Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age.
God's jealousy here is not reproof for the Church's unfaithfulness, but His burning concern for her protection. The verb means affection and care, not suspicion; He burned with wrath against all enemies of His people while regarding His Church with singular love. His resolve was to defend the godly against the whole world if necessary.
AI summary
Commenting on Zechariah 8:1-23
The prophet, in his foregoing discourses, had left his hearers under a high charge of guilt and a deep sense of wrath; he had left them in a melancholy view of the desolations of their pleasant land, which was the effect of their fathers' disobedience; but because he designed to bring them to repentance, not to drive them to despair, he here sets before them...
Commenting on Zechariah 8:1-8
And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls,.... Denoting a large increase of inhabitants, in a literal sense; and may spiritually signify the large numbers of converts, of new born babes, who are regenerated by the grace and Spirit of God, and are accounted of by the Lord for a generation: playing the streets thereof; being in health and rigour, and in great security.