The Rejection of the True Shepherd
Zechariah 11:1-14
We've been studying the book of Zechariah and we come now to the eleventh chapter. It's a very sad chapter very much in contrast to chapters 9 and 10 in that this chapter pictures the Lord Jesus as a shepherd who is rejected.
That concept of the shepherd is not unfamiliar to us. The Old Testament talks about God as a shepherd. Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my shepherd." The prophet Isaiah said that He gathers the little lambs and He gently leads those that are with young,.
In the New Testament we have Jesus, in John 10, saying, "I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd cares for his sheep." And so the concept of God as a shepherd, of the Lord Jesus Christ as a shepherd is not anything new.
But in most cases in the Old Testament, you find that in the presentation of God as shepherd, or even in the New Testament where Christ is presented as shepherd, the chapter is lovely. There's beauty to it. It's gracious. It's endearing.
But when you come to the eleventh chapter of Zechariah and you read here Zechariah's presentation of the shepherd, it is anything but beautiful; in fact, it’s very ugly and sinful, and that is apparent from the very first verse on to the end of the chapter.
Now remember that the book of Zechariah was written with the intention of comforting the people of God. They had come back from the Babylonian captivity which had lasted 70 years. Their city was in ruins. Their nation was in almost non-existence. Their hearts were broken and grieved over the destruction of such a beautiful place and such a significant place. And they came back to all this rubble and they were unable for many years to do anything about it, to rebuild it, to restore it. And so it was a time of great discouragement.
And Zechariah received from the Holy Spirit this wonderful prophecy to encourage the people, to comfort the people. And the message of the prophecy is twofold.
Number one, God is going to enable you to rebuild your city. And number two, He's going to enable you some day to have a kingdom beyond what you've ever dreamed. And so part of the book deals with the historic rebuilding of the city and part of it deals with the future great kingdom that God is going to bring.
We have seen as we've studied this book the tremendous plan of God for the redemption of the nation Israel, for the fact that in the future God is going to establish them in the land. God is going to redeem them in the land. God is going to gather them back and God is going to give them the Kingdom that they were promised.
And we as Christians embrace that teaching; we believe, most of us, that the Bible says God has a plan for Israel.
God has promised Israel a kingdom. God has promised Israel salvation. God has promised them a marvelous return, a re-gathering and restoration in the land. And up to now in the prophecy everything has been moving that direction.
But suddenly in chapter 11, the prophet of hope turns into a prophet of doom. And he turns from the glories of Messiah at His Second Coming and the Kingdom to a national apostasy and rejection of Messiah that occurred at His first coming.
Now we know at the Second Coming is going to be redemption. At the Second Coming there's going to be restoration. At the Second Coming there's going to be a Kingdom.
But at the first coming there was a terrible apostasy. There was a terrible rejection. And this chapter goes not so much to the Second Coming of Christ as to the first coming. And it predicts the rejection of the shepherd. In fact, chapter 11 tells us why the promises of chapters 9 and 10 never came to pass when Jesus came the first time.
And it is presented in the picture of shepherds. First,
1. The Ravage of the Wailing Shepherds
verses 1 to 3
Now all those three verses are judgmental. What do they mean? It is obvious here that you see three different sections of land; verse 1, Lebanon...verse 2, Bashan...verse 3, Jordan.
If you know anything about the basic geography of Israel, you know that starts in the north and descends to the south. And here is a picture of judgment sweeping down through the land.
Fire, verse 1, devouring beginning in Lebanon and burning up the cedars. Sweeping down to Bashan and consuming the oaks. Coming all the way down to Jordan and destroying the pride of Jordan, the place where the lions dwelt which was all of the foliage around the Jordan valley. And so there is a judgment that sweeps from the north down to the south. And the Holy Spirit here with poetic imagery and dramatic movement arranges the words with an almost rhetorical power to describe the ruin and the ravages of the whole land of Israel.
God says, “There's coming a storm of judgment, and that storm is going to sweep from the north to the south.
Now I really believe that the judgment that God is speaking about here is an actual devastation. It's not a literal fire that burns trees, but it is an actual devastation. It's not just a spiritual judgment, but it is a real judgment where real people die real death, where the land of Israel is really judged.
