# Zechariah 12 Pierced One Objection Defeater ## Intro Of the two great "pierced" texts, Christians usually reach for the weaker one. [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) is a genuine textual crux, and the Masoretic text there reads "like a lion." [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) is not a crux at all. The verb is ***daqaru***, from *daqar*, which means to run through with a weapon and means nothing else. It is what Phinehas does with a spear in [Numbers 25:8](/codex/numbers-25-8/), what Abimelech asks his armour-bearer to do in [Judges 9:54](/codex/judges-9-54/), and what Saul asks of his own armour-bearer in [1 Samuel 31:4](/codex/1-samuel-31-4/). There is no variant worth arguing about. The verse reads: *"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon **me** whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for **him**, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."* The disputes are real and they are elsewhere. Some Hebrew manuscripts read *elav*, "unto him," instead of the Masoretic *elai*, "unto me." And the verse shifts person mid-sentence: they look on **me**, and mourn for **him**. Every reader of every tradition has to account for that shift. Two things are worth knowing before the argument starts. **First, the mourning is individual.** Not "as one mourns for the fallen." As one mourns for an **only son** (*yachid*) and a **firstborn** (*bekhor*). That is the language of a single death in a single family, and the passage then multiplies it across the nation family by family. **Second, the Talmud reads it of an individual too.** B. Sukkah 52a discusses this verse and reports the opinion that the mourning is for **Messiah ben Joseph, who was slain**. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second reply:** > The verb here is *daqaru*, and it is not disputed by anybody. *Daqar* means to run through with a weapon, the same word as Phinehas's spear in [Numbers 25:8](/codex/numbers-25-8/) and Saul's request in [1 Samuel 31:4](/codex/1-samuel-31-4/). There is no textual crux like the one at [Psalm 22](/codex/psalms-22/). The real questions are the *elai* and *elav* variant and the shift from "me" to "him," and I will take both seriously. But look at the mourning: not for the fallen generally, but "as one mourneth for his only son" and "in bitterness for his firstborn." That is one death, mourned the way a family mourns one person. And your own Talmud, at Sukkah 52a, discusses this verse and says the mourning is for Messiah ben Joseph who was slain. The individual reading is not something I imported. **The 6 fast facts:** 1. ***Daqar* is unambiguous and undisputed.** [Numbers 25:8](/codex/numbers-25-8/), [Judges 9:54](/codex/judges-9-54/), [1 Samuel 31:4](/codex/1-samuel-31-4/), [Jeremiah 51:4](/codex/jeremiah-51-4/). 2. **The mourning language is individual.** *Yachid*, only son; *bekhor*, firstborn. 3. **b. Sukkah 52a applies it to Messiah ben Joseph**, slain. 4. **The Masoretic reading is *elai*, "unto me."** It is also the harder reading, which in textual criticism counts in its favour. 5. **The person shift is a problem for every reading.** "Look on me" then "mourn for him," within one verse. 6. **The mourning is enumerated by family** in 12:12-14: the house of David, of Nathan, of Levi, of Shimei, and all the remaining families, each apart. **The 3 strongest counter-moves:** - *"Is there any dispute about what *daqar* means?"* There is not. Establish that first, because it separates this text from [Psalm 22](/codex/psalms-22/). - *"What kind of mourning does the verse describe?"* Only son, firstborn. Individual grief, nationally multiplied. - *"What does Sukkah 52a say this verse is about?"* Ask, do not tell. The answer is a slain messianic figure, from inside the tradition. **Concessions to make freely:** - **The *elai* / *elav* variant is real.** A number of Hebrew manuscripts collated by Kennicott and de Rossi read *elav*, "unto him," and some modern translations follow it. The Masoretic reading is *elai*, and it is the harder reading, but the variant should be stated rather than hidden. - **The person shift is genuinely difficult on every reading**, including the Christian one. A divine speaker saying "they pierced me" and then "they shall mourn for him" is not a smooth sentence in any theology. - **The passage's primary horizon is eschatological Jerusalem**, in a unit ([Zechariah 12](/codex/zechariah-12/) to 14) about the nations gathered against the city, the house of David, and the day of the LORD. Reading it as a detached prediction with no such setting is bad interpretation. - **Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Radak read it nationally**, of those killed in the eschatological battle, and their readings are coherent and grammatically possible. - **b. Sukkah 52a is not a Christian confession.