The Lord answers his people’s discouragement by pointing not only to the past but also to the future. He encourages Israel with the promise that after just a little more waiting, God will intervene once again: For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.
What made this encouragement so appropriate at this time? The Feast of Booths is the perfect time to do so. The festival was made not for the wilderness period, when Israel had little fruit to celebrate. No, it was meant for the Promised Land. It was designed to call to their minds their earlier sense of longing for the Promised Land. And so it was to remind God’s people that this world, such as it is, is not their home. They were to long for a better, heavenly land.
If the feast had this sense of longing in the best of times, how much more do you think it would be there during the worst of times?1
6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.