I. The Person here represented as smitten by the sword of Divine justice is none other than the Messiah, the Christ. No other being but He is at once man and the fellow of Jehovah, the Lord of hosts; and He alone is the Shepherd whom God promised to set over His people Israel to feed them as a flock. Both these our Lord asserted for Himself (John 10:14; Matthew 26:63-64; Matthew 27:43).
II. The stroke inflicted on Him. This was the deadly stroke of Divine justice. As there is but one Being to whom the description of the prophet can refer, so there is but one event to which the command here given can be understood as pointing the slaying of Him who as the Good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep. His death was perpetrated by the "wicked hands" of men, but they were in this only the instruments by which God fulfilled His own purpose and counsel. He was a willing victim; He laid down His life of Himself, but He at the same time recognised the hand of God in the infliction, and held it as a fulfilment of the prediction here recorded.
III. The consequence to the flock of this smiting of the Shepherd. It was twofold. The sheep were to be scattered, but God was to turn back His hand over the humble and meek ones of the flock. The former of these our Lord applied to the dispersion of His disciples as consequent on His crucifixion; the other consequence was realised when the Lord, having been raised from the dead, showed Himself to individuals and to groups of them, and especially when, having, according to His promise given before His death, gone before them into Galilee, He met them there as a body to the number of about five hundred, and there showed Himself unto them alive from the dead, and received their worship as Lord of all.
IV. Though preserved and rescued the little flock would not escape all trouble and suffering. God would bring them through the fire, and refine and purify them in the furnace of affliction, and the result of this discipline would be their recovery from all apostasy, and their final establishment in the Divine favour, and their full union to Jehovah as His people.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Zechariah's Visions and Warnings,p. 286; see also Homiletic Magazine,vol. xi., p. 161.
References: Zechariah 13:9. Homiletic Magazine,vol. x., p. 8; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 61.Zechariah 14:1-11. W. L. Alexander, Homiletic Magazine,vol. xi., p. 357. Zechariah 14:5. J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve,p. 14.Zechariah 14:6; Zechariah 14:7. B. Gregory, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 49; W. M. Taylor, Old Testament Outlines,p. 287.