The LORD regathers His people like a shepherd gathers up his flock. No longer will they be weak and abused. They will be strong warriors.

😐 Warrior…sheep?

🤓 Isn’t that an oxymoron?

It is. It’s also a hilarious series of middle-grade adventure books.

The Lord asks Zechariah to go get a job as a shepherd…at the stockyard.

WANTED:

Full time chief shepherd. Supervise shepherding staff. Oversee livestock sales. Maintain flock for market. Room & Board plus salary. Must provide your own staff. Apply at Mutton Buster Ranch.

He shepherds a flock of sheep that are destined for the slaughterhouse. The sheep are sold to buyers who have them made into lamb chops. And the other shepherds who sold them are saying, “Praise the Lord! I’m rich!” Zechariah has 2 shepherd staffs, one he calls No’am (pleasant) and the other Chabal (to bind).

🤓 Kinda like how Davy Crockett named his rifle Old Betsy?

I suppose. The shepherd’s staff was a weapon, after all.

Zechariah’s shepherding job doesn’t go real well. He fires 3 other shepherds in his first month on the job. He had no patience for them. And it was mutual. Then he tells the flock they can just go and die for all he cares and he publicly breaks his staff (Pleasant) in two. It’s a very “take this job and shove it” moment.

The people watching all this have some understanding that this must all be some kind of prophetic act. And it is. Zechariah is playing the role of Yahweh annulling the covenant He had made with His flock of people who (like typical sheep) are “looking for ways to die,” (or so my sister who owns sheep tells me is the general proclivity of the species).

And then he goes to collect his paycheck. He is paid 30 pieces of silver and then Yahweh tells him to throw his money to the potter in the house of the Lord.

Now here’s something you HAVE to understand. The temple Zechariah goes to is probably standing unfinished with a work crew on site, complete with a potter. THAT temple is the very same temple into which Judas will throw his 30 pieces of silver. THE 30 pieces of silver. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Zechariah’s bag with 30 pieces of silver landed on the exact same spot where, 500 years later, another pouch with exactly 30 pieces of silver will land. And Judas’s money will be used to buy the potter’s field. Prophecy doesn’t get much more detailed than this.

Ya know how we do pageants and plays and act out the Christmas and Easter stories? That’s kinda what Zechariah was doing. Except that was portraying the future, not the past.

Zechariah has acted out the role of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. He will come and take the job as shepherd over a flock that is destined for destruction in 70AD. And He won’t have much patience with the bad shepherds (the chief priests and elders). And they won’t have any patience with Him. He will fire them from their leadership role. He will annul the covenant that was named pleasant and beautiful because He will institute a New Covenant. And the wages which the bad shepherds will pay Him for His work will be exactly 30 pieces of silver which will be thrown to the potter in the house of the Lord .

After this, Zechariah breaks his other staff which shows the divorce between Israel and Judah. And God tells him to “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd.”
‭‭Zechariah‬ ‭11‬:‭15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I’m not sure what “equipment” is carried by a foolish shepherd.

🤔 Maybe a mop? Or a feather duster?

🤓 A fishing pole? Or a turkey baster?

🤔 A bubble wand?

🤓 A rubber band gun?

🤔 Actually- a rubber band gun might be kinda useful for a shepherd.

Well, whatever it is, Zechariah acts out the part of a bad shepherd and pronounces a curse on the one who deserts the flock.

When Jesus spoke about being The Good Shepherd and disparaged “the hireling” in John 10, He was connecting back to Zechariah.

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CHAPTER 12

After all the generally good news in Zechariah, chapter 12:1-3 feels almost out of place. It feels like something from Joel or Jeremiah. We’re back to talking about Jerusalem under siege.

😣 Ugh… haven’t we had enough of poor Jerusalem under siege?

Except this time, it doesn’t end with Jerusalem’s destruction. This one is different.

“On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”
‭‭Zechariah‬ ‭12‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

😯 Oh. That’s very different.

Yes. And I don’t think we have seen this come to pass yet. The world hasn’t actually seen “nations that come against Jerusalem” in a very long time. The last time there was major combat in Jerusalem was the 6-day War in 1967 where Israelis fought with Jordanians and captured the Old City and East Jerusalem. Before that was the Arab-Israeli War in 1948 which was what led to the city being divided between Israel and Jordan. Before that, you have to go back to battles of the Medieval Crusades.

This description of an alliance of nations attacking Jerusalem, which are met with the personal intervention of God (Who destroys them), sounds an awful lot like Rev. 19. And if that’s what Zechariah is alluding to, then this next bit REALLY fits Revelation 19.

“And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”
‭‭Zechariah‬ ‭12‬:‭10‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

I chose the NASB translation because it’s probably the most grammatically persnickety English translation. Notice the pronouns.

“They will look on ME whom they pierced.”

“They will mourn for HIM…”

God is telling us that He is the pierced one, but the pierced one is also a “Him.” Distinct. And the residents of Jerusalem will see Him and they will travail with grief as they realize Who it was that THEY pierced.

As exciting as this verse is to us, think about what clues it held for the disciples and early believers like Nicodemus who knew his scriptures. After the resurrection it was indisputable. Jesus of Nazareth was none other than Yahweh, the God of Israel, in human flesh.

Compare Zech. 12:10 to this:

“Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭1‬:‭7‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

John is practically paraphrasing Zechariah.

And compare this:

“And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭30‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Zechariah, Matthew, and John are writing about the SAME EVENT. Everyone sees the pierced Son of Man and the response is mourning. If we want to be good students of eschatology, we need to carefully compare the contexts of passages like this which describe everyone on earth seeing Jesus and mourning.

And because of the NT references, we know that Zechariah was pointing to events far, FAR into the future from his time.

In the final 2 chapters, Zechariah is going to tell us more about this astonishing day when Jerusalem is under attack and the pierced One shows up to the rescue. If you want to know what the future looks like, we’re about to find out.