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You'll rarely see a Christian Missionary who will use the entire chapter of Zechariah 12 when witnessing to a Jew in the process of conversion. In fact you will rarely see a Christian who quotes from Zechariah 12 familiar with the events of the whole chapter. Usually only chapter 12:10 will be used as way of quotation by Christians in order to “proof text” their point. Let us investigate if such “proof-texting” leads us to the truths God desires we have from the original message of Zechariah.
Let us look at the passage from a Christian KJV Bible:
10 And 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.
There are two major problems facing the Christian who quotes from this chapter in his Christian Bible:
Let us familiarize ourself with the context.
Again as taken from the Christian Old Testament (KJV)
First of all we must recognize that there is nothing in this chapter that tells us we are even speaking about the Messiah. Nothing in the context tells us we are dealing with the Messiah. So the Christian’s claim is that this passage is a reference to Yeshua is very week.
10 And 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.
Answer for yourself: Who is the first “they”? The Christians say that “they” refer to the Jewish people.
Answer for yourself: Who is the “me” here? The Christians say that “me” refers to Yeshua who is God according to Christian theology.
Answer for yourself: Who is the second “they”? Christians tell us that this refers to: the Romans who crucified Yeshua.
Answer for yourself: Who is speaking here? Christians would tell you that God is speaking through Yeshua.
Answer for yourself: Who is the “him” for whom they mourn? Christians tell us that Jews will realize that they crucified Yeshua the Messiah and when they realize this they will mourn for their actions.
Answer for yourself: Is that what is going on here?
The difficulty in this verse is that we have two different pronouns. We have two different people involved in this passage. This presents a problem for Christians who try to read this verse Christologically.
Answer for yourself: Who is the “me” and who is the “him”?
John 19:31-37
John has assured us that another Jewish Scripture said that “they shall look on him whom they pierced.”
Answer for yourself: Is there anywhere a Jewish Scripture that says that? No!
If you compare Zechariah in your Christian Bible with the Hebrew Zechariah in the Jewish Bible you will find that the Prophet Zechariah in the Jewish Bible says “they will look upon ME and mourn for HIM.”
The following is taken from p. 1423 in the Stone Edition Tanakh which I have found to be the best available translation of the Jewish Scriptures that we can find today for the non-Hebrew speaking student. This great translation has the Hebrew on opposite pages and let me remind you that this is the "text" that was verified in the Qumran and Dead Sea discoveries to be substantially unchanged from the only copies known previously that dated from 900-1000 A.D. That being the case it was always assumed up to then that the Jews had "deJesusized" their Old Testament to write Jesus or any related prophecies out of their texts. The Qumran discovery proves that the older texts of these Jewish Scriptures read completely different from the LXX (Greek translation) in many places are even older than the assumed Septuagint standard. Evidently it was not the Greek which is the standard now but the Jewish Scriptures. This is of major importance for the Christian and follower of Jesus because many of the Old Testament passages can now be proven to not have been "deJesusized" by the Jews but rather "Jesusized" by those who not only translated the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek but who later altered them and "Christianized" them. Understand that the Greek translation was not in reality designed to read Jesus into the texts but write in the solar myths of the Essene cosmic angel-Messiah. It just so happens that much of the Jesus story in the New Testament will be later modeled on this same Essene pattern. We find this "Essene Theology" in the alterations of the above verses as you can see for yourself as you now read the Hebrew Scripture from Zech 12:10 for yourself. Understand that the following is what Zechariah actually said and the above examples from the Christian Old Testaments are the "corrupted" versions.
10. I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitant of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplications. They will look toward Me because of those whom they have stabbed; they will mourn over him as one mourns over an only [child[, and be embittered over him like the embitterment over a [deceased] firstborn.
A few things we must notice. In this final war the enemies of God and Israel will battle the Jewish people. The Rabbis tell us that God's salvation of Israel in that day will be so complete that people will be astonished if even one man [Jew] is killed by the enemy (Radak). In the above Hebrew verse we find that in this battle the Jewish people will look toward YHVH and even if one of their people is killed then they (the Jews) will look toward YHVH and mourn for "those" [their own people] whom "they" [the enemy that they are fighting] have "stabbed" [killed].
Notice that Zechariah does not say that they will look upon HIM whom they pierced but rather they (the Jews) will look upon ME (God) and mourn for him. The quote in the New Testament is completely wrong! The Hebrew of Zechariah teaches us that the looking will be directed toward God. The writer of the Gospel of John changes the pronoun and the whole meaning of the verse! Zechariah has two different people because the original prophet understood the difference between the two different pronouns. John changes it and says “look upon him whom they have pierced” (making the two different pronouns the same).
This is a blatant and purposeful misquotation of the prophet Zechariah. The Essene translators of the Prophets in Alexandria, Egypt were wrong! The writer of the Gospel of John is wrong in his quote as well? Where is the truth?
In the Hebrew there is a clue in this verse that makes all the difference. Instead of looking upon the one pierced the correct Hebrew states that the Jewish people will look toward God concerning the “him” who is pierced. If you read our series on Isaiah 53 you will have learned that quite often the prophets referred to the corporate nation of Israel in the “singular” by using pronouns like him, he, etc. In keeping with such a literary device we again see the Jewish people are said by the prophet Zechariah to be looking toward God concerning those of their brothers who perished in the final battle after being killed by the non-Jewish nations.
The Hebrew, when taken from the Hebrew Bible (not a Christian Old Testament), reads different from the English Old Testaments in the Christian Bible: “They (Jews) will look to me (God)……concerning whom (the Jewish slain) they (Gentile armies) have pierced…….
