PM Home Bible Study Group; September 28, 2011
Zechariah 9:11-17
Theme: The Future of the World Powers, Israel, and the Kingdom of Messiah
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
IV. The Future of the World Powers, Israel, and the Kingdom of Messiah (9:1-14:21).
A. The First Burden (9:1-11:17).
5. The Rejection of the Good Shepherd and the Rule of the Wicked One (11:1-17).
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon,
That fire may devour your cedars.
2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
Because the mighty trees are ruined.
Wail, O oaks of Bashan,
For the thick forest has come down.
3 There is the sound of wailing shepherds!
For their glory is in ruins.
There is the sound of roaring lions!
For the pride[a] of the Jordan is in ruins.
4 Thus says the LORD my God, “Feed the flock for slaughter,
5 whose owners slaughter them and feel no guilt; those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich’; and their shepherds do not pity them.
6 For I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land,” says the LORD. “But indeed I will give everyone into his neighbor’s hand and into the hand of his king. They shall attack the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”
7 So I fed the flock for slaughter, in particular the poor of the flock.[b] I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Beauty,[c] and the other I called Bonds;[d] and I fed the flock.
8 I dismissed the three shepherds in one month. My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
9 Then I said, “I will not feed you. Let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish. Let those that are left eat each other’s flesh.”
10 And I took my staff, Beauty, and cut it in two, that I might break the covenant which I had made with all the peoples.
11 So it was broken on that day. Thus the poor[e] of the flock, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD.
12 Then I said to them, “If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.” So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter. 14 Then I cut in two my other staff, Bonds, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 And the LORD said to me, “Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd. 16 For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat and tear their hooves in pieces.
17 “Woe to the worthless shepherd,
Who leaves the flock!
A sword shall be against his arm
And against his right eye;
His arm shall completely wither,
And his right eye shall be totally blinded.”
Footnotes:
a. Zechariah 11:3; Or floodplain, thicket
b. Zechariah 11:7; Following Masoretic Text, Targum, and Vulgate; Septuagint reads for the
Canaanites.
c. Zechariah 11:7; Or Grace, and so in verse 10
d. Zechariah 11:7; Or Unity, and so in verse 14
e. Zechariah 11:11; Following Masoretic Text, Targum, and Vulgate; Septuagint reads the
Canaanites.
* * * * * * * * * *
Chapter 11 is part of the first "burden" at the end of Zechariah’s prophecy (chapters 9-11). And the mood of this first burden, so far, has been one of glorious victory. But with chapter 11, the high mood of long-term victory gives way to the sober promise of short-term defeat. Before the glories of the reign of Christ’s second coming that are described for us in chapters 9 and 10, there will be the sad times of rejection of Christ at His first coming—and the time of tribulation that will come upon Israel because of the coming of the Antichrist.
God is realistic about the way He reveals His works. He tells His people not only the victory to come, but the hard times that will precede that victory. Not all will understand or accept what He reveals; but He promises that "the poor of the flock" would observe and understand (Zechariah 11:7, 11). Just as Jesus prayed, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight" (Luke 10:21).
In chapter 11, then, we find the details of what will happen to Israel during the times that lay on either end of "the times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24)—that is, that undefined time-period during which the Jewish people would be scattered from their homeland as it is occupied by various Gentile nations. Note, in this chapter, how we see . . .
I. THE DESOLATION UPON THE LAND IS PREDICTED (vv. 1-3).
A. In these beginning verses, Zechariah is led, by the Holy Spirit, to speak forth a very picturesque and poetic expression of impending destruction. It comes as quite a shock, after reading the good and hopeful news that preceded it. In verses 1-2a, it’s as if the forests of Lebanon in the north are called upon to open their doors and let fire come in to burn its cedars trees. Even the inferior tree—the cypress—wails in sorrow, because the mighty cedar has fallen and because the trees that protected it are ruined. In verse 2b, the forest fire is described as moving on down to Bashan to burn its oaks. The oaks of Bashan wail, "for the thick forest has come down. Together, these two pictures of a spreading forest fire describe a movement of destruction upon the land. That a literal forest fire is not intended by this is shown in verse three; where "There is the sound of wailing shepherds!" "Shepherds" in this chapter describe the leaders who were meant by God to lead His "flock" of Israelites. But the leaders of the people are shown to be wailing, "For their glory is in ruins. There is the sound of roaring lions!"—the very thing that shepherds would not want to hear anywhere near the flock! And the destruction seems to run even further south and nearer to the city of Jerusalem; "For the pride of the Jordan is in ruins."
