In the previous chapters Zechariah was an ambassador sent to promise peace. In this chapter he is a herald sent to declare war. Israel will recover its prosperity, and shall flourish for a while. The people will be very happy looking forward to the coming of the long expected Messiah, in the preaching of His gospel, and in the setting up of His standard. But, when a remnant among them are united to Christ, the body of the nation, persisting in unbelief, will be utterly abandoned and given up to ruin, for rejecting Christ; and it is this that is foretold here in this chapter, the rejection of the Messiah and the wrath for that sin came upon them.
The prediction of the destruction that will come upon Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple is foretold so that when it comes to pass the people can not say they weren’t forewarned.
In the announcement of destruction Zechariah uses figurative expressions, a normal practice in the
predictions of things that are in the future. The people will not open the door to let their King in
now they must open them to let the destruction in. There are scholars who believe the doors of the temple are referred to in this call to open the doors because cedars and stones from Lebanon was used to build the temple. It was burnt with fire by the Romans, and its gates were forced open by the fury of the soldiers. To confirm this, they tell a story, that forty years before the destruction of the second temple the gates of it opened of their own accord, upon which prodigy
Rabbi Johanan said, "Now I know that the destruction of the temple is at hand, according to the prophecy of Zechariah.
Others believe it is Jerusalem, or the whole land of Canaan, to which Lebanon was a means of entering the land from the north. All land will be open to the invader, and the cedars, the mighty and eminent men, shall be destroyed, which will cause great alarm to the poor. If the cedars fall how can the cypress escape. The falls of the wise and good into sin, and the falls of the rich and great into trouble, are loud alarms to those that are in every way their inferiors.
Those who have fallen cry and weep because of their grief and shame, and those who see their turn coming cry and weep because they fear what is coming their way. But the powerful men receive the alarm with the utmost confusion. Those who were roaring in the day of their revels and triumphs are crying and weeping in the day of their terrors. These powerful men are the
shepherds who cry and weep because they are tormented more than others. They should have protected the Lord’s flock committed to their charge, but they were as young lions who terrorize the flock with their roaring and the flock is a prey. It is sad when people who should be as shepherds to the Lord’s flock are as young lions to them. Why do the shepherds cry and weep. Their pastures, and the flocks which were the glory of the shepherds are laid waste.
The pride of Jordan was the thickets on the banks, in which the lions rested and when the river
overflowed and spoiled them, the lions came up from them and they came up roaring. When those who have power proudly abuse their power. Instead of being shepherds they are as young lions the righteous God will humble their pride and break their power.
In verses 4-14 Zechariah is made a type of Christ, as the prophet Isaiah sometimes was; and the scope of these verses is to show that for judgment Christ came into this world (John 9:39), for judgment of Israel which was at the time of His coming wretchedly corrupted and degenerated by the worldliness and hypocrisy of their rulers. Christ would have healed them, but they would not be healed. They are therefore left desolate, and abandoned to ruin.
Zechariah is told by the Lord, “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them.”
In the days of Zechariah the people, under the tyranny of their own governors, in their own country, were made as miserable as they were in their captivity in strange countries. The rulers and the nobles are justly rebuked for exacting usury of their brethren and the governors, even by their servants, were oppressive (Nehemiah 5:7, 15).
In Christ’s time the chief priests and the elders who were the possessors of the flock, by their
traditions, the commandments of men, and their impositions on the consciences of the people, became perfect tyrants, devoured their houses, engrossed their wealth, and fleeced the flock instead of feeding it. The Sadducees, who were deists, corrupted their judgments. The Pharisees, who were bigots corrupted their morals, by making void the commandments of God (Matthew 15:16). It can be said they slew the sheep of the flock, sold them. They didn’t care what became
of them so they could gain their own ends and serve their own interests. They justified what they were doing. They could see no harm in what they were doing. They never thought they would be called to give an account for what they were doing by the chief Shepherd. They acted as if their power was given to them for destruction, which was designed only for edification. They believed because they sat in Moses’s seat, they were not under the obligation of Moses’s law but might dispense it at their pleasure. Those have their minds woefully blinded will do evil in the sight of the Lord and justify themselves in doing it. But God will not hold those guiltless who hold themselves guiltless. They added insult to injury by giving thanks to the Lord for what they gained in their oppression of their fellow man. They said, “Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich,” as if, because they prospered in their wickedness, the Lord had made Himself a part of their unjust practices and He had become an associate of their guilt. What is got honestly we ought to give the Lord thanks for it, and bless Him whose blessing makes rich and adds no sorrow with it. But under what pretence can we go to the Lord either to beg a blessing upon the unlawful methods of getting wealth or to thank Him for what we have gained
through these unlawful methods? When these people did what they were doing . They mocked the Lord by making the gains of sin a gift of God. In this they put contempt upon the people of God and unworthy of compassion. Their own shepherds didn’t pity them. They made them miserable.
