Zec 14:12-19, Rev 2:26-27 | JFB | STEP | 12. Punishment on the foe, the last Antichristian confederacy ( ; ; ; ). A living death: the corruption ( ) of death combined in ghastly union with the conscious sensibility of life. Sin will be felt by the sinner in all its loathsomeness, inseparably clinging to him as a festering, putrid body.

‏ Zechariah 14:12-19

12. Punishment on the foe, the last Antichristian confederacy (Is 59:18; 66:24; Eze 38:1-39:29; Re 19:17-21). A living death: the corruption (Ga 6:8) of death combined in ghastly union with the conscious sensibility of life. Sin will be felt by the sinner in all its loathsomeness, inseparably clinging to him as a festering, putrid body.

13. tumult--consternation (Zec 12:4; 1Sa 14:15, 20).

lay hold ... on ... hand of ... neighbour--instinctively grasping it, as if thereby to be safer, but in vain [Menochius]. Rather, in order to assail "his neighbor" [Calvin], (Eze 38:21). Sin is the cause of all quarrels on earth. It will cause endless quarrels in hell (Jas 3:15, 16).

14. Judah ... fight at Jerusalem--namely, against the foe: not against Jerusalem, as Maurer translates in variance with the context. As to the spoil gained from the foe, compare Eze 39:10, 17.

15. The plague shall affect the very beasts belonging to the foe. A typical foretaste of all this befell Antiochus Epiphanes and his host at Jerusalem (1 Maccabees 13:49; 2 Maccabees 9:5).

16. every one ... left--(Is 66:19, 23). God will conquer all the foes of the Church. Some He will destroy; others He will bring into willing subjection.

from year to year--literally, "from the sufficiency of a year in a year."

feast of tabernacles--The other two great yearly feasts, passover and pentecost, are not specified, because, their antitypes having come, the types are done away with. But the feast of tabernacles will be commemorative of the Jews' sojourn, not merely forty years in the wilderness, but for almost two thousand years of their dispersion. So it was kept on their return from the Babylonian dispersion (Ne 8:14-17). It was the feast on which Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mt 21:8); a pledge of His return to His capital to reign (compare Le 23:34, 39, 40, 42; Re 7:9; 21:3). A feast of peculiar joy (Psa 118:15; Ho 12:9). The feast on which Jesus gave the invitation to the living waters of salvation ("Hosanna," save us now, was the cry, Mt 21:9; compare Psa 118:25, 26) (Joh 7:2, 37). To the Gentiles, too, it will be significant of perfected salvation after past wanderings in a moral wilderness, as it originally commemorated the ingathering of the harvest. The seedtime of tears shall then have issued in the harvest of joy [Moore]. "All the nations" could not possibly in person go up to the feast, but they may do so by representatives.

17. no rain--including every calamity which usually follows in the East from want of rain, namely, scarcity of provisions, famine, pestilence, &c. Rain is the symbol also of God's favor (Ho 6:3). That there shall be unconverted men under the millennium appears from the outbreak of Gog and Magog at the end of it (Re 20:7-9); but they, like Satan their master, shall be restrained during the thousand years. Note, too, from this verse that the Gentiles shall come up to Jerusalem, rather than the Jews go as missionaries to the Gentiles (Is 2:2; Mi 5:7). However, Is 66:19 may imply the converse.

18. if ... Egypt go not up--specified as Israel's ancient foe. If Egypt go not up, and so there be no rain on them (a judgment which Egypt would condemn, as depending on the Nile's overflow, not on rain), there shall be the plague ... . Because the guilty are not affected by one judgment, let them not think to escape, for God has other judgments which shall plague them. Maurer translates, "If Egypt go not up, upon them also there shall be none" (no rain). Psa 105:32 mentions "rain" in Egypt. But it is not their main source of fertility.

19. punishment--literally, "sin"; that is, "punishment for sin."

‏ Revelation of John 2:26-27

26. And--implying the close connection of the promise to the conqueror that follows, with the preceding exhortation, Re 2:25.

and keepeth--Greek, "and he that keepeth." Compare the same word in the passage already alluded to by the Lord, Ac 15:28, 29, end.

my works--in contrast to "her (English Version, 'their') works" (Re 2:22). The works which I command and which are the fruit of My Spirit.

unto the end--(Mt 24:13). The image is perhaps from the race, wherein it is not enough to enter the lists, but the runner must persevere to the end.

give power--Greek, "authority."

over the nations--at Christ's coming the saints shall possess the kingdom "under the whole heaven"; therefore over this earth; compare Lu 19:17, "have thou authority [the same word as here] over ten cities."

27. From Psa 2:8, 9.

rule--literally, "rule as a shepherd." In Psa 2:9 it is, "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron." The Septuagint, pointing the Hebrew word differently, read as Revelation here. The English Version of Psa 2:9 is doubtless right, as the parallel word, "dash in pieces," proves. But the Spirit in this case sanctions the additional thought as true, that the Lord shall mingle mercy to some, with judgment on others; beginning by destroying His Antichristian foes, He shall reign in love over the rest. "Christ shall rule them with a scepter of iron, to make them capable of being ruled with a scepter of gold; severity first, that grace may come after" (Trench, who thinks we ought to translate "SCEPTER" for "rod," as in He 1:8). "Shepherd" is used in Jr 6:3, of hostile rulers; so also in Zec 11:16. As severity here is the primary thought, "rule as a shepherd" seems to me to be used thus: He who would have shepherded them with a pastoral rod, shall, because of their hardened unbelief, shepherd them with a rod of iron.

shall they be broken--So one oldest manuscript, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic Versions read. But two oldest manuscripts, read, "as the vessels of a potter are broken to shivers." A potter's vessel dashed to pieces, because of its failing to answer the design of the maker, is the image to depict God's sovereign power to give reprobates to destruction, not by caprice, but in the exercise of His righteous judgment. The saints shall be in Christ's victorious "armies" when He shall inflict the last decisive blow, and afterwards shall reign with Him. Having by faith "overcome the world," they shall also rule the world.

even as I--"as I also have received of (from) My Father," namely, in Psa 2:7-9. Jesus had refused to receive the kingdom without the cross at Satan's hands; He would receive it from none but the Father, who had appointed the cross as the path to the crown. As the Father has given the authority to Me over the heathen and uttermost parts of the earth, so I impart a share of it to My victorious disciple.