Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

God is pierced
Zechariah 12:10, John 19:37

"And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10, NKJV)

Problem Pronouns
The problem in this verse is the pronouns. Just who are the 'I', 'me', 'they' and 'him' mentioned, let alone the allusion to the 'son' and 'firstborn'. According to the context back in verse 1 of this chapter God is speaking and yet he is described as "pierced". Several Bible versions solve the apparent difficulty for us by resorting to alternate translations. The Good News Bible has "They will look at the one whom they stabbed to death". The NRSV also has "the one" but with a marginal note that the Hebrew reads "on me", a change from the original RSV which had "him". Surprisingly the NIV and Jewish Publication Society keep the "me", whilst the ASV has "me" and a marginal note offering "him". The NEB keeps both pronouns and reads "?... on me, on him whom they have pierced". Meanwhile another Jewish version, the Koren Jerusalem Bible (1992) has the "me" but immediately qualifies it, without justification, by "regarding those whom the nations have thrust through", thus lessening the effect of the divine "Me" by changing its force to "those".

Just take a look at some of the variety:

"me, whom" : AV, ASV, NKJV, NASB, RV, JPS, Douay (Vulgate), Jay P Green interlinear, Babylonian Talmud, Soncino Books of the Bible "him, whom" : NIV (early editions), RSV, Living Bible, Moffatt, American Translation (Goodspeed), The Complete Bible in Modern English (Fenton) "me, the one" : NIV (later editions) "the one, whom" : GNB, NRSV, The Bible in Living English, The Jerusalem Bible, Bible in Basic English, NWT (Jehovah Witnesses) "me, him" : NEB "me, regarding those" : JB (Koren Publishing), Stone Edition Tanach (ArtScroll/Mesorah) "whom" : New American Bible "the one" : Contemporary English Bible

John 19:37 only makes the situation worse when, as fulfilment of Jesus' crucifixion and piercing by a Roman spear, he quotes the verse, as "They shall look on him whom they pierced", further muddying the waters. But then New Testament writers often rephrased the Old Testament or quoted from earlier Hebrew editions, Greek variants or their own paraphrases. Spot the missing pronoun from Habakkuk 2:4 in Paul's citations in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11.

Hebrew manuscript evidence
Whilst the early translators and scribal copyists clearly found this verse an embarrassment, hence there are marked variations on the Hebrew, nonetheless the fifty or so manuscripts are late and not as reliable as the earliest ones with the problem pronoun. A standard rule of thumb is that emendations are made of difficult readings to make them less problematic. No one in their right mind would change an original "him" and replace it with "me" just to make life easier! Thus the more difficult reading is likely to have been the original, and should be kept.

Whilst more critical and liberal scholars like Driver are willing to change the text, the more evangelical, though no less scholarly, Delitzsch writes that:

The suffix in עשׂשלַי (to me) refers to the speaker. This is Jehovah, according to ver. 1, the creator of the heaven and the earth. עֶתעשׂששֶׁר־דָּקָרוּ, not "Him whom they pierced," but simply "whom they pierced."^F1

Thus there is no support for the NEB's or other versions' use of two pronouns, "... to me, him whom...". The RSV is inconsistent as elsewhere is translates the same combination of Hebrew terms in Genesis 44:21 as "... to me ... upon him".

Alternative candidates for the victim
Some commentators, despite the most obvious prophetic fulfilment in Jesus' piercing by a spear and death on a cross, look for other interpretations. Some try to interpret it as referring to the slaying of the Jews in the defence of Jerusalem (cf. Zechariah 12:1-9) or as Onias III, assassinated in 170 B.C., or Simon the Maccabee, assassinated in 134 B.C. (1 Maccabees 16:11-24). Others offer King Josiah, slain by Pharaoh Necho, in 609 B.C..

