Zechariah 10:11 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Zechariah 10:11
And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.
to cross over · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
sea
בַּיָּ֜םbai.Yam
H3220
a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of water · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
affliction
צָרָ֗הtza.Rah
H6869
tightness (i.e. figuratively · noun, common feminine singular absolute
smite
וְהִכָּ֤הve.hi.Kah
H5221
to strike (lightly or severely · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
waves
גַּלִּ֔יםga.Lim
H1530
something rolled · noun, common masculine plural absolute
sea
בַיָּם֙vai.Yam
H3220
a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of water · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
deeps
מְצוּל֣וֹתme.tzu.Lot
H4688
a deep place (of water or mud) · noun, common feminine plural construct
river
יְאֹ֑רye.'Or
H2975
a channel · proper noun, a place name
up
וְהֹבִ֕ישׁוּve.ho.Vi.shu
H3001
to be ashamed · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
pride
גְּא֣וֹןge.'on
H1347
arrogance or majesty · noun, common masculine singular construct
Assyria
אַשּׁ֔וּר'a.Shur
H804
Ashshur · proper noun, a place name
down
וְהוּרַד֙ve.hu.Rad
H3381
to descend (literally · conjunction + verb, hophal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
sceptre
וְשֵׁ֥בֶטve.She.vet
H7626
a scion · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
Egypt
מִצְרַ֖יִםmitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · proper noun, a place name
away
יָסֽוּרya.Sur
H5493
to turn off (literal or figurative) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 30:13 Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a pri…
Isaiah 43:2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through t…
Micah 5:5-6 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise aga…
Exodus 14:21-22 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea…
Psalms 66:10-12 For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
Psalms 114:3 The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back.
Isaiah 11:15-16 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shal…
Isaiah 51:10 Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Zechariah 10:5–end
Here are divers precious promises made to the people of God, which look further than to the state of the Jews in the latter days of their church, and have certain reference to the spiritual Israel of God, the gospel-church, and all true believers.
I. They shall have God's favour and presence, and shall be owned and accepted of him. This is the foundation of all the rest: The Lord is with them, Zac 10:5. He espouses their cause, takes their part, is on their side; and, if he be for them, who can be against them? Again (Zac 10:6), I have mercy upon them. All their dignity and joy are owing purely to God's mercy; and mercy, as it supposes misery, so it excludes merit. They had been cast off, th…
pass . . . sea with affliction--Personifying the "sea"; He shall afflict the sea, that is, cause it to cease to be an obstacle to Israel's return to Palestine (Isa 11:15-16). Vulgate translates, "The strait of the sea." MAURER, "He shall cleave and smite." English Version is best (Psa 114:3). As Jehovah smote the Red Sea to make a passage for His people (Exo 14:16, Exo 14:21), so hereafter shall He make a way through every obstacle which opposes Israel's restoration.
the river--the Nile (Amo 8:8; Amo 9:5), or the Euphrates. Thus the Red Sea and the Euphrates in the former part of the verse answer to "Assyria" and "Egypt" in the latter.
sceptre of Egypt . . . depart-- (Eze 30:13).
Adam Clarke on Zechariah 10:11
And he shall pass through the sea - Here is an allusion to the passage of the Red Sea, on their coming out of Egypt, and to their crossing Jordan, when they went into the promised land; the waves or waters of both were dried up, thrown from side to side, till all the people passed safely through. When they shall return from the various countries in which they now sojourn, God will work, if necessary, similar miracles to those which he formerly worked for their forefathers; and the people shall be glad to let them go, however much they may be profited by their operations in the state. Those that oppose, as Assyria and Egypt formerly did, shall be brought down, and their scepter broken.
