Zechariah 10

Zechariah 10  •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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Both Houses of Israel Used for Reducing Gentiles
In Zechariah 10 it is shown how God will make use of Judah and Ephraim in that day. He will fight not merely for them, but in and by them. It is a great mistake to suppose that all will be accomplished by Jehovah single-handed. There is a judgment which He will execute on His appearing from heaven, in which the Jews can have no part whatever, namely, the destruction of the beast and the false prophet, with the flower of the rank and power of the revived Roman Empire. Thus the western powers will be completely crushed by the Lord coming in judgment from heaven. After that He will use both Judah and Ephraim, as we see here, to deal with other refractory Gentiles. “When I have bent Judah for Me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion” (Zech. 9:1313When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. (Zechariah 9:13)); and so He further says: “Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together” (vs. 4). That clearly shows the meaning. “And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight” (vs. 5).1
Two Attacks on Jerusalem
But this judgment is not a description of the empire and its doom, with that of its adherents. The western powers will have gone deeper in evil and must fare accordingly. Having enjoyed unexampled privileges, they will finally turn them to the boldest impiety and lawlessness, coupled with the highest pride; and so the Lord reserves the blow to Himself. When the last Assyrian comes up against the land, he will find the two tribes there; and perhaps on the last occasion (for there are two attacks on the city of Jerusalem in the future) Israel may be there too, as we shall find further on in this prophecy. The same thing, I think, appears in Isaiah 28-29. We can easily understand the flocking thither of Ephraim between the two assaults. This is the main question that might be raised. The Lord here promises to strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. Most evidently, therefore, it is the future ingathering of the whole nation, the “all Israel” that is to be saved. “I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased. And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember Me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again. I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria” (vss. 8-10). It is not a mere remnant returning from Babylon, but a complete ingathering of the people from every quarter, taking the north and the south more particularly into account, and specifying them here. Then Jehovah summarily puts down the pride and power of all their enemies. “And I will strengthen them in Jehovah; and they shall walk up and down in His name, saith Jehovah” (vs. 12).
 
1. The attempt of some freethinking Germans and others to make out two authors, if not more, by a comparison of Zechariah 9-10 with 14 seems quite as futile as usual. If Messiah speak peace not to Israel only, but to the Gentiles—if His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, what more consistent with the reign of Jehovah over all the earth? The return of the captive and dispersed Israelites is in no way compromised by the fact that half the city goes into captivity just before their final deliverance; still less is there difficulty in seeing two parts cut off, and the third going through the fire in the land, while Jerusalem has half taken and the rest not. Jehovah acts mightily for His people in Zechariah 9, and not to their exclusion in chapter 14. What, lastly, is to hinder Jehovah’s cutting off the war-horse from Jerusalem, while the horses employed in peace bear the stamp that their masters are wholly devoted to His name? We shall see that no chapter in the prophecy deserves less than the last to be taxed with “a misty indistinctness.” The haze must be in the reader who says so.