--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 147 of 769 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/147/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation, section 147. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/147/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 2 of 2. ## 147. Zechariah · 9 of 13 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/147/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/147/#p-N ### Verse 3 [¶1] Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds - Bad kings and bad priests. I will punish the goats; these were the wicked priests, who were shepherds by their office, and goats by the impurity of their lives. [¶2] As his goodly horse in the battle - The honorable war horse, or the horse that carried the general's equipage. In the unaccountable variation of interpreters on these chapters, this, among other things, is thought to be spoken of Matthias, and Judas Maccabeus, who assembled the people from all quarters, as a shepherd gathers his sheep together; and led them against the sons of Greece, the Seleucidae Greeks. Others refer every thing here to times before the captivity. ### Verse 4 [¶4] Out of him came forth the corner - This is spoken of the tribe of Judah: all strength, counsel, and excellence came from that tribe. The corner stone, the ornament and completion of the building; the nail, by which the tents were fastened, and on which they hung their clothes, armor, etc., the battlebow, the choicest archers. [¶5] Every oppressor together - Those heroes and generals, by whom, under God, their foes should be totally routed. Newcome translates, "Every ruler together." Perhaps all this is spoken of the Messiah. ### Verse 5 [¶7] They shall be as mighty men - The Maccabees and their successors. [¶8] Riders on horses - The Macedonians, who opposed the Maccabees, and had much cavalry; whereas the Jews had none, and even few weapons of war; yet they overcame these horsemen. ### Verse 6 [¶10] I will strengthen the house of Judah - I doubt whether the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth verses are not to be understood of the future ingathering of the Jews in the times of the Gospel. See [Jer 3:14]; [Jer 23:6]; [Hos 1:2]; [Hos 6:11]. ### Verse 7 [¶12] Ephraim shall be like a mighty man - This tribe was always distinguished for its valor. ### Verse 8 [¶14] I will hiss for them - אשרקה eshrekah, "I will shriek for them;" call them with such a shrill strong voice, that they shall hear me, and find that it is the voice of their redemption. ### Verse 9 [¶16] I will sow them among the people - Wherever they have been dispersed, my voice in the preaching of the Gospel shall reach them. And they shall remember me, and they and their children shall turn again to the Lord, through Messiah their King. ### Verse 10 [¶18] Out of the land of Egypt - I will bring them out of all the countries where they have been dispersed, and bring them back to their own land; and they shall be so numerous that they shall scarcely find there, in all its length and breadth, a sufficiency of room. If all the Jews that are now scattered over the face of the earth were gathered together, they would make a mighty nation. And God will gather them together. As a wonderful providence has preserved them in every place, so a wondrous providence will collect them from every place of their dispersion. When the great call comes, no one soul of them shall be left behind. ### Verse 11 [¶20] 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 scepter broken. ### Verse 12 [¶22] I will strengthen them in the Lord - I, the God of Israel, will strengthen them in the Lord-Jesus, the Messiah; and thus indeed the Chaldee: I will strengthen them, בימרא דיי bemeymre dayai, in or by the Word of Jehovah, the same personal Word which we so often meet with in the Chaldee paraphrases or Targum. [¶23] They shall walk up and down in his name - In the name of the Messiah. Saith the Lord - God speaks here, not of himself, but concerning his Christ. The Jews shall have complete liberty; they shall appear everywhere as a part of the flock of Christ, and no difference be made between them and the converted Gentiles. They shall be all one fold under one Shepherd and Bishop of all souls. ### Introduction [¶25] The commencement of this chapter relates to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity, probably by the Babylonians; at least in the first instance, as the fourth verse speaks of the people thus threatened as the prophet's charge, [Zac 11:1-6]. The prophet then gives an account of the manner in which he discharged his office, and the little value that was put on his labors. And this he does by symbolical actions, a common mode of instruction with the ancient prophets, [Zac 11:7-14]. After the prophet, on account of the unsuccessfulness of his labors, had broken the two crooks which were the true badges of his pastoral office, (to denote the annulling of God's covenant with them, and their consequent divisions and dispersions), he is directed to take instruments calculated to hurt and destroy, perhaps an iron crook, scrip, and stones, to express by these symbols the judgments which God was about to inflict on them by wicked rulers and guides, who should first destroy the flock, and in the end be destroyed themselves, [Zac 11:15-17]. Let us now view this prophecy in another light, as we are authorized to do by Scripture, [Mat 27:7]. In this view the prophet, in the person of the Messiah, sets forth the ungrateful returns made to him by the Jews, when he undertook the office of shepherd in guiding and governing them; how they rejected him, and valued him and his labors at the mean and contemptible price of thirty pieces of silver, the paltry sum for which Judas betrayed him. Upon which he threatens to destroy their city and temple; and to give them up to the hands of such guides and governors as should have no regard to their welfare. ### Verse 1 [¶27] Open thy doors, O Lebanon - I will give Mr. Joseph Mede's note upon this verse: - "That which moveth me more than the rest, is in chap. 11, which contains a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and a description of the wickedness of the inhabitants, for which God would give them to the sword, and have no more pity upon them. It is expounded of the destruction by Titus; but methinks such a prophecy was nothing seasonable for Zachary's time, (when the city yet for a great part lay in her ruins, and the temple had not yet recovered hers), nor agreeable to the scope. Zachary's commission, who, together with his colleague Haggai, was sent to encourage the people, lately returned from captivity, to build their temple, and to instaurate their commonwealth. Was this a fit time to foretell the destruction of both, while they were yet but a-building? And by Zachary too, who was to encourage them? Would not this better befit the desolation by Nebuchadnezzar?" I really think so. See Mr. J. Mede's 61. Epistle. [¶28] Lebanon signifies the temple, because built of materials principally brought from that place. ### Verse 2 [¶30] Howl, fir tree - This seems to point out the fall and destruction of all the mighty men. ### Verse 3 [¶32] Young lions - Princes and rulers. By shepherds, kings or priests may be intended. ### Verse 4 [¶34] Feed the flock of the slaughter - This people resemble a flock of sheep fattened for the shambles; feed, instruct, this people who are about to be slaughtered. ### Verse 5 [¶36] Whose possessors - Governors and false prophets, slay them, by leading them to those things that will bring them to destruction. [¶37] And they that sell them - Give them up to idolatry; and bless God, strange to tell, that they get secular advantage by the establishment of this false religion. ### Verse 6 [¶39] For I will no more pity - I have determined to deliver them into the hands of the Chaldeans. ### Verse 7 [¶41] And I wilt feed the flock of slaughter - I showed them what God had revealed to me relative to the evils coming upon the land; and I did this the more especially for the sake of the poor of the flock. [¶42] Two staves - Two shepherd's crooks. One I called Beauty - that probably by which they marked the sheep; dipping the end into vermillion, or some red liquid. And this was done when they were to mark every tenth sheep, as it came out of the field, when the tithe was to be set apart for the Lord. [¶43] The other I called Bands - Probably that with the hook or crook at the head of it, by which the shepherd was wont to catch the sheep by the horns or legs when he wished to bring any to hand. [¶44] And I fed the flock - These two rods show the beauty and union of the people, while under God as their Shepherd. It was the delight of God to see them in a state of peace and harmony.