5 whose possessors slay them without being held guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be Jehovah! for I am become rich; and their own shepherds pity them not.
All that found them devoured them, and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Jehovah, the habitation of righteousness, even Jehovah, the hope of their fathers.
And Ephraim saith, Nevertheless I am become rich, I have found me out substance; in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.
And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment? Ye who hate the good, and love evil; who pluck off their skin from them, and their flesh from off their bones; and who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron.
and cinnamon, and amomum, and incense, and unguent, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep, and of horses, and of chariots, and of bodies, and souls of men.
And through covetousness, with well-turned words, will they make merchandise of you: for whom judgment of old is not idle, and their destruction slumbers not.
constant quarrellings of men corrupted in mind and destitute of the truth, holding gain to be [the end of] piety. But piety with contentment *is* great gain. For we have brought nothing into the world: [it is] [manifest] that neither can we carry anything out. But having sustenance and covering, we will be content with these. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many unwise and hurtful lusts, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is [the] root of every evil; which some having aspired after, have wandered from the faith, and pierced themselves with many sorrows.
They shall put you out of the synagogues; but the hour is coming that every one who kills you will think to render service to God;
but he who serves for wages, and who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf seizes them and scatters the sheep. Now he who serves for wages flees because he serves for wages, and is not himself concerned about the sheep.
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of the heavens before men; for *ye* do not enter, nor do ye suffer those that are entering to go in.
And Jesus entered into the temple [of God], and cast out all that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those that sold the doves. And he says to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but *ye* have made it a den of robbers.
Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity, that build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with unrighteousness. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet do they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed [as] a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
And Judah said to his brethren, What profit is it that we kill our brother and secrete his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites; but let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brethren hearkened [to him]. And Midianitish men, merchants, passed by; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty silver-pieces; and they brought Joseph to Egypt.
Because ye thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the weak ones with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad,
Is it too small a thing unto you to have eaten up the good pastures, but ye must tread down with your feet the rest of your pastures; and to have drunk of the settled waters, but ye must foul the rest with your feet? And my sheep have to eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, and to drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock: that the shepherds may feed themselves no more; and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.
My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill, and my sheep have been scattered upon all the face of the earth, and there was none that searched, or that sought for them.
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy; and say unto them, unto the shepherds, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool; ye kill them that are fattened: [but] ye feed not the flock. The weak have ye not strengthened, nor have ye healed the sick, and ye have not bound up [what was] broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought for that which was lost; but with harshness and with rigour have ye ruled over them.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst of her like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they devour souls; they take away treasure and precious things; they increase her widows in the midst of her; her priests do violence to my law, and profane my holy things: they put no difference between the holy and profane, neither do they make known [the difference] between the unclean and the clean, and they hide their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.
Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith Jehovah. Therefore thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel concerning the shepherds that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock,and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith Jehovah.
And I said to them, We, according to our ability, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, who were sold to the nations; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? And they were silent and found no answer.
And a woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha saying, Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant feared Jehovah; and the creditor is come to take my two children to be bondmen.
and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to sweep away the drunken with the thirsty. Jehovah will not pardon him, but the anger of Jehovah and his jealousy will then smoke against that man, and all the curse shall be upon him that is written in this book; and Jehovah will blot out his name from under the heavens; and Jehovah will separate him for mischief out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Zechariah 11
Commentary on Zechariah 11 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 11
God's prophet, who, in the chapters before, was an ambassador sent to promise peace, is here a herald sent to declare war. The Jewish nation shall recover its prosperity, and shall flourish for some time and become considerable; it shall be very happy, at length, in the coming of the long-expected Messiah, in the preaching of his gospel, and in the setting up of his standard there. But, when thereby the chosen remnant among them are effectually called in and united to Christ, the body of the nation, persisting in unbelief, shall be utterly abandoned and given up to ruin, for rejecting Christ; and it is this that is foretold here in this chapter-the Jews rejecting Christ, which was their measure-filling sin, and the wrath which for that sin came upon them to the uttermost. Here is,
This is foretold to the poor of the flock before it comes to pass, that, when it does come to pass, they may not be offended.
Zec 11:1-3
In dark and figurative expressions, as is usual in the scripture predictions of things at a great distance, that destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish church and nation is here foretold which our Lord Jesus, when the time was at hand, prophesied of very plainly and expressly. We have here,
Zec 11:4-14
The prophet here is made a type of Christ, as the prophet Isaiah sometimes was; and the scope of these verses is to show that for judgment Christ came into this world (Jn. 9:39), for judgment to the Jewish church and nation, which were, about the time of his coming, wretchedly corrupted and degenerated by the worldliness and hypocrisy of their rulers. Christ would have healed them, but they would not be healed; they are therefore left desolate, and abandoned to ruin. Observe here,
Zec 11:15-17
God, having shown the misery of this people in their being justly abandoned by the good Shepherd, here shows their further misery in being shamefully abused by a foolish shepherd. The prophet is himself to personate and represent this pretended shepherd (v. 15): Take unto thee the instruments or accoutrements of a foolish shepherd, that are no way fit for the business, such a shepherd's coat, and bag, and staff, as a foolish shepherd would appear in; for such a shepherd shall be set over them (v. 16), who, instead of protecting them, shall oppress them and do them mischief.