enemy in Jerusalem. The prophet commences directly with the main fact, in a most vivid description, and only gives the explanation afterwards in Zec 14:2. The Vav consec. attached to ואספתּי is also a Vav explicativum. The Lord gathers all nations together to war against Jerusalem, and gives up the city into their power, that they may conquer it, and let loose all their barbarity upon it, plundering the houses and ravishing the women (cf. Isa 13:16, where the same thing is affirmed of Babylon). Just as in the Chaldaean conquest the people had been obliged to wander into captivity, so will it be now, though not all the people, but only the half of the city. The remaining portion will not be cut off out of the city, i.e., be transported thence, as was the case at that time, when even the remnant of the nation was carried into exile (2Ki 25:22). It is obvious at once from this, that the words do not refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, as Theodoret, Jerome, and others have supposed.
Verses 3-5
This time the Lord will come to the help of His people. Zec 14:3. “And Jehovah will go forth and fight against those nations, as in His day of battle, on the day of slaughter. Zec 14:4. And His feet will stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which lies to the east before Jerusalem; and the Mount of Olives will split in the centre from east to west into a very great valley, and half of the mountain will remove to the north, and its (other) half to the south. Zec 14:5. And ye will flee into the valley of my mountains, and the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel, and ye will flee as ye fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. And Jehovah my God will come, all the saints with Thee.” Against those nations which have conquered Jerusalem the Lord will fight כּיום וגו, as the day, i.e., as on the day, of His fighting, to which there is added, for the purpose of strengthening the expression, “on the day of the slaughter.” The meaning is not “according to the day when He fought in the day of the war,” as Jerome and many others suppose, who refer the words to the conflict between Jehovah and the Egyptians at the Red Sea (Exo 14:14); for there is nothing to support this special allusion. According to the historical accounts in the Old Testament, Jehovah went out more than once to fight for His people (cf. Jos 10:14, Jos 10:42; Jos 23:3; Jdg 4:15; 1Sa 7:10; 2Ch 20:15).
