Thus saith the LORD of hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities:
It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities - (Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2).
Thus saith the Lord of hosts - a preface needed to assure the Jews, now disheartened by the perils surrounding them, and by the humble aspect of the temple, 'Unlikely as what follows may seem to you, Yahweh of hosts, boundless in resources, saith it, therefore it shall he so.' Just before Christ's coming, a feeling grew up among the pagan of the unsatisfactoriness of their systems of religion and philosophy; this disposed them favourably toward the religion of the Jew, so that proselytes embraced the worship of Yahweh from various parts of Asia; these again were predisposed to embrace Christianity when preached to them (Acts 2:9-12; Acts 2:41). But the full accomplishment of the conversion of the Gentiles foretold here is reserved until "Jerusalem" (Zechariah 8:22) becomes the center of Christianized Jewry (Romans 11:12; Romans 11:15).