Project 119: Zechariah 11
| Project 119 | Amy Hirsch
Sometimes God asked the prophets to do some wild things. For instance, earlier this year we read about God commanding Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman. He once told Isaiah to walk around “naked and barefoot for three years” (Isaiah 20:3, ESV) as a warning to Egypt of how Assyria would overtake them, leading them “naked and barefoot” into exile. And in Zechariah 11, Zechariah “enacts” a prophecy of the Lord by taking up a shepherd’s staff.
Scholars all agree that this is a weirdly bizarre passage. While there are different interpretations, many wise theologians would say this passage is an indictment against the shepherds and sheep of Israel. Often, the Old Testament speaks of the religious leaders—the priests and teachers—as shepherds. These shepherds in Zechariah 11 care more about the loss of their glory (Zechariah 11:3) than the loss of their sheep. For a season, Zechariah acts out the role of shepherd in their place, caring for the afflicted and the oppressed. But he grows weary with them, and apparently they detest him (Zechariah 11:8).
In our second scene, after Zechariah breaks his covenant with the sheep, he plays the role of the worthless shepherd, the one the Lord will hand the people over to after they refuse to listen to the faithful shepherd he has provided. Scholars tell us that these words point forward to the first century, when Rome invaded Palestine in 70 A.D. under Titus.
This story is complicated, of course, but I think there’s also great truth that can be gathered from even this obscure prophecy. We see the responsibility that shepherds have to lead God’s people well. And the truth is that, in a way, we are all shepherds—in our relationships as parents, teachers, spouses, friends. We all have opportunities to care for the afflicted and oppressed, to point them to gospel truth. We want to be good and faithful shepherds who are seeking out God’s glory and not our own.
But there’s also something messianic going on here. In John 10, Jesus so much as told us that He was the good shepherd, the one who would lay down His life for His sheep. And if these words point forward to 70 A.D., that’s about forty years after God’s people had rejected the ultimate good shepherd, Jesus Christ. Zechariah’s wages as a shepherd were thirty pieces of silver; Christ was betrayed for the same amount (Matthew 27:9-10). Many of the Jews of Christ’s time, including the religious leaders, chose to reject Him. Zechariah’s enacting prophecy, which points us forward to Christ, forces us to ask ourselves the question, “Is He my shepherd, and am I one of His sheep? Have I submitted to His leadership in my life, or have I put myself under the staff of a less worthy leader?”
Zechariah 11 (ESV):
The Flock Doomed to Slaughter
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon,
that the fire may devour your cedars!
2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
for the glorious trees are ruined!
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
for the thick forest has been felled!
3 The sound of the wail of the shepherds,
for their glory is ruined!
The sound of the roar of the lions,
for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined!
4 Thus said the LORD my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.5 Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, I have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them.6 For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, declares the LORD. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.”
7 So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep.8 In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.”10 And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. 12 Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. 13 Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. 14 Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd.16 For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.
17 “Woe to my worthless shepherd,
who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm
and his right eye!
Let his arm be wholly withered,
his right eye utterly blinded!”