Zechariah 11:4-14

ALLEGORY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, Zechariah 11:4-14.

The interpretation of these verses is a very difficult task, chiefly because it is not possible to determine the historical situation reflected in them (for Marti’s view and other theories see Introduction, p. 589). Two things seem to be certain:

1. There is no immediate connection between this section and Zechariah 10:3 to Zechariah 11:3.

2. The verses are descriptive rather than predictive. The preceding section looks into the future, this into the past, most probably the immediate past, so that the author may have been one of the actors in the events described. In the form of an allegory he describes Jehovah’s loving care for the people, their ingratitude, his resentment, and the resulting judgment.

He declares that their experiences, pleasant and unpleasant, were ordained by Jehovah for a special purpose. When they disregarded his pleasant leadings he gave them up, temporarily at least, to calamity and misfortune. In the section immediately following the prophet turns again to the future with the promise that Jehovah will once more have mercy upon them. The close connection between the human agent and the divine Master is indicated in the use of the first person by the former, even when the act described must be regarded as having been executed by Jehovah himself. Whether the symbolical acts described were, either all or in part, actually performed by the prophet, or whether he introduces them only for the purpose of making the description more vivid, cannot be determined and is of secondary importance. The act symbolized is the real thing, and it remains the same whatever one may think of the reality of the symbolical acts (see p. 603f).