11 He will pass through the sea of affliction, and will strike the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the Nile will dry up; and the pride of Assyria will be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt will depart.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet confirms what he had said respecting the power of God, which is so great that it can easily and without any effort lay prostrate all the mighty forces of the world. As then the impediments which the Jews observed might have subverted their hope, the Prophet here removes them; he reminds the Jews that God's power would be far superior to all the impediments which the world could throw in their way. But the expressions are figurative, and allusions are made to the history of the first redemption. Pass through the sea shall distress. As God formerly gave to his people a passage through the Red Sea, (Exodus 14:21;) so the Prophet now testifies that this power was unchangeable, so that God could easily restore his people, though the sea was to be dried up, and rivers were to be emptied. He says first, Pass shall distress through the sea, that is, spread shall distress, etc., for so the verb vr, ober, is to be taken here. Pass then shall distress through the sea, [1] that is, the Lord will terrify the sea, and so shake it with his power that the waters will obey his command. But he afterwards explains himself in other words, He will smite the waves in the sea. He means that God's command is sufficient to change the order of nature, so that the waters would immediately disappear at his bidding. He then adds, All the depths of the river shall dry up; some read, "shall be ashamed," deriving the verb from vvs, bush; but it comes from yvs, ibesh: and this indeed means sometimes to be ashamed, but it means here to dry up. Others regard it as transitive, "The wind shall dry up the depths." But as to the object of the Prophet, the passive or active sense of the verb is of no moment; for the Prophet no doubt means here, that there would be so much force in the very nod of God as to dry up rivers suddenly, according to what happened to Jordan; which being smitten by the rod of Moses dried up and afforded a passage to the people. He at length speaks clearly, Cast down shall be the pride of Asshur, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. In the preceding metaphor Zechariah alludes, as I have said, to the first redemption, as it was usual with all the Prophets to remind the people of the former miracles, that they might expect from the Lord in future what their fathers had witnessed. He now however declares, that God would be the Redeemer of his people, though the Assyrians on one side, and the Egyptians on the other, were to attempt to frustrate his purpose; for they could effect nothing by their obstinacy, as God could easily subdue both. He at last adds --
1 - So Pagninus, Drusius, and the Syriac. The Septuagint, the Arabic, the Vulgate, and also Jerome, give a different version -- "And he shall pass through the narrow sea," or, "through the straits of the sea;" and this is the obvious meaning of the Hebrew, which is literally, "and he shall pass through the sea of straitness," or narrowness, i.e., through the (or a) narrow sea; the allusion is evidently to the Red Sea, which is narrow. Henderson connects [tsrh] as a verb with the following line -- He shall cleave and smite the waves of the sea. He derives the peculiar sense of "cleaving" from the Chaldee [tsr']: but this is not necessary, for the other meaning is quite suitable, and countenanced by good authorities. Blayney give this version -- And some shall pass over the sea to Tyre; which is quite without any meaning in this connection, there being nothing in the passage to lead us to Tyre. -- Ed.
And He - that is, Almighty God, shall pass through the sea, affliction As He says, "When thou walkest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not oveflow thee. And shall smite the waves in the sea" Isaiah 43:2, as in Isaiah, "The Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea" Isaiah 11:15. The image is from the deliverance of Egypt: yet it is said, that it should not be any exact repetition of the miracles of Egypt; it would be as the Red Sea Exodus 14:10, Exodus 14:12, which would as effectually shut them in, and in presence of which they might again think themselves lost, through which God would again bring them. But it would not be the Red sea itself; for "the sea" through which they should be brought, would be "affliction;" as our own poet speaks of "taking arms against a sea of troubles." Cyril: "The promise of succor to those who believe in Christ is under the likeness of the things given to those of old; for as Israel was conveyed across the Red sea, braving the waves in it; "for the waters stood upright as an heap" Exodus 15:8, God bringing this to pass marvelously; and as "they passed the Jordan on foot" Joshua 3:17; so he says, those who are called through Moses to the knowledge of Christ, and have been saved by the ministries of the holy Apostles, they shall pass the waves of this present life, like an angrily foaming sea, and, being removed from the tumult of this life, shall, undisturbed, worship the true God. And they shall pass through temptations, like sweeping rivers, saying with great joy, in like way, "Unless the Lord had been for us, may Israel now say, the waters had drowned us, the stream had gone over our souls" Psalm 124:1-5.
