And Jehovah said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
Zechariah has just acted out the work of the true Shepherd. He broke two staffs, and they paid him thirty pieces of silver. Now God tells him to pick up different tools and play a different part. Who is this second shepherd? And why does God say He Himself will raise him up?
Zechariah does not just speak this prophecy. He acts it out. This verse is the hinge between his two roles.
Now the prophet first plays the part of the Messiah, and then of the Anti-Messiah. From verse 7 to 14 he plays the Christ; from verse 15 to the end he plays the Antichrist, as he was told to do.
The switch of roles is not random. It is God's answer to the people.
First the prophet acted the part of the true Shepherd of Israel. Now he is told to act the part of the false one who is to come. That false one comes as a direct result of God's government, in retribution on the people. We are not told what the "instruments" of a foolish shepherd were, but verse 16 tells us plainly what will mark the false one.
Verse 14 closes the account of the rejected Shepherd. Verse 15 jumps straight to the end of the age.
The prophecy passes over the whole of God's wonderful dealings with Christianity. They are not, and could not be, the proper theme of Old Testament prophecy... The immense system of the church, the mystery of Christ, fills the gap between verses 14 and 15. Verse 15 plunges us at once into the grim circumstances at the end of the age... Having brought in Christ up to His death, the prophet now brings in the Antichrist immediately after Him.
Commentators identify this shepherd as the Antichrist. The clue is two small words in the next verse: "in the land".
God will raise up this "idol", or "worthless", shepherd in judgment on the people, "in the land", as verse 16 says. So he will not be some worldly king out in the Gentile nations. He will be the false messiah in Palestine — the second "beast" of Revelation 13, not the first.
Israel has made this kind of choice once before.
This passage brings the antichrist before us as the foolish shepherd, the worthless shepherd, whom the Jews will one day receive. Just as they chose Barabbas instead of Christ, so, having refused Jehovah as their Shepherd, they will open their arms to welcome this worthless shepherd... This last false shepherd over God's people will exalt himself not only over them, but also against God and His Christ.
Yet the verse does not say the people will produce him. God says I will raise him up — and that sovereignty is deliberate.
God will raise him up because Israel has refused the faithful Shepherd, so that Israel may learn by experience the folly of such a choice. The Lord Jesus came in His Father's name, and Israel did not receive Him. The antichrist will come in his own name, and Israel will receive him (John 5:43)... His coming will be according to the working of Satan (2 Thess. 2:9), yet God is sovereign over it, and tells Israel that He will raise up that deceiver.
Notice what the prophet now carries in place of the two staffs.
He no longer holds the staffs of Beauty and Bands, but has the instrument of the foolish shepherd, to wound and to hurt. This false Christ is the opposite of the true Christ. The true Shepherd came to seek, to save, to feed, to heal, and to gather; the false shepherd does the opposite.
Every generation tries to pin this prophecy on a man in the news. Gaebelein warns against that.
Still the foolish shepherd, the last one, the very embodiment of Satan himself, the accuser, has not yet come. There have been many forerunners. Herod was one of them, but not that man of sin, the son of destruction... During the war, some people's reading of prophecy ran wild. They saw the deluded German Kaiser as a fulfilment of this passage, because he had a withered arm. Such foolish inventions are deplorable, for they give the study of prophecy a bad name... The dreadful punishment will fall on the foolish shepherd on the day the Lord comes with His saints to save His people Israel.
- Rejection. Verse 14 ends the story of the Shepherd Israel refused. This verse opens the story of the shepherd Israel will welcome.
- Retribution. The false shepherd is no accident. God Himself raises him up and gives Israel the leader it preferred, "so that Israel may learn by experience the folly of such a choice."
- Counterfeit. He is the exact reverse of Christ. He does not seek, heal, feed or gather, and he comes "in his own name", not the Father's.
- Caution. He has not yet come. Naming him from the headlines — the Kaiser, and every guess since — only gives the study of prophecy a bad name.
- Judgment. The dreadful punishment falls on the foolish shepherd on the day the Lord comes with His saints to save His people Israel.
For behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who shall not visit those that are about to perish, neither shall seek that which is strayed away, nor heal that which is wounded, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their hoofs in pieces.
Israel refused its true Shepherd. Now God announces another one — a shepherd He Himself will raise up in the land. Who is he? And why would God raise up a shepherd who ruins the flock?
Bad shepherds were nothing new in Israel. This one is different, and one phrase marks him out: "in the land."
There were false shepherds before the true One came, as He showed in John 10:10, 12. But Zechariah is predicting the coming of that antichrist, of whom the Lord spoke when He said, "If another comes in his own name, you will receive him" (John 5:43). God will raise up this "idol," or "worthless," shepherd in judgment on the people, "in the land," as verse 16 says. So he will not be some worldly king out among the nations. He will be the false messiah in Palestine — the second "beast" of Revelation 13, not the first.
The prophet skips a long stretch of history between verse 14 and verse 15.
Old Testament prophecy passes over the whole of God's wonderful dealings with Christianity. They are not, and could not be, its proper theme... The vast system of the church, the mystery of Christ, fills the gap between verses 14 and 15. Verse 15 then drops us straight into the grim conditions at the end of the age... The prophet has brought in Christ up to His death. Now he brings in the Antichrist right after Him.
The verse does not say Satan will produce this man. It says God will.
This is the negative side: this shepherd will bring no blessing whatever. God will raise him up because Israel has refused the faithful Shepherd, so that Israel may learn by experience the folly of such a choice... His coming will follow the working of Satan (2 Thess. 2:9). Yet God stands sovereign above this, and He tells Israel that He will raise up that deceiver.
And the nation will not merely put up with him. It will want him.
