Zechariah 10:6

"And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back; for I have mercy upon them; and they shall be as if I had not cast them off: for I am Jehovah their God, and I will hear them." We shall begin by noting what is not in the passage. There is no promise here of recreating any secular state, or of providing Israel with an earthly dynasty descended from David, or of giving Israel carnal victories over their political enemies. Of course, the inherent purpose of God to preserve Israel until the birth of the Messiah occurred resulted also in the necessity of God's providential protection until that was done; and all of the Maccabean victories came within the periphery of that protection.

"I will save the house of Joseph ... I will bring them back ... I will have mercy upon them ..." All of these promises speak of the salvation of souls from sin, the bringing back of the captives in sin to the fold of Jehovah, etc. And when will all of that occur? It will happen when all the tribes of Israel, including both Judah and Joseph (Ephraim, or northern Israel) accept the Son of God and become his followers. "Saving the house of Joseph" cannot mean putting them in the saddle of another godless state.

"This of course, in its entirety (Zechariah 10:6) depicts God's attitude toward his church, also the New Testament Church; but, as to form, the statement is cast in terms of conditions as Zechariah found them in the land in his day."[14]

There was nothing in the history of Israel from Zechariah to the first advent of Christ that even resembled the union of both the northern and southern Israel in receiving God's salvation; and, based upon that, the interpreters who assign this promise to fleshly Israel in Palestine, project a far future time when these things will literally take place; but we believe that the promise was gloriously fulfilled in the union of all men "in Christ Jesus." This verse reveals that no Jew will ever be excluded from Christ's kingdom because of his race, but there is no hint whatever that any Jew would ever be included in it because of his race.

Some renditions of this place include the thought that God will "place Israel," "settle them" or "cause them to dwell" in their land; but that meaning does not appear in the text.[15] The American Standard Version is correct here.