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9. Judgment on Israel's Enemies

¹ A prophecy:

   The word of the LORD is against the land of Hadrak
   and will come to rest on Damascus—
for the eyes of all people and all the tribes of Israel
   are on the LORD— Or Damascus. / For the eye of the LORD is on all people, / as well as on the tribes of Israel,
² and on Hamath too, which borders on it,
   and on Tyre and Sidon, though they are very skillful.
³ Tyre has built herself a stronghold;
   she has heaped up silver like dust,
   and gold like the dirt of the streets.
⁴ But the Lord will take away her possessions
   and destroy her power on the sea,
   and she will be consumed by fire.
⁵ Ashkelon will see it and fear;
   Gaza will writhe in agony,
   and Ekron too, for her hope will wither.
Gaza will lose her king
   and Ashkelon will be deserted.
⁶ A mongrel people will occupy Ashdod,
   and I will put an end to the pride of the Philistines.
⁷ I will take the blood from their mouths,
   the forbidden food from between their teeth.
Those who are left will belong to our God
   and become a clan in Judah,
   and Ekron will be like the Jebusites.
⁸ But I will encamp at my temple
   to guard it against marauding forces.
Never again will an oppressor overrun my people,
   for now I am keeping watch.

The Coming of Zion’s King

    ⁹ Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
   Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
   righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
   on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
   and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
   and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
   His rule will extend from sea to sea
   and from the River That is, the Euphrates to the ends of the earth.
¹¹ As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
   I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
¹² Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
   even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
¹³ I will bend Judah as I bend my bow
   and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, Zion,
   against your sons, Greece,
   and make you like a warrior’s sword.

The LORD Will Appear

    ¹⁴ Then the LORD will appear over them;
   his arrow will flash like lightning.
The Sovereign LORD will sound the trumpet;
   he will march in the storms of the south,
    ¹⁵ and the LORD Almighty will shield them.
They will destroy
   and overcome with slingstones.
They will drink and roar as with wine;
   they will be full like a bowl
   used for sprinkling Or bowl, / like the corners of the altar.
¹⁶ The LORD their God will save his people on that day
   as a shepherd saves his flock.
They will sparkle in his land
   like jewels in a crown.
¹⁷ How attractive and beautiful they will be!
   Grain will make the young men thrive,
   and new wine the young women.

In this verse the Prophet denounces a similar ruin on Azotus, and the whole land of the Philistines, or on the whole land of Palestine. For what interpreters say, that the Jews would dwell at Azotus as strangers, that is, though they had previously been counted aliens, is to reach neither heaven nor earth. The Prophet on the contrary means, that after the destruction of these cities, if any inhabitants remained, they would be like strangers, without any certain habitation. The Prophet then mentions the effect, in order to show that the country would be waste and desolate, so as to contain no safe or fixed dwellings for its inhabitants. Some render it spurious, as it is rendered in some other places; and they understand it of the Jews, because they had been before in a mean condition, as though they were like a spurious race. But their opinion is probable, who derive ממזר, memezar, from זור, zur, which means to peregrinate; and they quote other instances, in which the double ממ, mem, is used in the formations of a noun; and it is easy to prove, from many passages of scripture, that ממזר, memezar, means a stranger. ⁹⁸⁹⁸     That this is its meaning is generally admitted, as given by the Septuagint, the Targum, and the Syriac version, and adopted by Grotius, Newcome, Blayney, and Henderson. Lee accounts for the double [מ] by deriving the word from [מן], from, [עם], people, and [זר], a foreigner, or stranger. The poetical singular is used for the plural, as is the case in the following verse. The whole passage may be thus rendered —

   6. And dwell shall a stranger in Ashdod; (For I will cut off the pride of the Philistines;)
   7. And I will remove his blood from his mouth, And his abominations from between his teeth, And left shall he be, even he, for our God; So that he shall be as a chief in Judah, And Ekron as a Jebusite.
   The “his” and “he” in this last verse is the “stranger” in verse 6; and that is used in a collective sense, properly rendered strangers, or foreigners, [ἀλλογενεις] by the Septuagint; so that the plural, in all these instances, might suitably be adopted in a translation — The “pride of the Philistines” was cut off by introducing strangers into their cities; and this line may be considered as parenthetic. — Ed. And if any one carefully considers the design of the Prophet, he will see the truth of what I have said — that is, that his object is to show, that all the inhabitants of Azotus, and of the land of the Philistine, would be like lodgers, because all places would be desolate through the slaughter and devastations of enemies. As then Ashdod and Palestine had been before noted for the number of their people, the Prophet says that all the cities of Palestine, and the city Ashdod, would be deserted, except that there would be there a few scattered and wandering inhabitants, like those who sojourn in a strange land. It follows —