Bible Strands
Zechariah 9:4
Behold, the Lord will impoverish her and cast her wealth into the sea, and she will be consumed by fire.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Zechariah pronounces this oracle against Tyre immediately after describing the city's fortified silver and gold in verse 3. The message addresses the coastal nation's impending judgment as part of a broader sequence of doom against Philistine and Phoenician port cities.
The words — The Hebrew verb יֽוֹרִשֶׁנָּה (yo.ri.She./nah) literally means "he will dispossess" or "impoverish," paired with the verb הִכָּה (hi.Kah) meaning "he will strike" or "cast." These terms describe the specific mechanical actions of divine judgment rather than abstract punishment.
The thread — The text states that the Lord will cast the city's wealth into the sea and consume it with fire, a pattern repeated in Amos 1:10, Ezekiel 26:17, and Ezekiel 28:18. These passages collectively establish a covenantal pattern where maritime prosperity and fortified citadels are systematically dismantled by divine intervention.
Why it lands — The passage declares that human economic accumulation and military fortification will be violently stripped and burned, leaving the location permanently depopulated. It requires the reader to acknowledge that material security and political autonomy are subordinate to sovereign judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 28:18 By the multitude of your iniquities and the dishonesty of your trading you have profaned your sanctuaries. So I made fire come from within you, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the eyes of all who saw you.
- Ezekiel 26:17 Then they will lament for you, saying, “How you have perished, O city of renown inhabited by seafaring men—she who was powerful on the sea, along with her people, who imposed terror on all peoples!
- Amos 1:10 So I will send fire upon the walls of Tyre to consume its citadels.”
- Proverbs 10:2 Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing, but righteousness brings deliverance from death.
- Proverbs 11:4 Riches are worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness brings deliverance from death.
- Isaiah 23:1 This is the burden against Tyre: Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor. Word has reached them from the land of Cyprus.
- Ezekiel 26:3 therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, O Tyre, I am against you, and I will raise up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves.
- Ezekiel 27:26 Your oarsmen have brought you onto the high seas, but the east wind will shatter you in the heart of the sea.
- Ezekiel 28:2 “Son of man, tell the ruler of Tyre that this is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea.’ Yet you are a man and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god.
- Ezekiel 28:8 They will bring you down to the Pit, and you will die a violent death in the heart of the seas.