To Despise the Messiah
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Important messages
I need to ask you again that you keep
the Bible open and alongside, so that you can read each verse as it is
mentioned throughout this article. That is how a Bible study works…
So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages…
That magnificent price at which I was valued by them! Zechariah 11:12-13
An expository study of Zechariah,
chapter 11
 |
| The Valley of Ge-hinnom |
Verses 1-6 The allegory
of the trees
Lebanon is a country situated to the north of Israel,
from the Mediterranean Sea and extending inland to a mountainous region, where
some of the peaks are covered with snow almost year around. Fires always
threatened its countryside and the same danger exists today. In olden times,
Lebanon had great forests of cedars and, to this day, the cedar is the national
symbol of the nation. To build his
temple, Solomon brought cedars from Lebanon and Ezra also used its cedars to
build the second temple (Ezra 3:7). The name Lebanon means white.
According to all the
commentators that I have, what Zechariah has placed before us in these first
three verses is an allegory. In Chapter 10, he prophesied of the Second Coming
of the Messiah, in which the houses of Judah and Joseph “will be as though I had not rejected them” (10:6). In Chapter 11,
he returns to the First Coming, when the Messiah was rejected and the allegory
describes the results of that rejection. The doors of Lebanon to the north
could not stop the Roman invasion into Israel by Titus in 70 A.D and the doors
of the temple in Jerusalem did not prevail, when the Romans arrived at the city
(v.1). The cedars of Lebanon symbolize the temple, constructed with cedar
inside, and outside it shone white, on the mount, from white marble
There are two interesting
incidents concerning these doors: Josephus
relates how, “at the Passover, the
eastern gate of the inner temple, being of brass and very firm, and with
difficulty shut at eventide by twenty men; moreover with bars strengthened with
iron, and having very deep bolts, which went down into the threshold, itself of
one stone, was seen at six o’clock at night to open of its own accord. The
guards of the temple running told it to the officer, and he, going up, with
difficulty closed it. This the uninstructed thought a very favorable sign, that
God opened to them the gate of all goods.” Rabbi Johanan ben Zaccai rebuked
them, and said, “O temple, why dost thou
affright thyself? I know of thee that thy end is to be destroyed, and of this
Zechariah prophesied, ‘Open thy doors, O Lebanon, and let the fire devour thy
cedars.’” Note that Josephus said that this supernatural event occurred at
the Passover and a tradition marked it 40 years before the destruction of the
temple… when Christ was crucified.
We find the other occurrence
in the book of Acts 21:30: “Then all the
city was provoked, and the people rushed together, and taking hold of Paul they
dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut.” Barnes
thinks that possibly they shut by themselves: “The
shutting of the gates of the temple… seems miraculous and significant, that,
having thus violently refused the preaching of the Gospel, and cast Paul out,
they themselves were also shut out, denoting that an entrance was afterward to
be refused them.”
Zechariah personalizes the
trees with human sentiments and therefore we can see that they are symbols,
representing people. The cedar is the most distinguished of the trees (as we
considered, it is the pride and national symbol of Lebanon) and represents the
temple itself; inferior trees, such as the cypress and oak, represent priests and
princes. If the cedars were burnt and destroyed, what of the rest of the trees?
(v.2).
The shepherds and young lions,
leaders of the people, lost their personal positions and riches, but more than
that, they lost their glory, which was the temple (v.3). This word is prophetic
and Zechariah has the Spirit of Christ. Christ is the One who pastures the
flock, 2,600,000 of which were later killed by the Romans, because they would
not listen to the voice of their Shepherd (v.4). The buyers, the Romans, and the
shepherds, their own leaders, feel no pangs of conscience or any compassion for
them (v.5). God permits their destruction and does not come to help them;
Righteous judgment has fallen over them (v.6).
Verses 7-12 The
staff, Grace or Favor is broken
Many times, the prophets
prophesied with their very lives, not only with words, to such an extent that
the eunuch did not know if Isaiah was speaking of himself or of another man.
David also identified with the sufferings of Christ (Psalm 22). Ezekiel lay on
one side and the other (Ezek.4:4-9), representing all of Israel. They “ate”
their prophesies, symbolizing the fact that the Word of God became one with
their lives (Ezek.3:2), because of the value and authority that they placed in
that Word. A true prophet does not only use his mouth to speak. In this passage,
Zechariah represents the coming Messiah (v.7).
