Zechariah 13:9

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:7-9 Here is a prophecy of the sufferings of Christ. God the Father gave order to the sword of his justice to awake against his Son, when he freely made his soul an offering for sin. As God, he is called my Fellow. Christ and the Father are one. He is the Shepherd who was to lay down his life for the sheep. If a Sacrifice, he must be slain, for without shedding of the life-blood there was no remission. This sword must awake against him, yet he had no sin of his own to answer for. It may refer to the whole of Christ's sufferings, especially his agonies in the garden and on the cross, when he endured unspeakable anguish till Divine justice was fully satisfied. Smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. This passage our Lord Jesus declares was fulfilled, when all his disciples, in the night wherein he was betrayed, forsook him and fled. It has, and shall have its accomplishment, in the destruction of the corrupt and hypocritical part of the professed church. Because of the sin of the Jews in rejecting and crucifying Christ, and in opposing his gospel, the Romans would destroy the greater part. But a remnant would be saved. And if we are his people, we shall be refined as gold; he will be God, and the end of all our trials and sufferings will be praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I will bring the third part through the fire - Such is always God's ways. "Thou hast proved us, O God; Thou hast tried us, like as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the snare, Thou laidest trouble upon our loins: we went through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place" Psalm 66:9-11. "I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" Isaiah 48:10; and, "Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God" Acts 14:22.

Dionysius: "In adversity virtue is most tried, and it is shown what advance a person has made; for 'patience' hath 'a perfect work' James 1:4; and it is called the touchstone of all other virtues, as is written; 'God tried His elect as gold in the furnace and received them as a burnt offering' ; and, 'All the faithful who have pleased the Lord have passed through many tribulations' . And the angel Raphael saith to Tobias, 'Because thou wert accepted of God, need was that temptation should prove thee' ." "Adversities are granted to the elect of God, and therefore to be rejoiced in with the whole heart." "Fire, crosses, racks were prepared; swords executioners torturers were put in action; new forms of suffering were invented, and yet Christian virtue remained moveless, unconquered: the fiercer the onslaught, the more glorious was the triumph." : "The more suffered, the more believed in Christ." Osorius: "Whose virtue they adimired, these they imitated, and shared the suffering, that they might be partakers of the glory. This was that fire, whereby God willed that His own should be tried and purified, that, with Christ whom they gave themselves to imitate, they might enjoy everlasting glory."

I will bless him and will say, It is My people - Dionysius: "not only by creation as the rest, but by devotion and worship, by predestination and infusion of grace, by singular Providence, by mutual love; 'and it shall say, The Lord is my God,' whom alone above all things, I long for, love, worship."

This promise is oftentimes renewed through the prophets, oftentimes fulfilled in Christ, whenever the Church is recalled from listlessness by fiery trials, and through them her children are restored to deeper devotedness and closer union with God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. through … fire—of trial (Ps 66:10; Am 4:11; 1Co 3:15; 1Pe 1:6, 7). It hence appears that the Jews' conversion is not to precede, but to follow, their external deliverance by the special interposition of Jehovah; which latter shall be the main cause of their conversion, combined with a preparatory inward shedding abroad in their hearts of the Holy Spirit (Zec 12:10-14); and here, "they shall call on My name," in their trouble, which brings Jehovah to their help (Ps 50:15).

my people—(Jer 30:18-22; Eze 11:19, 20; Ho 2:23).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will bring the third part through the fire; that part that is preserved shall be brought into afflictions, hot as fire.

And will refine them as silver is refined; these afflictions shall purify them, and so better them, as silver and gold are bettered by the furnace, made fitter to be vessels of honour.

They shall call on my name; pray to me, and own me for their God.

I will hear; I will answer them, and own them for my people, my purified people, &c.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I will bring the third part through the fire,.... Into tribulation, as the Targum explains it; or into great distresses, comparable to fire, as Kimchi observes; this is the hour of temptation that will be in the Philadelphian church state, Revelation 3:10. Daniel's time of trouble, such as there never was since there was a nation, Daniel 12:1 and the time of the slaying of the witnesses, Revelation 11:7,

and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; their graces, principles, and profession, will be tried; their dross and tin will be removed, and they will be purged and purified; a more pure and glorious state of the church will take place, in which there will be great purity of Gospel worship, discipline, and conversation; when the word will be more purely preached, the ordinances more purely administered, and the saints will live more holy lives and conversations, signified by the witnesses ascending up into heaven, Revelation 11:12,

they shall call on my name; which includes the whole of divine worship, and particularly designs prayer, that pure offering and incense, which shall now be offered to the name of the Lord in every place, Malachi 1:11 hence it follows,

and I will hear them; accept their prayers, and give an answer to them: so the Targum paraphrases the words,

"he shall pray in my name, and I will receive his prayer:''

I will say, It is my people; the Lord will make it appear to themselves and others that they are his special, peculiar, and covenant people, by calling them out of Babylon; by bestowing his favours upon them; and by granting his presence with them, as well as by the witnessing of his Spirit to them; see Revelation 18:4,

and they shall say, The Lord is my God: they shall know him to be their covenant God and Father, and claim their interest in him, and acknowledge him as such; which is the greatest happiness that can be enjoyed, Psalm 144:15.

