7 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. 8 In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 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.” 10 And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. 12 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. 13 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. 14 Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 Then the Lord said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16 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.
17 “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!” – Zechariah 11:7-14 ESV
This passage is particularly difficult to understand because it appears that Zechariah begins to speak in the first person as if he were acting out the prophecy in real life. Yet there is no indication that he was given such a directive from the LORD. It makes more sense to see the first-person narrative as the words of God Himself, speaking on behalf of His Son, the Messiah. Yahweh sent the Messiah to serve as His undershepherd, acting on His orders and in His place. During His earthly ministry, Jesus proclaimed His allegiance to and reliance upon His Heavenly Father.
“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing.” – John 5:19-20 NLT
He declared His unity with Yahweh when He boldly claimed, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30 BSB). He later explained His earthly ministry as a byproduct of His intimate relationship with His Father.
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me—or at least believe on account of the works themselves.” – John 14:10-11 BSB
Jesus, operating on behalf of His Father, “became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders” (Zechariah 11:7 ESV). The psalmist joyfully proclaimed Israel’s status as Yahweh’s precious possession, describing them as the sheep of His pasture.
Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. – Psalm 100:3 ESV
Jesus came to shepherd His Father’s sheep, a responsibility He understood and fully embraced.
…the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice.” – John 10:2-4 NLT
Yahweh (the gatekeeper) had opened the way for His Son to come to earth in human form. In His incarnation, Jesus became the shepherd of the sheep, calling the people of Israel to return to the fold of their Father. As the shepherd of Yahweh’s flock, Jesus took His role seriously, knowing that His job would require His own death to protect and preserve all those who belonged to His Heavenly Father.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.” – John 10:14-15 NLT
In this same discourse, Jesus boldly condemns the other shepherd-leaders of Israel, declaring them to be nothing more than thieves and robbers (John 10:1) whose sole purpose “is to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10 NLT). This thinly veiled reference to the priests, kings, and false prophets of Israel paints these pseudo-shepherds in a negative light, portraying them as hired hands who care nothing for the sheep under their care (John 10:13).
Jesus reserved some of His harshest criticism for Israel's spiritual leaders. On one occasion, He got into a heated debate with “the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees” (John 8:3 NLT). These self-righteous religious leaders took exception with Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God and declared themselves to be the true children of Yahweh. But Jesus responded in starkly offensive terms.
“If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God. I am not here on my own, but he sent me. Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It’s because you can’t even hear me! For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. So when I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me!” – John 8:42-45 NLT
Jesus’ strained relationship with the religious and political leaders of His day provides a backdrop to the statements found in Zechariah 11. The shepherd of the flock was “doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders” (Zechariah 11:7 ESV). Luke records that the time came when the religious leaders of Israel ran out of patience with Jesus and determined to take Him out.
“The leading priests and teachers of religious law were plotting how to kill Jesus…” – Luke 22:2 NLT
The Zechariah passage describes Yahweh’s shepherd as bearing two staffs. One is called nōʿam, a Hebrew word that translates as “beauty” or “favor.” The other staff is called ḥēḇel, another Hebrew word that is often translated as “bonds” and is closely associated with “sorrows” and “travails.” The shepherd’s staff was his most prized possession, the tool of His trade that allowed Him to carry out His duties faithfully.
The prophet Isaiah predicted the coming Messiah would be “despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief” (Isaiah 53:3 NLT). Jesus shared with His disciples the unwelcome news of His fate, telling them, “the Son of Man must suffer terribly and be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:22 NLT). Yet, the apostle Peter declared the remarkable contrast that Jesus was “rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight” (1 Peter 2:4 BSB).
In performing His roles as the Good Shepherd, Jesus wielded the favor of His Heavenly Father but He bore the burden of His rejection by those He came to save. Carrying the “tools of His trade,” the Shepherd carried out His earthly ministry and, while doing so, exposed the worthlessness of “the three shepherds” (Zechariah 11:8 ESV). While some scholars have speculated that this is a reference to the three roles of prophet, priest, and king, a more likely explanation can be found in Jesus’ relationship with the Sadducees, Scribes, and Pharisees. Throughout His 3-year-long ministry, Jesus had repeated run-ins with these men.
