Zechariah 11:4 - Meaning and Application

The prophet here is made a picture of Christ, just as the prophet Isaiah sometimes was. The point of these verses is to show that Christ came into this world for judgment (John 9:39), especially for judgment on the Jewish church and nation. By the time he came, their leaders had become deeply corrupt through worldliness and hypocrisy. Christ would have healed them, but they would not be healed. So they were left desolate and given over to ruin.

Look first at the desperate condition of the Jewish church under the rule of its own leaders. Their slavery in their own land made them as miserable as exile had once made them in foreign lands: "Their possessors slay them and sell them" (Zechariah 11:5). In Zechariah’s time, the rulers and nobles were rightly rebuked for charging interest to their fellow Jews, and the governors were harsh even through their servants (Nehemiah 5:7, 15). In Christ’s time, the chief priests and elders, who were supposed to care for the flock, became tyrants through their traditions, human rules, and demands on people’s consciences. They devoured families, took wealth for themselves, and stripped the flock instead of feeding it.

The Sadducees, who were unbelieving and treated truth lightly, damaged the people’s thinking. The Pharisees, who were strict but proud and superstitious, damaged their morals by setting aside the commandments of God (Matthew 15:16). In this way they killed the sheep of the flock, and in this way they sold them. They did not care what became of the people, as long as they could gain power and serve their own interests. They even defended themselves in it: “They slay them and hold themselves not guilty.” They saw no wrong in it and thought they would never be called to account by the chief Shepherd.

Such minds are badly blinded indeed, when people do evil and still justify themselves. But God will not leave guilty those who declare themselves guiltless. They also insulted God by thanking him for the profit of their oppression: “Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich.” As if God had approved their wicked gain, and providence had become a partner in their sin. We should thank God for what is honestly gained, and bless him whose blessing makes rich without sorrow. But how can anyone ask God to bless unlawful ways of getting wealth, or thank him for success in them? They should have confessed their sin, taken shame for it, and promised to make things right, rather than mock God by calling the profits of sin a gift from him. God hates robbery used for burnt offerings, and he is not honored by thanks when he is dishonored in the getting or use of what we claim to give him.

They also showed contempt for the people of God, as if the people were not worth care or mercy. “Their own shepherds pity them not.” They made the people miserable, then felt no sorrow for it. Christ had compassion on the crowds, because they were fainting and scattered, as if they had no shepherd, though in truth they had worse than none. But their own shepherds had no pity, and no concern. It is a bad sign for a church when its pastors have no tenderness for precious souls, and can look on the ignorant, foolish, wicked, and weak without compassion.

Next comes God’s sentence of wrath on them for their blindness and stubbornness in this condition. Religion among them had sunk into ruin, and it made no difference to them. “My people love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:31). Though they were oppressed and broken in judgment, they still walked willingly after the commandment of man (Hosea 5:11). Since their shepherds did not pity them, neither did they mourn for themselves. So God says, “I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land” (Zechariah 11:6). They had chosen their own destruction, and so he leaves them to it. But those are truly miserable whom the God of mercy himself will no longer show compassion.

People who willingly let their consciences be oppressed by those who teach human commands as doctrine, as the Jews did, often lose their civil freedoms too, and justly so, because those who surrender God’s rights forfeit their own. The Jews did this; the Papists do this; and no one should pity them if they are ruled harshly. Here God warns them that he will hand them over to oppressors, every one into his neighbor’s hand, so that they will treat one another cruelly. That happened in Jerusalem, where the zealots and other rebels committed worse violence than the enemy did, as Josephus describes in his history of the Jewish wars. They would also be given into the hand of their king, meaning the Roman emperor, whom they chose instead of Christ when they said, “We have no king but Caesar.” They thought this would win favor with their rulers, but God brought the Romans against them, and they destroyed their city and nation.

God also says he will not deliver them from their hands. They would strike the whole land, and he would not rescue them. If the Lord does not help, no one else can, and people cannot save themselves.

Still, one more attempt is made to see whether their ruin might be stopped by sending Christ among them as a shepherd. God had sent his servants to them in vain, but last of all he sent his Son, saying, “They will respect my Son” (Matthew 21:37). Several prophets had spoken of him as the Shepherd of Israel (Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:23). Christ himself told the Pharisees that he was the Shepherd of the sheep, and that those who claimed to be shepherds were thieves and robbers (John 10:1, 2, 11), apparently referring to this passage.