He shall smite the waves in the sea. There, where the strength of the powers of this world is put forth against His people, there He will bring it down. "All the deeps of the river," that is, of the Nile ,
"Shall be dried up." The Nile as a mighty river is substituted for the Jordan, symbolizing the greater putting forth of God's power in the times to come.
And the pride of Asshur shall be brought down - Ribera: "When the good receive their reward, then their enemies shall have no power over them, but shall be punished by Me, because they injured My elect. - By the Assyrians and Egyptians he understands all their enemies."
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.
And he (m) shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart.
(m) He alludes to the deliverance of the people out of Egypt, when the angel smote the floods and rivers.
And he shall pass through the sea with affliction,.... Either the people of the Jews, as Israel of old did, when they came out of Egypt, to which the allusion is; or the wind shall pass through the sea, as Aben Ezra supplies it, and it shall become dry; that is, the river of Egypt: or "affliction" (r), as many supply it, shall pass through the sea; the nations, which are many as the sea, as Kimchi interprets it; and so may design that hour of temptation that shall come upon all the earth, Revelation 3:10 or with which the kingdom of the beast, who rose up out of the sea, and consists of many waters, people, tongues, and nations, will be afflicted, Revelation 13:1 which the Lord shall pass through and smite; or it may in general denote the sea of this world, and the afflictions of it, which the Lord causes his people to pass through, and brings them out of them:
and shall smite the waves in the sea: that is, the Lord shall smite them; repress afflictions, which are like the proud waves, not suffering them to proceed further than is for his glory and his people's good, and remove all obstacles in their way; see Isaiah 11:15 or destroy their enemies, which are like the proud waters, that otherwise would go over their souls, and overwhelm them; and particularly the antichristian states, at the pouring out of the vials, signified by the sea, and by fountains and rivers, Revelation 16:3. Kimchi explains it of the multitude of the people:
and all the deeps of the river shall dry up; not Nile, the river of Egypt, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra (s), but the river Euphrates; see Revelation 16:12 the drying up of which signifies the destruction of the Turkish empire; and the Targum paraphrases it,
"all the kings of the people shall be confounded:''
and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down; the pride of the Ottoman empire, of which the old Assyria is a part, and which has been large and powerful, that shall be destroyed; this will be at the passing away of the second woe; and then quickly comes the third, which is as follows, Revelation 11:14,
and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away; all rule and government shall cease; see Genesis 49:10 meaning that the kingdom of the antichristian beast of Rome, called Egypt, Revelation 11:8 shall be at an end; which will be at the blowing of the seventh trumpet, and upon and through the pouring out of the seven vials. So the Targum, the dominion of the Egyptians shall be taken away; or its rod, with which it has smote, hurt, and greatly oppressed and afflicted the saints; persecution shall now cease; it will not be in the power of the Romish antichrist to persecute any more.
(r) Pagninus, Montanus, Munster, Vatablus, Calvin, Drusius, Cocceius. (s) So Stockius, p. 891.
pass . . . sea with affliction--Personifying the "sea"; He shall afflict the sea, that is, cause it to cease to be an obstacle to Israel's return to Palestine (Isaiah 11:15-16). Vulgate translates, "The strait of the sea." MAURER, "He shall cleave and smite." English Version is best (Psalm 114:3). As Jehovah smote the Red Sea to make a passage for His people (Exodus 14:16, Exodus 14:21), so hereafter shall He make a way through every obstacle which opposes Israel's restoration.
the river--the Nile (Amos 8:8; Amos 9:5), or the Euphrates. Thus the Red Sea and the Euphrates in the former part of the verse answer to "Assyria" and "Egypt" in the latter.
sceptre of Egypt . . . depart-- (Ezekiel 30:13).
