Zechariah 14:5

And ye shall flee [to] the valley of the mountains,.... To seek for shelter and safety in them, for fear of the Lord, and the glory of his majesty, whom every eye shall see, Isaiah 2:19: for the

And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of

And ye, you that are members of the church, and whom God doth in wonderful power and majesty come to save, shall flee; filled with apprehensions of such strange things, and troubled at the convulsions and strugglings of nations against God and you, shall, as in a great fear, flee to some place of safety and repose; you will flee the valley itself which God maketh: by terrible things in righteousness doth God answer, and his people tremble before him when he cometh to save them. So here are represented to us a people wonderfully saved, and astonished at the methods of it; God makes valleys in the midst of mountains, and they (for whose good they are made) flee those valleys. So the words were better read; our marginal readings and the Gallic version do so read it. For, or although, or notwithstanding, this valley reach unto Azal, which speaks, say some, a separate place, i.e. provided of God for their safety a Zoar for Lot, or Pella for the citizens of Jerusalem. They shall, as is usual in great frights and consternation of mind, not see how safe they are, or whither to go, but some will run for a while from or beyond their refuge. As ye fled from before the earthquake: this was some dreadful earthquake, and put the people into a mighty fear, and made them flee in all haste; it is mentioned ; and the prophet tells us, that when God shakes the kingdoms of his enemies, to make a plain and level way for his ransomed ones, it shall make them flee for fear too. The Lord my God shall come: as thus rendered it gives reason of this commotion of mind and this hasty flight. But it would be plainer if it were, as it may be, I think, read, and, or yet, O Lord my God, come, and bring all the saints with thee. As if it were said, Though it will, O Lord, put us into such fears; yet without such wonderful works we shall not have our hopes, nor see thy salvation; therefore, O Lord my God, come, and bring thy saints, holy ones, angels, with thee: and so will this be like that of St. John, , shutting up the visions of the new heaven and the new earth, and the appendages of them, with, Come, Lord Jesus.

Zechariah 14:5 And ye shall flee [to] the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, [and] all the saints with thee.Ver. 5. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains] Or, ye shall flee the valley of the mountains, sc. of mount Olivet, made by God, by whom the Romans were set to work to garrison mount Olivet against the Jews; and, by digging down a great part of it, to fill up the brook Kidron, or the town ditch, and to bring a wall (wherewith they compassed about the whole city) through the midst of this mount; whereby the city was greatly pressed, and much annoyed. This mountain ye shall flee (as many of you as are Azal; that is, separated: confer Exodus 24:11 Isaiah 43:4), and repair to Pella, a place of rest provided for you. Not without some perturbation of spirit (though causeless), as in common calamities it happens; and the like shall befall the very elect also at the last day, till they have recollected themselves, till they remember that now their redemption draweth nigh. And ye shall flee] sc. With utmost haste and fright; death being that terrible of terribles, as the philosopher calleth it, Nature’ s slaughterman, hell’ s purveyor. Like as ye fled from before the earthquake] Which might be as sad and as sudden at that at Pleures, in Rhetia, A.D. 1618, Aug. 25, the whole town was overcovered with a mountain, which, with its most swift motion, buried 1500 people (Alst. Chronol.). In the days of Uzziah king of Judah] Whether this earthquake occured just at that instant time when Uzziah offered incense, and was therefore smitten with leprosy (as the Jewish doctors affirm), I have not to say. But of the horror of it, besides Amos 1:1, Josephus relateth, that a mountain towards the west cleft in sunder and removed from its proper place the space of four furlongs, or half a mile; and farther it had proceeded, had not a great mountain towards the east stayed its course. Camden reporteth the like hereunto to have happened in Herefordshire, A. D. 1571, Cal. Martij 12; about six o’ clock in the evening, a great hill lifted up itself with a huge noise, and ascending into a higher place, carried along with it trees, flocks of cattle, sheep cotes, walked about from Saturday night till Monday noon, overturned a certain chapel that stood in its way. This kind of earthquake philosophers call Brasmatia, shaking of the earth. And the Lord my God shall come] q.d. Let scoffers doubt and deride, saying, "Where is the promise of his coming?" My God will effect with his hand what he hath spoken with his mouth, he will, he will, Habakkuk 2:8. There is an emphasis in the word "my" (q.d.

