6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah, and behold, I will deliver men, every one into his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his king; and they shall smite the land, and I will not deliver out of their hand.
Through the wrath of Jehovah of hosts is the land burned up, and the people is as fuel for fire: a man spareth not his brother; and he snatcheth on the right hand, and is hungry, and eateth on the left hand; and they are not satisfied. They eat every man the flesh of his own arm: Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh; [and] they together are against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
For where we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains any sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and heat of fire about to devour the adversaries. Any one that has disregarded Moses' law dies without mercy on [the testimony of] two or three witnesses: of how much worse punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and esteemed the blood of the covenant, whereby he has been sanctified, common, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him that said, To me [belongs] vengeance; *I* will recompense, saith the Lord: and again, The Lord shall judge his people. [It is] a fearful thing falling into [the] hands of [the] living God.
shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-bondman, as *I* also had compassion on thee? And his lord being angry delivered him to the tormentors till he paid all that was owing to him. Thus also my heavenly Father shall do to you if ye forgive not from your hearts every one his brother.
Do not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth: I have not come to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter with her mother, and the daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law; and they of his household [shall be] a man's enemies.
so that all righteous blood shed upon the earth should come upon *you*, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [the city] that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate;
for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided; three shall be divided against two, and two against three: father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
for days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall make a palisaded mound about thee, and shall close thee around, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children in thee; and shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation.
But ye will be delivered up even by parents and brethren and relations and friends, and they shall put to death [some] from among you, and ye will be hated of all for my name's sake.
for these are days of avenging, that all the things that are written may be accomplished. But woe to them that are with child and to them who give suck in those days, for there shall be great distress upon the land and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of [the] nations until [the] times of [the] nations be fulfilled.
And after the sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with an overflow, and unto the end, war, -- the desolations determined. And he shall confirm a covenant with the many [for] one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and because of the protection of abominations [there shall be] a desolator, even until that the consumption and what is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.
The godly [man] hath perished out of the land, and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood, they hunt every man his brother with a net. Both hands are for evil, to do it well. The prince asketh, and the judge [is there] for a reward; and the great [man] uttereth his soul's greed: and [together] they combine it. The best of them is as a briar; the most upright, [worse] than a thorn-fence. The day of thy watchmen, thy visitation is come; now shall be their perplexity. Believe ye not in a companion, put not confidence in a familiar friend: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: a man's enemies are the men of his own household. But as for me, I will look unto Jehovah; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
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.