Zechariah 8:6-7

Zechariah 8:6-7. If it be marvellous If these things promised appear difficult, and in a manner impossible; in the eyes of the remnant of this people In the judgment and opinion, or rather to the unbelief, of this people, who are few in number, exceedingly poor, and perpetually surrounded with dangers; in these days Which are days of small things; should it also be marvellous in mine eyes Impossible, or so much as difficult to me, who am the Almighty God. Thus saith the Lord of hosts Here God engages his almighty power to make good his promise. Behold, I will save my people Or, bring them safe; from the east country From Persia and Media, which lay east from Jerusalem, and were now masters of Babylon; and from the west country From the countries of Europe, in which many of the Jews were, or would afterward be dispersed. The original words may be literally rendered, From the rising to the going down of the sun, including all parts of the world. This implies the general restoration of the Jewish nation from all their dispersions: an event foretold by most of the prophets of the Old Testament: see note on Isaiah 11:11. The west country here mentioned, has a particular relation to their present dispersion, great numbers of them being, in these latter ages, settled in the western parts of the world. “The Jews, upon the completion of the Babylonish captivity, returned from the north, or from the east, but not from the west: nor can any other time here be pointed out, than the last return of the Jews; when they shall flow from all parts of the world to the New Jerusalem, and there constitute a new republic, the fame of whose sanctity shall allure and draw to it many nations, as is foretold at the end of this chapter. We cannot understand this either of the Jews or of the Gentiles, who embraced the faith upon the preaching of the apostles. Not of the Jews, because the Lord did not save at that time the Jewish nation, which he was about to disperse in a very short period; not of the Gentiles, because the Gentiles were not the people of God, ( my people,) before he had called them from the east and from the west.” Dodd.