Zechariah 9:13 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

When I have bent Judah for me; in the days when Judah shall have recovered strength and courage, and be in my hand as a strong bow, ready bent. Filled the bow with Ephraim; Ephraim, the remainder of the ten tribes, (which returned with Judah,) shall be for supply of warriors; as the quiver filled is supply of arrows to the bow-man. And raised up thy sons, O Zion; explicatory to the former. Against thy sons, O Greece; against the Grecians, or Ionians, the sons of Javan, who had formerly oppressed the Jews, and bought them for slaves, and did again oppress them in the reigns of the Selucidae and the Lagidae, against whom the Jews took arms and courage under the conduct of the Maccabees, to whom Christ made good much of this promise. And made thee, O Zion, or Jerusalem, you, O Jews, as the sword of a mighty man; a sharp sword of a mighty man or giant, who cuts down all that stands in his way, as the Maccabees did.