** It applies the verse to Messiah ben Joseph, a figure distinct from Messiah ben David, and it does not identify him with Jesus. - **The tradition contains an alternative reading in the same passage.** Sukkah 52a itself records a second opinion, that the mourning is for the evil inclination that was slain. Both should be reported. - **[John 19:37](/codex/john-19-37/) and [Revelation 1:7](/codex/revelation-1-7/) quote the verse**, and those citations cannot function as proof in this conversation. Note the interesting detail that John's Greek follows a Hebrew text closer to *daqar* than the Septuagint's rendering, and leave it there. **What NOT to defend:** - Do not claim the Hebrew is undisputed at every point. The *elai* variant exists. - Do not present Sukkah 52a as saying Jesus. It does not, and it names a second opinion besides. - Do not argue that the national reading is impossible. It is possible; the argument is that it fits the mourning language worse. - Do not carry this verse over from the [Psalm 22](/codex/psalms-22/) discussion as though both were the same kind of case. They are not, and conflating them wastes the stronger text. **The closing line:** > *"I have given you the manuscript variant and I have given you the fact that your commentators read this nationally. What I want is the mourning. The prophet does not say they will grieve as a nation grieves for its dead. He says they will mourn as a man mourns for his only son, and be bitter as a man is bitter for his firstborn, and then he counts the families one by one, David apart, Nathan apart, Levi apart. That is one person's death, felt in every house in the country. And when your own sages in Sukkah asked who that was, one of the answers they gave was a Messiah who had been killed."* ## In full Defeater for the counter-missionary claim: *"[Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) is not about a pierced Messiah. The Masoretic text is disputed, the reference is to Israel's dead in the eschatological war, and Jewish commentators have read it nationally for a thousand years."* The unambiguous force of *daqar*, the individual mourning idiom of *yachid* and *bekhor*, the family-by-family enumeration in 12:12-14, the Masoretic *elai* as the harder reading, and the rabbinic application of the verse to a slain messianic figure at b. Sukkah 52a do not warrant the exclusively national reading. The objection is deployed as the companion to the [Psalm 22](/codex/psalms-22/) attack, and it is markedly weaker, because the lexical ground here is firm. Counter-missionary treatments therefore shift the argument from the verb to the pronouns and to the eschatological setting, which is where the real work has to be done on both sides. The defeat structure is **five-pronged**. 1. **The verb is secure.** *Daqaru* is the perfect of *daqar*, which denotes thrusting through with a weapon. Its uses are consistent: Phinehas driving the spear through Zimri and Cozbi ([Numbers 25:8](/codex/numbers-25-8/)); Abimelech asking his armour-bearer to thrust him through so it may not be said a woman killed him ([Judges 9:54](/codex/judges-9-54/)); Saul asking the same of his armour-bearer at Gilboa ([1 Samuel 31:4](/codex/1-samuel-31-4/), with the parallel at [1 Chronicles 10:4](/codex/1-chronicles-10-4/)); the slain of Babylon "thrust through" in her streets ([Jeremiah 51:4](/codex/jeremiah-51-4/)); and [Isaiah 13:15](/codex/isaiah-13-15/), "every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword." There is no significant textual variant and no lexical dispute. **This is the point to establish before anything else**, because it distinguishes this passage from [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) and removes the mistranslation charge entirely. 2. **The mourning idiom is individual.** "They shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his **only son** (*yachid*), and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his **firstborn** (*bekhor*)." Both terms are the vocabulary of a single irreplaceable child. *Yachid* is Isaac in [Genesis 22:2](/codex/genesis-22-2/), Jephthah's daughter in [Judges 11:34](/codex/judges-11-34/), and the mourning of [Amos 8:10](/codex/amos-8-10/) and [Jeremiah 6:26](/codex/jeremiah-6-26/). *Bekhor* is the firstborn whose loss is the paradigm of national catastrophe in Exodus. The prophet had ordinary vocabulary available for collective grief over the fallen and did not use it. 3. **The mourning is enumerated by family, which multiplies an individual grief nationally.