I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria: These two clauses are clearly parallel and in some languages it may be easier to run them together and say, “I will gather them and bring them home from Egypt and Assyria.” Compare Good News Translation, though there is no justification for putting “From Egypt and Assyria” in focus at the beginning of the clause, as Good News Translation does.

These two place names, Egypt and Assyria, have given rise to considerable discussion. In point of historical fact, there were large Jewish communities in both countries. But there is widespread agreement that the names also have a symbolic meaning. Egypt and Assyria stand for nations that are the oppressors of the people of God—both ancient (Egypt) and more recent (Assyria), both in the south (Egypt) and in the north (Assyria). Although Assyria as such ceased to be a world power after the fall of its capital Nineveh to the Babylonians and Medes in 612 B.C., the name continued to be used, both in the Old Testament and in secular writers, to denote the power that controlled Mesopotamia, whether it was the Babylonians, the Persians, or the Greeks. The point being made here is that the LORD is well able to rescue his people from any country of exile and from any oppressing nation. We may note that Assyria and Egypt are mentioned in the opposite order at the end of verse 11, forming a neat literary pattern. The two countries are also mentioned together in Isa 11.11, 16; Isa 27.13; Hos 11.11.

I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon: Gilead and Lebanon are of course real places, but they too carry a symbolic meaning. Gilead is on the east bank of the Jordan River and was one of the first areas occupied by Israel (Num 21.21-35; Num 32.1-42). Lebanon to the north of the Promised Land never belonged to the Israelites. The mention of these two places promises that when the people return from exile, they will possess not just the areas they occupied before, but also other areas, even some which they had never held before. Both Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version make it clear that God “will settle” his people in these two regions. Good News Translation has “I will settle them in Gilead and Lebanon also,” and Contemporary English Version has “I will … then let them settle as far as Gilead and Lebanon.”

Till there is no room for them: The people will have become so numerous that there will be too many of them for the land. This is why they will need extra territory in Gilead and Lebanon. Good News Translation expresses this from a positive rather than a negative point of view, saying, “the whole land will be filled with people.” Some versions take this last clause to refer to Gilead and Lebanon in particular, and say “even that will not be large enough for them” (Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible), “even there they will run out of space” (Bible en français courant), or “even there they will not have enough room” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente).

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Zechariah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .