Behold, the day cometh for Jehovah, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
Zechariah's last chapter opens with a warning aimed at Jerusalem, not at her enemies. One short verse raises two questions: what is "the day of the LORD," and whose spoil is divided inside the city?
The verse says the day belongs to the LORD. Writers show that the prophets use this phrase with one settled sense.
The "day of the Lord" has a fixed meaning in the prophets, and is always tied to judgment — see, for example, Isaiah 2:12 (compare Joel 2; 2 Peter 3:10). And the context shows it has this meaning here. It is the day when Jehovah will appear for judgment upon His enemies, and for the deliverance of those who have waited for Him.
The day has an opposite. One writer sets it against the present time, when people run their own affairs.
The day of the Lord stands in contrast to "man's day" (1 Cor. 4:3 — JND). "Man's day" is the present time when God is allowing man to express his own opinions and to some extent have his own way. This day will reach its peak in man's bold challenge to God's authority. Man will place "the abomination of desolation" in the temple area of Jerusalem (Matt. 24:15)… So man's proud defiance of God will rise to its most lawless height. Then the day of the Lord will burst upon the world in all its awe-inspiring solemnity. God will openly step into the affairs of mankind, first for judgment, then for blessing.
How long is this day? One writer ties it to the Lord's whole reign, and points to the moment it begins.
Let us now turn to Zechariah 14. We shall see there that "the day of the Lord" is not a literal day of twenty-four hours. It is the same as His reign as king over all the earth… Here we have the beginning of the day: at the worst point of Jerusalem's final sorrows, the Lord goes out to fight against her enemies.
Here the writers part company. Grant reads the spoil as the enemies' loot:
In that day the spoil taken by the enemies will be divided in the middle of the city. They will not carry it out first. They will be so sure they have completely subdued the city that they will take all the time they want to divide the spoils among themselves there.
Dennett reads it the other way. He takes the verse as a headline that gives away the ending before the details come.
The "spoil" here is probably the spoil taken from the nations (see verse 14), which the prophet says will be divided in the middle of Jerusalem. So in one sentence, before he gives the details, he sets the full result before the reader — the full result of the nations gathering against Jerusalem. They will come to plunder the city, but they will be plundered. The people who were on the very edge of destruction will divide the spoil of their enemies.
The ESV reads "the spoil taken from you," which supports the first view. Dennett works from a wording that leaves the owner of the spoil open.
Two enemies press on Jerusalem in that day. One writer warns against mixing them up.
The one besieging Jerusalem is clearly not the beast. The beast supports the false prophet with all his might, and the false prophet is "the king" who reigns in Jerusalem, whom "the many" accept as the Messiah and Jehovah of Israel. The king of the north is an outside enemy. He attacks Jerusalem at the head of all the nations of the east. We must always remember that the man of sin, or the Antichrist, is inside Jerusalem. No verse says he besieges it, for the city is too submissive to him as "the king."
The verse points to a rescue for people on earth in that crisis. One writer marks how the Christian's hope is different.
If the second coming of Christ brings salvation to the godly remnant in the land of Israel, when all the nations gather around Jerusalem (Zech. 14:1-4), then the heirs of salvation will already have gone up to heaven at the rapture of the church. His appearing will indeed be salvation for us, for we shall then enter the blessing we have long hoped for.
- Man's day ends. The present time lets people have their own way; the day of the LORD is when God openly steps in.
- The day begins. It starts at Jerusalem's darkest hour, and it is a period, not twenty-four hours.
- Judgment first. The phrase is always tied to judgment on His enemies — and to deliverance for those who waited for Him.
- The spoil turns. Commentators differ. Either the enemy shares out its loot inside the city, or the plunderers lose everything and the rescued people take their enemies' wealth.
- Then blessing. God steps in first for judgment, then for blessing. Christians meet Him before this day breaks.
And I will assemble all the 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 rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Zechariah's last chapter looks ahead to the day of the Lord. Verse 2 then says what no reader expects: God Himself gathers the armies that will sack His own city. Two facts stand side by side. The defeat is real — plunder, violence, captivity. Yet a limit is fixed on it, and part of the people stay.
The armies attack Jerusalem. Yet the verse opens with God's own words: "I will gather." One writer explains why God lets the enemy win.
Chapter 12 also mentions the siege of Jerusalem, as we have seen. But there it speaks more of the effect on the peoples who besiege her. Here we learn something new. At first, before Jehovah appears, the enemy will win and capture the city. Jehovah allows this to punish those in Judah who have turned away from Him, led on by the antichrist.
