Unwanted Shepherd

III A Series of Revelatory Oracles

C Rejection, Text: 11:1-17

Title: Unwanted Shepherd

Introduction

The message of this portion of Zechariah is probably summed up best by the Apostle John in his gospel. In John 1:10-13, He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. There is a reference in this portion of Scripture which unmistakably refers to the betrayal of our Lord. It is so specific that it tells hundreds of years in advance the exact price paid by the chief priests and the Sanhedrin for Judas to betray Jesus. In verses 12 and 13 God says it its the price His people put upon His head, 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. 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. We read in Matthew 26:14-16, Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot —went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. And again we read in Matthew 27:3-5, When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.” So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. This remarkable report of the price of betrayal so long beforehand is, of course, an interesting and exciting fact, but in Exodus 21:32, 30 pieces of silver was the price of a slave, so when Zechariah calls the amount a “handsome price” this is sarcasm. In this link between prophecy and fulfillment we find the meaning of the whole passage which is Israel’s rejection of Jahweh. We shall view this in three stages along with the prophet, the coming, the call, and the curse.

I The Coming

In Chapter 9 we read of the advent of Messiah fulfilled on Palm Sunday as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Here there is neither peaceful mission or rousing acclaim. The coming here in verses 1-3 is a coming to judgment on Israel, Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars! Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen; the stately trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan; the dense forest has been cut down! 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. From the north in Lebanon where the mighty famed cedars grow the winds of God’s judgment sweep down on Israel in preparation for Messiah’s coming and rejection. If the cedars of Lebanon cannot stand, what else can? The cedars of Lebanon were evergreen coniferous trees growing up to 130 ft tall, with trunks up to 8 feet 2 inches in diameter. For the Middle East these are really big trees. The juniper and oaks and the growth along the Jordan river haven’t got a chance. Everything will be swept away. In the timeline of the prophet the nation has already rejected its Messiah and so we are probably looking at the Roman invasion and the accompanying destruction. it is the teaching of the New Testament and of Jesus in particular that this is a terrible time of tribulation. Jesus primary objective in his prophesying was to warn about the destruction of Israel, the old covenant and Jerusalem and the temple. He promised to build a new people, a new Israel, and a new temple which is the church. Listen to His warning in Matthew 24: 15-21, So when you see standing in the holy place “the abomination that causes desolation,” spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the horror of the Roman devastation of Jerusalem. The effects of that are seen in our next section in which Messiah assumes the pastoral care of the theocracy. So far reaching is this wind of judgment that in the far south on a plateau several hundred feet above the dead sea a group of Jewish extremists overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, additional members of the group and numerous Jewish families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop, using it as a base for harassing the Romans. Ultimately Masada was isolated and blockaded by the Romans and the people committed mass suicide. The story has been told many times in books and films, but it illustrates the merciless determination of the Romans to exterminate the Jewish opposition.

II The Call

The pastoral care of Israel involved protecting the faithful but punishing the unfaithful. This is a flock “doomed” to slaughter. We read of it in verses 4-14, This is what the Lord my God says: “Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter. 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. 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.” 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. In one month I got rid of the three shepherds. The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them 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.” Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations. 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. 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. 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. Then I broke my second staff called Union, breaking the family bond between Judah and Israel. The shepherds involved here are the leaders of the people who have betrayed them, “Their own shepherds do not spare them.” There were several quasi-religious, political parties in Israel including the Herodians, Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, chief priests and the high priest, and zealots. Most of the time these people cared only about themselves, “Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the Lord, I am rich!’” They also fought among themselves and encouraged conflicts throughout the populace, “I will give everyone into the hands of their neighbors and their king.” The mass of the people were abandoned by God and when the Romans besieged the city there was so little respect for others and for human life that they resorted to cannibalism according to Josephus and our text, “Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” Thomas Moore writes, “The most terrible factions that have ever torn out the vitals of a commonwealth appeared in Judea in amidst the terrors of invasion without and the horrors of fratricide within this prophecy was fulfilled. The staff of protection from evil abroad (favor) and the staff of continued union at home (union) were both broken and the double horrors of foreign and domestic war paid the fearful penalty of rejecting the Lord of life.” The covenant with the nations was to protect Israel, and that was over. The covenant with Israel was broken is symbolized in the separation of the northern and southern kingdoms. We have seen the meaning of the thirty pieces of silver, that it was an insult and a mockery. Thus they dismissed their God and he dismissed them. The remnant of Jews who had believed in Messiah Jesus were delivered because Christ had warned them in Matthew 24, So when you see standing in the holy place “the abomination that causes desolation,” spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. They fled and Eusebius, the church historian writes, “But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella, and when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.”

III The Curse

In a new symbolic action Zechariah is to picture a false shepherd who will rob and destroy the people. Remember how Jesus, the Good Shepherd, described such people in John 10:7-10, Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. This describes the character of the false shepherd Zechariah is picturing in verses 15-17, Then the Lord said to me, “Take again the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 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. “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!” Notice that Jesus said that all that came before him were thieves and robbers, which is to say that there is only one Deliverer and one Savior. So are those that come after Him because the New Testament is full of warnings against false prophets. These are all Antichrists of whom there are many according to I John 4:3, Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. They themselves are emblematic of human governments which according to Psalm 2:1-3 universally oppose God, Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” Whether this culminates in a single individual is not as important as realizing that what went on in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China and is going on right now in many places including your own country is this same opposition to the government of God. In our text the reference is to the anti-Christian totalitarian government by the pagan Roman empire which continued for hundreds of years in the persecution of the true seed of Abraham in the church. The climax is in Revelation 13 which describes the activity of the Antichrist and the false prophet doing all those bad things mentioned in verse 16, “ 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.” The fate of this false shepherd is predicted here in verse 17. It will happen to all those who tell lies and persecute the people of God. At the coming of Jesus every knee shall bow and the antichrist’s arm will be completely withered, and his right eye totally blinded! In other words he will be rendered impotent. According to Paul in II Thessalonians 2:8, he will be “overthrown by the breath of Jesus’ mouth and destroyed by the splendor of His coming.” In Revelation 20:10, the apostle John writes, And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. In his book “Forever Triumphant,” F.J. Huegel told a story that came out of World War II. After General Jonathan Wainwright was captured by the Japanese, he was held prisoner in a Manchurian concentration camp. He became “a broken, crushed, hopeless, starving man.” Finally the Japanese surrendered and the war ended. A United States army colonel was sent to the camp to announce personally to the general that Japan had been defeated and that he was free and in command. After Wainwright heard the news, he returned to his quarters and was confronted by some guards who began to mistreat him as in the past. Wainwright, however, with the news of the allied victory still fresh in his mind, declared with authority, “No, I am in command here! These are my orders.” Huegel observed that from that moment on, General Wainwright was in control. Have you been informed of the victory of your Savior in the greatest conflict of the ages? Then rise up to assert your rights. Claim the victory in Jesus’ Name. We must learn to stand on resurrection ground, reckoning dead the old-creation life over which Satan has power, and living in the new creation over which Satan has no power whatever. In the third century, Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, wrote to his friend Donatus: “It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians… and I am one of them.”