John Calvin Commentary Zechariah 12:10

"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." — Zechariah 12:10 (ASV)

At the beginning of this verse, the Prophet indicates that though the Jews were then miserable and would be so in the future, yet God would be merciful to them. Thus, he exhorts them to patience, so that they might not lose heart from prolonged weariness. For it was not enough to promise them what we have noted regarding God’s aid, unless Zechariah had added that God would at last be merciful and gracious to them after they had endured so many evils that the world would consider them almost consumed.

As to the effusion of the spirit, the expression at first glance seems difficult to understand. For what is it to pour forth the spirit of grace? He ought rather to have said, “I will pour my grace upon you.” But what he means is that God would be merciful, for His Spirit would be moved to deliver the Jews; for he compares the Spirit of God here to the mind of man, and we know that Scripture often uses this kind of language. The phrase then, I will pour forth the spirit of grace, may be suitably expressed as follows: “I will pour forth my bowels of mercy,” or, “I will open my whole heart to show mercy to this people,” or, “My Spirit shall be like the spirit of man, which usually moves him to give help to the miserable.”

So now we understand the sense in which God may be appropriately said to pour forth the spirit of grace. Yet it may be taken in a more refined manner, as meaning that God would not only show mercy to His people but also make them aware of His mercy. This view I am inclined to take, especially on account of what follows: the spirit of commiserations, or, of lamentations, for the word תחנונים, tachnunim, commonly means lamentations in Hebrew. Some render it “prayers,” but improperly, for they do not express the force of the word. It is always used in the plural number, at least with this ending, and there is only one place where we can render it commiserations, that is, in Jeremiah 31:9—

In commiserations will I restore them.

But even there it may be translated as lamentations, consistent with the whole verse; for the Prophet says, “They shall weep,” and afterwards adds, “In lamentations will I restore them.” Indeed, most interpreters translate it here as prayers; but the Hebrews prefer to translate it as commiserations, because they consider that the spirit of grace is nothing other than simply grace itself.

The spirit of grace is indeed grace itself united with faith. For God often hears the miserable, extends His hand to them, and brings them a most effective deliverance, while they still remain blind and unconcerned. It is therefore far better that the spirit of grace should be poured forth on us than grace itself. For unless the Spirit of God penetrates our hearts and instills in us a felt need for grace, it will not only be useless but even injurious, as God will at last take vengeance on our ingratitude when He sees His grace perishing through our indifference.

What the Prophet, in my opinion, means then is that God will at last be so propitious to the Jews as to pour forth on them the spirit of grace, and then the spirit of lamentations, in order to obtain grace.

Those who translate the word as prayers do not, as I have already said, convey the full meaning of the term. But we may also understand commiserations in a passive sense and consistent with its common meaning: I will pour forth the spirit of grace, so that they themselves may perceive My grace; and then, the spirit of commiserations, so that, having deplored their evils, they may understand that they have been delivered by a power from above. Therefore, Zechariah promises here more than before; for he is not speaking here of God’s external aid, by which they were to be defended, but of inward grace, by which God would pour hidden joy into their hearts, so that they might know and find by sure experience that He was propitious to them.

But if the word תחנונים, tachnunim, is translated as commiserations, the meaning would be, as I have already stated, that the Jews, through the prompting and suggestions of the Holy Spirit, would find God merciful to them. But if we translate it as lamentations, then the Prophet must be seen as saying something more: that the Jews, previously so hardened in their evils that they did not flee to God for help, would at last become suppliants, because the Spirit would inwardly touch their hearts in such a way as to lead them to deplore their state before God and thus express their complaints to Him. This view is more fully confirmed by what follows.

He says, They shall look to me whom they have pierced. So we see here that not only was an external grace or favor promised to the Jews, but an internal light of faith, whose author is the Spirit. For it is He who illuminates our minds to see the goodness of God, and it is He also who turns our hearts. For this reason He adds, They shall look to me.

