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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Zechariah 10:11 - 10:11
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Zec 10:11. “And he goes through the sea of affliction, and smites the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the river dry up; and the pride of Asshur will be cast down, and the staff of Egypt will depart. Zec 10:12. And I make them strong in Jehovah; and they will walk in His name, is the saying of Jehovah.” The subject in Zec 10:11 is Jehovah. He goes, as once He went in the pillar of cloud as the angel of the Lord in the time of Moses, through the sea of affliction. צָרָה, which has been interpreted in very different ways, we take as in apposition to יָם, though not as a permutative, “through the sea, viz., the affliction” (C. B. Mich., Hengst.); but in this sense, “the sea, which caused distress or confinement,” so that the simple reason why צָרָה is not connected with יָם in the construct state, but placed in apposition, is that the sea might not be described as a straitened sea, or sea of anxiety. This apposition points to the fact which floated before the prophet's mind, namely, that the Israelites under Moses were so confined by the Red Sea that they thought they were lost (Exo 14:10.). The objection urged by Koehler against this view - namely, that צָרָה as a noun is not used in the sense of local strait or confinement - is proved to be unfounded by Jon 2:3 and Zep 1:15. All the other explanations of tsârâh are much more unnatural, being either unsuitable, like the suggestion of Koehler to take it as an exclamation, “O distress!” or grammatically untenable, like the rendering adopted by Maurer and Kliefoth, after the Chaldaeans usage, “he splits.” The smiting of the waves in the sea does indeed play upon the division of the waves of the sea when the Israelites passed through the Red Sea (Exo 14:16, Exo 14:21; cf. Jos 3:13; Psa 77:17; Psa 114:5); but it affirms still more, as the following clause shows, namely, a binding or constraining of the waves, by which they are annihilated, or a drying up of the floods, like הֶחֱרִים in Isa 11:15. Only the floods of the Nile (יְאוֹר) are mentioned, because the allusion to the slavery of Israel in Egypt predominates, and the redemption of the Israelites out of all the lands of the nations is represented as bringing out of the slave-house of Egypt. The drying up of the flood-depths of the Nile is therefore a figure denoting the casting down of the imperial power in all its historical forms; Asshur and Egypt being mentioned by name in the last clause answering to the declaration in Zec 10:10, and the tyranny of Asshur being characterized by גָּאוןֹ, pride, haughtiness (cf. Isa 10:7.), and that of Egypt by the rod of its taskmasters. in Zec 10:12 the promise for Ephraim is brought to a close with the general thought that they will obtain strength in the Lord, and walk in the power of His name. With וְגִבַּרְתִּים the address reverts to its starting-point in Zec 10:6. בַּיהֹוָה stands for בִּי, to point emphatically to the Lord, in whom Israel as the people of God had its strength. Walking in the name of Jehovah is to be taken as in Mic 4:5, and to be understood not as relating to the attitude of Israel towards God, or to the “self-attestation of Israel” (Koehler), but to the result, viz., walking in the strength of the Lord.
If, in conclusion, we survey the whole promise from Zec 9:11 onwards, there are two leading thoughts developed in it: (a) That those members of the covenant nation who were still scattered among the heathen should be redeemed out of their misery, and gathered together in the kingdom of the King who was coming for Zion, i.e., of the Messiah; (b) That the Lord would endow all His people with power for the conquest of the heathen. They were both fulfilled, in weak commencements only, in the times immediately following and down to the coming of Christ, by the return of many Jews out of captivity and into the land of the fathers, particularly when Galilee was strongly peopled by Israelites; and also by the protection and care which God bestowed upon the people in the contests between the powers of the world for supremacy in Palestine. The principal fulfilment is of a spiritual kind, and was effected through the gathering of the Jews into the kingdom of Christ, which commenced in the times of the apostles, and will continue till the remnant of Israel is converted to Christ its Saviour.