In Zechariah's days, in post exile, the temple was being rebuilt. Let us suppose that we lived around year 1000 AC: Jerusalem had been destroyed a long time ago by the Romans. How would we read Zechariah 12? Perhaps, we would engage in a crusade to free Jerusalem from Muslims. Now, in 2025 the situation is very different: Jews live in Jerusalem and it seems that prophecies about Jerusalem may be fulfilled more literally:
6 “On the Big Day, I’ll turn the families of Judah into something like a burning match in a tinder-dry forest, like a fiercely flaming torch in a barn full of hay. They’ll burn up everything and everyone in sight—people to the right, people to the left—while Jerusalem fills up with people moving in and making themselves at home—home again in Jerusalem.
The most interesting verses are:
10-14 “Next I’ll deal with the family of David and those who live in Jerusalem. I’ll pour a spirit of grace and prayer over them. They’ll then be able to recognize me as the One they so grievously wounded—that piercing spear-thrust! And they’ll weep—oh, how they’ll weep! Deep mourning as of a parent grieving the loss of the firstborn child.
The Lord says that He is the One wounded. In NASB:
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
The inhabitants of Jerusalem will to look the Lord whom they pierced, i.e. they pierced the Lord; but how can the Lord, the YHWH be pierced? They will mourn form Him like on mourning the an only son. I can easily understand that it refers to Jesus and the Jews repenting for crucifying Jesus in the last days as many commentators say. It reminds Romans 11 where St. Paul says:
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Zechariah 12: Jerusalem and the One who was pierced
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment