Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

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Zechariah 11

Desolation of Israel

Zechariah 11:¹ Open your doors, O Lebanon,
That fire may devour your cedars.

• Fire is judgment.

Zechariah 11:² Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
Because the mighty trees are ruined.
Wail, O oaks of Bashan,
For the thick forest has come down.

• The thick forest is many people. The leaders, the cedars and the oaks have fallen.
• Zechariah sees a landscape of ruin.

Zechariah 11:³ There is the sound of wailing shepherds! For their glory is in ruins.

• The shepherds, the Levites and priests who have ruled over the flock of God’s sheep are in ruin.

There is the sound of roaring lions!
For the pride (Or floodplain, thicket where lions hid amongst the reeds) of the Jordan is in ruins.

• Predators lie in wait to devour their prey.

Prophecy of the Shepherds

Zechariah 11:⁴ Thus says the Lord my God (Yᵊhōvâ ‘ĕlōhîm), “Feed the flock for slaughter,

Zechariah 11:⁵ whose owners slaughter them and feel no guilt; those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ), for I am rich’; and their shepherds do not pity them.

Zechariah 11:⁶ For I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ). “But indeed I will give everyone into his neighbor’s hand and into the hand of his king. They shall attack (Lit. strike) the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”

Zechariah 11:⁷ So I fed the flock for slaughter, in particular the poor of the flock. I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Beauty (Or Grace), and the other I called Bonds (Or Unity); and I fed the flock.

Zechariah 11:⁸ I dismissed (Or destroyed, lit. cut off) the three shepherds in one month. My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me.

• The three shepherds during Jesus’ time would be the unholy trinity of Satan, the High Priest, and Judas.
• The three shepherds during the seven year tribulation would be the unholy trinity: Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet.

Zechariah 11:⁹ Then I said, “I will not feed you. Let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish. Let those that are left eat each other’s flesh.”

Beauty and the Beast, Jesus (Beauty) and the Antichrist (Bonds/Unity/the Beast): When the staff is broken, the verses that follow describe that event. First, it is Beauty followed by the events of Jesus as a shepherd.

Zechariah 11:¹⁰ And I took my staff, Beauty (a masculine noun), and cut it in two, that I might break the covenant which I had made with all the peoples.

• I am going out on a limb here to speculate what I believe this verse might mean. Beauty is Jesus. As stated in Daniel, Jesus the Prince was “cut off”. The old covenant was broken and Jesus made a new covenant.
  
  • Daniel 9:26 “And after the sixty-two weeks (the authentic) Messiah shall be cutoff, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince (the mimic messiah, the Antichrist) who is to come (the seven year tribulation) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood (an overflowing army), and till the end of the war desolations are determined.

Zechariah 11:¹¹ So it was broken on that day. Thus the poor of the flock, who were watching me, knew that it was the Word of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).

• The poor of the flock are not the Jewish leaders who plotted to put Jesus to death, but those who celebrated when He made His triumphal entry.
• John 1:¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
  ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Zechariah 11:¹² Then I said to them, “If it is agreeable to you (good in your sight), give me (Judas) my wages; and if not, refrain.” So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.

• Prophecy Alert! Fulfilled by the words of Judas when he bargained with the Priests to betray Jesus.
• See Topic: thirty pieces of silver

Zechariah 11:¹³ And the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—that princely price they set on Me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) for the potter.

• Prophecy Alert! Fulfilled when Judas threw the silver at the feet of the priests in the temple who in turn used the money to purchase a potter’s field.
• The potter’s field was used to bury the poor.

The Beast: Breaking the Unity of the Brotherhood. The verses that follow describe the events yet to come during the rule of the Antichrist, the worthless shepherd.

Zechariah 11:¹⁴ Then (during the tribulation) I cut in two my other staff, Bonds (Or Unity), that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

• The staff of Unity breaks the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. Unity is the mimic Messiah, the Antichrist who is able to turn the Jews against each other. He is also Bonds in that he holds the Jews in his own special captivity.
  
  • Matthew 10:21 “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death…But he who endures to the end will be saved (physically and spiritually).

Zechariah 11:¹⁵ And the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) said to me, “Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd.

Zechariah 11:¹⁶ For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat and tear their hooves in pieces. (The Antichrist)

• Instead of praying for their flock a wolf in sheep’s clothing preys on the flock,.
  Instead of feeding the sheep they fleece the sheep.

Zechariah 11:¹⁷ “Woe to the worthless shepherd,
Who leaves (deserts) the flock!
A sword shall be against his arm
And against his right eye;
His arm shall completely wither,
And his right eye shall be totally blinded.”

• The worthless shepherd is the coming Antichrist, the one of whom Jesus says:
  • John 5:43 I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.

• The Antichrist will rule over the Jews during the seven year tribulation.

• These verses testify to how He will betray the Jews (even as Judas betrayed Jesus) and as a result he will be assassinated. However; since he is indwelt by Satan, he will have a resurrection to mimic the resurrection of Jesus, but it will be a disfigured resurrection. In the book of Revelation he is no longer called “the beast”, but “the image of the beast”.

• Everything about him mimics the true Messiah: He is a shepherd, but a worthless shepherd. He is a branch, but an abominable branch. He is raised from the dead, but he does not have a glorified body, rather he may in fact be a monster of technology. Even the seven years of tribulation mirrors the seven days of a groom’s wedding feast. To understand the concept of the groom read “Jacob’s Two Wives”.
  
  See Topic: Jacob’s Two Wives
  See Topic: The Mimic Messiah

• Conclusion: A comparison of two shepherds: One who is the Good Shepherd and one who is the worthless shepherd. One who is the authentic Messiah and one who is the mimic messiah. The first Shepherd is Jesus’ first advent to earth. The first Shepherd will return at the end of the second shepherd’s rule in Jerusalem to slay him and then take His own rightful place as King of the Jews.