who has been put to death, which inheritance is divided into three parts, death claiming the privileges of the first-born, and so receiving two portions, and life one, - a division similar to that which David made in the case of the Moabites (2Sa 8:2).” יגועוּ is added to יכּרתוּ, to define יכּרת more precisely, as signifying not merely a cutting off from the land by transportation (cf. Zec 14:2), but a cutting off from life (Koehler). גּוע, exspirare, is applied both to natural and violent death (for the latter meaning, compare Gen 7:21; Jos 22:20). The remaining third is also to be refined through severe afflictions, to purify it from everything of a sinful nature, and make it into a truly holy nation of God. For the figure of melting and refining, compare Isa 1:25; Isa 48:10; Jer 9:6; Mal 3:3; Psa 66:10. For the expression in Zec 13:9, compare Isa 65:24; and for the thought of the whole verse, Zec 8:8, Hos 2:23, Jer 24:7; Jer 30:22. The cutting off of the two-thirds of Israel commenced in the Jewish war under Vespasian and Titus, and in the war for the suppression of the rebellion led by the pseudo-Messiah Bar Cochba. It is not to be restricted to these events, however, but was continued in the persecutions of the Jews with fire and sword in the following centuries. The refinement of the remaining third cannot be taken as referring to the sufferings of the Jewish nation during the whole period of its present dispersion, as C. B. Michaelis supposes, nor generally to the tribulations which are necessary in order to enter into the kingdom of God, to the seven conflicts which the true Israel existing in the Christian church has to sustain, first with the two-thirds, and then and more especially with the heathen (Zec 12:1-9, Zec 12:14). For whilst Hengstenberg very properly objects to the view of Michaelis, on the ground that in that case the unbelieving portion of Judaism would be regarded as the legitimate and sole continuation of Israel; it may also be argued, in opposition to the exclusive reference in the third to the Christian church, that it is irreconcilable with the perpetuation of the Jews, and the unanimous entrance of all Israel into the kingdom of Christ, as taught by the Apostle Paul. Both views contain elements of truth, which must be combined, as we shall presently show.
All nations will be gathered together by the Lord against Jerusalem, and will take the city and plunder it, and
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