Part 604 (1/2)
G.o.d shall protect his church against her persecutors. The mourning of Jerusalem.
12:1. The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel. Thus saith the Lord, who stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundations of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man in him:
12:2. Behold I will make Jerusalem a lintel of surfeiting to all the people round about: and Juda also shall be in the siege against Jerusalem.
A lintel of surfeiting... That is, a door into which they shall seek to enter, to glut themselves with blood; but they shall stumble, and fall like men stupefied with wine. It seems to allude to the times of Antiochus, and to the victories of the Machabees.
12:3. And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone to all people: all that shall lift it up shall be rent and torn, and all the kingdoms of the earth shall be gathered together against her.
12:4. In that day, saith the Lord, I will strike every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open my eyes upon the house of Juda, and will strike every horse of the nations with blindness.
12:5. And the governors of Juda shall say in their heart: Let the inhabitants of Jerusalem be strengthened for me in the Lord of hosts, their G.o.d.
12:6. In that day I will make the governors of Juda like a furnace of fire amongst wood, and as a firebrand amongst hay: and they shall devour all the people round about, to the right hand, and to the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place in Jerusalem.
12:7. And the Lord shall save the tabernacles of Jada, as in the beginning: that the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, may not boast and magnify themselves against Juda.
12:8. In that day shall the Lord protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he that hath offended among them in that day shall be as David: and the house of David, as that of G.o.d, as an angel of the Lord in their sight.
12:9. And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
12:10. And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn.
12:11. In that day there shall be a great lamentation in Jerusalem like the lamentation of Adadremmon in the plain of Mageddon.
Adadremmon... A place near Mageddon, where the good king Josias was slain, and much lamented by his people.
12:12. And the land shall mourn: families and families apart: the families of the house of David apart, and their women apart:
12:13. The families of the house of Nathan apart, and their women apart: the families of the house of Levi apart, and their women apart: the families of Semei apart, and their women apart.
12:14. All the rest of the families, families and families apart, and their women apart.
Zacharias Chapter 13
The fountain of Christ. Idols and false prophets shall be extirpated: Christ shall suffer: his people shall be tried by fire.
13:1. In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: for the was.h.i.+ng of the sinner, and of the unclean woman.
13:2. And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will destroy the names of idols out of the earth, and they shall be remembered no more: and I will take away the false prophets, and the unclean spirit out of the earth.
13:3. And it shall come to pa.s.s, that when any man shall prophesy any more, his father and his mother that brought him into the world, shall say to him: Thou shalt not live: because thou hast spoken a lie in the name of the Lord. And his father, and his mother, his parents, shall thrust him through, when he shall prophesy.
13:4. And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, that the prophets shall be confounded, every one by his own vision, when he shall prophesy, neither shall they be clad with a garment of sackcloth, to deceive:
13:5. But he shall say: I am no prophet, I am a husbandman: for Adam is my example from my youth.
13:6. And they shall say to him: What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands? And he shall say: With these I was wounded in the house of them that loved me. 13:7. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that cleaveth to me, saith the Lord of hosts: strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand to the little ones.
13:8. And there shall be in all the earth, saith the Lord, two parts in it shall be scattered, and shall perish: but the third part shall be left therein.