What do you do with the Greek bits of the bible?
This is Zechariah 12
The Messiah as King
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They
will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and
grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
Some questions:
what does "pierced" mean in this context?
why are the Jewish people mourning?
how did these people "pierce" the Messiah?
From:
Zechariah 12:10
- B. B. The Jewish Perspective
From the Jewish perspective, two general Jewish interpretations of the passage that contains Zechariah 12:10 are plausible. One view has it as an historic Biblical event from the prophet’s own era, while the other considers it a prophecy of an event that will take place at some time near the commencement of the messianic era.
- 1. 1. Historic Event
The predominant perspective on Zechariah 12:10 among the Jewish commentators is that it describes the mourning over those Jews who were slain while defending the Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. Those who fell in the battle were the ones described as having been
thrust through with the swords and spears of soldiers from the attacking nations. In other words, this verse describes a historical event from the Biblical times around which this was written. Even S. R. Driver, the noted Christian commentator, is at variance with many of his colleagues since he views Zechariah 12:10 as follows:
“The context points plainly to some historical event in the prophet’s own time, for which the people would eventually feel that sorrow here described.”
Driver apparently recognized that the passage describes an historical event from Zechariah’s era.
- 2. 2. Messianic Prophecy
The other perspective on this passage, which originates in the Talmud, actually shares with the Christian view the fact that it is a messianic prophecy, except that, according to the traditional Jewish concept of the Messiah, this prophecy has not yet been fulfilled.
Since there is an ambiguity in the Hebrew text in terms of whether the subject (i.e., the “victim”) here is an individual or a group – the particular pronouns used here are applied in both ways in the Hebrew Bible – there are two ways to interpret this passage within this messianic perspective. Both interpretations are consistent with the Hebrew text as well as with Jewish tradition.
The “singular pronoun scenario” depicts a great hero who will fall in the battle of the nations against Jerusalem that was described earlier in the chapter (Zech 12:3). Because this person will be one of towering stature among the Jewish people, the mourning for him will be great and widespread; the entire nation and all of Jerusalem are described as being in a state of great mourning (Zech 12:12). But, this crying and mourning will lead people to repent and return to observance of Torah, as had happened in previous times:
Numbers 14:39-40 – (39) And Moses spoke these words to all the Children of Israel; and the people mourned greatly. (40) And they arose early in the morning, and they ascended to the top of the mountain, saying; “Behold, we are here, and we will go up to the place of which the L-rd has spoken, for we have sinned.”
This particular scenario fits well with the Rabbinic “two Messiahs” paradigm. According to this Talmudic tradition, the first “Messiah”, (
mashi’ah ben Yosef),
Messiah son of Joseph, will be a hero out of either the Tribe of Ephraim or the Tribe of Menasheh (recall that Joseph’s sons were Ephraim and Menasheh). He will fight, and be killed in the Great War, an event that will be the catalyst for all of Israel to turn to G-d and repent. After that, (
mashi’ah ben David),
Messiah son of David, the Davidic Messiah, will appear and usher in the messianic era with its promised redemption of Israel. The intensity of the sadness is quantified in Zechariah 12:11 by comparing the mourning in Jerusalem with the mourning in the valley of Megiddo. This reference points to the death of King Josiah, the last of the great and righteous kings of Judah (2 Kgs 23:25), who was killed in a battle with Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt:
2 Kings 23:29-30 – (29) In his [Josiah’s] days, Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt, went up against the King of Assyria by the Euphrates River; and King Josiah went against him, and he [Pharaoh Necho] killed him [Josiah] at Megiddo, when he saw him. (30) And his servants transported him dead from Megiddo, and [they] brought him to Jerusalem, and [they] buried him in his grave; and the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.
2 Chronicles 35:22-24 – (22) Nevertheless, Josiah did not turn his face from him [Pharao Necho], but disguised himself in order to fight with him, and he did not pay heed to the words of Necho [which came] from the mouth of G-d; and he came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. (23) And the archers shot at King Josiah; and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.” (24) And his servants took him from that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and he was buried among the graves of his forefathers; and all of Judah and Jerusalem were mourning for Josiah.
Following Josiah’s death, the mourning throughout the Kingdom of Judah and in Jerusalem was immense. In the Hebrew Bible, this is alluded to by Jeremiah, and recorded in the historical books:
Lamentations 4:20 – The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the L-rd, was captured in their pits, of whom we said, “In his shadow we shall live among the nations.”
2 Chronicles 35:24-25 – (24) And his servants took him from that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and he was buried among the graves of his forefathers; and all of Judah and Jerusalem were mourning for Josiah. (25) And Jeremiah lamented Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women had spoken of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them a statute upon Israel; and behold, they are written in the lamentations.
According to the Jewish Sages, these descriptions also characterize the magnitude of the grief that will prevail among Jews over the falling of (
mashi’ah ben Yosef),
Messiah son of Joseph.
In the “plural pronoun scenario”, the singular pronoun is applied to a group of Jewish people, a usage that is common in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Hosea 11:1 has the Jewish people described via the same singular pronoun,
him). In Zechariah 12:10, the new spirit that G-d will pour unto the Jewish people will motivate them to look toward Him concerning the Jewish martyrs who fell in the battle over Jerusalem before His divine intervention on their behalf. Here, as was the case in the previous scenario, the intensity of the mourning over those who will fall in the Great War of the future is still reflected in the historical references that appear in Zechariah 12:11.
In summary, the Jewish perspective on Zechariah 12:10 is that it may be viewed as either an historical event that occurred in the prophet’s time or, alternatively, as a messianic prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled. Neither of these interpretations agrees with, nor can accommodate, the Christian view that it is a messianic prophecy that was historically fulfilled with the death of Jesus.
