Z’khar’yah (Zechariah) 11 - bible study
- Gene Keener
- Feb 12
- 2 min read
Z’khar’yah (Zechariah) 11
1 Open your doors, L’vanon,
so that fire can consume your cedars.
2 Wail, cypress, because the cedar has fallen,
those splendid trees are ruined.
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
because the thick forest has been felled.
3 Listen to the wail of the shepherds,
because their glory is spoiled.
Listen to the roaring of young lions,
because the Yarden’s thickets are plundered.
4 ADONAI my God says this: “Shepherd the flock for slaughter.
5 Their buyers kill them and go unpunished; while those who sell them say, ‘Barukh ADONAI! Now I’m rich!’ Even their own shepherds show them no pity.
6 I will no longer show pity to the inhabitants of the land,” says ADONAI. “No, I will hand every one of them over to the power of a neighbor and to the power of his king; they will crush the land; and I won’t rescue them from their power.”
7 So I shepherded the flock for slaughter, truly the most miserable of the sheep; and I took two staffs for myself. I called the one No‘am [pleasantness], the other I called Hovalim [bound together], and I shepherded the flock.
8 “In a single month I got rid of three shepherds, because I grew impatient with them; and besides, they detested me.
9 I said, ‘I’m not going to shepherd you. Whichever one is going to die, let it die; whichever is going to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and the rest can all devour each other.’”
10 I took my staff No‘am and snapped it in two, “in order to break my covenant, which I made with all the peoples.”
11 On that day when it was broken, the most miserable of the sheep who paid attention to me knew that this was indeed a message from ADONAI.
12 I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; if not, don’t.” So they weighed out my wages, thirty silver [shekels, that is, twelve ounces].
13 Concerning that “princely sum” at which they valued me, ADONAI said, “Throw it into the treasury!” So I took the thirty silver [shekels] and threw them into the treasury in the house of ADONAI.
14 Then I snapped in two my other staff Hovalim [bound together], in order to break up the brotherhood between Y’hudah and Isra’el.
15 ADONAI said to me, “This time, take the equipment of a worthless shepherd.
16 For I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who won’t bother about the ones who have been destroyed, won’t seek out the young, won’t heal the broken and won’t feed those standing still; on the contrary, he will eat the meat of the fat ones and break their hoofs in pieces.
17 “Woe to the worthless shepherd
who abandons the sheep!
May a sword strike his arm
and his right eye.
May his arm be completely withered
and his right eye totally blinded.”
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