three · noun, common both genders singular construct
shepherds
הָרֹעִ֖יםha.ro.'Im
H7462
to tend a flock · definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
off
וָאַכְחִ֛דva.'akh.Chid
H3582
to secrete · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 1st person common singular
one
אֶחָ֑ד'e.Chad
H259
properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
month
בְּיֶ֣רַחbe.Ye.rach
H3391
a lunation · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
soul
נַפְשִׁי֙naf.Shi
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
lothed
וַתִּקְצַ֤רva.tik.Tzar
H7114
to dock off · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
soul
נַפְשָׁ֖םnaf.Sham
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
abhorred
בָּחֲלָ֥הba.cha.Lah
H973
to loath · verb, qal active participle, 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
John 7:7 The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
John 15:18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
Isaiah 49:7 Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of…
Matthew 23:34-36 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall y…
Hosea 5:7 They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.
Luke 19:14 But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.
John 15:23-25 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
Leviticus 26:11 And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.
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…
Three shepherds . . . I cut off--literally, "to cause to disappear," to destroy so as not to leave a vestige of them. The three shepherds whom Messiah removes are John, Simon, and Eleazar, three leaders of factions in the Jewish war [DRUSIUS]. Or, as Messiah, the Antitype, was at once prophet, priest, and king, so He by the destruction of the Jewish polity destroyed these three orders for the unbelief of both the rulers and people [MOORE]. If they had accepted Messiah, they would have had all three combined in Him, and would have been themselves spiritually prophets, priests, and kings to God. Refusing Him, they lost all three, in every sense.
one month--a brief and fixed space of time (Ho…
Three shepherds also I cut off in one month - Taking this literally, some think the three shepherds mean the three Maccabees, Judas, Jonathan, and Simon; others, the three wicked high priests, Jason, Alcimus, and Menelaus; others, the three last princes of the Asmonean race, Alexander, Hyrcanus, and Antigonus.
Perhaps three orders may be intended:
1. The priesthood.
2. The dictatorship, including the Scribes, Pharisees, etc.
3. The magistracy, the great sanhedrin, and the smaller councils.
These were all annihilated by the Roman conquest.
The Church Fathers
Let us understand this according to the letter of Moses and Aaron. Moses indeed was led out, and Aaron, but not led into the land of promise. Jesus succeeded him. See what is written. Moses died in the desert, Aaron died, Miriam died; and this is what is written in the prophet: "And I will strike," it says, "three shepherds in one month." They died: for they could not enter into the land of promise. They only saw over against the land of promise, and could not enter. The Jews saw the land of promise, and could not enter. For they died in the desert, and their corpses are in the wilderness, of those who died in the desert. We, the sons, under Jesus as leader, came to the Jordan, and entered into the land of promise, and came to Gilgal, and were a second time circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, and the reproach of Egypt was taken away from us. Then Jesus himself our leader holds the sword, and always goes before us, and fights for us, and conquers our adversaries, and for seven days we go around Jericho, that is, this world. We sing with the priestly trumpets, and we go around Jericho, that is, this world, and its walls fall, and we enter in, and we are the victors. Then we conquer the city of Ai: afterward we come to Jebus, we come to Hazor, we come to other cities; we conquer the adversaries whom under Moses we could not conquer.
