Zechariah 12:10 — “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
Scripture is overwhelmingly clear that God’s promises will be fulfilled to his people, the nation of Israel, and they will be restored to him. This hope is stated many times in the Old Testament, and several times in explicit connection with the response to the Messiah. Zechariah 12:10 is one such passage that speaks of Israel’s response of repentance, and it says here directly that they will recognize that the one that they pierced is the one they should have accepted. The Gospel of John makes it clear that Jesus is the pierced one (John 19:37), and the book of Revelation anticipates the Jewish people seeing Jesus coming with the clouds (Rev 1:7).
The question that I want to address here is when this event occurs. Will this prophecy be fulfilled when Jesus descends at the climax of the Tribulation to defeat the armies arrayed against Jerusalem (as described in Zech 14 and Rev 19)? Will their repentance occur at the Second Coming?
I was reading a blog recently which described an individual attacking John MacArthur for believing that Israel is saved by sight when they see Jesus. I don’t know if this correctly reports MacArthur’s view or not, and it’s not important here. It did remind me that I have essentially held this view for a long time. I’ve taken “literally” the phrase in Zechariah 12 that “they will look on me” as referring to physical sight. That is, at the moment that Jesus appears and they see him in the sky, then the majority of the Jewish people will be saved (cf. Rom 11:26).
My view on this was challenged recently when I read an article by Paul D. Feinberg. He wrote:
“There is good evidence that repentance precedes the return of Christ (Hos. 5:15–6:3). The sight of the Messiah is the cause of intense mourning over the years of rejection (Zech. 12:11-14). The return of Christ is signaled by Israel’s acceptance of their Messiah rather than being the occasion for their acceptance of salvation” (Willis and Master, eds., Issues in Dispensationalism, 231).
Logically and theologically, this certainly makes sense. Throughout Scripture, the Lord typically requires faith before providing salvation. (This doesn’t deny that he provides the faith, but it does mean that faith is chronologically prior to salvation.) Why does the Messiah return at one point and not another if there is no Jewish response before his return? It seems more reasonable to understand his return (which is distinct from the rapture) as related to Israel’s repentance.
Feinberg cites Hosea 5:15-6:3 to support the idea that repentance precedes salvation.
Hosea 5:15–6:3 — Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
There are many other examples which speak of restoration following repentance. Many of these must be eschatological, for they speak of the restoration in terms that cannot be true of some mini-revival in the time of Nehemiah (when God did not live in their presence, forgive all sin, and remove all enemies).
This brings us back to Zechariah 12 and the “look” of the Jews upon the one they have pierced. (For background on what this means, read Isaiah 53, where the speakers recognize that they executed an innocent one who bore their sin.) Is it possible that this “look” is a spiritual look and not a physical look? Can Zechariah be speaking of an act of faith rather than of sight? Grammatically, it certainly can, as the same construction (“look upon”) is used in Psalm 34:5:
Psalm 34:5 — Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
In this psalm, David (in the cave of Adullam?) is beckoning his motley crew to seek the Lord. He is obviously not asking them to look physically upon God, but rather to trust him by walking by faith.
When Jesus was rejected by the nation of Israel, he declared to them:
Matt 23:39 — For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. ‘”
Thus it seems to me most accurate to interpret Zechariah’s prediction as a future repentance which results in the return of the Messiah to deliver Israel from the attacking nations and to establish his kingdom. The timing of this repentance must be shortly before the Second Coming near the end of the seven-year Tribulation.
Thanks for your comments, though I’m not sure I agree, especially with your statement: “There are many other examples which speak of restoration following repentance.”
I argued in one of the chapters of my Ph.D. dissertation that Jeremiah teaches the exact opposite, i.e. Israel’s repentance follows their restoration. What is conspicuously missing in the restoration passages of Jeremiah is Israel’s repentance. HE is the one who brings the back, and HE is the one who writes the law on their hearts.
[Now, the term “restoration” is slippery. Some use the word to mean spiritual restoration (i.e. changed heart), while others mean physical restoration (i.e. repatriation to the land). I’m using it in the latter sense.]
I’m not sure that Israel’s return to the land prior to their repentance necessarily contradicts what you say above, but it would be odd: God usually works unilaterally. He elects sinners to salvation, he loves those who don’t love him, he restores Israel before they repent. So in view of how God normally works, I could imagine that He would return before their turn to him, and that his return is the impetus for their repentance.
Hos 5:15-6:3 doesn’t strike me as a homerun argument in support of Feinberg’s view.
Benj – thanks for the feedback. I readily confess that my thinking about this matter is much more influenced by Isaiah than by Jeremiah.
Yes, it is very important to define our terms. I think of “restoration” as spiritual. As Isaiah and Zechariah both understand, repatriation to the land without spiritual return to the Lord is worthless (and it in fact results in yet another, longer, physical exile). Isaiah addresses this issue especially in chapters 56-66, and of course Zechariah is living in the reality (of returned exiles who are not spiritually faithful).
If your point is simply that Israel must be regathered to the land of Israel before they repent, I will not disagree. I certainly agree that it is God who spiritually restores Israel and writes the law on their hearts.
