"Mourning for the one they pierced"
This passage is one of a few in the old testament to which God himself refers to himself in the first and thiird persons, implying, at least, a duality - later to be known as a trinity. this duality being God the father and God the son (Christ). ("They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him...")
From the top... God says that he will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on David's house and Jerusalem. Then they will look to Jesus, whom they crucified, and they will... mourn? (Matthew Henry attributes this to the recognition of sin - thus a holy mourning. I also think it refers to [in the end times] the mourning of the modern Jews when they realize that their messiah had come and that they had killed him. and by modern, I mean post-crucifixion). The mourning described will be like the mourning of a family for the loss of their only child or firstborn son. Now, I'm not a parent, but i can just imagine the grief that a mother or father would feel at the death of any of their children, but their only one? especially if, let us use abraham and sarah for an example, they could not manage to have children until said child was born...
do we get the image of the grief that Jerusalem [or christians] could and will feel in response when looking toward the cross, whether about sin or the realization of Christ?
God doesn't stop there. He goes on to describe the grief. He says that the weeping in Jerusalem will be like that of Hadad Rimmon, in Megiddo. Unfortunately, I do not know who/where Hadad Rimmon is. this just in, don't you love the interwebs, Hadad Rimmon is the place where a national lamentation was held for king Josiah (and, it was also named after two Syrian idols). The mourning of Jerusalem (which i believe refers to either Christians or Jews, depending on the perspective taken: matthew henry's or my alternative) will be compared to Israel's national mourning.
Think of it like this, Imagine the mourning that England had for princess Diana, or that which SA will have when Madiba dies, or that of Lincoln or Kennedy in America. imagine a national mourning, but on the scale of a global religion. Imagine roughly 2.1 billion people worldwide mourning for their saviour and their own sins (or 13 million if looking at Jews mourning the realization that their anticipated messiah has already come and it is [in the end times] almost, if not completely, too late to correct their error).
The Lord then further describes the mourning. The land will mourn by each clan individually. The clan of the house of David & the clan of the house of Nathan and the clan of the house of Levi & the clan of the house of Shimei. Nathan was David's son (through whose geneology Crist eventually comes) and shimei was Levi's son (whose descendants were preachers to the people), just for clarification. One commentator, the one in my bible (so either kenneth barker or larry walker), suggests that david/nathan represents the civil leaders, those in power, and levi/shimei represents the spiritual leaders. Even these people will mourn. those in power are not exempt from God's law and, as such they will mourn either alongside the Christians or the Jews (if you think of it this way, all people not of Christianity are comparable to the jews in this instance as they realize the reality of Jesus). Those responsible for the spiritual wellbeing will mourn for the same reasons and for their flock, whether for the sins of their flock or the realization that they have led their flock along an incorrect path.
it's interesting to see Christ's return, which is generally described as glorious and triumphant being described as something which causes grief and mourning. The reality of christ is not only the hope of salvation, but the conviction of sin and all of us have sinned. all of us should mourn because of the effect that sin has on our lives and the impact that it has on our relationship with God. In that mourning is the acknowledgement of sin and the acceptance that salvation is needed, which is why Matthew Henry describes it as a holy mourning.
On the other side of the coin, there is also a mourning of regret, of realization [particularly among those who have already passed on and missed their chance for salvation] that what they thought was truth is not and that the christ whom they have denied exists.
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