The Piercing on the Cross & the Book of Zechariah

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Throughout the canonical gospels, there are passages that refer to the Old Testament, and are claimed to be the fulfillment of scripture.  Some are certainly plausible, and clear.  Others, on the other hand, are more subtle: 

John 19:37

³⁷ And again, another passage in scripture says, “They will look upon the man whom they have stabbed.” 

³⁷ καὶ πάλιν ἑτέρα γραφὴ λέγει: ὄψονται εἰς ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν. 

³⁷ Et iterum alia Scriptura dicit: Videbunt in quem transfixerunt. 

Zechariah 12:10

¹⁰ On David’s clan, on all the citizens of Jerusalem, I will Pour Out a Gracious spirit of prayer; towards Me they shall look, me whom they have pierced through.  Lament for him they must, and grieve bitterly; never was such lament for an only son, grief so bitter over firstborn dead. 

¹⁰ καὶ ἐκχεῶ ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον Δαυιδ καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας Ιερουσαλημ πνεῦμα χάριτος καὶ οἰκτιρμοῦ καὶ ἐπιβλέψονται πρός με ἀν ὧν κατωρχήσαντο καὶ κόψονται ἐ αὐτὸν κοπετὸν ὡς ἐ ἀγαπητὸν καὶ ὀδυνηθήσονται ὀδύνην ὡς ἐπὶ πρωτοτόκῳ 

¹⁰ Et effundam super domum David et super habitatores Jerusalem spiritum gratiæ et precum: et aspicient ad me quem confixerunt, et plangent eum planctu quasi super unigenitum, et dolebunt super eum, ut doleri solet in morte primogeniti. 

In the gospel narrative, it was the Romans who were looking at the man they pierced on the cross.  In the passage from Zechariah, however, it is God that they look to, and was pierced.  The obvious inference is that Jesus (a.s.) is the same God.  They have taken a metaphorical piercing of God through the sacrifice of firstborn as the literal piercing of Jesus (a.s.) as the “firstborn”.  It is clumsy. 

The Book of Zechariah, attributed to the prophet, Zechariah (a.s.), as one of the twelve minor prophets of the Tanakh, is an apocalyptic text written from the Jewish exile to the restoration by Darius the Great.  It has an entirely different context to the Gospel narrative, which makes it difficult to reconcile.