12 Yahweh will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet confirms the former doctrine, but removes offenses, which might have occurred to the Jews and prevented them from believing this prophecy: for they had been for a time rejected, so that there was no difference between them and other nations. The land of Canaan had been given them as a pledge of their heirship; but they had been thence expelled, and there had been no temple, no public worship, no kingdom. The Jews then might have concluded from all these reasons, that they were rejected by God. Hence the Prophet here promises that they were to be restored again to their former state and to their own place. Jehovah, he says, will take Judah as his hereditary portion; that is, God will really show that he has not forgotten the election by which he had separated the Jews for himself; for he intended them to be to him a peculiar people. They were now mixed with the nations; their dispersion seemed an evidence of repudiation; but it was to be at length manifest that God was mindful of that adoption, by which he once purposed to gather the Jews to himself, that their condition might be different from that of other nations. When therefore he says, that Judah would be to God for an heritage or for an hereditary portion, he brings forward nothing new, but only reminds them that the covenant by which God chose Judah as his people would not be void, for it would be made evident in its time. And the following clause is to the same purpose, And he will again choose Jerusalem; for it was not then for the first time that Jerusalem became the city of God when restoration took place, but the election, which existed before, was now in a manner renewed conspicuously in the sight of men. It is then the same as though the Prophet had said, "The course of God's favor has indeed been interrupted, yet he will again show that you have not been in vain chosen as his people, and that Jerusalem, which was his sanctuary, has not been chosen without purpose." The renovation of the Church, then, is what the Prophet means by these words. What we have said elsewhere ought at the same time to be noticed, that the word choose is not to be taken here in its strict sense; for God does not repeatedly choose those whom he regards as his Church. God's election is one single act, for it is eternal and immutable. But as Jerusalem had been apparently rejected, the word choose imports here that God would make it evident, that the first elections had ever been unchangeable, however hidden it may have been to the eyes of men. He then adds --
And the Lord shall inherit Judah His portion - The inheritance of the Lord is the title which God commonly gave to Israel (Deuteronomy 4:20; Deuteronomy 9:26, Deuteronomy 9:29; 1-Samuel 26:19; 2-Samuel 14:16; 2-Samuel 20:19; 2-Samuel 21:3; 1-Kings 8:51; Psalm 28:9; Psalm 33:12; Psalm 68:10; Psalm 78:62, Psalm 78:71; Psalm 119:1; Psalm 106:40, Joel 2:17; Joel 3:2, (Hebrew) Isaiah 19:25; Isaiah 47:6; Jeremiah 12:7-9; Jeremiah 50:11). God is said to be the portion of Israel Jeremiah 10:16; Jeremiah 51:19; of the pious Psalm 16:5; Psalm 73:26; Psalm 119:57; Psalm 142:6; Lamentations 3:24; once only beside, is Israel said to be the portion of God Deuteronomy 32:9; once only is God said to inherit Israel, "Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance" Exodus 34:9. Zechariah unites the two rare idioms.
In the holy land - The land is again made holy by God, and sanctified by His Presence. So He calls the place where He revealed Himself to Moses, "holy ground" Exodus 3:5. So it is said, "the holy place" Leviticus 10:17; Leviticus 14:13, "the holy house" 1-Chronicles 29:3, "the holy ark" 2-Chronicles 35:3, "the holy city" Nehemiah 11:1, Nehemiah 11:18; Isaiah 48:2; Isaiah 52:1, "the holy mountain" Isaiah 27:13; Jeremiah 31:23; Zac 8:3, "the holy people" Isaiah 62:12, "the holy chambers" (Ezekiel 42:13 all), or, with reference to their relation to God who consecrates them, "My holy mountain" Psalm 2:6; Isaiah 11:9; Isaiah 56:7; Isaiah 57:13; Isaiah 65:11, Isaiah 65:25; Isaiah 66:20; Ezekiel 20:40; Joel 2:1; Joel 3:17; Obadiah 1:16. Zephaniah 3:11, "Thy holy habitation" Exodus 15:13, "Thy holy dwelling-place" (Deuteronomy 26:15. "His holy hab." Psalm 68:6; Jeremiah 25:30; Zac 2:1-13 :17) "thy holy temple" (Psalm 5:8; Psalm 79:1; Psalm 138:2; Jonah 2:5, Jonah 2:8, "His holy temple," Micah 1:2; Habakkuk 2:20), "Thy holy mountain" (Psalm 15:1; Psalm 43:3; Daniel 9:16. "His holy hill," Psalm 3:5; Psalm 48:2; Psalm 99:9), "Thy holy oracle" Psalm 28:2, "Thy holy city" Daniel 9:24, "cities" Isaiah 64:9, "His holy place" Psalm 24:1-10 :, "His holy border." Psalm 78:54. It is not one technical expression, as people now by a sort of effort speak of "the holy land." Everything which has reference to God is holy. The land is holy, not for any merits of theirs, but because God was worshiped there, was specially present there. It was an anticipation and type of "Thy holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee." This land their fathers had "polluted with blood" Psalm 106:38; God says, "they defiled My land" Jeremiah 2:7; Jeremiah 3:9; Jeremiah 16:18; Ezekiel called her eminently, "the land that is not cleansed" Ezekiel 22:24. Now God said, "I will remove the iniquity of the land" Zac 3:9, and she was again a holy land, as hallowed by Him.
