TEXT [Commentary]

  3.   The scattering of the sheep (13:7-9)

7 “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,

the man who is my partner,”

says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

“Strike down the shepherd,

and the sheep will be scattered,

and I will turn against the lambs.

8 Two-thirds of the people in the land

will be cut off and die,” says the LORD.

“But one-third will be left in the land.

9 I will bring that group through the fire

and make them pure.

I will refine them like silver

and purify them like gold.

They will call on my name,

and I will answer them.

I will say, ‘These are my people,’

and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”

NOTES

13:7 O sword. The personification of the sword as a warrior being called into battle serves to heighten the terrifying image of the weapon as an instrument of death (cf. Isa 31:8; 34:6; 66:16).

my shepherd . . . my partner. The phrase “my shepherd” signifies a divinely appointed leader of Israel and has messianic connotations (cf. Ezek 34:23; 37:24). The phrase “my partner” (geber ‘amithi [TH1397/5997, ZH1505/6660], “a man, my neighbor”) is unique in the OT. The expression conveys the idea of an intimate relationship. Taken together, the two expressions indicate “a parity between God and shepherd” (Meyers and Meyers 1993:386). Jesus quoted 13:7 with reference to his own imminent death and the scattering of his disciples (Matt 26:31; Mark 14:27).

Strike down. The word strike (nakah [TH5221, ZH5782]) when used with “sword” (khereb [TH2719, ZH2995]) means “to inflict mortal wounds” or “slay” (cf. Meyers and Meyers 1993:387).

13:8 Two-thirds . . . one-third. The fractional portions may be an allusion to Ezekiel’s sign of the coming judgment of God in the dividing of his shaven hair into three equal parts (Ezek 5:1-2, 12). The magnitude of this unspecified act of divine judgment is catastrophic, but God will preserve a remnant of his people whose sins he will forgive (Jer 50:20; cf. Isa 65:9). According to Merrill (1994:338), Zechariah envisioned an eschatological repetition of the Babylonian exile for Israel. In John’s apocalyptic vision, one-third of the people on the earth are killed in a series of three plagues that are part of God’s judgment of sinful humanity at the end of the age (Rev 9:15, 18).

13:9 fire. The word “fire” (’esh [TH784, ZH836]) is often used as a metaphor for divine judgment by the OT prophets (e.g., Isa 66:15; Jer 4:4; Ezek 36:5; Amos 5:6). This divine judgment may take the form of a natural disaster like an earthquake or pestilence or the outbreak of plague or even the horrors of war. The purpose of God’s “fire” may be the destruction of the wicked or the testing and purification of the righteous (as it is in this context).

refine them like silver and purify them like gold. Zechariah borrowed the image of God purifying his people in the smelter’s furnace from Isaiah (1:25), Jeremiah (6:29), and Ezekiel (22:22). Malachi, a later contemporary of Zechariah, likened the day of God’s visitation to “a blazing fire that refines metal” (Mal 3:2), and God himself is portrayed as the divine metallurgist crouching over the fire, “burning away the dross” (Mal 3:3).

call on my name. The expression (qara’ [TH7121, ZH7924] + be + shem [TH8034, ZH9005]) is an idiom for prayer, in this case confession of sin and a plea for help in the form of divine intervention and deliverance (cf. NIDOTTE 3.972).

These are my people . . . The LORD is our God. The expressions are sometimes understood as elements of the “adoption formula” of covenant relationship, depicting the intimate bond between God and his people Israel (cf. Exod 19:5; Jer 30:22; 31:33). Zechariah’s language is reminiscent of Hosea’s prediction that one day God “will plant a crop of Israelites” and he will say “now you are my people,” and the people will respond “you are our God” (Hos 2:23). The declarations of loyalty by God and Israel restore the covenant relationship symbolically portrayed in the breaking of two staffs in the earlier shepherd allegory (11:10, 14).

COMMENTARY [Text]

The third message (13:7-9) of the second oracle (chs 12–14) describes a coming day when God’s shepherd (i.e., a divinely appointed leader of Israel) will be struck down (or killed, 13:7). This will result in the scattering of “the sheep” (i.e., the people of Israel), with a portion of the nation being given over to divine judgment and destruction (13:8). Another portion of the nation will experience spiritual renewal, the outcome of God-ordained testing and suffering that refines the faith and purifies the character of the godly remnant (13:9). The difficult process that combines both God’s judgment and refinement brings about covenant renewal, the restoration of a right relationship between God and his people (13:9). This fulfills Zechariah’s vision of God once again living among his people and his glory resting in Jerusalem (cf. 1:16; 2:5, 10-11; 8:3, 23).

