The Rejection of The True Shepherd
Zechariah 11:1‑14
We've been studying the book of Zechariah and we come now to the eleventh chapter. And I've entitled this "The Rejection of the Good Shepherd...The Rejection of the Good Shepherd." It's a very sad chapter. It's a very grieving chapter. It's a very ugly chapter in many ways. And it...in comparison to chapters 9 and 10...stands out in a rather stark contrast.
The chapter pictures the Lord Jesus as a shepherd. And that's not a concept unfamiliar to us because the Old Testament talks about God as a shepherd. Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my shepherd." The prophet Isaiah said that He gathers the little lambs and He gently leads those that are with young, pictures God as a shepherd. In John chapter 10 of the New Testament, Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd cares for his sheep." And so the concept of God as a shepherd, of the Lord Jesus Christ as a shepherd is not anything really new. But in most cases in the Old Testament, you find that in the presentation of God as shepherd, or even in the New Testament where Christ is presented as shepherd, the chapter is lovely. There's beauty to it. It's gracious. It's endearing. But when you come to the eleventh chapter of Zechariah and you read here Zechariah's presentation of the shepherd, it is anything but beautiful, it is anything but lovely, it is anything but winsome, it is very ugly, it is very sinful, and that is apparent from the very first verse on to the end of the chapter.
Now remember that the book of Zechariah was written with the intention of comforting the people of God. They had come back from the Babylonian captivity which had lasted 70 years. Their city was in ruins. Their nation was in almost non‑existence. Their hearts were broken and grieved over the destruction of such a beautiful place and such a significant place. And they came back to all this rubble and they were unable for many years to do anything about it, to rebuild it, to restore it. And so it was a time of great discouragement. And Zechariah received from the Holy Spirit this wonderful prophecy to encourage the people, to comfort the people. And the message of the prophecy is twofold. Number one, God is going to enable you to rebuild your city. And number two, He's going to enable you some day to have a kingdom beyond what you've ever dreamed. And so part of the book deals with the historic rebuilding of the city and part of it deals with the future great kingdom that God is going to bring. We have seen as we've studied this book the tremendous plan of God for the redemption of the nation Israel, for the fact that in the future God is going to establish them in the land. God is going to redeem them in the land. God is going to gather them back and God is going to give them the Kingdom that they were promised.
This is a promise of God. Now we Christians believe this, most of us. We believe that the Bible says God has a plan for Israel. Have you ever wondered what Israel believes about that? Have you ever wondered what a current modern twentieth century orthodox Jew believes? Is he premillennial or amillennial? Does he believe there's no kingdom for Israel? Or does he believe there is one?
Well, let me give you a little idea of what a current contemporary Jew believes. This is a letter that was in the Jerusalem Post written by Rabbi Maer(?) Kahonni(?), apparently an orthodox rabbi. And this was in the Jerusalem Post which is a Jerusalem newspaper. And it was written...here's the title, "To a Bible‑believing Christian President, Jimmy Carter, from a Bible‑believing Jew: Will you sell...this is the headline...Will you see America for 30 barrels of oil?" It is not Israel that needs America but American survival depends on Israel.
Now let me preface before I read you some points out of it that this man is not a Christian. He is an orthodox Jew. He calls himself a Bible‑believing Jew because he believes the Old Testament. This is what he says and I can't read the whole thing or I wouldn't be able to preach my sermon, cause it's long. But basically what he says is this: the whole point of the Abrahamic covenant is wrapped up as far as other nations are concerned with this promise, "I will bless them that bless thee and him that curseth thee shall I curse," Genesis 12:3. So the rabbi says that from Abraham on, God said that whatever nation blesses Israel will be blessed and whatever nation curses Israel will be cursed. So he takes the literal view of the Abrahamic covenant.