This is a major difference than what John reports. John quotes as if they are looking upon “him” who they pierced. John sees the two pronouns merged into one individual. They look toward who they pierced. The Hebrew from which he supposedly quoted does not say that. Instead of the Jewish people looking on the one pierced, they are looking toward God concerning those of their countrymen who were killed by the Gentile armies. To believe John’s misquote is wrong for the reading from John 19 is not what the Hebrew says!
Answer for yourself: Why can't John quote the Hebrew of Zechariah correctly?
Answer for yourself: But more to the point, why does not the Old Testament of our Christian Bibles have it correct?
Answer for yourself: Who is responsible for misquoting the Hebrew of Zechariah in our Christian KJV Bibles?
Remember John is supposed to be a Jew and well familiar with his own Jewish Scriptures. Such a one would not make such a gross mistake in mistranslating his own Scriptures. Certainly if John were a Jew he would be most familiar with the ultimate warning as follows:
Deut 4:2
2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (KJV)
Exod 32:33
33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. (KJV)
Knowing these two Jewish Scriptures, and expecting John to know then as well, then I have always struggled to understand why a Jew cannot or would not quote his own Scripture correctly.
Answer for yourself: Don’t you find that troubling as well?
God is saying that they will look to ME (God) concerning the one who is pierced.
If we remember the context is the final battle of all the Gentile nations against the Jews in Jerusalem, then the one who is pierced is the Jewish people who fight in this battle. Never let us forget the context for when a passage is removed from its context then the private agendas of the ones who remove the passage become the new interpretation.
John 19 is describing the crucifixion and not the final battle against the Jews in Jerusalem. Only by ignorance of the context from which the verse is taken that John quotes, or only by disregarding the context can the writer of the Gospel of John hope to have those who read his letter agree with his theology.
John 19:31-37
31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Crucifixion, as a means of death, always took a long time for a person to die. Breaking the legs was common because their chest cavity would depress their diaphragm whereby they could not breath and die quickly, otherwise, they could linger alive on the cross for several days. Once their legs were broken they could not support themselves and die quickly. The Sabbath was coming and the crucified needed to die quickly in order to be taken off the cross before the Sabbath.
John 19:36 For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.
This is not a prophecy regardless of what Christians say. We are asked to believe the crucifixion was prophesied previously since “no bones could be broken.” The paschal sacrifice was never crucified. It was a law that the bones of the lamb could not be broken but this is only a law and not ever intended to be a prophecy of a man who would come later and die through crucifixion. Such is taking great liberty with the verse. Not breaking the legs of a man who was being crucified has nothing to do with the preparation of the lamb at Passover. To draw such a conclusion is very strained to say the least. No where does the Jewish Scriptures say that the Messiah would have his limbs not broken.
John would write in 19:34 “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.” The writer of the Gospel of John makes an occasion for such a fulfillment by the misquotation of Zechariah 12 as I have already alluded to previously. John would say “they will look upon him whom their pierced.” This is the reason Yeshua had to be pierced by a Roman sword. According to John Zechariah 12 was fulfilled in the first century in Yeshua. If this is so then we are expected to believe that the Romans looked upon Yeshua whom they pierced and they mourned for him.
Answer for yourself: When did the Romans mourn for a crucified Yeshua?
Zechariah 12:10 is not a chapter speaking of events happening 2000 years ago regardless of what John says. Zechariah 12 is clearly an end-time prophecy which has not taken place yet and remains for fulfillment in the end-times.
Zech 12:1-14
Many feel that this is happening in our day as our newspapers testify. It is speaking of a time in the future when the whole world will come against Jerusalem. It surely did not happen in Yeshua’ day.
So we see that we are speaking about an end-time battle. When the whole world comes up to Jerusalem God will destroy the armies of the world and save the Jewish people. It will be in this time of battle and war that verse 10 of Zechariah 12 will be fulfilled.
The Jews will be upset because of their brothers killed in this end-time battle. The Jews will look to God concerning those people whom were killed that they loved...their families
In this battle against Jerusalem there will be only one casualty and the Jews will look to God because of this one person who is killed.
As we saw in Isaiah 53 the Jewish nations is repeatedly referred to as one entity. All the people who fell in battle is described as a “him” (in the singular). According to the Talmud this verse is referring to one who is the Messiah (a great Jewish leader), one who is the son of Joseph (from the family of Joseph and not David). The Talmud speaks of the death of this great leader who will fall in battle before the coming of the Messiah from David. Such a great leaders’ death will influence Israel’s repentance prior to the coming of the Messiah.
Answer for yourself: Has their ever been a battle where only one Jewish leader died? Did Jesus die in a battle and we not know about it?
In the rescue at Entebbe Johnathan Yethinauhau was the only one picked off by a sharpshooter. He was a very charismatic leader.
At the death of this great leader the nation is in shock and the purpose of this tragedy is to bring Israel closer to God before the coming of Messiah. This did not happen to Yeshua because he did not fall in battle. In the life of Yeshua Jerusalem was not saved. It was destroyed 40 years later.
Some other event happened that Zechariah is comparing to.
Answer for yourself: To which event does Zechariah allude?
One of the most righteous and beloved Jewish kings was King Josiah who fell in battle.
2 Chr 35:22-25
So here the book of Zechariah is making an illusion to the death of another great leader.
II Ki 23:28-30
So, if we return to the Hebrew and discard the misquotation of the verse in the New Testament or even in our Christian Old Testament, and rely on the Jewish Scriptures (from which accurate translation was to always be made), then we find that after the end-time battle of Jerusalem the Jewish survivors will look toward God concerning their slain bothers who fell in battle which had been killed by the non-Jewish armies in this battle. The Jewish people will be looking toward God concerning those who were killed (pierced) and not looking on the pierced. Such is a blatant misuse of the Jewish Scripture, and unless you look this closely, you will never have known this gross adulteration of the Word of God as foisted upon unsuspecting Christians. Shalom.