Zechariah 12:10

The Bible says in Zechariah 12:10, “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.” This Bible verse has a lot to say. Of course, it is a Messianic prophecy. It has a direct reference to the crucifixion when it says, “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” This is very similar to the passage about Jesus that is found in Isaiah 53:5, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Notice what must take place when people get saved. First of all God must do something. He said, “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications.” No one gets saved just because they bowed their heads and repeated some words that you told them to repeat, because no one gets saved until Jesus Himself visits that person by the Spirit and draws that person to Himself and reveals Himself to that person. Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

Notice carefully in Zechariah 12:10 who is talking. The speaker says, “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.” Some might say that Jehovah is speaking. The word “Jehovah” is used dozens of times in the book of Zechariah, and it certainly seems to be Jehovah speaking here. But notice that the speaker says, “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” That is Jesus. And so we see that Zechariah 12:10 is another verse that indicates that God who revealed Himself as Jehovah in the Old Testament is the same God who revealed Himself as Jesus in the New Testament. Jehovah is Jesus, and Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus said in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Jesus said that He would give to the Israelites “the spirit of grace and of supplications.” Grace comes from God, and grace is one of the key characteristics of salvation. God gives grace that is greater than our sin. Grace refers to God’s giving nature. He gives freely and generously and willingly. It is no wonder that the New Testament says in Second Corinthians 9:7, “God loves a cheerful giver.” Jesus is a cheerful giver, and He loves to give salvation to those who simply ask for it. Asking for salvation is what is being referred to when Zechariah 12:10 tells us about the spirit of “supplications.” It says in Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Jesus told us about a man who was justified by the request that he made. Jesus said in Luke 18:13, “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.”

The day will come when a great number of Jewish people will be saved all at the same time. Jesus saves people one at a time, but because He is the infinite God, He is able to deal with a multitude of individuals all at the same time if He chooses to do so. The Apostle Paul quoted the prophet Isaiah and Paul wrote in Romans 12:26-27, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” We know that this time of mass conversion to Jesus in Israel will take place at the end, as basically the same time as the battle of Armageddon. The battle will take place, and there will be great mourning because of all the dead. When the battle takes place Jesus will appear to defeat the ungodly, and then all the world will see Jesus including the Jewish people. Jesus puts it this way in Zechariah 12:10, “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.”

The book of Zechariah emphasizes how much sorrow shall fall upon the people of Israel. One of the reasons that this sorrow happens is to prepare them to turn to Jesus. Everything that happens God permits, and everything that happens God is able to turn to His glory. The devilish hatred that exists in the world against the nation of Israel will eventually lead to the Jewish people seeing their need of Jesus and turning to Him when He appears at the Second Coming.

It is interesting that the Lord God says in the last part of Zechariah 12:10, “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.” God gave His only Son, so He knows something about the pain that is suffered by a parent who loses his or her child. Remember that one of the key verses of the Bible is John 3:16 that says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his onloy begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” There are many sufferings that can happen to people in life, and perhaps the greatest of al possible sufferings is to lose a child. The St. Jude Children’s Hospital exists in order to try and alleviate that suffering. When you do suffer because of what has happened to your child or to one of your children, then you understand just a little bit how much the Father suffered to send His holy Son to be tortured and to die on the cross of Calvary.

To emphasize how great the suffering will be for the people of Israel at the time just before Christ comes to them, it says in Zechariah 12:11-14, “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. 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; The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.”

The Bible says in Zechariah 13:1, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” The biggest problem that the people of Israel had and still have is the same problem that every person on the earth has: the sin problem. The Father knows the needs of the inhabitants of the earth, and because He is the Father He has provided for the needs. It says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The Bible says in Zechariah 13:2, “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.” Always after the forgiveness of sins comes the living of a more holy life. That is the will of God. God says, “Be ye holy, for I am holy, saith the Lord.” A person only has the desire for the forgiveness of sins if they also have the desire to live a more holy life. Both of them always go together. So in a way to say, “Believe on Jesus,” is the same as saying, “Repent of your sins.” In order to truly believe on Jesus, you must repent of your sins. When a person truly turns to Jesus, that person is turning from their sins. Both things happen at the same time.

In Zechariah 13:2 the Lord mentions two specific sins that He promises to wipe off the earth: idolatry and false teaching. Concerning the idols the Lord said, “I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered.” We know what the Lord thinks of idolatry because He said in the first two of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-6, “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”

Zechariah 13:2 is telling us about how life will be on the earth after the Second Coming of Christ. We call this the millennial kingdom of Christ, or the one thousand year reign of Christ because the word “millennial” means one thousand. After the Second Coming of Christ, which is described in Revelation chapter 19, the Bible says in Revelation 20:1-6, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

And so we see that the eternal state begins with a small prelude: one thousand years of living and reigning with Christ on this earth. When the Lord said in Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth,” He meant it literally.

Zechariah 13:2 tells us one very important truth about the millennial kingdom: there will be no false religion and no false teachers. That will be a wonderful beginning for that kingdom. Zechariah 13:2 tells us another interesting truth about life in the kingdom. It says, “and they shall no more be remembered.” The message here is: it is good to forget bad things. One of the things that can make a person’s life miserable is how much they remember and think about some terrible thing that happened to them in the past, or to remember some terrible thing that they did in the past. One of the circumstances that will make the eternal state so wonderful is all of the things that we will forget. Even in this life the Apostle Paul learned the value of not remembering certain things. He wrote in Philippians 3:13, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” The Lord says in Jeremiah 31:34, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” If you have never bowed before Jesus and receive the forgiveness of sins, it is very important that you do so before it is too late, or you will remember your sins forever.

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