In fact, in verse 1 Lebanon is told to open its doors. There's no sense in fighting it. You might as well just throw open the doors and let it happen.
And once you see Lebanon go, verse 2, you oaks of Bashan, you might as well begin to wail. The fir tree might as well wail. Why? Because if the mighty cedar goes, the fir tree isn't going to be able to stand either.
In other words, when the high and the mighty are fallen, every lesser tree is going to be unable to escape.
Some commentators liken these trees to the leadership of Israel and say this is a spiritual judgment on the hierarchy of Israel all the way from the high and the mighty, the priests and so forth, and the elders and the scribes and the rules down all the way to the common men. Maybe there is that implication also. But regardless, in this judgment, when the mighty fall, everything goes as well..
Notice this, verse 3, there is the voice of the roaring of the lions for the pride of the Jordan is spoiled. This is interesting. After the captivity of the northern kingdom, wild beasts began to multiply around the Jordan. You can check out 2 Kings 17:25, Jeremiah 49:19 and Jeremiah 50:44, and in those passages you find an indication that wild beasts proliferated the Jordan area for many centuries.
It became literally a place where lions dwelt in the thick foliage. And so verse 3 is saying the lions will roar when they see the devastation that comes. And there was devastation. And the "young lions" is an interesting term. It refers to lions that have been weaned and they're young and they have great appetites and they're very fierce. And these fierce lions are going to roar at the destruction that occurs.
Now this is poetic imagery. The point here is not the trees get burned up and lions lose their homes. The point is that they are made to be like wailing elements, as figures of the wailing that's going to occur in the land when it's devastated. The idea of destruction is here.
Three times in these three verses the verb in Hebrew for "destroy" is used. So the thought of destruction and permanent devastating kind of destruction is going to occur.
Now notice the response to this. The one human response you find is in verse 3.
Here are the shepherds. Are these just literal shepherds? Well, possibly. And they're crying and howling like an animal, the Hebrew word, literally howling like a coyote, or like a lone wolf, screeching and wailing because all of their pastures have been devastated, because all of the grass that they needed has been burned up and destroyed and the hills are denuded.
And again, some say it may be a reference to those who are the shepherds of Israel, the leaders. And it may be. But the sum of it all, the trees and the grass and the animals and the leadership, it all falls into the same wail as God's great judgment comes.
Now, we meet then the wailing shepherds. And they wail because they've been ravaged. The question is, to what destruction does this refer? At what point in Israel's history did this happen? I'm convinced that what this is referring to is the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem that occurred in 70 A.D.
After Jesus was crucified around 30 or so A.D., forty some years later there was the great devastation. The Roman army came in and destroyed Jerusalem. And I mean, when they destroyed Jerusalem, they didn't just destroy Jerusalem, they did it completely. One million, one hundred thousand Jews died.
They threw a hundred thousand bodies over the wall, just for the sport of it. In the years following that, Hadrian marched through the area north toward Galilee and destroyed 985 towns. Literally devastating the state of Israel, scattering them all over the world. And only in your life time have they come back, since 1918 and following.
And I believe that what he sees here is this unbelievable devastation that occurred in 70 A.D. And the reason I believe that is because of what immediately follows which is given as the reason for the judgment.
The reason for the judgment is the rejection of the shepherd. And that just fits history beautifully because when they rejected Jesus Christ, it wasn't 40 years later until Israel went out of existence as a nation. Jewish people have been preserved as individual people but only in recent history as the nation revived.
And so, we find--first of all--the general warning of the ravage of the wailing shepherds. And then the reason for this ravage comes in the second point,
2. The Rejection of the True Shepherd
verses 4-14
I don’t think we can really do justice to what happened when Jerusalem was destroyed. When the Roman army came down, they literally destroyed an entire civilization of people except for the remnant that managed to escape and be preserved by God to be re-gathered today...utter devastation.
During the siege of the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish people even began to eat their own children because of the starvation. Incredible destruction occurred. And this devastation was God's act of judgment on the rejection of the true shepherd. The shepherds were ravaged and they wailed, but they wailed as wailing shepherds because they had rejected the true shepherd.
