WHAT IS THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF THE VERSE
ZECHARIAH 12:10?
In Zechariah 12:10 it is written:
10 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.
In the majority of the translations to English it is
written “and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced”, because in the
Masoretic Hebrew text it is written וְהִבִּיטוּ
אֵלַי אֵת
אֲשֶׁר
דָּקָרוּ vehibitu elai et to asher daqaru, what
means “and they will look upon me whom they have pierced”.
However, the correct punctuation (vocalization) of the
Hebrew word אלי, in this case, is אֱלֵי (elei), and
not אֵלָי (elai),
because in this verse it is God who is speaking, so that the punctuation
(vocalization) that the Masoretes have placed in the word אלי, in this in
case, leads to absurdity, because אֵלָי (elai) means
“upon me”, so that, with this punctuation (vocalization), it would be written
that God said “and they will look upon me whom they have pierced”, what is an
absurdity, because God cannot be pierced by anybody, because He is the
Almighty, and He is not flesh, so that it is obvious that in this in case that
the correct punctuation (vocalization) is אֱלֵי (elei), that
means “upon”, so that the correct translation is “and they will look upon him
whom they have pierced”.
The Hebrew alphabet, originally, only had consonants,
and it was only from the century V EC on that the Masoretes invented the
punctuation system (niqud, or nikud) to represent the vowels.
The sacred and divinely inspired text of the Hebrew
Bible (Tanakh) is composed only of consonants, because when the prophets wrote
the sacred books (from the century XV AEC to the century V AEC) the Hebrew
alphabet was composed only of consonants, and the Masoretic system of
punctuation (niqud), to indicate the vowels, had not yet been invented.
The Masoretes, who have placed the vocalic signals in
the text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), were not prophets, so that the vocalic
signals that are found in the editions of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)
occasionally can be mistaken, so that, when the vocalization (punctuation) that
is in the Masoretic text is not correct, we must modify the punctuation
(vocalization), correcting the error.
In the case of the verse Zechariah 12:10, the correct
vocalization (punctuation) of the word אלי is אֱלֵי (elei), and
not אֵלָי (elai), as
demonstrated above, so that we must modify the punctuation of the word אלי, in order
that it be אֱלֵי (elei) (that means “upon”) instead of אֵלָי (elai) (that
means upon me).
So, the correct Hebrew text of the mentioned passage
is וְהִבִּיטוּ
אֱלֵי אֵת
אֲשֶׁר
דָּקָרוּ vehibitu elei et
asher daqaru, that it means “and they will look upon him whom they have
pierced”.
Therefore, the correct translation is “and they will look
upon him whom they have pierced”.
Be noticed that in the Gospel according to John 19:37
the mentioned passage is translated as “they will look upon him whom they have
pierced” (in Greek Ὄψονται εἰς
ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν
(ópsontai eis hon exekéntesan), what shows that in the verse Zechariah 12:10
the vocalization of word אלי as אֵלָי (elai) is so
much absurd that even the author of the Gospel according to John, who wrote the
mentioned book to try to convince the people that Jesus is God, vocalized the
word אלי as אֱלֵי (elei) (that
means “upon”) and not as אֵלָי (elai) (that means
“upon me”).
The correct interpretation of the verse Zechariah
12:10 is the following one:
The verses Zechariah 12:1-9 show that there will be a
war of all nations against Israel, and the verse Zechariah 12:10 shows that, in
that war, a Jewish leader will be pierced by the armies of the nations and will
die, and all the people of Israel will mourn for him, making a very great
mourning.
It is obvious that the people who will pierce that man
will not be the same people who will mourn his death, because the people who
will pierce him will be his enemies, who will be wanting to kill him, so that,
for those who will pierce him his death will be reason for rejoicing and not
for mourning, and only for the people of Israel the death of that man will be
reason for mourning.
The Christians interpret the verse Zechariah 12:10
saying that the one who was pierced is Jesus the Nazarene, who was pierced when
he was crucified, and that the Jews will look upon resurrected Jesus and will
mourn for him, but this interpretation is not logical, because if Jesus is
already resurrected, there will be no reason to mourn for him. People only
mourn those who died and are still dead. If the dead resurrects, there is no
more reason for mourning, but for rejoicing over the resurrection.
Moreover, the Christians take advantage of the error
of punctuation (vocalization) committed by the Masoretes, when they punctuated
(vocalized) the word אלי as אֵלָי (elai)
instead of אֱלֵי (elei), to say
that Jesus the Nazarene is God, because, with this mistaken punctuation, it
would be written that God said, "and they shall look upon me whom they
have pierced". However, as was demonstrated above, the correct punctuation
is אֱלֵי (elei),
which means “upon", because the punctuation אֵלָי (elai),
which means “upon me", leads to absurdity, because God cannot be pierced
by anyone, because He is the Almighty, and He is not flesh.
Furthermore, it is absurd to say that Jesus the
Nazarene is God, because God is the Creator of all things, and Jesus is a man,
who is a creature, and it is completely impossible the creature to be the
Creator, and it is completely impossible one person to be another person.
In addition, God said that He is one (Deuteronomy
6:4), so that the doctrine that says that God is two, or three, is a false
doctrine.
For more details on this topic, see the page http://www.caraita.teo.br/is_jesus_god.htm
.
Yahveh bless you.
João Paulo Fernandes Pontes (Hebrew name: Yochanan Ben
Yosef).
Published in March 30, 2014.
Updated in August 24, 2015.
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