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;
And the land shall mourn, every family apart - a universal and an individual mourning at once.
The family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart: the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart - representing the highest and lowest of the royal order. Nathan, not the prophet, but a younger son of David (2 Samuel 5:14; Luke 3:31).
Apart - retirement and seclusion are needful for deed personal religion.
Their wives apart - Jewish females worship separately from the males (Exodus 15:1; Exodus 15:20).
The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart - the highest and lowest of the priestly order (Numbers 3:18; Numbers 3:21). Their example, and that of the royal order, would of course influence the rest.
Verse 14. All the families that remain - after the fiery ordeal, in which two-thirds shall fall (Zechariah 13:8-9).
Remarks:
(1) The remembrance of God's omnipotence as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, which is as much put forth now as in the first day when he called worlds into existence out of nothing, and breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, is well calculated to remove all doubts of His power to fulfill His promises to Israel and to the Church (Zechariah 12:1). God as really maintains in being the vast system of nature as He originated it. To ignore this, and to substitute for the personal God, distinct from His own creation, the theory of the government and maintenance of the world by the so-called laws of nature, from which all deviation at the will of a superior being is impossible, is to confound nature with the God who rules it; and however such pantheism may pass current as philosophy in the world, it is against the sure Word of God; and the step from it to the grossest fetishism and idolatry of nature is an easy and certain one. (2) Jerusalem, which has for so long drunk "the cup of trembling" herself, shall at last become a cup of trembling to her foes (Zechariah 12:2). The anti-Christian foes who oppress the Church shall find that they, have been burdening themselves with a "stone" which shall, in the end, "grind them to powder" (Zechariah 12:3). Those of the Jews who fell on "the stone of stumbling" have been "broken" thereby. Still, an elect remnant shall be left. But none of the confederate hosts of Antichrist upon whom that stone shall fall shall escape. They shall, in blind and mad infatuation, rush upon their own ruin (Zechariah 12:4). The Lord, who has heretofore seemed to have no regard for His ancient people, shall again "open His eyes upon the house of Judah" (Zechariah 12:4). So in the case of the Church, though God may for a time hide His face, yet in due season He will look upon her, and upon every true believer, with manifested mercy, and it shall be seen that "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalms 121:4).
(3) While we look to human instruments of help as our "strength," we must look above them to the "Lord of hosts their God," who alone is the author of their and our strength (Zechariah 12:5)
(4) A small "torch of fire" is enough to destroy a large "sheaf" (Zechariah 12:6): so a small band of believers can be made by the Lord more than a match for all the hosts of Satan.
(5) Forsaken and weak as is Jerusalem now (Zechariah 12:6), "she shall be inhabited again in her own place" (Zechariah 12:6). The Lord will begin by delivering the weakest, lest the stronger should "magnify" or attribute any "glory" to themselves (Zechariah 12:7). So God in His Church often calls the poor, the unlearned, and the despised, among the foremost, lest those higher in position, circumstances, or education, when they are called, should be tempted to glory over their humbler brethren.
(6) When once the Lord interposes in His people's behalf, even the "feeble" among them becomes mighty like "David;" and those strong in the faith of David become strengthened with no less a might than that of "God," the Lord of David, the Divine Angel of the Lord that went "before" Israel in the days of old (Zechariah 12:8). Let us seek to be indeed thus "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).
(7) The spiritual restoration of Jerusalem shall precede the temporal restoration, and shall result from a special outpouring upon them of "the spirit of grace and of supplications" (Zechariah 12:10). We must not expect any great and universal state of outward blessedness unless there has been first worked in men an inward and spiritual regeneration. And this is to be looked for only in connection with an outpouring of the Spirit of God. To hope for a revival of religion apart from the Holy Spirit's operation, would be as unreasonable as to look for the growth of crops without the air and rains of heaven.
(8) True repentance is inseparable from faith in the crucified Saviour. The sight, by faith, of His sufferings on account of our sins produces in us tender sorrow for His pains, and bitter mourning for our transgressions which caused them, and a hearty renunciation henceforth of all sin. It is not written, they shall first mourn, and then look upon Him whom they have pierced, but, "they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn." Such mourning is no ordinary sorrow. It is the "bitterness" of one mourning for "the first-born among many brethren" (Zechariah 12:10; Romans 8:29). It is the sorrowing of one deeply grieved at having pained One who has loved us so wonderfully, and forgiven us so freely. It flows from faith and produces love.
(9) True religion is a personal thing, and leads the penitent believer to "mourn apart" (Zechariah 12:11-14). It is also a "family" concern: and, in the coming day of grace to Jerusalem, each "family shall mourn apart." It will at last be a national concern: "the land shall mourn" (Zechariah 12:12). Prayer and supplication before the throne of Him who was "pierced" by our sins, are the precursors of all the partial revivals which are vouchsafed now to the Church, and shall precede the universal revival, and final and complete triumph of Christianity throughout the earth. "Lord, teach us to pray!"