Deeper Commentary
Zechariah Chapter 9
Zechariah 9:1 An oracle. The word of Yahweh is against the land of Hadrach- Hadrach is another name for the area around Damascus. It may be mentioned because here Alexander the Great of Greece won his victory which opened the way for him to then pursue his campaign against Syria and the areas around Israel, which the next verses describe. Or the reference could be to the Syrian god Chadrak; the oracle was specifically against the god of Damascus.
And will rest upon Damascus; for the eye of man and of all the tribes of Israel is toward Yahweh- This continues the theme of Zech. 8, that in the Messianic Kingdom there would be a joining together of the Gentiles with the Jews in turning to God. This time would also be of unity between the ten tribes and the two tribes- all the tribes of Israel would together turn toward Yahweh. Our common repentance and relationship with God is what is in practice the basis of fellowship between God's people; it is based upon spiritual experience rather than common theology. But this time of turning to Yahweh would only come about after terrible judgments upon the nations around Judah. These would elicit repentance of a remnant, as the following prophecy makes clear. In the first instance, the reference is to the campaign of Alexander the Great against the neighbours of Judah; this could have led to the coming of a Messiah figure and the reestablishment of the Kingdom. But this possibility also didn't work out, and so these events will have their major fulfilment in the last days and the time of the Lord's return.
Zechariah 9:2 And Hamath, also, which borders on it- The idea is
that Hamath would share the same judgment as Damascus, perhaps at the same
time or at the same hands. This happened during the campaign of Alexander
the Great.
Tyre and Sidon, because they are very wise- This continues the great prophetic theme; that all human strength and wisdom is as nothing before God's judgment.
Zechariah 9:3 Tyre built herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver
like the dust, and fine gold like the mire of the streets- All human
strength was and is to crumble before God's judgment. Isaiah and Ezekiel
had prophesied against mainland Tyre, and their words had been fulfilled
by the Babylonians. But they then built their island stronghold, as if to
ensure future Divine prophecies against them would not be fulfilled.
Zechariah 9:4 Behold, the Lord will dispossess her, and He will strike
her power in the sea; and she will be devoured with fire- Initially
seen in the destruction of Tyre's island citadel by Alexander the Great
building a mole into the sea to reach it. "Dispossess" is literally 'to
send into exile', and there are records of 13,000 people from the
conquered Tyre being sent away into slavery.
Zechariah 9:5 Ashkelon will see it, and fear; Gaza also, and will
writhe in agony; as will Ekron, for her expectation will be disappointed-
LXX "for she is ashamed at her trespass". The idea is that the Divine
judgments would elicit repentance in a minority, just as was intended to
happen with Judah. Or if we read as the Masoretic text, the idea would be
that Ekron as the most northerly city in the route of Alexander's advance
had hoped that Tyre or Egypt would come to the support of the Philistines;
but they were disappointed. All trust in human strength can lead only to
disappointment.
And the king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited- The order of mention of the cities in this section follows the route of Alexander's campaign. I suggested on Dan. 2 that there were various potential fulfilments of the sequence of metals in the image, culminating in the reestablishment of the Kingdom of God in Israel. The perishing of the king of Gaza at the hands of Alexander is recorded by Herodotus: "Betis the satrap, or petty "king," was bound to a chariot by thongs thrust through the soles of his feet, and dragged round the city".
Zechariah 9:6 Foreigners will dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the
pride of the Philistines- Neh. 4:7; 13:24 stress that Ashdod was a
particular opponent of the restoration. But they too would be cut off.
Perhaps the "foreigners" in view were those whom the people of Ashdod
considered foreigners, i.e. the Jews. And again we note the continued,
repeated prophetic criticism of pride. This was and is the fundamental
reason for Divine judgment. In :10 we read of the 'cutting off' (s.w.) of
the military strength of Zion's enemies; perhaps the pride of the
Philistines refers specifically to that about which they prided
themselves, namely their military technology. And we can see clear
similarities in the latter day fulfilment of these verses, in the
judgments to come upon the latter day Philistines- the Palestinians.