The suffering in this verse is not new to Jerusalem. One writer runs through her long record of sieges, then asks the reason behind them.
No city in the world has undergone such frightful sieges. Jeremiah marked out the sorrows of its capture by Nebuchadnezzar in his Lamentations. The pages of Josephus keep a description of the horrors of the siege by the Romans. And, as we gather from this Scripture, the sorrows of this chosen city are not yet ended. Does the reader ask the reason? Our blessed Lord Himself gives it in His lament: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Matt. 23:37.)
Zechariah 12 shows Jerusalem attacked and the attackers beaten off. This verse shows Jerusalem attacked and taken. One writer reads them as two different sieges, set out in the book in reverse order.
Jerusalem still faces two sieges before millennial peace can wrap her and her people. Zechariah has foretold them both, and we believe Isaiah 29 refers to them as well. The first of these sieges will be successful. Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, teaches us this in 14:1-2… The presence of the Lord Jesus will defeat the second siege, and he mentions that one in 12:1-9.
One writer adds that "all nations will be involved in the tremendous happenings of those days" (F. B. Hole).
Half the city goes into exile. The other half stays. Those who remain are not simply lucky survivors.
Zechariah 13:9 already spoke of a third part in all the land. They are brought through the fire, refined as silver and tested as gold. They call on Jehovah, and He hears them. He will say, "You are My people"; and they shall say, "Jehovah is my God." So we find extreme trouble here. Yet the work of God in a remnant is just as clear.
God does not step in before the city falls. He steps in after it has fallen — at the point where the invaders think the work is finished.
Her deliverance and the full end of her sorrows come at the very moment when the destroying force is flushed with triumph. It has taken and sacked the city, and carried off half its people. For the Lord says, "I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle…" "Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when He fights on a day of battle. On that day His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem."
This scene belongs to Jerusalem, not to the church.
The last chapter of our prophet is full of the glorious day that is yet to dawn. The hope it sets out is not the Christian's hope. Before these events take place, we Christians will have been "caught up" to meet the Lord in the air, whether we are alive or asleep. So 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 tells us.
- Gathered. God says, "I will gather." The siege is His discipline on a city that has turned away from Him. It is not an accident of history.
- Given up. The Lord longed to gather Jerusalem's children under His wings, and she would not. Her sorrows are not yet ended.
- Halved. Half go into captivity — the first of two sieges, and the one that succeeds.
- Kept. The rest are not cut off. The third part, refined in fire, calls on Jehovah, and He answers, "You are My people."
- Delivered. Rescue comes at the enemy's proudest moment, when the Lord's own feet stand on the Mount of Olives.
And Jehovah will go forth and fight with those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
Zechariah 14 opens with Jerusalem overrun, and verse 3 turns the whole scene with one word: "Then." Everything hangs on who this fighting LORD is, when He steps in, and which battle He fought before.
The rescue comes only after the disaster of verse 2. And it is no quiet act of providence — the One who comes is the Son of Man Himself.
Suddenly the Lord will appear. As Zechariah shows (Zech. 14), Jerusalem is surrounded by her enemies and has already fallen into their hands. Then "shall Jehovah go forth, and fight with those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle." This might be, and has been, taken as a providential visit. But what follows shows conclusively, and in agreement with many other prophecies (Dan. 7:13-14), that it is — though indeed Jehovah — the Son of Man who comes: for "His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives … and Jehovah my God shall come, and all the holy ones with You."
One writer answers the question from the New Testament, and adds what this Lord's own hands will do for the captives.
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that the Jehovah who, according to Zechariah 14:3, will "go forth, and fight against those nations," is no other than our blessed Lord Jesus Christ; and by His hands, "the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered."
The Lord does not go out alone. One writer sets this rescue after the king of the north comes up with a huge army, and after the Lord has already dealt with the beast and the false prophet.
After this comes up the king of the north at the head of a vast force. Then shall the Lord go forth at the head of His people "as in the day of battle." So we find it stated in Zech. 14:3. Before that it was the Lord coming from heaven that dealt with the beast and the false prophet. Now He will have taken up His people Israel. It is the rod of His power from out of Zion, as Ps. 110 expresses it, dealing with the head of a great country.
Commentators differ over which battle this points to. Some look back to God's earlier rescues, and see the Lord here defending His own city.
In the end these nations attack Jerusalem, and this chapter describes that attack (see Joel 2). But then the Lord goes forth, and fights against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle (Exodus 14; 2 Chronicles 20:15-17). He shows His kingly power and glory in defending His city and His people.
Others read it as pointing forward, to a battle still to come.
