Zechariah 11:6

"For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah; but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king; and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them."

This statement, identified as the Word of God Himself, reveals the internal conditions in Israel that shall precede the nation's downfall. Civil strife, disorder, and anarchy shall precede their delivery into the hands of "their king" ("his king"), that king being none other than the Roman emperor, formally accepted and proclaimed as their only king by the people themselves when they cried, "We have no other king but Caesar" (John 19:15). Josephus' has an extensive history of the strife and turmoil among the Jews prior to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. (For some of the details in that violent disorder, see my commentary on Mark, p. 274.)

"I will deliver ..." That it was indeed God Himself that delivered the city of Jerusalem up to the Romans, we have the testimony of the Roman emperor himself. After Titus concluded the siege and entered the city, he was so impressed with the strength and ingenuity of its fortifications that he said:

"We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications; for what could the hands of men or any machines do toward overthrowing these towers?" At which time he had many such discourses to his friends."[17]

Every once in awhile, one finds in a critical commentary an expression of profound truth, much in the manner of Caiaphas' divine prophecy in John 11:50-52. This is one: "This verse (Zechariah 11:6) is treated as a gloss by some of the later critics, but that is because they have misunderstood the context!"[18] Amen! We might go a step further and behold here also the reason for the vast majority of the excisions, emendations, and rearrangements so freely advocated in critical circles.