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Chapter 12:1-3: The apocalyptic siege of Jerusalem

The Lord said He would make Jerusalem a cup that would make the
surrounding peoples reeling as from alcohol. All nations will gather against
Judah, the countryside, and against Jerusalem. But the Lord will deliver even the defenseless countryside, as well as the fortified city of Jerusalem. Even the feeble will be great warriors like David.

Chapter 12.10 to 13.9: Israel finally to be freed from sin

Finally, the Lord will pour out upon the house of David a spirit that
brings grace and leads them to prayer. Then "they will look on me, the one they have pierced, and mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, or like the ritual weeping over Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

We notice the odd pronoun shift, from me to him. Many versions do not
show that. Yet it indicates the divinity of the Messiah, and the fact that
they will have pierced, crucified Him. We saw such a pronoun shift earlier
(cf. comments on chapter 2.8). John 19.37 explicitly quotes this line and
refers it to Jesus. Similarly, Apocalypse/Revelation 1.7 understands it to
refer to Jesus: "Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, everyone who pierced him, and all the tribes of earth will wail on
account of him." We think too of the image in Daniel 7.13 about the Son of Man coming on the clouds - to which Jesus referred in speaking to the high priest in Matthew 26.24. Jesus on the cross recited part of Psalm 22, in which verse 17 said: "They have pierced my hands and my feet." (As we see in Mt. 26.31 Jesus quotes Zech 12.7: "I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be dispersed."

At the start of 13.1 a fountain will be opened to the house of David to
cleanse them from their impurity. And all the idols will be finally banished.
And the people will be extremely wary of any false prophet - if they even
suspect a man of being such, he may be slain, as Dt. 13.6-9 prescribed. So a man might try to say that the wounds he had were not from ritual cutting of himself in idol rites, but from scuffles in the house of friends. (Nehemiah 6. 12-14 shows false prophets were troublesome after the return from exile, as they had been also before the exile. And Matthew 24.4-5 foretells the coming of false prophets near the end.

In verse 7 the shepherd image returns again, from chapter 11, standing
now for the Good Shepherd. Jesus Himself cited this line, as we saw above, to refer to Himself, and the sheep scattered to refer to the Apostles.

The mention of "the man who is near to me" in verse 7 may recall Leviticus 6.2 and 18.20 - only in Leviticus is the phrase used - to refer to someone who is side by side with the Lord, as if His equal. This could evoke the thought of John 10.30; "I and the Father are one."

Oddly, 12.8-9 seem to hark back to the scene of 12.1-6, the refining
process for Israel, which is compared to refining silver and gold. Silver or
gold ore would be put in a porous clay vessel along with lead, salt and zinc. The vessel would be sealed, and put in a fired kiln for five days. After that the dross would stick to the sides of the vessel, the gold or silver would be left. Those who had gone through the refining would say: The Lord is my God, and He would say: They are my people - evoking the very wording of the prophecy of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31.31ff.

The thought of a suffering Messiah was a problem for many Jews, who
expected the Messiah to live forever. So in Talmud, Sukkah 52a we read of a suffering and slain Messiah, son of Joseph, (in comment on Zechariah 12.10), who was to be a precursor of the Messiah son of David. Hence too one reason for the Targumic distortion of Isaiah 53, which changed the meek lamb into an arrogant conqueror. Of course there were added reasons for the distortion. One was the belief that Bar Kokhba, leader of the second Jewish revolt, 132-35, was the Messiah. Another was the hostility of Jews to the Christian use of the passage. This reason for distortion is admitted in H. J. Schoeps, Paul (Westminster, 1961, p. 129), and Jacob Neusner, Messiah in Context (p. 190) and Samson Levey, (op. cit., p. 152. note 10. ). Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls also spoke of two Messiahs. Cf. Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls (JSOT 1987) pp. 53-54.