There are different opinions
about the three shepherds; one thing is sure and that is that there is no
evidence that these were annihilated in the time of Zechariah. Certainly, the
Romans annihilated completely the order of leadership in Israel, including the
religious sects, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians (v.8). God
abandoned them to the gravest curse; He removed His hand and let them perish
alone, because they rejected Him, who would have saved them (v.9).
The breaking of the staff, Grace, meant the end of His covenant
with them and “the kingdom of God will
be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it” (Mt.21:43).
The remnant among the people recognized it. “The large crowd enjoyed listening to Him” (Mr.12:37). They were
the poor in Spirit, a “remnant according
to God’s gracious choice” (Ro.11:5), the Jews who believed in Christ in His
First Coming and through Him, received the Word of God.
“Give me the wages if you
want. What am I worth to you?” (v.12). What is His care worth to them from the
liberation from Egypt to the time of the Word made flesh? Here is what they
return for Him, in the face of the love that gave His only begotten Son… thirty
pieces of silver! The price He looked for was their love. Jesus, as Jacob,
defrauded of his salary by Laban, leaves everything in God’s hands. This was
the price of a slave; a free man was worth twice the amount (Ex.21:32;
Mt.26:15).
Verses 13-17 The
curse of the Potter’s Field
“Throw it to the potter!” (v.13), was a proverb, as we would say, “Throw it to the
dogs!” In Matthew 27:3-10, we see the fulfillment of this prophecy. Judas threw
the money in the temple. Normally, it would be placed into the treasury, but in
the case of Christ, that was illegal, because it was the price of blood. They
bought the Potter’s Field. Because Jeremiah is the first book of the Book of the Prophets, for that reason
Matthew gives him the credit to Jeremiah, although the prophesy was precisely
from Zechariah. However, some prophecies of Jeremiah were related to this one
and so there is reason to give him credit (Jer.19:2-11; 7:31). Jeremiah spoke
of the east door, which is called The
Potsherd Gate, which led to the Valley of Ben-hinnom or Tophet, where the
potters formed their vessels to be used in the temple that was nearby. It was
in the valley also that in olden times, idolaters burned their children,
offering them to Baal. It was also called the Valley of Slaughter, but Jesus called it Gehenna, the Fire of Hell (Mt.5:22). In His time, garbage and the
carcasses of dead animals, which were thrown outside the walls of Jerusalem,
were burned there.
The staff, Union, was also
broken (v.14). When contact with God is cut off, it will cause the breaking of
brotherly unity. The true peacemaker, in the first place, is one who reconciles
man with God, before any peace can be made among brethren. While the Romans
were threatening at the doors of Jerusalem, different factions of Jewish were
fighting within. From that time on, the twelve tribes were dispersed and have
been separated and will remain separated until the reunion mentioned by Paul
(Ro.11:15).
Finally, the prophesy refers
to another evil shepherd with false staffs of covenant and unity. He is totally
worthless for any kind of benefit to the people (v.15-16). It is none but the
antichrist, raised up by the Lord as “a
deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they
all may be judged (condemned) who
did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2
Thes.2:11-12). His intentions are fully egotistic and in his entire kingdom, he
will only serve his own ambitions. “He
takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God… whom the
Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the
appearance of His coming” (v.17; 2 Thes.2:4,8).
Ahora la profecía refiere a otro pastor malvado con cayados, un pacto y una
unión, falsos. Es totalmente inútil para cualquier obra beneficiosa para el
pueblo (v.15-16). Es nada menos que el anticristo, levantado por el Señor como “un poder engañoso, para que crean la
mentira, a fin de que sean condenados todos los que no creyeron a la verdad,
sino que se complacieron en la injusticia” (2 Ts.2:11-12). Sus intenciones
son totalmente egoístas, y en todo su reino, solamente servirá a sus propias
ambiciones. “Se sienta en el santuario
de Dios, proclamando que él mismo es Dios… a quien el Señor matará con el soplo
de su boca, y destruirá con el resplandor de su venida” (v.17, 2 Ts.2:4,8).
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