Zechariah 9:7 I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his
abominations from between his teeth- This implies that the previously
mentioned nations are as a beast with Judah in their mouth, whom they are
treating abominably. This is the same figure as Am. 3:12 describing
a shepherd taking out the remnants of Judah from the mouth of the beast
which had devoured them. Such an arrest of their behaviour never happened,
let alone resulting in a remnant of them repenting and joining with Israel
as spoken of in the rest of this verse. Yet it will come true, in the last
days. It is this which means that Zechariah 9 is clearly a prophecy of the return of Christ to earth and the establishment of His Kingdom (see Zech. 9:1,9-11 especially). But this worldwide Kingdom will be established after judgments are executed upon Damascus, Hamath, Tyre, Sidon, Ashkelon, Ekron, Ashdod and Gaza- a collection of peoples likened to a beast with a mouth and teeth which have enclosed Israel. These areas are geographically exactly where the
jihadists envisage the 'greater Syria' as being. They surround present day Israel, from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon. And they are likened to some latter day beast descending upon Israel, which must be destroyed before God's Kingdom can be established. This encourages us to see the beast of Daniel and Revelation as referring in its final form to Israel’s Islamist neighbours who now surround her. Is. 9:12 uses ‘beast’ imagery when it speaks of the Syrians and Philistines [same word as ‘Palestinians’] as being the mouth of a huge beast, closing around Israel: "The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth". This image of an Arab beast devouring Israel is repeated in Joel 1:6 concerning the later Assyrian invader.
And he also will be a remnant for our God; and he will be as a chieftain in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite- Just as remnant of Judah will be for "our God", so a remnant of the aggressive nations around Judah would likewise serve the same God ["our God"]. They would become equal to the Jews, even becoming chiefs in Judah, and the remnant of Ekron's inhabitants would be as the Jews who lived in Jerusalem itself. It is called "Jebus" here, its Palestinian name, to demonstrate the degree of unity between the Jewish remnant and the repentant remnant of the surrounding nations. This could have happened at the time of the restoration, but neither remnant repented. This is therefore yet to come, and will bring about the situation of Is. 19:24, when in the Kingdom, natural Israel and the surrounding nations will have equal share. This message was unattractive to the returned exiles, who wanted an exclusively Jewish kingdom.
Zechariah 9:8 I will encamp around My house against the army, so that none pass through or return; and no oppressor will pass through them any more- The potential fulfilment was that Alexander could have come to Jerusalem, encamp against it, and be destroyed by the appearance of a Messianic figure in Zion (:9). But this also didn't happen, and so the prophecy will have a rescheduled fulfilment in the last days. "I will encamp about mine house because of the army of him that passeth by [the latter-day Sennacherib], and because of him that returneth... the Lord of Hosts (Angels) shall defend them" (Zech. 9:8,15) is all the language of Jacob under threat from Esau, being Angelically camped around. This is the basis for the latter day situation in Jerusalem. It has been noted that Alexander averted his plans to attack Jerusalem and instead bypassed Judah in his enthusiasm to get to Egypt and conquer it. This was of God, but reflected how the scenario envisaged here was not then to happen, although in essence it will do so in the last day. "Oppressor" is the word used about the Egyptians oppressing Israel in Egypt (Ex. 3:7; 5:6,10). Alexander didn't do this to Judah. The idea is that an oppressor would come into Judah and oppress them, but Yahweh would defend Jerusalem- exactly as happened when the Assyrians invaded Judah at the time of Hezekiah. This didn't really happen under Alexander, although it was potentially possible. But it will happen in the last days.
For now I have seen with My eyes- The allusion may be to how God also 'saw' His people in Egypt, and saved them (Ex. 2:25; 3:7). The problem was that they did not lift their eyes to their maker, and His gaze and theirs didn't meet.
