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 on me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only [son], and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for [his] firstborn.
Zechariah describes a day when God pours out grace on Jerusalem, the people look — and what they see breaks them. The verse raises three questions: who is the "me" they pierced, when does this looking happen, and why does it end in mourning instead of joy?
The repentance in this verse does not start with the people. It starts with God — and He begins it in the very city that rejected Him.
It was in Jerusalem that our Lord was rejected and condemned to be crucified. It was in Jerusalem that the gospel was first preached. And it is in Jerusalem that Jehovah will first begin the work of grace when He returns to Zion. Nothing could more magnify His grace and unchanging love. And nothing could more fully reveal the helpless condition of man than the fact recorded here: it is Jehovah who will pour out on His people the spirit of grace and pleas for mercy — the same Jehovah they had rejected in the person of Jesus. All things truly are of God; and so, as the apostle writes, "by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."
The speaker in this verse is God. Yet He says they pierced Him.
Zechariah wrote this 500 years before the crucifixion. He speaks of a future time of trouble. The Gentiles will gather around Jerusalem, and God will appear on their behalf when all seems lost. They will then recognise in their deliverer God the One whom they pierced. The "I" of the passage is certainly God, Jehovah of Israel. Yet if they had once "pierced" Him, He must have taken a body and come in humiliation. In whom can all this meet but in Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord God of Israel?
John's Gospel records the piercing itself — and one man who later saw the wounds.
Through John, the Spirit records in chapter 19 about Jesus, "one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear... These things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled... They will look on him whom they have pierced." Here we have God's own divinely given answer to our earlier question! And when Thomas (a picture of the favoured remnant of Israel in a future day) saw the wounds — looking on the Pierced One, risen from among the dead — he exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!"
This looking has a setting. God destroys the nations gathered against Jerusalem, and that rescue opens their eyes.
God seeks to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. That destruction is given here as the occasion of the conversion of the Jews — when they come to recognise Him whom they had pierced.
The verse measures this sorrow by the sharpest grief a family knows — and then calls it blessed.
This grief has no equal. To deepen the sense of the sorrow, it is called bitterness for Him, like the bitterness of one grieving for a firstborn. Blessed grief, we may add. It shares in that sorrow according to God, which produces a repentance no one regrets, and its end will prove to be light, blessing, and joy. Such weeping may last for the night, but joy will come in the morning.
What they mourn over is not only their guilt but the love they had refused.
Their fathers' guilt and the nation's sin, which they are tied to, will become plain to them. Looking on Him whom they as part of Israel pierced, they will mourn. What an awakening there will be! Centuries of national unbelief judged in a moment... Their mourning is not the bitterness of despair, as if they had learned there is no hope. It is the sorrow of broken hearts at discovering the love He had shown them, and their rejection of it.
The verse describes a nation. One man has already been through it.
What a day it will be when the Spirit of grace and supplication comes on the remnant of His people, and they see Him appear in the clouds of heaven and know Him by the pierced side! The great vision Saul had on the road to Damascus will then be repeated. The young Pharisee saw Him as one "untimely born." In his own experience he was the pledge that the remnant of the nation Paul belonged to would one day pass through the same experience.
Not everyone who sees Him will mourn like this.
Revelation announces that all the tribes of the earth will wail because of Him — not in repentance, but because it seals their doom, and they realise it.
- Poured — the change begins with God, not with them. He gives the spirit of grace and pleading before they shed a tear.
- Pierced — the "me" who speaks is Jehovah. The wound proves He came in a body: the crucified Jesus and Israel's God are one Person.
- Rescued — their eyes open at the rescue itself, when God destroys the nations besieging Jerusalem and they recognise their Deliverer.
- Mourning — grief as deep as losing an only son. It is born of discovering love, not despair, and it ends in joy.
- Now — Paul on the Damascus road and Thomas at the wounds have already lived it; when the nation looks at last, the world will only wail.
In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
Zechariah 12 has just described Israel looking on the One they pierced and mourning for Him as for an only son. Verse 11 measures that grief against a real disaster from the nation's past: the mourning at Hadad-rimmon, in the plain of Megiddo.
The verse names a place. What happened there?
A place in the valley of Megiddo where there had been great mourning. The prophet quotes it as a picture of the great mourning there will be at Jerusalem. That mourning will come when Judah's sin comes home to their conscience — the sin of demanding the death of their Messiah. Most take the reference to be the time when Josiah was struck down in that same valley, though the histories do not speak of any mourning there.
Commentators point back to the death of King Josiah.
This is the same mourning as the previous verse describes. It is the mourning that follows their discovery that the One they had pierced was none other than Jehovah. Now, to show how deep and strong it is, the prophet points to one of the most disastrous events that had ever happened to the nation: the death of Josiah, who was fatally wounded in battle with Necho, king of Egypt, in the valley of Megiddo. For in truth the death of this king was the sunset of the kingdom of Judah. A few gleams of light may have lingered afterwards in Jehovah's mercy. But they soon faded into utter night, for both kings and people were deaf to the pleading of the prophets.
Why did that one death cut so deep?
King Josiah had been the instrument in God's hand to bring about the most exceptional revival in the last days of Judah's kingdom. In a war with Egypt, that same Josiah had been cut off in the prime of his life. In a lamentation, Jeremiah and many others with him expressed the mourning that this event had brought into the hearts of people and prophet.
Megiddo comes up twice in prophecy, and not in the same way both times.
Note the last proud assault of vast opposing armies before the Millennium is set up. Jerusalem is the prize in view. It is called the battle of Armageddon (the hill Megiddo). The place of repentance and restoration for Israel, by contrast, is likened to mourning in the valley of Megiddo.
One writer finds the promise already hidden in the name of the place.
Hadadrimmon means "sound of the pomegranate." The pomegranate is full of seeds, and it is often connected with the fruitful blessing of the Millennium. So the mourning of the Jews will be like the sound of promised blessing in store for them. True repentance is the sure sign of blessing to come.
This weeping is bitter, but it is not hopeless. And it is not only Israel's story.
We find here not only a sketch of what will take place in Jerusalem, but also the spiritual history of us all. We have completely separated ourselves from God. We cannot return to Him except by showing repentance. This repentance will not leave the people of Jerusalem in despair. Nor can it do so for the Christian. The sorrow of those who will find a Saviour in "Him whom they have pierced" will not be despair. It is like what Joseph's brothers felt when they recognised that their deliverer was the brother they had sold to the Gentiles.
One writer ties this mourning to the great day of atonement.
In a time yet to come for the Jewish people, in Zechariah 12:10-14, this day will not be left out. Then there will be a great mourning at Jerusalem, "as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon, in the valley of Megiddon". It will then be time for this same people... to receive again, as the king of glory, the Messiah whom they had rejected and crucified. The remnant of the future will be unable to celebrate the feast of tabernacles (Zech. 14:16) until after this great day of atonement.
- Cause. They see who it was they pierced, and sin comes home to the conscience. This is repentance, not regret over a loss.
- Measure. Josiah's death in the valley of Megiddo was "the sunset of the kingdom of Judah." Zechariah uses that day to show how deep the coming grief will run.
- Contrast. The hill of Megiddo marks the last great assault of the nations. The valley of Megiddo marks Israel's repentance and restoration. One place, two opposite ends.
- Character. This is sorrow without despair. Joseph's brothers felt it when they found that the brother they sold was their deliverer.
- Outcome. True repentance is the sure sign of blessing to come. Israel must keep the true day of atonement before it can enjoy the feast of tabernacles.