◄ Zechariah 9:11 ►
As for you, because of the blood of My covenant, I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Study Bible
As for you
This phrase addresses the people of Israel, specifically the exiles who are being promised deliverance. It is a direct message from God, indicating a personal and specific promise to His chosen people. The context is post-exilic, as Zechariah prophesied during the time when the Israelites were returning from Babylonian captivity.

because of the blood of My covenant
This refers to the covenant God made with Israel, often associated with the Mosaic Covenant, which was ratified by the blood of sacrifices (Exodus 24:8). The blood signifies the seriousness and binding nature of the covenant. In a broader theological context, it foreshadows the New Covenant established through the blood of Jesus Christ (Matthew 26:28), highlighting the theme of redemption and deliverance through sacrificial blood.

I will release your prisoners
This promise of release can be understood both literally and spiritually. Historically, it refers to the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylonian captivity. Spiritually, it symbolizes liberation from sin and bondage, a theme that resonates throughout the Bible, culminating in the freedom offered through Christ (Luke 4:18).

from the waterless pit
The "waterless pit" is a metaphor for a place of desolation and despair, often used to describe Sheol or a place of imprisonment (Genesis 37:24, Jeremiah 38:6). In ancient times, cisterns or pits were used as prisons. This imagery underscores the hopelessness of the captives' situation and the miraculous nature of their deliverance. It also prefigures the deliverance from spiritual death and separation from God, achieved through Christ's resurrection.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Zechariah
A prophet in the post-exilic period who conveyed God's messages to the Israelites, encouraging them to rebuild the temple and renew their covenant with God.

2. Prisoners
Symbolically refers to the Israelites who were in exile or captivity, representing those who are spiritually bound or oppressed.

3. Waterless Pit
A metaphor for a place of despair, hopelessness, or captivity, often used to describe situations of spiritual dryness or bondage.

4. Blood of My Covenant
Refers to the covenant God made with His people, often associated with the sacrificial system and ultimately pointing to the New Covenant through Jesus Christ.

5. Release
The act of liberation or deliverance, signifying God's intervention to free His people from bondage.
Teaching Points
The Power of the Covenant
God's covenant is a binding promise that assures His faithfulness and commitment to His people. Reflect on how the blood of the covenant, fulfilled in Christ, secures our redemption and freedom.

Spiritual Liberation
Just as God promised to release prisoners from the waterless pit, He offers spiritual liberation to those who are bound by sin and despair. Consider areas in your life where you need God's deliverance.

Hope in Desolation
The imagery of the waterless pit reminds us that even in our most desolate times, God promises hope and restoration. Trust in His ability to transform your circumstances.

Christ as the Fulfillment
The blood of the covenant ultimately points to Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice brings about the ultimate release from spiritual captivity. Embrace the freedom found in Christ.

God's Faithfulness
Reflect on God's unwavering faithfulness to His promises. How can you live in response to His covenantal love and grace?
Bible Study Questions
1. How does understanding the historical context of Zechariah's prophecy enhance your interpretation of this verse?

2. In what ways does the concept of the "blood of My covenant" in Zechariah 9:11 connect to the New Testament understanding of Jesus' sacrifice?

3. Reflect on a time when you felt like you were in a "waterless pit." How did you experience God's deliverance or hope during that period?

4. How can the promise of release from captivity in Zechariah 9:11 encourage you in your current spiritual journey?

5. What practical steps can you take to live in the freedom and hope promised through God's covenant? Consider how this might impact your relationships and daily life.
Connections to Other Scriptures
Exodus 24:8
The blood of the covenant is first mentioned when Moses sprinkles the blood on the people, signifying their commitment to God's law.

Hebrews 9:15
Discusses Jesus as the mediator of a new covenant, emphasizing the fulfillment of the old covenant through His sacrificial death.

Isaiah 42:7
Speaks of opening the eyes of the blind and freeing captives from prison, paralleling the theme of liberation in Zechariah 9:11.