** [Zechariah 12:12-14](/codex/zechariah-12-12-14/): "And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart... the family of Shimei apart... all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart." The structure is not a nation mourning its collective dead in a single lament. It is every household in the country separately mourning, which is the shape of grief over one death that touches everyone, and it is the structure the *yachid* and *bekhor* similes set up. 4. **The Masoretic *elai* is the harder reading and should be retained.** Some Hebrew manuscripts read *elav*, "unto him," and the variant is recorded in the Kennicott and de Rossi collations. Standard text-critical practice prefers the reading that better explains the origin of the others, and *elai* does: a scribe encountering "they shall look upon **me** whom they have pierced" in a divine speech has an obvious motive to smooth it to "him," while the reverse change has no motive. Emanuel Tov's handbook treats this class of theologically motivated smoothing as a recognized phenomenon. The variant should be conceded and the harder reading defended on method rather than on preference. 5. **Jewish tradition applied the verse to a slain individual.** **b. Sukkah 52a** discusses [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) in connection with the mourning, and reports the opinion that it is mourning for **Messiah ben Joseph who was slain**. The passage also records a second opinion, that the mourning is for the evil inclination that was slain, and honest citation gives both. What the first opinion establishes is that reading this verse of an individual messianic figure who is killed is a Jewish reading, developed inside the tradition, and not a Christian imposition. See [Rabbinic Sources Attest a Suffering Messiah Argument](/codex/rabbinic-sources-attest-a-suffering-messiah-argument/). **On the person shift**, which is the genuine difficulty. The verse has God pouring out the spirit, then "they shall look upon me whom they have pierced," then "they shall mourn for him." Every reading has to account for it. The national reading takes "me" as God being pierced figuratively, in the sense of being grieved by the people's treatment of him, and "him" as the human slain. The Christian reading takes the speaker and the pierced one as related within the divine identity, which is the structure discussed at [Two Powers in Heaven Argument](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven-argument/). Rabbinic and medieval Jewish commentary offers further options. The shift is a datum that constrains every interpreter and settles the question for none. The defeater is targeted. It does not claim the Hebrew is undisputed at every point, that the national reading is impossible, that the Talmud confesses Jesus, or that the person shift is easy on the Christian reading. It claims that the verb is secure, that the mourning idiom is individual, and that the individual messianic reading is attested inside Judaism. ## Grammar and hermeneutics The objection is a set of claims about Hebrew pronouns and about the referent of a participle, and the grammar carries most of the argument. - ***Daqaru* has no serious variant and no semantic range problem.** The root *daqar* occurs about eleven times in the Hebrew Bible and every occurrence denotes piercing or thrusting through, usually fatally and usually with a weapon. There is no attested metaphorical use meaning "grieve" or "offend," which is what the national reading would need if it wanted to make God the one pierced in a figurative sense. That reading has to import the metaphor. - **The syntax is *ve-hibbitu elai et asher daqaru*.** The verb *hibbit*, Hiphil of *nabat*, means to look at or gaze upon. The preposition *el* with the first-person suffix gives *elai*, "unto me." The relative particle *asher* introduces the clause "whom they pierced," and the *et* preceding it is the direct-object marker, which is the crux of the syntax: it marks what follows as the object of the looking, so the sentence reads "they shall look to me, the one whom they pierced" or "they shall look to me concerning the one whom they pierced." Both parsings are grammatically available, and the second is the basis of the standard Jewish rendering. **This should be conceded**: the *et asher* construction does not force the identification of the speaker with the pierced one. - **The *elai* / *elav* variant and *lectio difficilior*.