Zechariah 10:11

And he shall pass through the sea with affliction,.... Either the people of the Jews, as Israel of old did, when they came out of Egypt, to which the allusion is; or the wind shall pass through the

And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.

The former part of this verse might be read in the preter-perfect tense, reporting what God hath done, and perhaps more agreeably with the context and design, which is no doubt to confirm the promise, and make it credible, though so many and great difficulties render it unlikely to reason: I will, saith God, ; I promise, who am he that hath passed through the sea, the Red Sea, and brought my people through: who hath clone this call do what he now promiseth. I am he that dried up the deeps of Jordan (when at deepest by the floods, which were then upon the river); I can remove obstacles were they as great as these, and as easily lay low the pride of enemies, or remove their sceptres, as I did to Assyria and Egypt. So the whole verse is an allusion to what God had done in the two famous deliverances of his people under the hand of Moses and Joshua, bringing them out of Egypt through the Red Sea, and through Jordan, and destroying the Egyptians; and delivering them out of Assyrian bondage, and in order thereto destroying that kingdom.

Zechariah 10:11 And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.Ver. 11. And he shall pass through the sea, &c.] Who shall? The people, for want of room saith Junius; they shall enlarge their quarter into Egypt, Assyria and other nations subduing them to Christ. God shall (say others and I think better), he shall fright the sea, and miraculously deliver his people, as once he did at the Red Sea, which threatened to swallow them, but God made it to preserve them. He will remove all rubs and remoras, all obstacles and impediments; neither Egypt nor Assyria shall be able to hinder what God will have done. See Isaiah 11:15. The misunderstanding of this and the like texts to this might haply occasion that unhappiness that befell the Jews in Crete, A. D. 434. The devil, under the name of Moses (whom he impersonated), persuaded those poor creatures that he was sent from God, to bring them home again to their own country. This they soon believed (as they are wondrously apt to work themselves into the fool’ s paradise of a sublime dotage), and, leaving all their goods to others, followed this seducer (who spent a whole year in travelling over the country for the purpose), together with their wives and children, to the top of a steep rock that hung over the sea. Thither when they were come, this mock-Moses commanded them to wrap their heads in their upper garments, and so to throw themselves from the rock toward the sea, assuring them of a safe passage. They readily obeyed him; and in that way perished a great many of them. And more had followed, but that (as God would have it) some Christian fishermen, being there at that instant, took up some of them as they were floating upon the waves and ready to perish; who afterwards returning to the rest of the Jews, told them how they had been cheated, and how narrowly they had escaped; whereupon they being all enraged (as they had reason), sought for this seducer to put him to death. But when he could not possibly be found anywhere, they soon concluded that it was the very devil, that old manslayer; and many of them, moved by this calamity, became Christians. The Jews generally believe that their Messiah when he cometh shall do such miracles as Moses wrought at the Red Sea. They tell us also that in the time of the Maccabees many Jews that had fled into Greece passed through the narrow sea of Propontis, that runs between Chalcedon and Constantinople, to go back into their own country.

(11) He.—That is, God. The sea with affliction.—Better, the sea [where is] affliction, or straitness; unless, with Ewald, we read “sea of affliction.” On the construction in the Hebrew, see my Student’s Commentary, pp. 95, 44.

Verse 11. And he shall pass through the sea] Here is an allusion to the passage of the Red Sea, on their coming out of Egypt, and to their crossing Jordan, when they went into the promised land; the waves or waters of both were dried up, thrown from side to side, till all the people passed safely through. When they shall return from the various countries in which they now sojourn, God will work, if necessary, similar miracles to those which he formerly worked for their forefathers; and the people shall be glad to let them go, however much they may be profited by their operations in the state. Those that oppose, as Assyria and Egypt formerly did, shall be brought down, and their sceptre broken.

11. he] i.e. Jehovah, as He did through the Red Sea, when He gave the first great deliverance to His people. with affliction] i.e. to His enemies. Comp. Exodus 14:24-25; Exodus 14:27; Exodus 15:3-7. This is perhaps the best rendering of this difficult and much disputed clause. The sea of affliction, R. V. smite the waves] Comp. Exodus 15:8. See also Isaiah 11:15-16, where a similar reference occurs to the passage of the Red Sea. the river] i.e. the Nile, as the Heb. word used indicates.

And He - that is, Almighty God, shall pass through the sea, affliction As He says, “When thou walkest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not oveflow thee.

OF THE JEWS AND OF THE HOSTILE NATIONS, Zechariah 10:3 to Zechariah 11:3.When the Jews came into the power of hostile nations (Zechariah 10:2) they were governed by bad shepherds, that is, by cruel foreign rulers.