Now I want to give you some information you have to have to understand this prophecy. I've studied a lot of chapters in the Bible. I don't think I ever studied one that's more difficult than this one. This is a very difficult chapter.
But I want you to try and grasp the flow of it because the overall flow and purpose of the chapter is very clear in spite of some of the little details that are very difficult. I don't want to get bogged down in all of those. You know, I just know a little Hebrew, and he runs a little delicatessen! So, I don't want to get involved in all of that.
But there is an important key to the chapter, and you've got to get this. One of the tools the Old Testament prophets used to get across their message was to deliver prophecy by acting out a symbolic act.
Sometimes, rather than just verbalizing something, they literally acted out something. God instructed Isaiah in chapter 8 to get a big scroll and write some stuff on it as a demonstration. He was doing something very visible as a symbol of a certain prophecy. At another time, God told him to walk around naked and barefoot as a symbol of what would happen in Egypt.
(imagine breakfast at Isaiah’s house?)
Over in Ezekiel 4, God said to Ezekiel, "Take a tile or a piece of clay...like you'd tile a roof with...and lay it before you and paint on it the city of Jerusalem. And lay siege against it and build a fort against it and cast a mound against it."
Can you picture that? The very dignified prophet Ezekiel is building himself a little fort, see. He's got his little clay and he's drawing Jerusalem. And the people are all saying, "Poor Ezekiel. He’s slipped one of those wheels he was talking about in chapter 1!”
And wasn't it Jeremiah who was laying on one side and then later on he turned and laid on the other side? And he was acting a symbolic act before the people.
That seems to be what is going on in this chapter. God is speaking to Zechariah asking him to be an actor, to play a part, to put on a symbolic act, to enter on a stage.
He says, "Now Zech, I want you play the part of a shepherd." And then He goes on to tell him step by step what to do. Now everything that Zechariah acts out is a picture of Jesus Christ. And he symbolically carries out certain actions that speak of the rejection of Jesus Christ.
Let's look at them, beginning at verse 4
First Zechariah is to feed the flock of the slaughter.
The word here "to feed" is the word "tend" in the Hebrew. It means to care for, to feed or to lead.
It's used in Psalm 23 to speak of the ministry of a shepherd. And God says, "The first thing I want you to do in your role as a shepherd is act out a feeding. Feed the flock. And that would mean, of course, to teach them. I want you to be like the true shepherd, like the spiritual shepherd and feed the flock the Word of God.
Now notice what he calls the flock..."the flock of the slaughter." That's not the most endearing term. That doesn't sound a lot like Psalm 23, does it? If we were to put it in modern English, we would say: Feed the flock intended for butchering.
The flock is the covenant nation, but the covenant nation has been unfaithful. The covenant nation has turned their back on the shepherd and he says you feed the flock intended for butchering.
Now that's a strange statement and it took me a while to understand what he was saying. He's saying, "Look, Israel has rejected the shepherd, and as a result of that they are designated as the flock for butchering. But I'm going to give them a chance. I'm going to try to feed them and see if they'll eat."
And that's essentially what Jesus did in His first coming. Seventy years before the great butchering of Israel, God came and tried to feed the flock. But for the most part, they would not be fed. And so they were a flock for slaughter.
Now verse 5-6
Now 5 and 6 is a little parenthesis. This really gets tough, so hang in there.
Who are these possessors? The possessors who slay them are the foreign oppressors, the nations. And even though it is God sovereignly handing Israel over to the nations for judgment, it is also true that the nations are responsible for their cruelty.
God may have delivered Israel over for judgment, but that doesn't mean when the nations superseded reasonable judgment and acted cruelly that they are without guilt. And that's something you just have to leave with God.
So, he says, "I want to feed my sheep if they will eat. And if not, there is a slaughter awaiting that will come from the nations that are around them. And these nations are going to hold themselves not guilty. God says, “I’ll deal with them in judgment, but they will judge themselves ‘Not Guilty’”. They'll just slay them and they won't feel a thing."
And in fact that's exactly the way the Assyrians and the Babylonians felt centuries before 70 A.D. when they slaughtered Israel. They didn't feel anything. In fact, in Jeremiah 50 he says, "All that found them have devoured them and their adversaries say, We offend not because they sinned against the Lord." They deserve it, they're a sinful people so we just went in and whacked them.
