The Day of the LORD, the establishment of God’s kingdom on the earth
14
📚“See, the day of the LORD 📖 is coming, and your plunder will be divided in your midst 📖. 2 📚“For I 📖 will gather 📖 all nations 📖 against Jerusalem to battle 📖, and the city will be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women ravished. And half of the city will go into captivity, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city”.
3 📚Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought on the day of battle 📖. 4 📚And on that day 📖 his feet 📖 will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east 📖, and the Mount of Olives will split in its centre from east to west, and a very great valley will form, and half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
14:4 This also did not happen when the Romans captured Jerusalem, or at any other time up to the present. The Mount of Olives is still in one piece to this day.⚜
5 📚And you will flee by the valley in my mountains, for the valley in the mountains will reach to Azal 📖. Yes, you will flee as you fled from before the earthquake 📖 in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. And the LORD my God 📖 will come, and all the holy ones 📖 with you 📖.
6 📚And it will happen on that day that no light 📖 will appear, the splendour will grow dark. 7 📚For it will be a unique day which is known to the LORD, neither day, nor night. But at evening this will take place: it will become light.
14:7 At the end of this age there will be strange things happening both on earth and in the heavens – things difficult for us to understand now (Joel 2:30-31; Rev 6:12-14; 8:12; 16:8-10).⚜
8 📚And this will happen on that day: Living waters will go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea 📖, and half of them toward the western sea 📖. This will occur in summer and in winter.
14:8 Compare Ezek 47:1-12.⚜
9 📚And the LORD will be King 📖 over all the earth. In that day there will be one LORD 📖, and his name the only one.
10 📚The whole land will be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem will be raised up 📖 and inhabited in her place, from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananeel to the king’s winepresses.
14:10 There will be great changes in the topography of the land of Israel (also v 4). Geba was a village about 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem; Rimmon was nearly 60 kms south. From Geba to Rimmon is the area containing the hills of Judea, but it will become flat country.⚜
11 📚And people will live in it, and never again will there be destruction there; but Jerusalem will be inhabited in safety 📖.
War at the end of this age
12 📚And this is the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who fought against Jerusalem 📖: Their flesh will rot away while they are standing on their feet, and their eyes will decay in their sockets, and their tongue will decay in their mouth. 13 📚And this will happen on that day: A great panic from the LORD will occur among them, and each of them will seize the hand of his neighbour, and his hand will rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
14:13 Compare Jud 7:22.⚜
14 📚And Judah 📖 also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered 📖 together, gold and silver and clothing, in great abundance. 15 📚And the plague on the horse 📖, the mule, the camel, the donkey, and on all the animals that will be in those camps, will be like that plague.
16 📚And it will come about that everyone left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship 📖 the King, the LORD of hosts 📖, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles 📖. 17 📚And there will be no rain on those, whoever they may be of all the families of the earth, who will not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts. 18 📚And if the family of Egypt does not set out and come, they will have no rain. They will have the plague with which the LORD will strike the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 📚This will be the punishment for Egypt, and the punishment for all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
14:17-19 The language seems to indicate conditions on earth which are less than perfect. See notes on Isa 65:18-25. It does not seem possible that verses like these can refer to the new heaven and earth and Christ’s eternal reign. However, they would fit into Christ’s millennial reign when He will rule the nations with “an iron sceptre” (Ps 2:9; Rev 19:15).⚜
The future glory of Jerusalem
20 📚In that day there will be engraved on the bells of the horses, HOLINESS TO THE LORD. And the pots in the LORD’s house will be like the sacred bowls before the altar. 21 📚Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts, and all those who sacrifice 📖 will come and take them and cook in them. And in that day there will no longer be the Canaanite 📖 in the house of the LORD of hosts.