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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Zechariah 13:7 - 13:7
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Zec 13:7. “Arise, O sword, over my shepherd, and over the man who is my neighbour, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts: smite the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered; and I will bring back my hand over the little ones. Zec 13:8. And it will come to pass in all the land, is the saying of Jehovah; two parts therein shall be cut off, shall die, and the third remains therein. Zec 13:9. And the third will I bring into the fire, and melt them as silver is melted, and will refine them as gold is refined: it will call upon my name, and I will answer it; I say, It is my people; and it will say, Jehovah my God.” The summons addressed to the sword, to awake and smite, is a poetical turn to express the thought that the smiting takes place with or according to the will of God. For similar personification of the sword, see Jer 47:6. רֹעִי is the shepherd of Jehovah, since the summons comes from Jehovah. In what sense the person to be smitten is called the shepherd of Jehovah, we may see from the clause עַל־גֶּבֶר עֲמִיתִי. The word עָמִית, which only occurs in the Pentateuch and in Zechariah, who has taken it thence, is only used as a synonym of אָח (cf. Lev 25:15) in the concrete sense of the nearest one. And this is the meaning which it has in the passage before us, where the construct state expresses the relation of apposition, as for example in אִישׁ חֲסִידֶךָ (Deu 33:8; cf. Ewald, §287, e), the man who is my nearest one. The shepherd of Jehovah, whom Jehovah describes as a man who is His next one (neighbour), cannot of course be a bad shepherd, who is displeasing to Jehovah, and destroys the flock, or the foolish shepherd mentioned in Zec 11:15-17, as Grotius, Umbr., Ebrard, Ewald, Hitzig, and others suppose; for the expression “man who is my nearest one” implies much more than unity or community of vocation, or that he had to feed the flock like Jehovah. No owner of a flock or lord of a flock would call a hired or purchased shepherd his ‛âmı̄th. And so God would not apply this epithet to any godly or ungodly man whom He might have appointed shepherd over a nation. The idea of nearest one (or fellow) involves not only similarity in vocation, but community of physical or spiritual descent, according to which he whom God calls His neighbour cannot be a mere man, but can only be one who participates in the divine nature, or is essentially divine. The shepherd of Jehovah, whom the sword is to smite, is therefore no other than the Messiah, who is also identified with Jehovah in Zec 12:10; or the good shepherd, who says of Himself, “I and my Father are one” (Joh 10:30). The masculine form הַךְ in the summons addressed to the sword, although חֶרֶב itself is feminine, may be accounted for from the personification of the sword; compare Gen 4:7, where sin (חַטָּאת, fem.) is personified as a wild beast, and construed as a masculine. The sword is merely introduced as a weapon used for killing, without there being any intention of defining the mode of death more precisely. The smiting of the shepherd is also mentioned here simply for the purpose of depicting the consequences that would follow with regard to the flock. The thought is therefore merely this: Jehovah will scatter Israel or His nation by smiting the shepherd; that is to say, He will give it up to the misery and destruction to which a flock without a shepherd is exposed. We cannot infer from this that the shepherd himself is to blame; nor does the circumstance that the smiting of the shepherd is represented as the execution of a divine command, necessarily imply that the death of the shepherd proceeds directly from God. According to the biblical view, God also works, and does that which is done by man in accordance with His counsel and will, and even that which is effected through the sin of men. Thus in Isa 53:10 the mortal sufferings of the Messiah are described as inflicted upon Him by God, although He had given up His soul to death to bear the sin of the people. In the prophecy before us, the slaying of the shepherd is only referred to so far as it brings a grievous calamity upon Israel; and the fact is passed over, that Israel has brought this calamity upon itself by its ingratitude towards the shepherd (cf. Zec 11:8, Zec 11:12). The flock, which will be dispersed in consequence of the slaying of the shepherd, is the covenant nation, i.e., neither the human race nor the Christian church as such, but the flock which the shepherd in Zec 11:4. had to feed. At the same time, Jehovah will not entirely withdraw His hand from the scattered flock, but “bring it back over the small ones.” The phrase הֵשִׁיב יָד עַל, to bring back the hand over a person (see at 2Sa 8:3), i.e., make him the object of his active care once more, is used to express the employment of the hand upon a person either for judgment or salvation. It occurs in the latter sense in Isa 1:25 in relation to the grace which the Lord will manifest towards Jerusalem, by purifying it from its dross; and it is used here in the same sense, as Zec 13:8, Zec 13:9 clearly show, according to which the dispersion to be inflicted upon Israel will only be the cause of ruin to the greater portion of the nation, whereas it will bring salvation to the remnant.
