Zechariah 11:1
in Zechariah 11Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may consume your cedars!
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
KJV
Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
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This verse in Zechariah 11
Commentary
8 notes on this verse(Chapter 11, Verse 1) Open your gates, Lebanon, and let the fire devour your cedars. Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen; the majestic trees are ruined. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been cut down. LXX: Open your gates, Lebanon, and let the fire devour your cedars. Let the pine tree wail, for the cedar has fallen; the nobles have been crushed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been laid waste.
This site's exposition
Open thy doors, O Lebanon
on Zechariah 11:1-3
The chapter opens as a dirge sung over the land itself: Lebanon's doors thrown open to the fire, its cedars devoured, the fir tree howling because the cedar has fallen, the oaks of Bashan crying because the thick forest is cut down. The commentators read the felled timber as a figure for fallen rulers and nations, the glory of Jordan laid waste alongside the shepherds who lose their flocks in the crash. Keil and Pusey trace the same collapse forward into the shepherd oracle that follows, so the taunt song reads as judgment's overture rather than a scene standing on its own.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Let the gates of the forest, and all the avenues to it, be thrown open, and let the fire come in and devour its glory." Some by Lebanon here understand the temple, which was built of cedars from Lebanon, and the stones of it white as the snow of Lebanon. It was burnt with fire by the Romans, and its gates were forced open by the fury of the soldiers.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes
Open thy doors - That destruction of the Jewish church and nation, is here foretold in dark and figurative expressions, which our Lord, when the time was at hand, prophesied of very plainly.
Open thy doors, O Lebanon,.... By which may be meant, either the temple of Jerusalem, which was built of the cedars of Lebanon; "the gates of which are said (w) to open of themselves forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, when Jochanan ben Zaccai, who lived at the same time, rebuked them, saying, O temple, temple, wherefore dost thou frighten thyself?
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Open thy doors, O Lebanon - Lebanon, whose cedars had stood, its glory, for centuries, yet could offer no resistance to him who felled them and were carried off to adorn the palaces of its conquerors (see above at Zep 2:14, and note 2. p. 276), was in Isaiah Isa 14:8; Isa 37:24 and Jeremiah Jer 22:6-7 the emblem of the glory of the Jewish state; and in Ezekiel, of Jerusalem, as the prophet himself explains it Eze 17:3, Eze 17:12; glorious, beauteous, inaccessible, so long as it was defended by God; a ready prey, when abandoned by Him.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
Forty years before the destruction of the temple, the tract called "Massecheth Joma" states, its doors of their own accord opened, and Rabbi Johanan in alarm said, I know that thy desolation is impending according to Zechariah's prophecy.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
Open thy doors, O Lebanon - I will give Mr. Joseph Mede’s note upon this verse: - “That which moveth me more than the rest, is in chap. 11, which contains a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and a description of the wickedness of the inhabitants, for which God would give them to the sword, and have no more pity upon them. It is expounded of the destruction by Titus; but methinks such a prophecy was nothing seasonable for Zachary’s time, (when the city yet for a great part lay in her ruins, and the temple had not yet recovered hers), nor agreeable to the scope. Zachary’s commission, who, together with his colleague Haggai, was sent to encourage the people, lately returned from captivity, to build their temple, and to instaurate their commonwealth. Was this a fit time to foretell the destruction of both, while they were yet but a-building? And by Zachary too, who was to encourage them? Would not this better befit the desolation by Nebuchadnezzar?” I really think so. See Mr. J. Mede’s 61. Epistle. Lebanon signifies the temple, because built of materials principally brought from that place.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
Open your doors, O Lebanon Jonathan renders: O peoples, open your gates.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 5 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| פְּתַ֥ח | petach | open | H6605 → | 144 times |
| לְבָנ֖וֹן | levanon | O Lebanon | H3844 → | |
| דְּלָתֶ֑יךָ | delateikha | doors your | H1817 → | |
| וְתֹאכַ֥ל | vetokhal | so it may consume | H398 → | 810 times |
| אֵ֖שׁ | ʾesh | fire | H784 → | 378 times |
| בַּאֲרָזֶֽיךָ׃ | baarazeikha | <in> cedars your | H730 → |
פְּתַ֥חopen
petachH6605 →144 times
לְבָנ֖וֹןO Lebanon
levanonH3844 →
דְּלָתֶ֑יךָdoors your
delateikhaH1817 →
וְתֹאכַ֥לso it may consume
vetokhalH398 →810 times
אֵ֖שׁfire
ʾeshH784 →378 times
בַּאֲרָזֶֽיךָ׃<in> cedars your
baarazeikhaH730 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Jeremiah 22:23O inhabitant of Lebanon, nestled in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs of anguish come upon you, agony like a woman in labor.”
it leads to
- Jeremiah 6:24
We have heard the report; our hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped us, pain like that of a woman in labor.
- Jeremiah 22:6
For this is what the LORD says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are like Gilead to Me, like the summit of Lebanon; but I will surely turn you into a…
- Jeremiah 4:30–31
And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain;…
- Jeremiah 6:24
Through
Zechariah 10:10I will bring them back from Egypt and gather them from Assyria. I will bring them to Gilead and Lebanon until no more room is found for them.
it leads to
- Hosea 11:11
They will come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria. Then I will settle them in their homes, declares the LORD.
- Micah 7:14
Shepherd with Your staff Your people, the flock of Your inheritance. They live alone in a woodland, surrounded by pastures. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
- Zechariah 8:7
This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west.
- Isaiah 49:19–21
For your ruined and desolate places and your ravaged land will now indeed be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.
- Jeremiah 50:19
I will return Israel to his pasture, and he will graze on Carmel and Bashan; his soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.
- Hosea 11:11
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Zechariah
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Zechariah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.