Zechariah 12:10
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Zechariah 12:10-14
Like Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12:10 describes the crucifixion from the perspective of the Jewish remnant that will accept Jesus as their Messiah in the end times. While Isaiah 53 gives us a mountain of detail about the crucifixion, Zechariah only gives us a little nugget:
“They will look on me, the one they have pierced” (vs 10).
Whereas Isaiah gives us that and more:
“But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa 53:5).
The apostle John claims that Zechariah 12:10 was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified:
“These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken,’ and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced’” (John 19:36-37).
The other Scripture that John references is Psalm 34:20:
“He protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.”
I find it amazing that when people read this that they don’t see Jesus. God has placed a spiritual blindness over the Jews in particular so that when they read the Scriptures, they don’t see Jesus:
“He will be a holy place;
for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare” (Isa 8:14).
For Israel and Judah, Jesus is the stone that causes them to stumble. He’s a holy place for everyone else. The Jewish people simply don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. He’s a trap and a snare. Maybe it’s due to stubbornness or maybe it truly is a supernatural blindness that can’t be explained otherwise. Whatever the reason, they simply don’t believe generally speaking.
But they will. As we covered yesterday, when the Jews accept Jesus as their Messiah, the end will come. Or maybe it’s at the end when Jesus comes back that the Jews accept him. Either way, Jesus returns for his people and they accept him in the end:
“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory” (Matt 24:30).
“‘Look, he is coming with the clouds,’
and ‘every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him’;
and all peoples on earth ‘will mourn because of him.’
So shall it be! Amen” (Rev 1:7).
The common description of Jesus found in Isaiah, Zechariah and Revelation is that he is “the one they have pierced”. John described the crucifixion scene for us so that we wouldn’t miss this detail that was foretold by Scripture:
“But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe” (John 19:33-35).
John wrote this down so that we may believe. We don’t have spiritual blinders on. We have the testimony of those who saw it that Jesus’s legs were not broken and the soldiers pierced his side. This was unusual to not break the legs of a crucified person. Death from crucifixion was primarily by suffocation. The flogging prior to the crucifixion was simply to make the victim suffer more until they suffocated.
Generally it would take days for the victim to suffocate. So the Romans would break their legs so they couldn’t push up to breathe. This was a very common occurrence. But Jesus died unusually quick. He was so brutally beaten that his body was too weak to push up and breathe. Most say that he died from a heart attack. So when the Romans got to him, there was no need to break his legs. They just pierced his side to make sure he was dead.
And John recorded all of this for us. So that we may believe. The Scriptures describe Jesus dying from crucifixion and not only that but a rare occurrence of a quick death by crucifixion hundreds of years before crucifixion is even invented. The fact that Jesus was pierced for our transgressions alone should be enough evidence for us to stake our whole life on the fact that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
Christ in the Old Testament 
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