** The Masoretic reading is *elai*. Manuscripts recorded in the eighteenth-century collations read *elav*. The harder-reading principle favours *elai*, because a scribe has a clear theological motive to change "me" to "him" in a divine speech and none to make the change in reverse. Tov's *Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible* discusses theologically motivated alterations as a recognized category. The principle is not decisive on its own and it is the right way to argue the point. - **The mourning similes use the two Hebrew terms for an irreplaceable child.** *Ke-misped al ha-yachid*, "as the mourning for the only one," and *ve-hamer alav ke-hamer al ha-bekhor*, "and bitter over him as the bitterness over the firstborn." Both are singular and definite. The prophets have collective vocabulary for the slain, *chalalim* and *harugim*, and Zechariah does not use it here. - **Genre and unit.** [Zechariah 9](/codex/zechariah-9/) to 14 forms a distinct oracular block, and 12 to 14 is an eschatological sequence about the nations gathered against Jerusalem, the deliverance of the house of David, a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness (13:1), the striking of the shepherd (13:7), and the day of the LORD with his feet on the Mount of Olives (14:4). The immediate literary neighbours matter: 12:10's pouring out of the spirit of grace leads directly into 13:1's fountain for sin and uncleanness, and 13:7's "smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" is a further individual-affliction text within the same unit. An interpretation that isolates 12:10 from 13:1 and 13:7 has removed its context. On the secure and unmetaphorical force of *daqar*, the conceded ambiguity of the *et asher* construction, the harder-reading status of *elai*, the individual mourning idiom of *yachid* and *bekhor*, and the family-by-family enumeration that multiplies one grief across a nation, the passage describes a single pierced figure mourned nationally. Who that figure is, the grammar does not say. ## Argument structure | | Premise | Notes | |---|---|---| | **P1** | ***Daqar* is lexically secure and denotes fatal thrusting with a weapon.** Numbers 25:8, Judges 9:54, 1 Samuel 31:4, 1 Chronicles 10:4, Jeremiah 51:4, Isaiah 13:15. No significant variant, no metaphorical use meaning "grieve." | Lexical argument | | **P2** | **The mourning idiom is individual.** *Yachid*, the only son, and *bekhor*, the firstborn, both singular and definite, where collective vocabulary for the slain was available and unused. | Idiom argument | | **P3** | **The mourning is enumerated household by household.** Zechariah 12:12-14 lists the families of David, Nathan, Levi, and Shimei, and all the remaining families, each apart with their wives apart. One death felt in every house. | Structural argument | | **P4** | **The Masoretic *elai* is the harder reading.** The *elav* variant is real and recorded, and the change from "me" to "him" in a divine speech has an obvious motive while the reverse does not. | Text-critical argument | | **P5** | **Jewish tradition applied the verse to a slain individual.** b. Sukkah 52a on Messiah ben Joseph who was slain, alongside a second opinion about the evil inclination, both reported. | Internal-Jewish-precedent argument | | **C** | **The exclusively national reading is not warranted.** **The defeater concedes the *elai* / *elav* variant, the grammatical availability of the *et asher* parsing that separates speaker from pierced one, the coherence of Rashi's and Radak's national readings, the eschatological setting of the unit, and the difficulty of the person shift on every reading including the Christian one.** | | ## Master objections to the whole argument **MO1: "The *et asher* construction means 'concerning the one whom they pierced.' The speaker is not the pierced one, and your whole reading depends on ignoring the direct-object marker."** - Three responses. (a) **The parsing is grammatically available and is conceded in the grammar section.** Christians who claim the Hebrew forces the identification are overstating. (b) **It does not remove the individual referent.** On this parsing the sentence still has a definite individual, "the one whom they pierced," mourned in only-son language. The objection relocates the speaker; it does not dissolve the person. (c) **It creates the same problem it solves.