Zechariah 12:3

Zechariah 12:3 reiterates in a different figure the thought of Zechariah 12:2, that Jerusalem will prove the destruction of the nations that attack it.

A burdensome stone Some see here an allusion to a custom spoken of by Jerome as existing in the cities of Palestine in his days. Young men were accustomed to test their strength by lifting and throwing heavy round stones. If the prophecy is as late as Marti would make it these practices may have been known in Jerusalem at the time (compare 2Ma 4:12-15 ), but if the prophecy is much older a Palestinian author could hardly have known them. Guided partly by a belief in an earlier date and partly by the fact that the stone in this passage is not a round stone, for the people will cut themselves on it, others believe that the author has in mind the use of stones in the erection of buildings. “In vain should all the nations round about seek to fit the stone Jerusalem into any of the political structures which they might seek to erect.” Whatever the basis of the figure, the prophet means to say that any attack upon Jerusalem will prove disastrous to those who undertake it.

All people Better, R.V., “all the peoples.” The surrounding nations (compare last clause, Zechariah 12:2; Zechariah 12:6).