NOTES for Zec 7:14
Today, and in all the times many was and is said on the right of the Jewish people on the land given to them by God. Indeed: it will be clear to whoever will read attentively and impartially the Bible that the Land of Israel belongs only to one people, the people of God, to whom God gave it… in ownership? As an unconditional property? And begin here this historic collision, with which many is said in the same biblical books. Already, the Pentateuch denies in fact the absolute and unlimited right of the people of God on the land given to them by God. The Torah connects directly the right of the people for the ownership of the land with the observation of the union-covenant formerly concluded with God.
Strictly speaking, it is not about the ownership, but about the unlimitedly potential use, which can still be limited, until the complete deprivation of the people of the land received from God in case of violation by these people of the concluded union. But the paradox of the situation consists of the fact that the land given by God to His people for use, is designated by God Himself as the Holy Land. And in the general sense of the biblical traditional understanding of the holiness, the saint, the sanctified saint can belong only to God and to the one that God has blessed, as He blessed by His presence His people.
Only people sanctified by God can possess a land sanctified by God, only such a unity of the people and the land can be spiritually adequate. That is why no other people can be genuine, full master of the land prepared by God for His people. But it, of course does not mean in itself that the land cannot turn out in the power of any other people, quite as any other land in the fallen world, torn by the wars and the fights for territories. However, it can occur only if the people of God violate the conditions of the union concluded with God and stop being the people of God in this measure, in which the condition is violated.
Of course, God does not turn away from His people, even when the people turn away from their God. But the people lose the right to holiness, and in the limit the loss of such a right means the destruction of the Temple - the house of God, sanctified by God Himself, - and the loss of the land, this eviction, of which the prophet reminds to his fellow countrymen. Well then, the land comes to desolation: because God cannot give it to another people and His own people are not ready spiritually to be really its genuine master and custodian. The land is transformed into desert and waits its time. Waits, when the people intended for it by God will once again be worthy of it.