And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
Ver. 12. And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite, &c.] The precedent promises that were so great and glorious, the prophet doth now further enlarge and illustrate in the following verses; and, first, the conquest of the enemies, Zechariah 14:12,15; next, the profession of Christ among all nations of the world, Zechariah 14:16,19; and lastly, the sanctity of the Church, Zechariah 14:20,21. The conquest of the enemies is set forth, first, by God's strange judgments upon them, Zechariah 14:12; secondly, by the means, both they shall despatch one another; and Judah shall fight bravely against them, Zechariah 14:13,14; thirdly, their wealth and substance shall become a prey, Zechariah 14:14; fourthly, their horses of service, and all the beasts they bring with them, shall be as strangely plagued as the men themselves, Zechariah 14:15 .
That have fought against Jerusalem] God will go forth and fight against them, Zechariah 14:3, so that they shall wish they had never meddled. Haec erit plaga qua plagabit. God hath a mighty hand, James 4:9, and it is a fearful thing to fall into it, Hebrews 10:31, for who knoweth the power of his wrath? Psalms 90:11. One stroke of this hard and heavy hand broke the angels' backs, and cast them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment, 2 Peter 2:4. Job felt but his little finger, as it were, and yet cries out for help. "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me," Job 19:21. It had but lightly touched him, and yet he was hardly able to endure it. Oh the bloody welts that God's hand hath left upon the backs of his best children! Woe, then, to his enemies when he comes forth to fight against them.
Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet] They shall pine away in their iniquities, Leviticus 26:30; their beauty shall consume away like a moth, Psalms 39:11; they shall melt as wax before the sun, or as the fat of lambs before the fire. God, if he be not unto them as a lion to tear the caul of their hearts in sunder, yet he will be as a moth, and as a worm, insensibly to consume them, Hosea 5:12; Hosea 5:14. If he break not their teeth in their mouths, by smiting them upon the cheekbone, yet he will make them to melt away as waters which run continually; as a snail which melteth, and as the untimely birth of a woman that never seeth the sun, Psalms 58:6,8. God hath secret ways to waste his enemies, and to bring them on their knees when they are best underset. He can trip up their heels when they are standing upon their feet, and lay them low enough in the slimy valley where are many already like them, and more shall come after them, Job 21:31,32. God hath a Marasmus, an evil messenger for a malicious persecutor; as he had for Antiochus Epiphanes, 1Ma 6:8-13; for both the Herods; for Maximiuus, the tyrant; for Philip II of Spain, Charles IX of France, Queen Mary of England, Stephen Gardiner, Archbishop Arundel, Nestorius, Arius, and other odious heretics and enemies of the Church; among whom a Lapide, the Jesuit, reckons here Calvin, and saith, That like another Herod, he died a lousy loathsome death; and for his authority thinks it enough to say, uti refert Bolsecus in eius Vita. as Bolsecus reports in his history. But it must be understood that the lives of Calvin and Beza were spitefully written by this Bolsecus, their sworn enemy, that twice banished and thrice renegade friar (liar I might have said) and physician; for those names his often changes and hard chances have given him. This man, being requested by the Popish side, and it is likely hired by them, to write thus, is in all their writings alleged as canonical.
And their eyes shall consume away in their holes] Physicians tell us of 2000 diseases that annoy man's body, 200 whereof affect the eyes. All these are part of God's hosts, which are as much at God's command as the centurion's servants and soldiers were at his, when he said but Go, or Come, and they did accordingly, Matthew 8:9. He can make men's eyes drop and cease not, without any intermission, as Lamentations 3:49, till they melt out, as the Hebrew here hath it; even the very same word as before. He can smite men with sudden blindness (as he did the sinful Sodomites, that had eyes full of adultery), such as tormented their eyes, as if they had been pricked with thorns, as the Hebrew word signifieth, Genesis 19:11. Failing of eyes and sorrow of mind is threatened as a judgment, Deuteronomy 28:65; yea, thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes, which thou shalt see in another piece of the curse, Deuteronomy 28:34. See 1 Samuel 2:33 .
And their tongue shall consume away in their mouth] As did the tongue of Nestorius, the heresiarch, eaten out of his mouth with worms. Tho. Arundel and Stephen Gardiner, two bloody persecutors, died of a like disease. Diodati understands all this to be a description of hell torments. Their flesh shall consume, yet never be consumed; for they still stand upon their feet, or subsist, that they may still suffer; having no end, that their pain may be endless. "Their eyes shall consume," that is, saith he, though they be alive and can see, yet shall they be deprived of light in infernal darkness; having neither eyes nor understanding, but only to see and judge of their extreme misery. "Their tongue shall consume away," &c., as did the rich glutton's, Luke 16:24. Mr Calvin observeth here, that all is delivered in the singular number: his flesh shall consume; his eyes shall melt; his tongue, &c. (for so runs the original); to note that every one of Jerusalem's enemies shall taste of God's wrath, though some of them may haply hold themselves out of the reach of his rod. And, secondly, that God can as easily destroy them all as if he had to do but with one single man.