Zechariah 13

Zechariah 13:7-9

A Further Thought Regarding Sheep and Shepherd (13:7-9) A brief poetic fragment continues the theme of sheep and shepherd from Zechariah 11:17. A sword is called to strike the shepherd, “the man who stands next to me.” In some indefinable way this bitter treatment appears to be associated with the fate of the shepherd in Zechariah 11:7-14 and of the unnamed person pierced in Zechariah 12:10. Is this victim the worthless shepherd of Zec 11:17 Again identification from the point of view of the writer is impossible. Appropriately, Jesus applied the reference to himself (Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27) in connection with the events of the Garden of Gethsemane.

As in the use made of the text by Jesus, so in the poetic fragment found in Zechariah, the weight of emphasis is upon the scattering of the sheep rather than upon the striking of the shepherd. The hand of the Lord will be turned against little ones; two-thirds of the people (as in Ezekiel 5:1-4) will be cut off; the remaining third will be refined as silver or gold. The result will be a people of whom God can say, “They are my people,” and who will willingly declare, “The Lord is my God.”