Commentaires bibliques

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, I. A prediction of the destruction itself that should come upon the Jewish nation, Zec 11:1-3. II. The putting of it into the hands of the Messiah. 1. He is charged with the custody of that flock, Zec 11:4-6. 2. He undertakes it, and bears rule in it, Zec 11:7,8. 3. Finding it perverse, he gives it up (Zec 11:9), breaks his shepherd's staff (Zec 11:10,11), resents the indignities done him and the contempt put upon him (Zec 11:12,13), and then breaks his other staff, Zec 11:14. 4. He turns them over into the hands of foolish shepherds, who, instead of preventing, shall complete their ruin, and both the blind leaders and the blind followers shall fall together into the ditch, Zec 11:15-17. 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.

Rup.: "'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,' saith the Psalmist Psalm 25:11, and, 'I will sing to Thee of mercy and judgment' Psalm 101:1. So is this prophecy divided. Above , almost all were promises of mercy, which are now fulfilled in deed; and from this, "Open, O Lebanon, thy doors" , all are terrible edicts of truth and tokens of just judgment. How much sweetness and softness and pleasantness is therein, "Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion: shout, O daughter of Jerusalem;" what bitterness and acerbity and calamity to those, to whom he says, "Open, O Lebanon, thy doors, that the fire may devour thy cedars; howl, O fir tree; howl, O ye oaks of Basan." As then, before, we beheld His mercy in those who believed and believe; so now let us contemplate His just judgment on those who believed not." Gilead and Lebanon Zechariah 10:10 had been named as the restored home of Ephraim; but there remained a dark side of the picture, which the prophet suddenly presents, with the names of those self-same lands, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon; howl, O ye oaks of Basan" Zechariah 11:1-2.

The commencement of this chapter relates to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity, probably by the Babylonians; at least in the first instance, as the fourth verse speaks of the people thus threatened as the prophet's charge, Zechariah 11:1-6. The prophet then gives an account of the manner in which he discharged his office, and the little value that was put on his labors. And this he does by symbolical actions, a common mode of instruction with the ancient prophets, Zechariah 11:7-14. After the prophet, on account of the unsuccessfulness of his labors, had broken the two crooks which were the true badges of his pastoral office, (to denote the annulling of God's covenant with them, and their consequent divisions and dispersions), he is directed to take instruments calculated to hurt and destroy, perhaps an iron crook, scrip, and stones, to express by these symbols the judgments which God was about to inflict on them by wicked rulers and guides, who should first destroy the flock, and in the end be destroyed themselves, Zechariah 11:15-17. Let us now view this prophecy in another light, as we are authorized to do by Scripture, Matthew 27:7. In this view the prophet, in the person of the Messiah, sets forth the ungrateful returns made to him by the Jews, when he undertook the office of shepherd in guiding and governing them; how they rejected him, and valued him and his labors at the mean and contemptible price of thirty pieces of silver, the paltry sum for which Judas betrayed him. Upon which he threatens to destroy their city and temple; and to give them up to the hands of such guides and governors as should have no regard to their welfare.

INTRODUCTION TO Zechariah 11

This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of the Jews, and shows the causes and reasons of it; and is concluded with a prediction concerning antichrist. The destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of it, is signified by figurative expressions, Zechariah 11:1 which occasions an howling among the shepherds or rulers of Israel, on account of whose cruelty and covetousness the wrath of God came upon them without mercy, Zechariah 11:3 but inasmuch as there were a remnant according to the election of grace among them, named the flock of the slaughter, Christ is called upon to feed them; who undertakes it, and prepares for it, Zechariah 11:4 but being abhorred by the shepherds, whom he therefore loathed and cut off, he determines to leave the people to utter ruin and destruction, Zechariah 11:8 and, as a token of it, breaks the two staves asunder he had took to feed them with, Zechariah 11:10 and, as an instance of their ingratitude to him, and which is a justification of his conduct towards them, notice is taken of his being valued at and sold for thirty pieces of silver, Zechariah 11:12 but, in the place of these shepherds cut off, it is suggested that another should arise, who is described by his folly, negligence, and cruelty, Zechariah 11:15 to whom a woe is denounced, Zechariah 11:17.

Chap. 11 The rejection of the Shepherd

In this chapter, which forms the second section of the First Burden, we have, so to speak, a companion picture to that drawn in the first section. If that picture, however, was bright with the coming of the King, the victories He would achieve and the blessings He would bestow, this picture is dark with His rejection and the disastrous consequences which it would entail. The chapter opens with a vivid description of these consequences, Zechariah 11:1-3. The desolating scourge, approaching as it ever did from the north, overthrows the pride of Lebanon and Bashan, Zechariah 11:1-2, and then, sweeping southward down the Jordan valley, falls upon the shepherds of Israel, Zechariah 11:3. The causes which led to this judgment are treated of in the next paragraph, Zechariah 11:4-14. In obedience to the command of Jehovah, Zechariah 11:4, the charge of the flock, which had been impiously slaughtered and sold by former shepherds, Zechariah 11:5, whom God in His displeasure had suffered to maltreat them, Zechariah 11:6, is undertaken by a good shepherd, whom the prophet personates, and who endeavours to restore the comeliness and unity of the flock, Zechariah 11:7, and to cut off its oppressors, Zechariah 11:8 a. Wearied, however, and disgusted with the want of sympathy which he encounters, the shepherd relinquishes his thankless task, Zechariah 11:8 b–11. He asks for his wages, as his work was finished, and receives the paltry and insulting purchase-money of a slave, Zechariah 11:12, which at the bidding of Jehovah he casts away in scorn, Zechariah 11:13, and completes the abandonment of the work which he had undertaken, Zechariah 11:14. Then, in the remaining paragraph, or sub-section, of the chapter, Zechariah 11:15-17, the prophet is directed to assume a new and opposite character, and to personate a foolish shepherd, Zechariah 11:15, whose neglect and cruelty should fall heavily on the flock, Zechariah 11:16, but whom terrible vengeance should ultimately overtake, Zechariah 11:17.

