Charles Ellicott Commentary Zechariah 9

In the land. —Better, on the land.

Hadrach. —Until recently, this word was an insuperable difficulty for commentators, but now it is known from various Assyrian inscriptions that Hadrach (Ha-ta-ri-ka) was the name of a town or district in the vicinity of Damascus and Hamath. (Records of the Past, Vol. V.)

The rest [that is, the resting place] of it. —Namely, of the prophecy; that is, the judgments of God should begin at that city. The Septuagint has θυσία αὐτοῦ, “his sacrifice,” reading different vowels.

When the eyes ... the Lord. —Various renderings of these words have been proposed, but the best is, for to the Lord [will] the eye of man [be directed], and [that of] all the tribes of Israel. That is, when God’s judgments are fulfilled against these districts, the eyes of all will be turned towards Him in wonder.

The Septuagint reads: διότι Κύριος ἐφορᾷ ἀνθρώπους, καὶ πάσας φυλὰς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (interpreting “to” as possessive and “man” as the objective genitive), which means, “For to the Lord is an eye on man.”

Instead of Adam, “man,” some propose to read Aram, “Syria,” as the letters d and r are easily interchanged in the Asshurith (square Hebrew) and many other Oriental characters.

And Hamath ... thereby. — Better, And even upon Hamath, [which] borders on it: namely, on Damascus.

Thus far concerning Syria; now he speaks of Phoenicia. The terms of the denunciation of Syria are so general that, if they stood alone, we would be at a loss to fix the era of their fulfilment.

But the case is different with Tyre (Zechariah 9:2–4). For, though Tyre was besieged by Shalmaneser, and perhaps even taken by Nebuchadnezzar, it was certainly never devoured with fire until (333 BC) Alexander, “having slain all except those who fled to the temples, ordered the houses to be set on fire” (Q. Curtius).

At the same time, though he attacked Phoenicia with the main body of his army, he sent a detachment under Parmenio to operate against Syria. To this date, then, we consider this prophecy to refer. (On the mention of these nations in particular, and the argument founded on the supposed similarity of Zechariah 1:1-8 and Amos 1:1 to Amos 2:6, see Introduction, B. 2.)

See it, and fear. —Philistia might well fear and tremble on hearing of the destruction of Tyre. Ashkelon and Ekron, it is true, are not mentioned in connection with this march of Alexander, but they must necessarily have been occupied by his troops. But Gaza was certainly taken, after a siege of five months; and special mention is made by Hegesias (a contemporary of Alexander) of the “king” of Gaza being brought alive to Alexander after the capture of that city.

Not be inhabited.—Or, not remain.

A bastard. — that is, a mixed race. It was a special point in Alexander’s policy to break up nationalities, and to fuse different peoples.

Blood ... abominations. —namely, their idolatrous sacrifices.

Jebusite. —Some take this word to mean Jerusalem (compare Joshua 15:8, and especially Joshua 18:28). Others suppose it to be a designation of the remnant of the Canaanitish tribes, who were, like the Gibeonites, retained for servile duties about the Temple. But since the word “Jebusite” seems to be parallel with the word alluph, “governor” or “prince,” rather than contrasted with it, it seems more probable that it refers to the Jebusite people, who dwelt with the children of Judah in Jerusalem, as equals, and not as a conquered race (Joshua 15:63).

But for the fact that the place Eleph is distinctly mentioned (Joshua 18:28) as being in Benjamin, not Judah, one would be inclined to read the word alluph (which occurs in the singular in this passage only without the u distinctly written) as Eleph, and to understand Jebusi as meaning Jerusalem. Perhaps Eleph was on the borders of Benjamin and Judah, and so may have sometimes been spoken of as belonging to Judah.

Nothing is known of any great conversion of Philistines to Judaism at this time; indeed, in later times we still hear of them as hostile to the Jews . But after this last reference, they disappear from history as a separate nation, probably because they were no longer distinguishable from the Jews or the Greek settlers of those regions.