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem!- This is the potential "shout" of Is. 44:23-28: “Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout [s.w.], ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.... that frustrateth the tokens of the liars [s.w. Nehemiah 4:15 re. God frustrating the Samaritan opposition]... That confirmeth the word of his servant [Cyrus], and performeth the counsel of his messengers; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built".
Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having
salvation; humble, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a
donkey- This is another prophecy of Zerubbabel or Joshua which had to have its
real fulfilment deferred until the coming of Jesus. This King could have
brought salvation- the salvation prophesied as coming at the restoration
(Zech. 8:7) when Yahweh [as represented by His appointed king] came to
Zion (Zech. 8:3). See on Jer. 23:5. Did Zerubbabel / Joshua like
Nehemiah enter Jerusalem on a donkey? Or were they intended to but didn't?
"His dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the
river even to the ends of the earth” (:10) means that full inheritance of
the territory promised to Abraham could have been possible at the
restoration, had Joshua or Zerubbabel become their king. The phrase
contrasts with the repeated reminder that the Persians had dominion “on
this side the river” (Ezra 4:10,11,16; 5:3,6; 6:13; 8:36; Neh. 3:7). The
coming King (and Joshua was prophesied as a king) was to free Judah from
Persia’s dominion, and establish God’s Kingdom on its territory, with boys and girls
playing in the streets of Jerusalem (Zech. 8:5). “From sea even to sea” is
a conscious quote of the famous Messianic prophecy of Ps. 72:8. This was
David’s prayer for Solomon; that he should have been the Messiah, and his
Kingdom should have been Messiah’s. 1 Chron. 28:6,7 definitely seems to
imply that Solomon could have lived for ever had he been obedient: “I will
establish his kingdom for ever, if he be constant to do my
commandments”. But as everyone knew, Solomon had failed, what was
potentially possible hadn’t come true, due to his apostasy. Now, again, it
could come true through the work of Joshua and Zerubbabel, and
the priesthood and people being obedient to the temple prophecies of
Ezekiel. If they wanted the Kingdom to come, then they had to live the
Kingdom life.
Zechariah 9:10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow will be cut off; and he will speak peace to the nations: and his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth- The Greek invasion is seen as focusing upon the territory of Israel and Jerusalem particularly. A united Ephraim [the ten tribes] and Judah, freshly returned from captivity and to God, would overcome these invaders with God's help, and take over the entire eretz promised to Abraham for the new Messianic King; with a message of peace with God to those nations.
Zechariah 9:11 As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant,
I have set free your prisoners from the pit in which is no water- The
prisoners in the pit in the first instance were Judah in captivity,
represented by Jeremiah who was cast into such a pit (Is. 51:14; 61:1;
Jer. 37:16). Jeremiah had foreseen that a new covenant would be made with
the returning exiles when they were freed from the pit of Babylonian
captivity. It is this covenant which is in view here, and it is associated
with blood, just as the Abrahamic covenant had been [through the blood of
circumcision] and the old, Mosaic covenant, which was inaugurated through
the sprinkling of blood. Quite how this would have worked out at the time
of the restoration is unclear; perhaps the "blood" referred to that shed
in the Babylonian invasion of Judah. But the wording is as it is because
most of the exiles preferred to remain in the pit of Babylon, and those
who did return repeatedly broke the covenant by their behaviour. The final
fulfilment would be in the blood of the Lord Jesus, mediator of the new
covenant, releasing God's people from the pit of sin and death.
Zechariah 9:12 Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope!-
The exiles are presented as prisoners, whereas in fact they enjoyed a
degree of freedom, as the book of Esther reveals. So the imprisonment was
spiritual, just as the exiles were urged to flee spiritual death in
Babylon. They were imprisoned in the hope of deliverance at the
restoration, and yet this "hope of Israel" was rejected by them, in
preference for life in Babylon. They were asked to turn or return to the
stronghold of Zion. They had been released from prison (:11); but they
needed to actually leave. And they for the most part chose to remain in
their cells.
