1 Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars. 2 Wail, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down. 3 A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Jordan is ruined. 4 Thus says Yahweh my God: "Feed the flock of slaughter. 5 Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, 'Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;' and their own shepherds don't pity them. 6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land," says Yahweh; "but, behold, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them." 7 So I fed the flock of slaughter, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called "Favor," and the other I called "Union," and I fed the flock. 8 I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me. 9 Then I said, "I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other's flesh." 10 I took my staff Favor, and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 It was broken in that day; and thus the poor of the flock that listened to me knew that it was the word of Yahweh. 12 I said to them, "If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them." So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. 13 Yahweh said to me, "Throw it to the potter, the handsome price that I was valued at by them!" I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them to the potter, in the house of Yahweh. 14 Then I cut apart my other staff, even Union, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. 15 Yahweh said to me, "Take for yourself yet again the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16 For, behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who will not visit those who are cut off, neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the flesh of the fat sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces. 17 Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will be on his arm, and on his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!"
Rup.: "'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,' saith the Psalmist Psalm 25:11, and, 'I will sing to Thee of mercy and judgment' Psalm 101:1. So is this prophecy divided. Above , almost all were promises of mercy, which are now fulfilled in deed; and from this, "Open, O Lebanon, thy doors" , all are terrible edicts of truth and tokens of just judgment. How much sweetness and softness and pleasantness is therein, "Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion: shout, O daughter of Jerusalem;" what bitterness and acerbity and calamity to those, to whom he says, "Open, O Lebanon, thy doors, that the fire may devour thy cedars; howl, O fir tree; howl, O ye oaks of Basan." As then, before, we beheld His mercy in those who believed and believe; so now let us contemplate His just judgment on those who believed not." Gilead and Lebanon Zac 10:10 had been named as the restored home of Ephraim; but there remained a dark side of the picture, which the prophet suddenly presents, with the names of those self-same lands, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon; howl, O ye oaks of Basan" Zac 11:1-2.
The commencement of this chapter relates to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity, probably by the Babylonians; at least in the first instance, as the fourth verse speaks of the people thus threatened as the prophet's charge, Zac 11:1-6. The prophet then gives an account of the manner in which he discharged his office, and the little value that was put on his labors. And this he does by symbolical actions, a common mode of instruction with the ancient prophets, Zac 11:7-14. After the prophet, on account of the unsuccessfulness of his labors, had broken the two crooks which were the true badges of his pastoral office, (to denote the annulling of God's covenant with them, and their consequent divisions and dispersions), he is directed to take instruments calculated to hurt and destroy, perhaps an iron crook, scrip, and stones, to express by these symbols the judgments which God was about to inflict on them by wicked rulers and guides, who should first destroy the flock, and in the end be destroyed themselves, Zac 11:15-17. Let us now view this prophecy in another light, as we are authorized to do by Scripture, Matthew 27:7. In this view the prophet, in the person of the Messiah, sets forth the ungrateful returns made to him by the Jews, when he undertook the office of shepherd in guiding and governing them; how they rejected him, and valued him and his labors at the mean and contemptible price of thirty pieces of silver, the paltry sum for which Judas betrayed him. Upon which he threatens to destroy their city and temple; and to give them up to the hands of such guides and governors as should have no regard to their welfare.
INTRODUCTION TO ZECHARIAH 11
This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of the Jews, and shows the causes and reasons of it; and is concluded with a prediction concerning antichrist. The destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of it, is signified by figurative expressions, Zac 11:1 which occasions an howling among the shepherds or rulers of Israel, on account of whose cruelty and covetousness the wrath of God came upon them without mercy, Zac 11:3 but inasmuch as there were a remnant according to the election of grace among them, named the flock of the slaughter, Christ is called upon to feed them; who undertakes it, and prepares for it, Zac 11:4 but being abhorred by the shepherds, whom he therefore loathed and cut off, he determines to leave the people to utter ruin and destruction, Zac 11:8 and, as a token of it, breaks the two staves asunder he had took to feed them with, Zac 11:10 and, as an instance of their ingratitude to him, and which is a justification of his conduct towards them, notice is taken of his being valued at and sold for thirty pieces of silver, Zac 11:12 but, in the place of these shepherds cut off, it is suggested that another should arise, who is described by his folly, negligence, and cruelty, Zac 11:15 to whom a woe is denounced, Zac 11:17.
(Zac 11:1-3) Destruction to come upon the Jews.
(Zac 11:4-14) The Lord's dealing with the Jews.
(Zac 11:15-17) The emblem and curse of a foolish shepherd.
Israel under the Good Shepherd and the Foolish One - Zechariah 11
In the second half of the "burden" upon the world-power, which is contained in this chapter, the thought indicated in Zac 10:3 - namely, that the wrath of Jehovah is kindled over the shepherds when He visits His flock, the house of Judah - is more elaborately developed, and an announcement is made of the manner in which the Lord visits His people, and rescues it out of the hands of the world-powers who are seeking to destroy it, and then, because it repays His pastoral fidelity with ingratitude, gives it up into the hands of the foolish shepherd, who will destroy it, but who will also fall under judgment himself in consequence. The picture sketched in Zac 9:8-10, Zac 9:12, of the future of Israel is thus completed, and enlarged by the description of the judgment accompanying the salvation; and through this addition an abuse of the proclamation of salvation is prevented. But in order to bring out into greater prominence the obverse side of the salvation, there is appended to the announcement of salvation in Zac 10:1-12 the threat of judgment in Zac 11:1-3, without anything to explain the transition; and only after that is the attitude of the Lord towards His people and the heathen world, out of which the necessity for the judgment sprang, more fully described. Hence this chapter divides itself into three sections: viz., the threat of judgment (Zac 11:1-3); the description of the good shepherd (Zac 11:4-14); and the sketch of the foolish shepherd (Zac 11:15-17).
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.