He says this, "The final redemption and their kingdom of heaven with the era of eternal peace are inexorably tied to the Jewish people. The Jews are the key to history. The final redemption is irrevocable, tied to the return of the Jewish people to its land, the ingathering of the exiles, the resurrection of the Jewish state and the sanctification of the Jewish people through their return to God. These are the states that must proceed the establishment of the Kingdom of God and there is not a true Christian believer in the Bible that can deny that." Isn't that interesting? He is a literalist. He says everything promised to Israel is going to come to pass.
And then he goes on to prove it by quoting piles of Old Testament scripture. And he says, "And the Gentiles, what about them? There will be those who understand the decree of God and who remember the eternal promise of heaven," and he quotes again, "Blessed are those that bless you and cursed be those that curse you." He says, "Blessed and fortunate will be those that understand and leap to aid the redemption of the Jewish people, to hurry the final redemption of mankind and how cursed and destroyed will be those individuals and nations who do not understand, who defy the divine decree, who refuse to stand totally at the side of the Jewish people, who attempt to thwart the return of the Jewish nation to its land and to diminish the sovereignty and territory of the land of Israel as the exclusive holy land of the chosen people."
"President Carter and Christian America, the Jewish people and the state of Israel are God's chosen. They can never be destroyed. It is not they who need you, but you whose very survival depends on doing the will of God by standing totally at Israel's side and helping to fulfill biblical prophecy of total return and defeat of the enemies of God and His people. Every effort to force Jews to give up any part of the holy land that is completely theirs by divine grant is an effort to undo the will of heaven. The cry `Not one inch of Jewish retreat' is not a military or political one, it is a religious decree." He says, "I grieve for an America that may defy the Lord and attempt to impose a settlement to throttle Israel. Such a settlement will never be and the Jews will survive it. May God grant you, Mr. President and Christian America, the wisdom to understand before it's too late for you." Then he signs his name.
Now I don't agree with the fact that he is using this for political leverage. And I don't believe in the fact that our foreign policy is necessarily to be totally dictated by a commitment to the fact that at all costs we have to aid Israel no matter what they do. But what is interesting to me is that here is a Jew in the twentieth century who is totally committed to a literal understanding of the Old Testament, who is saying, "I believe in the redemption of Israel, I believe in the return of Israel, I believe in the regathering of Israel and I believe that ultimately this is going to end up in the kingdom of God on earth." Now that is no different than what Zechariah has been proclaiming in the chapters we've studied. That's exactly what the Old Testament teaches. What amazes me is that there are many people who are within the framework of Christianity who want to deny the literal character of that. And even unbelieving Jews, that is unbelieving in the sense of New Testament truth, are committed to the Old Testament understanding.
And so, what Zechariah said centuries ago is still being echoed as the hope of the hearts of Jews today who are literalists in interpreting the Old Testament. To show you how literal some of them are, the other day they stoned a lady in Jerusalem. Did you read about that? She walked into the orthodox sector in an improper dress and they stoned her to death. That's literalism, that's taking the Old Testament letter to the very inth degree. So there are some Jewish people who still are committed to a literal interpretation of not only a Mosaic law, Deuteronomic law, but of prophecy.
Now with that introduction, let's go back to the eleventh chapter. God has promised Israel a kingdom. God has promised Israel salvation. God has promised them a marvelous return, regathering and restoration in the land. But suddenly in chapter 11, the prophet of hope turns into a prophet of doom. And he turns from the glories of Messiah at His Second Coming and the glories of Messiah at His Kingdom and he turns to a national apostasy and a national rejection of Messiah that occurred at His first coming.
Now we know at the Second Coming is going to be redemption. At the Second Coming there's going to be restoration. At the Second Coming there's going to be a Kingdom. But at the first coming there was a terrible apostasy. There was a terrible rejection. And this chapter goes not so much to the Second Coming of Christ as to the first coming. And it predicts the rejection of the shepherd. The second point in the outline is the main point of the chapter, the rejection of the true shepherd. And this is a very, very severe, a very profound, a very straightforward, a very judicial kind of chapter. There's really no bright light in it. It's judgment.