Even today I declare that I will restore double to you- "Even today", when the exiles were still so weak and sinful. "Restore" is the same original word as "Turn" at the start of the verse. Their returning literally and spiritually to God and the things of the Kingdom would result in God's returning "double" to them. And so it is today; any move we make toward God is compensated double by His movement toward us.
Zechariah 9:13 For indeed I bend Judah as a bow for Myself. I have
filled the bow with Ephraim; and I will stir up your sons, Zion-
"Stir up" is s.w. Ezra 1:5 about Judah’s spirit being ‘stirred up’ to
return. But most of them preferred to remain in exile. And so this
prophecy of Judah and Ephraim being reunited at the restoration and used
by God to achieve military victory against their enemies... simply never
happened.
Against your sons, Greece, and will make you like the sword of a
mighty man-
The
envisaged scenario was that the Greek invasion of the Middle East would
come against Jerusalem, and be defeated by a united Judah and Israel; who
would then dominate the entire eretz promised to Abraham. This
had also been envisaged in Daniel. The little
horn of Daniel 7 grows out of the fourth kingdom, represented by the
fourth beast. But in Daniel 8, a very similar horn grows out of Greece,
the third kingdom. We can therefore conclude that the antichrist figure of
Daniel 8 would have appeared as an outgrowth of the Greek kingdom, and
been destroyed by Messiah’s coming. But this didn’t happen, and Antiochus
Epiphanes became but an incipient fulfilment of the antichrist of the last
days. Zechariah, like Daniel, contains many conditional prophecies- “And
this shall come to pass, if you will diligently obey the voice of
the Lord your God” (Zech. 6:15). Zech. 9:13 appears to be another such
conditional prophecy, similar in reference to that of Daniel 8 about the
possibility of Messiah’s coming at the time of the Greek empire. God says
He will place Ephraim within the bow of Judah, to be fired at her enemies;
and He would “raise up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece”
(Zech. 9:13), leading to the final salvation of God’s people, the
establishment of Messiah’s Kingdom, and her Messianic king coming unto her
(Zech. 9:9). But this didn’t come true; the resistance of the Maccabees
was not based on true spirituality, and the Romans took over control of
the land from the Greeks. No Messianic Kingdom was established. This would
explain the purposeful ambiguity of interpretation which there is in the
image of Daniel 2; a good case can be made for the sequence
Babylon-Media-Persia-Greece, and yet also for the sequence Babylon-Medo
Persia- Greece-Rome. Daniel 8 predicts the breakup of the Greek empire
after Alexander’s death into four horns, out of which a little horn arises
(Dan. 8:8). The only other prophetic reference to four horns is again in
Zechariah, when we read of how the four horns who had scattered God’s
people were to be cut off by the carpenters (Zech. 1:18,19). The
carpenters surely look forward to the carpenter Messiah. He could have
appeared and cut off those four horns; but He did not, and so another
prophetic sequence was allowed, in which another [fourth] beast arose,
this time with ten horns, not just four. And in Revelation we find this
developed further, in that seven heads also appear on the beast, and a
whore rides the best, sitting upon [another?] seven hills / kingdoms. The
number and ferocity of the enemies of God’s people seems to increase over
time. If Israel had repented earlier, then all this would have been
unnecessary. The three horses of Zechariah 1 thus become four horses in
Zechariah 6. The fact the four cherubim chariots are sent out in judgment
of those same coloured horses speaks of how all earthly entities have
their representative Angels in Heaven.
