Zechariah 11: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter opens with a call for Lebanon to open its doors to the fire, and for the cypress and the oaks of Bashan to wail as the cutting sweeps through, and the shepherds mourn their ruined glory. The LORD then tells the prophet to act out the role of a shepherd over a flock marked for slaughter, using two staffs named Favor and Union; he breaks the first to revoke a covenant, is paid thirty pieces of silver, and breaks the second to break the bond between Judah and Israel. Finally the LORD tells him to play a foolish shepherd, and announces a shepherd who will not care for the flock but devour it, ending with a woe against that worthless shepherd.

Claim by Claim

1. 11:1
   • Lebanon is commanded to open its doors.
   • Fire will devour Lebanon's cedars.
2. 11:2
   • The cypress tree is commanded to wail.
   • The cedar has fallen.
   • The mighty trees have been ruined.
   • The oaks of Bashan are commanded to wail.
   • The inaccessible forest has come down.
3. 11:3
   • There is the sound of shepherds wailing.
   • The shepherds' glory has been ruined.
   • There is the sound of young lions roaring.
   • The thickets of the Jordan have been ruined.
4. 11:4
   • The LORD, the speaker's God, said the following.
   • The LORD commanded the speaker to shepherd the flock destined for slaughter.
5. 11:5
   • The buyers of the flock slaughter them.
   • The buyers do not hold themselves guilty for it.
   • Those who sell the flock say, 'Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich.'
   • The flock's own shepherds have no pity on them.
6. 11:6
   • The LORD says he will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land.
   • The LORD will deliver each person into his neighbor's hand.
   • The LORD will deliver each person into the hand of his king.
   • They will crush the land.
   • The LORD will not rescue anyone from their hand.
7. 11:7
   • The speaker shepherded the flock destined for slaughter.
   • The flock shepherded was the afflicted of the flock.
   • The speaker took two staffs for himself.
   • The speaker named one staff Favor.
   • The speaker named the other staff Bonds.
   • The speaker shepherded the flock.
8. 11:8
   • The speaker cut off three shepherds in one month.
   • The speaker's soul became impatient with them.
   • Their soul also detested the speaker.
9. 11:9
   • The speaker said he would not shepherd them.
   • The speaker said the one that is dying should die.
   • The speaker said the one that is to be cut off should be cut off.
   • The speaker said those remaining should eat one another's flesh.
10. 11:10
    • The speaker took his staff named Favor.
    • The speaker cut the staff in two.
    • The purpose was to break the covenant the speaker had made with all the peoples.
11. 11:11
    • The covenant was broken on that day.
    • The afflicted of the flock who watched the speaker knew it was the word of the LORD.
12. 11:12
    • The speaker told them to give him his wages if it seemed good to them.
    • The speaker told them to refrain if it did not seem good to them.
    • They weighed out thirty pieces of silver as his wages.
13. 11:13
    • The LORD told the speaker to throw it to the potter.
    • The LORD called it the magnificent price at which he was valued by them.
    • The speaker took the thirty pieces of silver.
    • The speaker threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
14. 11:14
    • The speaker cut in two his second staff, named Bonds.
    • The purpose was to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15. 11:15
    • The LORD spoke to the speaker.
    • The LORD told him to take up again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
16. 11:16
    • The LORD will raise up a shepherd in the land.
    • That shepherd will not attend to those that are perishing.
    • That shepherd will not seek the young one.
    • That shepherd will not heal the broken one.
    • That shepherd will not sustain the one that is standing.
    • That shepherd will eat the flesh of the fat one.
    • That shepherd will tear off their hooves.
17. 11:17
    • Woe is pronounced on the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock.
    • A sword will be against his arm.
    • A sword will be against his right eye.
    • His arm will be completely withered.
    • His right eye will be utterly darkened.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

11:1

Lebanon is the mountain country north of Israel, famous throughout the ancient world for its cedar forests. Cedar was the premium building timber, shipped out for palaces and temples, so "the cedars of Lebanon" stood as shorthand for wealth and grandeur. Addressing a country or a tree directly, as if it could hear, is a standard move in Hebrew poetry.