It is not a mere conversion of the pagan, But, as Isaiah Isaiah 2:3 and Micah Micah 4:2 foretold; a conversion, of which Jerusalem should be the center, as our Lord explained to the Apostles after His Resurrection, "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" Luke 24:47.
The Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land - This is a promise of the final restoration of the Jews, and that they should be God's portion in their own land.
And the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land,.... The Lord's people is his portion, and the lot of his inheritance; whom he has chosen, and calls as such, whether they be Jews or Gentiles; but here it seems to mean the believing Jews; who, it is very likely, upon their conversion, will be returned to their own land, here called "the holy land"; because formerly here the Lord's holy people dwelt, his holy sanctuary was, and his holy worship and ordinances were attended on; and where now he will possess and enjoy his people, and favour them with communion with himself:
and shall choose Jerusalem again; after long trodden down of the Gentiles; as it formerly was a place of divine worship, so it shall be again; and which will be performed in it in a more spiritual and evangelical manner than ever; or it may respect the people of the Jews, who, being called by grace, this will be a kind of a renovation of their election, and an evidence of it; see Romans 11:26.
Judah his portion in the holy land--Lest the joining of the Gentile "nations to Jehovah" (Zac 2:11) should lead the Jews to fear that their peculiar relation to Him (Deuteronomy 4:20; Deuteronomy 9:29; Deuteronomy 32:9) as "His inheritance" should cease, this verse is added to assure them of His making them so hereafter "again."
choose Jerusalem again--The course of God's grace was interrupted for a time, but His covenant was not set aside (Romans 11:28-29); the election was once for all, and therefore shall hold good for ever.
"And Jehovah will take possession of Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will yet choose Jerusalem. Zac 2:13. Be still, all flesh, before Jehovah; for He has risen up out of His holy habitation." The first hemistich of Zac 2:12 rests upon Deuteronomy 32:9, where Israel, as the chosen nation, is called the chēleq and nachălâh of Jehovah. This appointment of Israel to be the possession of Jehovah will become perfect truth and reality in the future, through the coming of the Lord. Yehūdâh is Judah as delivered, i.e., the remnant of the whole of the covenant nation. This remnant, after being gathered out of Babel, will dwell upon holy ground, or in a holy land, as the possession of the Lord. The holy land is the land of Jehovah (Hosea 9:3); but this is not to be set down without reserve as identical with Palestine. On the contrary, every place where Jehovah may be is holy ground (cf. Exodus 3:5); so that even Palestine is only holy when the Lord dwells there. And we must not limit the idea of the holy land in this passage to Palestine, because the idea of the people of God will be so expanded by the addition of nation nations, that it will not have room enough within the limits of Palestine; and according to Deuteronomy 32:4, even Jerusalem will no longer be a city with limited boundaries. The holy land reaches just as far as the nations, which have become the people of Jehovah by attaching themselves to Judah, spread themselves out over the surface of the earth. The words "choose Jerusalem again" round off the promise, just as in Zac 1:17; but in Zac 2:13 the admonition is added, to wait in reverential silence for the coming of the Lord to judgment, after Habakkuk 2:20; and the reason assigned is, that the judgment will soon begin. נעור, niphal of עוּר (compare Ewald, 140, a; Ges. 72, Anm. 9), to wake up, or rise up from His rest (cf. Psalm 44:24). מעון קדשׁו, the holy habitation of God, is heaven, as in Deuteronomy 26:15; Jeremiah 25:30. The judgment upon the heathen world-power began to burst in a very short time. When Babylon revolted against the king of Persia, under the reign of Darius, a great massacre took place within the city after its re-capture, and its walls were destroyed, so that the city could not rise again to its ancient grandeur and importance. Compare with this the remark made in the comm. on Haggai, concerning the overthrow of the Persian empire and those which followed it. We have already shown, what a groundless hypothesis the opinion is, that the fulfilment was interrupted in consequence of Israel's guilt; and that as the result of this, the completion of it has been deferred for centuries, or even thousands of years.
Shall inherit - Claim, recover, possess, and delight in, as a man doth in his paternal inheritance.
*More commentary available at chapter level.