For God, as I have already reminded you, deals very bountifully with unbelievers, but they are blind. Therefore, He pours forth His grace without any benefit, as though He rained on flint or on rocks. However bountifully God may then bestow His grace on unbelievers, they still render His favor useless, for they are like stones.

Now, as Zechariah declares that the Jews would at last look to God, it follows that the spirit of repentance and the light of faith are promised to them, so that they may know God as the author of their salvation and feel so assured that they are already saved as to devote themselves entirely to Him in the future. Then they shall look to me whom they have pierced.

Here the Prophet also indirectly reproves the Jews for their great obstinacy, for God had restored them, and they had been as untamable as wild beasts. For this piercing is to be understood metaphorically as continual provocation, as though he had said that the Jews in their perverseness were prepared, as it were, for war, that they goaded and pierced God by their wickedness or by the weapons of their rebellion. Since they had been like this, he now says that such a change would be brought about by God that they would become quite different, for they would learn to look to Him whom they had previously pierced. We cannot finish today.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as we are today surrounded by enemies and defenseless, so that our safety seems to be in danger every moment—O grant that we may raise up our hearts to You, and being satisfied with Your protection alone, may we despise whatever Satan and the whole world may threaten us with, and thus continue impregnable while carrying on our warfare, so that we may at last reach that happy rest, where we shall enjoy not only those good things which You have promised to us on earth, but also that glorious and triumphant victory which we shall share together with our Head, even Christ Jesus, as He has overcome the world for us, so that He might gather us to Himself and make us partakers of His victory and of all His blessings. Amen.

[Exposition continues from previous day's lecture]

We said in yesterday’s lecture that the words, They shall look to me whom they have pierced, are to be understood metaphorically, for the Prophet expresses here what he had said before—that the Jews would eventually return to a sound mind, that is, when endowed with a spirit of grace and of commiserations.

For it is a true conversion when people seriously acknowledge that they are at war with God, and that He is their enemy until they are reconciled. For unless a sinner sets himself, in a manner, before God’s tribunal, he is never touched by a true feeling of repentance. It is therefore necessary for us to remember that God has been offended by us, and that we have, as far as we could, instigated Him to destroy us, inasmuch as we have provoked His wrath and His vengeance.

This, then, is the real meaning of the Prophet here: for the Jews, after having in various ways and for a long time heedlessly provoked God, would eventually be led to repentance, inasmuch as they would become terrified by God’s judgment, while previously none of them thought they had any account to render.

John says that this prophecy was fulfilled in Christ when His side was pierced by a spear (John 19:37), and this is most true. For it was necessary that the visible symbol should be displayed in the person of Christ, so that the Jews might know that He was the God who had spoken by the Prophets; and we have seen similar instances elsewhere.

The Jews, then, had crucified their God when they grieved His Spirit; but Christ also, as to His flesh, was pierced by them. And this is what John means: that God, by that visible symbol, made it evident that He had not only been formerly provoked in a disgraceful manner by the Jews, but that at last, in the person of His only-begotten Son, this great sin was added to their disgraceful impiety—that they pierced even the side of Christ.

It is indeed true that the side of Christ was pierced by a Roman soldier, but, as Peter says, He was crucified by the Jews, for they were the authors of His death, and Pilate was almost forced by them to condemn Him (Acts 2:36). So then, the piercing of His side is justly to be ascribed to the Jews, for they executed what their mad impiety suggested, using the hand of a foreign soldier.

But it must be observed that the words of the Prophet are not cited by John with reference to repentance, for he does not speak there of repentance. His object was briefly to show that Christ is that God who had from the beginning spoken by the Prophets, for He says, They shall look to me.

It is certain that the only true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, declared this through His Spirit by the mouth of Zechariah. Then Christ is that same God. We do not, however, confuse the persons in this way; but we are to conclude that the essence of the Father and of the Son is one and the same, which those wicked men, who now disturb the Church, attempt to deny.