Isn't it amazing that the nations could take just enough Bible to justify what they want to do? Somewhere along the line, the Romans must have determined that what they were doing was a wonderful act of judgment. And they even go further. It says, "They say, Blessed be the Lord for I am rich."
In other words, they made money on the spoils of the people they've slaughtered. And they actually say bless the Lord, mockingly.
So, first of all, the slaughter is going to come, verse 5 says, at the hands of Gentile nations. Now in 70 A.D. it was a Gentile nation, the world empire of Rome that came to slaughter. But the end of verse 5 adds another dimension
It wasn't bad enough that the Gentile nations came in and slaughtered, and sold them and made money. Their own shepherds didn't show them any pity.
The leaders of Israel themselves never did anything to prevent judgment. They never did anything to stop them from being butchered. They never taught them any spiritual truth. They never gave them the message of God. The priests and the elders and the scribes were so corrupted that they were guilty of lording it over the people. They were guilty of ripping off the people. They were guilty of becoming fat and rich at the expense of the populace.
And then verse 6
You know something? It's sad when foreigners make merchandise of Israel. It's even sadder when their own leaders show them not enough pity and mercy to teach them the truth of God and to care for them. But the saddest thing of all is when God Himself says I don't pity them anymore either. That's when Ichabod has been written. God turns His back.
And you know why God did that? Because they rejected the Messiah.
God says, "I will no more pity them, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbor's hand." And the historians tells us that they because of the confusion, because of the famine, and because of the fights and the arguments among the divisions within, the people slaughtered more people among themselves in civil strife than the Romans killed.
And then notice He says, "And then I will deliver them into the hand of his king and they shall smite the land and out of their hand I will not deliver them."
Who is their king? Well, at 70 A.D. who was the king of Israel? They didn't have any. You say, "Then this prophecy couldn't come to pass."
But watch this: Judah chose a king right at the time Jesus was there. They had the king, Jesus, the King of Kings. But Him, they mocked and spat upon. Him, they spit on Him, they said, "We will not have this man to reign over us." Him, they rejected. They didn't want that king.
And on the fateful eve of Passover, Pilate brought Jesus out before the Jews and mockingly said, "Behold your king. And they screamed, Away with Him, crucify Him. And Pilate said, Shall I crucify your king? And the chief priests who were the leaders answered, We have no king but Caesar."
Isn't that interesting? By the choice of the Jews, who was their king at that time of history? Caesar. Look at this, "I will deliver the men, every one into his neighbor's hand and into the hand of his king."
And who was it that came to destroy the nation? Caesar. See? Accurate to the very designation of Caesar.
They decided to kill the true King to avoid a Roman takeover. Remember in John 11 they were saying, "Boy, if we don't get rid of Jesus, the Romans are going to come in here and take us over. We've got to get rid of this trouble maker."
So they killed the real King to avoid a Roman takeover. And the very thing they feared and killed their Messiah to avoid was the sentence of God that took place on their nation which was destruction by Rome.
Now verse 7 resumes the thought of verse 4.
So, He says to Zechariah, "Feed the flock of the slaughter, play out the part. Messiah comes, He's going to feed the people before the slaughter."
And so, says Zechariah in verse 7, and it's just the way the Hebrew translates, now watch, "So I fed the flock of slaughter."
Zechariah apparently carried out his role, so I fed the flock of slaughter. And who listened? "Even you, O poor of the flock." Stop there.
Who listened? Zechariah says, "Well I did it, I started to teach and only the poor of the flock heard." When Jesus came and fulfilled this little play that Zechariah carried out, He came to feed the flock. And you know who listened? Only the poor. Did you know that?
Jesus knew that from the very beginning.
In fact, at the very beginning of His earthly ministry in the Sermon on the Mount, what did Jesus say? "Blessed are the poor in spirit."
And Paul said in 1 Corinthians, "Not many noble and not many mighty."
Jesus came to Israel and nobody listened but the poor of the flock. Mark 12:37 that says, "And then the common people heard Him gladly?"
