Zechariah 12:9-11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.… The words have reference, in their primary sense, to the house of David, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; and received their first fulfilment on the day of Pentecost. But the text invites us also to look on Him who was pierced for us, and mourn. We are to look long and earnestly on Him whom we have pierced, that by long looking we may learn to mourn, and mourning much may love much, and loving much, may have much forgiven. How shall we look on Him whom we have pierced? Not with our fleshly, eyes, but with the eye of faith. We are to look to Him, in order to see that the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." It was our polluted hands that pierced His hands; the swiftness of our feet to do evil that nailed His feet; the wicked devices of our hearts that pierced His heart. Yet we must not look wholly to His bodily sufferings, the wounds we have given Him have gone deeper, even to His soul, yea, pierced Him through and through with many sorrows. The pangs which He suffered on His spiritual Cross were infinitely more than those He suffered on the natural. Great as were His bodily sufferings, from the prospect of them He never shrank. He ever views and speaks calmly of them. Not so does He announce His spiritual Cross, it was the internal Cross which caused His bitterest passion. Shall we not then look on Him, and "remember and be confounded, and never open our mouths any more, because of our shame," as we look upward to that Cross to which our sins have nailed Him? He was lifted up on that Cross that all from the ends of the world might look unto Him and be saved. It is by looking on Him whom we have pierced that we alone can learn somewhat of the deadly bitterness of our sins, which might not be forgiven, but by that awful blood shedding. It is at the foot of the Cross alone that the mystery of the Cross is learnt, and a true estimate of our sins gained. (R. A. Suckling, M. A.) Parallel Verses 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. |
    |