And again another scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced.
και παλιν ετερα γραφη λεγει οψονται εις ον εξεκεντησαν
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Another prophecy will also be fulfilled, which says, "They shall look on Him Whom they pierced" (Zech 12:10). For when He comes to judge, they will then see Him in a better and more God-revealing body. Those who pierced Him will recognize Him and will weep. Moreover, this bold act of Jesus' enemies will become for unbelievers a door of faith and a proof, as it was for Thomas. For he was assured of the Resurrection by touching the side.
Yet the wise Evangelist, through what happened, assures his hearers that He was the Christ, foretold of old by Holy Scripture. The events occurred according to what had been written about Him. Thus His bone was not broken (Ex 12:46), and He was pierced by the soldier's spear (Zech 12:10), according to the Scriptures.
The words standing in the Hebrew text, "And they shall look upon Him whom they pierced" (Zech 12:10), are translated in the Septuagint, "They shall look upon Me because they insulted Me."
The word "pierced" certainly points more plainly to the Crucifixion of Christ.
Yet the translators of the Septuagint preferred to refer to that insult which embraces the whole Passion of the Lord.
For He was insulted when He was seized and when He was bound, when He was judged, and when they mocked Him by clothing Him in purple and kneeling before Him.
He was insulted when they put on Him the crown of thorns, when they struck His head with a reed, when He carried His cross, and finally when He hung on the cross.
Thus we see the Lord's sufferings more fully when we do not limit ourselves to one interpretation, but join together "pierced" and "insulted."
And again he added, saying, "One of the soldiers opened His side with a spear." To this belongs the other testimony, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced."
Here was the promise of Christ, who would come in that flesh in which He was now crucified.
Behold Him Who was pierced by the rage of the mad. By His silence He became like one deaf and mute, like a voiceless tree. Yet by His vitality and His activity He raised mankind up to the heavens.
Let us turn to the testimony of Zechariah, which the Evangelist John cites from the Hebrew text: "And they shall look on Him Whom they pierced" (Zech 12:10). In the Septuagint we read, "They shall look on Me because they mocked and insulted." There are differences between the Evangelist, the Septuagint, and our translation. Yet the differences in words preserve the unity of the spirit. Jerome's unpublished translation tried to follow the ancient Hebrew text exactly.
He gave the promise that He would come again. Therefore both those who believed and those who crucified Him will see Him, according to what is written: "They shall look on Him Whom they pierced" (Jn 19:37).
"And again another Scripture says," a prophetic Scripture. It is likely that the following saying was removed by the Jews after the Gospel became known, because now it is nowhere found, or else by another Scripture the so-called apocryphal books are meant here. "They shall look on Him Whom they pierced." They shall look on Him coming from heaven on the day of judgment. Jesus Christ says, "They shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Mt 24:30). But: "They shall look on Him Whom they pierced" (Zech 12:10).
In this the Evangelist sees the fulfillment of the prophecies that His bone shall not be broken (Ex 12:46; Ps 33:21), and that they shall look upon Him Whom they pierced (Zech 12:10).
After putting both robbers to death, the soldiers came to the Lord’s cross. In this body, with the head bowed upon the breast, they saw no signs of life.
Therefore they considered themselves entitled not to break the legs of One already dead.
So that no doubt should remain concerning His death, one of the soldiers struck the side of the Crucified One with the blade of his spear.
He did this to extinguish even the last spark of life, if it had somehow still remained in His heart.
Such a blow was sometimes practiced by the Romans when it was necessary for some reason to end the life of the crucified more quickly.
Thus, by order of the judge Fabian, Mark and Marcellinus, after hanging on crosses for a whole day, were put to death by such a spear thrust in the side.
See Martyrology, June 18. Sometimes, for the same purpose, the crucified were pierced under the armpits, after which death quickly followed.
See Origen, Commentary on Matthew 27:54, and Friedlieb.
Wishing to deal a mortal blow, the soldier had to choose the left side of the breast as the place of the heart.
This side was also more convenient for the blow in the present case.
The soldier’s λόγχη was the ordinary Roman spear, the hasta. It was a light weapon with a long wooden shaft, κόντος, and a sharp iron point at the end.
The latter was oval in form and a palm’s breadth wide. This is why the wound it caused was so large.
After the Lord’s resurrection, unbelieving Thomas could put his hand into it.
The blow, forcefully directed from below upward, penetrated the chest cavity and necessarily had to cause death.
At that very moment, εὐθύς, “immediately,” according to the Evangelist’s precise expression, from the pierced breast of Jesus Christ “there came out blood and water.”
We shall not strain to explain this wondrous separation of blood in a body that had died so recently.
Should we trust the many years of research by the physician Stroud?
He concluded that the natural cause of the Lord Jesus Christ’s so rapid death was rupture of the heart.
Therefore the blood poured from the heart into the pericardium could undergo separation there more quickly than in the rest of the body.
Or should we agree with another explanation?
According to it, the water that flowed together with blood from the pierced rib of Jesus Christ was simply lymph of the pericardium.
