The reason for the devastation of the people and the land just described now becomes apparent. It is the people's rejection of the messianic Shepherd-King (cf. Isa. 42; 49; 50; 53). The Lord would graciously give His people another good leader (vv. 4-6), but they would reject the good shepherd that He would provide for them (vv. 7-14).
11:4 Yahweh, Zechariah's God, instructed the prophet to present himself as a shepherd assigned to care for a flock doomed to slaughter. This may mean that the prophet was to act out a parable for his audience.223However it seems more likely, in view of what follows, that Zechariah spoke for God, and sometimes as Messiah, as though he were a shepherd. He seems to have been presenting an allegory that was the product of a visionary experience (cf. Jer. 1:10; 25:15-38).224
11:5 Those who bought sheep slew them (Heb. feminine) and went unpunished. This was bad because these were female sheep, ewes, intended for breeding and not for butchering. The slayers represent the foreign rulers who took over the Israelites, persecuted them, and had not paid the full penalty for their abusive treatment of them (Gen. 12:3). Those who sold the sheep were Israel's former rulers and leaders who, by their sins, had set the people up for divine judgment by foreigners.
11:6 The Lord's displeasure was the real reason for the Israelites' misery. He would no longer take pity on them. He would cause the men of Israel to become dependent on one another and on a human king, evidently a foreign despot. This king and his followers would strike the land, but Yahweh would not deliver His people from them.
"History demonstrates that these conditions did take place after Israel's rejection of their Messiah."225
11:7 Zechariah proceeded to carry out his assignment from the Lord (v. 4). He spoke as a shepherd of the sheep doomed to slaughter, the afflicted sheep, and so represented Israel's Shepherd, Messiah. The two shepherd's staffs that he named "Favor"(Heb. no'am, pleasantness) and "Union"(Heb. hobhelim, binders) represented God's blessing and the unity of the flock (Israel; cf. Ezek. 37:15-28).
"The Eastern shepherd carried a rod or stout club hewed from a tree to beat away wild beasts attacking the sheep and a crooked staff for retrieving the sheep from difficult places [cf. Ps. 23:4]."226
11:8 Zechariah, as God's representative, did away with three shepherds that had been leading his flock within the first month that he took charge of the sheep. These appear to have been real shepherds and a real month. At least Zechariah's action prefigured that of Messiah in taking over the leadership of His flock from other leaders of Israel who did not appreciate His leadership. Who these shepherds were or will be has been the subject of much debate. Some commentators identified specific kings, either Jewish or Gentile, who failed the Lord and were set aside before or during the siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.227Others believe the three shepherds refer to three classes of leaders, probably Israel's elders, chief priests, and scribes (cf. Luke 9:22).228Another view is that they represent all of Israel's unfaithful human leaders.229
It is also difficult to identify the antecedent of "them."Did Zechariah (Messiah) grow weary of the sheep (cf. Isa. 1:13-14), and did they detest him? Another interpretation sees the antecedent of "them"to be the three groups of leaders (kings). Perhaps "them"refers generally to both the leaders and the sheep.
11:9 Zechariah, as God's representative, turned "them"over to their fate though that meant that some of them would die, suffer annihilation, and devour one another. The Jews did eat one another during the siege of Jerusalem in the first century A.D.,230and they will evidently do so again during the Tribulation.
"By withholding his leadership the shepherd abandoned the people to the consequences of their rejection of him: death, and mutual destruction. He simply let things take their course."231
11:10 Zechariah then chopped his staff "Favor"to pieces picturing the end of the favorable pastoral care that he had provided. The covenant in view is none of the biblical covenants since God never breaks His promises. It must refer to the security that He had been providing and the restraint that He had been exercising in relation to Israel thus far.
"The term covenant' is here used in a looser sense, not as descriptive of a formal agreement entered into by contracting parties, but to indicate that, when the peoples round about Israel did her no harm, this was due to the fact that God had put them under as strong a restraint as might be exerted upon a nation by a covenant solemnly sworn to."232
11:11 The faithful Israelites who were listening to Zechariah, the afflicted of God's flock (cf. v. 7), realized that what he had done in breaking the staff was in harmony with the word of the Lord. God had promised in the Mosaic Law that if His people apostatized He would cast them off, temporarily, and allow the nations to punish them (cf. Matt. 23:13, 23-24, 33-39).
11:12 Since Zechariah was terminating his protection of the flock, he asked the sheep to pay him his wages or, if they refused, to keep what they owed him.
He is more concerned about making the flock feel that he is done with it than he is about money."233
The sheep weighed out 30 shekels of silver as his pay. This was the price of a slave in the ancient Near East (Exod. 21:32) and, though a substantial amount, was a pittance in view of all that the Shepherd had done for the sheep.234Their act was as shamelessly insulting as their general reaction to His ministry as a whole had been. To offer him this wage was the equivalent of telling the Shepherd that they could buy a common slave who would be as useful to them as He had been. This response shows how unworthy the people were of His solicitude.
11:13 The Lord instructed Zechariah to throw the 30 shekels of silver to the potter since it was, ironically, such a handsome price. His service had been worth far more than this. So Zechariah threw the 30 shekels of silver to the potter in the temple. Evidently the setting of Zechariah's visionary allegory was the temple courtyard. Throwing something to the potter was evidently a proverbial way of expressing disdain for it since potters were typically poor and lowly craftsmen.235
"The fulfillment of this prophecy in Matthew 27:3-10 is proof enough that the money was flung down in the temple and immediately taken up by the priests to purchase a field of a potterfor a burying ground for the poor."236
"Like the earlier prophecy of the King (ix. 9), the prophecy of the Shepherd is remarkable for its literal fulfillment. The thirty pieces of silver' were literally the goodly price' paid for Him, whom they of the children of Israel did value.' The potter' was literally the recipient of it, as the purchase money of his exhausted field for an unclean purpose (Matt. xxvii. 5-10)."237
11:14 Zechariah then symbolically broke his second staff, "Union,"indicating the end of the unity that bound the Jews together. Just before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 the Jews broke up into parties that were very hostile to one another. This condition accelerated their destruction by the Romans.238Evidently fighting among the Jews will also be common in the Tribulation. The order of events is significant, and it was historical: the breaking of God's favor on His people, their rejection of the Shepherd, and the breaking of their unity.239We know that this destruction would not be permanent, however, because of other promises that God would reunite and restore His people and that He would not cast them off permanently (e.g., Rom. 11).
"Responsibility for human chaos lies squarely on human shoulders. God has offered men His shepherd, but they have rejected Him, to their own irreparable loss."240
