Zechariah 11

This chapter begins with a scene of Israel in affliction.  Lebanon and Bashan in the north of Israel and the area of the Jordan are all hurting.  The shepherds of Israel are also suffering.  What has happened that the picture is no longer Israel strengthened by God against the nations?    Zechariah has moved on from a message about the inter-testamental period to the time of Christ and immediately after.  Israel’s agony had come at the hand of the Romans.  The picture now seems to be that of the nations having the strong position against Israel.

In v4-6 we are told that the reason the nation suffer is that the shepherds had not been taking care of the sheep.  Instead they had been fleecing the flock, getting rich off of them.  The same picture is prophesied in Ezek. 34:1-6, and it was fulfilled in the time of Christ (John 10:7-13; Matt. 23).

In 11:7-14 this affliction of Israel, brought by the Lord, the slaughter of the flock, is given in more detail.  Several things are worth noting.

·        9:4,7: The flock for slaughter is Israel, under God’s sovereignty (God is just keeping His promise of judgment on Israel for her continued rebellion) being destroyed by the nations.

·        9:5: The owners who slaughter are their own shepherds who abuse them.

·        9:7: The two staffs are Beauty (grace, goodness) and Bonds (the unity of Israel and Judah).  These are benefits of the Messiah but He breaks them. 

·        9:8: The three shepherds are not three actual rulers; any attempt to identify them is futile and only guesswork.  It makes more sense to see this as a reference to the three types of leaders in Israel: prophet, priest and king.  God’s people go from bad shepherds to no shepherds.

·        9:10: The covenant that is broken is one made with all the nations, not with Israel.  It is the covenant of grace (Beauty) by which God would not allow the nations to destroy the Nation.  What God permitted in 70AD in response to the rejection of the Christ was more than He had ever allowed, by the Assyrians or Babylonians (cf. Luke 19:41-44; 21:24).

·        9:13: This event, known to refer to the betrayal of Christ, is one key to this chapter.  The thirty pieces of silver (the compensation for a servant gored by an ox, Ex. 21:32) tells us that what we are seeing described is in fact the situation involving Israel and her rejection of Christ (Mt. 26:14-16; 27:3-10).

·        9:14: The breaking of the Unity staff represents the breaking up of the nation, fulfilled first prior to 70AD when many parties, sects and so forth arose from within the Jews of Israel.  After 70AD the breakup of the nation is obvious.

·        9:15-17: In my view the age of the Church comes between vs. 14 and 15.  The closing verses refer to the foolish shepherd of the end times.  The burden against the nations ends with the foolish and worthless shepherd who does not care for the people but leaves them to their own desolation.  This is the result of rejecting the Messiah from the point of view of the nations.  Judgment is always reaping what you have sown.  Trust in worthless shepherds results in living under a curse.

The question we asked was how and why Israel was strengthened by God (Ch. 9-10), but then came under severe affliction (Ch. 11)?  The answer is that this is God’s work of redemption.  How so?  Because their rejection of the Christ was the means by which God would make atonement for sin, for the sin of Israel as well as the sin of the nations.  At this point we have finished one burden.  The next burden against Israel will complete the story of redemption, the salvation of Israel and the exaltation of the Son of David.