ZECHARIAH 11

1 Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE JEWISH STATE — A.D. 70

Lebanon...is here invited to open its doors to the invader (Rome) who was to come from that direction. Lebanon signifies the white one, an apt name for the tall mountain with its peaks covered in snow.

It is used in Scripture to symbolise Israel's glory - Isa. 10:34, the apex of which was the Temple in Jerusalem - Luke 21:6.

Both the land of Israel and the Temple are probably referred to here, so that the Romans sweeping down from the north destroyed the glory of Jewry when they overthrew the temple.

Lebanon is addressed as the walls of a fortress, and invited to open its doors to the destroyerfrom the north.

The Christadelphian Expositor

7 And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty , and the other I called Bands [Judah]; and I fed the flock.

Beauty and Bands

-The two shepherds' staffs of Zechariah 11., called "Beauty" and "Bands" are, we think, to be interpreted in this way: "Bands" agrees with Israel under the law, alias

"Jerusalem in bondage with her children,"

while the Beauty-staff answers to "the king in his beauty," referred to by Isaiah (33:17).

The breaking of these staffs is explained to be significant of two divine acts, one the breaking of the brotherhood between Israel and Judah, which may be said to have occurred when Israel was carried away to Assyria; and the other, the breaking of the Mosaic covenant, which may be said to have been accomplished when the Beauty-shepherd of Israel was given "for a covenant of the people" (Isa. 42:6), with the result of

"taking away the first" covenant, "that he might establish the second" (Heb. 10:9).

That it has some connection with this event is evident from the proximity in which it stands to the "thirty pieces of silver," quoted by Matthew, and applied to Christ. The Jews, however, said in effect when he came,

"there is no Beauty that we should desire him,"

just as Isaiah had predicted. The prophets were men of sign, who in many things were the personal illustrations of much that concerned Christ in their own experience.

Bro. F. R. Shuttleworth

The Christadelphian, June 1888

8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.

The Three Shepherds

—The three shepherds cut off in one month of Zechariah's prophecy (11:8) appear to refer to the three kings of Israel—Jeroboam II., Zachariah, and Shallum, of whom the first died, and the two next were slain, all within about seven months (2 Kings 15.)

Hosea appears to refer to the same matter, in his address to the house of Israel, the priests, and the house of the king, saying,

"they have dealt treacherously against the Lord; for they have begotten strange children; now shall a month devour them with their portions" (5:7);

and again,

"as for Samaria her king is cut off as the foam upon the water . . . in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off" (10:6–15).

The foolish and carnivorous shepherd by which these were to be succeeded (Zech. 11:16) was apparently Menahem, who exacted a thousand talents of silver of the wealthy of Israel, whom he taxed to the extent of fifty shekels a man to get Pul the Assyrian king to confirm the kingdom in his hand (2 Kings 15:19).

This eleventh chapter of Zechariah has the appearance of being out of its proper chronological place if not out of its proper book, for the verse about the "thirty pieces of silver" is quoted in Matthew (27: 9) as from Jeremiah.

Bro. F. R. Shuttleworth

The Christadelphian, June 1888

13 And Yahweh said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of Yahweh.

Redemption is release for a ransom. All who become God's servants are therefore released from a former lord by purchase. The purchaser is Yahweh; and the price, or ransom, paid, the precious blood of the flesh through which the Anointing Spirit was manifested. It is therefore styled, "the precious blood of Christ": as it is written in the words of Peter to his brethren, saying,

"Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conduct paternally delivered; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and without blemish" (1 Pet. 1:18.)

If this Christ-Lamb had not been slain, the "New Song" of Apoc. 5:9,10, could never have been sung; the 144,000 could never have been sealed, the robes of the saints, the palm-bearers of vii. 9-14, could never have been washed white in blood; there would have been no Altar, no worshippers thereat, nor souls underneath it in death (ch. 11:1; 6:9); and there would have been no "fine linen, clean and white," to clothe the bodyguards of "the King of kings" (19:8,14). All these parts of the Apocalypse are based on the slaying of the Christ-Lamb as the redemption price of the servants of God.

SATAN took the price of release. In the day of his power he valued the blood at thirty pieces of silver.

The life being purchased for this amount of blood-money, Satan nailed the Christ-Lamb to the tree; and poured out his life with a spear. Jesus entered no protest against the arrangement. On the contrary, he lovingly laid down his life for the sake of those who had died under the law of Moses, walking in the steps of Abraham's faith; and for them also, who should afterwards become Abraham's children by adoption through himself.

With the first class, as a man, he had no personal acquaintance; with the last, comprehending multitudes of his contemporaries, his acquaintance cost him his life. Unknown by the one, and condemned and persecuted by the other, he nevertheless laid down his life to purchase their release from the bondage of Sin and Death.

Eureka 1.1.2.