Zechariah9chapter 9

Zechariah 9:1-4

the land of Hadrach: The burden moves down the map like a campaign: Hadrach and Damascus, Hamath, then Tyrus with her strong hold and silver heaped as the dust, and the sentence, the Lord will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea. The commentators set Alexander's march behind the itinerary, the siege that took island Tyre by causeway after centuries of failed attempts, and present it as the striking correspondence it is while the oracle's own claim stays larger than any one army. The eyes of man toward the Lord at verse 1 governs the whole: the campaign is watched from above.

Zechariah 9:5-8

Philistia watches Tyre fall and fears in order, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod, the old four cities with their pride cut off. Then the oracle does what the conquest chapters never did: the blood taken out of the Philistine's mouth, his abominations from between his teeth, and he that remaineth shall be for our God, as a governor in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite, the ancient enemy cleansed and absorbed the way Jebusite Jerusalem once was, which the bench reads as grace written into a judgment oracle. I will encamp about mine house closes the sweep: the armies pass and repass, and no oppressor passes through, for now have I seen with mine eyes.

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion... behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15 quote the verse of Palm Sunday, verified at both ends, and the Gospels record that the disciples understood the connection only afterward (John 12:16), which the notes state as John states it. Every word is weighed by the bench: just, the King on the side of right; having salvation, saved and saving in the Hebrew's reach, the readings named; lowly, on the animal of peace rather than the war-horse the next verse abolishes, a King whose entry is his manifesto.

Zechariah 9:10-12

I will cut off the chariot: The King's program: chariot cut off from Ephraim, horse from Jerusalem, the battle bow broken, and he shall speak peace unto the heathen, with dominion from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth, Psalm 72's measure quoted almost word for word, which the bench names. By the blood of thy covenant the prisoners are sent out of the waterless pit, the phrase the Lord's own cup-words stand near (this is my blood of the new testament), a nearness the older writers preach and the note assigns to them by name. Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope is the oracle's coined title for the exiles, hope itself their chain and their fortress, and double rendered for all the trouble.

Zechariah 9:13-17

Judah bent as the bow and Ephraim as its arrow, and thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece: the readings are named, the Maccabean victories over the Seleucid Greeks as the near horizon most of the bench gives, and the wider day-of-the-Lord horizon others hear, positions with holders and no verdict. The Lord seen over them, the arrow as lightning, the trumpet blown: the theophany fights for the sons it armed. The close turns from war to harvest, the flock saved in that day as the stones of a crown lifted as an ensign, and the last line is pure delight, for how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty, corn and new wine cheering the young, the oracle ending at a table rather than a battlefield.