Zec 13:8 and Zec 13:9 add the real explanation of the bringing back of the hand over the small ones. צֹעֲרִים (lit., a participle of צָעַר, which only occurs here) is synonymous with צָעִיר or צָעוֹר (Jer 14:3; Jer 48:4, chethib), the small ones in a figurative sense, the miserable ones, those who are called עֲנִיֵּי הַצֹּאן in Zec 11:7. It naturally follows from this, that the צֹעֲרִים are not identical with the whole flock, but simply form a small portion of it, viz., “the poor and righteous in the nation, who suffer injustice” (Hitzig). “The assertion that the flock is to be scattered, but that God will bring back His hand to the small ones, evidently implies that the small ones are included as one portion of the entire flock, for which God will prepare a different fate from that of the larger whole which is about to be dispersed” (Kliefoth).
On the fulfilment of this verse, we read in Mat 26:31-32, and Mar 14:27, that the bringing back of the hand of the Lord over the small ones was realized first of all in the case of the apostles. After the institution of the Lord's Supper, Christ told His disciples that that same night they would all be offended because of Him; for it was written, “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.” The quotation is made freely from the original text, the address to the sword being resolved into its actual meaning, “I will smite.” The offending of the disciples took place when Jesus was taken prisoner, and they all fled. This flight was a prelude to the dispersion of the flock at the death of the shepherd. But the Lord soon brought back His hand over the disciples. The promise, “But after my resurrection I will go before you into Galilee,” is a practical exposition of the bringing back of the hand over the small ones, which shows that the expression is to be understood here in a good sense, and that it began to be fulfilled in the whole of the nation of Israel, to which we shall afterwards return. This more general sense of the words is placed beyond the reach of doubt by Zec 13:8 and Zec 13:9; for Zec 13:8 depicts the misery which the dispersion of the flock brings upon Israel, and Zec 13:9 shows how the bringing back of the hand upon the small ones will be realized in the remnant of the nation. The dispersion of the flock will deliver two-thirds of the nation in the whole land to death, so that only one-third will remain alive. כָּל־הָאָרֶץ is not the whole earth, but the whole of the holy land, as in Zec 14:9-10; and הָאָרֶץ, in Zec 12:12, the land in which the flock, fed by the shepherds of the Lord, i.e., the nation of Israel, dwells. פִּי־שְׁנַיִם is taken from Deu 21:17, as in 2Ki 2:9; it is used there for the double portion inherited by the first-born. That it is used here to signify two-thirds, is evident from the remaining הַשְּׁלִישִׁית. “The whole of the Jewish nation,” says Hengstenberg, “is introduced here, as an inheritance left by the shepherd who has been put to death, which inheritance is divided into three parts, death claiming the privileges of the first-born, and so receiving two portions, and life one, - a division similar to that which David made in the case of the Moabites (2Sa 8:2).” יִגְוָעוּ is added to יִכָּרְתוּ, to define יִכָּרֵת more precisely, as signifying not merely a cutting off from the land by transportation (cf. Zec 14:2), but a cutting off from life (Koehler). גָּוַע, exspirare, is applied both to natural and violent death (for the latter meaning, compare Gen 7:21; Jos 22:20). The remaining third is also to be refined through severe afflictions, to purify it from everything of a sinful nature, and make it into a truly holy nation of God. For the figure of melting and refining, compare Isa 1:25; Isa 48:10; Jer 9:6; Mal 3:3; Psa 66:10. For the expression in Zec 13:9, compare Isa 65:24; and for the thought of the whole verse, Zec 8:8, Hos 2:23, Jer 24:7; Jer 30:22. The cutting off of the two-thirds of Israel commenced in the Jewish war under Vespasian and Titus, and in the war for the suppression of the rebellion led by the pseudo-Messiah Bar Cochba. It is not to be restricted to these events, however, but was continued in the persecutions of the Jews with fire and sword in the following centuries. The refinement of the remaining third cannot be taken as referring to the sufferings of the Jewish nation during the whole period of its present dispersion, as C. B. Michaelis supposes, nor generally to the tribulations which are necessary in order to enter into the kingdom of God, to the seven conflicts which the true Israel existing in the Christian church has to sustain, first with the two-thirds, and then and more especially with the heathen (Zec 12:1-9, Zec 12:14). For whilst Hengstenberg very properly objects to the view of Michaelis, on the ground that in that case the unbelieving portion of Judaism would be regarded as the legitimate and sole continuation of Israel; it may also be argued, in opposition to the exclusive reference in the third to the Christian church, that it is irreconcilable with the perpetuation of the Jews, and the unanimous entrance of all Israel into the kingdom of Christ, as taught by the Apostle Paul. Both views contain elements of truth, which must be combined, as we shall presently show.