Geneva Study Bible

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. the third part] Comp. Romans 11:5.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Through the fire. This third part, like its Master, passes through much tribulation, and is thereby refined and purified (comp. Psalm 66:10; Isaiah 48:10; Jeremiah 9:7; Daniel 12:10; Malachi 3:3; 1 Peter 1:6, 7). Call on my Name. In their distress they shall turn in faith to Jehovah, as the covenant God, a very present Help in trouble (Isaiah 65:24). Thus is represented God's dealing with his Church in every age.



Zechariah 13:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Zechariah 13:7. "Arise, O sword, over my shepherd, and over the man who is my neighbour, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts: smite the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered; and I will bring back my hand over the little ones. Zechariah 13:8. And it will come to pass in all the land, is the saying of Jehovah; two parts therein shall be cut off, shall die, and the third remains therein. Zechariah 13:9. And the third will I bring into the fire, and melt them as silver is melted, and will refine them as gold is refined: it will call upon my name, and I will answer it; I say, It is my people; and it will say, Jehovah my God." The summons addressed to the sword, to awake and smite, is a poetical turn to express the thought that the smiting takes place with or according to the will of God. For similar personification of the sword, see Jeremiah 47:6. רעי is the shepherd of Jehovah, since the summons comes from Jehovah. In what sense the person to be smitten is called the shepherd of Jehovah, we may see from the clause על־גּבר עמיתי. The word עמית, which only occurs in the Pentateuch and in Zechariah, who has taken it thence, is only used as a synonym of אח (cf. Leviticus 25:15) in the concrete sense of the nearest one. And this is the meaning which it has in the passage before us, where the construct state expresses the relation of apposition, as for example in אישׁ חסידך (Deuteronomy 33:8; cf. Ewald, 287, e), the man who is my nearest one. The shepherd of Jehovah, whom Jehovah describes as a man who is His next one (neighbour), cannot of course be a bad shepherd, who is displeasing to Jehovah, and destroys the flock, or the foolish shepherd mentioned in Zechariah 11:15-17, as Grotius, Umbr., Ebrard, Ewald, Hitzig, and others suppose; for the expression "man who is my nearest one" implies much more than unity or community of vocation, or that he had to feed the flock like Jehovah. No owner of a flock or lord of a flock would call a hired or purchased shepherd his ‛âmı̄th. And so God would not apply this epithet to any godly or ungodly man whom He might have appointed shepherd over a nation. The idea of nearest one (or fellow) involves not only similarity in vocation, but community of physical or spiritual descent, according to which he whom God calls His neighbour cannot be a mere man, but can only be one who participates in the divine nature, or is essentially divine. The shepherd of Jehovah, whom the sword is to smite, is therefore no other than the Messiah, who is also identified with Jehovah in Zechariah 12:10; or the good shepherd, who says of Himself, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). The masculine form הך in the summons addressed to the sword, although חרב itself is feminine, may be accounted for from the personification of the sword; compare Genesis 4:7, where sin (חטּאת, fem.) is personified as a wild beast, and construed as a masculine. The sword is merely introduced as a weapon used for killing, without there being any intention of defining the mode of death more precisely. The smiting of the shepherd is also mentioned here simply for the purpose of depicting the consequences that would follow with regard to the flock. The thought is therefore merely this: Jehovah will scatter Israel or His nation by smiting the shepherd; that is to say, He will give it up to the misery and destruction to which a flock without a shepherd is exposed. We cannot infer from this that the shepherd himself is to blame; nor does the circumstance that the smiting of the shepherd is represented as the execution of a divine command, necessarily imply that the death of the shepherd proceeds directly from God. According to the biblical view, God also works, and does that which is done by man in accordance with His counsel and will, and even that which is effected through the sin of men. Thus in Isaiah 53:10 the mortal sufferings of the Messiah are described as inflicted upon Him by God, although He had given up His soul to death to bear the sin of the people. In the prophecy before us, the slaying of the shepherd is only referred to so far as it brings a grievous calamity upon Israel; and the fact is passed over, that Israel has brought this calamity upon itself by its ingratitude towards the shepherd (cf. Zechariah 11:8, Zechariah 11:12). The flock, which will be dispersed in consequence of the slaying of the shepherd, is the covenant nation, i.e., neither the human race nor the Christian church as such, but the flock which the shepherd in Zechariah 11:4. had to feed. At the same time, Jehovah will not entirely withdraw His hand from the scattered flock, but "bring it back over the small ones." The phrase השׁיב יד על, to bring back the hand over a person (see at 2 Samuel 8:3), i.e., make him the object of his active care once more, is used to express the employment of the hand upon a person either for judgment or salvation. It occurs in the latter sense in Isaiah 1:25 in relation to the grace which the Lord will manifest towards Jerusalem, by purifying it from its dross; and it is used here in the same sense, as Zechariah 13:8, Zechariah 13:9 clearly show, according to which the dispersion to be inflicted upon Israel will only be the cause of ruin to the greater portion of the nation, whereas it will bring salvation to the remnant.