The good Shepherd had compassion for the multitude because they fainted and were scattered abroad as if they had no shepherd. It is a sad thing when pastors have no tenderness, no compassion for precious souls, when they can look upon the foolish, the wicked, the weak, the poor without pity. There was a general decay of religion among them, and they were doing nothing about it.
The Lord said, “I shall no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land, declares the Lord, but
behold, I shall cause the men to fall, each into another’s power and into the power of his king; and
they will strike the land and I shall not deliver them from their power.”
God is telling the people, they have brought their own destruction upon themselves. The truly miserable are those whom the Lord of mercy Himself will no more have compassion upon. Those who are willing to have their consciences seared by those who teach the commandments of men as the Jews who were called the Rabbi did (Matthew 15:9; 23:7) are often punished by oppression
in their civil interests, and justly so, for those who forfeit their own rights give up the Lord’s rights. The Jews did and who can pity them if they are ruled with rigor?
The Lord said, He will deliver them into the hand of the oppressors, every one into his neighbor’s hand, so that they shall use one another outrageously. There were several parties in Jerusalem that did this. The Zealots committed greater outrages than the common enemy did, as Josephus relates in his history of the wars of the Jews.
The Lord said, they shall be delivered every one into the hands of his king, that is, the Roman emperor, whom they chose to submit to rather than to Christ, saying, “We have no king but Caesar.” They thought they could find favor in the sight of their lords and masters. It is for this reason the Lord brought the Romans upon them that He will not deliver them out of their hands. “They shall strike the land,” the whole land, and the Lord said, He would not deliver them from
their hand. If the Lord does not help them, none else can, nor can they help themselves.
The Lord said, “I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I
took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union, so I pastured the flock.” The two staffs symbolized the good intentions of Zechariah acting the part of a good shepherd, in bring “Favor” and “Union” to Israel and Judah. He was a foreshadow of Christ.
The Lord had sent His servants, the prophets, to them in vain, but last of all He sent His Son to them, saying, “They will reverence My Son” (Matthew 21:37). Many prophets had spoken of God’s Son as the “Shepherd of Israel” (Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:23). Jesus told the Pharisees that He was the “Shepherd of the sheep” and those who pretended to be shepherds were “thieves and robbers (John 10:1-2, 11), apparently referring to this passage. The charge Jesus received from His Father to try what might be done with this flock, “Thus says the Lord My God, Christ called His Father His God because He acted in compliance with His will and with an eye to His glory in everything He said and did.
The flock doomed to slaughter were the Israelites, the Lord’s flock their enemies had killed them all the day long and considered them as sheep for slaughter. Their own rulers “slew them” and the Lord Himself had doomed them to the slaughter. Yet, He tells the good Shepherd to “feed them” by reproof and comfort them. Provide wholesome food for those who have so long been soured with the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus said, He had other sheep which were not of this flock and which afterwards must be brought into the flock. His acceptance of this charge and He did what He was told to do. Since it was the will of the Father, it was the will of the Son. Christ will not only care for these lost sheep, He will go about among them teaching and healing the poor of the flock. The shepherds that made a prey of the flock didn’t regard the plight of the poor. But Christ preached His gospel to the poor (Matthew 11:5). It was a sign of His humiliation that His ministry was mostly with the poor. His disciples were of the poor of the flock.
The Lord furnishes Himself with tools proper for the charge He had undertaken, two staffs. Other shepherds have one staff, but the good Shepherd has two, denoting the double care He took of His flock, and what He did both for the souls and for the bodies of men. David speaks of the Lord’s rod and staff (Psalm 23:4), a correcting rod and a supporting staff. One of these staves was called “Favor” denoting the temple. The second staff is called “Union” denoting their civil
state. In the fulfillment of his duties as the chief Shepherd He fed the flock and replaced the under-shepherds that were false to their trust.
Christ came to His own, the sheep of His own pasture so that there might be between them and Him the same affection that exists between the shepherd and His sheep. He intended them kindness, but could not do them the kindness He intended them because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:58). He was disappointed in them, discouraged concerning them, grieved for them, not only for the shepherds whom He cut off, but for the people whom Christ often looked upon with grief in his heart and tears in his eyes. Their provocations even wore out his patience and He was weary of that faithless and perverse generation.
Whatever estrangement there is between God and man, it begins on man’s side. The Jewish shepherds rejected this chief Shepherd, as the Jewish builders rejected the chief corner stone. They were emotional displeased with Christ’s doctrine and miracles, and His interest in the people, and they did all they could to render Him detestable as they had made themselves detestable to Him. There is a mutual enmity between God and wicked people, they are hateful to God and haters of God. Nothing speaks more the sinfulness and misery of an unregenerate state than this does. The carnal mind, the friendship of the world, are enmity to God, and God hates all the workers of iniquity; and it is easy to foresee what this will end in, if the quarrel is not ended in time (Isaiah 27:4-5).
