Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/401



REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 385

There is a sad gradation in the wretchedness of the people thus given over to judgment, as described in vers. 5-6. First, the Gentile nations pity them not, but buy and sell and slay them as " sheep of slaughter." Secondly, their own shepherds, from whom something different might have been expected, have no compassion for them ; and thirdly, and most terrible of all, " I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah" for long-continued obduracy exhausts even the patience of Jehovah ; and there comes a time in the history of nations and of individuals when the long-suffering God has to say " there is no more remedy " (or " healing " 1 ), and His righteous anger has to manifest itself in judgment.

In the solemn words of the 6th verse we have a fore cast of what would take place after the rejection of the Good Shepherd, and the care and protection of God over His people would be withdrawn. God s anger will show itself, not only in a negative manner (" I will no more pity "), but also in a positive way.

"And, lo" (or "behold "), this is God s way of calling attention to something great which He is going to do either with nations or individuals " / will deliver the men every one into the hands of his neighbour, and into the hand of his king : and they shall smite (literally, break down, i.e., lay waste} the land" solemn and awful words which well describe in advance the confusion, captious strife, hatred, and mutual destruction, which followed soon after the rejection of our Lord Jesus, their true Messiah and Shepherd, the detailed accounts of which may be read in Josephus, and even in the Talmud.

A parallel passage is found in Jer. xix. 9, which was fulfilled in the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and the destruction of the First Temple: "And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend ,. in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them " where

1 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16. 25