As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein [is] no water.
Ver. 11. As for thee also] O daughter of Sion, O my Church; not, O Christ, the King of the Church, as the Greek and Latin Fathers, and after them the Popish commentators, will needs have it, the better to establish their chimera a of Limbus Patrum, Christ here, by an aposiopesis (an ordinary figure), or keeping back something unspoken through earnestness of affection, bespeaks his people in this sort; Etiam tu, As for thee also, I will surely impart unto thee the benefits of that of my kingdom, as I have already begun to do in delivering you out of that waterless pit, that dirty dungeon of the Babylonish thraldom.
By the blood of thy covenant] By the blood of Christ figured, by the blood that was sprinkled upon the people, Exo 24:8 Psa 74:20 Hebrews 13:20; and by virtue of the government confirmed thereby.
I have sent forth thy prisoners] I have enlarged thy captives.
Out of the pit wherein is no water] But mud only, as in Joseph's pit and Jeremiah's dungeon, Gen 37:24 Jeremiah 38:6. The saints have temporal deliverances also by virtue of the covenant; and if any of Christ's subjects fall into desperate distresses and deadly danger, yet they are prisoners of hope, and may look for deliverance by the blood of the covenant.
a A fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail (or according to others with the heads of a lion, a goat, and a serpent), killed by Bellerophon. ŒD