Zechariah 11:8

11:4-14 Christ came into this world for judgment to the Jewish church and nation, which were wretchedly corrupt and degenerate. Those have their minds wofully blinded, who do ill, and justify themselves in it; but God will not hold those guiltless who hold themselves so. How can we go to God to beg a blessing on unlawful methods of getting wealth, or to return thanks for success in them? There was a general decay of religion among them, and they regarded it not. The Good Shepherd would feed his flock, but his attention would chiefly be directed to the poor. As an emblem, the prophet seems to have taken two staves; Beauty, denoted the privileges of the Jewish nation, in their national covenant; the other he called Bands, denoting the harmony which hitherto united them as the flock of God. But they chose to cleave to false teachers. The carnal mind and the friendship of the world are enmity to God; and God hates all the workers of iniquity: it is easy to foresee what this will end in. The prophet demanded wages, or a reward, and received thirty pieces of silver. By Divine direction he cast it to the potter, as in disdain for the smallness of the sum. This shadowed forth the bargain of Judas to betray Christ, and the final method of applying it. Nothing ruins a people so certainly, as weakening the brotherhood among them. This follows the dissolving of the covenant between God and them: when sin abounds, love waxes cold, and civil contests follow.

{m} Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed {n} them, and their soul also abhorred me. (m) By which he shows his care and diligence that he would not allow them to have evil rulers, so that they would consider his great love. (n) Meaning, the people, because they would not acknowledge these great benefits of God.

Zechariah 11:8 . Three shepherds also I cut off in one month — The prophet may be said to do what God did; either in the punishment of certain false prophets, or of certain wicked governors. Some think, that by these three shepherds were figuratively signified the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the Jews. Christ exposed these as blind guides, and thereby lessened their authority among the people, which contributed very much to the spreading of the gospel. Blayney, who thinks the common translation encumbered with insuperable difficulties, renders the clause, and I set aside the authority of the shepherds in one month. His reasons for this interpretation have certainly considerable weight, but cannot with propriety be introduced here. One argument, however, in favour of it, to which he appeals, may be noticed. It evidently suits that application of the prophecy which most commentators adopt. “Let us now see,” says he, “what happened to him, of whom Zechariah is evidently set forth as the type. Our Saviour’s teaching was in a style so far superior to that of the professed guides of the people in his days, that, stung with jealousy, they exclaimed, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Ye have lost all your wonted influence; behold the world is gone after him, John 12:19 .

Even so it may be presumed the purity and disinterestedness of Zechariah’s instructions may have gained so far upon the minds of the people as to deprive the corrupt and selfish teachers of that ascendency which they once possessed.” And my soul loathed them — Or, was straitened toward them, as the Hebrew, תקצר בהם , may be literally translated, that is, I was straitened in my affections to them. I was less tender toward them than toward the poor of the flock, because they showed themselves to be averse from my person and doctrine. So the Vulgate, contracta est anima mea in eis. The LXX., however, read, βαρυνθησεται η ψυχη μου , my soul shall be burdened; and Bishop Newcome, my soul was grieved at them. The word בחלה , rendered abhorred, in the next clause, does not occur elsewhere in the Scriptures, but, according to Bishop Newcome, bears that sense in the Syriac. The LXX. render it, αι ψυκαι αυτων επωρυοντο επ ’ εμε , Their souls howled, bellowed, roared, or, raised a horrible outcry against me, an expression strikingly descriptive of the fierce and vehement accusations of the Jewish chief priests, scribes, and elders against Christ, and of the violent, loud, and oft-repeated clamours of the people for his condemnation and crucifixion. Of which see Luke 23:5 ; Luke 23:10 ; Luke 23:18-24 .

Three, put for many, a definite for an indefinite number. Shepherds, negligent or greatly faulty. I cut off; put out of office, or, by discovering their faults, made them lie hid and conceal themselves. In one month; in a little time. My soul loathed them; hated their treachery and idleness. Their soul also abhorred me: disgraced and turned out, they hated him; in which these shepherds had too many of the Jews that sided with them, and that bore a hatred to the true Shepherd and to his impartial executing severity on the wicked shepherds.

8 . Three shepherds … in one month ] This has been understood to refer either to three historical persons, e.g. Zachariah, Shallum ( 2 Kings 15:8 ; 2 Kings 15:13 ) and some third usurper, not mentioned in the history, of the same time, or Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus Eupator and Demetrius I., in the time of the Maccabees (though it is difficult to believe that these could have been called shepherds of Israel); or else to the three offices of king, priest and prophet. But all these references break down, and it is better to take the words generally, as describing the prompt and vigorous action of Jehovah’s shepherd in dealing with the evil shepherds ( Zechariah 10:3 ), as well as in feeding the flock. “ Mensis unus hic capitur pro exiguo tempore: tres autem pastores significant multos indefinite.” Calv. and my soul lothed them ] or, but, &c.: for , R. V. At this point the prophet begins to describe the failure of his good offices towards the flock, and the mutual antipathy that sprang up between him and them.

