Exegesis Help

I recently finished reading Zechariah, and I came across quite a few passages that I don’t understand. My practice in such encounters is to ignore the parts I don’t understand, but this time I decided to spend at least some time investigating. One of these passages is Zech. 11:4-17, which reads (in the ESV)

 

“Thus said the LORD my God: ‘Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, “Blessed be the LORD, I have become rich,” and their own shepherds have no pity on them. For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, declares the LORD. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.’

 

“So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. So I said, ‘I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.’

 

“And I took my  staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. Then I said to them, ‘If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.’ And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the LORD said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’ – the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

 

“Then the LORD said to me, ‘Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs. Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be wholly withered, his right eye utterly blinded!’”

 

I looked this passage up in a commentary, and the commentator said that this passage is one of the more difficult to interpret. Before going through the parts I don’t understand, I’ll give some context. Zechariah was prophesying to the Israelites who returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. According to Ezra, God used Zechariah (and Haggai) to stir up the people to rebuild the temple. It seems there were two obstacles keeping the Israelites form rebuilding the temple. According to the book of Ezra, the Israelites experienced opposition from the surrounding nations, and according to Haggai, many people were complacent and preoccupied with building their own houses. Also, the 4 verses preceding the above passage is a judgment on Lebanon.

 

Some of the questions I have are the following:

 

1. What or who is the flock doomed to be slaughtered? Is it Lebanon? Is it the Israelites? Were some leaders of Israel selling some of the people as slaves to other Israelites? Nehemiah accuses some of the leaders of doing this, but I think Nehemiah came years after Zechariah prophesied.

 

1. Is Zechariah tending an actual flock of sheep, or is he watching over a group of people?

 

1. Who are the sheep traders? Who do they represent?

 

1. Who are the three shepherds that Zechariah destroys?

 

1. I realize there is a connection between the thirty pieces of silver in this passage and the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas by the Pharisees, but does this mean that Zechariah represents both Jesus and Judas at the same time?

 

1. Why did God tell Zechariah to throw the silver to the potter? And why is there a potter in the house of God?

 

1. What is the significance of the two staffs? Is this annulling of the covenant something that already occurred.

 

 

Here is what I found out from the commentary (which was published in 1970, by the way):

 

1. The commentator assumes the flock represents Israel. I suppose this is in line with the fact that the staff Union represents the union between Israel (the northern tribes) and Judah.
2. The commentator said that it is not clear from the passage whether Zechariah is tending an actual flock of sheep or a group of people.
3. The commentator says that the Hebrew word that is translated as sheep traders is traffickers, and identifies them with the leaders of Israel.
4. The commentator relates the three shepherds to the offices of prophet, priest, and king.
5. According to the commentator, thirty pieces of silver is a contemptuously small amount of pay. It is the compensation sum for an injured slave (Ex. 21:32). However, I am not sure if this information answers my question.
6. According to the commentator, there is no satisfactory explanation to the potter reference.
7. The commentator says that the first staff represents the covenant relation of grace between God and His people and that the second staff represents the resulting union among the people of God.

 

The commentator writes that the Zechariah is a type of the Messiah. Jesus comes as the true shepherd and exposes the false shepherds. The rejection of Zechariah is fulfilled in the rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people. In the last part of chapter 11, God’s response to the flock’s rejection of the good shepherd is to set over them a worthless shepherd. According to the commentator, the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is a result of worthless shepherds ruling over the Jews. Does the breaking of the staffs then point to the rejection of the Jews that Paul addresses in Romans 9-11? This question and questions 5 and 6 are the ones that are bugging me the most right now. What are your thoughts about this passage?