Zechariah 12:2

cup of trembling Rather, bowl of reeling. The word is used of the bowl or bason in which the blood of the Paschal lamb was caught, Exodus 12:22, of the bowls used in the Temple service, 1 Kings 7:50, and more generally, 2 Samuel 17:28. Jerusalem stands forth like some vast bowl or bason, round which all nations gather, eager to swallow down its inviting contents. But the draft proves to be far other than they anticipated, and they reel and stagger back from it, confused and discomfited. A similar figure, though of a "cup" (a different Hebrew word), occurs frequently elsewhere, e.g. Psalms 75:8; Isaiah 51:17; Isaiah 51:22; Jeremiah 51:7.

people peoples, R. V., and so in Zechariah 12:3-4; Zechariah 12:6.

when they shall be in the siege, &c. This is a clause of considerable difficulty. The rendering in the text of A. V. cannot be maintained. That in the margin is, as Pusey remarks, "too elliptical." The same may, with him, be said of the rendering which has found supporters both in ancient and modern times, and also upon Judah shall it be(to be, or to fight) in the siege against Jerusalem; i.e. either "it shall happen to Judah" voluntarily, through civil war, or (since that idea is absolutely contradicted by the full alliance and agreement between Judah and Jerusalem described in Zechariah 12:5-6), "it shall be incumbent upon Judah," because he shall be compelled against his will by the invading nations to join them, to take part in the siege. Pusey's own rendering, which is that adopted in R. V., is, "And also upon Judah will it be in the siege against Jerusalem, i.e. the burden of the word of the Lord, which was upon Israel, should be upon Judah." The objection to this is that the reference to the beginning of Zechariah 12:1 for a subject to the verb "it shall be" is remote and confusing. On the whole it is perhaps best to render, "And also on (or over) Judah it (i.e. the protection and deliverance implied in the first clause of the verse) shall be, in the siege," &c. Signal as was the deliverance of Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah, it did not extend beyond the city itself (2 Kings 18:13; Isaiah 36:1). Now the country at large should share in the deliverance of the capital.