** If "him" is a separate figure from the divine speaker, then the passage has an individual whose death the whole nation mourns household by household, which is what the argument claims. **MO2: "The pierced ones are the slain of Israel in the eschatological battle described in chapter 12. The mourning is national grief for the war dead, and the singular is collective."** - Three responses. (a) **The reading is coherent and is Rashi's, and should be treated as serious.** (b) **The battle in [Zechariah 12](/codex/zechariah-12/) goes the other way.** The chapter describes Jerusalem as a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone, with the governors of Judah devouring the surrounding peoples and the LORD defending the inhabitants (12:2-9), so the immediate context is Israel's deliverance rather than her slaughter. Locating the nation's war dead in a passage about the nation's rescue requires work. (c) **The similes resist the collective sense.** A nation mourning its fallen is not naturally described as a man mourning his only son, and the enumeration by family in 12:12-14 divides the grief rather than aggregating it. **MO3: "b. Sukkah 52a also says the mourning is for the evil inclination that was slain. You are citing half a passage."** - Three responses. (a) **The second opinion is real and this page reports it in the concessions and the premise.** Citing only the first would be exactly the selective use this cluster forbids. (b) **The presence of two opinions does not remove the first.** The claim being made is that an individual messianic reading is attested inside Judaism, and one attested opinion establishes that. (c) **The debate itself is informative.** That the sages had to decide between a slain Messiah and a slain evil inclination shows they read the verse as describing a slaying of something singular, which is the point at issue against the collective reading. **MO4: "John quotes this verse, so of course Christians read it messianically. You are reading a Jewish text through a Christian lens and calling the result exegesis."** - Three responses. (a) **[John 19:37](/codex/john-19-37/) and [Revelation 1:7](/codex/revelation-1-7/) do quote it, and neither can function as evidence in this conversation.** This page does not use them as proof. (b) **The individual reading is established from Hebrew and from rabbinic sources**, the mourning idiom, the family enumeration, and Sukkah 52a, none of which depends on the New Testament. (c) **One detail is worth noting and no more.** John's Greek renders the verb with a word corresponding to *daqar* rather than following the Septuagint's rendering at this point, which indicates a Hebrew text like the Masoretic one behind it. That is a datum about the first-century Hebrew text, not an argument about the referent. **MO5: "Christians usually cite [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) and [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) together as though they were the same kind of evidence. Once [Psalm 22](/codex/psalms-22/) collapses, the pattern of overreach is established and the second citation inherits the suspicion."** - Three responses. (a) **The observation about Christian practice is accurate and is a fair criticism.** [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) is a genuine crux and Christians frequently assert it as though it were not. See [Psalm 22 Pierced Mistranslation Objection Defeater](/codex/psalm-22-pierced-mistranslation-objection-defeater/), which concedes the Masoretic reading in its first sentence. (b) **The cases are different in kind and should be separated deliberately.** [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) turns on a single-letter variant with difficulties on both sides; [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/)'s verb has no variant and no lexical dispute. (c) **The tactical implication is to lead with Zechariah.** A Christian who offers to set [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) aside and argue from Zechariah instead has both improved his position and demonstrated that he is arguing in good faith. **MO6: "Even granting an individual, this is an eschatological passage about the end of days. Nothing requires the piercing to have already happened."** - Three responses. (a) **The chronological point is fair and the unit is eschatological.** (b) **The verse's own tenses put the piercing before the looking.