Zechariah 14:12 - Exposition

This shall be the plague. These are the instruments which the Lord uses when he fights against the nations (not the people , as in the Authorized Version), Zechariah 14:3 . The plague, or smiting ( maggephah ), is some contagions affliction sent by God, as in Exodus 9:14 ; Numbers 14:37 ; 1 Samuel 6:4 . Their . It is, in the Hebrew, "his flesh, his feet," etc; to show that the general plague extends to every individual. In the last clause the plural is used, "their mouth." With body, eye, and tongue they opposed the holy city, and took pleasure in its discomfiture: in all their members they shall suffer retributive punishment. While they stand upon their feet. The flesh of each shall putrefy and moulder away, while he is still alive and arrayed against the city of God. Holes ; soakers. The eyes had spied out the weak places in the defence, and looked with malicious pleasure on the defeat and fall. Tongue . They had blasphemed God, and cried against his holy place, "Down with it, even to the ground!"