Jerome
Patristic
c. A.D. 347–420
“(Verse 7) Alas, for that great day, there is no other like it, and it is a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved from it. It predicts a time of misery, so that it may bring a time of joy. When, it says, such great evils have gone before, that the pain of all men may be compared to the pain of a woman in labor: yet the time of trouble for Jacob, that is, the people of God, will be changed into prosperity; and he too will be saved, with the understanding that it will happen in the time about which the prophecy was made. But understand Jacob as the twelve tribes, which by no means were under Zerubbabel, as some falsely think; but they were saved by the Gospel calling.”