** They shall look on the one whom they **pierced**, in the perfect. The mourning and the recognition are future relative to the piercing whenever both occur. (c) **This is the same two-stage structure at issue throughout the cluster**, and the passage is consistent with a piercing already accomplished and a national recognition still ahead. See [Two-Stage Messianic Prophecy](/codex/two-stage-messianic-prophecy/). ## Premise 2, the mourning idiom is individual ### Affirmative case 1. **Two similes, both of an irreplaceable child.** "As one mourneth for his only son," and "in bitterness for his firstborn." 2. ***Yachid* is the vocabulary of an only child.** [Genesis 22:2](/codex/genesis-22-2/), [22](/codex/genesis-22-22/):12, 22:16 (Isaac); [Judges 11:34](/codex/judges-11-34/) (Jephthah's daughter); [Amos 8:10](/codex/amos-8-10/) and [Jeremiah 6:26](/codex/jeremiah-6-26/) (mourning as for an only son). 3. ***Bekhor*, the firstborn**, carries the weight of Exodus, where the loss of the firstborn is the paradigm of national catastrophe. 4. **Collective vocabulary was available and was not used.** *Chalalim*, the slain, and *harugim*, the killed, are the standard terms for war dead and appear elsewhere in the prophets. 5. **The similes are singular and definite** in Hebrew, "the only one" and "the firstborn," rather than indefinite comparisons. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Hebrew poetry personifies constantly. The nation is a son in [Hosea 11:1](/codex/hosea-11-1/) and a daughter throughout the prophets. A collective referent in only-son language is unremarkable."* 2. *"[Amos 8:10](/codex/amos-8-10/) uses the same 'as the mourning of an only son' idiom for a national calamity, which proves the idiom can be collective."* 3. *"The point of the simile is the intensity of the grief, not the number of the dead."* ### Rebuttals 1. **Personification is real and it usually names its referent.** [Hosea 11:1](/codex/hosea-11-1/) says "Israel"; the daughter-of-Zion passages say Zion. [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) names no collective referent for the pierced one, and the surrounding verses distinguish the mourners, the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from the one mourned. 2. **[Amos 8:10](/codex/amos-8-10/) is the best counter-text and it makes the opposite point on inspection.** There the idiom describes the *manner* of the nation's mourning for its own calamity, "I will make it as the mourning of an only son," with no separate pierced individual in view. Zechariah has both a mourning people and a distinct object of the mourning, "they shall mourn **for him**." 3. **Granted as to intensity, and the intensity is not the disputed element.** The argument does not rest on the similes alone but on the similes together with the distinct third-person object and the household-by-household enumeration at 12:12-14, which divides rather than aggregates the grief. ## Premise 5, the rabbinic individual reading ### Affirmative case 1. **b. Sukkah 52a discusses this verse** in connection with the mourning it describes. 2. **One reported opinion identifies the mourning as for Messiah ben Joseph who was slain.** 3. **The Messiah ben Joseph tradition is developed across the rabbinic and later literature**, collected in Raphael Patai's *The Messiah Texts* (Wayne State, 1979) and analyzed in Joseph Klausner's *The Messianic Idea in Israel*. 4. **A second opinion is recorded in the same passage**, that the mourning is for the evil inclination that was slain, and it is reported here. 5. **The existence of the debate presupposes a singular slain object**, whichever identification is preferred. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Messiah ben Joseph may be a post-Christian development, possibly generated to account for Bar Kokhba. Using it is circular."* 2. *"Aggadic material is homiletic and non-binding. It cannot establish a doctrine."* 3. *"The Talmud does not say Jesus, so the citation gets you nowhere."* ### Rebuttals 1. **The dating is genuinely disputed and no early date is asserted here.** The argument does not require one. If the tradition arose to account for texts describing a slain messianic figure, that is an admission that [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) and [Isaiah 53](/codex/isaiah-53/) describe one. 2. **Aggadah is not halakhically binding and it is good historical evidence** of what sages thought and argued. No claim about its authority is being made. 3. **Correct, and the page states it twice.