Here is the charge he received from his Father to see what could be done with this flock: “Thus says the Lord my God” (Christ called his Father “my God” because he acted according to his will and for his glory in everything he undertook), “Feed the flock of slaughter” (Zechariah 11:4). The Jews were God’s flock, but they were a flock marked for slaughter, because their enemies had been killing them all day long and treating them as sheep for slaughter. Their own rulers were killing them, and God himself had already marked them for judgment.

Yet Christ feeds them by reproof, instruction, and comfort. He gives wholesome food to people who have long been made sour by the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. He had other sheep that were not of this fold, and those would later be brought in, but he was first sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24).

He also accepted this charge and carried it out, as Zechariah 11:7 says. It is as if he said, “I come to do your will, O my God,” and, since this is your will, it is mine too: “I will feed the flock doomed to slaughter.” Christ cared for these lost sheep. He went among them, teaching and healing even the poor of the flock. He did not neglect the least people, or pass them by because they were lowly. The shepherds who made a prey of them cared nothing for the poor. They dealt only with those from whom they could gain something. But Christ preached his good news to the poor (Matthew 11:5). His living among common people was part of his humiliation. His constant companions, his disciples, were themselves from the poor of the flock.

He also equipped himself for the work he had taken on. “I took for myself two staffs,” that is, shepherds’ staffs. Other shepherds have one crook, but Christ had two, showing the double care he took for his flock and what he did for both soul and body. David speaks of God’s rod and staff (Psalm 23:4), one for correcting and one for supporting. One staff was called Beauty, pointing to the temple, which is called the beauty of holiness, and to one of its beautiful gates. Christ called it his Father’s house, and he showed great zeal for it when he cleared out the buyers and sellers. The other was called Bands, pointing to their civil state, the joined life of that nation. Christ also cared for that by preaching love and peace among them. In his gospel and in all he did among them, Christ looked to both their civil good and their holy good.

He then carried out his office as the chief Shepherd. He fed the flock (Zechariah 11:7), and he removed the false shepherds who had failed their trust (Zechariah 11:8): “Three shepherds I cut off in one month.” Because the later history of the Jewish church is not fully clear, we cannot know exactly what event this fulfilled. In general, it was an act of power and justice, punishing sinful shepherds and relieving the abused flock. Some understand this as the three orders of princes, priests, and scribes or prophets, who were set aside after Christ finished his work because of their unfaithfulness. Others think of the three Jewish sects, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. Christ silenced all of them in argument (Matthew 22), and soon after cut them off, all in a short time.

There was also their hatred toward Christ, which made them hateful to him. He came to his own, the sheep of his own pasture, and one would have expected complete affection between them and him, like a shepherd and his sheep. But they behaved so badly that his soul loathed them, or, as the wording can mean, he was drawn back from them. He meant kindness toward them, but could not give them the kindness he intended because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:58). He was disappointed in them, troubled about them, and grieved for them, not only for the shepherds he cut off, but also for the people. He often looked on them with grief in his heart and tears in his eyes. Their sins wore out his patience, and he grew weary of that faithless and twisted generation. “Their soul also loathed me,” and because of that, his soul loathed them. Any distance between God and man begins on man’s side. The Jewish shepherds rejected this chief Shepherd, just as the Jewish builders rejected this chief cornerstone. They were angry at Christ’s teaching, his miracles, and his influence with the people. They tried all they could to make him hateful, just as they had made themselves hateful to him. There is a real hostility between God and wicked people. They are hateful to God, and they hate God. Nothing shows the sin and misery of an unconverted life more clearly than this. The mind set on the flesh, and friendship with the world, are enmity against God. God hates all who do evil, and it is easy to see where this quarrel will end if it is not ended in time (Isaiah 27:4, 5).

Christ then rejected them as beyond cure, and left their house empty, as in Matthew 23:38. The things that belonged to their peace were hidden from their eyes because they did not know the time of their visitation. Here is the sentence of rejection: “Then I said, I will not feed you.” He would take no further care of them. They would not see him again. They must follow their own path. Since he would not feed them, he would not heal them either. “Let the one that dies, die.” The Shepherd will do nothing to save a life that has been forfeited. “Let the one that is cut off, be cut off.” Let what makes itself easy prey to the wolf become prey. And let the rest forget their mild nature for so long that they eat one another. Let these sheep fight like dogs. Those who reject Christ will surely and rightly be rejected by him, and then misery follows.

