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Introduction
So opens chapter 11 of the Book of Zechariah.
You can turn there in your Bibles, that’s page 542 of the white Bible in your pew.
Zechariah 11.
It’s not a pleasant opening, is it?
Fire consuming the city, trees falling, wailing shepherds, roaring lions.
It is most certainly a promise of impending judgment.
Chapter 10 ended on a joyous note about the ultimate future of the remnant of Israel: YHWH will pass through the sea of distress instead of them.
He will strike the waves of the sea so they are not struck.
They will be strengthened in the name of YHWH.
They will walk in His name.
And then almost like a moment of whiplash we are snapped back into the present reality of Israel.
Things are not good.
The people are falling back into their idolatrous ways, being led by wicked shepherds.
We need a Good Shepherd.
We need someone to lead us in the ways of righteousness.
And God loved us in this way, John says, that he gave His one and only Son.
The Good Shepherd came in love.
And God justifies and sanctifies us through the Good Shepherd.
In our text this morning we are going to see pictures of 3 types of shepherds.
2 bad and 1 good.
The bad shepherds bring destruction, but the Good Shepherd brings life through His love.
The Fallen Shepherds
Look back at verse 3 with me:
This is a prophecy of destruction against the city of Jerusalem and it’s leaders.
The destruction will be so complete, the picture is that you will be able to hear the lions roar because there will be no more civilization left.
Utter destruction.
The leaders of the city, the shepherds, will wail because their glory is destroyed.
They will howl in mourning and despair because their glory has been ruined.
The false foundation upon which they had built their leadership is going to be torn down and they will fall with it.
These shepherds—Israel’s leaders—found their glory and their dignity ruined by defeat and destruction.
They had depended on their own strength, their own wisdom, their own resources, and led the people astray instead of humbly following the leadership of the Lord, the true Shepherd of Israel.
Human leaders fall short.
And they always fall short.
Every human leader always falls short.
Every president falls short, every pastor falls short, every parent falls short, every teacher falls short, every boss falls short — every human shepherd falls short because every human shepherd is sinful.
We need a greater shepherd.
We need a good shepherd, a shepherd who is not tainted by sin, who isn’t marked by selfishness, who surpasses the failings of every human shepherd — we need a Good Shepherd.
And so: “God loved the world in this way, that He gave His one and only Son.”
God sent a good shepherd in love for us.
Human leaders fail, but God sent a Good Shepherd.
Let’s keep reading, verse 7:
The Forsaken Shepherd
For some context, in verse 4 God calls Zechariah to be “shepherd of the flock intended for slaughter.”
In essence, God is commanding Zechariah to become a living picture of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.
In verse 7 we see that Zechariah shepherds — he carries the tools of a shepherd, two staffs, by which a shepherd would lead, guide, and protect their sheep.
Two staffs: one named Favor representing God’s blessing, His joy, His grace and kindness.
The other named Union, the binding of God’s people together with Him and in harmony with one another.
And in verse 8 we see that he comes as a good shepherd.
Not only does He bring God’s favor and union, he leads God’s people in such a way that he kicked out the inadequate shepherds.
Now, the phrase “three shepherds,” has given commentators a difficult time through the centuries.
In fact, one commentator I read said that this might be the most difficult chapter to interpret historically in the entire Bible.
No less than 40 different interpretations about who these shepherds are have been put forth over the years.
And, side note, that friends, is a loud call to humility when we approach the Scriptures.
God is big and God’s Word is big.
There are people who professionally study the Scriptures every day for years who sometimes have to go, “We aren’t sure.”
We need to hold our doctrines firmly, but lets not do so in such a way that we cease to love someone who doesn’t understand the same way we do, especially on things that are not central to the gospel.
That being said, we need to land somewhere, and I don’t think Zechariah’s use of 3 was by accident.
One of the oldest interpretations of this passage, and the one that I think is best is this: The three shepherds are the three classes of leader that God gave to Israel — prophets, priests, and kings.
And all of these classes of leaders in the history of Israel proved the point earlier that all human leaders fall short.
The prophets of Israel stopped being God’s spokesmen and started saying things just to please the people and the kings.
The priests of Israel stopped being holy men of God and started using their power to get rich from the people.
The kings of Israel turned away from the living God and started using their power to abuse their people.
But, when the Messiah came He replaced all of those inadequate shepherds.
He came and ruled over God’s people with favor and with union.
He is the only wise and true shepherd, God’s Messiah.
Jesus, our Messiah, is God’s perfect prophet, priest, and king.
He speaks the truth of God before the people.
he represents the people before a holy God.
And he rules over us with gentleness and compassion.
Prophet, priest, king.
And as our Shepherd, he cares for us, the weak sheep.
He carries God’s Favor, acting graciously on our behalf.
And He carries Unity with God, providing for our needs and binding us to the Father through Himself.
And our call is to follow Him in grace, doing good for others.
But, that is not how Israel responded to Zechariah as the symbolic shepherd and that is not how they responded when God sent the Good Shepherd, Jesus.
Instead of recognizing the one sent from the Father, they rejected Him.
And they detested him, verse 8 says.
Jesus came to rule over God’s people with wisdom, but the leaders of Israel and the people of Israel rejected the Messiah as their Shepherd.
And it led to disaster.
Rejecting the good shepherd leads to disaster.
Look at verse 9:
When the Shepherd’s people rejected Him and detested Him, He said He would not be their shepherd.
He took the staff called “Favor” and broke it, and later did the same thing with the staff called “Union.”
He left them without a good and wise shepherd.
And national Israel was essentially destroyed a few years later.
The prophecy of verses 1-3 have come to pass.
In AD 70, the Roman army under the leadership of General Titus, came into Jerusalem and completely leveled the city.
Titus’s armies even tore down the temple, until one stone was not left standing on top of the other.
For a time, Paul says in Romans, the Jews are cut off from the tree of True Israel and the Gentiles are grafted in.
Praise God, it seems that there will come a time when many who are from Hebrew descent will repent and come to Jesus in faith, being grafted back in as natural branches.
Not with a reestablishment of an Israeli state that comes to power, Judaism and national Israel are nothing.
The New Testament Church of Jesus Christ is the remnant of Israel and God intends to bring His people back into Him by the Good Shepherd.
In verse 12, Zechariah resigns as the symbolic shepherd of Israel and he asks for his wages, if the people think he deserves any.
And in verses 12-13, we see one of the most striking messianic prophecies in Scripture.
Written hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Zechariah 11:12 prophesies exactly how He would be rejected:
30 pieces of silver was the traditional cost of a slave who was so injured that he couldn’t work any more.
The people said to their shepherd, the one who had ruled over them and guided them with such wisdom and love, “You are worthless to us.
We will only pay as much as we would pay an injured slave.”
In the life of our Lord Jesus this prophecy was fulfilled when Judas Iscariot betrayed his Lord and Master for the same amount: 30 pieces of silver.
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