In fact, this may help you to see it in perspective, chapter 11 tells us...watch this...chapter 11 tells us why the promises of chapters 9 and 10 never came to pass when Jesus came the first time. Chapter 11 tells us why the promises of 9 and 10 never came to pass when Jesus came the first time because chapter 11 tells us that when He came the first time, they rejected Him. And so that accounts for the postponing of the promises of 9 and 10.
Now I want us to look at this in the format of shepherds. You'll notice that all three of the points on the outline deal with shepherds. First there is the ravage of the wailing shepherds. Second, there is the rejection of the true shepherd. And thirdly, there is the reception of the false shepherd. So the chapter follows the motif of shepherds.
Let's look, first of all, at the ravage or the ruin of the wailing shepherds, verses 1 to 3. This incidentally is the most poetic section in the whole book. In Hebrew it's totally poetic. Let me read you the three verses. "Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Wail, fir tree, for the cedar is fallen because the glorious trees are spoiled. Wail, O ye oaks of Bashan for the forest of the vintage is come down. There is a voice of the wailing of the shepherds for their glory is spoiled, a voice of the roaring of young lions for the pride of the Jordan is spoiled."
Now all those three verses are judgmental. Now watch and I'll show you what they mean. It is obvious here that you see three different sections of land; verse 1, Lebanon...verse 2, Bashan...verse 3, Jordan. If you know anything about the basic geography of Israel, you know that starts in the north and descends to the south. And here is judgment sweeping. Fire, verse 1, devouring beginning in Lebanon and burning up the cedars. Sweeping down to Bashan and consuming the oaks. Coming all the way down to Jordan and destroying the pride of Jordan, the place where the lions dwelt which was all of the foliage around the Jordan valley. And so there is a judgment that sweeps from the north down to the south. And the Holy Spirit here with poetic imagery and dramatic movement arranges the words with an almost rhetorical power to describe the ruin and the ravages of the whole land of Israel.
There's coming a storm of judgment, God said, and that storm is going to sweep from the north to the south. And the trees are sort of personalized here and made to be sort of the recipients of the judgment. But this is really only a metaphor. This is really only a picture. This is really only a figure in that sense. The trees stand for the sections of land. Lebanon was known for its cedars. Do you remember the wood that was used to build Solomon's temple were the cedars from Lebanon? Lebanon was known for the mighty cedar trees, massive beautiful trees. And some of the mountains of Lebanon rise high, way high and they're just covered with trees. These mighty trees fell.
And then there was the area of Bashan. Now Lebanon was the north border of the land of Israel, on the Syrian Palestinian border...at the north is Lebanon. And coming down south a little bit and going east a little bit to the east of Jordan was the area of Bashan. The area of Bashan was an area populated by oak trees. And then descending further down into the lower part of the land you come to the Jordan valley which runs all the way to the Dead Sea. And the Jordan Valley, along the Jordan River on both sides was dense foliage. At one time we understand that there was almost a jungle there of foliage. And all of this is going to be consumed in this tremendous judgment that hits the land.
Now I really believe that the judgment that God is speaking about here is an actual devastation. It's not a literal fire that burns trees, but it is an actual devastation. It's not just a spiritual judgment, but it is a real judgment where real people die real death, where the land of Israel is really judged. In fact, in verse 1 Lebanon is told to open its doors. There's no sense in fighting it. You might as well just throw open the doors and let it happen. And once you see Lebanon go, verse 2, you oaks of Bashan, you might as wail. The fir tree might as well wail. Why? Cause if the mighty cedar goes, the fir tree isn't going to be able to stand. In other words, when the high and the mighty are fallen, every lesser tree is going to be unable to escape. From the high and the mighty all the way down the line. And some people have likened these trees to the leadership of Israel and said that this is a spiritual judgment on the hierarchy of Israel all the way from the high and the mighty, the priests and so forth, and the elders and the scribes and the rules down all the way to the common men. Maybe there is that implication also. But in this judgment, when the fall...when the mighty fall, everything goes as well. And when you see the forest of the vintage come down, in other words, that's referring to Lebanon, when you see the finest forest, the glorious trees, the splendid trees, when they go...actually the Hebrew says "the inaccessible or impenetrable forest," that's literally what it means when it says the forest of vintage. The impenetrable Lebanon, the mighty Lebanon falls, when the best goes, everything else better wail cause it's going to go too. And so the fir trees wail and the mighty oaks wail and there's a wailing all the way down in Jordan.