Zechariah 13:8 and Zechariah 13:9 add the real explanation of the bringing back of the hand over the small ones. צערים (lit., a participle of צער, which only occurs here) is synonymous with צעיר or צעור (Jeremiah 14:3; Jeremiah 48:4, chethib), the small ones in a figurative sense, the miserable ones, those who are called עניּי הצּאן in Zechariah 11:7. It naturally follows from this, that the צערים are not identical with the whole flock, but simply form a small portion of it, viz., "the poor and righteous in the nation, who suffer injustice" (Hitzig). "The assertion that the flock is to be scattered, but that God will bring back His hand to the small ones, evidently implies that the small ones are included as one portion of the entire flock, for which God will prepare a different fate from that of the larger whole which is about to be dispersed" (Kliefoth).

On the fulfilment of this verse, we read in Matthew 26:31-32, and Mark 14:27, that the bringing back of the hand of the Lord over the small ones was realized first of all in the case of the apostles. After the institution of the Lord's Supper, Christ told His disciples that that same night they would all be offended because of Him; for it was written, "I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee." The quotation is made freely from the original text, the address to the sword being resolved into its actual meaning, "I will smite." The offending of the disciples took place when Jesus was taken prisoner, and they all fled. This flight was a prelude to the dispersion of the flock at the death of the shepherd. But the Lord soon brought back His hand over the disciples. The promise, "But after my resurrection I will go before you into Galilee," is a practical exposition of the bringing back of the hand over the small ones, which shows that the expression is to be understood here in a good sense, and that it began to be fulfilled in the whole of the nation of Israel, to which we shall afterwards return. This more general sense of the words is placed beyond the reach of doubt by Zechariah 13:8 and Zechariah 13:9; for Zechariah 13:8 depicts the misery which the dispersion of the flock brings upon Israel, and Zechariah 13:9 shows how the bringing back of the hand upon the small ones will be realized in the remnant of the nation. The dispersion of the flock will deliver two-thirds of the nation in the whole land to death, so that only one-third will remain alive. כּל־הארץ is not the whole earth, but the whole of the holy land, as in Zechariah 14:9-10; and הארץ, in Zechariah 12:12, the land in which the flock, fed by the shepherds of the Lord, i.e., the nation of Israel, dwells. פּי־שׁנים is taken from Deuteronomy 21:17, as in 2 Kings 2:9; it is used there for the double portion inherited by the first-born. That it is used here to signify two-thirds, is evident from the remaining השּׁלישׁית. "The whole of the Jewish nation," says Hengstenberg, "is introduced here, as an inheritance left by the shepherd who has been put to death, which inheritance is divided into three parts, death claiming the privileges of the first-born, and so receiving two portions, and life one, - a division similar to that which David made in the case of the Moabites (2 Samuel 8:2)." יגועוּ is added to יכּרתוּ, to define יכּרת more precisely, as signifying not merely a cutting off from the land by transportation (cf. Zechariah 14:2), but a cutting off from life (Koehler). גּוע, exspirare, is applied both to natural and violent death (for the latter meaning, compare Genesis 7:21; Joshua 22:20). The remaining third is also to be refined through severe afflictions, to purify it from everything of a sinful nature, and make it into a truly holy nation of God. For the figure of melting and refining, compare Isaiah 1:25; Isaiah 48:10; Jeremiah 9:6; Malachi 3:3; Psalm 66:10. For the expression in Zechariah 13:9, compare Isaiah 65:24; and for the thought of the whole verse, Zechariah 8:8, Hosea 2:23, Jeremiah 24:7; Jeremiah 30:22. The cutting off of the two-thirds of Israel commenced in the Jewish war under Vespasian and Titus, and in the war for the suppression of the rebellion led by the pseudo-Messiah Bar Cochba. It is not to be restricted to these events, however, but was continued in the persecutions of the Jews with fire and sword in the following centuries. The refinement of the remaining third cannot be taken as referring to the sufferings of the Jewish nation during the whole period of its present dispersion, as C. B. Michaelis supposes, nor generally to the tribulations which are necessary in order to enter into the kingdom of God, to the seven conflicts which the true Israel existing in the Christian church has to sustain, first with the two-thirds, and then and more especially with the heathen (Zechariah 12:1-9, Zechariah 12:14). For whilst Hengstenberg very properly objects to the view of Michaelis, on the ground that in that case the unbelieving portion of Judaism would be regarded as the legitimate and sole continuation of Israel; it may also be argued, in opposition to the exclusive reference in the third to the Christian church, that it is irreconcilable with the perpetuation of the Jews, and the unanimous entrance of all Israel into the kingdom of Christ, as taught by the Apostle Paul. Both views contain elements of truth, which must be combined, as we shall presently show.