B. What is the nature of this terrible desolation that comes down from the north and into the very regions of Judah and Jerusalem? It’s best to see its historic fulfillment in the conquest of the land by the Roman empire. Even in the days of Jesus’ ministry, the "shepherds" of Israel feared this impending empire. They wanted to put a stop to the ministry of Jesus; saying, "If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation" (John 11:48). And yet, it was this very thing that happened after Jesus was crucified. In 70 A.D., the Roman army—led by emperor Titus—surrounded and completely sacked the city of Jerusalem and destroyed its temple; so that what Jesus said to His disciples—as He pointed to the temple—quite literally came to pass: "“Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down" (Matthew 24:2). Jerusalem became overrun by Gentiles—and stayed that way for nearly two-thousand years. We are living in "the times of the Gentiles" to this very day.
II. THE REASON FOR THE DESLOATION IS ILLUSTRATED (vv. 4-14).
A. To help explain the reason for this horrible destruction, Zechariah was called upon to play the role of a shepherd. The shepherd he portrayed is meant to be understood as "the Shepherd"—the Messiah, our Lord Jesus; because throughout, God puts His own words into Zechariah’s mouth as he plays the Shepherd role. God, ominously, tells Zechariah, "Feed the flock for slaughter" (v. 4)—that is to say, "Pasture the flock marked for slaughter" (New International Version); or as it is very boldly put in the Good News translation, "The Lord my God said to me, ‘Act the part of the shepherd of a flock of sheep that are going to be butchered.’" How hopeless!—they were a doomed flock! They were those "whose owners [that is, the rulers of the people] slaughter them and felt no guilt; those who sold them [which may picture fellow Jews who betrayed them to the Romans; perhaps even a picture of the publicans who made their living by collecting taxes from their own people for the Romans] say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich’; and their shepherds [perhaps the priests of the people who are to lead them in God’s way; or possibly their elders and leaders] did not pity them" (v. 5). Even worse than the leaders of the people who no longer care for them is the words of rejection from God Himself: "’For I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land,’ says the LORD. ‘But indeed I will give everyone into his neighbor’s hand and into the hand of his king’ [probably a reference to the surrounding nations and to their king Caesar]. They shall attack the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand" (v. 6). At the time of Jesus’ trial, the people rejected Him as their King and said, "We have no king but Caesar!" (John 19:15); and so, God would give them over to the king of their neighbors.
B. Thus, Zechariah prophetically played the role of the Shepherd—King Jesus. It’s very probable that he actually took up the actual instruments of a shepherd and literally portrayed that role before the people by leading a flock destined for the butcher’s shop— and thus, he "fed the flock for slaughter" (v. 7). He did this before the people; and as he says, "in particular the poor of the flock." The humble of the land saw and understood his meaning (see verse 11). He says that, in playing this role, he took up two shepherd’s staffs—"the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bonds"—the first being a picture of the pleasantness that God had intended for His people, and the second a picture of the unity He desired for them through Himself. Thus Zechariah, it would seem, took up a literal flock—destined for slaughter—in order to illustrate God’s message to His people destined for judgment.
C. Zechariah tells us "I"—that is the Lord as portrayed in the picture that Zechariah was acting out—"dismissed the three shepherds in one month" (v. 8). Who are these three shepherds? Since they are leaders of the people, we probably should see them as the three groups who displayed cruel disregard for the flock in verse 5—that is, the "owners", the "sellers", and the "shepherds" (the rulers, the Jewish agents of Rome, and the priests or elders). They were fired from their positions in a relatively short time— just one month; because, as the Lord says, "My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me" (v. 8). A brief review of Matthew 23 will show this to be painfully so! Not only did the Lord dismiss the shepherds, but He also disregarded the sheep. Zechariah (as the Lord) said, "I will not feed. you. Let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish. Let those that are left eat each other’s flesh" (v. 9). This describes, with dreadful accuracy, the horrible condition of the people during the time that Rome surrounded Jerusalem and held it in siege. We’re told that Zechariah pictured the Lord’s attitude by the fact that he cut his staff named "Beauty" in two, "that I might break the covenant which I had made with all the peoples" (v. 10). He had made a covenant on behalf of His people that prevented the surrounding nations from overrunning their land (see Job 5:23; Hosea 2:18); but now, that covenant was broken! Josephus (in Wars of The Jews, 6.9.1) reports what Titus said at the conquest of the well-fortified city of Jerusalem: "We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications; for what could the hands of men, or any machines, do towards overthrowing these towers!” The poor watched on as Zechariah portrayed this by cutting the staff in two; and knew that this was a picture of judgment declared by the Lord (v. 11).