The good Shepherd said He would no longer take care of the flock. They could go their own way. He will do nothing to save its forfeited life. That which will make itself a prey to the wolf, let it be a prey, and let the rest forget their own mild and gentle nature. Let them fight amongst themselves like dogs. Those that reject Christ will be certainly and justly rejected by Him.
A sign of rejection is the breaking of the staffs. The breaking of the staff Favor signified the breaking of God’s covenant which he had made with all the tribes of Israel, and all other people who, by being proselyted to their religion, were incorporated into their nation. The Jewish religion was now stripped of all its glory; its crown was profaned and cast to the ground, and all its honor laid in the dust; for God departed from it, and would no more own it for His. When Christ told the people the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to another people the staff of Favor was broken (Matthew 21:43). It was broken in that day when Christ went to the cross,
although Jerusalem, the temple and the nation lasted forty years longer, yet from that day we may reckon the staff of Favor broken. And though the great men did not, or would not, understand it as a divine sentence the poor of the flock, the disciples understood with what authority Jesus spoke, and could distinguish the voice of their Shepherd from that of a stranger and trembled at it, and were confident that it should not fall to the ground.
The Shepherd comes to them for his wages. He tells them if they no longer want him to pasture the flock pay him for his service and he will move on. Or discharge him without paying him, it makes no difference to him. They paid him thirty shekels of silver. Compare this with what Jesus said to Judas when he was going to sell him. Those that betray Christ are not forced to do it, they have chosen to do it.
The silver being no way proportional to his worth was thrown to the potter. The thirty pieces of silver was thrown to the potter with disdain. Let him take it and buy clay with it or for any use that this small amount of money could buy. It may be enough for a potter to buy the clay he needs but it is not enough pay for a shepherd such as the one they were discharging. Zechariah did as the Lord told him.
The thirty shekels was the sum for which Christ was sold to the chief priests. When Judas tried to return the money the chief priests would not take it back and it was laid aside to purchase a grave in the potter’s field. All that occurred the night Jesus was betrayed was according to an ancient prophecy and the counsel and foreknowledge of God.
The completing of the rejection of the people is the cutting asunder of the second staff. The cutting into pieces of the first staff denoted the breaking of the covenant between God and the people. The cutting into pieces of the second staff denotes the breaking of the union of Judah and Israel, the reviving of animosities and contention among them, such as were of old between Judah and Israel. Nothing ruins a people so certainly, so inevitably, as the breaking of the staff of Union
and the weakening of the brotherhood among a people. The breaking of the staff Union makes the nation an easy prey to the common enemy.
When iniquity abounds love waxes cold. When the staff of Favor is broken the staff of Union will also be broken. An unchurched people will soon be an undone people.
Then the Lord told Zechariah, ‘Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd.” The Lord having showed the misery of this people in their being justly abandoned by the good Shepherd, here shows their further misery in being shamefully abused by a foolish shepherd.
Zechariah is told to impersonate and represent this pretended shepherd. He is told take the equipment that are not fit for the business, such a shepherd’s coat, and bag, and staff, as a foolish shepherd would appear in; for such a shepherd shall be set over them. These people will be under the ministry of unfaithful ministers. Their scribes, priests, and doctors of their law, shall bind heavy burdens upon them, and with their traditions imposed, shall make the
ceremonial law much more a yoke than God had made it. The description here given of the foolish shepherd suits very well with the character Christ gives of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:2. They shall be under the tyranny of unmerciful princes, that shall rule them with rigor, and make their own land as much a house of bondage to them as Egypt or Babylon was. They shall be imposed upon and deluded by false Christs and false prophets, as our Savior foretold in Matthew 24:5.
What a curse this foolish shepherd should be to the people. He will not do the duty of a shepherd. He will not visit those who have been cut off from the community, nor go after those that go astray, nor seek those that are missing, to find them and bring them home, as the good shepherd does in Matthew 18:12-13. He will not care for the young ones that need his care and are well worthy of it. He will not heal that which is broken, but let it die of its bruises, when a little healing ministry would have saved it. He will not feed those who through weakness are ready to faint, and cannot go forward. He will leave them behind. He will care only for his own well-being. His
passions are as ill-governed as their appetites. He will bring upon himself a curse. He will be like
the idol-shepherd who like an idol, has eyes and sees not, receives abundance of respect and homage from the people and the chief of their offerings, but neither can nor will do them any kindness. He leaves the flock when they most need his care. He leaves them destitute, and flees because he is a hireling. His doom is that the sword of the Lord’s justice shall be upon him. He will not help others when it was required he shall not know how to help himself. He will not be
able discern the danger that his flock is in, nor know which way to look for relief. This was fulfilled when Christ said to the Pharisees, “I have come that those who see may be made blind (John 9:39). Those that have gifts which qualify them to do good, if they don’t do good with them, shall be deprived of them. Those that should have been workmen, but were slothful and would do nothing, will justly have their arm dried up and those that should have been watchmen, but were sleepy and would never look about them, will justly have their eye blinded.
