Second Zechariah utters another prophecy about the Messiah's coming, and, like the previous one, it speaks of the tragic...
Second Zechariah utters another prophecy about the Messiah's coming, and, like the previous one, it speaks of the tragic mystery of Christ's rejection. The prophet sees the coming Kingdom not as a victorious march through countries and lands, bringing nations into submission to Israel's faith and its King, but as a time of tension and struggle. Hostility between Israel and foreign peoples will reach a frenzy, and the burden of the confrontation will be unbearable for everyone; only Jerusalem will be strong through the faith of its inhabitants.
Amid this tension, salvation from the Lord and an end to hostility will come to a people far from spiritual unity. Many prophets, like Second Zechariah, use this image of victory over enemies to show that in the Messiah's Kingdom God Himself will protect people, that human life will no longer be determined by earthly dangers and conflict. But this does not mean heavenly armies going into battle instead of people, or even alongside them. God's protection consists in strengthening people themselves as they are seared by the flame of renewal. The prophet says that under the Lord's protection the weakest inhabitant of Jerusalem ‘will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the Lord’. Thus it is the inward spiritual strength of the faithful that is meant, making them inaccessible to the evil reigning in the world. And so the words about the Descendant of David's house cease to be merely a poetic image and become a prophecy of His divine-human nature.
This inward ability to withstand evil will be revealed in people with the Messiah's coming because God will pour out His Spirit upon them: the Spirit of grace and tender compunction, granting the ability to see God and comprehend His saving intervention. Joel prophesied this outpouring of the Spirit in the same years as Second Zechariah. But Second Zechariah speaks of the grief and weeping that will seize Jerusalem because of what it has done. What is this? The prophet's text allows different translations: ‘they will look upon Me whom they have pierced’ and ‘they will look upon Him whom they have pierced’. But the meaning of these words is unambiguous. The prophet speaks of a pierced heart, and since he has spoken above of David's Descendant, who will be God's Presence among people, this is the pierced heart of the Son of God, Israel's Messiah. All Jerusalem, which here symbolises the people beloved of God, will gaze upon the Pierced One and weep for Him as for a firstborn and only-begotten Son.
How a prophet inspired by God chooses his words will remain a mystery to us for ever. We see only the fruit of it: whether intentionally or not, the prophet speaks precisely the words that, in a theological sense, correspond most accurately to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Perhaps the prophet meant the Messiah as David's only-begotten son, but as we read these words we cannot help recalling the liturgical hymn ‘Only-begotten Son and Word of God…’.
The lament for the Pierced Messiah is also marked by an important feature of the worship of the one God in the Old Testament: each tribe, each part of the chosen people, performs this lament ‘apart’, separately from the others. This is how the law prescribes the offering of a solemn sacrifice to God. This separateness of the lament, too, contains an indication of the mystery of His divine-human nature.
Yet over all this stands the central message the prophet wishes to convey to his listeners and readers. The Messiah's Kingdom will come when people weep at the sight of God's Pierced Anointed One. The prophet sees this as the central turning point in humanity's spiritual history. The suffering people cause God by betraying His love will become visible, embodied in Christ's wounds. For Second Zechariah, this makes utterly concrete the terror that seized many prophets at the thought of the Day of Visitation. But it is only in this grief, in this weeping, that the prophet discerns a source of cleansing, a source of life, a source of strength for people.
‘They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced’, as this prophecy is heard during Holy Week: these words are closely connected with the events of the Exodus, when Moses lifted up a serpent on a cross-shaped staff and those who looked at it became invulnerable to the serpents' venom. The prophecy becomes fully clear in the words the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus: ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life’ (Jn 3:14–15).
The conclusion of this prophecy consists of the words assigned by the scribes to the first verse of chapter 13. ‘On that day,’ says the prophet, ‘a fountain will be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to wash away sin and uncleanness.’ On the one hand, the prophet sees that grief over the Pierced Messiah's wounds, tears for Him, are the only thing that can cleanse the human heart and free it from the sin hidden within it. Yet at the same time, as we read these words, we cannot help thinking of the true source of cleansing: the Blood flowing from Christ's wounds.
At the beginning of chapter 13, Second Zechariah places a brief prophecy about the coming of the Day of the Lord, in which he again speaks of people being freed from idolatry and every kind of falsehood. The prophet paints a fearsome picture whose essence is that nothing earthly will triumph over God's righteousness. Above all, this means that people will not boast of their spiritual strength or spiritual gifts, but will humbly fulfil the Spirit's commands.
Here Second Zechariah turns to the famous words of the first of his predecessors, the prophet Amos. In the middle of the eighth century BC, faced with an attempt to silence him, Amos said that he did not prophesy of his own will. ‘I am not a prophet… I was a shepherd and gathered sycamore figs,’ says Amos, ‘but the Lord took me from the sheep, and the Lord said to me: “Go, prophesy…”’ (Amos 7:14). Speaking of the Messiah's Kingdom, Second Zechariah quotes these words: ‘Each will say: I am not a prophet, I am a farmer, because someone made me a slave…’ With the Messiah's coming, fulfilling God's commands will become people's sole motive, and their spiritual strength will be determined by this alone.
But here, too, Second Zechariah cannot turn his gaze from the central thing the Lord has revealed to him. Thus Amos' obedience becomes for him a symbol of the Messiah's obedience, of which the apostle Paul will say: ‘He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, and death on a cross’ (Phil 2:8). This is the meaning of the prophet's mysterious words about the scars on the hands of the one who enters God's Kingdom by the path of obedience. The words ‘I was beaten in the house of those who love me’ become here a prophecy of the way of the Cross walked by Christ and by those who follow Him.
