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;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:9-14 The day here spoken of, is the day of Jerusalem's defence and deliverance, that glorious day when God will appear for the salvation of his people. In Christ's first coming he bruised the serpent's head, and broke all the powers of darkness that fought against God's kingdom among men. In his second coming he will complete their destruction, when he shall put down all opposing rule, principality, and power; and death itself shall be swallowed up in that victory. The Holy Spirit is gracious and merciful, and is the Author of all grace or holiness. He, also, is the Spirit of supplications, and shows men their ignorance, want, guilt, misery, and danger. At the time here foretold, the Jews will know who the crucified Jesus was; then they shall look by faith to him, and mourn with the deepest sorrow, not only in public, but in private, even each one separately. There is a holy mourning, the effect of the pouring out of the Spirit; a mourning for sin, which quickens faith in Christ, and qualifies for joy in God. This mourning is a fruit of the Spirit of grace, a proof of a work of grace in the soul, and of the Spirit of supplications. It is fulfilled in all who sorrow for sin after a godly sort; they look to Christ crucified, and mourn for him. Looking by faith upon the cross of Christ will cause us to mourn for sin after a godly sort.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 whole brother of Solomon 1 Chronicles 3:5, which was continued on in private life yet was still to be an ancestral line of Jesus Luke 3:31 : in like way the main priestly family from Levi, and a subordinate line from a grandson of Levi, "the family of Shimei" Numbers 3:23; and all the remaining families, each with their separate sorrow, each according to Joel's call, "let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber and the bride out of her closet" Joel 2:16, each denying himself the tenderest solaces of life.

Dionysius: "The ungrateful and ungodly, daily, as far as in them lies, crucify Christ, as Paul says, "crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame" Hebrews 6:6. And on these Christ, out of His boundless pity, poureth forth a spirit of grace and supplication, so that, touched with compunction, with grieving and tearful feeling, they look on Christ, suffering with His suffering, and bewailing their own impurities."

Osorius: "The likeness is in the sorrow, not in its degree. Josiah had restored religion, removed a dire superstition, bound up relaxed morals by healthful discipline, recalled to its former condition the sinking state. In their extremest needs light shone on them, when there came his unlooked-for death, Therewith the whole state seemed lost. So in the Death of Christ, they who loved Him, saw His divine works, placed their whole hope of salvation in His goodness, suddenly saw the stay of their life extinct, themselves deprived of that most sweet contact, all hope for the future cut off: But the grief in the death of Christ was the more bitter, as He awoke a greater longing for Himself, and had brought a firmer hope of salvation."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12-14. A universal and an individual mourning at once.

David … Nathan—representing the highest and lowest of the royal order. Nathan, not the prophet, but a younger son of David (2Sa 5:14; Lu 3:31).

apart—Retirement and seclusion are needful for deep personal religion.

wives apart—Jewish females worship separately from the males (Ex 15:1, 20).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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, Acts 2:5,37,41.

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.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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 Messiah, that is, on his account:

every family apart; though the mourning will be general and public, yet it will be not in a body of the whole people together, but separate and distinct:

the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the men by themselves, and the women by themselves, which is according to the custom of the Jews in public worship; those that belong to the family of David shall mourn because of the Jews' long rejection of the King Messiah, Jesus the son of David, the Saviour, whom God raised up of his seed:

the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; not of Nathan the son of David, the brother of Solomon, as some think; for, as Aben Ezra observes, he and his family are comprehended in the family of David; but of Nathan the prophet, who will mourn because the Jews have so much slighted Jesus the great Prophet, the Lord raised up in Israel, his doctrines and ordinances.

(o) T. Hieros. Succah, fol. 55. 2.

Geneva Study Bible

And the {k} land shall mourn, every family {l} apart; the family of the {m} house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;

(k) That is, in all places where the Jews will remain.

(l) Signifying, that this mourning or repentance would not be a vain ceremony: but every one touched with his own griefs will lament.

(m) Under these certain families he includes all the tribes, and shows that both the kings and the priests had by their sins pierced Christ.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12, 13. David … Nathan … Levi … Shimei] Two families are singled out, the kingly and the priestly, as examples of the rest. And in each case, to shew the pervading character of the grief, the family or tribe is first described by its general and inclusive name, and then one branch of it is mentioned, to indicate that to every part and division the widespread mourning shall extend. “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 whole brother of Solomon (1 Chronicles 3:5), which was continued on in private life, yet was still to be an ancestral line of Jesus (Luke 3:31); in like way the main priestly family from Levi, and a subordinate line from a grandson of Levi, the family of Shimei (Numbers 3:21); and all the remaining families, each with their separate sorrow, each according to Joel’s call (Joel 2:16), let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber and the bride out of her closet, each denying himself the tenderest solaces of life.” Pusey.

