Matthew Poole and continuators on Zechariah 14:2

2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battel , and the city shall be taken , and the houses ri[illegible: 1 letter]led , and the women ravished , and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not [illegible: 1 letter]e cut off from the city .

This gives not the Reason why, but introduceth an[illegible: 1 letter] account how, this thing shall be done.

God will summon, and bring together his Army, they do it themselves by their own counsels, for their own works and ends: God also hath his work for them to do, and by his counsel, and at his call they shall come.

The Romans with the Power of their Empire which at that time had the Rule over all the known world, or over all the Nations of that part of the World.

To make War with the Iewes which lasted some years and cost many thousand lives and ended at last as our prophet foretold.

By assault and force whereby all lay at mercy of the Souldiers who shew'd little to those who first refused the mercy of their God, and justly given up by God to their own blind obstinate wills, refused the mercy of their Enemy also.

All houses pillaged, and all in them worth taking was taken away.

Wives, Widows, and Virgins barbarously violated.

That small number of the Iewes, which fled to Pella, and who were spared by Titus.

Literally were not forbidden to dwell in, or about the City, mystically were not cut off from the Church, not ceased to be a Church, this the more likely, for Titus utterly ruin'd the City.

A certain part for uncertain, or in common speech, many, were it one half precisely it would be but a sixth part of what were before the Wars. Two thirds being cut off, as chap. 13.8. and one third remaining, of which one half is for Captivity.

Marginal references: Isa. 13.16.