In the pericardium there is a special vapor-like fluid. When the body’s temperature falls, especially if the pericardial sac is opened, it condenses and takes on the appearance of water.
In the ordinary state of the organism, it is present in very small quantity.
But the sufferings that preceded the death of Jesus Christ, and especially the terrible heat that burned His body on Golgotha, could have promoted the accumulation of this fluid.
According to physicians’ research, it could have accumulated in the pericardium of Jesus Christ in such quantity that its outflow was clearly visible to John.
Friedlieb here refers to the studies of two physicians named Gruner.
Or, finally, should we acknowledge that this water resulted from some abnormal physiological phenomena caused by the Savior’s terrible combination of sufferings?
We are unable to decide this. Many of the Fathers of the Church saw here the active hand of Him who conquers the laws of nature.
For example, see Cyprian, On the Resurrection, and Theophylact on Job ch. 19.
For us, as for everyone, and as for the soldier who by his act fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah, one thing must be clear.
At that moment on the hill of Golgotha, on the cross, there remained only the body of the Only-begotten Son of God, who had died for the whole world.
"This happened," and so forth. This refers not only to the piercing of the Lord's rib, but also to the fact that His legs were not broken.
Both events, the breaking of the legs and the piercing with the spear, had been indicated beforehand in the Old Testament. They were now fulfilled in the crucified Christ.
This shows, among other things, that He is the true Messiah, despite His extreme abasement.
The first passage of Scripture is taken from the book of Exodus (Ex 12:46). According to the paschal law, the bones of the paschal lamb were not to be broken.
Everything remaining from its being eaten was to be given to the fire.
John indicates the reason for this, which is incomprehensible with respect to the paschal lamb considered by itself.
The lamb prefigured the true paschal Lamb, Christ, in whose most pure body no bone was to be broken.
"In the type this was set beforehand for the sake of the Truth" (Chrysostom).
The second prophetic passage of Scripture, now fulfilled in Christ, is found in the book of the prophet Zechariah (Zech 12:10).
In this passage Jehovah, in the person of the Messiah, is presented as pierced by His people. This same people, looking upon the Pierced One, is shown offering repentance before Him with weeping and lamentation.
In general, this prophecy was fulfilled in the Lord's Crucifixion. More particularly, it was fulfilled precisely in the piercing of His ribs with the spear.
Of course, it was not the people but a Roman soldier who pierced Him. Yet the soldier was only the external instrument.
The people, in the person of its representatives, brought the Lord to the Crucifixion. The piercing of the ribs was one particular event within it.
In the Lord, this prophecy was fulfilled in the very Crucifixion and piercing of the ribs.
In the Jews, who according to the prophecy will look upon the Pierced One, weep, and lament, it began to be fulfilled from the very time of the Lord's Crucifixion (Lk 23:48).
It has been fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled constantly in their conversion to faith in their crucified Messiah, in which repentance is necessary.
It will be fulfilled finally in the general conversion of the people to Christ, which the holy Apostle Paul foresaw and foretold (Rom 11:25 and following).
While the Sanhedrin used every effort to humble and dishonor Jesus, by the ordering of heaven the deeds of the Sanhedrin turned only to Jesus’ glory.
The Sanhedrin wished, by breaking the Savior’s legs, to increase His sufferings and to present His death still more shamefully.
They wished to present it as the death of a criminal rejected by heaven. But the fulfillment of this plan ended with two more predictions about the Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus.
The first prediction concerned the Paschal lamb. According to the Law of Moses (Ex 12:10), the Paschal lamb had to be roasted whole, and not one of its bones was to be broken.
This ordinance was incomprehensible in itself. Neither in the feast, nor in the lamb, nor in the occasion for which Pascha was established could one point to the reason for this decree.
Therefore this ordinance showed by itself that its reason was hidden in God’s special counsel concerning humanity’s destiny.
Or, what is the same, the Paschal lamb was a type of another Lamb, the heavenly Lamb.
St. John the Baptist had already called Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29).
And behold, what was prefigured by the Paschal lamb is fulfilled in Jesus: His bones are not broken.
This fulfillment is all the more striking because it takes place on the very evening when, according to the Law, the Paschal lamb was eaten.
The second prediction is taken from the prophetic vision of Zechariah. The Prophet says: “I will pour out the spirit of grace and compassion on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced. They shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an Only-begotten” (Zech 12:10).
After saying that tribes and families will mourn (Zech 12:11-14), the Prophet says: “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for washing away sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1).
Then he describes the destruction of idols and false divinations (Zech 13:2-6). Jehovah speaks this whole prophecy (Zech 12:1).
Such is the Prophet’s prophecy. Jewish tradition also saw in this prophecy a prophecy about the Messiah, in the Jerusalem Talmud.
The words “I will pour out the spirit of grace” could not be spoken in his own person by the Prophet or by any other ordinary son of man.
Only the Messiah could also open a fountain for washing away sin and destroy every superstition.
Finally, He who is here called pierced is also Jehovah. In his apocalyptic vision, St. John points to Christ Jesus in Zechariah’s prophecy (Rev 1:7).
