Zechariah 14:18 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

That have no rain. — This is an impossible rendering of the original. We must read these words in connection with those which follow, and either take the clause as interrogative, and render, then will not (nonne?) the plague fall upon them wherewith, &c.,” or we must, with LXX. and six Hebrew MSS., omit the negative, and render, then shall fall on them the plague wherewith, &c. Lange (quoted by Wright) has observed rightly that if the family of Egypt were to be punished by the deficiency of water, the Abyssinians, even though they attended the feast at Jerusalem, would have to suffer at the same time, as Egypt can only suffer from scarcity of water in connection with all the lands in the south of that country. The fact, then, that the withholding of rain is described as the particular punishment of the nations that will not go up to the feast is sufficient proof that the prophecy is not to be taken in its literal sense.