8. Three shepherds … I cut off—literally, "to cause to disappear," to destroy so as not to leave a vestige of them. The three shepherds whom Messiah removes are John, Simon, and Eleazar, three leaders of factions in the Jewish war [Drusius]. Or, as Messiah, the Antitype, was at once prophet, priest, and king, so He by the destruction of the Jewish polity destroyed these three orders for the unbelief of both the rulers and people [Moore]. If they had accepted Messiah, they would have had all three combined in Him, and would have been themselves spiritually prophets, priests, and kings to God. Refusing Him, they lost all three, in every sense. one month—a brief and fixed space of time (Ho 5:7). Probably alluding to the last period of the siege of Jerusalem, when all authority within the city was at an end [Henderson]. loathed them—literally, "was straitened" as to them; instead of being enlarged towards them in love (2Co 6:11, 12). The same Hebrew as in Nu 21:4, Margin. No room was left by them for the grace of God, as His favors were rejected [Calvin]. The mutual distaste that existed between the holy Messiah and the guilty Jews is implied.

Verse 8. - In executing the office of feeding the flock, three shepherds also I out off in one month; Septuagint, "And I will take away the three shepherds in one month." The article in the Hebrew and Greek seems to point to some known shepherds, three in number, unless we take it as "threes of the shepherds." Hence expositors have sought to find historical personages to whom the term might apply. Those who assert a pre-exilian origin for this part of the prophecy, suggest the three kings, Zachariah, Shallum, and Menahem; or, as Menahem reigned ten years, some unrecorded pretender, who started up at the time. Others see some Syrian monarchs in Maccabean times; or the three offices, king, prophet, priest; or the three dynasties that oppressed Israel, viz. the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Macedonian. All these interpretations fail in some point; and we are reduced to see herein a reference, as Cheyne says, to "the prompt and vigorous action of Jehovah's Shepherd in dealing with the evil shepherds, as well as in feeding the flock;" the number three being used indefinitely. Or we may find in this number an allusion to the three classes in ver. 5 - the buyers, the sellers, and the pitiless shepherds. The oppressors, external and internal, are removed and cut off in one month. To the prophet's eye all this seemed to take place in that short space of time.

If anything more is intended, we may, with Keil and others, taking the month as consisting of thirty days, assume that ten days are assigned to the destruction of each shepherd, after each had fulfilled his allotted period - the number ten expressing perfection or completion. And my soul loathed them; literally, but my soul was straitened for them ; i.e. was impatient, weary of them. These words begin a new paragraph, and refer, not to the three shepherds, but to the sheep, the Israelites. The prophet now shows how ill the people had responded to God's manifold care, and mingles with the past a view of their future ingratitude and disobedience which will bring upon them final ruin. God, as it were, was weary of their continual backslidings and obstinate perseverance in evil. (For the phrase, see Numbers 21:4 ; Judges 16:16 ; Job 21:4 .) It is the opposite to long suffering. Their soul also abhorred me. They showed their abhorrence by their devotion to idols and their disinclination for all goodness. Zechariah 11:8

And I cut off three shepherds in one month - Jerome: "I have read in some one's commentary, that the shepherds, cut off in the indignation of the Lord, are to be understood of priests and false prophets and kings of the Jews, who, after the passion of Christ, were all cut off in one time, of whom Jeremiah speaketh, "The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew Me not; the pastors also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things which do not profit" Jeremiah 2:8 , and again, "As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests and their prophets" Jeremiah 2:26 ; and "they said, Come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet" Jeremiah 18:18 . Theodoret: "He speaks of the kings of the Jews, and prophets and priests; for by the three orders they were shepherded." Cyril: "The true and good Shepherd having been already pointed out, it was right and necessary that the hirelings and false shepherds should be removed, the guides of the Jews in the law. The three shepherds were, I deem, those who exercised the legal priesthood, and those appointed judges of the people, and the interpreters of Scripture, that is, the lawyers. For these too fed Israel.

Those who had the glory of the priesthood were of the tribe of Levi only; and of them Malachi says, "The priest's lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth" Malachi 2:7. But those who received authority to judge were also selected, yet were appointed out of every tribe. In like way the lawyers, who were ever assessors to the judges, and adduced the words of the law in proof of every matter. But we shall find that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself expressly pronounced woe on the Pharisees and scribes and lawyers. For He said, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees" Luke 11:44. And when one of the lawyers hereupon answered Him saying, "Master, so saying Thou reproachest us also," He said, "Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers" Luke 11:45-46. These "three Shepherds" then, priests and judges and lawyers o, who remained in their own orders and places, until the coming of Christ, were very justly taken away "in one month." For since "they killed the Prince of life" Acts 3:15, thereby also are they mown down, and that in the month of the first fruits, in which Emmanuel endured to be slain for us.