Misinterpretations often treat this as a blueprint for enforcing religious observance through violence or exclusion in the present church age, overlooking its eschatological context of Christ's future reign; others spiritualize it solely as a metaphor for personal salvation, negating the literal national judgments on defiant heathen; or restrict it to Israel's enemies alone, ignoring the global scope for all families of the earth that reject pilgrimage to Zion.
Zechariah 14:18
King James Version (1769)
18 And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
Zechariah 14:18 reveals God's sovereign judgment on nations that refuse to honor Him by attending the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem during the prophesied messianic era, with Egypt facing drought despite its reliance on the Nile and others struck by plague, emphasizing the universal mandate for all peoples to worship the King and the consequences of rebellion against His rule.