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O tower of the flock: some refer this to that tower Edar, in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem, built there for the shepherds’ more convenient watching over their flocks. The prophet may possibly allude to this. In the church, Christ’s flock, there is a tower built for defence of his flock, but it is that name which is a strong tower, to which the righteous run, and are safe. But there was a tower of this denomination in Jerusalem, through which tower the flocks of sheep were driven into the sheep market; this one tower, by synecdoche, put for the whole city Jerusalem.
The strong hold; Ophel, as it is in the Hebrew, and perhaps were better rendered a proper name of that impregnable fort, 2Ch_27:3; another considerable part put for the whole.
The daughter of Zion; or, O daughter of Zion; so it will be an explication of what the prophet before meant by the tower Edar and Ophel, i.e. O Zion, O Jerusalem, both in the typical and in the mystical sense.
The first dominion; the former dominion, not in outward splendour, but because the government and supreme dignity among this people was restored (after seventy years’ captivity) to the former royal family, and continued in it till Shiloh came. This in the type was fulfilled upon the settlement under Zerubbabel and his successors; but the whole antitype concerns the Messiah’s kingdom, and the gospel Jerusalem, and is fulfilled in the spiritual glory of it. Christ’s kingdom is the ancient, supreme, and most glorious kingdom; and by his redeeming us from the bondage of hell, is set up, and shall be continued firm and unmovable, more than Edar, Ophel, Zion, or Jerusalem typical, as Luk_1:32,33, and more large than ever David’s or Solomon’s kingdom, Dan_7:14, and therefore greater in glory, for Christ is King of kings, Rev_17:14 19:16. This spiritual kingdom came first to the Jews, Act_13:46. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you. The gospel was to be preached first to the daughter of Jerusalem. There the preachers of repentance and remission of sins were to begin, and thence they were to publish it to all nations, Luk_24:47. This text, and such like, the blinded Jew doth take in a literal sense only, as if it promised a temporal dominion over all nations, and worldly kingdom to the Messiah, in which they expect a large share; but what is literal, and concerned the Jews alone, was limited to them that came out of the Babylonish captivity, and hath been fulfilled to them.