Zechariah 12:12

And the land shall mourn,.... That is, the inhabitants of it; not only Jerusalem, but the land of Judea, and the people in it everywhere: in the Talmud (o) it is said, this is the mourning of the

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; And the land shall mourn,

The land; land put for the inhabitants of it, the land in general for the land of Judea, or that where the Jews dwelt, who should every where bear a share in this mourning. Thus some of the Jews from every country where they dwelt, being met at Jerusalem, were pricked at heart, and did mourn over the crucified Messiah, ,37,41. Every family apart; or family by family, expressed in Hebrew, families, families. The royal family in both branches of it, Solomon’ s and Nathan’ s. This family, as having greatest portion in Christ, should have been most tender of him, who had been heir on the throne if his kingdom had been of this world, and by descent from David: but since they forgot him, neglected to do their duty to him alive, they remember him, and do their duty towards him, dead; they mourn really and truly. Their wives apart: the manner of the Jews in mourning was by shutting up themselves, retiring from company and pleasure; here families retire, nay, in the family, wives retire to bewail their sin and their fathers’ sin in rejecting Christ. Some there were of this family who believed in Christ, and mourned, when the gospel was first published to the Jews before it was carried to the Gentiles.

Zechariah 12:12 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;Ver. 12. And the land shall mourn] Not the generality of the Jews (unless it be at their last general conversion, that resurrection from the dead, as it is called, Romans 11:15), but the elect according to grace, who are here called the land, because more esteemed by God than all the other Jews besides; for he reckoneth of men by their righteousness, as he did of Lot at Sodom. Every family apart] To show the soundness of their sorrow, the sincerity by the secrecy; for Ille dolor vere qui sine teste dolor. He grieves with a witness that grieves without a witness. There is a worldly sorrow that hardeneth the heart, and indisposeth it for repentance; as did that of Nabal. There is also a hellish sorrow, a desperate grief for sin, poenitentia Iscariotica, as was that of Judas. There is no birth without travail; but some children die in the birth, are killed with the pains of the labour. Lastly, there is a sorrow according to God (ηκατα Yεονλυπη, 2 Corinthians 7:10), whereby we weep kindly after God, inquiring the way to Zion, with our faces set thitherward, and renewing our covenant, Jeremiah 50:4-5 "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned," saith David, Psalms 51:4. Lo, there lay this pinch of his grief, that he had offended so good a God. It was the myrrh and its scent that Christ had dropped on the bars of the door, that waked the drowsy spouse, and made her bowels fret, Cant. v. This made her first weep in secret, and then seek out after him whom her soul loved. She first went to inquire of the Lord, as Rebecca did, Genesis 25:22, and then she hears from him those sweet words, Son 2:14 "O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rocks," that hast wrought thyself a burrow, a receptacle of rest in the Rock of Ages, "in the secret places of the stairs," whither thou art retired, as for security so for secrecy, to mourn as a dove, and to pray for pardon. Show me thy face, which now appeareth most orientally beautiful, because most instamped with sorrow for sin; "let me hear thy voice," which never sounds so melodiously as when thy heart is broken most penitentially; "for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance comely." And their wives apart] Sarah had her peculiar tent, Genesis 24:67, wherein she dwelt, Genesis 18:6, and died, Genesis 23:2. Rebecca, likewise, had her retiring room, whither she went to inquire of the Lord, Genesis 25:22. Rachel and Leah had their several tents, apart from Jacob’ s, Genesis 31:33. Miriam and her women do apart by themselves praise God for deliverance, Exodus 15:20 "I and my maidens will fast likewise," saith Esther, Esther 4:16.

(12) Nathan.—Not the prophet, but the son of David (2 Samuel 5:14).

Verse 12. Every family apart] The meaning of the word apart, which recurs here so often, may be this: Their sorrow shall be so deep and distressing, that every one will endeavour to avoid another, and vent his grief and distress of soul in private. And even husbands and wives shall separate from each other in this general mourning, as they were obliged to do by law in certain circumstances. See 1 Corinthians 7:5, and the note there.

10–14. The penitent Sorrow of the People for Sin The conversion (Zechariah 12:10-14) and moral reformation (Zechariah 13:1-6) of the people shall accompany their deliverance from their enemies (Zechariah 12:1-9). On the royal house and the royal city first God will pour out His Spirit, and as the consequence they shall regard Him, whom they have pierced and wounded by their sins, with the deepest sorrow and bitterness of soul, Zechariah 12:10. The mourning in Jerusalem shall be such as to recall that which was occasioned by the great national calamity of the death of Josiah in battle, Zechariah 12:11. But the outpouring of the Spirit and the penitent grief called forth by it shall extend to the whole nation, so that every family throughout the land, the sexes apart, shall form itself into a separate group of mourners, Zechariah 12:12-14.

This sorrow should be universal but also individual, the whole land, and that, family by family; the royal family in the direct line of its kings, and in a branch from Nathan, a son of David and

VARIOUS THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL, Zechariah 12:1 to Zechariah 14:21.The heading (Zechariah 12:1) names the subject of these utterances, Israel, a term used here not in a national but in a religious sense of the people of Jehovah.