Zac 10:11. "And he goes through the sea of affliction, and smites the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the river dry up; and the pride of Asshur will be cast down, and the staff of Egypt will depart. Zac 10:12. And I make them strong in Jehovah; and they will walk in His name, is the saying of Jehovah." The subject in Zac 10:11 is Jehovah. He goes, as once He went in the pillar of cloud as the angel of the Lord in the time of Moses, through the sea of affliction. צרה, which has been interpreted in very different ways, we take as in apposition to ים, though not as a permutative, "through the sea, viz., the affliction" (C. B. Mich., Hengst.); but in this sense, "the sea, which caused distress or confinement," so that the simple reason why צרה is not connected with ים in the construct state, but placed in apposition, is that the sea might not be described as a straitened sea, or sea of anxiety. This apposition points to the fact which floated before the prophet's mind, namely, that the Israelites under Moses were so confined by the Red Sea that they thought they were lost (Exodus 14:10.). The objection urged by Koehler against this view - namely, that צרה as a noun is not used in the sense of local strait or confinement - is proved to be unfounded by Jonah 2:3 and Zephaniah 1:15. All the other explanations of tsârâh are much more unnatural, being either unsuitable, like the suggestion of Koehler to take it as an exclamation, "O distress!" or grammatically untenable, like the rendering adopted by Maurer and Kliefoth, after the Chaldaeans usage, "he splits." The smiting of the waves in the sea does indeed play upon the division of the waves of the sea when the Israelites passed through the Red Sea (Exodus 14:16, Exodus 14:21; cf. Joshua 3:13; Psalm 77:17; Psalm 114:5); but it affirms still more, as the following clause shows, namely, a binding or constraining of the waves, by which they are annihilated, or a drying up of the floods, like החרים in Isaiah 11:15. Only the floods of the Nile (יאור) are mentioned, because the allusion to the slavery of Israel in Egypt predominates, and the redemption of the Israelites out of all the lands of the nations is represented as bringing out of the slave-house of Egypt. The drying up of the flood-depths of the Nile is therefore a figure denoting the casting down of the imperial power in all its historical forms; Asshur and Egypt being mentioned by name in the last clause answering to the declaration in Zac 10:10, and the tyranny of Asshur being characterized by גּאון, pride, haughtiness (cf. Isaiah 10:7.), and that of Egypt by the rod of its taskmasters. in Zac 10:12 the promise for Ephraim is brought to a close with the general thought that they will obtain strength in the Lord, and walk in the power of His name. With וגבּרתּים the address reverts to its starting-point in Zac 10:6. בּיהוה stands for בּי, to point emphatically to the Lord, in whom Israel as the people of God had its strength. Walking in the name of Jehovah is to be taken as in Micah 4:5, and to be understood not as relating to the attitude of Israel towards God, or to the "self-attestation of Israel" (Koehler), but to the result, viz., walking in the strength of the Lord.
If, in conclusion, we survey the whole promise from Zac 9:11 onwards, there are two leading thoughts developed in it: (a) That those members of the covenant nation who were still scattered among the heathen should be redeemed out of their misery, and gathered together in the kingdom of the King who was coming for Zion, i.e., of the Messiah; (b) That the Lord would endow all His people with power for the conquest of the heathen. They were both fulfilled, in weak commencements only, in the times immediately following and down to the coming of Christ, by the return of many Jews out of captivity and into the land of the fathers, particularly when Galilee was strongly peopled by Israelites; and also by the protection and care which God bestowed upon the people in the contests between the powers of the world for supremacy in Palestine. The principal fulfilment is of a spiritual kind, and was effected through the gathering of the Jews into the kingdom of Christ, which commenced in the times of the apostles, and will continue till the remnant of Israel is converted to Christ its Saviour.
And he passed through - The whole verse is an allusion to what God had done in the two famous deliverances of his people, bringing them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and through Jordan, and destroying the Egyptians, and delivering them out of Assyrian bondage, and in order thereto, destroying that kingdom.
*More commentary available at chapter level.