Zechariah - Chapter 12
FINAL CONFLICT & DELIVERANCE
ZECHARIAH 12
The last six chapters of Zechariah, known as the prophecy chapters summarize the overthrow of the world powers and the establishment of the Messiah's kingdom to come.
In chapters 9-11 we see the judgment of the world powers over Israel, and Israel being granted enough strength to stand against other worldly nations. In chapters 12-14 we see Israel herself sifted and purged in the final conflict and then Israel transformed into the holy nation of the Lord. Also, the chapters 9-11 provide a view of the victories of Alexander the Great, who overthrew the powerful Persian empire, the coming of the Lord's Messiah, and His rejection by the chosen people.
None of these events qualified as the ultimate final coming of Jesus as He returns to establish His 1,000 year rule. Scripture is without shadow as to what will occur to announce that time. God in the person of the given Messiah will stand on the Mount of Olives with His angelic hosts as the deliverer of His people and the destroyer of many kingdoms who are coming against Israel. There also will be the final pouring out of the Spirit upon the Jewish nation such that they may look upon the One they have pierced and accept Him as their true Savior. At that time we are taught that He shall become king over the entire earth. While Israel has certainly endured centuries of sufferings and tribulations and displacements, and has, since the time of exile to Babylon, seen the start of the time of the Gentiles, she is clearly seen in the NT to experience full salvation to her remnant in the last days.
This current chapter of prophecy granted by the Lord through Zechariah and the words used are strongly fulfilled in recent history. God said he would make, through His creative power (stretching out the heavens), Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to the surrounding nations. How has this prophecy come to pass?
The surrounding nations mentioned are all Muslim. They all claim Jerusalem as their third holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. But Jerusalem is not even mentioned once in their Koran. They rest their claim to God's city on their claim that the Temple Mount was where Mohammed ascended to heaven from what is now the Dome of the Rock, where Abraham offered his son, Isaac, to the Lord. While this tradition is firm in current Muslim minds, it is only somewhat recent in claim. It was invented by the uncle of Yassir Arafat, Haj Husseini, in the 1920's to arouse Arab passion against the growing Jewish presence in Jerusalem. He used the verse 17:1 in the Koran to justify this myth. It says the servant of God was taken by night from the worship place, Mecca, to a far distant place of worship (said to be Jerusalem) but Jerusalem was never considered a place of worship for Muslims in all the centuries since they began.
While the inside of the Dome is filled with Koran scripture written on the walls, this verse is not there. This false claim was made to gain revenue for the mosque built there later and to keep the Jews from constructing a new Holy Temple on the spot where the Jewish temples have always stood. Jerusalem is mentioned over 800 times in the Christian Bible and it is the one city where God has bestowed His finest blessings and protection (PS 132:13-14) and is the only city for which believers are commanded to pray (PS 122:6). God put His holy name on this city (2nd Chron 6:6 & 33:7). He has provided the name of the final home of Himself and His own to be “New Jerusalem” (REV 3:12 & 21:2).
In all of the negotiations between Israel and her Arab neighbors, Israel has been willing to concede almost anything for peace (including 95% of the land gained in the 1967 war) but NOT sovereignty over Jerusalem. On this point all negotiations ended and the contention still remains over that point. The false passion for Jerusalem is indeed like a drunkenness to the Arab peoples.
In this current prophecy, God says he will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all peoples, and it remains so until today.
In verses 5-9 God empowers His people and says clearly He will defend the city, destroying all the nations who come against her. He further promises that even those feeble among her will be like David, a strong and courageous warrior for the Lord.
In verse 10 the house of David will look upon the One they pierced and will mourn, grieving for Him as for a firstborn. They will turn their focus upon the Good Shepherd and they will understand and accept why He took the cross and what he accomplished there. They will turn to Him in repentance as they finally accept Him as their beloved one. In that moment Romans 11:26 will be fulfilled as Israel shall be saved. The whole context of Zechariah 12 puts this radical conversion in the setting of the miraculous deliverance from the attacks by other nations. Here God says they will look upon ME, meaning they will look upon Yahweh who IS the pierced one.
Finally in verses 11-14 the great mourning is detailed to show it will occur in every family and person in Jerusalem. It will be even greater than the total mourning at Hadad Rimmon, where the entire nation mourned the death of King Josiah, a godly king, whose death caused the entire nation to weep. This time will be a total fulfillment of the original Day of Atonement, as it will be a national day of mourning over Israel's greatest sin, the rejection of Jesus, whom God sent to fully restore His choice of His people and His land to His heart. In that moment Jesus will have fully become what the Lord had promised, the Son of David, to rule from David's throne forever.
To finish this prophecy, the Lord speaks through Zechariah some words in verses 12-13 that are among the deepest reflection from God to His people in the entire work given to His prophet:
“... the family of the house of Nathan apart...”
“The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart, the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart.”
Here the Lord provides His perfect balance to this mourning time in a way that would make sense to Jews. The family of the house of Nathan does not refer to the prophet by that name who confronted King David about his great sin. It refers to the family of the son of David named Nathan, Solomon's brother, mentioned in the family history of the Messiah (Luke 3:31). Likewise, the family of Shimei does not refer to the tribe of Simeon, which had supplied the teachers to Israel. Rather it refers to Shimei, the son of Gershon, the grandson of Levi, (Numbers 3:18). So we have here in mourning two families of the royal line and two families of the priestly line and one stands for the royal line of King David and one for the high priest Levi, and in the other Nathan for the royal line and Shemei for the priestly line. Rulers AND priests are balanced in the great mourning to be evident and universal in that time.
The final notice of the importance of this moment both to the Lord and to all of His chosen ones is found for us in Revelation 1:7 :
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”