The Church Fathers
(Verse 11, 12) And it shall pass through the sea strait, and strike the waves in the sea; and all the deep waters of the river shall be confounded, and the pride of Assyria shall be humbled, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk in His name, says the Lord. LXX: And they shall pass through the narrow sea, and strike the waves in the sea, and the deep waters of the rivers shall be dried up; and all the injury of the Assyrians shall be taken away, and the scepter of Egypt shall be lifted up. And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and they shall glory in His name, says the Lord. The Hebrews narrate that the captive people of the Jews, not only to the Medes and Persians, but also to the Bosporus and the northern region, were transported by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, and afterwards partially restored by the mercy of God, when He turned them towards Himself; and this is what is now said: They shall pass over the narrow sea. The straits of Propontis, which divide Chalcedon and once Byzantium by a narrow channel. And the Lord, going before his people, will strike the waves of the sea, and all the deeps of rivers will be confounded, as it was done in the drying up of the Jordan (Joshua 3), and the people passed over the Red Sea in the desert (Exod. 24). And when he has been freed from the depths of captivity and the bitterness of evil, Assyria will be humbled, and the empire of Egypt will withdraw from them. And they will be strengthened in the Lord, and they will walk in the land of Israel in his name, says the Lord. These things, as they were handed down to us by the Hebrews, we have expressed to the people of our language, faithfully representing the words spoken to them by those from whom they were spoken. However, we who are called by the name of Christ, leave behind the letter that kills, and follow the life-giving spirit, rather comparing spiritual things with spiritual things, not the Bosporus and the dryness of the sea and the dry flow of the Jordan, which are like fables, but we seek the worthy mercy of God towards His servants, with Him leading the way and opening the path for us, we cross the sea channel, or rather the narrow sea, which is widest for sinners: For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction: and narrow is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Assyria · Predictions respecting: Destruction of — Predictions respecting: Destruction of
Rivers · Some of: Deep — Some of: Deep
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Zechariah 10:11
And he shall pass through the sea with affliction,.... Either the people of the Jews, as Israel of old did, when they came out of Egypt, to which the allusion is; or the wind shall pass through the sea, as Aben Ezra supplies it, and it shall become dry; that is, the river of Egypt: or "affliction" (r), as many supply it, shall pass through the sea; the nations, which are many as the sea, as Kimchi interprets it; and so may design that hour of temptation that shall come upon all the earth, Revelation 3:10 or with which the kingdom of the beast, who rose up out of the sea, and consists of many waters, people, tongues, and nations, will be afflicted, Revelation 13:1 which the Lord shall pass th…
Zechariah 10:11
11. And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.
11. Et transibit in mari afflictio, et percutiet in mari fluctus; et arescent omnes profunditates fluminis: et dejicietur superbia Assur, et sceptrum Egypti recedet.
The Prophet confirms what he had said respecting the power of God, which is so great that it can easily and without any effort lay prostrate all the mighty forces of the world. As then the impediments which the Jews observed might have subverted their hope, the Prophet here removes th…
Zac 10:11. "And he goes through the sea of affliction, and smites the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the river dry up; and the pride of Asshur will be cast down, and the staff of Egypt will depart. Zac 10:12. And I make them strong in Jehovah; and they will walk in His name, is the saying of Jehovah." The subject in Zac 10:11 is Jehovah. He goes, as once He went in the pillar of cloud as the angel of the Lord in the time of Moses, through the sea of affliction. צרה, which has been interpreted in very different ways, we take as in apposition to ים, though not as a permutative, "through the sea, viz., the affliction" (C. B. Mich., Hengst.); but in this sense, "the sea, which caused di…
When the Hebrews returned to the land of Israel from exile in Babylon, they had to ford the Euphrates River; this is likened to a second exodus from Egypt (see Isa 43:2-6, 16-17).
Rashi on Zechariah 10:11
And trouble shall pass through the sea And the trouble shall pass through Tyre, which is situated in the midst of the sea, it is the head of Edom.
and He shall strike The Holy One, blessed be He, Who is the One Who strikes the waves of the sea to sink Tyre.
all the depths of the river That is, Egypt.