Zechariah 9:14 Yahweh will be seen over them; and His arrow will go
flashing like lightning; and the Lord Yahweh will blow the trumpet, and
will go with whirlwinds of the south- "The Lord shall be over them"- as the Angels went over David beyond the mulberry trees (2 Sam. 5:24) and as the Angel in the cloud was over Israel in the wilderness. "His arrow shall go forth as lightning"- Angel cherubim language. He "shall go with whirlwinds of the South"- the group of Angels sent into "the south" (i.e. Judah) in Zech. 6:6.
If Judah returned, both physically and spiritually, then they would be
walking in step with the Spirit in that they would be in harmony with the
Angel cherubim who were also returning to Zion, having left in Ez. 1 and
returning when the glory would have returned to the rebuilt Zion in Ez.
40-48.
Thus
in the next verse Zechariah attributes
Israel’s final success as thanks to “the Lord of hosts”- the hosts of
Angels working with them and for them. See on Zech. 10:1. But they
didn't rebuild according to those specifications, many didn't return
physically, and only a very few returned to God in repentance. And so it
didn't happen; and the trumpet blowing, perhaps alluding to the announcing
of the year of release and day of atonement, never happened.
Zechariah 9:15 Yahweh of Armies will defend them- In the restoration context, this would be a reference to the Angel cherubim working with the returned exiles, defending them from the Greek invasion; see on :14.
And they will destroy and overcome with sling stones- The reference is clearly to David's victory over Goliath and the Philistines, who have been mentioned earlier in this chapter. The idea is that there would be a revival of how things were in David's time when Israel were God's kingdom in the past. See on Zech. 10:5. But instead of subduing the nations around them with the victory of Israel’s God, they brought their own brethren into subjection unto them, that they might gain out of them (Zech. 9:15 s.w. Neh. 5:5). It could’ve been the Kingdom, Israel could have become the joy of the whole earth and her people a joy. But instead, they were obsessed with their petty, miserable little kingdoms, and the next few centuries had nothing of the joy which Isaiah had repeatedly prophesied as being possible for them.
And they will drink, and roar as through wine; and they will be filled like bowls, like the corners of the altar- The drinking of wine in the context of the altar bowls suggests the drink offering. But they would be as bowls, filled by God- a reference to the filling with His Spirit which was promised at the restoration and entering of the new covenant. But the GNB and LXX offer to the effect that: "They will shout in battle like drunk men and will shed the blood of their enemies; it will flow like the blood of a sacrifice poured on the altar from a bowl". This mass military victory over their enemies never really happened at the restoration, but it will at the Lord's return. This will be the sacrifice in Bozrah of Is. 34:6; 63:1.
Zechariah 9:16 Yahweh their God will save them in that day as the flock of His people- This salvation could have happened at the time of the restoration; but the flock were not obedient to the call to return to Zion and spiritually to their shepherd. And they were misled by false shepherds from amongst themselves (Zech. 10:2). We noted on :14 that the Angels were potentially a big part of the restoration. The Angel leading the exiles is elsewhere styled a shepherd (Is. 63:9-11; Ps. 80:1). "The lord of Hosts (Angels) has visited His flock the house of Judah" (Zech. 10:3). Similarly, Israel "went their way as a flock, they were troubled because there was no shepherd" (Zech. 10:2)- i.e. the Angel was not with them because they refused to follow Him.
For they are like the jewels of a crown, lifted on high over His land- As explained on Zech. 6:11, Joshua could have been crowned as priest and Messianic king, but the jewels of the crown were God's people. Malachi speaks of them likewise, but accepts that the day was yet future when they would be made up together into a crown (Mal. 3:17).
Zechariah 9:17 For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!- The beauty may refer to the potential beauty of Israel as jewels (:16), made so by the grace / goodness of their God.
Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins- Grain and new wine were the blessings for an Israel who remained in covenant relationship with their God. This could have happened at the restoration, for Ez. 36:29 had spoken of how at that time "I will also save you from all your uncleanness: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you". But instead, as Hag. 1 notes, they were beset by famine and crops ruined by plague.
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