Chapter 11 deals with the fall of Jerusalem and the temple to the Romans in the first century AD. Yesterday we learned that the leadership of the nation would once again fail to lead the people in the right direction. They were not going to be good shepherds of the flock of Israel. Today the Lord talks about His flock, about the wicked shepherds who lead the flock, and about the Good Shepherd who loves the flock.
The Lord gives specific instructions in today's passage and scholars disagree as to whether He is speaking to Zechariah and asking him to play-act the role of the Good Shepherd (the Messiah) or whether the Lord is speaking to the Messiah Himself. This section reads as if it is Zechariah who is performing the action because it is spoken in the first person, but we have seen the coming King speak for Himself in the first person in the book of Zechariah, so I can't come to any firm conclusion either way.
Our section begins with this, "This is what the Lord my God says: 'Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter.'" (Zechariah 11:4) Astonishing as this may be after reading of the future glory of Israel in Chapter 10, the "flock marked for slaughter" in Chapter 11 is Israel! But who has marked them for slaughter? Not God, but the wicked shepherds (the religious and political leaders) who should be guiding them closer to the Lord but instead are going to lead them farther from Him. In modern times the sheep intended to be sent to the slaughter house would be marked with a specific tag in the ear, but in ancient times the leader of the flock would paint a stripe on the wool. The Lord is saying this is what the bad leaders of the nation are doing to the people. The evil behavior of those who should be shepherds is going to bring the downfall of the nation and the slaughter of its citizens.
"Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, 'Praise the Lord, I am rich!' Their own shepherds do not spare them." (Zechariah 11:5) Those who should have cared the most for their people sold them out instead. By the time of Jesus, the priests and teachers of the law had become "blind leaders of the blind" (Matthew 15:14) who gloried in their own wealth and status in the community and looked down in contempt on the flock they were meant to shepherd.
The Lord says that a day is coming in which He will not spare the flock from her enemies. This will happen in a time after Good Shepherd has been rejected and condemned by the religious leadership of the nation. It will happen because, as the Apostle John said, light came into the world but men loved darkness rather than light. (John 3:19) "'For I will no longer have pity on the people of the land,' declares the Lord. 'I will give everyone into the hands of their neighbors and their king. They will devastate the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their hands.'" (Zechariah 11:6) This foretells the fall of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple by the Roman army in 70 AD. We took a brief look at this tragedy in yesterday's study. The fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD effectively put an end to the Jewish state until 1948.
The speaker of Chapter 11 obeys the word of the Lord by shepherding the flock. This could mean that Zechariah, as a stand-in for the Good Shepherd, preaches and prophesies to the nation. Or this could be the Messiah Himself speaking here, "So I shepherded the flock marked for slaughter, particularly the oppressed of the flock. Then I took two staffs and called one Favor and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock." (Zechariah 11:7) The Good Shepherd cares for the flock and gives special attention to the poor and needy. It is thought that the staff marked "Favor" likely represents God's protective hand on His chosen people Israel, and that the staff marked "Union" symbolizes a united twelve tribes of Israel. The Good Shepherd is came not only to care for the southern kingdom of Judah, where Zechariah lives, but for Israel as a whole.
When David referred to the Lord as his Shepherd, he said, "Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." Psalm 23:4) The Good Shepherd in David's song carried two rods or staffs, just like the Good Shepherd in the book of Zechariah. The Good Shepherd brings favor and unity upon those who put their trust in Him, but we will learn in tomorrow's passage that the flock despises and rejects Him. The leadership of the nation thinks so little of Him that they value Him at the price of a foreign slave. Zechariah tells us today that the religious elite of the community will think nothing of selling out their own people in order to fulfill their own greed and covetousness. In tomorrow's lesson they think nothing of selling the Good Shepherd for thirty pieces of silver.
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