Charles Ellicott Commentary Zechariah 12:10-14

"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 unto 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 first-born. 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 the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart." — Zechariah 12:10-14 (ASV)

These are verses of almost unprecedented difficulty. If the words and they shall look on me whom they pierced stood alone, they might possibly be taken in a figurative sense, meaning that they shall look to the Lord whom they had so grievously despised (see Notes on John 19:37). This is the view of the passage taken by Calvin, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, and others, and apparently by the Septuagint; but this figurative sense of the word cannot be supported by usage; it always means “to thrust through” (see my Hebrew Student's Commentary on Zechariah, pages 111, 112). Moreover, the words that follow, and they shall mourn for him, can only mean, according to this interpretation, that they shall mourn over the slain Jehovah—a notion grotesque, if not blasphemous.

We might, indeed, partially overcome this difficulty by rendering the words and they shall mourn over it—namely, the matter; but such an explanation would be forced and greatly destroy the effect of the following words, as for his only son and for his firstborn. Neither can we, reading on Him for on me, understand the words and they shall look on him whom they pierced as referring to some unknown martyr, or to the Messiah directly, since such a reference would be so abrupt as to have presented no meaning to the prophet’s original hearers. We are compelled, therefore, to propose a theory, which we believe to be new, and which will remove most of the difficulties of the passage. We consider these verses to be misplaced, and propose to place them after Zechariah 13:3, and will comment further on them there.