Zechariah 9:13

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON Zechariah 9:13 The oppressors of the sons of Zion (Israel) are identified as the sons of Greece. God promises to make Zion like a warrior’s sword, defeating the Greeks. This is a predictive prophecy of future events (compare Daniel 8:21). Zechariah was writing between 520 and perhaps 480 B.C., but the Greek ruler Alexander the Great did not conquer Palestine until 333. Then the Jewish people did not successfully rebel against Alexander’s successors until the Maccabean period (roughly 166–142 B.C.). However, the name “Greece” was known at the time of Zechariah, for the Greeks had defeated Persia at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Greece was never an enemy of Israel or a conquering world power, however, until the time of Alexander the Great.