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Chapters 9-10

At this point still more messianic prophecies begin. 

In the introduction we gave the explanation for the countries named in
9.1-8. Alexander will subdue them.

But here, in contrast, the Messiah will use peace, not force. He will come
riding not on a horse, as for war, but on a donkey (Zechariah speaks of a
colt, the foal of a donkey. This means he will sit on the young beast, but
its mother will come along, since the colt had not been ridden before. Some commentators have accused Matthew 21.5 of misunderstanding, as if Jesus were to ride on two beasts at the same time - hardly possible! No it is merely semitic parallelism here. The readers of Matthew, knowing Hebrew culture, would understand). Talmud and Midrash see this text of verses 9-10 as messianic. 

The King Messiah will take away the war horses and the battle bows, for
He brings peace. His rule will be from the River to the ends of the earth -
an echo of Psalm 72.8 - that is, covering everything.

Final Conflicts to Bring in the Messianic Peace: 9.11 -10.7

Even though the Messiah is to bring peace, first the enemies must be
conquered. God promises this because of 'the blood of the covenant. This recalls the blood ceremony Moses carried out in the making of the Sinai
covenant in Exodus 24.1-8. Moses sprinkled the blood of the covenant
sacrifices on the people. This meant they were become kinsmen of God, who was to act as their goel, that is, the next of kin, who has both the right and the duty to rescue his kinsmen in dire straits.

The mention of the waterless pit, in 9.11, could remind us of the pit
where the brothers of Joseph threw him in Gen 37.24 or of that into which Jeremiah was put: Jer. 38.6-9.

9.13 speaks of conflict against Greece - that was still well in the
future from the time of Zechariah, but his prophetic light could and did show it to him. By Greece may well be meant the Seleucid empire, a part of what had once been Alexander's Empire. Antiochus IV of that empire persecuted the Jews horribly c. 170 B. C. Yet thanks to the army of the Maccabees, they did hold out and set up a line of kings from the tribe of Judah that lasted until Herod, in 41 B. C. whom Rome imposed on them as the first ruler who was not of the tribe of Judah -- a sign that the Messiah was due, and was really coming: cf. Genesis 49.10, which even Jacob Neusner, a great modern Jewish scholar (Messiah in Context, Fortress, 1984, p. 242), understands as messianic, even though so many Catholic scholars claim not to see what it means.

We note too that Joel 4.10, speaking of this period, tells of turning
ploughshares into swords - the opposite of Isaiah 2.4 -but the two prophets speak of two different periods. One is the war needed to bring in the era of messianic peace, the other, the actual era of messianic peace.

In v. 15 the mention of the bowl used to sprinkle the corners of the
altar, alludes to the ceremony of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement: Exodus 30.7-10.

10. 2: speaks of against the deceit of idols. Verse 3 speaks of God's
anger against the shepherds, that is, the rulers. That word shepherd
specially referred to kings at that time.

In verse 4 a cornerstone is to come from Judah. The Targum saw it as
messianic. We think of Ephesians 12.20 which speaks of Christ as the
cornerstone: cf. 1 Peter 2.6, also Romans 9.33 and Luke 2.34. 

Then, in the remainder of chapter 10, verses 8-12, the Lord promises to
bring back the Jews from Egypt and from Assyria, that is, from all places of dispersion, for the time of the Messiah. 

We may see these things as getting the first part of their fulfillment
with the coming of Jesus; but the complete fulfillment at the end, when all Israel will be converted to the Messiah, as St. Paul foretold in Romans
11.25-26. That conversion is foretold in chapter 12.1 to the end of chapter 14.