D. Then, turning to the leaders of the flock, Zechariah said, ""If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain" (v. 12a). And rather than simply refuse to give him his wages as a shepherd, they did something that was so insulting that it would have been better if they had simply refrained from paying him at all. They weighed out to him thirty pieces of silver (v. 12)—which was the value of a common slave’s life (see Exodus 21:32). The Lord declared this to be the value they placed on Him; and so, he told Zechariah, "’Throw it to the potter’—that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter" (v. 13). What an amazingly accurate picture this proved to be with respect to Judah’s true Shepherd! As it says in Matthew 26:14-15 tells us; "Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?’ And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver." And after Jesus was betrayed, we read in Matthew 27:3-10;
Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!” Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.” And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the LORD directed me" (Matthew 27:3-10; Matthew’s reference to Jeremiah probably being a way of describing the whole of the writing Prophets, of which Zechariah was a part and Jeremiah, because of its size, was considered chief).
E. Finally, Zechariah completes his picture of the Lord as Shepherd by cutting the other staff in two—the one named "Bonds"—"that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel" (v. 14). God’s desire was for the unity of the two kingdoms, but now they would be scattered; and that unity and bond that found its source in Him would cease—for a time—to be available to them.
III. THE RISE OF A ‘WORTHLESS SHEPHERD’ IS DESCRIBED (vv. 15-17).
A. This is a picture of how the people would reject their one true Shepherd at His first coming. He would—as the upcoming chapters of Zechariah will show—one day return to His people; and they will accept Him then. But before then, they would instead accept a false shepherd. Thus God calls Zechariah to portray this second, false shepherd to them. The Lord tells him, "Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd" (v. 15). "Foolish", here, means "thick"; and the idea is that of a shepherd who does not care for the people. That Zechariah was to take up the "implements" of such a shepherd means that he was now going to play that shepherd’s role before the people.
B. God explains His purpose in having Zechariah do this: "For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat and tear their hooves in pieces" (v. 16). The diabolical career of this "worthless shepherd" is described for us in such passages as Daniel 11:36-38;
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 1 John 2:18, 22, 26; and 4:1-3; 2 John 7; and Revelation 13:11-18. Jesus makes reference to this false shepherd in John 5:43, when He says, "I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive." 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 says that "they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." But how dreadful it will be to be under this shepherd’s "care"! The Good Shepherd seeks those who are lost, but this one will not even care for them. The Good Shepherd drew children to Himself; but this one will not seek the young. The Good Shepherds healed the broken, but this one will not do so. The Good Shepherd fed those that are standing so that they will be stronger, but this one will not do so. Instead, he will eat the flesh of the fat, and so run them so roughly that their hooves are torn to pieces. What dreadful times those will be for God’s people! But this worthless shepherd will be given to them because the Good Shepherd "came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:11).
C. But God cannot leave His people with such a dark forecast. Just as this passage begins with a poetic expression, so it ends with one: “Woe to the worthless shepherd, who leaves the flock! A sword shall be against his arm and against his right eye; his arm shall completely wither, and his right eye shall be totally blinded" (v. 17). To so wither the right arm, and to so blind the right eye, suggests a complete disablement. The Lord, as 2 Thessalonians 2:8 promises, "will consume" this lawless one "with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming." Revelation 19:19- 21 says, "And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh."
* * * * * * * * * *
These words of Zechariah present us with a historic view of things before they will occur. But perhaps a passionate view from the Good Shepherd’s own heart can bee seen in Matthew 23:37-39; where Jesus says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’” (Matthew 23:37-39).
They would see Him "no more"; but praise God that, they would only see Him "no more" for a time! There will come another time that God speaks of through Zechariah—a time concerning which He says, "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" (Zechariah 12:10).
That day will be, as Paul says, "life from the dead" for this world (Romans 11:15)! May it come soon!