Zechariah 14:1

Behold, the day of the Lord cometh,.... Or the day when the Lord will come, both in his spiritual and personal reign; for this is not to be understood of his first coming in the flesh, at which time

Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.

CHAPTER 14 The destruction of Jerusalem, ,2. The coming of Christ, the graces of his kingdom, and the restoration of Jerusalem, . The plague of Jerusalem’ s enemies, . The remnant shall turn to the Lord, . The holiness of all that belongeth to them, ,21. Behold: here are things of very great importance, and of very mysterious nature, proposed by the Lord to us, and therefore we are called upon to attend to them. The day of the Lord, the day which the Lord hath appointed for punishing the sins of his ancient people, day of his sacrifice, , of vengeance, ,2. Cometh; hasteth, or will soon overtake you, O sinful, unthankful, bloody Jews, who first despised and next murdered the Messiah! Thy spoil, all thou hast, O Jerusalem, shall become a prey to thine enemy. Shall be divided in the midst of thee: thy conquering enemies shall be such absolute masters of thee, that in greatest security they shall divide among themselves what they take from thee, in the very place where they take it: Jerusalem is their own, and all in it, and where they find their own they will take it; so they reckon.

Zechariah 14:1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.Ver. 1. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh] Jerusalem had her day, and knew it not, Luke 19:42 (Jerusalem was not Jerusalem, the vision of peace saw not the things that belonged to her peace); God therefore will have his day of vengeance, as she had of visitation. He hath his season, his harvest for judgment, Matthew 13:30; and when wickedness is ripe in the field he will allow it to grow no longer, lest it shed and spread, but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance. These Jews were by their own confession the children of them which had killed the prophets, Acts 2:23; and, by killing the Lord Christ with wicked hands, they had filled up the measure of their fathers, Matthew 23:31-32; what could therefore the Lord do less to a nation so incorrigibly flagitious than bring wrath upon them to the utmost, 1 Thessalonians 2:16 "than send forth his armies and destroy those murderers, and burn up their cities?" Matthew 22:7. When God did this execution here mentioned is hard to say: whether by Antiochus Epiphanes, or rather Epimanes, as some truly called him, for that, being exceedingly mad against the Jews, he "persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it," Acts 26:11 Galatians 1:13. Or by the Roman spoilers at that last devastation under the command of Titus. Or by Cosroes, the Persian, and Homer, the Arabian, who successively harassed and razed Jerusalem, rifling the houses, ravishing the women, killing whom they pleased, and making the rest pay dearly for the very heads they wore; which servitude lasted till Godfrey of Bullin set them at liberty, so the Gloss here senseth it. Or lastly, by Gog and Magog, that is, by the Great Turk (for Magog is the Scythian nation, from whom came the Turks, lords of Meshec and Tubal, that is, of Cappadocia and Iberia; where they first began to reign), as is before hinted, I take not upon me to determine. Most comentators understand it to be the last overthrow of the Romans. The Spirit might have an eye to the Anti-christian persecutions of the orthodox professors of the Romish Edomites. And thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee] Freely and fearlessly, none rising up to make them afraid, the vanquished shall be so disabled and dispirited. Thus the silly doves are glad to save themselves by flight, not fight; sometimes they sit in their dove cots, and see their nests destroyed, and young ones killed, not daring once to rescue or revenge.

(1) The day of the Lord cometh.—Better. A day cometh for the Lord—viz., on which He will signally manifest His glory. (Comp. Psalms 2:12, &c.) The second half of the verse gives with, as it were, one stroke of the pen the most vivid description of the first feature of this “day,” viz., judgment upon Jerusalem.

CHAPTER XIV The commencement of this chapter relates to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and to the calamities consequent on that event. From this great Jewish tragedy the prophet immediately passes to the utter extermination of the enemies of Christianity in the latter days. God will display his power in behalf of his people in a manner so astonishing and miraculous, that even they themselves, and much more their enemies, shall be struck with terror, 4, 5. The national prosperity of the Jews shall then be permanent and unmixed, 6, 7; and these people shall be made the instruments of converting many to the faith of the Messiah, 8, 9. The great increase and prosperity of the Christian Church, the New Jerusalem, is then described in terms accommodated to Jewish ideas; and the most signal vengeance denounced against all her enemies, 10-19. From that happy period God's name will be honoured in every thing, and his worship every where most reverently observe, 20, 21. NOTES ON CHAP. XIV Verse 1. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh] This appears to be a prediction of that war in which Jerusalem was finally destroyed, and the Jews scattered all over the face of the earth; and of the effects produced by it.

Chap. Zechariah 14:1-7. The final Conflict and Deliverance All nations shall come against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, with the attendant horrors of barbarous warfare, and half its population enslaved, Zechariah 14:1-2. Then Jehovah shall appear, as in olden time, to deliver His people, Zechariah 14:3. Beneath His feet, as He descends upon the Mount of Olives, the mountain shall cleave asunder, the two parts moving northward and southward, and being separated by a wide valley running east and west, Zechariah 14:4. By this valley (which shall reach across the ravine of Kedron up to the city wall) the people that remain shall flee from Jerusalem, as they fled from the earthquake in Uzziah’s time. Jehovah shall come with all His holy ones, Zechariah 14:5, and this “day of the Lord,” unlike all other days and known to Him alone, shall be marked by strange phenomena of mingled light and darkness, and shall have for its evening the dawn of the everlasting day, Zechariah 14:6-7.

Behold the Day of the Lord cometh - Literally, “a day cometh, the Lord’s,” in which He Himself shall be Judge, and no longer leave man to fulfill his own will, and despise God’s; in which His glory

Capture and deliverance of Jerusalem, Zechariah 14:1-7.1. Behold,… cometh — Better, Behold,… is about to come. The coming is imminent (G.-K., 116p). Day of Jehovah — Literally, a day is about to come for Jehovah.