CRITICAL NOTES.
Zechariah 11:7. I] The prophet executed the task committed to him by shepherding a sad (poor) flock. Two staves] “to set forth the kind of double salvation bestowed upon the nation through the care of the Good Shepherd” [Keil]. Beauty] Loveliness or favour (Psalms 27:4; Psalms 90:17); which Jehovah will give them in protecting them from foes. Bands] Internal union and friendship. Easterns tied a cord or band as a symbol of confederacy (cf. Psalms 119:61, marg,).
Zechariah 11:8.] First act of shepherd. Cut off] Lit. cause to disappear, destroy, or annihilate (Exodus 23:23). Three] orders—civil authorities, priests, and prophets (cf. Jeremiah 2:8; Jeremiah 2:18); others, three rulers of Asmonean line—who died by violent death in a short space of time—Hircanus, Alexander, and Antigonus. Loathed] Was straitened for them: “the Divine grief at the misery of his people” [Pusey]. Abhorred] “Nauseated me.”
HOMILETICS
THE TWO STAVES; OR BEAUTY AND BANDS.—Zechariah 11:7
The two staves are differently explained, indicating, according to some, the double care of Christ for his flock. Henderson takes them as symbols of “the two modes of treatment” which the Jews had experienced “under the guidance and protection of God.” Beauty has been rendered grace or favour. Taken in its connection (Zechariah 11:10), it means the covenant of God, with all its blessings and special favours. Bands signify unity or brotherhood, which binds men together (Zechariah 11:14).
I. The staff Beauty. “The one I called Beauty.” This symbolizes—
1. God’s gifts to men. The gifts of pastors, the wisdom of senators, and the power of princes come from God.
2. God’s presence with men. Purity of worship and principle in the nation—holiness in character and usefulness in the Church—are beauties which attract and adorn. The image of God, the beauties of holiness, are most desirable. “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.”
3. God’s defence of men. God’s covenant was a pledge of defence to them as long as they kept it. Thus God’s favour is better than armies and fleets, wealth and valour, in the protection of a people. This alone beautifies and strengthens. “For God is my defence, and the God of my mercy.”
II. The staff Bands. “The other I called Bands.” Binders symbolize the unity or brotherhood among men.
1. This alone is the gift of God. In the gospel we have a basis of brotherhood, and motives to cement it. The bands of friendship and marriage, the contracts of business, and the treaties of nations may be broken. But in Christ we have a living, universal, and everlasting brotherhood of humanity.
2. How strong art men when thus bound together. Foes without cannot destroy unity within. “Union gives strength and firmness to the humblest aids.”
3. How weak are men when not thus bound together. Factions and civil discords in the nation, divisions in the Church, and discords in the family, will bring ruin. Nothing can beautify or defend a broken people. “Men’s hearts,” says Carlyle, “ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against the evil thing only.” If you wish to retain strength and beauty, co-operate together, in obedience to the Great Shepherd, and under the rule of Beauty and Bands. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”
THE SHEPHERD PROPHET.—Zechariah 11:7-8
I. The charge. The command was given, “Feed the sheep” (Zechariah 11:4). Eagerly does the prophet undertake the duty, and become a type of Christ. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God.” But notice the condition of the flock.
1. A helpless flock. In the hands of cruel shepherds; bought and sold by strangers, oppressed by native rulers.
2. A miserable flock. “Poor of the flock,” lit. truly miserable sheep. Men may be poor without being miserable. But the Jewish people were reduced to a most unhappy condition. As in the days of Christ, they were harassed and worried (Matthew 9:36); lost sheep (Matthew 10:36). The poor are not despised, the lost are sought out, and the wounded are healed by the gospel. “I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick.”
II. The method of executing the charge. “And I fed the flock” (Zechariah 11:7). He performed, like Christ, the work of a good shepherd to the Jewish nation.
1. He furnished himself with staves. “I took unto me two staves.” He did all he could to bind them together in unity and obedience, and direct them to the grace and favour of God.
2. He destroyed the oppressors of the flock. “I cut off three shepherds.” “These,” says a critic, “were the persons of influence by whom the affairs of the nation were conducted, and to whose wickedness, which reached its culminating point when they crucified the Lord of glory the destruction of the state is to be ascribed.”
3. He was grieved in soul at the condition of the flock. “My soul loathed them.” He witnessed the fearful wickedness of rulers and teachers, He was deeply pained, “vexed from day to day with their unlawful deeds.” This was the feeling of Christ, and will be the feeling of all true shepherds. Sad the wickedness which creates tears of the Saviour! If “every human feeling is greater and larger than the exciting cause,” as Coleridge says, what must be the loathing of him who sees the hearts of all men! “He knew what was in man.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Zechariah 11:7. I fed the flock. Christ the King of men. The poor in spirit are chosen to be rich in faith, and heirs of his kingdom. “Jehovah in Christ did the work of a Good Shepherd to the Jewish nation during the whole of his earthly ministry (cf. John 10:11-14; John 14:6; Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25)” [Wordsworth].
Zechariah 11:8. My soul loathed them.
1. Divine compassion. “Loathed,” lit was straitened, the opposite of enlarged towards them, in love and tender compassion (2 Corinthians 6:11-12). “His soul was grieved (shortened) for the misery of Israel” (Judges 10:16).
2. Human abhorrence. “Their soul also abhorred me.” “My soul did not loathe them first, but their soul first despised me, therefore my soul abhorred them.” The soul which drives away God’s good Spirit comes at last to loathe him and the thought and mention of him [Pusey]. No room was left by them for the grace of God, and his favours were rejected [Calvin]. Learn that unbelief creates a mutual distaste between God and the sinner. “Their soul nauseated me” is the real meaning—that alienation from God will lead to God’s withdrawal from men. “I will not feed them” (Zechariah 11:9).
3. The impenitent flock and the grieved Shepherd. God is infinitely happy and incapable of grief, yet acts as if he felt the sins and miseries of men. “The Good Shepherd lost patience with their perverse impenitence, and they, on the other hand, loathed him for his spirituality and holiness” [Lange]. Christ cannot be rejected with impunity. Even the Jews, who “did it ignorantly in unbelief,” paid a terrible penalty for their crime; how much more terrible will be the punishment of those who have all their unbelief without any of their ignorance [Id.].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 11
Zechariah 11:7 (10 and 14). The prophetic narrative which follows differs in its form, in some respects, from the symbolic actions of the prophets, and from Zechariah’s own visions. The symbolic actions of the prophets are actions of their own: this involves acts which it would be impossible to represent, except as a sort of drama. Such are the central points, the feeding of the flock, which yet are intelligent men who understand God’s doings: the cutting off of the three shepherds; the asking for the price; the unworthy price offered; the casting it aside. It differs from Zechariah’s own visions, in that they are for the most part exhibited to the eye, and Zechariah’s own part is simply to inquire their meaning and learn it, and receive further information. Here he himself is the actor, yet representing Another, who alone could cut off shepherds, abandon the people to mutual destruction, annulling the covenant which he had made [Pusey].