As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
As for thee also - i:e., "the daughter of Zion," or "Jerusalem" (Zechariah 9:9), the theocracy. The "thee also," in contradistinction to Messiah, spoken of in Zechariah 9:10, implies that besides cutting off the battle-bow, and extending MESSIAH'S "dominion to the ends of the earth," God would also deliver for her her exiled people from their foreign captivity.
By the blood of thy covenant - i:e., according to the covenant vouchsafed to thee on Sinai, and ratified by the blood of sacrifices (Exodus 24:8; Hebrews 9:18-20).
I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Dungeons were often pits without water, miry at the bottom, such as Jeremiah sunk in when confined (Genesis 27:24; Jeremiah 38:6). This image is employed of the misery of the Jewish exiles in Egypt, Greece, etc., under the successors of Alexander, especially under Antiochus Epiphanes, who robbed and profaned the temple, slew thousands, and enslaved more. In Zechariah's times, the time of the Persian rule, the practice was common to remove conquered peoples to distant lands, in order to prevent the liability to revolt in their own lands. Josephus ('Antiquities,' 12: 2, sec. 5) states that the Persians carried away Jews into Egypt; and Ochus (according to Syncellus) transplanted large numbers from Palestine to the East and North. God delivered them from Antiochus by the Maccabees. A type of the future deliverance from their last great persecutor (Isaiah 51:14; Isaiah 61:1).