John 19:32-37 / Psalm 34:20 (arguably Exodus 12:43-46; Numbers 9:12) / Zechariah 12:7-10
Fulfillment
Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.”
Original 1
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He guards all his bones;
Not one of them is broken.
Original 2
And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat it. But every man’s servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it. A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the Lord’s Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones.
Original 4
“The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah. In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn."
The first quotation in John is relatively straightforward compared to some of the others we've looked at. Sure, the context of the original Psalm seems to be talking about righteous people in general, but whatever. It's nothing we haven't seen before.
The second quotation is also surprisingly straightforward: on the day when God gets around to destroying his enemies, the people of Jerusalem shall 'look on Me whom they pierced.' John changes that 'Me' to a 'Him', but we really should not be surprised at paraphrasing at this point.
Also – does anyone else get the feeling that God is being unusually coy in Zechariah? "Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn"? That's almost sarcastic. 'Oh, you guys are definitely going to mourn for Me as if I was your firstborn. Almost like I'm the only begotten. Eh? Eh? Wink, wink, nudge?"
What's truly amazing about the Zechariah passage is that it's the only one we've seen that was the prophecy of a singular future event, not something fulfilled multiple times throughout history. Our expectation for what prophecy is, is the absolute minority.
It's time to revise Points One and Three:
Re-Revised Point One: Prophecies usually have multiple fulfillments
Re-Revised Point Two: The context may be misleading in prophecy
Revised Point Three: Past, Present, and Future do not matter in prophecy. Prophecies solely about singular future events are the minority.
Re-Revised Point Four: The exact wording does not matter in prophecy, or we have a different version of the Old Testament than Jesus
Point Five: A passage does not have to be explicitly prophetic to be prophecy
And with this, we have come to the end of the plēroō passages. For whatever reason, there are no passages that meet our requirements outside of the Gospels. Next time, we'll review what we have learned.
Next: [BTT042] Plēroō Passage Review
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