Zec 11:1-17.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE AND JEWISH POLITY FOR THE REJECTION OF MESSIAH.

1. Open thy doors, O Lebanon--that is, the temple so called, as being constructed of cedars of Lebanon, or as being lofty and conspicuous like that mountain (compare

Eze 17:3; Hab 2:17).

Forty years before the destruction of the temple, the tract called "Massecheth Joma" states, its doors of their own accord opened, and Rabbi Johanan in alarm said, I know that thy desolation is impending according to Zechariah's prophecy. CALVIN supposes Lebanon to refer to Judea, described by its north boundary: "Lebanon," the route by which the Romans, according to JOSEPHUS, gradually advanced towards Jerusalem. MOORE, from HENGSTENBERG, refers the passage to the civil war which caused the calling in of the Romans, who, like a storm sweeping through the land from Lebanon, deprived Judea of its independence. Thus the passage forms a fit introduction to the prediction as to Messiah born when Judea became a Roman province. But the weight of authority is for the former view.

Open thy doors, O Lebanon - Lebanon, whose cedars had stood, its glory, for centuries, yet could offer no resistance to him who felled them and were carried off to adorn the palaces of its conquerors (see above at Zephaniah 2:14, and note 2. p. 276), was in Isaiah Isa 14:8; Isaiah 37:24 and Jeremiah Jer 22:6-7 the emblem of the glory of the Jewish state; and in Ezekiel, of Jerusalem, as the prophet himself explains it Ezekiel 17:3, Ezekiel 17:12; glorious, beauteous, inaccessible, so long as it was defended by God; a ready prey, when abandoned by Him. The center and source of her strength was the worship of God; and so Lebanon has of old been understood to be the temple, which was built with cedars of Lebanon, towering aloft upon a strong. summit; the spiritual glory and the eminence of Jerusalem, as Lebanon was of the whole country, and , "to strangers who came to it, it appeared from afar like a mountain full of snow; for, where it was not gilded, it was exceeding white, being built of marble." But at the time of destruction it was "a den of thieves" Matthew 21:13, as Lebanon, amidst its beauty, was of wild beasts.

Rup.: "I suppose Lebanon itself, that is, "the temple," felt the command of the prophet's words, since, as its destruction approached, its doors opened without the hand of man. Josephus relates how , "at the passover, the eastern gate of the inner temple, being of brass and very firm, and with difficulty shut at eventide by twenty men; moreover with bars strengthened with iron, and having very deep bolts, which went down into the threshold, itself of one stone, was seen at six o'clock at night to open of its own accord. The guards of the temple running told it to the officer, and he, going up, with difficulty closed it. This the uninstructed thought a very favorable sign, that God opened to them the gate of all goods. But those taught in the divine words, understood that the safety of the temple was removed of itself, and that the gate opened."

A saying of this sort is still exstant. : "Our fathers have handed down, forty years before the destruction of the house, the lot of the Lord did not come up on the right hand, and the tongue of splendor did not become white, nor did the light from the evening burn, and the doors of the temple opened of their own accord, until Rabbi Johanan ben Zaccai rebuked them, and said, 'O temple, why dost thou affright thyself? I know of thee that thy end is to be destroyed, and of this Zechariah prophesied, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon, and let the fire devour thy cedars.'" The "forty years" mentioned in this tradition carry back the event exactly to the Death of Christ, the temple having been burned 73 a.d. . Josephus adds that they opened at the passover, the season of His Crucifixion. On the other hand, the shutting of the gates of the temple, when they had "seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple" Acts 21:30, seems miraculous and significant, that, having thus violently refused the preaching of the Gospel, and cast Paul out, they themselves were also shut out, denoting that an entrance was afterward to be refused them.

And let afire devour thy cedars - Jerusalem, or the temple, were, after those times, burned by the Romans only. The destruction of pride, opposed to Christ, was prophesied by Isaiah in connection with His Coming Isaiah 10:34; Isaiah 11:1.

Open thy doors, O Lebanon - I will give Mr. Joseph Mede's note upon this verse: -

"That which moveth me more than the rest, is in chap. 11, which contains a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and a description of the wickedness of the inhabitants, for which God would give them to the sword, and have no more pity upon them. It is expounded of the destruction by Titus; but methinks such a prophecy was nothing seasonable for Zachary's time, (when the city yet for a great part lay in her ruins, and the temple had not yet recovered hers), nor agreeable to the scope. Zachary's commission, who, together with his colleague Haggai, was sent to encourage the people, lately returned from captivity, to build their temple, and to instaurate their commonwealth. Was this a fit time to foretell the destruction of both, while they were yet but a-building? And by Zachary too, who was to encourage them? Would not this better befit the desolation by Nebuchadnezzar?" I really think so. See Mr. J. Mede's 61. Epistle.

Lebanon signifies the temple, because built of materials principally brought from that place.