Zechariah 9:3-5

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

Footnotes

1. Zechariah 9:4 Tyre was utterly destroyed by Alexander the Great and has never been rebuilt. History records that after he had slain everyone except those who had fled to the temples, Alexander ordered the houses to be set afire. Yet Sidon, Tyre’s sister city (Zech. 9:2), though meeting with many adversities, has survived and has kept her identity (modern Saida) for an estimated 4,000 years (Gen. 10:15, 19). How did Zechariah know that it was Tyre, not Sidon, that was to be permanently destroyed? Ezekiel wrote of Tyre, after telling the details of her destruction, “You shall never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken it, says the Lord God” (Ezek. 26:14).
2. Zechariah 9:5 Ashkelon was one of the five strong, leading Philistine cities (Josh. 13:3)—Gath and Ashdod being the ones not named here in this verse. Ashkelon was the birthplace of Herod the Great, and the residence of his sister Salome. It was not until a.d. 1270 that Zechariah’s prophecy of its total destruction was fulfilled, when the Sultan Bibars reduced it to ruins and filled the harbor with stones. Nearly 700 years later the city is still uninhabited, and the seacoast has been and continues to be the site of “dwellings and cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks” (Zeph. 2:6 kjv).