Notice this, verse 3, there is the voice of the roaring of the lions for the pride of the Jordan is spoiled. This is interesting. After the captivity of the northern kingdom, wild beasts began to multiply around the Jordan. You can check out 2 Kings 17:25, Jeremiah 49:19 and Jeremiah 50:44. And in those passages, 2 Kings 17, Jeremiah 49 and chapter 50 there, is the indication that wild beasts proliferated the Jordan area for many centuries. It became literally a place where lions dwelt in the thick foliage. And so verse 3 is saying the lions will roar when they see the devastation that comes. And there was devastation. And the "young lions" is an interesting term. It refers to lions that have been weaned and they're young and they have great appetites and they're very fierce. And these fierce lions are going to roar at the destruction that occurs.
Now this is poetic imagery. The point here is not the trees get burned up and lions lose their homes. The point is that they are made to be like wailing elements, as figures of the wailing that's going to occur in the land when it's devastated. The idea of destruction is here, people, because three times in these three verses the verb in Hebrew for "destroy" is used...the verb for destroy, three times. So the thought of destruction and permanent devastating kind of destruction is going to occur.
Now notice the response to this. The one human response you find is in verse 3. "There is a voice of the wailing of the shepherds for their glory is spoiled." Here are the shepherds. Are these just literal shepherds? Well, possibly. And they're crying and howling like an animal, the Hebrew word, literally howling like a coyote, or like a lone wolf, screeching and wailing because all of their pastures have been devastated, because all of the grass that they needed has been burned up and destroyed and the hills are denuded. And again, some say it may be a reference to those who are the shepherds of Israel, the leaders. And it may be. But the sum of it all, the trees and the grass and the animals and the leadership, it all falls into the same wail as God's great judgment comes.
Now, we meet then the wailing shepherds. And they wail because they've been ravaged. The question is, to what destruction does this refer? At what point in Israel's history did this happen? And I'm going to give you what I believe to be the soundest and the best interpretation. And incidentally, it's the oldest one, it's the old one that the old rabbis believed and it's still currently held by many scholars, and I'm convinced it's true, that what this is referring to is the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem that occurred in 70 A.D. You remember that after Jesus was crucified around 30 or so A.D., forty some years later, nearly forty years later, there was the great devastation, the Roman army came in and destroyed Jerusalem. And I mean, when they destroyed Jerusalem, they didn't just destroy Jerusalem, they destroyed Jerusalem good, one million, one hundred thousand Jews died...one million, one hundred thousand. They threw a hundred thousand bodies over the wall, just for the sport of it.
And years following that, Hadrian marched through the area north toward Galilee and destroyed 985 towns. Literally devastating the state of Israel, scattering them all over the world. And only in your life time have they come back, since 1918 and following. And I believe that what he sees here is this unbelievable devastation that occurred in 70 A.D. And the reason I believe that is because of what immediately follows which is given as the reason for the judgment. And the reason for the judgment is the rejection of the shepherd. And that just fits history beautifully because when they rejected Jesus Christ, it wasn't 40 years later until their whole nation went out of existence...as a nation, although the Jewish people have been preserved as individual people.