11:2

Bashan was the fertile upland region east of the Sea of Galilee, known for its oak woods and its cattle. Its oaks and Lebanon's cedars together name the tallest, strongest trees the region had, which is why the poem uses them for the powerful people being brought down.

11:3

"Shepherd" was the ordinary ancient title for a ruler; kings across the Near East, and in Israel, were routinely called shepherds of their people. So the wailing shepherds here are leaders losing what they ruled. The thickets along the Jordan were dense riverside jungle where lions actually lived; when the growth burned or was cleared, the lions lost their cover, which is why they roar.

11:4

Prophets were often told to act something out in public rather than only speak it, and the rest of this chapter is one of those acted-out signs: the prophet plays the shepherd. A "flock of the slaughter" is a flock being kept alive only until it is butchered, the sheep the owner has already written off as meat.

11:5

The sellers' "Praise the LORD, I am rich" is the ordinary thanksgiving a person spoke over good fortune. The point of quoting it is the contrast between the pious formula and how the money was made.

11:6

"Smite the land" means strike it hard, devastate it. To be handed "into his neighbour's hand" is to be left to whatever your own countrymen will do to you once no protection remains.

11:7

A shepherd carried a staff for guiding and controlling the flock, and giving each one a name turns it into a labeled sign the onlookers can read. The first name (Hebrew *noam*) means favor, kindness, or pleasantness; the King James "Beauty" is an older sense of that word. The second (Hebrew *hovlim*) means binders or bindings, hence "Union" for the tie holding groups together; the King James "Bands" means bonds, not musical groups.

11:8

Which three shepherds these were has been argued over since antiquity and no one knows; the text simply does not say. "Cut off" here means removed from office, and can carry the harder sense of killed.

11:9

Survivors eating each other's flesh was the stock ancient picture of a city under siege, where the food runs out and social order collapses entirely. It names the worst thing that could happen to a besieged population.

11:10

A covenant is a binding formal agreement, with terms and obligations on both sides, of the kind kings made with each other. The Hebrew phrase can mean "all the peoples" or "all the nations", and readers have differed over whether the agreement was with the flock's own people or with the surrounding nations, restraining them from attacking. Snapping the staff in public is how you show an agreement is annulled.

11:12

Silver was weighed out on scales rather than counted as coins in this period. Thirty pieces of silver is the exact amount set in Israel's law as the compensation owed to an owner when an ox gored a slave to death: the standard valuation of a slave. Offered as a man's wages, it is a calculated insult, which is why the next verse calls it a "grand price" sarcastically.

11:13

The Hebrew word here is *yotser*, potter, and no one is certain what throwing wages to a potter in the temple would mean; some ancient versions and a few Hebrew copies read the very similar word *otsar*, treasury, which would mean throwing the money into the temple funds. Translators still split over which reading is original, and this rendering keeps the potter.

11:14

After Solomon's death the kingdom split in two: the northern tribes kept the name Israel, the southern part around Jerusalem was Judah. The two were kin and often enemies, so "the family bond between Judah and Israel" is the relationship between the two halves of a once-single nation.

11:15

The gear is a shepherd's working kit: staff, rod, bag, knife. "Foolish" in Hebrew usage is not about low intelligence but about being reckless and morally careless, the kind of person who ignores what he owes others.

11:16

Tearing off the hooves pictures a shepherd stripping even the inedible last parts of the animal, the opposite of every duty just listed. The King James "claws" is an older English word for hooves.

11:17

The King James "idol shepherd" translates a Hebrew word meaning worthless or good-for-nothing; it is not about idols. The arm and the right eye are the shepherd's two tools of the trade, the strength to fight off predators and the sight to watch the flock, so the curse takes away exactly the capacities he failed to use.