10:6 – “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph.” The “house of Judah” is, of course, the southern kingdom and “the house of Joseph”, the northern kingdom. That is, the whole nation will share in the joyful victory and blessing of the coming kingdom.
Now why does God protect them during this interval which we call the intertestamental period? Well, His answer is, “For I have mercy upon them.” We can ask ourselves the same question: How did you and I get saved? It was “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy…” (Titus 3:5). God is rich in mercy. He had to have a lot of it to save me—maybe He didn’t need that much to save you. But He is rich in mercy; He has an abundance of it. And it is on the basis of His mercy that He preserved them during that period. After the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi had been written, God went off the air, and He did not broadcast for about four hundred years. During that silent interval the people of Israel probably suffered more than at any other time (except perhaps during the time of Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany). Although God was silent during that four-hundred year period between Malachi in the Old Testament and Matthew in the New Testament, we have a very good record of what transpired because of the prophecies given to Daniel and Zechariah, as we are seeing here.