And so, we find‑‑first of all‑‑the general warning of the ravage of the wailing shepherds. And then the reason for this ravage comes in the second point, the rejection of the true shepherd. Let's look at verse 4. And all the way through verse 14, he discusses the rejection of the true shepherd. We can't really reproduce today, I don't think, vividly enough in our minds unless somebody could make a movie about this and maybe that wouldn't even do it, we can't really understand the ravashing that occurred in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the years following. I mean, when the Roman army came down, they literally destroyed an entire civilization of people except for the remnant that managed to escape and be preserved by God to be regathered today...utter devastation. As we shall see in a moment, and as we mentioned earlier in the book, during the siege of the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish people even began to eat their own children because of the starvation. Incredible destruction occurred. This is the devastation that happened. And this devastation, beloved, was God's act of judgment on the rejection of the true shepherd. The shepherds were ravaged and they wailed, but they wailed as wailing shepherds because they had rejected the true shepherd.
Now I want to give you some information you have to have to understand this prophecy. I've studied a lot of chapters in the Bible. I don't think I ever studied one that's more difficult than this one. This is a very difficult chapter. I say that basically so that you'll understand that if you don't quite get every little thought here, I'm not sure anybody gets every little thought here. Very difficult...because the style is often poetic. And trying to reproduce everything that was in the mind of the prophet is difficult. But I want you to see the flow of it because the overall flow and purpose of the chapter is very clear in spite of some of the little nuances in the Hebrew that are very difficult and I don't want to get bogged down in all of those. You know, I just know a little Hebrew, and he runs a delicatessen. So, I don't want to get involved in all of that.
But anyway, there is an important key, there is an important key to the chapter, and you've got to get this. There are many styles of prophetic utterance in the Old Testament. I remember having a course in Old Testament prophecy and my professor was Dr. Fineberg and he really knew this. And he opened up to me an understanding of so many kinds of prophetic method that I never understood. And one of them that he talked about that was interesting, I thought, was the fact that the prophets often made a prophecy by acting out a symbolic act. In other words, rather than just verbalizing something, they literally acted out something. For example, well Isaiah 8 might be a fitting example. Don't turn to it, I'll just read a verse or two real quick. Isaiah 8, "Moreover the Lord said to me, Take a great scroll and write in it with a man's pen concerning Maher‑shalal‑ hash‑baz. And I took to me faithful witnesses to record," etc., etc., etc.
In other words, the Lord said I want you to do a demonstration, Isaiah. Get a big scroll and write some stuff on it. Well that was a demonstration. That was doing something very visible as a symbol of a certain prophecy.
Over in Ezekiel 4, I'm thinking of another one. God said to Ezekiel, "Take a tile or a piece of clay...like you'd tile a roof with...and lay it before you and paint on it the city of Jerusalem. And lay siege against it and build a fort against it and cast a mound against it." Now can you see this? The very dignified prophet Ezekiel is building himself a little fort, see. He's got his little clay and he's drawing Jerusalem. And the people are all saying, "Poor Ezekiel's...you know...slipped one of those wheels that he was talking about in chapter 1 and something's definitely gone wrong with Ezekiel."
And wasn't it Jeremiah who was laying on one side and then later on he turned and laid on the other side? And he was acting a symbolic act before the people.
Now that seems to be what is going on in this chapter. God is speaking to Zechariah asking Zechariah to be an actor, to play a part, to put on a symbolic act, to enter on a stage. He says, "Now Zech, I want you to be a shepherd." He said, "I want you to play the part of a shepherd, okay?" And then He goes on to tell him step by step what to do. Now everything that Zechariah acts out is a picture of Jesus Christ. Now I hope you understand that approach to prophecy. He symbolically carries out certain actions that speak of the rejection of Jesus Christ. And they are very, very, very vivid things that he does.
Let's look at them, beginning at verse 4. "Thus saith the Lord my God, Feed the flock of the slaughter." Now first Zechariah is to feed the flock of the slaughter. Now the word here "to feed" is the word "tend" in the Hebrew. It means to care for, to feed, to lead, to nurse. It's used in Psalm 23 to speak of the ministry of a shepherd. He says, "Now the first thing I want you to do in your role as a shepherd is act out a feeding. Feed the flock." And that would mean, of course, to teach them. I want you to be like the...like the true shepherd, like the spiritual shepherd and you feed the flock the Word of God.