Mining the Minors: Zechariah (23)

In April of this year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill called The Antisemitism Awareness Act. If signed into law, the act would make it illegal to say the Jews killed Christ, as the Bible plainly and repeatedly states. The bill gives examples of online statements that would now be classified as hate speech and violations of the law, including “using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis”.

If it’s anti-Semitic to say the Jews killed Christ, then the apostle Peter, a Jew himself, was a flaming anti-Semite.

‘You’ Who?

“You killed the Author of life,” Peter told a crowd addressed with the words “Men of Israel”. That’s fairly conclusive. Neither he nor other apostles ever made such accusations against Gentiles. The Bible attributes responsibility for killing Jesus to the crowd who gathered before Pilate to clamor for his death at the urging of the chief priests and elders of the Jews and asked for a murderer instead. These were not Greeks, Samaritans or Romans crying out, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” They were Jews, and they literally asked for exactly what they received.

That clearly stated, no mere human has a license from God to take out his anger over a historic event on the distant descendants of the original perpetrators. God may do as he pleases, but vengeance is not yours, mine or anyone else’s to dispense. Hatred toward Jews or Israel for killing Christ, even to the extent that it is genuine, is legitimately anti-Semitic and almost laughably ignorant. However, telling the truth in attributing historic guilt is not anti-Semitic, and lying about the single most unjust act in the history of our species or covering it up for the sake of politics is wrong, no matter what American law might say. Even with the best of intentions, the proposed law is a silly, censorious move that is bound to backfire, provoking more of the very thing it is allegedly designed to curb.

In any case, our Bibles tell us one day soon the Jews are going to acknowledge killing the Author of life themselves. Nobody will force them to do it, and I’m pretty sure the US government will not be able to stop them. That confession will be a spontaneous reaction to seeing the Lord Jesus returning in glory right when they need him most. Frankly, unless they do so, they cannot experience national salvation and restoration.

III. Two Oracles (continued)

2/ Concerning Israel (continued)

Zechariah 12:10-13:1 — Repentance of Israel

“ ‘And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.

‘On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.’ ”

Events Out of Order

Zechariah’s final oracle appears to have five distinct sections spanning chapters 12-14. It is not clear to me that they form any sort of coherent linear narrative. Attempting to read the three chapters sequentially leaves the attentive reader scratching his head and saying (to pick just one example), “Wait a minute, how could victory come before repentance?” I don’t think it will. It’s likelier the sections are grouped thematically, each relating to specific aspects of the coming day of the Lord.

The first section (12:1-9), which we considered last week, begins right in the middle of the story, showing us the armies of Judah victorious against their invaders with the Lord’s help, though we do not yet see any hint of a returned Messiah. In today’s second section (12:10-13:1), we get Messiah revealed and Israel repenting, which logically ought to occur prior to Judah’s victory. The third section (13:2-6) seems to jump ahead to conditions in Christ’s early millennial reign, when he will put an end to false prophecy and idolatry. At this point, the battle appears over. The fourth section (13:7-9) prophesies the Shepherd stricken and the sheep scattered, which we know has already had its initial fulfillment in the Lord’s first advent and probably has a second fulfillment prior to the victory described in chapter 12. The final section (14:1-21) includes events from the gathering of the nations in Jerusalem all the way to conditions during the millennial reign, with a few steps backward and forward in the process. In the battle scenes, the emphasis is on the Lord’s miraculous personal involvement in Israel’s deliverance rather than on the prowess of his earthly army.

Never mind the order of events. This is prophecy, not historical narrative. As long as we keep that in mind, we will not try to make the passage tell us things it was not intended to reveal.

Him Whom They Have Pierced

The word translated “pierced” means to stab or impale. Zechariah uses the same word again a few verses later to describe godly parents wounding a son who prophesies falsely. It is a different word than David used in Psalm 22 (“They have pierced my hands and my feet”). John explicitly tells us the Lord’s impalement with a Roman spear to confirm his death fulfilled these words of Zechariah. The Romans pierced the Lord Jesus, but they did it at the insistence of the Jews. True repentance doesn’t niggle about technicalities like the ethnic background of the soldier who did the thrusting, and Peter would not let Israel off the hook when he preached to the crowd at Pentecost, calling him “this Jesus whom you crucified”. The moment Messiah is revealed, Israel will finally recognize Jesus of Nazareth, the one they rejected.

