Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
Awake. O sword, against my Shepherd ... smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
Expounded by Christ as referring to Himself (Matthew 26:31-32). What is expressed by the prophet imperatively, "Smite," is expressed as an assertion by the Lord in quoting it, "I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." For when God, "by his determinate counsel," delivered up Jesus to be smitten, He Himself smote Him. Thus Jesus' form of quotation is the divine commentary on the prophecy. The act of the sword, and of the guilty men who wielded it against Jesus, though they knew it not, and are therefore responsible for the awful sin, is God's act (Acts 2:23; Acts 3:18; Acts 4:28). Thus it is a resumption of the prophecy of His betrayal (Zechariah 11:4; Zechariah 11:10; Zechariah 11:13-14), and the subsequent punishment of the Jews. It explains the mystery why He, who came to be a blessing, was cut off while bestowing the blessing. God regards sin in such a fearful light that He spared not His own co-equal Son in the one Godhead, when that Son bore the sinners guilt.
Awake. Compare a similar address to the sword of justice personified (Jeremiah 47:6-7). So the prophecy, Isaiah 6:9, "Hear ye," is imperative; the fulfillment, as declared by Jesus, is future (Matthew 13:14), "ye shall hear."
Sword - the symbol of judicial power, the highest exercise of which is to take away the life of the condemned (Romans 13:4). "The wicked" are often made unconsciously to be "a sword of God's" (Psalms 17:13). Not merely a show or expression of justice (as Socinians think) is implied here, but an actual execution of it on Messiah the Shepherd, the substitute for the sheep, by God as judge. Yet God in this shows His love as gloriously as His justice. For God calls Messiah "my shepherd" - i:e., provided "from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8) for sinners, by my love to them, and ever the object of my love (Isaiah 59:16), though judicially "smitten of God" (Isaiah 53:4) for their sins.
And against the man that is my fellow - literally, the man of my union х geber (H1397) `ªmiytiy (H5997)]. The Hebrew for "man" х geber (H1397)] is 'a mighty man,' one peculiarly man in his noblest ideal. "My fellow" -
i.e., my associate [from 'aamaah, to bind together. One not merely a neighbour in location, but one intimately conjoined]. 'My equal' (DeWette: a remarkable admission from a Rationalist). 'My nearest kinsman' (Hengstenberg). (John 10:30; John 14:10-11; Philippians 2:6.)
And the sheep shall be scattered. The scattering of Christ's disciples on His apprehension was the partial fulfillment (Matthew 26:31), a pledge of the dispersion of the Jewish nation (once the Lord's sheep, Psalms 100:3), consequent on their crucifixion of Him. The Jews, thought "scattered" are still the Lord's "sheep," awaiting their being "gathered" by Him (Isaiah 40:9-11).
And I will turn mine hand upon the little ones - i:e., I will interpose in favour of (cf. the phrase in a good sense, Isaiah 1:25) "the little ones" - namely, the humble followers of Christ from among the Jewish Church, despised by the world: "the poor of the flock" (Zechariah 11:7; Zechariah 11:11); comforted after His crucifixion at the resurrection (John 20:17-20): saved again, by a special interposition, from the destruction of Jerusalem, having retired to Pella when Cestius Gallus so unaccountably withdrew from Jerusalem. Ever since there has been a Jewish "remnant" of "the little ones," "according to the election of grace" The hand of Yahweh was turned in wrath upon the Shepherd, that His hand might be turned in grace upon the little ones.