Zechariah 9:8

And I will encamp about my house, because of the army,.... Of profane and wicked men, persecutors and heretics, who rose up in great numbers in the first ages of Christianity against the church, the

And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes.

I will encamp about; pitch, not the tents of travellers and shepherds. but of an army, God in the midst of his own hosts, and angels among them, guardians, too. Mine house; this material temple, but as it is an emblem of the church. Because of the army; of the Persian and Grecian army, whose march lay either through or near to Judea and Jerusalem. Armies are very troublesome, costly, and dangerous in all their marches; the people of God, his city, and temple, shall be as garrisoned and fortified, as if secured by an host; God will have angels pitch their tents round about those that fear the Lord. Judea was a thoroughfare to the Egyptian and Syrian armies, to the Grecian and Persian; an unadvised attempt to stop Pharaoh-necho in his passage through once cost Josiah his life; but God will be a guard to his people, whilst their enemies are moving. All this was accomplished in the times of Alexander and his successors; in midst of those wars, though the Jews suffered somewhat, yet they were mightily defended by their God. No oppressor shall pass through them any more; as formerly, when they had ingress, egress, regress at their pleasure, as if lords of the soil, and of the people too. For now have I seen with mine eyes; I ever saw it, but now I manifest that I take notice of it purposely to redress it: I see how vilely they use my people; they shall do so no more. I behold mischief and spite, to requite it, as .

Zechariah 9:8 And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes.Ver. 8. And I will encamp about mine house] Though it be otherwise but ill fenced and fortified; yet I will see it safeguarded and secured from the inroads and incursions of enemies, who are ranging up and down, and not only robbing, but ravishing, Psalms 10:9. For what was Alexander but an arch-pirate, a strong thief, as the pirate whom he had taken told him to his teeth? And whether here be intimated by these words, because of him that passeth by, and him that returneth] something of Alexander’ s voyages, who passed by Judaea into Egypt, and to Ammon’ s oracle with his army, and thence returned to Persia by the same way, not hurting the Jews, or something about the many expeditions of the Seleucidae and Lagedae to and fro from Egypt to Syria, and back again, among which hurly burly the Jews’ state stood fast, though sometime a little shaken; I dare not say (saith a learned interpreter), it may be both those and all other the like dangers are here generally comprised. And no oppressor shall pass through them any more] Chald. No sultan; not the Turkish tyrant, Lord of Greece, as Zechariah 9:13, say those that take the text of the Jews’ glorious state at last. Calvin thinks that by this clause be only expounds what he had figuratively said before. Danaeus takes it of violence and opression among themselves, or of wringing and vexing by their own rulers; they shall be free from violence both abroad and at home. For now have I seen with mine eyes] i.e. I have taken good notice of it, I have seen, I have seen, as Exodus 3:7, and mine eye hath affected mine heart. I have well observed that the enemy is grown unsufferably insolent, and am therefore come to rescue and relieve my people. The Chaldee hath it thus, I have now revealed my power to do them good; Aben Ezra makes these to be the prophet’ s words of himself, q.d. I have seen all this in a manifest vision. But this is frigidum imo insulsum, saith Calvin, an odd conceit; unless we refer it (with Montanus) to the following words, and make this the sense (which yet I like not so well), Behold, I see in the spirit, with the eyes of my mind, the Lord Christ coming and entering, with state, the city and temple.

(8) Amid all these dangers, Israel is promised, under Divine protection, a certain immunity. Because of the army.—This is the meaning of the word as pointed in the Hebrew text, but some, altering the vocalisation, would render it “as a garrison;” and others, as LXX., “a column.” Him that passeth . . . returneth.—Pusey refers these words directly to “Alexander, who passed by with his army on the way to Egypt, and returned, having founded Alexandria,” but this appears to us to be too special an application of an expression which occurs in a general sense in Zechariah 7:14; Exodus 32:27; Ezekiel 35:7. The promise, however, was undoubtedly fulfilled when Alexander entered Jerusalem, prostrated himself before the high priest, and treated the Jews with peculiar favour. Oppressor.—The same word that is used in Zechariah 10:4. (Comp. Isaiah 3:12; Isaiah 60:17.) Have I seen.—Compare Exodus 3:7. In the estimation of the man of little faith, God only sees when He actively interferes.

Verse 8. I will encamp about mine house] This may apply to the conquests in Palestine by Alexander, who, coming with great wrath against Jerusalem, was met by Jaddua the high priest and his fellows in their sacred robes, who made intercession for the city and the temple; and, in consequence, Alexander spared both, which he had previously purposed to destroy. He showed the Jews also much favour, and remitted the tax every seventh year, because the law on that year forbade them to cultivate their ground. See this extraordinary account in Joseph. Antiq. lib. xi., c. 8, s. 5. Bishop Newcome translates: "I will encamp about my house with an army, so that none shall pass through or return."

8. about mine house] Rather, for my house. It is a kind of dativus commodi. I will pitch my camp for (the sake of, the protection of) my house, i.e. either of the Temple, or of the people. Comp. Zechariah 3:7, note. because of] Lit. from, which may mean, so as to defend it from the army, from him that passeth by, &c. The R. V. renders, against the army, that none pass through or return. that passeth by, and … that returneth] This is referred by Pusey to “Alexander, who passed by with his army on his way to Egypt, and returned having founded Alexandria.” But the use of the phrase in the more general sense of “going backward and forward,” both in this Book (Zechariah 7:14, note) and in the only other places where it occurs in the O. T. (Exodus 32:27; Ezekiel 35:7), shews that the reference is more general, to the overrunning of the land by an invading army. The fact that of the four places in which alone this phrase occurs two are in this Book and one in each division of the Book, is in favour, so far as it goes, of a single authorship. now have I seen with mine eyes] God is said to “see,” when He so takes notice of the actions of men as to interpose, as He here promises to do, for the deliverance of His people and the destruction of their enemies. Exodus 2:25; Exodus 3:7; Exodus 3:9. Comp. Zechariah 9:1 supra. “Nihil aliud exprimere verba possunt, quam velle Jovam in populum suum ejusque hostes jamjam intentos habere oculos, ut illum servet, hos perdat.” Maurer. The story of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem, as it is gathered from Josephus (Ant. Bk. xi. c. 8) and from the Talmud is thus related by Dean Stanley. After the conquest of Tyre and Gaza, Alexander had approached Jerusalem, when “suddenly from the city emerged a long procession, the whole population streamed out, dressed in white. The priestly tribe, in their white robes; the High Priest, apparently the chief authority in the place, in his purple and gold attire, his turban on his head, bearing the golden plate on which was inscribed the ineffable name of Jehovah … It was at the sunrise of a winter morning, long afterwards observed as a joyous festival, when they stood before the king. To the astonishment of the surrounding chiefs Alexander descended from his chariot and bowed to the earth before the Jewish leader. None ventured to ask the meaning of this seeming frenzy, save Parmenio alone. ‘Why should he, whom all men worship, worship the High Priest of the Jews?’ ‘Not him,’ replied the king, ‘but the God whose High Priest he is I worship.

And I will encamp about my house - (for my house’s sake) because of the army “Because,” it is added in explanation, “of him that passeth by and of him that returneth;” Alexander, who passed by with

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