The Flock Doomed to Slaughter. Zechariah_11:1-17
INTRODUCTION TO ZECHARIAH
The prophet Zechariah lived at the same time as Haggai and was interested in the same effort to induce the Jews to carry on the rebuilding of their neglected Temple. The prophecies are dated a few years later than those of Haggai. In contrast to the direct and simple language of Haggai, Zechariah employs many figures and symbols to enforce his message. He especially wished to give encouragement and help to the leader and governor of the people, Zerubbabel, and the priest Joshua.
In the latter part of the book there are many pictures of the glorious and happy future, which God had in store for His people and of the Deliverer, who was to come to rule over them. There will come a great day “when the Lord shall be King over all the earth.”
The Oracle of the Lord of Hosts
III. JUDGMENT AND REDEMPTION, Zechariah 9-14
3. The Parable of the Shepherds, Zec_11:1-17
The Flock Doomed to Slaughter
Open your doors, O Lebanon, That fire may devour your cedars.
Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, Because the magnificent trees have been destroyed; Wail, O oaks of Bashan, For the inaccessible forest [on the steep mountainside] has come down.
There is a sound of the shepherds’ wail, For their splendor (grazing land) is ruined; There is a sound of the young lions’ roar, For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.
Thus says the LORD my God, “Pasture the flock doomed for slaughter,
whose buyers slay them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them nor protect them [from the wolves].
For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares the LORD; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into the hand of another and into the hands of his [foreign] king. And the enemy will strike the land, and I will not rescue the people from their hand.”
So I [Zechariah] pastured the flock doomed for slaughter, truly [as the name implies] the most miserable of sheep. And I took two [shepherd’s] staffs, the one I called Favor (Grace) and the other I called Union (Bonds); so I pastured the flock.
Then I eliminated the three [incompetent, unfit] shepherds [the civil rulers, the priests, and the prophets] in one month, for I was impatient with them, and they also were tired of me and despised me. [Jer_2:8, Jer_2:26; Jer_18:18]
So I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let the survivors devour one another’s flesh.”
I took my staff, Favor, and broke it in pieces, breaking the covenant which I had made with all the peoples.
So the covenant was broken on that day, and thus the most wretched of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD.
I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, do not.” So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver as my wages.
Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter [as if to the dogs]–that magnificent sum at which I am valued by them!” So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD. [Mat_26:14-15; Mat_27:3-10]
I broke my second staff, Union, into pieces to break the brotherhood between Judah (the Southern Kingdom) and Israel (the Northern Kingdom).
The LORD said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment [of a shepherd, but this time] of a foolish shepherd. [Eze_34:2-6]
For behold, I am going to raise up a [false] shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or feed the healthy; but will eat the flesh of
“Woe (judgment is coming) to the worthless and foolish shepherd Who deserts the flock! The sword will strike his arm And his right eye! His arm shall be totally withered And his right eye completely blinded.” [Jer_23:1; Joh_10:12-13]
BEAUTY AND BANDS
The times were very dark when Zechariah felt called upon to act as shepherd to Jehovah’s harried flock. Rulers and priests were actuated by selfish greed and mutual antagonism. Three shepherds had already failed. After a brief effort Zechariah renounced the attempt. He broke his staff of Beauty, or Grace, Zec_11:10, R.V. margin, as if God’s tender love had withdrawn from its struggle with evil; and when he challenged the people to set a value on his services, they weighed him out thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. Thereupon he broke the other staff, disrupting the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. In the following paragraph, Zec_11:15-17, there is an evident reference to the terrible reign of Antiochus whose cruelties led to the heroic uprising of the Maccabees. Five centuries afterwards Jesus was sent to gather the flock with the same result, Mat_27:9-10.
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