What Does Zechariah 10:1 Mean?
Ask rain of the LORD in the season of the late rain, and the LORD makes clouds and gives them showers of rain, grass in the field for every man.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.THE KEY
The field’s ordinary need is already within divine attention: the LORD is asked for rain, makes the clouds, and gives the shower.
THE MEANING
Your need for rain can be brought to the LORD, who makes the bright clouds and gives the showers. The provision reaches into ordinary material life, all the way to grass growing in the field.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that ordinary material need is too small to belong in a request to God is undone here: rain is named as something to ask for, and field grass as something the LORD provides.
THE ROOT
מָטָר
māṭār
GROWS FROM
מטר
Rain; the root also forms the verb “to cause rain to fall.”
Hebrew uses the same consonantal seed for rain and for causing rain, joining what arrives with the act that brings it. The LORD’s making of the clouds and giving of the shower keep the requested rain connected to its source.
ALSO GROWS
māṭār: Rain
מָטָר
This is the rain the verse tells the reader to ask for.
himṭîr: To cause rain to fall
הִמְטִיר
This verb carries the root from the rain itself to the action that sends it.
יִתֵּן
yitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place; here, “he gives.”
“give” in this verse is yitten. The verse presents rain as something placed into the life of the field. The root connects giving with setting something where it can be received.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: To give, set, or place
נָתַן
The verse’s giving belongs to this wider sense of placing provision within reach.
mattān: Gift
מַתָּן
The gift-word shares the same root, showing the connection between giving and what is given.
שַׁאֲלוּ
sha'alu
GROWS FROM
שאל
To ask, inquire, or request.
“ask” in this verse is sha'alu. The verse names asking as a way of addressing a source, not as a way of manufacturing rain. The same root forms words for a request and for someone “asked for,” keeping the need and its answer linked through language.
ALSO GROWS
she'elah: A request or petition
שְׁאֵלָה
The request for rain is part of this word family.
Sha'ul: Asked for; the name Saul
שָׁאוּל
The name preserves the root’s sense of someone who has been requested.
THE PATTERN
The LORD sends rain as timely provision for the land, with its reach extending beyond any one person.
And I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the first rain and the late rain, so that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil.Who gives rain upon the face of the ground, and sends waters upon the fields.So that you may become children of your Father in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the aligned and on the crooked.THE THREAD
And I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the first rain and the late rain, so that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil.Deuteronomy uses the same Hebrew root מָטָר (māṭār, “rain”) and names both first and latter rain as gifts in due season. Zechariah connects that seasonal provision to asking the LORD, joining the rain itself to its giver.
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