भाष्य सध्या फक्त इंग्रजीत उपलब्ध आहे. मराठी भाषांतर प्रगतीपथावर आहे.
Zechariah 12 — A Fountain of Mourning Before a Fountain of Cleansing
The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel — from the One who stretcheth forth the heavens, layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Jerusalem becomes a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. In that day the LORD defends the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the feeble shall be as David, and the house of David as God, as the angel of the LORD. And then the great turning: I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son. The mourning spreads family by family, every family apart, and their wives apart — a whole nation broken in private grief before its pierced God.
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
— Zechariah 12:10
- v.1-5 Jerusalem a cup of trembling to the nations
- v.6-9 The LORD defends; the feeble as David
- v.10-14 The spirit of grace; looking on the pierced One
Jerusalem as a cup of trembling — the nations reach for her as for wine and stagger from the draught. Verse 3 adds the second figure: a burdensome stone that lacerates all who heave at it. History's empires have verified both metaphors with their ruins.
God attaches His own purposes to that city; to besiege it is to grapple with Him. The world's strange, recurring obsession with Jerusalem is itself a sign that more than geography is at stake.
Grace's mathematics of strength: the feeble promoted to David's stature, David's house to the stature of the angel of the LORD — each rank lifted beyond itself by the Defender. God does not merely protect weakness; He transfigures it.
The ascending scale quietly identifies the angel of the LORD with God — as God, as the angel of the LORD — Zechariah's consistent witness (cf. 3:1-2) to a divine Person who appears, defends, and intercedes.
The speaker is the LORD — and He says they shall look upon ME whom they have pierced, then mourn for HIM: pierced God, mourned Son, one Person. John 19:37 cites the verse at the spear-thrust; Revelation 1:7 extends it to every eye at His coming.
The look follows the pouring: only the spirit of grace and of supplications turns sight into repentance. Many saw the crucifixion unmoved; when the Spirit is poured, the same sight breaks the heart — as at Pentecost, when they were pricked in their heart, and as in Israel's promised future.
The mourning is national yet rigorously personal: family by family, husbands apart from wives — no crowd to hide in, no shared emotion substituting for individual grief. True repentance disaggregates; each heart meets the pierced One alone.
Royal house, prophetic line (Nathan), priestly families (Levi, Shimei, v. 13) — leadership mourns first and by name. Revival that spares the prominent is not this revival.
Verse 10 maps the anatomy of every true conversion: grace poured, the look toward the pierced One, the personal mourning — apart, not absorbed in a crowd's emotion. Ask whether your repentance has ever been that particular: your sin, His wounds, your grief. And pray for what only pouring produces — in yourself, your family apart, and for Israel, whose national day before the pierced Messiah this chapter guarantees.
Here the mystery breaks open: the LORD who stretches the heavens is the me who was pierced. The verse was fulfilled in part when the soldier's spear opened His side and those who watched began to mourn; it awaits its fullness when all Israel looks on Him at His appearing (Revelation 1:7; Romans 11:26). The pierced One is God — and the mourning He evokes is the doorway to the fountain of the next chapter.
Before predicting the impossible, the credentials: heavens stretched, earth founded, and — uniquely — the spirit of man formed within him. The God who shapes the inner man can pour grace into the hardest nation; chapter 12's promised heart-change rests on verse 1's heart-Maker.
Three present participles — stretching, laying, forming — creation as ongoing upholding. The Designer of cosmos and conscience underwrites every burden He speaks.