** The claim is that an individual messianic reading of the verse is a Jewish reading, which is what the objection under defeat denies. ## Live-cite kit **Scripture** - [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/), read whole, with the mourning similes emphasized. - [Zechariah 12:12-14](/codex/zechariah-12-12-14/), the family-by-family enumeration. - [Zechariah 13:1](/codex/zechariah-13-1/), the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, immediately following. - [Zechariah 13:7](/codex/zechariah-13-7/), "smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." - [Numbers 25:8](/codex/numbers-25-8/); [Judges 9:54](/codex/judges-9-54/); [1 Samuel 31:4](/codex/1-samuel-31-4/); [Jeremiah 51:4](/codex/jeremiah-51-4/), for *daqar*. - [Genesis 22:2](/codex/genesis-22-2/); [Judges 11:34](/codex/judges-11-34/); [Amos 8:10](/codex/amos-8-10/), for *yachid*, with Amos conceded as a counter-text. **Jewish sources** - b. Sukkah 52a, both opinions given. - Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Radak on [Zechariah 12](/codex/zechariah-12/), the national readings, cited fairly. - Kennicott and de Rossi collations, for the *elav* manuscripts. **Scholarly** - Emanuel Tov, *Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible*, 3rd ed. (Fortress, 2012), on theologically motivated alteration. - Mark Boda, *The Book of Zechariah* (NICOT, Eerdmans, 2016); Al Wolters, *Zechariah* (HCOT, Peeters, 2014). - Carol and Eric Meyers, *[Zechariah 9](/codex/zechariah-9/)-14* (Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 1993); Ralph Smith, *Micah-Malachi* (WBC, Word, 1984). - Raphael Patai, *The Messiah Texts* (Wayne State, 1979). - Michael L. Brown, *Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus*, vol. 3 (Baker, 2003). **Aphorism** - "There is no crux here. The verb is the verb." - "Not as a nation mourns its dead. As a man mourns his only son." - "Your sages debated who was slain. They did not debate whether someone was." ## Tactical notes - **Separate this from [Psalm 22](/codex/psalms-22/) explicitly and early.** "That one is a real textual crux and I conceded it. This one is not." The contrast is worth more than either argument alone. - **Establish *daqar* first and get agreement on it**, because it is the only uncontested thing in the exchange and it anchors everything after. - **Concede the *et asher* parsing before it is raised.** Christians who insist the Hebrew forces "me = the pierced one" are wrong, and volunteering that buys the rest. - **Then move to the mourning, which is where the argument actually is.** Ask what kind of grief the verse describes. - **Have 12:12-14 ready.** The family enumeration is the least-known part of the passage and the most striking once read. - **Introduce Sukkah 52a with both opinions.** Giving the evil-inclination reading unprompted is what makes the Messiah ben Joseph citation credible. - **Do not quote John.** Not once. The moment the New Testament enters, the argument stops being about Zechariah. - **What NOT to defend:** that the Hebrew is undisputed everywhere; that the national reading is impossible; that the Talmud confesses Jesus; that the person shift is easy on your side. ## See also - [Psalm 22 Pierced Mistranslation Objection Defeater](/codex/psalm-22-pierced-mistranslation-objection-defeater/), the companion text, conceded and contrasted. - [Rabbinic Sources Attest a Suffering Messiah Argument](/codex/rabbinic-sources-attest-a-suffering-messiah-argument/), including the Sukkah 52a material in its wider setting. - [Isaiah 53 Is About Israel Objection Defeater](/codex/isaiah-53-is-about-israel-objection-defeater/), the other major individual-versus-collective dispute. - [Jesus Failed the Messianic Job Description Objection Defeater](/codex/jesus-failed-the-messianic-job-description-objection-defeater/), where Messiah ben Joseph carries the two-stage point. - [Two Powers in Heaven Argument](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven-argument/), on the divine-speaker structure behind the person shift. - [Two-Stage Messianic Prophecy](/codex/two-stage-messianic-prophecy/) and [Messianic Prophecy](/codex/messianic-prophecy/), the hermeneutical frame. - [The Jewish Defense](/codex/the-jewish-defense/), [Judaism](/codex/judaism/), and [Counter-Missionary Movement](/codex/counter-missionary-movement/), the cluster hubs.
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What does [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) mean by "whom they have pierced"?