Zechariah 14:19

This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:16-21 As it is impossible for all nations literally to come to Jerusalem once a year, to keep a feast, it is evident that a figurative meaning must here be applied. Gospel worship is represented by the keeping of the feast of tabernacles. Every day of a Christian's life is a day of the feast of tabernacles; every Lord's day especially is the great day of the feast; therefore every day let us worship the Lord of hosts, and keep every Lord's day with peculiar solemnity. It is just for God to withhold the blessings of grace from those who do not attend the means of grace. It is a sin that is its own punishment; those who forsake the duty, forfeit the privilege of communion with God. A time of complete peace and purity of the church will arrive. Men will carry on their common affairs, and their sacred services, upon the same holy principles of faith, love and obedience. Real holiness shall be more diffused, because there shall be a more plentiful pouring forth of the Spirit of holiness than ever before. There shall be holiness even in common things. Every action and every enjoyment of the believer, should be so regulated according to the will of God, that it may be directed to his glory. Our whole lives should be as one constant sacrifice, or act of devotion; no selfish motive should prevail in any of our actions. But how far is the Christian church from this state of purity! Other times, however, are at hand, and the Lord will reform and enlarge his church, as he has promised. Yet in heaven alone will perfect holiness and happiness be found.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This shall be the sin of Egypt and the sin of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles - For before the coming of the Saviour, good perhaps had been in part the excuse of the pagan, that they had been called by none. For no one had preached unto them. Wherefore the Saviour also, pointing out this in the Gospel parables, said, 'the laborers' Matthew 20:7, called 'at the eleventh hour, said, No man hath hired us.' But when Christ cast His light upon us, 'bound the strong man' Matthew 12:29, removed from his perverseness those subject to him, justified by faith those who came to Him, laid down His life for the life of all, they will find no sufficient excuse who admit not so reverend a grace. It will be true of the pagan too, if Christ said of them, 'If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin' John 15:22."

The prophet says "sin," not punishment , for sin includes "the punishment," which is its due, and which it entails: it does not express the punishment, apart from the sin. It was "the sin" which comprised and involved all other sin, the refusal to worship God as He had revealed Himself, and to turn to Him. It was to say, "We will not have" Him "to reign over us" Luke 19:14.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. punishment—literally, "sin"; that is, "punishment for sin."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

And what he saith of Egypt, he saith of all contemners of his law and worship; their sin is the same, their punishment shall be the same, for with God is no respect of persons.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

This shall be the punishment of Egypt,.... Or "sin" (d), as in the original text: rightly is the word rendered "punishment", as it is by the Targum:

and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles; which will be one and the same; they shall have no rain, or what answers to it; they shall all have a famine; or it will be different, Egypt shall be punished with a consumption of their flesh, and the other nations with want of rain: the former sense seems best.

(d) "peccatum", V. L.

Geneva Study Bible

This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. punishment] Lit. sin, as in margin of A. V. and R. V., but sin here as manifested in its consequences. Comp. Lamentations 3:39, where it is literally, a man for his sins.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The punishment; literally, sin; ἁμαρτία: peccatum; here obviously the punishment of sin - sin with all its fatal consequences (comp. Numbers 18:22; Lamentations 3:39; Lamentations 4:6). Zechariah 14:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Conversion of the heathen. - Zechariah 14:16. "And it will come to pass, that every remnant of all the nations which came against Jerusalem will go up year by year to worship the King Jehovah of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. Zechariah 14:17. And it will come to pass, that whoever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King Jehovah of hosts, upon them there will be no rain. Zechariah 14:18. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, then also not upon them; there will be (upon them) the plague with which Jehovah will plague all nations which do not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles. Zechariah 14:19. This will be the sin of Egypt, and the sin of all the nations, which do not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles." The heathen will not be all destroyed by the judgment; but a portion of them will be converted. This portion is called "the whole remnant of those who marched against Jerusalem" (בּוא על as in Zechariah 12:9). It will turn to the worship of the Lord. The construction in Zechariah 14:16 is anacolouthic: כּל־הנּותר, with its further definition, is placed at the head absolutely, whilst the predicate is attached in the form of an apodosis with ועלוּ. The entrance of the heathen into the kingdom of God is depicted under the figure of the festal journeys to the sanctuary of Jehovah, which had to be repeated year by year. Of the feasts which they will keep there every year (on מדּי, see Delitzsch on Isaiah 66:23), the feast of tabernacles is mentioned, not because it occurred in the autumn, and the autumn was the best time for travelling (Theod. Mops., Theodoret, Grot., Ros.), or because it was the greatest feast of rejoicing kept by the Jews, or for any other outward reason, but simply on account of its internal significance, which we must not seek for, however, as Koehler does, in its agrarian importance as a feast of thanksgiving for the termination of the harvest, and of the gathering in of the fruit; but rather in its historical allusion as a feast of thanksgiving for the gracious protection of Israel in its wanderings through the desert, and its introduction into the promised land with its abundance of glorious blessings, whereby it foreshadowed the blessedness to be enjoyed in the kingdom of God (see my bibl. Archologie, i. p. 414ff.). This feast will be kept by the heathen who have come to believe in the living God, to thank the Lord for His grace, that He has brought them out of the wanderings of this life into the blessedness of His kingdom of peace. With this view of the significance of the feast of tabernacles, it is also possible to harmonize the punishment threatened in Zechariah 14:17 for neglecting to keep this feast, - namely, that the rain will not be (come) upon the families of the nations which absent themselves from this feast. For rain is an individualizing expression denoting the blessing of God generally, and is mentioned here with reference to the fact, that without rain the fruits of the land, on the enjoyment of which our happiness depends, will not flourish. The meaning of the threat is, therefore, that those families which do not come to worship the Lord, will be punished by Him with the withdrawal of the blessings of His grace. The Egyptians are mentioned again, by way of example, as those upon whom the punishment will fall. So far as the construction of this verse is concerned, ולע באה is added to strengthen תעלה and לא עליהם contains the apodosis to the conditional clause introduced with אם, to which יהיה הגּשׁם is easily supplied from Zechariah 14:17. The positive clause which follows is then appended as an asyndeton: It (the fact that the rain does not come) will be the plague, etc. The prophet mentions Egypt especially, not because of the fact in natural history, that this land owes its fertility not to the rain, but to the overflowing of the Nile, - a notion which has given rise to the most forced interpretations; but as the nation which showed the greatest hostility to Jehovah and His people in the olden time, and for the purpose of showing that this nation was also to attain to a full participation in the blessings of salvation bestowed upon Israel (cf. Isaiah 19:19.). In Zechariah 14:19 this thought is rounded off by way of conclusion. זאת, this, namely the fact that no rain falls, will be the sin of Egypt, etc. חטּאת, the sin, including its consequences, or in its effects, as in Numbers 32:23, etc. Moreover, we must not infer from the way in which this is carried out in Zechariah 14:17-19, that at the time of the completion of the kingdom of God there will still be heathen, who will abstain from the worship of the true God; but the thought is simply this: there will then be no more room for heathenism within the sphere of the kingdom of God. To this there is appended the thought, in Zechariah 14:20, Zechariah 14:21, that everything unholy will then be removed from that kingdom.