Jewish interpretations
Both the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds show that Jewish thought initially referred it to the Messiah:

"What is the cause of the mourning ... It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of Messiah the son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the Scriptural verse, And they shall look upon me because they have thrust him through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son;"^F2

Messiah, son of Joseph (sometimes also called Ephraim), was a Jewish way of describing the dual natures of the messianic prophecies. Some verses described a victorious Davidic king and was hence described as Messiah son of David, but the suffering and slain Messiah was described as Joseph, as his brothers left him for dead. Elsewhere in Zechariah Messiah son of Joseph is described again as a king, yet coming in humility riding on an ass (Zechariah 9:9, cf. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a). The Talmud sees the slain Messiah in these verses even after the advent of the Christian church.

Earlier than the Talmud, the Aramaic paraphrase Targum Jonathan identifies the pierced one of Zechariah 12:10 as the "Messiah son of Ephraim". Targum Jonathan was probably written in the first century by Jonathan ben Uziel the student of Hillel and was thus a contemporary of Jesus.

Even a late marginal reading to the Targum, possibly edited a 1000 years later, still refers the verse to the Messiah and keeps the pronoun as "me": "And they shall look to me and shall inquire of me why the nations pierced the Messiah son of Ephraim".^F3

In the eleventh century Rashi in his comments on Sukkah 52a continued the Jewish interpretation that the one pierced and slain was Messiah, son of Joseph. He thinks differently in his commentary upon the actual verse in Zechariah.

The twelfth century Ibn Ezra, fifteenth century Abrabanel and Moses Alshekh in the sixteenth all continue with this tradition.^F4

Piercing, literal or poetic
When versions can't get around the pronoun problems interpreters resort to interpretation of the word "pierced" arguing that it means, "cut to the heart", metaphorically speaking. Calvin took the death as metaphorical: 'Now God speaks ... after the manner of men, declaring that He is wounded by the sins of His people, and especially by their obstinate contempt of His word, in the same manner as a mortal man receives a deadly wound, when his heart is pierced.'^F5

Although 'look on' can refer to either physical sight (e.g., Numbers 21:9) or spiritual perception (e.g., Isaiah 5:12), the Hebrew word, 'pierce', is usually literal and physical rather than metaphorical. In Hebrew it is, דָּקַר dâqar (Strong's #1856). In the AV and NKJV it is variously translated as 'thrust through' (8x), 'pierced', 'wounded', or 'stricken through'. Technically it is to pierce, thrust through, pierce through, as with a sword or spear. [(Qal) to pierce, run through. (Niphal) to be pierced through. (Pual) pierced, riddled (participle)].

It occurs 10 times in the Old Testament, in addition to Zechariah 12:10's use of the Hebrew Qal perfect itself. Zechariah 13:3 is the only use that could be described as non-physical where death is still real but by hunger not an invasive wound. Though they are so described deliberately as dying a worse death than those slain by the sword because starvation is a slow painful death.

"They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through [Pual participle] for lack of the fruits of the field." (Lamentations 4:9)

Of the other occurrences only Zechariah 13:3 is a perfect grammatical match and speaks of a literal 'thrusting through', undoubtedly to death, as this was the punishment for a false prophet:

"And it shall come to pass, [that] when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say to him, You shall not live; for you speak lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through [Qal perfect] when he prophesies." (Zechariah 13:3)

Pierce is sometimes used in a metaphorical sense in the Old Testament, e.g., Leviticus 24:11, 16 where 'blaspheme the Name' is literally to 'pierce the Name'. However, this uses a different verb, nâqab (Strong's #5344), instead of dâqar, above. "Dâqar does not mean to ridicule, or scoff at, but only to pierce, thrust through, and to slay by any kind of death whatever", say the eminent Hebraists Keil and Delitzsch.^F6 So in all the uses of dâqar, with the possible exception of Lamentations 4:9) it is a literal 'thrusting through' that is referred to.

Early Church issues
Patripassianism and early church avoidance of ascribing emotional weakness and physical injury to God.