Zechariah compares Israel’s grief over the returned Christ to that of a parent for an only child, reminding us that he is unique, in Greek monogenēs, “the only Son from the Father”. Again, he compares their grief to the loss of a firstborn. The New Testament calls Jesus Christ both literally and figuratively “firstborn” [prōtotokos]: the “firstborn among many brothers”, the “firstborn of all creation”, the “firstborn from the dead” and just plain “firstborn”. As we know from numerous instances in the Old Testament, that title does not refer to birth order or even to birth, but to priority, significance and honor.

Who Was Hadad-Rimmon?

There is a third comparison here, and it’s a little more obscure than the first two: “The mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.” It may help us to look at other English translations for clarification, most of which suggest this was not mourning for Hadad-rimmon but mourning of or at Hadad-rimmon. In fact, Hadad-rimmon was a place and not a person. Strong’s says it was a town situated on the plain of Megiddo, later renamed Maximianopolis. The most famous mourning that occurred at Hadad-rimmon was for the great and godly King Josiah, slain at Megiddo by Pharaoh Neco. All Jerusalem and Judah grieved over his death. Like Messiah, Josiah’s life was cut short. He died before his time. The prophet Jeremiah wrote a lament for Josiah that Chronicles tells us was still sung in post-exilic Judah at least two centuries later. Of all the episodes of documented national grief in Israel’s history, the mourning for Josiah serves as the best possible comparison to the mourning for Messiah.

Not coincidentally, Josiah too was “pierced”. The arrows of Egypt ended his life.

The Plain of Megiddo

This single reference to Megiddo forms the only basis in scripture for identifying it with the “Armageddon” of Revelation 16:16. The late Michael Heiser writes:

“It is crystal clear that the final conflict occurs at Jerusalem, not Megiddo. Megiddo is referenced only to compare the awful mourning that will result. Not only does Zechariah 12 place the final battle where the nations see the risen, pierced Christ at Jerusalem, but verse 11 tells us explicitly that Megiddo is a plain, not a mountain!”

His argument is more detailed, but amounts to the conviction that placing the final battle described in Zechariah sixty miles outside Jerusalem in Megiddo is incorrect. In support of that, Zechariah says the mourning for Messiah will be “in Jerusalem”. That is where Messiah will appear, as chapter 14 will make explicit: “His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives.”

The Mourning Families

Even national mourning has a personal aspect. Zechariah tells us the whole land will mourn, but that each clan will do so separately, the men separately from the women. Each family in Israel will accept its share of responsibility for what the leaders of the Jews did on their behalf in sentencing the Lord of glory to a criminal’s death. Zechariah lists the families of David, Nathan and Levi, all relatively big names, along with the lesser-known family of Shimei (probably the Shimei of Numbers 3:18, an early Levite, rather than the foul-mouthed Benjamite who cursed David on his way out of Jerusalem). These are surely representative family names rather than a comprehensive list. All Jews will grieve the wickedness of their ancestors and personally repudiate the murder of Messiah.

Why would the men and women mourn separately? Many orthodox Jewish synagogues currently have distinct galleries for men and women. If that is still the case when Messiah returns, separating to mourn will allow every Jew to grieve as vocally as they wish without troubling even the most orthodox conscience. This will be a time for national and personal repentance, not a time to carp legalistically about traditions.

A Fountain for Cleansing

“On that day,” says Zechariah, “there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” Repentance and acknowledgement of Messiah will bring Israel national deliverance from their earthly enemies, but it will also bring the inhabitants of Jerusalem and every remaining believing Jew throughout the land into personal, spiritual deliverance from sin and its defiling consequences.

It’s interesting that both the Hebrew [māqôr] and Greek [pēgē] for “fountain” have the same secondary meaning: an issue of blood. That is hardly coincidental. Zechariah may have anticipated this fountain for cleansing before it opens for Israel in the last days, but Christians are all quite familiar with it. Cleansing and blood were associated in Leviticus, and in the New Testament, it is the “blood of Jesus his Son” that cleanses us from all sin. Hebrews reminds us that no purification is possible “without the shedding of blood”. The OT prophets looked forward to the cross. We, and later repentant Israel, look back to it.

No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.