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since the simple אשׁר might also be rendered “who pierced (me):” cf. Ges. §123, 2, Not. 1. Dâqar does not mean to ridicule, or scoff at, but only to pierce, thrust through, and to slay by any kind of death whatever (cf. Lam 4:9). And the context shows that here it signifies to put to death. With reference to the explanation proposed by Calvin, “whom they have harassed with insults,” Hitzig has very properly observed: “If it were nothing more than this, wherefore such lamentation over him, which, according to the use of ספד, with על governing the person, and from the similes employed, is to be regarded as a lamentation for the dead?” It is true that we have not to think of a slaying of Jehovah, the creator of the heaven and the earth, but simply of the slaying of the Maleach Jehovah, who, being of the same essence with Jehovah, became man in the person of Jesus Christ. As Zechariah repeatedly represents the coming of the Messiah as a coming of Jehovah in His Maleach to His people, he could, according to this view, also describe the slaying of the Maleach as the slaying of Jehovah. And Israel having come to the knowledge of its sin, will bitterly bewail this deed. עליו does not mean thereat, i.e., at the crime, but is used personally, over him whom they have pierced. Thus the transition from the first person (אלי) to the third (עליו) points to the fact that the person slain, although essentially one with Jehovah, is personally distinct from the Supreme God. The lamentation for the only son (yâshı̄d: cf. Amo 8:10) and for the first-born is the deepest and bitterest death-wail. The inf. abs. hâmēr, which is used in the place of the finite verb, signifies making bitter, to which mispēd is to be supplied from the previous sentence (cf. מספּד תּמרוּרים, Jer 6:26).
The historical fulfilment of this prophecy commenced with the crucifixion of the Son of God, who had come in the flesh. The words הבּיטוּ אלי את־אשׁר דּקרוּ are quoted in the Gospel of John (Joh 19:37), according to the Greek rendering ὄψονται εἰς ὅν ἐξεκέντησαν, which probably emanated not from the lxx, but from Aquila, or Theodotion, or Symmachus, as having been fulfilled in Christ, by the fact that a soldier pierced His side with a lance as He was hanging upon the cross (vid., Joh 19:34). If we compare this quotation with the fact mentioned in Joh 19:36, that they did not break any of His bones,