The Sadducees were a wealthy, elite group of priests who served in the temple. They were committed to the Torah but rejected other scriptures and the belief in resurrection, life after death, and prophecy. They were politically involved with the Roman leaders and focused on rituals associated with the Temple. The Sadducees disappeared around 70 A.D. after the destruction of the Second Temple.
The Scribes were considered experts in Jewish law who provided interpretation and illumination of the hundreds of codified requirements the people of Israel lived under. They also copied scrolls for use in synagogues. They were well-versed in the law and the prophets, but their lives didn't match what they said. They were often in conflict with Jesus, who claimed authority over the law.
The Pharisees were a conservative group of middle-class people who taught in synagogues. They believed in the resurrection of the dead and an afterlife and taught that individuals would receive appropriate rewards and punishments. They were known for their strict adherence to behavior prescriptions based on their interpretation of the Torah.
The Shepherd claims to have “destroyed the three shepherds” (Zechariah 11:8 ESV). The Hebrew word is kāḥaḏ and it carries the idea of cutting off or hiding. With Jesus’ coming, these three religious sects lost most of their power and authority over the people. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the religious leaders convened a special meeting to discuss His rising popularity and their waning influence.
Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.”– John 11:47-48 NLT
Jesus’s ministry of miracles and teaching “obscured” the previous role these men had played. The people became less enamored with and dependent upon the religious leaders and found Jesus to be more inspiring and authoritative.
…the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law. – Matthew 7:28-29 NLT
But despite their amazement with Jesus’ teaching, the sheep refused to follow Him. This led the Shepherd to declare, “I won’t be your shepherd any longer. If you die, you die. If you are killed, you are killed. And let those who remain devour each other!” (Zechariah 11:9 NLT). Verse 10 indicates that the staff called “Favor” also symbolized Yahweh’s favor with the people as expressed in the covenant He had made with them. The Shepherd broke the staff in two, symbolizing the annulment of God’s covenant with mankind. In the covenant He made with Abraham, God had promised to bless the nations through him.
“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” – Genesis 12:2-23 ESV
The plan had been to use Abraham’s descendants to fulfill that promise, but they had failed to remain faithful. Yet, God had always determined to send His Son as the true Israel. He would be the faithful, sinless Son who kept all His Father’s commands and carried out His will perfectly. It would be through Jesus the Messiah that the promises to Abraham would be fulfilled.
In a profound example of prophetic accuracy, verses 12-13 predict the betrayal of Jesus at the hands of Judas.
“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.” – Zechariah 11:12-13 ESV
The gospels record the fulfillment of this prophecy with shocking detail.
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. – Matthew 26:14-16 NLT
When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.” – Matthew 27:3-4 NLT
Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself.
The leading priests picked up the coins. “It wouldn’t be right to put this money in the Temple treasury,” they said, “since it was payment for murder.” After some discussion they finally decided to buy the potter’s field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners. – Matthew 27:5-7 NLT
In verse 14, the tertiary meaning of the second staff is revealed. It symbolizes the bond between Israel and Judah. From this point forward, the tribes will no longer enjoy a brotherhood or unity that binds them together. With the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the nation of Israel was destined to become a disunified and disconnected nation, enduring centuries of isolation and subjugation at the hands of their enemies.
This prophecy ends on a negative note, as God predicts the coming of a “foolish shepherd” who will persecute the people of Israel. This future world leader is none other than the Antichrist who will come to power during the Great Tribulation. This false Messiah will win over the people of God by allowing them to rebuild the Temple and restore the sacrificial system. But he will ultimately turn against them and martyr them for their faith in Yahweh.
But verse 17 predicts the fate of this foolish shepherd.
“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!” – Zechariah 11:17 ESV
God will prevail. His Son, the Great Shepherd, will return and destroy the Antichrist. The flock of Israel will be saved and the covenant promises will be fulfilled.
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.