How God teaches us (Zechariah 11)
Zech 11:4-17
Few stories from the Bible are as much loved as the parable of the prodigal son. We tend to focus on the father running to embrace his long-lost son at the end, but the beginning is thought-provoking, too. The downhill progress of the younger son reminds me of Western culture that has increasingly turned its back on God. Like the father, so God lets us have a taste of what life feels like without Him. There are seemingly many benefits to a life unhampered by God, the moral freedom to live as we please foremost among them. However, when we make our own rules and try to create our meaning and identity without reference to God, the results are catastrophic. Despite our freedoms, wealth and comforts, more people in our societies struggle with psychological trauma, loneliness, confusion and emptiness, living a life without meaning or purpose.
When God leaves us to our own devices
In our reading, we see a similar pattern, where God teaches His people by letting them find out the consequences of their choices. The prophet symbolically enacts and reviews Israel’s history that led to the exile to explain where God’s people are in his time.[1] The flock was doomed to slaughter from the start because of the greedy shepherds, Israel’s leaders, who made decisions that profited them rather than the people (Zech 11:5-6). While the word for ‘pity’ (ḥamal, v.6) can express emotion, here it more likely means ‘to spare’ (e.g. 1 Sam 15:3). Thus, the issue is not God’s lack of compassion (cf. Zech 10:6), but His resolve not to spare the people and save them from their own folly anymore. He will let them oppress each other (literally ‘fall into each other’s hand’) because the people are like their leaders in abusing their power over one another.
Israel’s history in review
The prophet pastoring the sheep represents God as Shepherd here and his two staffs symbolise His covenant commitment and the unity the people enjoyed as one kingdom (under Saul, David and Solomon); benefits God has revoked (Zech 11:7, 10, 14).[2] The details are opaque in places (who are the three shepherds annihilated in one month?),[3] but the decision to let the flock die and the gruesome allusion to cannibalism (Zech 11:9) look to the siege of Jerusalem, when mothers ate their young to avert starvation (cf. Lam 2:20). In the suffering there are those ‘afflicted’ or ‘humbled’ (Zech 11:11; the same word translated as ‘humble’ or ‘gentle’ describing the king on a donkey in Zech 9:9), caught up in the evil of others and in judgement. Yet, the majority of the flock are no better than its leaders. The thirty shekels for wages (Zech 11:12; about 300g silver or 11 ounces) is not a small sum even though it is a value placed on the life of a slave (Exod 21:32). Nevertheless, in the light of God’s identity, it is symbolic of the contempt His people held Him in. The final image is of a worthless shepherd raised by God to devour the sheep (Zech 11:15-16), a possible reference to Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who took the people into exile. Yet even here, there is a glimmer of hope because God judges such a shepherd (Zech 11:17).
The grace of God
The message of this review of Israel’s history is sobering. The people who despised and rejected their God ended up with immoral and oppressive leaders and their own evil devoured and consumed them in the end. God warns us against sin not because He is an unbending moralist, but because sin destroys life and God’s desire is that we may live and flourish. It is the nature of the universe He created that we eventually reap what we sow, and the fruit of sin is death. Yet, it is against this shocking background that we should read the previous chapters (Zechariah 9-10) about the promised restoration and godly king, and the reuniting of God’s people (Israel and Judah). This contrast should shake us to the core because, like the father of the prodigal son, the same God who lets us taste the bitter consequences of sin is also the One who, though we once rejected Him, still seeks us out in compassion and grace.
To the question of the New Testament fulfilment of this passage, I shall return in my next post.
[1] I largely follow here Anthony R. Petterson, who treats the passage as referring to the past and leading up to Zechariah’s time. Alternatives include seeing this as relating entirely to contemporary tensions in the postexilic community or referring to the future either in the Greek or Roman period leading up to Jesus. However, nothing in the description can be straightforwardly identified with events or personalities in Zechariah’s present or in the future, so I am inclined to agree with Petterson that the passage gives a review of Israel’s past. He argues that several elements are hard to square with other prophetic books (as well as Zechariah itself) if the events described here are still in the future. For instance, Zechariah promises the restoration and reunion of Judah and Israel (Zech 10:6 cf. Ezek 37:15-23), whereas here the two kingdoms are torn apart (Zech 11:14). Elsewhere, Zechariah speaks of suffering for God’s people but those prophecies always end in salvation, whereas here they are concluded in decimation. Haggai, Zechariah & Malachi, AOTC 25 (Nottingham: Apollos, 2015), 241-243. Nevertheless, the future tense in places creates ambiguity as to the timeframe, which may suggest a pattern that is repeated more than once. I shall return to this in my next post on the NT fulfilment of this prophecy.
[2] The reference to breaking the covenant with ‘all the peoples’ (qol-ha-’ammim) is sometimes translated ‘all the nations’ but the context suggests that this is God’s flock (Israel and Judah and their tribes).
[3] There are numerous suggestions, including one month as a symbolic short time and the number three standing for all the evil shepherds. However, the definite article (the three kings) suggests specific ones and they may refer to the last three kings of Judah who were ‘eradicated’ (NASB ‘annihilated’; Zech 11:8). Jehoiakim died during the first siege of Jerusalem (598 BC), and his son, Jehoiachin reigned for three months before he was taken captive into Babylon. Zedekiah then reigned for 11 years before he, too, was taken to Babylon. While 11 years or so is not as short as ‘one month’, viewed from Israel’s long history, it was a relatively short time. Another possibility is that it refers to Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, whose two sons were killed before he himself was blinded and taken to Babylon, thus becoming incapable of future rule.
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