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Zechariah 12 Pt 1

by | Wed, Jun 8 2022

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We’re in a series at the moment about Mashiach, the Jewish Messiah. We’ve been investigating for a while now all the various prophesied characteristics and criteria of this individual to see if there’s any one specific person in human history who qualifies. So far, Jesus is the only one who fits the bill.

One of my favourite places online is the ministry of One For Israel, it’s a ministry by Messianic Jews whose mission is to reach other Jews with the truth of Yeshua, Jesus, the Mashiach. It was there that I read an incredible article by Dr Eitan Bar that I’m using for this program.

Last time we learned about Psalm 22, being one of three places in the Old Covenant that actually tells us how Mashiach would die. The other places are in Isaiah 53 and Zechariah 12Zechariah 12:10,

God said, “I’ll pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they’ll look on Me whom they have pierced; and they’ll mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they’ll weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”

I want to emphasise again, as I’ve done before, that crucifixion wasn’t something that the Jewish people were all that familiar with and they certainly didn’t perform it within their judicial system. The form of capital punishment God demanded was stoning. We may not like that, but there it is.

The book of Zechariah is dated in two sections; it’s believe that chapters 1-8 were written in the 6th century BC and that chapters 9-14 were written in the 5th century BC. I believe it was the Persians who invented this form of execution, but it was primarily impaling – which is horrendous to be sure – but they used this form of execution in the 6th century BC, Alexander the Great took it into the Mediterranean region in the 4th century BC where the Phoenicians used it and it was they who shared their grisly execution method with the Romans, who went on to perfect this form of torturous execution in the 3rd century BC and it was the Romans who introduced the nails on crosses I believe. Rome conquered Judea in the 1st century BC. Therefore, both King David and the prophet Zechariah, prophesied that Mashiach would die by crucifixion at least 400 years before crucifixion came within their borders.

I want to give you some context for the verse we read in Zechariah 12. The setting is the nations of the world collectively coming against Jerusalem, the Holy City, that they would be burdened by Jerusalem and in a frenzy to overthrow the city and destroy the inhabitants.

Now Jerusalem has been besieged in times past, and it was destroyed along with the people, the majority of whom were sent into exile. This description shows a different outcome, so we know this prophecy is talking about a time yet future.

Verse 8 says that God will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem this time around and the situation will end with destruction upon the attacking nations. Then we get to verse 10 which we read earlier, that God would,

…pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they’ll look on Me whom they have pierced; and they’ll mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son…’

Before we go much further, I want to look at how rabbis have traditionally interpreted this particular prophecy, because this verse is quite stressful for many modern rabbis who don’t want to attribute this verse to Mashiach. In fact, it’s common to interpret this passage as talking about King Josiah who was a very well loved king in Judea, one of the better kings in the southern kingdom. However, that’s seriously problematic because Josiah was never crucified, although he did die from an arrow wound. Yes, it’s true that when Josiah died his nation mourned him and missed him terribly. There are even some modern rabbis who interpret the one pierced in Zechariah 12 as being a large group of people.

I want share some quotes that Dr Eitan Bar used in his article, from classical Judaism and historical interpretations and understandings so we can get an idea of what rabbis always believed about the identity of the person mentioned in Zechariah 12.  We’ve got time for one now, and we’ll look at more next time. This is from the famous Rabbi Rashi who lived in the early 12th century.

Rabbi Rashi, whom we’ve mentioned before says this about the prophecy in Zechariah 12;

“And the land shall mourn in Zechariah’s prophecy who prophesied the future when they will mourn over Messiah son of Joseph who was killed…”

Next time I want to share a few more classical interpretations of this passage in Zechariah and who the rabbis believed it was talking about.

 

Shalom

Mandy