Zechariah 12:6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire, &c. The word may be rendered, a pot. The Arabs, according to Harmer, (vol. 1. p. 233,) make a fire in a great stone pitcher, and when it is heated, spread paste upon it, which is baked almost in an instant. By a hearth of fire, however, here may be meant, a firebrand taken from the hearth, which, though small, will set other things on fire, and even whole cities. This is thought by some to be a very apt resemblance of the mischief done by the small forces of the Jews, under Judas Maccabæus, to the armies of Antiochus. It may, however, be a resemblance equally, and even more apt, of the destruction made of Gog and Magog, in the latter days, by the Jews restored to their own land. And they shall devour all the people round about They shall destroy all the enemies that annoy them; on the right hand and on the left That is, on the south and on the north: see note on Ezekiel 16:46. The Targum explains the right hand, and the left, of the south and the north. And Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place Shall be situated and inhabited on the very spot where she formerly stood: see note on Zechariah 14:10.