Zechariah 9:9-13--The Coming King of Zion

Zechariah 9:9-13
English Standard Version

The Coming King of Zion
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
    righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
    and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
    and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
    today I declare that I will restore to you double.
13 For I have bent Judah as my bow;
    I have made Ephraim its arrow.
I will stir up your sons, O Zion,
    against your sons, O Greece,
    and wield you like a warrior's sword.

---

You may recognize this prophecy as being fulfilled on Palm Sunday.  The king (The Messiah) is coming.  The king riding in on a donkey is a symbol of peace, not war.  So, when Jesus comes the first time He came for peace--to make peace between God and men, but when He comes the second time, He will come riding on a white horse to make war with all of His enemies.

The next part talks about the perfect peace that He will establish during His Millennial Kingdom (so we have one prophecy that is discussing aspects of both the First and Second Comings).  He will destroy all of His enemies and the enemies of His people so that they will be in perfect peace and no longer need instruments of war.  All the remaining people of all the remaining nations will be at peace with Israel and His Kingdom here on Earth.

He will set the captives/prisoners free (we know He already did this spiritually by setting us free from our bondage to sin, but is there a physical fulfillment to come of this?  We will see.).  This is a great word to the people who have returned from Exile that the LORD will serve them a double-portion of grace so that the blessings will overflow on them after they have been far away and cut off for such a long time.  Yet, we end with the idea that today is not the day when there will be peace because Greece is raising its head as the next world superpower and they too will mistreat the people of God and God will judge them.  So, these promises are ultimately for another generation, but they give this generation the hope that they need that in the end God and His people win and everything God promised to them will happen--they may just have to wait for it in the coming Kingdom.