Psalm 40:2
Describes being lifted from a pit of despair, similar to the imagery of the waterless pit in Zechariah.
Sermons
The Blood of the CovenantGeorge Hutcheson.Zechariah 9:11
The Delivered PrisonersJohn D. Lawe, M. A.Zechariah 9:11
What Christ has Done For, and What He is to His PeopleT. B. Baker.Zechariah 9:11
Historical Facts Illustrations of Spiritual RealitiesD. Thomas Zechariah 9:11, 12
The Sinner in Three AspectsW. Forsyth Zechariah 9:11, 12
People
Aram, Javan, Jebusites, Zechariah, Zidon
Places
Ashdod, Ashkelon, Damascus, Ekron, Euphrates River, Gaza, Greece, Hadrach, Hamath, Jerusalem, Philistia, Sidon, Tyre, Zion
Topics
Agreement, Blood, Captives, Covenant, Deep, Forth, Free, Hole, Pit, Prisoners, Waterless, Wherein
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Zechariah 9:11

     4221   cistern
     4257   pit

Zechariah 9:9-13

     1443   revelation, OT

Zechariah 9:11-12

     5461   prisoners

Library
Messiah's Entrance into Jerusalem
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. -- And He shall speak peace unto the heathen. T he narrowness and littleness of the mind of fallen man are sufficiently conspicuous in the idea he forms of magnificence and grandeur. The pageantry and parade of a Roman triumph, or of an eastern monarch, as described in history, exhibit him to us …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

And the Manner of his Entry into Jerusalem, which was the Capital of Judæa...
And the manner of His entry into Jerusalem, which was the capital of Judæa, where also was His royal seat and the temple of God, the prophet Isaiah declares: Say ye to the daughter of Sion, Behold a king corneth unto thee meek and sitting upon an ass, a colt the foal of an ass. [233] (Isa. lxii. 11, Zech. ix. 9) For, sitting. on an ass's colt, so He entered into Jerusalem, the multitudes strewing and putting down for Him their garments. And by the daughter of Sion he means Jerusalem. …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

Caesarea. Strato's Tower.
The Arabian interpreter thinks the first name of this city was Hazor, Joshua 11:1. The Jews, Ekron, Zephaniah 2:4. "R. Abhu saith," (he was of Caesarea,) "Ekron shall be rooted out"; this is Caesarea, the daughter of Edom, which is situated among things profane. She was a goad, sticking in Israel, in the days of the Grecians. But when the kingdom of the Asmonean family prevailed, it overcame her, &c. R. Josi Bar Chaninah saith, What is that that is written, 'And Ekron shall be as a Jebusite?' (Zech …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