** The verb is *daqaru*, from *daqar*, and it is one of the least ambiguous words in the discussion. It means to thrust through with a weapon and is used that way throughout the Hebrew Bible: Phinehas driving a spear through Zimri and Cozbi ([Numbers 25:8](/codex/numbers-25-8/)), Abimelech asking his armour-bearer to run him through ([Judges 9:54](/codex/judges-9-54/)), Saul asking the same at Gilboa ([1 Samuel 31:4](/codex/1-samuel-31-4/)), and the slain of Babylon thrust through in her streets ([Jeremiah 51:4](/codex/jeremiah-51-4/)). There is no significant textual variant and no attested metaphorical use meaning "grieve" or "offend." This is what distinguishes the verse from [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/), which is a genuine textual crux where the Masoretic text reads "like a lion." At [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) the mistranslation charge does not apply. **Q: Is [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) about the Messiah or about Israel's war dead?** Jewish commentators from Rashi onward have read it nationally, of those killed in the eschatological battle, and that reading is coherent. Three features weigh against it. The mourning similes are individual: "as one mourneth for his **only son**" (*yachid*) and "in bitterness for his **firstborn**" (*bekhor*), both singular and definite, where the prophets' ordinary collective vocabulary for the slain was available and unused. The mourning is enumerated household by household at 12:12-14, the families of David, Nathan, Levi, and Shimei and all the rest, each apart with their wives apart, which divides the grief rather than aggregating it, as one death felt in every house. And the surrounding chapter describes Jerusalem's deliverance rather than her slaughter, so locating the nation's war dead there takes work. **Q: Does the Talmud say [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) is about the Messiah?** The Babylonian Talmud discusses the verse at Sukkah 52a and records two opinions. One holds that the mourning is for **Messiah ben Joseph who was slain**. The other holds that it is for the evil inclination that was slain. Honest citation gives both, and Christians who quote only the first are doing what this cluster forbids. What the first opinion establishes is narrow and real: reading the verse of an individual messianic figure who is killed is a Jewish reading, developed inside the tradition, not a Christian imposition. It is not a confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and Messiah ben Joseph is a figure distinct from Messiah ben David. The existence of the debate is itself informative, since both opinions presuppose that something singular was slain. **Q: Why do some Bibles say "look upon me" and others "look upon him"?** Because there is a real manuscript variant. The Masoretic text reads *elai*, "unto me," and a number of Hebrew manuscripts recorded in the eighteenth-century Kennicott and de Rossi collations read *elav*, "unto him." Standard text-critical practice prefers the reading that best explains the origin of the others, and *elai* qualifies: a scribe encountering "they shall look upon **me** whom they have pierced" in a divine speech has an obvious motive to smooth it, while the reverse change has none. Emanuel Tov's handbook treats theologically motivated smoothing as a recognized category. Separately, the Hebrew *et asher* construction can be parsed "they shall look to me concerning the one whom they pierced," which separates the speaker from the pierced one, and that parsing is grammatically available and should be conceded. It relocates the speaker without removing the individual who is mourned. **Q: How does [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) differ from [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) as an argument?** They are different in kind, and conflating them wastes the stronger one. [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) is a genuine textual crux: the Masoretic text reads *ka'ari*, "like a lion," the oldest Hebrew manuscript of the verse reads a verb, the ancient versions all read a verb, and both readings have morphological difficulties. A Christian arguing there must concede the Masoretic reading first. [Zechariah 12:10](/codex/zechariah-12-10/) has no such problem: the verb *daqar* is secure, unambiguous, and unvaried. The disputes at Zechariah are about the pronouns and the referent, not about what happened to the person. In practice this means a Christian is better off offering to set [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) aside and argue from Zechariah, which both improves the position and demonstrates good faith.