Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 14:2

"For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city." — Zechariah 14:2 (ASV)

I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle – This is a feature that belongs to the end. It had been elaborated on by Joel (Joel 3:2–9, Joel 3:11); Ezekiel spoke of the “many nations” (Ezekiel 38:6, Ezekiel 38:15, Ezekiel 38:22) that should come under Gog.

John foretells a universal strife at the end, when “The spirits of devils, working miracles, go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Revelation 16:14); and “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints round about, and the beloved city” (Revelation 20:7–9).

Since no creature can do anything except what God wills, and, in his frenzy against God’s people, is only His instrument—“to try them and to purge and to make white to the time of the end” (Daniel 11:35; Daniel 12:10)—and since God continuously supplies in the order of nature the strength of body or intellect that is abused against His law, God may be said to do what Satan does against Him. Satan, in his blind fury, crowns martyrs, fills the thrones of heaven, and works, against his will, the all-wise will of God.

And the houses rifled, and the women ... – The horrors of pagan war repeat themselves through people’s ever-recurring passions. What was foretold concerning Babylon is repeated in the same words concerning the Church of God. Seemingly, “all things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner” (Ecclesiastes 9:2). The outward event is the same; the hidden part is known to God alone.

“And the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.” This is unlike the fate of the earthly Jerusalem in its destruction both by Nebuchadnezzar (which was past) and by the Romans (see the commentary on Micah 3:12, pages 46-50).

Initially, “Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried away the rest of the people left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude” (2 Kings 25:11), so that Jeremiah mourned over it: “Because of the mountain of Zion which is desolate, foxes walk” (habitually) “upon it” (Lamentations 5:18). The Romans (as noted on pages 46-47 of this commentary) “effaced the city.” Now “a remnant is not cut off,” because “for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:22); for our Lord had said that “the gates of hell should not prevail against” His Church (Matthew 16:18).