Zechariah 12:3

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

Ver. 3. I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone] Such a stone as that wherewith the woman brake Abimelech's brain pan, at the tower of Thebez, Judges 9:53. He had slain all his brethren upon one stone, Judges 9:5, he receives, therefore, his death's wound by a stone; and that by the hand of a woman, which was his greatest grief. The like death befell Pyrrhus, King of Epirotes, slain at the siege of Argos, with a tile thrown by a woman from the wall. So was Earl Simon Mountfort, that bloody persecutor of the Albigenses in France. A woman discharged an engine at him from the walls of Toulouse, and by a stone parted his head from his shoulders. The virgin daughter of Zion shall do as much as all this comes to for her besiegers, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against her. For what reason? she hath a strong champion; that, in maintaining her quarrel, will dash them to pieces, and grind them to powder, Luke 20:18. They are no more able to stand before him than a glass bottle before a cannon shot. Hence her confidence, her laughing and shaking her head by way of derision at her stoutest enemies, Isaiah 37:22. She knows that all that burden themselves with her shall be cut in pieces. Haman's wife could tell so much. If Mordecai, said she, be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him, Esther 6:13. A Jew may fall before a Persian, and get up and prevail; but if a Persian, or whosoever of the Gentiles, begin to fall before a Jew, he can neither stay nor rise. There is an invisible hand of omnipotence that strikes in for his own, and confounds their opposites. That little stone, cut out without hands (Christ's human nature is called a tabernacle not made with hands, not of this building, Hebrews 9:11, that is, not by an ordinary course of generation), smiteth the four mighty monarchies, and crumbleth them to crattle, Daniel 2:34. Jerome upon this text (and after him other interpreters, both ancient and modern) tell us that the Holy Ghost here alludeth to a certain exercise or game used much among the Jews, namely, to take up a great round stone for the trial of a man's strength; lifting it up from the ground, sometimes to the knees, sometimes to their navels, sometimes to their breasts, and sometimes as high as their heads, or above their heads. At which sport many times they did grievously hurt themselves, or, at least, make cuts and scars in their flesh. See Leviticus 21:5, where the same word is used. The Church's enemies shall strive, and try who shall do her most harm; but the stoutest of them all shall be fooled and foiled in the end. The irreparable ruin of Rome is graphically described and even set forth to the eye Rev 18:21 by a notable gradation. An angel, a mighty angel, taketh a stone, a great stone, which he not only casteth, but thrusteth into the bottom of the sea, whence it cannot be buoyed up. This angel might well be Luther (with his book de Captivitate Babylonica; confer Jer 51:63), whom God strangely preserved from the rage of Rome and hell; like as he did from that deadly danger by the fall of a stone, whereof Mr Fox writeth thus: "Upon a time," saith he, "when Luther was sitting in a certain place upon a stool studying, a great stone there was in the vault over his head where he sat; which being staid miraculously so long as he was sitting, as soon as he was up immediately fell upon the place where he sat, able to have crushed him in pieces, if it had lit upon him." But no malice of man or devil could antedate his end a minute, while his Master had work for him to do; as the two witnesses could not be killed till their business was despatched, Revelation 11:7 .