Zechariah 12:2

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah [and] against Jerusalem.

Ver. 2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling] Or, slumber, or poison. A metaphor taken from a cup of generous wine, but empoisoned; so that those that drink of it do presently tremble, grow giddy, sleepy, sick as hear can hold. Poison in wine works more furiously. Thou hast made us to drink the wine of giddiness, saith the Church, Psalms 60:3. In the hand of the Lord is a cup, and the wine is red, it is full mixed, &c. The prophet here seems to allude to Jer 25:15 Isa 29:8 Jeremiah 51:7. Ovid saith of the river Gallus, that whoso drinketh of it runneth mad immediately. Jerome telleth of a lake, near Naples, whereinto, if a dog be thrown, he presently dieth. The like is reported, by Josephus, of the Lake Asphaltites. Jerusalem shall be a murdering morsel to those that swallow it. His meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him. He hath swallowed down her spoil, and he shall vomit it up again: God shall rake it out of his belly, Job 20:14,15 : he shall have as little joy of his tid bits, of his sweet draughts, as Jonathan had of his honey; whereof he had no sooner tasted but his head was forfeited. Pliny speaketh of a kind of honey that poisoneth; because it is sucked out of poisonous flowers. Our chronicler telleth us that at Alvelana, three miles from Lisbon, many of our English soldiers, under the Earl of Essex, perished by eating of honey, purposely left in the houses, and spiced with poison. The enemies of the Church make a dangerous adventure, they are even ambitious of destruction; they run to meet their bane, as did those Philistines at Mizpeh, 1 Samuel 7:7. And had they but so much wit as Pilate's wife, in a dream, they would take heed of having anything to do with those just men, of eating up God's people as they eat bread, Psalms 14:4, of boozing in the bowls of the sanctuary with Belshazzar, who fell thereupon into a trembling, so that his loins were loosed, and his knees knocked one against another, Daniel 5:6 .

When they shall be in the siege] And so about to do their last and worst against the Church. The people of Rome was saepe praelio victus, nunquam bello, saith Florus; they lost many battles, but were never overcome in a set war; at the last, at the long run, as they say, they crushed all their enemies; so doth the Church. See Psalms 129:1,8, throughout; and the story of the Maccabees.