This passage brings the antichrist before us as the foolish shepherd, the shepherd of "nought," whom the Jews will one day receive. Just as they chose Barabbas in preference to Christ, so, having refused the Lord as their Shepherd, they will open their arms to welcome this shepherd of "nought."
The verse first tells us what this shepherd will not do. Each missing act is one the true Shepherd performs.
The foolish shepherd is the false Messiah, the man of sin, the son of perdition. The prophet impersonates him too. He no longer holds the staffs of Beauty and Bands, but has the instrument of the foolish shepherd to wound and to hurt. This false Christ is the opposite of the true Christ. The true Shepherd came to seek, to save, to feed, to heal, and to gather; the false shepherd does the opposite.
Then comes what he does do — and the face he wears while doing it.
The antichrist has a negative side to his evil character: he brings no blessing to Israel. He also has a wicked side that acts. We see it when he eats the flesh of the fat sheep and tears off their hoofs. The fat sheep are those who prosper. The antichrist will devour their prosperity and leave them unfit for any proper walk before God. He will be a master of hypocrisy, pretending to be a devoted Jew concerned for the welfare of his people (Ps. 55:12-14), yet all the time defrauding them.
This shepherd's cruelty will match the Lord's compassion point for point, in reverse.
The Lord had compassion on those in danger of perishing, on the scattered and the wounded. All of it will find its mirror-image in the terrible tribulation the antichrist brings on the flock of slaughter — the nation that will itself have chosen this satanic man to be king. But the unworthy shepherd will himself fall under God's judgment.
- Refused — Israel turned down its true Shepherd. This verse is what came next.
- Raised — God says "I am raising up." Even this shepherd is under His hand, given so the nation learns the folly of its choice.
- Reversed — He will not visit, seek, heal, or feed. Every mark of the true Shepherd is missing here.
- Devoured — Instead he feeds himself on the flock, eating the fat and leaving the sheep unfit to walk.
- Ruined — The shepherd of "nought" ends under the judgment of God Himself.
Woe to the worthless shepherd that leaveth the flock! The sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye; his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye utterly darkened.
The chapter has brought the true Shepherd as far as His death and rejection. Now God raises up a shepherd of a very different kind, and this last verse announces His sentence on him. It is a "woe" — a judgment cry aimed at one man, striking the very arm and eye by which he ruled.
The older word here is "idol," but it does not mean a carved image. It points to emptiness. The charge against this man is desertion.
The word "idol" here has the force of "nothingness." The sin of this shepherd lies in his leaving, forsaking the flock — one word that sums up all the descriptions in the previous verse. He had abandoned all that needed the shepherd's care, and used the rest for his own purposes. Like the thief in the parable, he came only to steal and kill and destroy. He is like the hired hand, "who does not own the sheep": when he sees the wolf coming, he "leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them." (John 10)
Commentators read this shepherd as the Antichrist, the false leader of the last days. He appears in the prophecy right after Christ, and the two stand side by side.
Having brought in Christ up to His death, now he brings in the Antichrist as it were straight upon Him. Obviously there is a moral link and a real contrast between the two. So He Himself tells the Jews in John 5 that if they would not have Him who came in the Father's name, they would receive the one who comes in his own name.
"Deserts the flock" is not vague neglect. One writer ties it to a moment: the hour when the sheep most need a shepherd between them and the enemy.
Israel will face the greatest trouble of their history. At that very time this proud leader, held in such honor, will desert the sheep and leave them at the mercy of the wolf! What a contrast to the true Shepherd! He will return to Israel soon after, when they are in danger of complete destruction. He will comfort His sheep and lead them forth to pour out His judgment.
The judgment strikes with precision. It hits the two things a false shepherd trades on: what he can enforce and what he claims to see.
Zechariah calls the Antichrist the "idol shepherd." He takes royal, priestly, and prophetic power over the flock (Israel), and he cares nothing for them. His boasted authority is his arm, and his boasted intelligence is his right eye. His claims in the land rest on these two, and both are destroyed. He himself is cast alive into the eternal home of misery, the lake of fire (Zech. 11:15-17; Rev. 19:20).
The wording is careful: the arm dries up, it is not cut off. One writer explains what the sword stands for, and why the blindness fits the man.
The sword will be upon Antichrist's arm, to dry it up (not cut it off). The arm stands for the power to get results. The sword pictures the Word of God, and it has power to make all the power of the creature useless… This man puts God out of his thoughts. So by his twisted mind he blinds himself to the truth of God. When someone blinds himself on purpose, God will blind him in judgment.
The blindness also keeps something from him: he will not watch his own ruin coming.
His power will be destroyed. At the same time he will be made completely blind, so that he does not see the fate that will suddenly come over him.
This woe is final, and one writer points on from it to a further judgment still to come.
So he will bring on himself the just judgment of God, expressed in this woe that can never be taken back — a woe that will bear its bitter fruit throughout eternity… And if this shepherd is the Antichrist, as he doubtless is, the judgment announced here is only the prelude to the other one, which Messiah Himself will inflict when He appears.
- Nothing. The word behind "worthless" means emptiness. His whole crime folds into one phrase: he leaves the flock and keeps what is left for himself.
- Received. Israel refused the Shepherd who came in the Father's name. So the prophecy sets the one who comes in his own name straight after Him.
- Deserted. He walks away when the wolf arrives, at the nation's darkest hour. The true Shepherd comes back to that same scene to comfort His sheep.
- Withered. The sword strikes his arm and his right eye: his authority and his claimed insight. The arm dries up, it is not cut off. The eye goes dark, so he never sees his end coming.
- Woe. Commentators tie his end to the lake of fire. The man who deserted the sheep is deserted himself, and this woe never ends.