to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֣הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
God
אֱלֹהָ֑י'e.lo.Hai
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
Feed
רְעֵ֖הre.'Eh
H7462
to tend a flock · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
flock
צֹ֥אןtzon
H6629
a collective name for a flock (of sheep or goats) · noun, common both genders singular construct
slaughter
הַהֲרֵגָֽהha.ha.re.Gah
H2028
slaughter · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Zechariah 11:7 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…
Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy child…
Romans 15:8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
Isaiah 40:9-11 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with stre…
Isaiah 49:4-5 Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work…
Ezekiel 34:23-24 And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.
Micah 5:4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall…
Zechariah 14:5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Zechariah 11:4-14
The prophet here is made a type of Christ, as the prophet Isaiah sometimes was; and the scope of these verses is to show that for judgment Christ came into this world (Joh 9:39), for judgment to the Jewish church and nation, which were, about the time of his coming, wretchedly corrupted and degenerated by the worldliness and hypocrisy of their rulers. Christ would have healed them, but they would not be healed; they are therefore left desolate, and abandoned to ruin. Observe here,
I. The desperate case of the Jewish church, under the tyranny of their own governors. Their slavery in their own country made them as miserable as their captivity in strange countries had done: Their possessors sla…
The prophet here proceeds to show the cause of the destruction just foretold, namely, the rejection of Messiah.
flock of . . . slaughter-- (Psa 44:22). God's people doomed to slaughter by the Romans. Zechariah here represents typically Messiah, and performs in vision the actions enjoined: hence the language is in part appropriate to him, but mainly to the Antitype, Messiah. A million and a half perished in the Jewish war, and one million one hundred thousand at the fall of Jerusalem. "Feed" implies that the Jews could not plead ignorance of God's will to execute their sin. Zechariah and the other prophets had by God's appointment "fed" them (Act 20:28) with the word of God, teaching and wa…
Feed the flock of the slaughter - This people resemble a flock of sheep fattened for the shambles; feed, instruct, this people who are about to be slaughtered.
John Gill on Zechariah 11:4
Thus saith the Lord my God,.... The Syriac version adds, "to me"; not the Prophet Zechariah, but the Messiah, who calls the Lord his God, as he was man and Mediator, John 20:17 for what follow are the words of God the Father to him, calling upon him, and giving him a commission to
Feed the flock of the slaughter; meaning the people of the Jews in general, to whom Christ was sent as a prophet, to teach and instruct them by the ministry of the word; so "feeding" is interpreted of prophesying, by the Targum and Jarchi: and these are called "the flock of slaughter", because of the cruel usage they met with from their shepherds and owners, mentioned in the next verse Zechariah 11:5; and because…
The Church Fathers
(Vers. 4, 5.) Thus says the Lord my God: Feed the sheep of slaughter, which those who possessed them were slaughtering, and they did not grieve, and they were selling them saying: Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich, and their shepherds did not spare them. LXX: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Feed the sheep of slaughter, which those who possessed them were killing, and they did not repent, and those who were selling them, said: Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich, and their shepherds were not patient with them. Where a most clear prophecy is, and the true order of history is narrated through translation, the interpretation of tropes is superfluous, such as when we say that some are good shepherds and others are bad, and this applies both to the old people as well as to the new, that is, both to the priests and rulers of the Jews as well as to the bishops and priests of the Christians, and to whoever the negligent shepherds may be, and if they scandalize one of the least of these, they themselves are the ones who slaughter the sheep and do not suffer anything on them, nor do they grieve, nor can they say with the Apostle: Who is scandalized and I am not burned (I Cor. XI)? And they sell the people entrusted to them, of whom it is written: 'Who devour my people like bread' (Ps. 52:5), and from the deaths of others they acquire riches, praising those who plunder the poor, and blessing the unjust. Let others interpret these things as they wish: let us hold the order of explanation that we once embraced. For Lebanon is laid open, and its cedars and firs are consumed by the burning flame, the howling of shepherds is heard, and the roaring of lions, for all the beauty and pride of the Jordan is laid waste and consumed. Therefore, the Lord my God spoke these words to me: 'O prophet Zechariah, this word is conveyed to you: Feed the flock of slaughter,' that is, for now let it be nurtured and grow, for it will later be killed by the enemy. These sheep and cattle, the princes of the Romans who possessed and maintained them by the right of victory, slaughtered and showed no mercy, or they sacrificed them and felt no pain, that is, they suffered no harm for so much cruelty, and they sold what they withheld not out of mercy, but for a price. We read old histories and traditions of the lamenting Jews, that in the tabernacle of Abraham (where now, every year, a very…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Zechariah 11:4-6
4. Thus saith the LORD my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
4. Sic dicit Iehova, Deus meus, Pasce gregem occisionis.
5. Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
5. Qui possident ipsum, occident (hoc est, occidunt) et non peccant; et qui vendit ipsum (gregem, vel, ipsas oves) dicit, Benedictus Iehova, et ditatus sum; et qui pascit eas, non parcit illis.
6. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD: but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the…
This section contains a symbolical act. By the command of Jehovah the prophet assumes the office of a shepherd over the flock, and feeds it, until he is compelled by its ingratitude to break his shepherd's staff, and give up the flock to destruction. This symbolical act is not a poetical fiction, but is to be regarded in strict accordance with the words, as an internal occurrence of a visionary character and of prophetical importance, through which the faithful care of the Lord for His people is symbolized and exhibited. Zac 11:4. "Thus said Jehovah my God: Feed the slaughtering-flock; Zac 11:5. whose purchasers slay them, and bear no blame, and their sellers say, Blessed be Jehovah! I am ge…
The metaphor of the Hebrew leaders as shepherds binds together the last three messages (9:9–11:17) of Zechariah’s first oracle (chs 9–11). This message combines allegory with symbolic action on Zechariah’s part to dramatize the wickedness of Israel’s shepherds. The prophet acts out a parable of a “good shepherd” called by God to lead and unite his people, but the people reject this shepherd along with the promise of protection from the nations (11:10) and unity between Judah and Israel (11:14). Zechariah’s symbolic actions foreshadow the ministry of Jesus the Messiah as the Good Shepherd (see John 10:1-21).
11:4 The people of Israel are God’s flock (see Isa 40:11; Mic 5:4). The relative hel…
Tend the flock of slaughter Prepare shepherds for them; i.e., prophesy concerning their leaders who are destined to lead them from now on.
the flock of slaughter Israel, whose shepherds slew them and devoured them.