The words "in the day of battle" refer to what will happen when the Lord with all His hosts will come from heaven to destroy the beast and the false prophet with their armies.
The nations end in defeat, and the chapter leaves a test anyone can still check today.
The nations may seem to succeed at first, but their defeat follows at once, and it is for ever. … God will not leave the mount of Olives without an everlasting token that the Maker of heaven and earth is that glorious One whose feet stand there in that day. Is Olivet split now? Clearly not. What can you make of it by the so-called spiritual interpretation? Absolutely nothing. … The undivided mountain rises up to condemn those false interpretations, and is a silent standing witness that the prophecy is not yet accomplished.
The verse does not say exactly when this happens. One writer warns us not to guess beyond what is written.
It is not clear whether the Lord appears at once, or whether this happens after the city is captured. The fact is stated, and we must take care not to go beyond it: the Lord goes forth against His enemies and the enemies of His people. … Then the nations of the world will have to learn what Pharaoh learned at the Red Sea — the irresistible might of Him against whom they have dared to set themselves in battle array.
- Then — the rescue comes after the city falls, not before. God saves His people when nothing is left to them.
- Goes out — the One who fights is Jehovah, and the New Testament names Him as the Lord Jesus Himself.
- Fights — He acts at the head of His people, wielding the rod of His power out of Zion.
- As of old — writers differ: some point back to Exodus and 2 Chronicles, others ahead to the destruction of the beast and false prophet.
- Not yet — the Mount of Olives still stands unbroken. It is a silent witness that this day has not come. Beyond that, don't press the details.
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem toward the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, -- a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
Zechariah is describing a day of terrible danger for Jerusalem. Everything in this verse turns on whose feet stand on the hill east of the city, whether that hill is a real hill, and what the splitting is for.
The prophet does not say a messenger or an army arrives. He says Jehovah's own feet touch the ground — and the New Testament tells us who that is.
Acts 1 says that Jesus "will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven," that is, on the Mount of Olives. Compare Ezekiel 11:23. "On that day His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives," says the Holy Spirit in Zechariah 14:4; "His feet," the feet of Jehovah. Though indeed He was the man of sorrows, Jesus is Jehovah, and has been so from eternity.
The place named is not chosen at random. It is the last piece of earth His feet touched before He left.
It was from the Mount of Olives that our Lord went up to heaven (Acts 1:12). A cloud took Him out of the disciples' sight. While they were still gazing after Him, two angels said to them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven." No words could be more exact. They say as plainly as possible that Jesus Himself will return to the earth, and that people will see Him come. And now Zechariah tells us that He will return to the very spot He left. The very same feet that once walked Olivet with His disciples will stand there again.
He left by the east. That same ridge has already seen Him arrive once as King.
He was entering the city from the east, from the very quarter from which some day He will return to it, to leave it no more. For His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14:4), and from the way of the east the glory of the Lord will return to the house of God (Ezek. 43:2). But these prophetic announcements await their accomplishment.
Some read the whole chapter as a picture of spiritual blessing. One writer answers that the mountain itself settles the argument. Anyone can go and look.
God will leave on the Mount of Olives an everlasting sign. It will show that the Maker of heaven and earth is that glorious One whose feet stand there in that day. Is Olivet split now? Clearly not. What can you make of it by the so-called spiritual interpretation? Absolutely nothing. No matter who or what you are, I am sure that this mystical reading fails. Here, if anywhere, it should admit its error with shame. The mountain still stands undivided. It rises up to condemn those false readings, and it is a silent, standing witness that the prophecy has not yet been fulfilled.
The tearing is not an accident of geology. It is the ground's answer to the One standing on it, and it takes a precise shape.
But when Jehovah comes in this way, in the person of the Messiah, He comes with power and great glory. The earth will acknowledge the presence of her rightful Lord, and so the mountain He stands on splits down the middle… The result is a great valley. Half of the mountain moves north and half moves south, so the valley runs east and west. Its western end lies right opposite the eastern side of Jerusalem, and its eastern end stops, it seems, at Azal.
Scripture records the ground shaking once before under the same feet. The pairing is deliberate.
When He comes, a great shock will break the surface of the earth. There was an earthquake at the moment Jesus died, as Matthew 27:51 records, and there is going to be another, as predicted here. An earthquake, when He died the death of the cross, in the most extreme humiliation! An earthquake, when He returns in splendour and majesty! How wonderfully suitable are the ways of our God!
The split does more than display power. It opens ground where there was none, for people with nowhere left to run.
