Zechariah 9:13

"For I have bent Judah for me, I have filled the bow with Ephraim; and I will stir up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and will make thee as the sword of a mighty man."

"Judah ... Ephraim ..." The use of these words that stand for the pre-exilic kingdoms of northern and southern Israel should not be understood as a promise of God that the old secular states of Israel would again appear and be reunited under a Davidic ruler. Such a gross misunderstanding is refuted by everything in the Bible. What is meant is that the times of the Messiah are in view and that the prophecy continues to apply primarily to those days of Christ. The mention of Ephraim and Judah reveal that all the fleshly descendants of Abraham from both the old kingdoms, that is, all of them who were part of the "righteous remnant,",will in those days become followers of Jesus Christ.

Despite the overwhelming impact of these verses being focused on Messianic times, there would also be partial and token fulfillment in the fortunes of the secular Israel. As Higginson put it:

"The prediction was largely fulfilled during the Maccabean struggle for independence from Syrian overlords in 165 B.C .... It also prefigures the warfare between the hosts of God and his foes."[32]

We agree perfectly with this except, we see the burden of the prophecy as primarily applicable to the world-struggle of God's people throughout history as the primary focus instead of the secondary. It should be remembered that the weapons of carnal warfare have already been "cut off"; and in this verse God's people themselves become the "bow and arrow" and the mighty sword of the Lord. This forbids any complete identification of the passage with the Maccabean struggle. "The marvelous pictures that follow are too rich and glorious to be limited to the Maccabean days."[33]

The language of this prophecy is too strong to point out the only trifling advantage which the Maccabees gained over Antiochus, who was of Macedonian descent.[34]

The big thing in the passage is the identification of Greece as the fifth head of the seven headed scarlet beast of Revelation 13. In the rise of Alexander, Zechariah had already prophesied God's protection of Jerusalem, which occurred as promised, but here is the signal that the fifth head will be no different from any of the others. They will persecute and destroy (to the extent of their ability) the people of God. This of course took place under the Seleucids, the portion of "Greece" that pertained to Palestine. The Maccabean conflict is identified with that period.

The appearance of the word "Greece" in this verse, one of the clearest and most certain examples of predictive prophecy in the Bible, has sent the critical community into an uproar seeking some way to deny it. Some have screamed "interpolation," as the best defense when everything else fails; but as Dentan admitted, "The phrase has been regarded by a number of commentators as a gloss; this conclusion, however, is extremely improbable."[35] There are no textual problems with the passage; it clearly is part of the sacred text; and the only basis of getting it out is "by ruling out prediction as impossible."[36]

"We have here a definite prophecy later than Daniel, fitting in with his temporal prophecy, expanding part of it, and reaching on beyond the time of Antiochus... yet nothing in the history of the world was any more contradictory to what in human sight was possible .... There was not a little cloud, like a man's hand, when Zechariah thus absolutely foretold the conflict and its issue."[37]