(5) And ye shall flee to.—The Hebrew will not bear the rendering of Luther, “and ye shall flee before.” The Oriental Jews, Targ., LXX., &c., by a different vocalisation, read, “And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped;” but this reading is inappropriate. “My mountains,” the Mount of Olives, which is divided in twain by the advent of the Lord, he calls “my mountains” (Marg.). It seems that they would flee thither for fear of being overwhelmed in the destruction of Jerusalem, “for the valley of the mountains” will afford a ready place of refuge, for it “shall reach unto Azal.” Some suppose Azal to be a place near Jerusalem (some placing it to the west of the Temple-Mount, others to the east of the Mount of Olives), but others take the word as a preposition, and render it “very nigh.” In any case, they flee to the valley because of its convenient proximity. The earthquake in the days of Uzziah is not mentioned in the sacred history, but it was an event that left such an impression on the popular mind that it became an era from which to date (Amos 1:1). “Similarly in Crete recent events are dated by such eras as in the year before the great earthquake.” (Blakesley’s Herodotus i. 263.) Thus the mention of this earthquake does not “fix the date of the prophecy to the days of Uzziah” as some commentators have affirmed. The second person, “ye fled,” need not be taken as referring directly to the persons addressed; but, considering the fact of the continuity of the national existence, may be understood as denoting the same nation at an earlier period, as in Joshua 24:5. Moreover, if we cared to dwell on the fact of the addition of the words “king of Judah” to the name of Uzziah, it might be taken to imply that the prophecy was delivered so long after the time of Uzziah that it was necessary for the prophet to remind his hearers who this Uzziah was. Saints.—Better, angels. (Comp. Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalms 89:5 [6].) With thee.—The change into the second person denotes the prophet’s own joyful waiting for his God’s advent. Some versions and MSS. read “with him.”

Verse 5. Ye shall flee to the valley] Some think this refers to the valley through which Zedekiah and others endeavoured to escape when Nebuchadnezzar pressed the siege of Jerusalem: but it appears to speak only of the Jewish wars of the Romans. Azal] This, as a place, is not known. If a place, it was most probably near to Jerusalem; and had its name from that circumstance.

5. to the valley of the mountains] Rather, by the valley of My mountains, i.e. a way of escape from the city shall be opened to you along the valley formed by My mountains, those mountains, that is, which I have just made for that very purpose, by cleaving the mount of Olives. unto Azal] Jerome and others render, very near, “usque ad proximum.” If, however, Azal is a proper name, it denotes some then familiar locality, either at the eastern extremity of the newly-formed valley, or more probably at its western extremity, close to the walls of Jerusalem. In any case the meaning is that the way of escape shall be made easy. the earthquake in the days of Uzziah] There is no mention of this in the historical books. The references to it here and in Amos 1:1 show that it made a deep impression on the people and was long remembered. The story of Josephus (see Stanley, Jewish Church, ii. 439) connecting it with Uzziah’s attempt to burn incense (2 Chronicles 26:19) is probably only an embellishment of this passage of Zechariah. Ewald puts the earthquake in “one of the first years of Uzziah.” all the saints] Rather, holy ones, i.e. angels. Comp. Deuteronomy 33:2; Matthew 25:31; Judges 14. with thee] i.e. with the Lord, to whom the prophet turns in direct address. These abrupt changes of person are not uncommon in Hebrew. See chap. Zechariah 2:8, note.

And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains - Rather, along the valley of My mountains namely, of those mountains, which God had just formed by dividing the mount of Olives.

4. He will appear as a warrior. The mount of Olives — Since Jerusalem is in the hands of the hostile nations Jehovah cannot be represented as coming from Mount Zion (compare Amos 1:2); he will come