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What are these shakings? They have generally been referred to the establishment of the New Testament dispensation, from the text in Hebrews. This interpretation we cannot receive, because —

1. The designation of the interval before their commencement as "yet only a little while" leads us to look for a nearer future than five hundred years.

2. The force of the Hiphil participle here is properly to denote a continuance of shakings for an indefinite time.

3. The same phrase in vers. 22, 23 obviously refers to something outside of the Messianic kingdom, and not inside of it.

4. The usual meaning of this symbolical act is that of a visitation of vengeance on the enemies of God, and not an unfolding of His dispensations of mercy. And —

5. The future establishment of the Messiah's kingdom would not be as directly comforting to them as the nearer and more closely connected even to which the prophet alluded. This event was the speedy shaking of the social and political systems that were around and above them, before and beneath which they were in such dread as to hesitate about going forward in their work. That this fact would be an encouragement to them is obvious. They trembled before the consolidated power of Persia, and the craft of Samaria that might bring that power upon them again in restraint, if not in vengeance. The prophet assures them that they need not tremble, for in a little time this stupendous fabric would totter, and others be thrown up in its place. As these powers were soon to be prostrated, the people of God need not fear before their enemies, that were so soon to fall before them. This gives the key to all history. God will allow men to rear the loftiest fabrics, as individuals and as nations, but He will shake them down, that they may then seek for some immovable basis on which to rest.

(T. V. Moore, D. D.)

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KJV: For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;

WEB: For this is what Yahweh of Armies says: 'Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land;