Zechariah 12King James Version
In that day will I make Jerusalem a cup of trembling. Then the passage: 'I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him.'
God declares that Jerusalem will become a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone for every nation that attacks it. On the day all nations gather against the city, God will make its governors like fire among wood. Then comes the most piercing image: God will pour out a spirit of grace and supplication, and Jerusalem will look on the one they have pierced, mourning for him as for an only son. Family by family, the entire land will weep separately, in a grief too personal to share.
The final mourning over the pierced one is so intimate that it cannot be absorbed collectively: each family must feel it alone.
"And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (12:10) The pronoun shift from 'me' to 'him' in a single verse is striking and theologically significant: the speaker is God, the mourned one is the same figure, and John 19:37 quotes this directly at the moment of Jesus's crucifixion.
The armies of the world have gathered against Jerusalem. God has fought for the city. The victory is complete. And then, in the silence after the battle, something entirely different happens: the people receive a spirit of mourning and begin to look at someone they pierced. The grief rolls through the city family by family, generation by generation. No public service contains it. Each household closes its door and weeps for the firstborn, the only son, the irreplaceable one who is gone.
God speaks in the first person as creator and defender of Jerusalem. The governors of Judah are transformed into fire and torches, instruments of defense. The inhabitants of Jerusalem receive the spirit of grace and supplication. The house of David and the families of Nathan, Levi, and Shimei are individually listed as mourners, along with all the families that remain. The pierced figure is described but not named.
Zechariah 12:10 is cited in John 19:37, Revelation 1:7, and implied in multiple New Testament passages. The verse is remarkable for its divine first-person claim, 'they shall look upon me whom they have pierced,' because it makes God himself the pierced figure, a theological statement of enormous weight. The national mourning described anticipates both the grief of the disciples at the crucifixion and the eschatological grief of a people who finally understand what was done.
The grief in this chapter is not abstract or national but specific and private. Seven family groups are listed mourning separately, husbands apart from wives, as if the weight is too much to hold together. It is the most intimate sorrow in the book.
1The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
6In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
7The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
8In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
9And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
11In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
12And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
13The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
14All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.