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Though this prophecy is fulfilling there is not complete fulfilment. There was, among the Jews, no such general grief as Zechariah pictures. They showed no signs of heart-broken sorrow. We must seek further for the mourners looking on the pierced One. There is no doubt where they are to be found. Christians have succeeded to the place, and occupy more than the place, of the Jews; it is ourselves who are to be "looking upon Him whom we have pierced." Some great divines hold that Zechariah's words describe the special mourning of Lent and Holy Week and Good Friday. In any case we have a picture of the effect which a real spiritual view of the cross must produce upon faithful Christians, and one which supplies us with a test of our Good Friday reality and sincerity. It is a hard test, but we must not flinch from it. It is of God's own proposing; nay, rather, it occurs in the announcement of His most gracious purpose. Compare our recollections of earthly bereavements with our memory of Christ's death. Can we say that we feel for Christ at all as we feel at the death of husband or wife, father or mother? Yet God expects us to feel very deeply. We know that Christ's passion ought to excite in us the deepest imaginable sorrow. As there was never sorrow like unto His sorrow; as there was never death like unto His death; as there was never love like unto His love, so we cannot wonder if we are expected to feel a grief for Him as great as that which springs from the severest trial of our human affections. Yet it may safely be said that, generally, it is not so. We fall far short of that which is to be the state of the citizens of the true city of David, and of the inhabitants of Christian Jerusalem.

(M. H. Ricketts.)

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

WEB: It will happen in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.