For they imagine that the Father is the only true God, and then they allow that Christ also is a God; but they devise a new kind of divinity, like a river flowing from a fountain. They therefore deny that Christ is the only true God. Though they allow that He was begotten from eternity, they yet teach us that the essence of the Father and of the Son is not the same. They regard Christ as some sort of phantom—I do not know what—for they will never allow Him to be that God, the author of this prophecy.

They say, as they necessarily must, that Zechariah spoke by His Spirit. But they even account for this by referring to the proximate and the secondary cause, inasmuch as God the Father employed His own Son. They, however, stubbornly contend that Christ is a God not of the same essence as the Father, for the word God, as they imagine, does not properly belong to anyone but the Father.

But we clearly see how the Holy Spirit condemns this blasphemy. For He shows by the mouth of the evangelist that the One crucified was not some kind of secondary God, but that He was the God who spoke by Moses, and who thus declared Himself to be the only true God, and affirmed the same by the mouth of Isaiah:

My glory will I not give to another: I, I am, and none besides me. (Isaiah 42:10)

Now follows what we read in our last lecture, but time did not allow me to give an explanation. He says, Lament shall they for him a lamentation as that for an only-begotten; and bitter shall they be for him as with a bitterness for a first-born. Zechariah continues with the same subject, for he promises, as before, the spirit of repentance to the Jews and mentions a particular kind of repentance. By stating a part for the whole, he includes under this kind every part of it.

The beginning of repentance, we know, is grief and lamentation. Since, then, by the phrase “They shall look to me,” he had not sufficiently expressed what he wished, he now explains his meaning more clearly by mentioning lamentation and grief: that God would at last grant the Jews repentance for having crucified Christ.

The person is indeed changed; but we know that it is common for the Prophets to introduce God as speaking, now in the first person, then in the third person. If anyone is disposed to think that a difference in person is marked out here, I do not object; but I fear that it is a refinement that will not hold up.

At the same time, we may state this explanation: They shall look to me whom they pierced. Was God the Father pierced? By no means, for He had not put on flesh in which He could have suffered; but this was done by His only-begotten Son. Why then does the Father say, They shall look to me? The answer given is: because of the unity of the essence.

It then follows: And they shall lament for him and be bitter for him. There is here a transition from the first to the third person; for though Christ is the same as the Father, yet different as to His person. But, as I have already said, I am not inclined to insist on this view, for the Hebrew mode of speaking seems to support the other opinion—that the Prophet first introduces God as the speaker, and then he himself, as God’s minister, narrates what would take place.

But what I have just referred to is doubtless true: that repentance is here described by stating a part for the whole. For the first thing in order is sorrow, according to what Paul teaches us in 2 Corinthians 7:10. The reason may also be gathered from what I have said: that sin cannot displease us, nor can we repent, unless our guilt goads and wounds us, while we acknowledge that God is an avenger of sins and that we have to do with Him.

For when God the Judge comes forth to punish us, must we not necessarily be struck with dreadful grief and alarm, indeed, be almost swallowed up by it? Hence that bitterness that is mentioned, and hence lamentation; for it cannot be otherwise when we dread God’s vengeance hanging over us.

But the Prophet, it may be said, seems to mean something else: that they will lament on account of Christ, and not on their own account. To this a ready answer may be given: that the source and cause of lamentation is pointed out. For ingratitude will compel the Jews to lament, inasmuch as they will acknowledge that in their perverse obstinacy they had carried on war with God and His only-begotten Son. He does not then mean that the death of Christ would be bitter to them, as we are accustomed to shed tears and to lament at the death of a friend, or of a brother, or of a son, but because they would know and feel that they had been extremely blind and by their sins had provoked God.

Jerome thought that Christ is called the only-begotten with regard to His Divine nature, and the first-born, because He is the elder brother of all the godly and the Head of the Church. The sentiment is indeed true, but I do not know whether it is the sentiment of the Prophet in this passage. I therefore prefer to take this simple view of what is said here: that the Jews, after having despised Christ, would at last acknowledge Him to be a precious and invaluable treasure, the contempt of whom deserved the vengeance of God. Let us proceed.