The prophecy began to be fulfilled, so soon as the actual piercing had taken place, when “all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and returned.” (Luke 23:48.) The fulfilment was continued on the day of Pentecost, when those to whom it was said, “God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ, were pricked in their heart.” (Acts 2:36-37.) It has gone on ever since; but it awaits a larger and more exact realisation, when all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, “There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Romans 11:26.)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - The land. Not Jerusalem only, but the whole country. Every family apart. The mourning should extend to every individual of every family (comp. Ezekiel 24:23). David... Nathan. First the royal family is mentioned generally, to show that no one, however, high in station, is exempted from this mourning; and then a particular branch is named to individualize the lamentation. Nathan is that son of David from whom descended Zerubbabel (1 Chronicles 3:5; Luke 3:27, 31). Their wives apart. In private life the females of a household dwelt in apartments separate from the males, and in public functions the sexes were equally kept distinct (see Exodus 15:20; Judges 11:34; 1 Samuel 18:6; 2 Samuel 6:5). Zechariah 12:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In Zechariah 12:11-14 the magnitude and universality of the mourning are still further depicted. Zechariah 12:11. "In that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be great, like the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddo. Zechariah 12:12. And the land will 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. Zechariah 12:13. The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeite apart, and their wives apart. Zechariah 12:14. All the rest of the families, every family apart, and their wives apart." In Zechariah 12:11, the depth and bitterness of the pain on account of the slain Messiah are depicted by comparing it to the mourning of Hadad-rimmon. Jerome says with regard to this: "Adad-remmon is a city near Jerusalem, which was formerly called by this name, but is now called Maximianopolis, in the field of Mageddon, where the good king Josiah was wounded by Pharaoh Necho." This statement of Jerome is confirmed by the fact that the ancient Canaanitish or Hebrew name of the city has been preserved in Rmuni, a small village three-quarters of an hour to the south of Lejun (Legio equals Megiddo: see at Joshua 12:21; and V. de Velde, Reise, i. p. 267). The mourning of Hadad-rimmon is therefore the mourning for the calamity which befel Israel at Hadad-rimmon in the death of the good king Josiah, who was mortally wounded in the valley Megiddo, according to 2 Chronicles 35:22., so that he very soon gave up the ghost. The death of this most pious of all the kings of Judah was bewailed by the people, especially the righteous members of the nation, so bitterly, that not only did the prophet Jeremiah compose an elegy on his death, but other singers, both male and female, bewailed him in dirges, which were placed in a collection of elegiac songs, and preserved in Israel till long after the captivity (2 Chronicles 35:25). Zechariah compares the lamentation for the putting of the Messiah to death to this great national mourning. All the other explanations that have been given of these words are so arbitrary, as hardly to be worthy of notice. This applies, for example, to the idea mentioned by the Chald., that the reference is to the death of the wicked Ahab, and also to Hitzig's hypothesis, that Hadad-rimmon was the one name of the god Adonis. For, apart from the fact that it is only from this passage that Movers has inferred that there ever was an idol of that name, a prophet of Jehovah could not possibly have compared the great lamentation of the Israelites over the death of the Messiah to the lamentation over the death of Ahab the ungodly king of Israel, or to the mourning for a Syrian idol. But the mourning will not be confined to Jerusalem; the land (hâ'ârets), i.e., the whole nation, will also mourn. This universality of the lamentation is individualized in Zechariah 12:12-14, and so depicted as to show that all the families and households of the nation mourn, and not the men only, but also the women. To this end the prophet mentions four distinct leading and secondary families, and then adds in conclusion, "all the rest of the families, with their wives." Of the several families named, two can be determined with certainty, - namely, the family of the house of David, i.e., the posterity of king David, and the family of the house of Levi, i.e., the posterity of the patriarch Levi. But about the other two families there is a difference of opinion. The rabbinical writers suppose that Nathan is the well known prophet of that name, and the family of Shimei the tribe of Simeon, which is said, according to the rabbinical fiction, to have furnished teachers to the nation.

(Note: Jerome gives the Jewish view thus: "In David the regal tribe is included, i.e., Judah. In Nathan the prophetic order is described. Levi refers to the priests, from whom the priesthood sprang. In Simeon the teachers are included, as the companies of masters sprang from that tribe. He says nothing about the other tribes, as they had no special privilege of dignity.")

But the latter opinion is overthrown, apart from any other reason, by the fact that the patronymic of Simeon is not written שׁמעי, but שׁמעני, in Joshua 21:4; 1 Chronicles 27:16. Still less can the Benjamite Shimei, who cursed David (2 Samuel 16:5.), be intended. משׁפּחת השּׁמעי is the name given in Numbers 3:21 to the family of the son of Gershon and the grandson of Levi (Numbers 3:17.). This is the family intended here, and in harmony with this Nathan is not the prophet of that name, but the son of David, from whom Zerubbabel was descended (Luke 3:27, Luke 3:31). Luther adopted this explanation: "Four families," he says, "are enumerated, two from the royal line, under the names of David and Nathan, and two from the priestly line, as Levi and Shimei; after which he embraces all together." Of two tribes he mentions one leading family and one subordinate branch, to show that not only are all the families of Israel in general seized with the same grief, but all the separate branches of those families. Thus the word mishpâchâh is used here, as in many other cases, in the wider and more restricted meaning of the leading and the subordinate families.