The prophetic strain now ceases, and we have to come back in chapter 11 to the actual condition of things among the people to whom Zechariah spoke. The solemn words of governmental judgments here uttered might seem to us strange, had we not the hooks of Ezra and Nehemiah, which show us the sad departure into flagrant law-breaking which marked the masses of the people, whilst outwardly temple and city were being rebuilt. The prophet foresaw the times of trouble that would come upon the people, when they would still be under the heel of various Gentile powers, and the really godly are designated as the margin of verse 7 reads “the flock of slaughter, verily the poor of the flock.”
Commencing with this seventh verse we find the prophet himself beginning to act in a symbolic way as well as speak God’s message. He took the two staves, called, respectively, “Beauty” and “Bands.” Though the poor of the flock were to be fed, the others were to be left, and the shepherds who might have fed them were cut off. We may not be able to say to whom the “three shepherds” referred, yet the drift of this judgment is plain. While the poor of the flock should be fed, the ungodly majority lost the worldly leaders who might have fed them.
It would appear that in this remarkable incident of the two staves the prophet is led to impersonate the Messiah Himself. His first action was to break the staff called “Beauty,” as a sign that God’s covenant “with all the people” was broken. The word here is in the plural, “peoples,” and we may turn back to Genesis 49:1010The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. (Genesis 49:10), where the word had previously occurred in the plural: “until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the peoples be.” The staff “Beauty” was broken as a sign that there would be no fulfillment to the unbelieving generation, for when Messiah came in lowliness and not in outward splendor, they would see “no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa. 53:22For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)).
This was followed by the remarkable actions recorded in verses 12 and 13, which prophetically set forth the terrible actions of Judas Iscariot. Matthew 27:3-83Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. 5And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. 6And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. 7And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. 8Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. (Matthew 27:3‑8) records how accurately this prediction was fulfilled. Messiah, who was the embodiment of all beauty was priced at thirty pieces of silver. Judas who fixed the price and got the silver, before committing suicide in his remorse, cast the money down in the temple, thus fulfilling the words, “in the house of the Lord”; while the chief priests took the silver and used it to buy the potter’s field, thus fulfilling the words, “I ... cast them to the potter.”
The breaking of the second staff followed. If beauty be broken by the rejection of the Messiah, the bands that linked together Judah and Israel were necessarily broken.
Christ is the Center of unity for God’s earthly people, just as He is the Center of unity for the church today. We may therefore see a word of warning and instruction for ourselves in what we have before us. Christendom is much occupied today in efforts to achieve unity, realizing what great power might be wielded by a unified church. Do they recognize that Christ in His beauty must be the Center of all their thoughts and efforts? If His beauty be broken in their thoughts and efforts, everything in the way of bands will be broken as well.
Having first acted as impersonating the true Shepherd of Israel, the prophet is now bidden so to act as to personate the false one, who is to come, as a direct result of the government of God in retribution upon the people. What were the “instruments” of a foolish shepherd we are not told, but what will mark the false one we are plainly told in verse 16. First, there are four things that he will not do. We quote from Darby’s New Translation: He “shall not visit those that are about to perish”; and again, “neither shall seek that which is strayed away”; and again, “nor heal that which is wounded”; and once more, “nor feed that which is sound.”
Readers and writer alike will at once be saying, Why, these four things which the false shepherd does not do are exactly those which the true shepherd does, in abundant and perfect measure. False shepherds there were before the true One came, as He indicated in John 10:10,1210The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
12But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. (John 10:12), but Zechariah is predicting the coming of that antichrist, of whom the Lord spoke when He said, “if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:4343I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:43)). This “idol” or “worthless” shepherd will be raised up of God in judgment upon the people, “in the land,” as verse 16 says: that is, he will not be some worldly king in the Gentile world, but the false messiah in Palestine—the second “beast” of Revelation 13, rather than the first.
Here then is a striking exhibition of the governmental ways of God. The unconverted Jew would not have the true Shepherd, when He came in grace: then they shall have the false, who shall feed himself on their “fat,” and tear them unmercifully, though ultimately he will be destroyed in judgment as verse 17 declares. For the ungodly in Israel, the final raising up of the “idol shepherd” means the terrors of the great tribulation.
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