(Verse 8, 9.) And I took for myself two staffs: one I called Beauty, and the other I called Cords (or Funicles); and I fed the flock. And I cut off three shepherds in one month, and my soul was grieved with them; for their soul also varied against me. And I said, I will not feed you; let it die, let it die; and let it be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. LXX: And I will take for myself two staffs: one to be called Beauty, and the other I called Cords (or Funicles), and I will feed the sheep. And I will take away three shepherds in one month, and my soul will be embittered against them: for their soul also roared upon me. And I said, I will not feed you: that which is dying, let it die: and that which is cut off, let it be cut off: and let the rest devour every one the flesh of his neighbor. The Lord God had said: Feed the sheep of the slaughter, which their possessors have killed, and do not sin against them to glory, that a buyer may be found for them over them, and their possessors may say: Blessed be the Lord, for I am become rich: and their shepherds will have no pity for them. For I will no more have mercy on the inhabitants of the land, saith, the Lord. And this seemed to be said about one Jewish people, that having killed the prophets, they even laid hands on the Son of God and shouted with a rash voice: His blood be on us and on our children (Matthew 27:25)! Now the Creator of the universe and the Lord explains the mysteries of his world, and says that he had two staffs, one of which he called Beauty, the other Cords, and he fed the flock while being bound with these two staffs; he also cut down three shepherds in one month, and my soul was angry with them; undoubtedly the shepherds signify those whom he cut down in one month. And he explained the reason why he was so indignant with the shepherds that he killed them all in one month: 'Because,' he said, 'their souls changed towards me. And the meaning is this: They did not love me with their whole heart. The hireling shepherds loved the shepherd, not truly me. For the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11)'. Therefore, I also expressed my indignation and spoke to the shepherds themselves, whom I had killed in my anger, or to the remaining flock after the shepherds were killed: 'I will not feed you; but let him who has chosen death…
Dictionary and topics
Shepherds · Illustrative: (Ignorant and foolish,) of bad ministers — Illustrative: (Ignorant and foolish,) of bad ministers
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Zechariah 11:8
Three shepherds also I cut off in one month,.... Not Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, as is suggested in the Talmud (e); nor David, Adonijah, and Joab, who died in the space of a month; nor the three kings, Jehoash, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, who died by the hand of their enemies in a very little time; which is the sense of some, as Abendana observes; nor the three last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, according to Aben Ezra; nor the three Maccabees, Judas, Jonathan, and Simon, as Abarbinel; rather the three sects among the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, instead of which last some put the Herodians; and others the Scribes; though some are of opinion that the three sanhedrim or…
Zechariah 11:8
8. Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
8. Et rejeci tres pastores mense uno; et taedio affecta est (ad verbum coarctata est) anima mea in ipsis; atque etiam anima eorum me abominata est.
At the beginning of the verse the Prophet continues the same subject, that God spared no pains in ruling the people, but patiently bore with many grievances; for it is the duty of every good and careful husband man to inspect often his flock, and to change his shepherd, when he finds him idle and inattentive to his duties. God then shows that he had exercised the greatest vigilance, for in one month he had rejected three she…
From Zac 11:7 onwards the feeding of the flock is described. Zac 11:7. "And I fed the slaughtering flock, therewith the wretched ones of the sheep, and took to myself two staves: the one I called Favour, the other I called Bands; and so I fed the flock. Zac 11:8. And I destroyed three of the shepherds in one month." The difficult expression לכן, of which very different renderings have been given (lit., with the so-being), is evidently used here in the same sense as in Isa 26:14; Isa 61:7; Jer 2:33, etc., so as to introduce what occurred eo ipso along with the other event which took place. When the shepherd fed the slaughtering flock, he thereby, or at the same time, fed the wretched ones of…
The enigmatic historical reference to three evil shepherds has prompted more than forty different attempts to identify them. None of these explanations is effective. Three symbolizes completeness. God raises up good shepherds to remove evil shepherds for the well-being of his people.
Rashi on Zechariah 11:8
I cut off the three shepherds in one month They corrupted their ways until I rejected them, and I slew all three shepherds in one month. Jehu slew the entire house of Ahab, and the house of Ahaziah the king of Judah, and his brothers, and all the seed of the kingdom of David; and Athaliah slew the rest, save Joash, who hid (II Kings 10, 11).
I could not tolerate them “My soul was short with them” I rejected them. And every expression of shortness of soul denotes a distressful or disgusting matter, that a person’s thoughts cannot tolerate. His heart and his reigns are too short to contain it, as Elihu said (Job 32:18), “The spirit of my innards constrains me.”
moreover, they were too much f…