A sign of this was given when he said, “I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it in two” (Zechariah 11:10). This showed that he would no longer be their shepherd, just as a lord steward ends his commission by breaking his white staff. It was also like Moses breaking the tablets of the law, which for the moment stopped the covenant dealings between God and Israel. Breaking this staff signified the breaking of God’s covenant with all the people, that special covenant made with the tribes of Israel and with others who had joined them through their religion. The Jewish church was now stripped of its glory. Its crown was dishonored and thrown down, and all its honor was laid in the dust, because God had withdrawn and would no longer own it as his. When Christ plainly told them that the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to another people, then he broke the staff of Beauty (Matthew 21:43). It was broken that very day. Jerusalem and the Jewish nation lasted forty years longer, but from that day the staff of Beauty may be counted as broken (Zechariah 11:11). The great men did not, or would not, understand this as God’s judgment. They tried to push it aside with a cold “God forbid” (Luke 20:16). But the poor of the flock, the disciples of Christ, who waited on him and knew the authority with which he spoke, could tell the voice of their Shepherd from the voice of a stranger. They knew it was the word of the Lord, and they trembled at it. They were sure it would not fail.

Christ is cared for by the poor of the flock. He chose them to be with him, to learn from him, and to bear witness for him. The poor received him and his gospel when those with great possessions turned away. Those who wait on Christ and sit at his feet to hear and receive his words will know whether his teaching is from God (John 7:17).

This gives another reason for their rejection. Earlier it said, “Their souls hated him,” and here we see it acted out in their bargaining away the Shepherd for thirty pieces of silver, either thirty Roman pence or more likely thirty Jewish shekels. This prophecy is stated in a somewhat hidden way, as such detailed prophecies often are, so that the exact wording would not prevent its fulfillment.

The Shepherd comes to them for his wages (Zechariah 11:12): “If you think it is right, give me my pay. If you are tired of me, pay me and send me away. If you want me to stay longer, I will stay. If you want to dismiss me without pay, I am content.” Christ was no hired servant, and yet the worker is worthy of his wages. Compare this with what Christ said to Judas, who was about to betray him: “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:27). Christ let the matter be settled at once. Those who betray Christ are not forced into it, they choose it.

They valued him at thirty pieces of silver. He had served them as Shepherd for many years, yet this was all they would give him. It was as if they said, “A fine price for all my care and labor.” If Judas fixed this amount in his demand, it is striking that his own name was Judah, the same name as the people as a whole, because this was a national act. If, as seems more likely, the chief priests set the price, they acted as the people’s representatives. It was part of the priest’s work to set a value on dedicated things (Leviticus 27:8), and here they valued the Lord Jesus. It was the usual price of a slave (Exodus 21:32). Making little of Christ and undervaluing the love of that great and good Shepherd ruins many people, and rightly so.

Since the silver was far below his worth, it is thrown to the potter with contempt: “Let him take it to buy clay, or use it for anything small, because it is not worth keeping. It may be enough for a potter’s stock, but not for the pay of such a shepherd, much less for his purchase.” So the prophet threw the thirty pieces of silver to the potter in the house of the Lord, as if to say, “Let him take them and do what he wants with them.” We later see this clearly fulfilled in Christ’s suffering, and Matthew points back to this prophecy (Matthew 27:9, Matthew 27:10). Thirty pieces of silver was exactly the sum for which Christ was sold to the chief priests, and when Judas would not keep it and the chief priests would not take it back, it was used to buy the potter’s field. Even that quick decision by the chief priests was part of an ancient prophecy, and even more, part of God’s older plan and foreknowledge.

The final sign of their rejection is the cutting apart of the other staff (Zechariah 11:14). The first staff showed the ruin of their church, because the covenant between God and them was broken, and that took away their beauty. This second staff shows the ruin of their state, because the brotherhood between Judah and Israel was broken, and old hostilities and quarrels came back. These were like the divisions that had once existed between Judah and Israel, even though being joined as one stick in the Lord’s hand had been promised as a blessing after the exile (Ezekiel 37:19). Now that union is dissolved. They will break into parties and factions, grow bitter toward one another, and their kingdom, divided like that, will be brought to ruin.

Nothing destroys a people more surely than breaking the staff of Bands and weakening the brotherhood among them, because then they become easy prey for a common enemy. This follows the breaking of the covenant between God and them and the decline of religion among them. When sin increases, love grows cold. It is no surprise when people fall out with one another if they have first provoked God to be against them. When the staff of Beauty is broken, the staff of Bands will not hold long. A people cut off from the church will soon become a ruined people.