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11. Two Shepherds

¹ Open your doors, Lebanon,
   so that fire may devour your cedars!
² Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen;
   the stately trees are ruined!
Wail, oaks of Bashan;
   the dense forest has been cut down!
³ Listen to the wail of the shepherds;
   their rich pastures are destroyed!
Listen to the roar of the lions;
   the lush thicket of the Jordan is ruined!

Two Shepherds

⁴ This is what the LORD my God says: “Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter. ⁵ Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the LORD, I am rich!’ Their own shepherds do not spare them. ⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the people of the land,” declares the LORD. “I will give everyone into the hands of their neighbors and their king. They will devastate the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their hands.”

⁷ So I shepherded the flock marked for slaughter, particularly the oppressed of the flock. Then I took two staffs and called one Favor and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock. ⁸ In one month I got rid of the three shepherds.

The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them ⁹ and said, “I will not be your shepherd. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.”

¹⁰ Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations. ¹¹ It was revoked on that day, and so the oppressed of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the LORD.

¹² I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.

¹³ And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the LORD.

¹⁴ Then I broke my second staff called Union, breaking the family bond between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the LORD said to me, “Take again the equipment of a foolish shepherd. ¹⁶ For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the choice sheep, tearing off their hooves.

    ¹⁷ “Woe to the worthless shepherd,
   who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm and his right eye!
   May his arm be completely withered,
   his right eye totally blinded!”

He confirms the same truth, but a metaphor is introduced: for he says, that when he freed himself from the office of a shepherd, he broke the two rods, even Beauty and Gathering. He speaks of the first staff, because things were in a confusion in Judea, before the people were wholly cut off; for the dispersion did not immediately take place, so that there was no sort of social state among the Jews; but social order was so deranged, that it was sufficiently evident that they were not ruled by God. By degrees the purity of doctrine was corrupted, and a flood of errors crept in; superstition gained great strength. When things were in this state of confusion, the pastoral staff was broken, which is called, Beauty. This verse then contains no more than an explanation of the last: and hence also he says, That broken might be the covenant which I had made, that is, that it might be now quite evident that this people are not ruled by my hand and authority.

Some interpreters extend to the whole world what is here said of nations, and think that the same thing is meant by Zechariah as that which is said in Hosea 2:1, -that the Lord made a covenant with the beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven, that no harm should happen to his people; but the comparison is not suitable. It is then probable, that God here speaks only of the posterity of Abraham; nor is it to be wondered at that they are called nations, for even so Moses says,

“Nations from thee shall be born,” (Genesis 17:6.)

and this was done for the purpose of setting forth the greatness of God’s favor; for the ten tribes were as so many nations among whom God reigned. It seemed incredible, that from one man, not only a numerous family, but many nations should proceed. The real meaning then seems to be, that God testified that he would no longer be the leader of that people; for when order was trodden under foot, the covenant of God was made void. Why indeed was that covenant continued, and what was its design, except to keep things aright, in a fit and suitable condition? Thus in the church, God regards order, so that nothing should be done rashly, according to every man’s humor. This then was the beginning of that dispersion, which at length followed when the people had fallen off from the order which God had appointed. ¹⁴¹¹⁴¹ “All the nations” are considered to be the heathen nations by Michaelis, Newcome, and Henderson; but the meaning in this case is very obscure. Though the word here used, “peoples,” or nations, commonly designates the Gentile world, yet there are instances in which it is applied to the tribes of Israel. See 1 Kings 22:28; Joel 2:6 Blayney proposes to connect “all nations” with “cut asunder,” and renders [אם], “before,” “and cut it asunder, to break the covenant which I had made, before all the nations:” but interviewing clauses of this kind are quite foreign to the character of the Hebrew language. — Ed.