So, Jesus came, He fed the flock of Israel, the covenant people set for butchering. And the butchering came to pass because, by and large, the True Shepherd was rejected; only a remnant believed, just the poor. John said, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not.
Now Zechariah carries out another little act in the play. Look at verse 7. "And I took unto me two staves." Now shepherds used to carry two sticks. Did you know that? You should know that. Remember Psalm 23, "Thy rod and thy staff..." two. The rod was for beating off the wild beasts and the staff was for gently helping the sheep that was caught over the cliff. One was a firm thing and one was something of gentleness.
Now watch, he says, "I took unto me two sticks, the one I called Beauty, or graciousness, or grace or favor, or blessing, and the other I called Bands, or unity, or binders." Now here's the symbolism. Here is the prophet, he grabs two sticks. "And I fed the flock holding these two sticks."
You say, "What in the world is this?" Well, the first stick was graciousness.
And it speaks of God's loving, gracious, tender care. And you know, you have to admit that when Jesus came, He was gentle and He was loving and He was kind and He was merciful and He was gracious and He was forgiving.
The Apostle Paul talks about the gentleness of Christ. And the text says that He was meek and lowly. And it talks about His humility. And there was a graciousness, even in confronting apostate Israel. By the time Jesus came, they were so apostate, it was incredible, so far departed from Old Testament truth. And yet He was gentle and yet He was gracious.
And the second stick that he had in his hand was called Unity or union or binder, something that ties everything together. And this speaks of the fact that He had a unifying ministry. What Jesus came to do was to gather one flock, one flock to get all the lost sheep and all the wayward sheep and get them all in the fold. So He came graciously and He came with a ministry of unity. And it was in that spirit that He fed the flock of slaughter.
Look at verse 8
Now here we come to a verse very difficult to interpret (as though the others aren’t). There are 47 different views of this one verse. I'm only going to give you 36 of them!
I’ll tell you what I believe, but I’m doing with a disclaimer. It hangs together for me with what I’m fixing to tell you, but other men and women (Brilliant) see it differently, and I'm not always all that bright. So study it for yourself and see what you think.
Verse 8
Who are the three shepherds? Well, they're not, you know, Larry, Moe and Curly! I mean by that I don’t see them as three particular mean with names; not three particular men.
If you will identify the three shepherds, it helps to have the New Testament to study because in the earthly ministry of Jesus they become apparent very quickly. Shepherds have the responsibility of guiding an teaching God’s Word to God’s people. Now we are talking about Jews, so who had that responsibility in the days of Jesus on the earth?
The priests and the scribes and the Pharisees. And that when the Lord came, He was gracious and He was so unifying to the populace, but, when it came down to the priests and the elders and the scribes, He really cut them off. And one month means in a short time. He just leveled them.
In fact, if you read in Matthew, for instance, you find that He just blistered them with scathing denunciation and judgmental talk. And so it may well be that this is just a denunciation of the priests and the elders and the scribes.
But I would just add this thought. Where it says "My soul loathed them," I will tell you that is a very, very difficult thing for me to accept; that Jesus Christ hated them.
And as I looked into the Hebrew word I found something that was very helpful to me. The Hebrew word does not mean that. It means simply this, literally it means "My soul was short with them."
And if you follow it through, it has to do with a shortness of patience where God really says, "And I just lost My patience with them, I had given them enough time and it came to an end." It isn't hatred; it is the running out of God's patience. So He says My patience was exhausted and so I cut them off. My patience was exhausted with them and they hated Me.
When Jesus came, He had those two sticks...grace and unity. And He tried to gather His people but the false leaders, the elders, the scribes, the priests, just cut Him off. He was exhausted with them...repeated rejection.
And then you know what happened? He turned to the remnant in verse 9 that didn't believe and said, and again it's Zechariah acting it out, "I will not feed you, that which dies, let it die."
It sounds like Romans 1, doesn't it? He gave them up. He gave them over to a reprobate mind. "And that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off and let the rest eat everyone the flesh of another."
So what happened? The poor have come and they've been gathered in by the two sticks of grace and unity. They responded and will be protected. But the false leaders I cut off and the rest that will not hear will go ahead and die and be cut off.
