Zechariah 14:2

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Gather

Luke 2:1

The city

Luke 21:20

The houses

Matthew 24:19

The residue

Luke 21:24

Shall not

Galatians 4:26

General references

Bible References

Gather

The Lord will establish you as a people holy [and set apart] to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk [that is, live your life each and every day] in His ways.

He will lift up a flag to [call] the distant nations [to bring His judgment on Judah],
And will whistle for them from the ends of the earth;
And indeed, they will come with great speed swiftly.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army, with all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his sovereignty and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and against all of its cities:

Then a fourth kingdom (Rome) will be strong as iron, for iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes things in pieces, it will break and crush all these [others].

I will gather together all the [Gentile] nations [that were hostile to My people]
And bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the Lord has judged).
And there I will deal with them and enter into judgment with them there
For [their treatment of] My people, My inheritance, Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations,
And [because] they have encroached on My land and divided it up.

The king was enraged [when he heard this], and sent his soldiers and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Now in those days a decree went out from [the emperor] Caesar Augustus, that all the inhabited world (the Roman Empire) should be registered [in a census].

The city

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who murders the prophets and stones [to death] those [messengers] who are sent to her [by God]! How often I wanted to gather your children together [around Me], as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

“So when you see the abomination of desolation [the appalling sacrilege that astonishes and makes desolate], spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (let the reader understand),

“But when you see the abomination of desolation standing [in the temple sanctuary] where it ought not to be (let the reader understand) then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

For a time [of siege] is coming when your enemies will put up a barricade [with pointed stakes] against you, and surround you [with armies] and hem you in on every side,

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by [hostile] armies, then understand [with confident assurance] that her complete destruction is near.

The houses

Their children also will be smashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be looted
And their wives ravished.

The adversary has spread out his hand
Over all her precious and desirable things;
For she has seen the [Gentile] nations enter her sanctuary (the Jerusalem temple)—

The ones whom You commanded

That they should not enter into Your congregation [not even in the outer courts].

They ravished the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city [when the Assyrians capture Samaria] and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean and defiled [pagan] land, and Israel shall certainly go from its land into exile.’”

And woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!

The residue

And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (completed).

Shall not

“It will come about in all the land,”
Declares the Lord,
“Two parts in it will be cut off and perish,
But the third will be left alive.

“Indeed, it is written before Me,
I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will even repay it [directly] into their arms,

And if those days [of tribulation] had not been cut short, no human life would be saved; but for the sake of the elect (God’s chosen ones) those days will be shortened.

And Isaiah calls out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is only the remnant [a small believing minority] that will be saved [from God’s judgment];

But the Jerusalem above [that is, the way of faith, represented by Sarah] is free; she is our mother.

General references

They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you.

‘Therefore all who devour you will be devoured;
And all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity.
And they who plunder you will become plunder,
And all who prey upon you I will give for prey.

They ravished the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.

You [Gog] be prepared; prepare yourself, you and all your hordes that are assembled around you, and be a guard and a lookout for them.

Listen carefully: your house is being left to you desolate [completely abandoned by God and destitute of His protection]!

For at that time there will be a great tribulation (pressure, distress, oppression), such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will [again].