Daily Thoughts from Zechariah: Shepherds Who Care (Zechariah 11)

Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars!  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!  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!

Thus said the LORD my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. 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. 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.”

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. In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 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.” And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. 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. 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. Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 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.

“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!” (Zechariah 11, ESV)

Whereas in the present God is inviting Israel back to the land and promising blessing, He here anticipates a future in which once again He will bring judgment on His people.  The geographical progress of the destruction is Lebanon, Bashan and then the Jordan, from north to south as most invading armies traveled.  What follows is why this judgment on Israel will happen.

Zechariah is asked to take a job as shepherd of a flock slated for slaughter, hardly a motivation to care for the sheep.  This is the state Israel will be in when Yahweh seeks to lead them in love with the staffs of Favor (God’s favor) and Union (God’s intent to unite the nation as one under His Davidic king).  Israel’s other leaders will be worthless and will be fired (“destroyed”) by the faithful shepherd (whom Zechariah is portraying).  But Israel will detest Yahweh’s leadership and when He asks them for His valuation of Him they will give Him 30 pieces of silver, a slap in the face as that is the price for a slave.  He will rightly reject this payment and Zechariah shows this by throwing it to the potter in the Temple and by breaking the two staffs.

Then Yahweh has him act as a “foolish” or evil shepherd who doesn’t care for the flock, doesn’t seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy either but exploits them for his own purposes.  God will destroy this shepherd.

Jesus the Messiah is the first shepherd who will come to an Israel but Israel does not value a good shepherd and is willing to let Him be crucified when he would have rather gathered them under his wings like a mother hen.  One of his own disciples sells him out for 30 pieces of silver to the temple leadership.  Israel was once again trampled by the nations in A.D. 70 when Rome crushed their rebellion and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and its Temple.  The Antichrist is the second shepherd who is yet to come and be destroyed.

Like Israel we are being called to evaluate correctly our leadership.  Do we follow the one who genuinely loves us even to the point of disciplining us, or do we give ourselves to leaders who don’t really take care of the helpless among the flock, us who are maimed, nor even care for the healthy to nourish them, thus letting them deteriorate.  What kind of sheep are you?  Are you submissive to the unhealthy leader or do you recognize Jesus’ true undershepherds?  Do you value correctly the shepherds who really care about you?  Are you a faithful shepherd?