The Mystery of Ephraim

As prophecised by Joel, “I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh” the veil of blindness will be removed and the Jews shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son; they’ll grieve and lament the crucifying of their Lord Jesus Christ, not only as the sinful, cruel act of their fathers, but that they had a great share of guilt by denying Hin when every eye shall see Him.

Zechariah 12:10 predicts the piercing of the Son of God, the Messiah, fulfilled at the first coming of Jesus Christ when He died on the cross and was pierced by a spear in His side (John 19:36–37). The complete fulfillment of this verse awaits the last days when the Jewish people will plead for mercy from the One whom they have pierced.

The presentation here is the correct view. Alternate views presented by Rabbi Tovia Singer; and Jews for Judiasm or here are linked for your study.

Zechariah 12

¹ The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord who stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him:

² “Behold, 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.

³ And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people. All who burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

⁴ In 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;

⁵ and the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of hosts, their God.’

⁶ “In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a 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.

⁷ The 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.

⁸ “In 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.

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

¹⁰ And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication; 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 who is in bitterness for his firstborn. — this verse indicates a future time when the Jewish people will plead for the mercy of God, which will happen when they see “the one they have pierced.”

— this verse was mentioned in John 19:36-37 when Jesus, hanging on the cross, was pierced with a spear: “For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled . . . They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” And Revelation 1:7 adds, “Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.”

— these prophecies are a fulfilment to Zechariah 12:10. Isaiah 53:5 also predicts that the Messiah would be pierced: “But he was pierced for our transgressions.”

— and the Jews shall look upon Me whom they have pierced (H1856 – dāqar דָּקַר to pierce, piercing through), as they nailed their Messiah to the cross, John 19:34; Revelation 1:7, or by piercing His side with a spear; and they shall mourn for Him as one mourn for his only son, acknowledging their transgression in killing the Prince of Life, Acts 3:15, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn, almost the greatest grief and sorrow known to the Jews;

— the Speaker is the Son of God, the Messiah. The Jews had pierced Him metaphorically by their accusation before the Roman governor during His trial in Jerusalem. They pierced Him, literally and as the crowning act of their blindness, in crusifying the Being of God’s Son upon the Cross,

 — they shall mourn for him; they shall heartily lament the crucifying of the Lord Jesus, not only as the sinful, cruel act of their fathers, as one mourneth for his only son; with an unfeigned and real, a great and long-continued, a deep and lasting sorrow, such as is the sorrow of a father on the death of an only son:

— Rashi: as one mourns over an only son: As a man mourns over his only son. And our Sages expounded this in tractate Sukkah (52a) as referring to the Messiah, son of Joseph, who was slain;

— Rashi rightly quoted the Targum Sukkah (52a) about the Messiah to come from one Yeshua, a son of Joseph, of the house of David, yet they are blindsided to Him as the Son of God and as the fulfilment of the Messiah’s first coming; (reference to this “piercing” disappeared in the Masoretic Text, an example of the lying pen of the scribes: Jeremiah 8:8; or perhaps the lying tongues of their Sages).

¹¹ “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddo. — on that day, in the future when the realization of the greatness of their crime in putting their own Messiah to death, shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem as is ever the case when men realize that their sins were the cause of Christ’s death;

— as the mourning of Hadadrimmon, when the men of Judah mourned so bitterly over the death of their King Josiah, who was mortally wounded near that place in the Plain of Esdraelon, II Chronicles 35:22 ff. in the Valley of Megiddon.

And from Wikipedia (Zechariah): Zechariah’s prophecies took place during the reign of Darius the Great and were contemporary with Haggai in a post-exilic world after the fall of Jerusalem in 587/586 BC. Ezekiel and Jeremiah wrote before the fall of Jerusalem while continuing to prophesy in the early exile period. Scholars believe Ezekiel, with his blending of ceremony and vision, heavily influenced the visionary works of Zechariah 1–8. Zechariah is specific about dating his writing (520–518 BC). — it just doesn’t make sense that a prophecy of a future “shall” (more at the end) to refer to a past to king Josiah (reign 640–609 BC), who lived and died well over a hundred years earier! More appropriately, the mourning for Josiah was a foreshadowing of a greater one to be fulfilled.

¹² And 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; — and the land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of David by itself, and the wives by themselves; the family of Nathan by itself, and the wives by themselves;

¹³ the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; — the family of Levi by itself, and the wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and the wives by themselves;

¹⁴ all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. — all the families that remain, that is, the whole nation shall be born; every family apart and their wives separately. Nor would this sorrow of true repentance be in vain. Zechariah 13:1

— on that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to the entire nation, as representative of the Kingdom of God in the Millenium, in whose members the blood of the Messiah, shed for the sins of the whole world, has prepared a water which thoroughly cleanses sinners from their uncleanness.

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Zechariah 12:10

From the Chabad Bible

And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplications. And they shall look to me because of those who have been thrust through [with swords], and they shall mourn over it as one mourns over an only son and shall be in bitterness, therefore, as one is embittered over a firstborn son.

From OJB (Orthodox Jewish Bible)

And I will pour upon the Bais Dovid, and upon the inhabitants of Yerushalayim, the Ruach (Spirit) of Chen (grace) and of Tachanunim (supplications for favor); and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced [dakar, “pierce through” cf. Yeshayah 53:5; Targum HaShivim Tehillim 22:17], and they shall mourn for Him (Moshiach) as one mourneth for his yachid (only son), and shall grieve in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his bechor (firstborn).

Both sources are prophecies, to be fulfilled in the future; it just doesn’t make sense to prophecise a past! More appropriately, the mourning for Josiah was a foreshadowing of a greater mourning to be fulfilled.

“Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see” Isaiah 42:18

“His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” Isaiah 56:10

Israel today, as in the past, has many blind shepherd.

~ by Joel Huan on June 19, 2022.

Posted in Jews for Judiasm, Messiah, R Tovia Singer