Zechariah12chapter 12

Zechariah 12:1-2

The oracle opens by naming its speaker in full, the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him, credentials the bench reads as answering any doubt that a mere burden of local politics could carry such weight. Jerusalem is made a cup of trembling to all the peoples round about, a vessel of judgment poured out on whoever besieges her, in a siege that reaches Judah as well as Jerusalem. Keil and Pusey take the double siege language as binding city and countryside into one people under the same coming trial, with the era of that trial named as disputed and left there.

Zechariah 12:3

Jerusalem becomes a burdensome stone that cuts to pieces all who try to lift it, though every people on earth gather themselves against the city. Henry and Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown read the figure from the ancient practice of testing strength by hoisting heavy stones, the city proving too heavy for any nation's grip. The verse states the outcome, cut in pieces, without the notes assigning it to any named conflict of any era, the parking order governing the whole horizon that runs from here through chapter 14.

Zechariah 12:4-6

The Lord promises to smite every horse of the besieging nations with astonishment and its rider with madness, striking the cavalry blind while keeping his own eyes open upon the house of Judah. Judah's governors become in that day like a hearth of fire in the wood and a torch in a sheaf, devouring the surrounding peoples on the right hand and the left, and Jerusalem is inhabited again in her own place. Gill and Barnes read the reversal, panic falling on the strong horses of the nations while the weak governors of Judah turn to fire, as the pattern the whole chapter repeats, human strength undone and human weakness armed.

Zechariah 12:7-8

The Lord saves the tents of Judah, the ordinary countryside, before the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the capital's greater glory cannot boast itself over the rest of the land. In that day the feeblest among the defenders is made as David, and the house of David itself is made as God, as the angel of the Lord before them, language the older commentators take at full strength as royal empowerment rather than a claim of deity for the dynasty. Wesley and Keil read the order, country before capital, as the Lord's own check on Jerusalem's pride, the strongest promises paired here with a warning against presuming on them.

Zechariah 12:9-10

The Lord announces he will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and in the same breath pours out on the house of David and the inhabitants of the city the spirit of grace and of supplications. Then comes the chapter's most argued line, they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son, a shift from first person to third person the bench reads through several proposed solutions rather than one settled grammar. John 19:37 quotes the verse of the crucifixion directly, with Revelation 1:7 carrying its language forward, and the pronoun crux is named here with its readings rather than resolved by the note.

Zechariah 12:11-14

The mourning to come is measured against the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon, which the commentators tie to the national grief over King Josiah's death there (2 Chronicles 35:22-25), a known depth of sorrow used to measure an even greater one. The land mourns family by family and apart, David's house, Nathan's house, Levi's house, and Shimei's house each named on its own, with every remaining family following the same pattern. Henry and Pusey read the private, household grief, husbands and wives mourning apart from each other, as marking a repentance too deep and too personal for a single public ceremony to hold.