So if one accepts that "me" is authentic, rather than "him", "one" or "me, him", what are the implications? The majority of Jews did not accept any meddling with the text and have retained "me" and continued to interpret it as the slain messiah. The verse does seem to imply, though, that God is pierced. This apparent dilemma is raised more by the early church than the Jewish community who had less of a problem with their God suffering and identifying with the nation of Israel in Egypt or Babylon. The increasingly Hellenistic and Roman thinking church wanted to avoid ascribing emotional weakness and physical injury to God. Thus there needed to be a clear distinction between the man Jesus who died in punishment for sin and the impassable distant God in heaven who like the Greek and Roman gods remained unharmed and uninvolved. Later versions of Trinitarian doctrine thus emphasised the separateness of the Godhead in apparent contradiction to earlier Jewish-Christian emphasis on the unity of God. "I and my Father are one", Jesus said, and the greatest commandment begins "Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God".

Putting God on the cross was a problem for Greek thinkers and the growing Trinitarian orthodoxy was unsettled by it. Those that held to variations on it, during the third century, without denying the divinity of Jesus, were known as Patripassians or Modalistic Monarchians, not to be confused with later Sabellianism and the Adoptionists or Dynamic Monarchians, who held that Jesus had divinity conferred on him after his birth, rather than God becoming man. Patris, meaning 'father', and passus, relating to 'suffering', inferred that God suffered in Jesus on the cross.

"It is rather unfortunate that the ancient church got itself into a doctrinal bind in the Sabellian controversy, so that it had to condemn Patripassianism tout court. Ever since then, orthodox Christians have been afraid of speaking of the suffering of God, although not to do so creates a bizarre image of a Father who identifies himself with Jesus as his own son, without letting himself in on his pain and suffering."^F7

The Greeks could only see God during the crucifixion as turning his back on Jesus and remaining aloof. Even if Jesus' suffering was a punishment for sin, nevertheless God was always pained to inflict suffering in the Old Testament, he took no pleasure even in the death of the wicked, Ezekiel wrote.

Epilogue - God suffers but is not dead
To claim that God died on the cross is a logical but impossible deduction from Zechariah 12:10. It is the same as remarking, 'who sustained creation whilst the creator of the world resided in Mary's womb or lay in a crib'? It is equally untrue to Scripture to suggest that God is immune to suffering as if suffering were a weakness. At the very least, even if ascribing anthropomorphic emotions to God, he knew grief, anger and sympathy.

"The suffering and dying of the Son, forsaken by the Father, is a different kind of suffering from the suffering of the Father in the death of the Son ... the Son suffers dying, the Father suffers the death of the Son. The grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son."^F8

A final Jewish tradition has God revealing the cup of suffering that awaits the Messiah, it reads as follows:

"Their sins will be upon you like a yoke of iron. They will choke your spirit. Because of their sins, Your tongue will cleave to the roof of your mouth. Do you accept this? If not, I will remove the decree from you. The Messiah replies: "Master of the worlds, how long will this last? God replies: "Ephraim, my true Messiah, ever since the six days of creation you have taken this ordeal upon yourself. At this moment, your pain is my pain". Messiah replies: "Master of the worlds, I accept this with gladness in my soul, and joy in my heart, so that not a single one of the House of Israel should perish. Not only for those alive, but also the dead. It is enough that the servant be like the Master." (Midrash, Pesqita Rabbah 36)

FOOTNOTES:
F1: Keil and Delitzsch, The Twelve Minor Prophets, (T&T Clark, 1880), pp.387-388.
F2: Sukkah 52a; Mo'ed, Babylonian Talmud, compiled c.400-500 A.D..
F3: Kevin J. Cathcart and Robert P. Gordon, editors, The Targum of the Minor Prophets: Translated, with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1989), p.218. [Volume 14 in the series The Aramaic Bible].
F4: Cited in A. M'Caul, Rabbi David Kimchi's Commentary Upon the Prophecies of Zechariah, Translated from the Hebrew with Notes, and Observations on the Passages Relating to the Messiah (London: James Duncan, 1837), pp.158-163.
F5: J. Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, II (Calvin Translation Society, 1847), p.242.
F6: Keil and Delitzsch, , (T&T Clark, 1880), pp.387-388.
F7: Carl Braaten, The Future of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), p. 90.
F8: Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 243.

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