Charles Spurgeon Commentary Zechariah 9:13

"For I have bent Judah for me, I have filled the bow with Ephraim; and I will stir up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and will make thee as the sword of a mighty man." — Zechariah 9:13 (ASV)

When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you as the sword of a mighty man.

Note well that it is the Lord who is doing all these notable deeds: bending Judah like a bow, fitting Ephraim to the bow as the archer presses his arrow to the string, and raising up the despised sons of Zion so that they may be able to overcome the proud sons of Greece. "The sword of a mighty man" owes its strength to the hand that wields it, and the sons of Zion are only mighty when the Lord holds them in His almighty hand and uses them as seems good in His sight.

When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you as the sword of a mighty man.

This is a truly wonderful passage, setting forth how God is going to use his people as the weapons by which he will conquer the world. He will bend Judah, and make her into a bow, and take Ephraim, and make her into an arrow; and then he will shoot his strangely-fashioned shaft against his adversaries and ours!

What else can this mean, but that he is going to use those of us who are his own saved ones, so that he may conquer the world by us? And what a blessed battle this is! Your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, – the simple believer against the cultured man of reason without faith, the humble truster in the Lord Jesus Christ against the man who proudly boasts of his own learning and eloquence!

How will this battle end? We know which side will win, for the Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge.