Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son. Sermons I. THE SUBJECTS OF THIS PENITENTIAL SORROW. They are Jews, and not Gentiles. "The house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem" - expressions which designate the whole Israelitish people. The Jewish people had often been reduced to this state of sorrow. When in Babylonian captivity they wept when they "remembered Zion." "The scene," says Dr. Wardlaw, "depicted bears a very close resemblance to those recorded to have taken place on the restoration from Babylon, when Jehovah, having influenced them individually to return to himself, and to set their faces, with longing desire, to the land of their fathers, inclined their hearts, when thus gathered home, to social and collective acts of humiliation and prayer. The prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah on those occasions might be taken as models, in the 'spirit and even the matter' of them, for the supplications of Judah and Israel when brought back from their wider and more lasting dispersions." II. THE CAUSE OF THIS PENITENTIAL SORROW. "I will pour." The Prophet Joel (Joel 2:28) refers to this outpouring of Divine influence. "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." All genuine repentance for sin originates with God. He sends down into human souls the spirit of grace and of supplications. The spirit of grace is the spirit that produces in the mind of man the experience of the grace of God; and this experience works repentance and inspires prayer. III. THE OCCASION OF THIS PENITENTIAL SORROW, "And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." "The expression, 'upon me,'" says Hengstenberg, "is very remarkable. According to ver. 1, the Speaker is the Lord, the Creator of heaven stud earth. But it is evident from what follows that we are not to confine our thoughts exclusively to an invisible God who is beyond the reach of suffering, for the same Jehovah presently represents himself as pierced by the Israelites, and afterwards lamented by them with bitter remorse. The enigma is solved by the Old Testament doctrine of the Angel and Revealer of the Most High God, to whom the prophet attributes even the most exalted names of God, on account of his participation in the Divine nature, who is described in ch. 11. as undertaking the office of Shepherd over his people, and who had been recompensed by them with base ingratitude." "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him." The "me" and the "him" are the same Person, and that Person he who says, in ver. 10, "I will pour upon the house of David." In the first clause he is speaking of himself; in the second clause the prophet is speaking of him. The Messiah was pierced, and pierced by the Jews: "They pierced my hands and my feet." A believing sight of Christ produces this penitential sorrow. "Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, IV. THE POIGNANCY OF THIS PENITENTIAL SORROW. "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 few states of deeper and acuter sorrow than this - that which is felt by affectionate parents when bereft of those objects of their fondest affections; the one solitary object of their concentrated parental love; or the firstborn and rising support and hope of their household." As to the poignancy of this grief, it is further said, "In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon," etc. Perhaps the greatest sorrow ever known amongst the Jews was the sorrow in the valley of Megiddon, occasioned by the death of King Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:24). Jeremiah composed a funeral dirge on the occasion, and other odes and lamentations were composed, and were sung by males and females. But true penitential sorrow is far more poignant than that occasioned by the death of an only son or a noble king. It is tinctured with moral remorse. V. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THIS POIGNANT SORROW. "And the land shall mourn, every family apart," etc. All the families of the land shall mourn, and all shall mourn "apart." Deep sorrow craves loneliness. CONCLUSION. There is one event in history - whether such an event is referred to here or not - that answers better to the description here of penitential sorrow than any other in the chronicles of the world; it is the Day of Pentecost. Thousands of Jews assembled together on that day from all parts of the known world. Peter preached to the vast assembly and charged them with having crucified the Son of God. The Holy Spirit came down upon the vast congregation, and the result was that, "When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart" (Acts 2:37). Far on in the future, it may be, a period will dawn in Jewish history when such penitential sorrow as is here described will be experienced by all the descendants of Abraham. - D.T. I. THE CREATOR OF THE HEAVENS AND EARTH AND THE SPIRIT OF MAN HAS AN ISRAEL. The idea of Israel is fellowship with God and power with God, gained in and by that fellowship. Is such an idea reasonable? We think it a poor conception of God which represents Him as so mighty and rich that He does not care for fellowship with souls. Do you think to convince me that God is wanting in sympathies and affections by showing that He is Almighty? The argument is all in the opposite direction. Should I have more ground to believe in His heart if He were less than all-powerful and all-wise! There is in man a longing after relation to the Infinite. All his history proves this. Something in him cries out after God, and the heavens and the earth have tended to intensify this cry. Man is haunted by a something issuing from heaven and earth that will not let him rest. It would have been sad if man had craved an infinite friend, had yearned after nearness to a perfect and eternal living One, and felt no hope, countenance, or stimulus in the world around him. But man stands in no such barren and dead world. A living world is round him, material, but full of spiritual suggestion, inviting him to seek God, and waking him up again when he grows dull and hard. Will it be said that this does not make probable the idea of an Israel — men that have power with God, it gives support to the idea of communion with God, but not to that of prayer, an asking that influences the Divine will? The answer is obvious. Communion with God, in the case of a being like man, an imperfect, sin-laden being, must take largely the form of prayer. Such a being, coming near to God, cannot but ask from Him. And this asking, so inevitable, cannot be a futile thing. If asking be a necessity with the spirit that has communion with God, there must be room and need for it on the side of God. What is true on the human side is true on the Divine side. The whole doctrine of prayer is found in the spirit of man, in the longings and necessities, and there can be nothing in real contradiction to these. They who seek God have a peculiar affinity with Him. God as a moral being has moral affinities. It is not a lowering or limiting of God to believe that He has an Israel. II. GOD HAS A WORD FOR HIS ISRAEL. Neither the heavens nor the earth nor the spirit of man take the place of a word. They are each a revelation. But they are fuller of questions than of answers. The heart of man needs a word. It is only in words that there is definiteness. One of the distinguishing peculiarities of man is that he employs words. By these he reaches the fulness of his being. He makes his thought clear to himself, and gives it an outward existence by words. He makes all shadowy and vague things firm and abiding by words. And shall not God meet him on this highest platform? A Word of God is a necessity to the human soul God has a word to Israel which makes fellowship close and confiding. The word gives man the necessary clue to the interpretation of the universe and himself. It is God's Word to Israel as the ideal man Israel is the ideal and complete man, and it is in proportion as any man approaches the ideal that he fully comprehends and embraces the message of God's Word to Israel. III. GOD'S WORD TO ISRAEL IS A BURDEN. This expression is often used by the prophets. No doubt it expresses, in the first instance, the weight of obligation and responsibility in the declaring of God's message, but this rests on the fact that the Word of God is a weighty matter for all men. 1. God's Word is a burden by reason of the weight of its ideas. Thoughts that may be put into words are of all degrees of weight — some light as a feather, some heavy as a world. Thoughts weigh upon the mind, even though they are felt to be precious. The ideas in God's Word are the weightiest of all — God, soul, sin, salvation, renewal, eternity. Men are never right till they try to lift these thoughts and weigh them. They are no judges of the weight of things till they try these. 2. God's Word is a burden of momentousness and obligation. There are many weighty thoughts that have little or no practical moment. But the thoughts in God's Word are of pressing and supreme importance. They are light, food, shelter, life. To reject them is ruin. Everything must depend on how we stand to these words. 3. God's Word is a burden which is easier to bear in whole than in part. The half or quarter, or some little fraction of God's Word is worse to bear, harder and heavier than the whole. A single truth taken out of the whole may be quite oppressive and intolerable. It may crush all joy and courage out of life. The truth about sin needs the truth about grace and redemption in order to be borne. The truth about duty needs the Divine promises. Relief is to be found not by throwing off any truth, but by taking up more. The hardest truths become pleasant in proper company. Every truth has relations to all the rest, and is not properly itself without them. Let the effort be to take the whole truth, and to take it as a whole. Then it will no more oppress than the vast load of atmosphere which every man carries. 