Zechariah 11 WBT
Summary: This chapter opens with a taunt-song over Lebanon's cedars and Bashan's oaks burning, images of coming devastation, then shifts into a strange enacted allegory: Zechariah is told to shepherd a flock doomed for slaughter, bought and sold by merchants who feel no pity for them. He takes two staffs, naming one "Favor" and the other "Union," and breaks the first to annul the covenant with the peoples, then, after being paid a contemptuous thirty pieces of silver for his labor — money he throws to the potter in the temple — breaks the second staff, symbolizing the collapse of brotherhood between Judah and Israel. The chapter ends with the LORD raising up instead a "worthless shepherd" who abandons the flock, neither seeking the lost nor healing the injured, whose arm and eye will themselves be struck.
1Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
2Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are laid waste: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down.
3[There is] a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is laid waste.
4Thus saith the LORD my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
5Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed [be] the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
6For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD: but lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver [them].
7And I will feed the flock of slaughter, [even] you, O poor of the flock. And I took to me two staffs; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.
8Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
9Then said I, I will not feed you: that which dieth, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat, every one the flesh of another.
10And I took my staff, [even] Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
11And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it [was] the word of the LORD.
12And I said to them, If ye think good, give [me] my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty [pieces] of silver.
13And the LORD said to me, Cast it to the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at by them. And I took the thirty [pieces] of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
14Then I cut asunder my other staff, [even] Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15And the LORD said to me, Take to thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
16For lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, [who] shall not visit those that are cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
17Woe to the idle shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword [shall be] upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be wholly dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.
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