Zechariah 9:5

her expectation The cities of Philistia, to which (Zechariah 9:5-7) after the subjugation of Syria (Zechariah 9:1-2) and Phœnicia (Zechariah 9:3-4), the scourge passed, had naturally looked to Tyre to check the course of the invader and so save them from his onslaught.

the king shall perish from Gaza Rather, a king. The prediction is, not that the then reigning monarch should perish, but that monarchical government should cease. No argument can be drawn from this in favour of the ante-captivity date of this prophecy. It had been the policy of the Assyrians, Chaldæans and Persians to leave tributary kings in the countries which they subdued. Hence their own monarchs assumed the title of "king of kings" (Ezra 7:12; Ezekiel 26:7; Daniel 2:37), and as Herodotus states it was the custom of the Persians to put honour upon the sons of the kings whom they had deposed and promote them to the sovereignty of their fathers (iii. 15). Alexander on the contrary pursued an entirely different plan and aimed at a consolidated empire. Such tributary monarchies were therefore abolished by him. Hegesias, a writer contemporary with Alexander, states that the king of Gaza was brought alive to the conqueror after the capture of the city, which in spite of the fate of Tyre had held out for five months. There is considerable difficulty in reconciling the statements of different writers on this point, but there seems no reason to doubt that the ruler of Gaza bore the title of "king" at that time.