Zechariah 14:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

For: this gives not the reason why, but introduceth an account how, this thing shall be done. I will gather: God will summon and bring together his army. They do it themselves by their own counsels, for their own works and ends; God also hath his work for them to do, and by his counsel and at his call they shall come. All nations; the Romans, with the power of their empire, which at that time had the rule over all the known world, or over all the Nations of that part of the world. Against Jerusalem to battle; to make war with the Jews, which lasted some years, and cost many thousand lives, and ended at last as our prophet foretold. The city shall be taken, by assault and force, whereby all lay at mercy of the soldiers, who showed little to those who first refused the mercy of their God, and, justly given up by God to their own blind, obstinate wills, refused the mercy of their enemy also. The houses rifled; all houses pillaged, and all in them Worth taking was taken away. The women ravished; wives, widows, and virgins barbarously violated. Half of the city; a certain part for uncertain, or, in common speech, many; were it one half precisely it would be but a sixth part of what were before the wars; two-thirds being cut off, as Malachi 13:8, and one-third remaining, of which one half is for captivity. The residue of the people; that small number of the Jews which fled to Pella, and who were spared by Titus. Shall not be cut off from the city; literally, were not forbidden to dwell in or about the city; mystically, were not cut off from the church, nor ceased to be a church; this the more likely, for Titus utterly ruined the city.