Ezekiel 34:7

"Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of Jehovah: As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, surely forasmuch as my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my sheep; therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah. Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them."

THE PROMISED DELIVERY FROM THE FALSE SHEPHERDS (Ezekiel 34:7-10)

This promise was fulfilled to the letter throughout the entire Inter-testamental period of Jewish history. No person whomsoever was ever recognized as a shepherd (king) over Israel during that approximately half a millennium of time. The evil shepherds who replaced them were the three political parties, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Herodians of the times of Zechariah. The powers which they had contrived to exercise over God's people during that period leading up to the Advent of Christ fully justified Zechariah's designation of them as those evil shepherds, "Which feed the flock of slaughter, whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty" (Zechariah 11:4). The promise of this prophecy is that the evil shepherds would be removed; the prophecy of Zechariah regarding that later batch of evil shepherds was that "the sword would be upon them" and that, "they would be cut off in one month" (Zechariah 11:8,17), a prophecy that was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus in the year 70 A.D. See our Commentary on Zechariah (Vol. 4 in our Series on the Minor Prophets). Plumptre agreed that Zechariah 11th chapter should be studied in connection with this chapter.[7]