Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/417



REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 401

suffering of God as manifested in Christ was exhausted ; " Then said /, / will not feed you : that which dieth, let it die ; and that which perisheth (or is cut off }, let it perish ; and those that remain, let each one eat the flesh of another " all which became terribly and literally true when, after the rejection of the Good Shepherd, the terrible calamities of war, famine, pestilence, intestine strife, and mutual destruction overtook the poor deluded people.

The first outward visible sign of the rupture between the Shepherd and the sheep was the breaking of one of the staves: " And I took My staff Beauty (or Favour } and cut it asunder^ that I might break My covenant which I had made with all the peoples.

This staff was called DV3, noam " Beauty," or " Pleasantness," or " Favour " ; because, as already said above, it was the symbol of God s protection over them in keeping off the nations from attacking them from without.

The covenant which He says He will break is not the covenant which He made with the people. The word for people in the original is in the plural, and refers to the Gentile nations, and the covenant is that which God, so to say, made with the Gentile peoples on their behalf. When Israel was in God s favour and under His gracious protec tion, then He caused even their enemies to be at peace with them ; and when the Gentile nations gathered against them ready to devour, the Shepherd of Israel soon broke the arm of their strength and prevented them doing harm to His people. But when He ceased to be their defence, then they became a ready prey to the Gentile world-powers, which are well symbolised in the Bible by wild beasts " The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it."

Again, however, it is declared in the same word of prophecy that restored and converted Israel will be taken under the special protection of God, and a covenant will be made by Him on their behalf, not only with the nations, but with the beasts of the field. " In that day will I make a covenant for tJiem with the beasts of the field, and with the 26