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Open your doors, O Lebanon,

so that 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!

Listen, the wail of the shepherds,

for their glory is despoiled!

Listen, the roar of the lions,

for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!

Two Kinds of Shepherds

⁴ Thus said the L ord my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. ⁵Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, “Blessed be the L ord, for I have become rich”; and their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the L ord. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor, and each into the hand of the king; and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand.

⁷ So, on behalf of the sheep merchants, I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. I took two staffs; one I named Favor, the other I named Unity, and I tended the sheep. ⁸In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me. ⁹So 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 that are left devour the flesh of one another!” ¹⁰I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the L ord. ¹²I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. ¹³Then the L ord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury”—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the L ord. ¹⁴Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the L ord said to me: Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd. ¹⁶For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

Oh, my worthless shepherd,

who deserts the flock!

May the sword strike his arm

and his right eye!

Let his arm be completely withered,

his right eye utterly blinded!

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

There is here set before us the extreme vengeance of God in scattering his people, so that there would be no longer any union between the children of Abraham. We have seen that the Prophet took two staves or crooks to execute the office of a shepherd in ruling the people. The first staff he said was Beauty, because God had omitted nothing necessary to produce the best order of things. Now when this blessed mode of ruling was trodden under foot, then soon after followed the scattering of the people: and this is the reason why the Prophet says, that he broke the other rod, or his crook. We then see that this people by their ingratitude at length justly deserved to be left without any regular form of government, and also without any union.

As to the word חבלים, chebelim, we have before said that what the Rabbis teach us, that it means “destroyers,” does not comport with the passage. But why should Zechariah say here that the rod was broken, that there should be no more union or fraternity between the kingdom of Judah and the ten tribes? We have already said, that this word by changing the points may have the meaning which has been mentioned; for חבל, chebel, signifies a rope or binding. We must also bear in mind, that this is an instance of “last first” (ὕστερον πρότερον;) for he told us before that God, bidding adieu to the people, demanded his reward; this then ought to have been first mentioned: but this inversion of order is common in Hebrew. This verse then we are to read, as though it was placed before the last mission, by which God laid aside the office of a shepherd. ¹⁴⁶¹⁴⁶ There seems to be no necessity for this. The order is consistent as it is. The breaking of the first rod was the relinquishing of the ruling office; and the breaking of the second, which happened after the contemptuous price or reward had been offered, was the sending of an awful judgment — universal discord, instead of the union before preserved. The breaking of the brotherhood between Judah and Israel has been variously understood. Grotius and Newcome refer to past history, the separation of the ten tribes from that of Judah; but this cannot be understood here. Marckius, Henry, Scott, and Henderson agree in the main with Calvin, and consider that the interal discords are meant which prevailed among the Jews, who became united after their return from Babylon under one government, though many of them were descendants of the ten tribes. “When the staff of beauty,” says Henry, “is broken, the staff of bands will not hold long. An unchurched people will be soon an undone people.” — Ed.

I will come now to the passage in Matthew; for after having told us that the thirty pieces of silver were cast away by Judah, and that by them the Potter’s Field was bought, he adds, that this prediction of the Prophet was fulfilled. He does not indeed repeat the same words, but it is quite clear, that this passage was quoted,

“They gave,” he says, “the thirty silvering, the price of the valued, whom they of the children of Israel have valued.”
(Matthew 27:9.)

In substance then there is no doubt an agreement between the words of Matthew and those of the Prophet. But we must hold this principle, — that Christ was the true Jehovah from the beginning. As then the Son of God is the same in essence with the Father, and is with him the only true God, it is no wonder that what the Prophet figuratively expressed as having been done under the law by the ancient people, has been done to him literally in his own person: for as they had given to God thirty pieces of silver, a sordid price, as his just reward, so he complained that the labor he undertook in ruling them, was unjustly valued; and when Christ was sold for thirty pieces of silver, it was a visible specimen of this prophecy exhibited in his own person.

When Matthew says, that Christ was valued by the children of Israel, he charges the chosen people with impiety. The article ὁι, is to be here understood. The expression is indeed, ἀπὸ ὑιων Ισραὴλ; but the sentence is to be taken in this sense, — that he was valued at so low a price, not by barbarous nations, but by the very people who were of the children of Israel and of the seed of Abraham, as though he had said, “This wrong has been offered to God, not by strangers, but by a people whom he had chosen and adopted as his peculiar possession; and this wickedness is therefore less excusable.”

Then Matthew adds,

“They gave it for the Potter’s Field,
as the Lord had commanded me.” Matthew 27:7-10.

This part also well agrees with the prophecy. It is indeed certain that this money was not designedly given to buy a field, that the Jews might obey God; but we know that God executes his purposes by means of the wicked, though they neither think nor wish to do such a thing. But what does Zechariah say? Cast it, he says, to the potter; he does not say “To the field of the potter.” But we have explained for what purpose God commanded the thirty silvering to be cast to the potter; it was, that he might get bricks or tiles to repair the temple; and this was said in contempt, or by way of ridicule. Such also was the visible symbol of this as to the purchase of the field; for the potter, the seller of the field, knew not what he was doing; the Scribes and Pharisees thought nothing of fulfilling what had been predicted. But that it might be made evident that Christ was the true God who had from the beginning spoken by the Prophet, God, by setting the thing before their eyes, intended that there should be a visible fact or transaction, that he might as it were draw the attention of the Jews to what is here said. The Prophet proceeds, -

¹⁴⁶ There seems to be no necessity for this. The order is consistent as it is. The breaking of the first rod was the relinquishing of the ruling office; and the breaking of the second, which happened after the contemptuous price or reward had been offered, was the sending of an awful judgment — universal discord, instead of the union before preserved. The breaking of the brotherhood between Judah and Israel has been variously understood. Grotius and Newcome refer to past history, the separation of the ten tribes from that of Judah; but this cannot be understood here. Marckius, Henry, Scott, and Henderson agree in the main with Calvin, and consider that the interal discords are meant which prevailed among the Jews, who became united after their return from Babylon under one government, though many of them were descendants of the ten tribes. “When the staff of beauty,” says Henry, “is broken, the staff of bands will not hold long. An unchurched people will be soon an undone people.” — Ed.