The chapter's final three verses contain another prophecy, again concerning the fate of the Messiah and of people. The prophet sees a sword raised over Israel's Shepherd and sees the confusion and scattering of His sheep. ‘Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’: the prophet sees the Messiah's loneliness, His abandonment at the terrible moment of His arrest. But he also sees that there is and can be no one to stand beside Him, because there is no one like Him. Therefore the Messiah's defeat will become for His bewildered sheep a crucible in which their hearts will be melted down and brought to life. In this defeat of the Messiah and in their own scattering, His sheep, the disciples, will find God Himself, as the chapter's final words say. Thus, despite being scattered, the sheep of Israel's Shepherd will become the pure gold of the Church, the gold of which the prophet Ezekiel spoke and of which the apostle Peter will later speak.
12 The enemies of the church shall not prevail against her, Zec 12:1-6.
God will strengthen the weakest of his people, Zec 12:7-8.
A spirit of prayer and repentance promised, Zec 12:9-14.
12:2 Jerusalem - That weak, unwalled city, and much more the church which is the antitype of Jerusalem. In the siege - Now when all this is in readiness, and no visible means of escape, then will God make them drink the wine of astonishment.
12:3 In that day - The day of the full accomplishment of this prophecy is a day known to the Lord. A burdensome stone - Too heavy for them, though many join together to remove it.
12:4 I will open mine eyes - I will watch over my people for good.This eye of God open upon his people, is his wise, powerful, gracious providence for them. With blindness - All their warriors in their consults shall have as little of foresight, as a blind man hath of sight.
12:5 The inhabitants of Jerusalem - Though but few, and poor, yet they shall be my strength. Not in their own power, but in the power of the Almighty Lord of all.
12:6 Like a hearth - A hearth on which fire is thoroughly kindled.In her own place - Not built as Nineveh, Babylon, or Rome, in some place near old cities, but in the very same place where old Jerusalem stood.
12:7 The tents - The unfenced places, the open country, the cottages, or tents. First - First the weaker are saved, next the stronger.The glory - That the illustrious house of David, and the glorious citizens of Jerusalem may not boast of their power, policy and courage.
12:8 As David - A mighty man of valour. The house of David - Those of the royal line shall be for prudence, and prowess in the conduct of the armies of Israel, most excellent; exprest here in an hyperbole.As the angel - Nay, like the angel of the Lord, like Christ who is captain of our salvation.
12:9 I will seek - I will purposely and effectually do it.
12:10 I will pour - This was fulfilled on Christ's exaltation, when he sent the Comforter to his disciples, it is daily performed to the children of God, and will be continually, 'till we are brought to be with Christ for ever. The house of David - The whole family of Christ, his house who was the seed of David, and who is called David, Eze 37:24.The spirit of grace - Which is fountain of all graces in us.Pierced - Every one of us by our sins pierced him, and many of the Jews literally. Mourn - They shall literally lament the crucifying of the Lord Jesus. In bitterness - True repentance will bitterly lament the sins which brought sorrows and shame upon our Lord.
12:11 In that day - When the Jews shall mourn for their sins, and for that great sin, crucifying the Lord of glory. A great mourning - A mourning exprest by the greatest the Jews ever were acquainted with, and which for its greatness grew into a proverb. The mourning for Josiah slain at Hadadrimmon, a town in the valley of Megiddo.
12:12 The house of Nathan - The royal family in both branches of it, Solomon's and Nathan's.
12:13 The house of Levi - The sacerdotal tribe were the most bitter persecutors of Christ, they hired the traitor, they sought witness; the high priest, (head of that family) condemned him to die, for all which they shall one day reckon with God, and therefore above other tribes they are particularly named as chief mourners for their cruelty to Christ.
13 A promise of pardon, of reformation, and of the conviction and silencing of false prophets, Zec 13:1-6.
A clear prediction of the sufferings of Christ, the destruction of the Jews, and the purifying of a remnant, Zec 13:7-9.
13:1 A fountain - The blood of Christ. Opened - The spouse is to Christ a fountain sealed, but Christ is to sinners a fountain opened.Inhabitants of Jerusalem - The inhabitants of Jerusalem are all to whom the gospel is preached. For uncleanness - For purging away all manner of sins and uncleannesses.
13:2 Cut off - I will utterly destroy idols and idolatry.The prophets - The false prophets.The unclean spirit - The devil who sets the false prophets to work.
13:3 Prophesy - Falsely. His father - His dearest friends.Shall thrust him through - That is, shall wound, shall chastise him with stripes that may leave their marks behind.
13:4 A rough garment - Such as the true prophets were wont to wear.
13:6 With which I was wounded - To recover me from ruining myself and others by imposture, see ver. Zec 13:3.
13:7 O sword - Afflictions, persecutions, and the cross.My shepherd - Who is my faithful shepherd, and will lay down his life for my sheep. My fellow - This speaks Christ; man with us, and God with his father, God - man in one person. The shepherd - This great and good shepherd. Turn mine hand - God will turn his hand in favour, and for protection will keep the new, and weak disciples.
13:8 Two parts - Not precisely two, but the greater part shall die a temporal death, by the sword of Titus, or in eternal death under unbelief. The third - A remnant, the lesser part, shall escape or be preserved.