The question is the means. Does God bring his people to repentance by doing a work in their heart (absent a physical sighting of Jesus) or does he do this work by having Jesus descend in the clouds so that they can see him. To me Israel’s failure doesn’t have anything to do with physical sight; their failure to believe is not because they can’t see Jesus but because they do not believe what they know. It makes more sense to me that their (God-given) faith precedes their visual seeing of Jesus. It also fits the character of Jesus’ ministry: when people rejected him, he stopped “showing himself” to them. Thus he did miracles secretly and taught in parables when with a crowd.
What do you think about Hosea 5:15-6:3? Is it a prophecy? If so, when was it (or will it be) fulfilled? Is there a national repentance other than the one described in Zech 12:10?
Todd, thanks for clarifying.
I’m having trouble seeing why Hos 5:15-6:1 is such a key text. It’s a hard passage to understand, so I can’t say I have a definitive answer, but I have a few questions about your use of the text.
(1) Are you interpreting “I will return to my place until they repent” as referring to the leaving of the shekinah from the Temple in the days of Ezekiel, or of Christ’s ascent into heaven after the resurrection? If you think it refers to the first option, then how is it that Christ came to earth (first coming) before they repented, and if you think it refers to the latter, then what about the ascent of His glory in the days of Ezekiel? Where did it go? (In other words, you would have to say that his presence never left the earth until Christ ascended into heaven). And this raises a second related question:
(2) Is God’s presence not on earth now (at least among believers)?
I re-read Zechariah, and I have to admit that it’s a hard book to understand. One verse that may support what you are saying is Zech 1:3 (though more could be said in response).
One verse that I found to be interesting is Zech 3:9, “…I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.” I’m not sure that GOd is talking about Christ on the cross because just after that he says that in that day everyone will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and fig. Now, we know that this is shorthand for saying that there will be abundance in that day, and the land yielding its plenty is something that happens at the second coming–when there’s peace (cf. Zech 8:12-13).
Zech 9:14-17 is also interesting. In that passage the Lord “appears above them”, sounds the trumpet, and then on that day he saves them. Sounds kind of like the second coming.
I don’t have time to do a full exposition of this theme, so these are just some initial comments. In the end, maybe you’re right and I’m wrong.
Benj – thank you for your thoughts. I agree with you that there is much that is difficult in the prophets. In general, I prefer to build a doctrine upon multiple texts. If there is only one that says it, and it is difficult to interpret (or recognize the fulfillment), I would be cautious.
The Hosea quotation is from Feinberg. That is not what I would call a “key text,” but it is one text. In Hosea I see four basic cycles each of which conclude in a message of restoration (3:1-5; 5:15-6:3; 11:8-11; 14:1-9). Unless one believes that there are multiple restorations, it seems reasonable to me to understand that all four are talking about the same event (though they could be different aspects of the same event). So in 3:1-5, Israel returns to the Lord many days after being without king or prince to seek the Lord and David (Messiah). In 11:8-11, the emphasis in the restoration is placed upon God’s faithfulness. In 14:1-9, the prophet exhorts the people to return to the Lord. What I see here is what I see throughout Scripture: God’s promise to restore his people alongside his command for them to repent. Hosea 5:15 seems to suggest that the restoration will follow the repentance. But if there were other passages that said otherwise, that could affect my interpretation here.
As for the question of when was “I will go back to my place” fulfilled, I’m not sure that it is crucial that we know the answer to that. There is certainly a sense in which the Lord departed from his people with the events of Ezekiel 8-11. And there’s clearly a sense in which the Messiah departed when he said that he would not come until they said “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” I don’t know that Hosea was speaking of a single event; the emphasis here is on the fact that Israel is estranged from God and therefore they need to return to him. That was true in Hosea’s day as well as in the rest of history through the present day. This doesn’t deny God’s presence on earth now, but it does speak of the alienation between God and the people of Israel (thus Romans 9-11).
I think that Zechariah 3:9 could well be referring to the same event as Zechariah 12:10. I don’t see how it could refer to Christ’s death (which from then until now has been rejected). In fact, it seems to me that the rejection of Christ was simply a continuation of the “sin of this land” that was true in Hosea’s and Zechariah’s days. That sin has yet to be forgiven, but when the nation mourns for the one they pierced, a fountain of forgiveness will be opened to them (Zech 13:1).
I think that Zechariah talks a lot about the second coming. That a “second coming” was necessary should have been clear from the fact that the Servant (see how Zechariah develops this figure from Isaiah) is rejected and dies.
A couple of passages I read recently in Isaiah that seem related to the question of the order of repentance-salvation. In Isaiah 58:6-9, the point is that when the people practice righteousness, then “your light will break forth like the dawn…and the glory of the Lord will be your guard.” In 59:20, “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins.” In both cases, repentance precedes restoration. One could ask whether Isaiah was speaking of a day still future to us. Clearly the answer is yes, since from his day until ours, the nation has not repented and there has been no restoration. (Unless one supposes that God’s promises are no longer valid or that the church replaced Israel.)
You’re under no obligation to reply. I know how time is. It’s a joy to me to “put the pieces together” as I slowly learn. Blog posts like this are as much “thinking out loud” as anything.