Zechariah 12:12

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

⁹So on that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. ¹⁰Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the residents of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns an only child, and weep bitterly for Him as one grieves a firstborn son. ¹¹On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. ¹²The land will mourn, each clan on its own: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives,¹³the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives, ¹⁴and all the remaining clans and their wives.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the land: Jeremiah 3:21, Jeremiah 4:28, Jeremiah 31:18, Matthew 24:30, Revelation 1:7

every family apart: Heb. families, families, Exodus 12:30

the family of the house of David apart: Jeremiah 13:18, Jonah 3:5, Jonah 3:6

and their: Zechariah 7:3, Joel 2:16, 1 Corinthians 7:5

Nathan: 2 Samuel 5:14, 2 Samuel 7:2-4, 2 Samuel 12:1, Luke 3:31

Reciprocal: Exodus 19:15 - come not Matthew 21:41 - He will

Cross-References

Genesis 12:8
From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the LORD, and he called on the name of the LORD.

Genesis 12:10
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

Genesis 20:11
Abraham replied, "I thought to myself, 'Surely there is no fear of God in this place. They will kill me on account of my wife.'

Genesis 26:7
But when the men of that place asked about his wife, he said, "She is my sister." For he was afraid to say, "She is my wife," since he thought to himself, "The men of this place will kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is so beautiful."

1 Samuel 27:1
David, however, said to himself, "One of these days now I will be swept away by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will stop searching for me all over Israel, and I will slip out of his hand."

Proverbs 29:25
The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD will be set securely on high.

Matthew 10:28
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Gill's Notes on the 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.

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.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Zechariah 12:12. 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.