Zechariah 9:12

Strong hold] probably Jerusalem.

Prisoners of hope] i.e. the Jews, who by their covenant with God had a sure hope of deliverance. Double] cp. Isaiah 61:7 evidently a reference to restoration from exile.

13. The prophet again plunges into a vision of war. The vision is figurative; God is to use Judah as a bow, and fit Ephraim as an arrow to the bow. Some who assign this prophecy to an early date believe that the words against thy sons, O Greece, may be a gloss of a later scribe.

Greece] Heb. Javan, so called from Javan, a son of Japheth, the supposed ancestor of the Europeans: cp. Genesis 10:2; Genesis 10:4. According to Sayce, the word 'Javan' (to indicate 'Greeks') is found in various forms on the monuments both of Egypt and Assyria from a very early date, and is the same word as 'Ionian' (Iαοâ). The thought of Greece as a power hostile to Judaism would hardly be possible prior to the Macedonian invasion of Alexander in the 4th cent. b.c. From that age onward, even in Jerusalem itself, the great struggle went on between Judaism and the invading influence of Greek culture. This struggle was specially keen, at the beginning of the 2nd cent. b.c. From a Jewish standpoint the Maccabæan wars were really between Jews and Greeks: cp. Jeremiah 51:20.

14, 15. And subdue with sling stones] RV 'and shall tread down the sling stones'; but the text is obscure. It is a vision of war as a storm in which God is the moving Power: cp. Habakkuk 3 Psalms 29.

15b. By a slight change in the Heb. text we might render, 'And they shall drink blood like wine, and they shall be filled (with it) like bowls, and as the corners of the altar (are filled with the blood of the sacrifices).'

16, 17. God will save Israel in honour and prosperity. His goodness] RM 'prosperity.' The pronoun is uncertain, but the reference is to Israel.