Flock of the Slaughter
But Zechariah 11 is still more solemn, and brings other and deeper elements into the final scene. “Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are spoiled: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down” (vss. 1-2). They are vivid figures of judgment on the outward strength and the dignity of the Jews. The rulers are in grief and dismay at their spoliation when their hopes once more beat high. Their river, even then as ever figuring national resource and power, suffered no less. “There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled” (vs. 3). The nations are gathering against Jerusalem. “Thus saith Jehovah my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter” (vs. 4). “Flock of the slaughter” means those of Israel that men devoted to persecution, to whom the Lord’s heart specially turned: “Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be Jehovah; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not” (vs. 5). These godly Jews are in peculiar distress and danger. While the Jews themselves as a whole are hated by the nations, the true-hearted ones are hateful to their own brethren. Thus their state is outwardly deplorable. “For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah: 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” (vs. 6). It is the final trouble of Jerusalem. “And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock” (vs. 7).
The crisis brings to light a remarkable under-current. What lay at the bottom? and how can one account for such a state of things? The prophet accordingly in a symbolical method, which shows us the same hand and mind as the earlier part of the book where it abounds, proceeds to explain how it came to pass. “And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock” (vs. 7). As we saw with Joshua and Zerubbabel before, so now the prophet personates first of all the Messiah, and then the Anti-Messiah. From verse 7 to 14 he personates the Christ; from verse 15 to the end he personates Antichrist, as he was directed.
Beauty and Bands
“I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock” (vs. 7). These staves represent the authority that properly belongs to the Messiah. The first staff he breaks in verse 10. This is in view of the awful condition of the Jews. “Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me” (vs. 8). There was no sympathy between Christ and those who led or misled the people—the shepherds, as they are called, who do not answer to Christian ministers, as the ignorant are apt to fancy, but mean the chief government of the nation. “Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and the rest eat every one the flesh of another” (vs. 9). Then Jehovah Messiah, personated by the prophet, takes His staff, even Beauty, and cuts it asunder, that He might break His covenant that He had made with all peoples. It is not the people of Israel, but all the nations in relationship with Him.
In short the rejection of the Messiah made it impossible to gather all nations. This seems a plain allusion to the great prophecy of Jacob: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet till Shiloh come; and to Him shall the gathering [or obedience] of the peoples be.” The condition of the Jews made it no longer a question of accomplishing this great and blessed purpose of His kingdom. The Hebrew word in verse 10 signifies “peoples”; and so it is in Gen. 49:10: “To Him shall the gathering of the peoples be.” It is very important for the proper understanding of both. One letter makes all the difference.
Beauty Broken When the Jews Rejected Jesus
Thus the unreadiness morally of the Jews for the Messiah made it impossible to gather the peoples. Their sight was abhorrent to Him, and in point of fact He was not tolerable to them. There was no groundwork therefore for gathering the peoples. It could not be then and must be postponed, but not abandoned save only for the present. So the staff Beauty was broken, the image of the authority of God to carry out this end now. But He will surely put it in force on behalf of all the peoples whom He will gather around Israel when they bow and bless their Messiah. For the time it disappears. The staff was broken in that day; and so the poor of the flock who waited upon Him knew that it was the word of Jehovah. His secret is with those that fear Him.
Then comes another development far more awful and of endless moment. “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give Me My price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for My price thirty pieces of silver” (vs. 12). It was not only that the purpose of gathering the nations was postponed, but Christ also was sold unto death by His own! and at what a price! “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11). The consequence was the other staff had to be broken. “Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands” (vs. 14). This went far beyond interfering with the gathering of the peoples; its effect was “to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel” (vs. 14). God would not even gather Israel now. Not only would He not gather the nations round the Messiah according to His earthly purpose of blessing; but He would not even assemble the Jewish people. Thus the rejection of Jesus during His life made it impossible to gather the Gentiles, the rejection of Jesus in His death broke for the time all hopes of gathering Israel. The Jews must be scattered instead of Israel being gathered. All such plans were shattered for the time.
Final Struggle
This introduces at once the final struggle. The whole of the wonderful dealings of God with Christianity are passed over. They are not, and could not be, the proper theme of Old Testament prophecy, though words here and there leave room for and illustrate most important points and prove that all was known from the beginning. The immense system of the church, the mystery of Christ, fills up the gap between verses 14 and 15, which last at once plunges us into the dismal circumstances at the end of the age. “And Jehovah said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd” (vs. 15). Having brought in Christ up to His death, now he brings in the Antichrist as it were straight upon Him. Obviously there is a moral link and a real allusive contrast between the two. So He Himself tells the Jews in John 5 that if they would not have Him who came in the Father’s name, they would receive the one who comes in his own name. If in the evangelist the two are brought together, we need not wonder that Zechariah does the same after his manner. “Take unto thee the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still” (vss. 15-16). The exact contrary Christ did; “but he [the Antichrist—sad contrast!] shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces. Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened” (vss. 16-17). The judgment of God shall be upon him. It is described here in terms suitable to a shepherd; but we know how it will be accomplished in the Antichrist.