And He really turns them over to the terrible judgment of 70 A.D. where the Romans came, as I said, and judged them. And He says, "The rest of them, let them eat each other." And as I told you, Josephus records the terrible cannibalism that occurred. And so, Israel is abandoned to destruction.
In verse 10 He says, "So I took My staff called Graciousness and I cut it in half and I broke My covenant which I had made with all the nations." Boy, this is so severe, it's just shocking.
Well, what is this covenant You made with the nations? Well, God says My promise was that no nation would be able to destroy Israel. I just broke that and I will allow this nation to come in and do their devastation. That's what He's saying. I break that staff called Graciousness. I'm not going to be gentle anymore. That agreement is over. I'm going to let that nation come in and judgment. And they did.
Verse 11 says, "And it was broken in that day." Seventy A.D. The judgment came. The staff of Graciousness was shattered.
And then it says, I love this, "And so the poor of the flock that waited on Me knew it was the Word of the Lord." You know who the poor of the flock were?
Well by 70 A.D., we have a church on the scene. And you know what? They knew. They knew it was the Lord. They knew God was judging. They knew God was coming down in wrath on an apostate nation. They knew. They were the poor of the flock. They were the believing remnant. They knew. They were the ones that waited on the Lord. They knew God when He spoke and they knew God when He acted. They knew.
At this point you're saying to yourself, "Boy, God was severe, wasn't He?" Oh yeah, very severe.
And just so you don't think that He was too severe, note
verses 12 and 13
Now what is that prophesying? Judas. Now listen to this. By the time you get to the end of verse 11, you might be a little queasy in your stomach about God and you might be saying, "God, how could You be so severe? How could You be so strong? How could You be so judgmental?"
And He says, "Well, let Me just remind you about how they treated Me." He says, "When it was all done, I said, What am I worth to you? I've come and I've healed and I've raised the dead and I've told you the truth and I've offered you Myself and I've offered you eternal life. What am I worth?"
Look at verse 12, "If you think good, give Me My price. And if I'm no good, don't give Me anything." But to the world, they didn't have any value on Him. So they weren't going to give Him a high price. And they didn't want to just ignore Him and give Him no price, so they said You're worth 30 pieces of silver. That was worse than no price at all because 30 pieces of silver was compensation paid for a slave that had been gored by an ox according to Exodus 21:32.
They said, "I'll tell You what You're worth, You're worth a slave's price, that's all." You see the mockery that was? They didn't treat Jesus with high value. They didn't treat Him with indifference. They treated Him like a slave. And that's why He judged them so severely because He was their King.
He was their God. He was Yahweh in human flesh. And these verses are to bring out the force of the rejection.
"And the Lord said to me," verse 13, "Cast it to the potter. And so he went into the house of the Lord and threw it to the potter." Do you know that's exactly what happened with the 30 pieces?
Judas went back into temple and he threw the 30 pieces on the ground and they scooped it up and they went out and they gave it to a potter to buy his field.
It never ceases to amaze me some pea-brain character comes along and says, "Well, I don't believe the Bible." Well I wish you would tell me how else every detail of the betrayal of Judas can take place. Judas wasn't trying to fulfill Zechariah 11. Neither were the people who bought the potter's field.
verse 14
You know what He means by that? I destroyed the nation. I broke the other band that held the nation together and the state went into dispersion.
They killed each other. They slaughtered each other. They were scattered all over the world. Every single thing Zechariah said came to pass. The message here is clear then.
So here’s what it boils down to:
Before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jehovah will appear in the person of Jesus Christ and He'll attempt to feed His flock of slaughter.
Only the poor of the flock would follow His Word and the rest, especially the leaders, will reject. The good shepherd, the King will have no more value to them than a common slave to be mocked and scoffed at. And the people, as a consequence of their rejection of the Messiah, will be given over to judgment.
The judgment will encompass death, famine, war and civil strife and the result will be the destruction of the nation. And it happened. The nation went out of existence, the Jews scattered all over the world because they rejected the true shepherd. And that's why the other shepherds wailed.
Now the incredible thing is, and that's the end of the chapter, and that's for next time we study this, they rejected the true shepherd and the day is coming when they will receive the false shepherd...the Antichrist. That's for next time.
Let's pray.
