Bad shepherds...
The judgment is coming. Lebanon's cedars will burn on the north end of the nation. Bashan's forest will also come down. Their shepherds will wail. Their lions' pride is ruined. Their glory days are done.
We've been reading about the glory of the second coming of the Messiah; but now we're about to read of the rejection of the Messiah on His first appearance.
The metaphor of the shepherd continues:
Thus says the Lord my God, “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them. Zechariah 11:4–5
The bad shepherds focus on profit and don't care for the flocks. They even praise the Lord for their wealth earned poorly. Because of this poor leadership, He loses His care for the inhabitants. So Zechariah took it upon himself to shepherd the flock using two staffs that he named Favor and Union. I'm assuming favor indicates submission to the Lord, in recognition of the necessity of His favor. A Ryrie footnote states that Union is a reference to the reunification of Israel and Judah.
Zechariah goes on to state that he annihilated the three bad shepherds. He left the rest to the same fate. He then breaks up the staff named Favor to show that He was done with the people who broke His covenant and lost His Favor. At this point Zechariah's audience freaks out because they realize He is speaking as the Lord and they see his "Favor" cut into bits.
He asks the people to pay him, as their shepherd, and they gave him 30 shekels, which was the local slave wages; which led to a common saying at the time that referred to being paid less than they were worth. The message is this- the people do not have an accurate measure of the value of the Shepherd—then or when the Messiah came. And then Judas is paid the 30 shekels for his "work", the amount may have reflected the common saying of what they thought of him. They relied on him, but still understood that he was a backstabbing servant to the Lord.
The MacArthur Bible Commentary states that 30 pieces of silver was the price paid for a slave who was gored by an ox...
I think I read that this book has more references to the coming Messiah than any other book, except Isaiah. It's interesting who God trusted with His most important messages about the future. I guess this was a pivotal time between eras, so thing were in flux, but stable compared to the immediate events around it.
One final note on the 30 shekels paid to Zechariah. The Lord instructed Zechariah to dispose of the low wages by throwing them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Judas died in potter's field with his 30 shekels.
Next Zechariah breaks the Union staff, symbolizing the break between Israel and Judah.
Then God contrasts these terrible shepherds who've done all of this harm, broken covenants, broken unity, etc, and contrast them with a Good Shepherd:
For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs. Zechariah 11:16
If the people don't want a good shepherd, then He'll send a bad one. It's about to get real bad. For all of the terrible things that have happened so far, there has always been a nation in existence to recover; but by AD 70, there will no longer be a nation of Israel because of the rejection of the Messiah.
This sad prophesy ends with an image of a broken, limping, half blind shepherd who will now have to wait until the second coming of the Messiah tp experience all of the promises of the previous two chapters.
The MacArthur Bible Commentary says a million and a half Jews were slaughtered by the Romans, fulfilling these grim prophesies.
Honestly, I struggled with this chapter. I had to rely on footnotes and commentary. But it makes sense because rejecting the Good Shepherd makes NO sense. So it's difficult to understand why humans choose so poorly. It makes everything confusing.
But we do see that there comes a time when he turns us over to the desires of our heart and we won't like the results.
Blessedly, better days are coming when we will live uncorrupted and guided and protected by our Good Shepherd.
Amen.