Zechariah
Chapter 12
1
1 An oracle: the word of the LORD concerning Israel. Thus says the LORD, who spreads out the heavens, lays the foundations of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him:
2
See, I will make Jerusalem a bowl to stupefy all peoples round about. (Judah will be besieged, even Jerusalem.)
3
On that day I will make Jerusalem a weighty stone for all peoples. All who attempt to lift it shall injure themselves badly, and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered against her.
4
On that day, says the LORD, I will strike every horse with fright, and its rider with madness. I will strike blind all the horses of the peoples, but upon the house of Judah I will open my eyes,
5
and the princes of Judah shall say to themselves, "The inhabitants of Jerusalem have their strength in the LORD of hosts, their God."
6
On that day I will make the princes of Judah like a brazier of fire in the woodland, and like a burning torch among sheaves, and they shall devour right and left all the surrounding peoples; but Jerusalem shall still abide on its own site.
7
The LORD shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over Judah.
8
On that day, the LORD will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the weakling among them shall be like David on that day, and the house of David godlike, like an angel of the LORD before them.
9
On that day I will seek the destruction of all nations that come against Jerusalem.
10
2 I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition; and they shall look on him whom they have thrust through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a first-born.
11
3 On that day the mourning in Jerusalem shall be as great as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
12
And the land shall mourn, each family apart: the family of the house of David, and their wives; the family of the house of Nathan, and their wives;
13
the family of the house of Levi, and their wives; the family of Shemei, and their wives;
14
and all the rest of the families, each family apart, and the wives apart.
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Footnotes

1 [1-9] Under the image of the deliverance of Judah and Jerusalem from invading enemies, the prophet foretells the ultimate victory of God's people in the messianic age.

2 [10] The divine blessings (a spirit of grace and petition) will be poured out on God's people through the intervention of an unnamed sufferer (him whom they have thrust through), similar to the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. In John 19:37 the Evangelist sees in this passage a prophecy fulfilled in the piercing of Christ's side.

3 [11] The mourning for the pierced victim in Jerusalem is compared to a lamentation in the plain of Megiddo apparently over a certain personage called Hadadrimmon. The reference is no longer clear. Both Hadad and Rimmon were names of the Semitic storm god, often identified with the god Baal. Some see here a reference to the annual mourning by the pagans over the death of the fertility god. According to others, Hadadrimmon is the name of a place near Megiddo, and the reference would then be to the mourning over the death of King Josiah, who was killed in battle there; cf 2 Chron 35:22-25.


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