History of the Interpretation.
1. AMONG THE JEWS. This History, as to its essential features, might, a priori, be sketched with tolerable certainty. From the nature of the case, we could scarcely expect that the Jews should have adopted views altogether erroneous as to the subject of the prophecy in question; for the Messiah appears in it, not in His humiliation, but in His glory--rich in gifts and blessings, and Pelagian self-delusion will, a priori, return an affirmative answer to the question as to whether one is …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Hosanna!
Assuredly, this honor paid to our Lord was passing strange; a gleam of sunlight in a day of clouds, a glimpse of summer-tide in a long and dreary winter. He that was, as a rule, "despised and rejected of men", was for the moment surrounded with the acclaim of the crowd. All men saluted him that day with their Hosannas, and the whole city was moved. It was a gala day for the disciples, and a sort of coronation day for their Lord. Why was the scene permitted? What was its meaning? The marvel is, that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the thousands of Judah
"And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall come forth unto Me (one) [Pg 480] to be Ruler in Israel; and His goings forth are the times of old, the days of eternity." The close connection of this verse with what immediately precedes (Caspari is wrong in considering iv. 9-14 as an episode) is evident, not only from the [Hebrew: v] copulative, and from the analogy of the near relation of the announcement of salvation to the prophecy of disaster …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Christian State
Scripture references: Matthew 22:17-22; 17:24-27; Acts 23:5; John 6:15; Matthew 4:8-10; John 18:36-38; Mark 14; 61,62; John 18:33; 19:19; Isaiah 9:6,7; 60:3; Zechariah 9:10; Daniel 7:14; Matthew 26:64; 26:53,54; 16:16,17; 25:31,32. CHRIST AND THE STATE The Relation of Christ to the State.--He was an intense patriot. He loved His country. The names of His great countrymen, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua and David, were ever on His lips. He offered Himself as the national Messiah (Matthew 21:1-17), …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
(from Bethany to Jerusalem and Back, Sunday, April 2, a.d. 30.) ^A Matt. XXI. 1-12, 14-17; ^B Mark XI. 1-11; ^C Luke XIX. 29-44; ^D John XII. 12-19. ^c 29 And ^d 12 On the morrow [after the feast in the house of Simon the leper] ^c it came to pass, when he he drew nigh unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, ^a 1 And when they came nigh unto Jerusalem, and came unto Bethphage unto { ^b at} ^a the mount of Olives [The name, Bethphage, is said to mean house of figs, but the …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The First Day in Passion-Week - Palm-Sunday - the Royal Entry into Jerusalem
At length the time of the end had come. Jesus was about to make Entry into Jerusalem as King: King of the Jews, as Heir of David's royal line, with all of symbolic, typic, and prophetic import attaching to it. Yet not as Israel after the flesh expected its Messiah was the Son of David to make triumphal entrance, but as deeply and significantly expressive of His Mission and Work, and as of old the rapt seer had beheld afar off the outlined picture of the Messiah-King: not in the proud triumph of war-conquests, …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Formation of the Old Testament Canon
[Sidenote: Israel's literature at the beginning of the fourth century before Christ] Could we have studied the scriptures of the Israelitish race about 400 B.C., we should have classified them under four great divisions: (1) The prophetic writings, represented by the combined early Judean, Ephraimite, and late prophetic or Deuteronomic narratives, and their continuation in Samuel and Kings, together with the earlier and exilic prophecies; (2) the legal, represented by the majority of the Old Testament …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

The Blessings of Noah Upon Shem and Japheth. (Gen. Ix. 18-27. )
Ver. 20. "And Noah began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."--This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent account of Noah's drunkenness. By this remark, …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6.
Several interpreters, Paulus especially, have asserted that the interpretation of Micah which is here given, was that of the Sanhedrim only, and not of the Evangelist, who merely recorded what happened and was said. But this assertion is at once refuted when we consider the object which Matthew has in view in his entire representation of the early life of Jesus. His object in recording the early life of Jesus is not like that of Luke, viz., to communicate historical information to his readers. …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Fifthly, as this Revelation, to the Judgment of Right and Sober Reason,
appears of itself highly credible and probable, and abundantly recommends itself in its native simplicity, merely by its own intrinsic goodness and excellency, to the practice of the most rational and considering men, who are desirous in all their actions to have satisfaction and comfort and good hope within themselves, from the conscience of what they do: So it is moreover positively and directly proved to be actually and immediately sent to us from God, by the many infallible signs and miracles …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

The Gospel Feast
"When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?"--John vi. 5. After these words the Evangelist adds, "And this He said to prove him, for He Himself knew what He would do." Thus, you see, our Lord had secret meanings when He spoke, and did not bring forth openly all His divine sense at once. He knew what He was about to do from the first, but He wished to lead forward His disciples, and to arrest and …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

The Gospel of the Kingdom.
"This is He whom Seers in old time Chanted of with one accord; Whom the voices of the Prophets Promised in their faithful word." We have seen that, in the providence of God, John the Baptist was sent to proclaim to the world that "The Kingdom of Heaven" was at hand, and to point out the King. And as soon as the Herald had raised the expectation of men by the proclamation of the coming Kingdom, our Lord began His public ministry, the great object of which was the founding of His Kingdom for the salvation …
Edward Burbidge—The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it?

Zechariah
CHAPTERS I-VIII Two months after Haggai had delivered his first address to the people in 520 B.C., and a little over a month after the building of the temple had begun (Hag. i. 15), Zechariah appeared with another message of encouragement. How much it was needed we see from the popular despondency reflected in Hag. ii. 3, Jerusalem is still disconsolate (Zech. i. 17), there has been fasting and mourning, vii. 5, the city is without walls, ii. 5, the population scanty, ii. 4, and most of the people …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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