In that great day God's power will open a complete passage through the Mount of Olives for the alarmed Jews, and it will open in a moment. It will stand as a witness to whether or not this prophecy is fulfilled… Their distress would be immense, and the danger would look about to strike. Then safety opens through the terrifying door of a valley, formed for them all at once through the solid mountain.
- Person — the feet on the mountain are Jehovah's. Those same feet once walked Olivet with the disciples.
- Place — He returns to the exact spot He left, entering from the east, just as the angels promised when He went up.
- Proof — Olivet stands whole today. That unbroken hill shows the prophecy is still future, and no symbolic reading can explain it away.
- Power — the earth shook when He died in humiliation and will shake again when He stands there in glory.
- Purpose — the split is not spectacle but rescue: a road opened through solid rock for people with no way out.
And ye shall flee [by] the valley of my mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal ye shall even flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. And Jehovah my God shall come, [and] all the holy ones with thee.
Zechariah has just described the Mount of Olives splitting in two as the Lord's feet touch it. Verse 5 tells us what happens next. People run for their lives through the new gap, and Someone arrives with a whole company behind Him. Two questions sit at the centre of the verse: who is doing the fleeing, and who are the "holy ones" who come with the Lord.
The valley is not scenery. It is an escape route, opened at the very last moment.
I have no doubt that real, physical changes are meant. On that great day God's power will open a complete passage through the Mount of Olives for the frightened Jews. It will stand as a witness to whether or not this prophecy is fulfilled... Their distress would be huge, and the danger would look ready to fall on them. Then safety opens through a door that looks terrible — a valley formed all at once for them through the solid mountain. No wonder it is called here the "valley of my mountains."
Commentators differ over who the "you" is. Many take them as the alarmed Jews escaping to safety. One writer reads the word another way, and draws the opposite conclusion.
The appearing of the LORD of hosts will come with a great earthquake (Isaiah 29:6). As in the days of Uzziah (Amos 1:1), the people will flee through the valley this event opens. I do not believe this refers to the remnant of Jerusalem. I see in it the flight of the rest of the people, who have turned away from God. I think the word "you" points to this... This part of the people will flee, only to rush into a greater judgment from the Lord. The poor of the flock will stay in Jerusalem, sorrowing and humbled.
The prophet dates the panic by an event his hearers remembered: the quake under King Uzziah. One writer notes where else the ground shook in Scripture.
There was one in the days of Uzziah, which our passage refers to. There was another at the moment Jesus died, as Matthew 27:51 records... At any rate, there is going to be another, as predicted here. An earthquake, when He died the death of the cross, in the most extreme humiliation! An earthquake, when He returns in splendour and majesty! How wonderfully suitable are the ways of our God!
The last line of the verse feels like a jump. Kelly says it is one. The chapter turns here, and the verse numbering hides the break.
The last clause of the verse should be the start of a new section. These divisions are not inspired. They are only an editor's attempt to give the sense, and they are sometimes wrong, as I believe they are here... It would be harsh to suppose that He comes again after He has already gone out and fought against the gathered nations, as verse 3 describes. So I think the context proves that this line begins another paragraph. It presents His coming from another point of view and for other purposes.
The last line switches from talking about the Lord to talking to Him. Some manuscripts read "with him" here, and the ESV follows that reading.
Some manuscripts and versions read "with him" instead of "with you." The difficulty clears up once we see that it is the prophet who speaks to the LORD, whose feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Zechariah suddenly turns and speaks to Him: "And the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with you."
Writers divide over the company. Some take them as angels, since the Old Testament had not yet revealed anything else:
Our common version says "saints," but we must not press that word to mean people. "The holy ones" may be angels, and that is the more natural reading. Only the New Testament reveals that "when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). But the verse plainly announces a personal coming, with angels at the least.
Others take them as God's people, and press the timing that follows from it:
Here it is His return to Israel, so it is His public appearing — when every eye will see Him. That is why, as Zechariah says, the saints will come with Him. But if the glorified saints return with Christ, they must have been caught up to be with Him before that. This is what the New Testament teaches.
- Terror — the panic is compared to the earthquake in Uzziah's day. Writers differ on who runs: the rescued remnant, or the part of the nation that has turned from God.
- Escape — God splits the mountain in a moment. The gap becomes a door of safety, and a lasting witness to this prophecy.
- Turn — the last line opens a new section. It shows His coming from a fresh angle, not a second arrival.
- Address — the prophet stops describing and speaks straight to the One who comes. That is why the line reads "with you."
- Company — He does not come alone. Some read the "holy ones" as angels. Others read them as God's own people, who must then have been caught up to Him first.