Zechariah 9:11

As for thee also,.... These words are not spoken to Christ, for את, "thee", is of the feminine gender; but the congregation of Israel, as Kimchi observes; or the church of God: nor are they the words

As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. As for thee also - i:e., "the daughter of Zion," or "Jerusalem" (Zechariah 9:9), the theocracy.

As for thee, O Zion, and Jerusalem, thou Jewish church: these words are Christ’ s words to her, not the prophet’ s words to Christ, though papists would have it so, to countenance a limbus patrum. By the blood, by my blood, saith Christ, of thy covenant, in which thy covenant is confirmed: it is God’ s covenant as made by him, it is Zion’ s covenant as made for her, it is Christ’ s also as made in him. I have sent forth thy prisoners; I have delivered and released. Cyrus indeed by his edict sent the Jews home, but in this he was Christ’ s servant, and Christ was mindful of the covenant, and, to perform this, brought them up. Out of the pit wherein is no water; Babylon, compared to a pit in which no water was, wherein the Jews must have perished, had not mercy from Christ visited them; here is no limbus patrum, though some say so among the popish commentators.

Zechariah 9:11 As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein [is] no water.Ver. 11. As for thee also] O daughter of Sion, O my Church; not, O Christ, the King of the Church, as the Greek and Latin Fathers, and after them the Popish commentators, will needs have it, the better to establish their chimera of Limbus Patrum, Christ here, by an aposiopesis (an ordinary figure), or keeping back something unspoken through earnestness of affection, bespeaks his people in this sort; Etiam tu, As for thee also, I will surely impart unto thee the benefits of that of my kingdom, as I have already begun to do in delivering you out of that waterless pit, that dirty dungeon of the Babylonish thraldom. By the blood of thy covenant] By the blood of Christ figured, by the blood that was sprinkled upon the people, Exodus 24:8 Psalms 74:20 Hebrews 13:20; and by virtue of the government confirmed thereby. I have sent forth thy prisoners] I have enlarged thy captives. Out of the pit wherein is no water] But mud only, as in Joseph’ s pit and Jeremiah’ s dungeon, Genesis 37:24 Jeremiah 38:6. The saints have temporal deliverances also by virtue of the covenant; and if any of Christ’ s subjects fall into desperate distresses and deadly danger, yet they are prisoners of hope, and may look for deliverance by the blood of the covenant. A fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion’ s head, a goat’ s body, and a serpent’ s tail (or according to others with the heads of a lion, a goat, and a serpent), killed by Bellerophon. ŒD

(11) Thee—i.e., Zion. By the blood of thy covenant.—Comp. Exodus 24:3-8. By means in consideration of. The pit.—i.e., Babylon.

Verse 11. As for thee also (Jerusalem) by the blood of thy covenant] The covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Israelites in general, and ratified by the blood of many victims; until the time should come in which the Messiah should shed his blood, as typified by the ancient sacrifices. I have sent forth thy prisoners] Those who were under the arrest of God's judgments; the human race, fast bound in sin and misery, and who by the pitifulness of his tender mercy were loosed, he dying in their stead.

11. As for thee also] Lit. also thou, i.e. as regards thee (O daughter of Sion), I will also (in addition to all that has been promised, Zechariah 9:9-10) liberate thy captives.” So Maurer: “Gaude, Sionia! veniet rex tuus tibi, justus cet.; removebuntur instrumenta belli, alta pax erit; auctum erit imperium tuum mirum in modum; etiam captivos tuos, qui in terris exteris detinentur, tibi restituam memor f�deris facti cum majoribus.” by the blood of thy covenant] because of, &c. R. V., i.e. the covenant which I have made with thee. Exodus 24:5-8. Comp. for the higher reference, Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 9:15. the pit wherein is no water] The “pit,” Genesis 40:15, or “house of the pit,” Exodus 12:29; Jeremiah 37:16, as denoting the nature of its dungeons, which may in some cases have been actually empty wells (comp. Genesis 37:24), is a common name for a prison in the O. T. The expression, “wherein is no water,” is probably added to emphasize the horrors of such a dungeon. “The prisoner in the land of his enemies was left to perish in the pit (Zechariah 9:11). The greatest of all deliverances is that the captive exile is released from the slow death of starvation in it (Isaiah 51:14). The history of Jeremiah, cast into the dungeon or pit (Jeremiah 38:6; Jeremiah 38:9), let down into its depths with cords, sinking into the filth at the bottom (here also there is no water), with death by hunger staring him in the face, shews how terrible an instrument of punishment was such a pit. The condition of the Athenian prisoners in the stone-quarries of Syracuse (Thuc. vii. 87), the Persian punishment of the σπόδος (Ctesias, Pers. 48), the oubliettes of mediζval prisons present instances of cruelty more or less analogous.” Bible Dict., Art. “Pit.”

As for thee also - The prophet turns from the deliverance of the whole world to the former people, the sorrows which they should have in the way, and the protection which God would bestow upon them

THE FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD, Zechariah 9:1 to Zechariah 14:21.