Zechariah 13:1. A fountain opened—for sin and for uncleanness— The blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin, (1 John 1:7.) is manifestly here intended, the Jews being, upon their repentance and conversion, to be admitted to all the privileges of the Christian covenant. The Hebrew words
חטאת chattath and נדה niddah, which we translate sin and uncleanness, are legal terms; the former denotes sin generally, or any transgression of the law which required atonement, and is sometimes put for the means of purification from it, Numbers 9:17.; the latter is used for that uncleanness, or legal defilement, which secluded a man from all intercourse with holy things. Now whatever efficacy the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on the unclean, had to purify from legal sin and defilement, the same is ascribed to the blood of Christ in the Christian dispensation, for purging the conscience of a sinner from the guilt of dead works, or all moral pollution. Hebrews 9:13-14.

Zechariah 13:2. Idols— It has been urged, in proof that this prophesy was uttered before the Babylonish captivity, that idolatry and groundless pretensions to prophesy were common among the Jews at that time; which has not been the case since. But this argument proves nothing; for, supposing the Jews themselves to remain untainted with those corruptions, it surely will not be denied, that they do and may still prevail among other nations, who may be included in the term הארצ haarets, taken in its most general sense, the earth; and so I conceive it should be; for we are taught to expect that the conversion of the Jews will be followed by a farther reformation of the world, Rom 11:15 and that the time will come, when "the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ;" Rev 11:15 and "the beast," the emblem of idolatry, "and with him the false prophet, shall be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone," Revelation 19:20.

Zechariah 13:3. Thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord— We may collect from these words, that those prophets only were to be exterminated who would be esteemed prophets of the true religion, as the most dangerous and abominable of any when they prophesied lies in the name of Jehovah, and under the pretext of being the servants of the true God. Zechariah here continues manifestly to refer to the times of the future restoration of the Jews.

Zechariah 13:6. These wounds— Two ancient usages are clearly alluded to here; the one, that of the idolatrous priests and prophets, who sought to engage the attention and favour of their deity by cutting and slashing themselves, as the priests of Baal did, 1 Kings 18:28.; the other, that of those who cut themselves as a token of their grief and mourning for their deceased relations and friends. It appears also from Jer 48:37 that these cuttings were performed on the hands in particular. When therefore the man, now ashamed of his pretensions to prophesy, came to be challenged for those fears which were visible on his hands, he would deny them to have proceeded from any idolatrous cause; but would have them thought to be marks left by those wounds which he gave himself in the house of his relations and friends, in the paroxysms of his grief for the loss of them.