Zechariah 12

This is a heavy message, the word of the LORD about Israel. This is what the LORD says, the one who spreads out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of a person inside him.

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.

Note"Burden" is the standard heading over a prophetic announcement. The Hebrew word means both a load someone has to carry and a thing said out loud, and it usually introduces a message of judgment. "The LORD" in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four consonants and read aloud by Jews as "the Lord" out of reverence; where the text says plain "Lord" or "God" the King James uses ordinary type.

2Look, I am going to make Jerusalem like a cup of strong wine that makes all the nations around her stagger. Judah will be under attack as well, along with Jerusalem, when the armies close in.

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.

NoteThe cup is a stock prophetic image: God pours, a nation is made to drink, and the drinker reels about helpless, unable to defend itself. Zechariah twists it, Jerusalem is not the one drinking but the cup itself, forced on the armies that come against her.

3On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the nations. Everyone who tries to lift it and carry it away will be badly torn and hurt, even though all the nations of the earth gather together against her.

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.

Note"On that day" is a fixed prophetic phrase, repeated all through chapters 12 to 14, for the decisive moment when God acts. It names no date on a calendar. The heavy stone may point to a real practice: heavy boulders kept in a town for young men to heave as a test of strength. The Hebrew behind "badly torn" means gashed or lacerated, the kind of injury a man does to himself lifting more than he can hold.

4On that day, says the LORD, I will strike every horse with panic and every rider with madness. I will keep my eyes open to watch over the people of Judah, but I will strike the horses of the nations with blindness.

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.

NoteHorses meant chariots and cavalry, the fastest and most feared arm of an ancient army; to panic the horses was to break the force. "I will keep my eyes open" translates a Hebrew idiom for watching over someone protectively, the opposite of turning a blind eye.

5Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, "The people of Jerusalem are my strength, because the LORD of Armies is their God."

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.

NoteThe word behind "leaders" means clan chiefs, heads of the extended family groups that made up Judah, not officials appointed from above. "The LORD of Armies" (the King James "LORD of hosts") is a title picturing God as commander of the massed armies of heaven; it is Zechariah's favorite way of naming him.

6On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a pot of burning coals set in a woodpile, and like a flaming torch among cut stalks of grain. They will burn up all the nations around them, on the right and on the left. And Jerusalem will be lived in again, right where she has always stood.

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.

NoteA firepot was a portable clay container holding live coals, used to carry fire from house to house, harmless where it belongs, catastrophic tipped into stacked firewood. The cut stalks of grain are sheaves, bundles left standing in the field at harvest and bone dry. "On the right hand and on the left" is Hebrew for "in every direction."

7The LORD will rescue the tents of Judah first. That way David's family and the people of Jerusalem will not be able to hold themselves up as greater than the rest of Judah.

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.

NoteThe "tents" of Judah are the open, unwalled settlements of the countryside, set against the fortified capital; calling them tents recalls the years before Israel lived in towns. Country people were normally the first overrun by an invading army and the last to be helped. Here the order is reversed.

8On that day the LORD will protect the people of Jerusalem. The weakest person among them will be as strong as David, and David's family will be like God, like the angel of the LORD going ahead of them.

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.

NoteDavid was remembered as the fighter who killed a giant as a boy, so "as strong as David" is a way of saying the frailest man will fight like the nation's greatest warrior. "The angel of the LORD" is the figure who went ahead of Israel through the wilderness in the older stories, a messenger so closely identified with God that the two sometimes speak as one voice.

9And on that day I will set out to destroy every nation that comes to attack Jerusalem.

9And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

10I will pour out on David's family and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of kindness and of pleading prayer. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him the way a person mourns an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him, as someone grieves for a firstborn son.

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.

Note"Kindness" and "pleading prayer" are built on the same Hebrew root: favor freely given, and the crying out for favor that answers it. ("They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him": the Hebrew jumps from "me" to "him" in mid-sentence, and translators have never agreed how to resolve it; a few ancient copies read "look on him" throughout. The rendering keeps the jolt as the Hebrew has it.) An only son, or a firstborn, was a household's heir and its whole future; losing one was the standard measure of grief beyond bearing.

11On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as loud as the weeping for Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo.

11In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

NoteNobody is certain what Hadadrimmon refers to. Hadad and Rimmon were both names of the storm god worshiped in Syria, and some take the phrase to mean the ritual wailing for a god believed to die each year. Others read Hadadrimmon as a place near Megiddo. Megiddo guarded the pass into the great northern plain and was the site of King Josiah's death in battle in 609 BC, a loss the whole nation mourned and still commemorated in Zechariah's time.

12The whole land will mourn, each family by itself: the family of David's house by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Nathan's house by itself, and their wives by themselves;

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;

NoteIsraelite mourning was loud and public, but grief on this scale was organized: each clan gathered on its own, and within each clan the men and the women kept apart, as custom required at such gatherings. The Nathan named here is a son of David, not the prophet of the same name; David and Nathan together stand for the royal line.

13the family of Levi's house by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves;

13The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;

NoteLevi was the ancestor of the priests and temple servants, and Shimei the head of one of the main Levite families. Set beside the two names in the previous verse, they pair the priestly line with the royal line, the two households at the top of the nation grieving alongside everyone else.

14and all the families that are left, each family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

14All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.