4. The Word of God is a burden which removes every other load. Thought, conviction, and feeling bring their inevitable burden. And if a man rejects burdens he is but making up a heavier burden. If a man will not have the burden of God's Word, then the whole riddle of the universe becomes his burden. But if I take up God's Word, and actually carry it as God's Word, I have no further care. There is provision for driving away every fear and every care in that Word. (J. Leckie, D. D.) Which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth Homilist. I. That the universe INCLUDES THE EXISTENCE OF MATTER AND OF MIND. The phrase "heavens" and "earth" is used here and elsewhere to represent the whole creation.1. It includes matter. Of the essence of matter we know nothing; but by the word we mean all that comes within the cognisance of our senses, all that can be felt, heard, seen, tasted. How extensive is this material domain! 2. It includes mind. Indeed, mind is here specified. "And formeth the spirit of man within man." Man has a spirit. Of this he has stronger evidence than he has of the existence of matter. He is conscious of the phenomena of mind, but not conscious of the phenomena of matter. II. THAT THE UNIVERSE ORIGINATED WITH ONE PERSONAL BEING. It had an origin. It is not eternal. The idea of its eternity involves contradictions. It had an origin; its origin is not fortuitous, it is not the production of chance. Its origin is not that of a plurality of creators; it has one, and one only, "the Lord." III. THIS ONE PERSONAL CREATOR HAS PURPOSES CONCERNING THE HUMAN RACE. The "burden" may mean the sentence of the Word of the Lord concerning Israel. 1. No events in human history are accidental. 2. The grand purpose of our life should be the fulfilment of God's will. IV. HIS PURPOSE TOWARDS MANKIND HE IS FULLY ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH. His creative achievements are here mentioned as a pledge of the purposes hereafter announced. Every purpose of the Lord shall be performed. Has He purposed that all mankind shall be converted to His Son? It shall be done. (Homilist.) People David, Hadad, Levi, Nathan, Shimei, Shimeites, ZechariahPlaces Hadad-rimmon, Jerusalem, MegiddoTopics Bitter, Bitterly, Bitterness, Child, Compassion, David, Family, Firstborn, First-born, Grace, Grief, Grieve, Grieves, Hands, Inhabitant, Inhabitants, Jerusalem, Mourn, Mourned, Mourneth, Mourning, Mourns, Oldest, Pierced, Pour, Poured, Prayer, Sorrowing, Spirit, Supplication, Supplications, Thrust, Weep, Weeping, Weeps, WoundedOutline 1. Jerusalem a cup of trembling to herself,3. and a burdensome stone to her adversaries. 6. The victorious restoring of Judah. 10. The repentance of Jerusalem. Dictionary of Bible Themes Zechariah 12:10 2036 Christ, humility Library Some Surprising Results of the Break. The Surprised Jew: a clash of wills--thousands of believing Jews--the church displacing kingdom--two-fold division of men formerly--now three-fold--church different in organization from kingdom--the Baptist puzzled--Jesus did not fill out Hebrew prophecy--two characteristics, personal and official--personal details fulfilled--official not because of rejection--out of situation grew four gospels--Mark--Matthew's the gap gospel--Paul's audiences--Luke's gospel--these three tell of rejection mainly--John's … S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus Apart The Spirit of Supplication Twenty-First Day for God's Spirit on the Jews Everybody's Need. The Open Fountain Second Day for the Spirit of Supplication The Secret Burden Appendix ii. Motives to Holy Mourning The Secret Walk with God (I. ). Jesus Raises the Widow's Son. Meditations to Stir us up to Morning Prayer. Exposition of Chap. Iii. (ii. 28-32. ) A Case of Conscience Resolved The Crucifixion. Faith The Johannine Writings A Clearing-Up Storm in the Realm Some Helps to Mourning The Water of Life; Sundry Sharp Reproofs The Baptist's Inquiry and Jesus' Discourse Suggested Thereby. Links Zechariah 12:10 NIVZechariah 12:10 NLT Zechariah 12:10 ESV Zechariah 12:10 NASB Zechariah 12:10 KJV Zechariah 12:10 Bible Apps Zechariah 12:10 Parallel Zechariah 12:10 Biblia Paralela Zechariah 12:10 Chinese Bible Zechariah 12:10 French Bible Zechariah 12:10 German Bible Zechariah 12:10 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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