Zechariah 12:12

12 And the land shall mourn, {each clan by itself}; the clan of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the clan of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves;

Zechariah 12:12 Meaning and Commentary

Zechariah 12:12

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 ^F15 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F15 T. Hieros. Succah, fol. 55. 2.

Zechariah 12:12 In-Context

10 " 'I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication, and they will look to me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn over him, as one wails over an only child, and they will grieve bitterly over him as [one] grieves bitterly over a firstborn.

11 On that day the wailing will be great in Jerusalem, like the wailing for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

12 And the land shall mourn, {each clan by itself}; the clan of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the clan of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves;

13 the clan of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the clan of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves;

14 and all those clans remaining, {each clan by itself}, and their wives by themselves.'"

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "clans, clans alone"