one lives, the ground strewn with these little all-but corpses, alive only to suffer. We know not, how great the relief of the yet innocent, almost indomitable joyousness of children is, until we miss them. In the dreadful Irish famine of 1847 the absence of the children from the streets of Galway was told me by Religious as one of its dreariest features . In the dreary back-streets and alleys of London, the irrepressible joyousness of children is one of the bright sun-beams of that great Babylon, amid the oppressiveness of the anxious, hard, luxurious; thoughtless, careworn, eager, sensual, worldly, frivolous, vain, stolid, sottish, cunning, faces, which traverse it. God sanctions by His word here our joy in the joyousness of children, that He too taketh pleasure in it, He the Father of all. It is precisely their laughing, the fullness of her streets of these merry creations of His hands, that He speaks of with complacency.

There shall yet old men and old women - In those happy times the followers of God shall live out all their days, and the hoary head be always found in the way of righteousness.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; There shall yet old (c) men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.
(c) Though their enemies did greatly molest and trouble them, yet God would come and dwell among them, and so preserve them as long as nature would allow them to live, and increase their children in great abundance.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts,.... These words are used at every consolatory promise given, as Kimchi observes, for the confirmation of it:
there shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem; signifying that the inhabitants should be very healthful; no sweeping disease or calamity should be among them, but they should live to a good old age, as follows:
and every man with his staff in his hand for very age; or "because of multitude of days" (i); the length of time they should have lived in the world, being worn out, not with diseases, but with old age, and therefore obliged to use a staff when they walk the streets for their support; all which is an emblem of the healthfulness of the inhabitants of Zion, who have no reason to complain of sickness, because their sins are forgiven them; and of that spiritual and eternal life, which they that are written among the living in Jerusalem do enjoy; who are in understanding men, fathers in Christ, and are growing up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; see Isaiah 65:20.
(i) "prae multitudine dierum", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius, Burkius.

So tranquil and prosperous shall the nation be that wars shall no longer prematurely cut off the people: men and women shall reach advanced ages. The promise of long life was esteemed one of the greatest blessings in the Jewish theocracy with its temporal rewards of obedience (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 4:40). Hence this is a leading feature in millennial blessedness (Isaiah 65:20, Isaiah 65:22).
for very age--literally, "for multitude of days."

Zac 8:4. "Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, Yet will there sit old men and women in the streets of Jerusalem, every one with his staff in his hand, for the multitude of the days of his life. Zac 8:5. And the streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in their streets." Long life, to an extreme old age, and a plentiful number of blooming children, were theocratic blessings, which the Lord had already promised in the law to His people, so far as they were faithful to the covenant. Consequently there does not appear to be any Messianic element in this promise. But if we compare this fourth verse with Isaiah 65:20, we shall see that extreme old age also belonged to the blessings of the Messianic times. And as Israel had almost always to suffer most grievously from wars and other calamities, which swept off the people at an untimely age, during the time which extended from Zerubbabel to Christ; it must be admitted, notwithstanding the description of the prosperous times which Israel enjoyed under the government of Simon (1 Maccabees 14:4-15), that this promise also was only fulfilled in a very meagre measure, so far as Jerusalem was concerned, before the coming of Christ.

Old men - Formerly war, or famine or pestilence, and wasting diseases, cut off men and women before they came to old age.