9:5,6
Places like Gaza were under Persian rule. They had a governor who was acting on Persia’s behalf, and a native king. So there was a kind of devolution. This prophecy is saying they would lose all autonomy. Places like Ashdod and Gaza mean little to us today (though, of course, we are familiar with Gaza in a different context). But the naming of these places here and elsewhere in the prophecies we find in the Bible adds a concreteness to them.These were not just empty words of some mystic, but declarations from God with real consequences.
9:7,8
The blood and abominations mentioned here refer to the idolatrous practices of the people living in these places. God is saying that He will take these things away. A remnant will be left who will become part of God’s people. Then God promises to protect His house. Now there was a partial fulfilment of this in that later on the Macedonian army on several occasions passed by Jerusalem, Jerusalem was divinely protected. However, we also know that in AD 70 Jerusalem was destroyed, so this was not the eternal fulfilment. So, as with most prophecies in the Old Testament, there is a partial fulfilment in (fairly) immediate historical events, but it is only partial. The complete fulfilment comes only in Christ. This, in my opinion, is where preterists are up a gum tree. They are absolutely right to see some fulfilment of apocalyptic prophecies in terms of immediate historical events, and we can never understand Revelation etc properly without doing this, but if we say that is full and complete fulfilment then we are missing half the message.
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