Catholic Commentary
The Fountain of Purification for Jerusalem
1“In that day there will be a fountain opened to David’s house and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.
Zechariah 13:1 describes an eschatological fountain that God will open for the house of David and Jerusalem's inhabitants to cleanse them from both moral sin and ritual impurity. This verse follows the prophecy of a pierced figure in chapter 12, linking mourning for that figure to the opening of a source of purification and restoration.
Christ's pierced side is the fountain Zechariah saw—an inexhaustible spring of blood and water that opens not once but forever for every soul that returns.
Typological sense — The proximity of 12:10 ("they shall look on me whom they have pierced") to 13:1 ("a fountain will be opened") was not lost on the Fathers. St. John sees both verses fulfilled at Calvary: "one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out" (John 19:34). The fountain of 13:1 is the wound in Christ's side. Blood and water — the two streams from the one source — are the Church's traditional emblems of the Eucharist and Baptism, the two sacraments that flow from the Paschal Mystery. The "opening" of the fountain by the soldier's spear is simultaneously an act of violence and a divine act of revelation: God, in the Body of his Son, opens the spring that was "from of old, from ancient days" (Mic. 5:2).
Catholic tradition finds in Zechariah 13:1 a dense nexus of sacramental and Christological meaning that no other interpretive tradition has developed as fully.
The Blood and Water from Christ's Side. St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine all identify the water and blood of John 19:34 as the fulfillment of this verse. Augustine writes in Tractates on John (120.2): "He opened to us a fountain... that those who thirst may approach and drink." St. Ambrose, in De Mysteriis (3.15), directly connects the fountain of Zechariah to Baptism: the water from Christ's side is the font that cleanses; the blood is the Eucharist that nourishes.
Baptismal Theology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "the Church was born primarily of Christ's total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the Cross. 'The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus'" (CCC 766, citing Lumen Gentium 3). Zechariah's "fountain opened" thus becomes a prophetic description of the Church's very birth certificate.
The Two Purifications. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae III, q. 66, a. 3) observes that the two streams — blood and water — correspond to the two aspects of Baptism: cleansing from sin (water) and incorporation into the sacrificial life of Christ (blood). This mirrors Zechariah's dual formula of ḥaṭṭā't and niddāh: the fountain is not partial in its purifying effect.
The Inexhaustible Mercy. Pope Francis, in Misericordiae Vultus (5), draws on the imagery of flowing water as an image of mercy that "never runs dry." Zechariah's māqôr — a living spring, not a cistern — anticipates this teaching: the mercy of God in Christ is not a finite resource dispensed by quota, but an inexhaustible source available to every generation.
Zechariah 13:1 speaks with striking directness to the Catholic today who struggles with the weight of repeated sin — the person who wonders whether the same confession, for the same failing, can truly be efficacious once more. The fountain Zechariah sees is not opened, used up, and closed again. It is opened — aorist in character but permanent in effect. This is the grammar of the Sacrament of Reconciliation: the side of Christ, once pierced, remains ever open.
Concretely: when a Catholic approaches Confession or is baptized, they are, in the fullest sense of the word, doing what Zechariah foresaw — approaching the fountain "opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." The mourning of 12:10 (contrition) and the cleansing of 13:1 (absolution) belong together. Contrition is not a punishment; it is the path to the fountain.
For those who feel their sin is too great or too habitual for genuine forgiveness, this verse is an antidote to scrupulosity and despair alike. The fountain covers both ḥaṭṭā't (moral guilt) and niddāh (the deep stain). Nothing is outside its reach. Catholics are invited to return to this spring — in the liturgy, in the sacraments, in daily prayer — not once in a lifetime but as the perpetual rhythm of Christian living.
Commentary
Zechariah 13:1 — Literal and Typological Commentary
"In that day" (bayyôm hahû') — This eschatological formula, which has appeared repeatedly throughout Zechariah 12 (vv. 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11), links this verse inseparably to the oracle that precedes it. "That day" is the Day of the LORD, the climactic moment of divine intervention in human history. Chapter 12 has depicted Jerusalem besieged, the nations gathered against her, and a mysterious figure "pierced" (12:10), over whom the house of David mourns with a grief like the loss of a firstborn son. Chapter 13:1 is the direct sequel: the mourning itself becomes the occasion of cleansing. The sorrow for the one pierced does not lead to despair, but to the opening of a fountain. This movement — from piercing, to mourning, to purification — is the prophetic skeleton of the Passion and its fruits.
"There will be a fountain opened" (yihyeh māqôr niptāḥ) — The Hebrew māqôr (fountain, spring, source) connotes a living, welling source of water, not a cistern or pool that can run dry. The verb niptāḥ (opened, uncovered) carries the sense of something previously sealed now made accessible — a deliberate divine act of disclosure. The passive voice is theologically significant: God opens this fountain; it is not constructed by human hands or merit. The imagery draws on a deep scriptural tradition: the LORD himself is called "the fountain of living waters" (Jer. 2:13; 17:13), and Ezekiel envisions waters flowing from the threshold of the eschatological Temple (Ezek. 47:1–12). What Zechariah sees is the actualization of what these prophets anticipated.
"To David's house and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem" — The scope is both royal and universal within Israel. The phrase recalls the covenant with David (2 Sam. 7), but its pairing with "the inhabitants of Jerusalem" opens purification beyond the royal line to every person dwelling in the holy city. In the typological reading, "Jerusalem" encompasses the Church, the new Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26; Rev. 21:2), and "the inhabitants" are the baptized — all who have their home within her walls.
"For sin and for uncleanness" (lĕḥaṭṭā't ûlĕniddāh) — These two Hebrew terms correspond to distinct categories in the Levitical system. Ḥaṭṭā't is moral sin, the transgression of God's commandments that incurs guilt and requires expiation. Niddāh refers to ritual uncleanness — particularly the impurity associated with menstrual blood and bodily discharge — which excluded a person from temple worship and community until purified. By naming both, Zechariah signals that this fountain is comprehensive: it addresses both the moral rupture between the soul and God AND the ritual impurity that cuts one off from worship. No category of human defilement lies outside its reach. The Catholic tradition reads this as the double effect of Baptism: the remission of original and personal sin () and the removal of the stain () that prevents full communion with God in liturgical life.