This subunit of Zechariah’s second oracle (13:7-9) is a poem that resumes the shepherd theme of 9:16; 10:2-3; and 11:4-17 in the first oracle (chs 9–12). Baldwin (1972:197) is in agreement with Frost who considered the poem “a self-contained little gem” and regarded it as the climax of chapters 12–13. The identity of the shepherd who is struck down is a matter of scholarly debate. Some link this slain shepherd to the “worthless shepherd” who abandons the flock (11:17; cf. Smith 1984:283). Others connect the slain shepherd with Zechariah the prophet, whose ministry had been rejected by the postexilic Jewish community (so Mason 1977:112). Quite apart from the historical setting of the oracle, Jesus interpreted it eschatologically, identifying himself as the shepherd struck down by God (Matt 26:31; Mark 14:27; cf. Smith 1984:283-284).

Surprisingly, this brief three-verse literary unit packs considerable “theological punch.” For instance, the phrase “the man who is my partner” (13:7) is used elsewhere only in Leviticus and refers to a neighbor, friend, or close associate (e.g., Lev 6:2; 7:21; 19:15; cf. Boda 2004:512). The precise identification of the shepherd is difficult to ascertain, but the shepherd (or leader) is struck down for some unspecified offense and the sheep (or people of Israel) are scattered. Jesus applied the verse to his own impending death and to his disciples, who would disown him during the process of his mock trials before the Jews and Romans (Matt 26:31; see the discussion in Boda 2004:514-516). Kaiser (1995:226-227) identifies the phrase (“the man who is close to me”) as a messianic epithet and states, “thus, this shepherd is the one who is side by side with Yahweh: That is, he is his equal.” Elsewhere in the NT, Jesus boldly disclosed his “partnership” with God when he declared that he is one with the Father (John 10:30; 14:11).

A second theological truth found in this section of the prophet’s message that spans both the old and the new covenants is the doctrine of what Scott (1971:145-146) calls “corrective affliction.” Such divinely appointed trial, testing, and suffering effects humility, encourages faith in God, and produces godly character (cf. Jas 1:2-4, 9-12). Moses reminded Israel that God humbled them by letting the people go hungry and then providing manna for them so that they would realize “that people do not live by bread alone” (Deut 8:3). Job’s counselors urged him to “consider the joy of those corrected by God” because by means of their suffering, God “rescues those who suffer. For he gets their attention through adversity” (Job 5:17; 36:15). The Old Testament and the New Testament distill the idea of corrective affliction in the declaration that “the LORD disciplines those he loves” (Heb 12:6; cf. Prov 3:12).

The paradox of human freedom and divine sovereignty intersect in the oracles of Zechariah as the prophet’s message relates to the shepherd figure. On the one hand, the Hebrew people appear to be responsible for “piercing” the divinely appointed shepherd-leader of Israel (12:10). On the other hand, the prophet’s address to the sword by means of an apostrophe (or the literary device of personification) suggests that the striking of the shepherd-leader of Israel was no accident but rather an act foreordained by God (13:7).

Zechariah’s prophecies concerning the “shepherd” make an important contribution to current theological discussion taking place under the rubric of “open-theism” or “free-will theism.”[128] The “open” view holds that the future exists only as a set of indefinite possibilities and hence cannot be known by God. God must then accommodate his plans to the contingencies of human decisions, adapting his own plans to fit the changing situation. Critics contend that such a theology makes Christians “children of a lesser God”—a God who is neither omniscient nor sovereign.[129]

The “open theism” debate cannot be solved here. Suffice it to say that the teaching of Zechariah supports the traditional understanding that God possesses detailed foreknowledge with respect to the future. This is evidenced, in part, by his choice of vocabulary in describing the striking down of God’s shepherd with the verb “pierce” (12:10; cf. John 19:34), as well as the unique phrase designating the Messiah as the “partner” of God (13:7; cf. John 1:14, 18). In addition, the New Testament documents demonstrate the precision with which the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, including his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and his betrayal for 30 pieces of silver (cf. 9:9; 11:12). The New Testament appeal to the Old Testament serves to confirm the fact that Jesus is the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made (Rev 13:8)—according to God’s unchanging plan (Eph 1:5). Zechariah would agree with Isaiah the prophet that God’s intimate knowledge of the future makes the Holy One of Israel distinctive from all other would-be gods (cf. Isa 41:22; 45:21; 46:10).