Thus the Sanhedrin, against its own intentions, pierced its own Messiah.
By a higher ordering this was permitted so that, in fulfillment of the prophecy, those sons of Israel capable of receiving the spirit of grace would look upon the Pierced One.
They would mourn the sin of crucifying the Messiah in the spirit of grace-filled repentance (Acts 3:19).
But the hardened would fruitlessly mourn the same sin for all eternity.
Christian hearers, see how heavenly Providence arranged even the least circumstances of the cross-sufferings of Christ Jesus.
It did so to strengthen faith in our Savior and to awaken grace-filled love for Him.
May God deliver each of us from being cold and distrustful toward that faith which has been so fully witnessed, in all its parts, by heaven itself.
A fearful danger threatens us even if our faith in Christ Jesus is not sufficiently alive.
Why did He endure so much shame and suffering from the blind Jews? For our sins.
How, then, can we fail to weep for the sins for which the Son of God was pierced?
Or do we think that the prophecy of the New Testament seer will not be fulfilled upon us if we remain unrepentant?
Yet all the prophecies concerning the coming of our Savior into the world were fulfilled to the smallest iota.
John the seer saw and told us: “Behold, He comes with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.
And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen” (Rev 1:7).
Hear with what certainty the seer speaks to us. He says, “Even so, Amen.”
By an oath he assures us that he speaks the truth. By an oath he assures us that all the tribes of the earth will wail when the Pierced One appears to judge the universe.
This is that Pierced One in whom, on earth, people either did not believe at all, or believed but did not justify faith by the labors of repentance.
O, let us weep while there is still time for saving tears. Let us weep while our weeping can wash us with the grace-filled water opened by the pierced Son of God for His earthly Church.
Amen.
The first of these sayings refers to the Paschal lamb. In Ex 12:42, at the institution of Pascha, called “a night of vigil to the Lord,” this command is given concerning the Paschal lamb: “You shall not break its bones.”
See the same command repeated in Num 9:12.
In the introduction to John chapter 13, we said that the slaughter of the sacred Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ, took place on the eve of the day of unleavened bread.
That day fell on a Sabbath that year. Thus the great Sacrifice was accomplished on the very day when, at night after sunset, the Paschal lamb of the Mosaic Law had to be eaten.
That lamb was “a shadow of good things to come” (Heb 10:1).
The laws established for the Paschal lamb, which prefigured Him and prophetically portrayed Him, must fully be applied to the sacred Lamb.
This is precisely what John indicates in verse 36. The Apostle Paul also indicates it when he says: “Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7).
The other saying, cited by John in verse 37, is found in the Prophet Zechariah (12:10).
With great prophetic clarity, moved by the Spirit of God, he said: “Upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem I will pour out the spirit of grace and compunction.
And they shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only-begotten son.
They shall grieve as one grieves for a firstborn,” and so forth (Zech 12:10). “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for washing away sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1).
Above, we saw the prophecy about the Lord’s sufferings depicted in Psalm 21. In the same psalm, verse 28 indicates that all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations will worship before Him.
Therefore here too lies the answer to the question: to whom precisely does Zechariah’s saying refer, “They shall look upon Him whom they pierced”?
The Jews who handed the Lord over looked upon Him. The soldiers who crucified Him looked upon Him. The centurion guarding Him looked upon Him.
The pious men and women who reverently buried Him also looked upon Him.
In other words, representatives both of the Jews and of the Gentiles looked upon Him.
Or better, in their persons the whole world of human beings looked, and will look, upon the Pierced One.
By faith it received, and will receive, healing from the wounds of sin, according to the word and comparison of the Lord Himself.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15).
Thus the promises of God were fulfilled, beginning with His word about the seed of the woman who was to strike the serpent.
“From being wounded in the heel, that victorious Seed of the woman, or Head and Deliverer of believers, is not excluded,” says Metropolitan Philaret.
He says this concerning God’s curse pronounced upon the serpent as the representative of the devil, in his notes on Gen 3:15.
This serpent’s sting in the heel is the wounding of which the Prophet Isaiah speaks: “By His wound we are healed” (Isa 53:5).
From this first revelation to the Incarnation of God the Word, the coming mystery appears ever more clearly throughout the Old Testament.
It appears in types, in psalms, and in prophecies.
The connection of all these prophetic indications with the Incarnation of God the Word on earth was finally disclosed to believers by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
He was sent by the Lord Jesus from the Father. See Jn 15:26; 16:7-14; 20:22; Acts 1:5; and compare the first chapter of John’s Gospel, 1-18.
The study of the Old and New Testaments together reveals the whole plan of divine wisdom saving humanity.
“The very Word of God, the unchanging Image of the Father, enters into His image which is in man (Gen 1:26).
He bears flesh for the sake of flesh, and is mingled with a rational soul for the sake of my soul, cleansing like by like,” says Gregory the Theologian.
By the human soul of God, the dominion of death was destroyed, and resurrection from Hades was proclaimed to souls.
By the body of Christ, corruption was rendered powerless, and incorruption was manifested from the tomb, says Athanasius the Great.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 9 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS