টীকা বর্তমানে শুধুমাত্র ইংরেজিতে উপলব্ধ। বাংলা অনুবাদ চলছে।
Zechariah 11 — The Shepherd Sold and the Flock of Slaughter
Open thy doors, O Lebanon — a lament of falling cedars and spoiled shepherds opens the darkest chapter of the book. The prophet is commanded to feed the flock of the slaughter, whose own shepherds pity them not. He takes two staves — Beauty and Bands — and feeds the flock, cutting off three shepherds in one month. But the flock abhors him, and his soul loathes them; he breaks Beauty, annulling the covenant. Then the wage: If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. He breaks Bands, and the brotherhood of Judah and Israel is broken. Last, the sign reverses: a foolish shepherd raised up, who shall not visit those that be cut off — woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock.
“And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.”
— Zechariah 11:12
- v.1-3 The wailing of the shepherds
- v.4-11 Feeding the flock of slaughter; Beauty broken
- v.12-14 Thirty pieces of silver; Bands broken
- v.15-17 The foolish shepherd
The mutual revulsion is the tragedy compressed: the Shepherd's soul grieved by them, their soul abhorring Him. When Christ came to His own, the leaders of prophet, priest, and ruler alike found Him intolerable — and His holiness found their corruption unbearable.
Rejection of the true Shepherd is rarely indifference; it ripens into abhorrence. The gospels record the escalation — from questioning, to plotting, to away with this man.
The Shepherd asks His employers to value His ministry: thirty pieces of silver — Exodus 21:32's compensation for a gored slave. The appraisal is the insult: the Shepherd of Israel priced at damaged property.
Five centuries later the chief priests covenanted with Judas for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15) — the exact sum, weighed in the same temple precincts. Prophecy descends to the bookkeeping.
Heaven's sarcasm — a goodly price that I was prised at — and note the pronoun: the LORD calls the insulted Shepherd I. The valuation of the Shepherd was the valuation of God Himself.
Every detail met its mark: Judas cast the silver down in the temple; the priests bought the potter's field (Matthew 27:5-10). Cast to the potter, in the house of the LORD — the verse fulfilled in both halves, by men ignorant they were quoting it.
Reject the good Shepherd, receive the foolish one (vv. 15-16) — who eats the fat, tears the claws, and visits none. Judgment often arrives as the leadership a people chose: a worthless shepherd in place of the One sold for silver.
The woe strikes arm and eye — strength and sight, the two faculties of shepherding — both withered. The figure looks beyond every false leader to the final one, whom the Lord shall consume at His coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
The chapter asks one question of every reader: what is the Shepherd worth to you? Israel's leaders did the appraisal in silver and chose slave-price. Audit your own ledger — time, obedience, treasure — for what it implies about His value, and remember verse 17's warning: the heart that dismisses the good Shepherd does not stay shepherdless; it takes the foolish one.
No prophecy of the passion is more granular: the Shepherd rejected by the shepherds, priced at thirty pieces of silver, the money cast down in the house of the LORD and passing to the potter. Matthew cites it as fulfilled in Judas's bargain and the blood-money field. The broken staves — grace suspended, brotherhood shattered — trace the cost of refusing Him; the Good Shepherd, sold for the price of a slave, still laid down His life for the flock of slaughter.
The prophet enacts the true Shepherd's ministry: feeding a flock already consigned to slaughter by its buyers and sellers (v. 5). The audience that actually hears is the poor of the flock (v. 11) — it is ever the lowly who recognize the word.
Two staves name the blessings at stake: Beauty (grace, favor) and Bands (union, brotherhood). Shepherding holds both — the favor of God toward the flock and the binding of the flock together. Reject the Shepherd and both staves break.