Relief swept around me reading this chapter. How unchanging God is in his love towards us. Zechariah talks about ‘Talk about a Shepherd who was asked to Shepherd a group of flocks marked for slaughter by an Unknown Shepherd. There were those that bought these flocks marked for slaughter, who slaughtered them and go unpunished’. Those that sell them also say they are RICH! PRAISE THE LORD! So even their own shepherd do not spare them.
God says to the deliverer of the flocks marked for slaughter or to be sold or to be bought that he will no longer have pity on the people of that land. So, this messenger shepherded flocks and in one month he got rid of 3 of the shepherds, who wanted to buy, slaughter and sell the flocks.
But the flocks detested him, and he grew weary of them and said to them ” I will not be your Shepherd. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s FLESH.
So, I took my staff called favor and brake it, revoking the covenant, I had made with the nations. It is revoked, so the oppressed of the flock who were watching knew IT WAS THE WORD OF THE LORD, GOD.
I said to them, if you think it best, give me my pay, but if not keep it. So, they paid me thirty pieces of silver. THE LORD said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter – the ‘handsome price at which they valued me! So, I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw at them at the potters HOUSE OF THE LORD. Then, I took the second staff called Union, breaking the family bond between Judah and Israel. Take again, the foolish shepherd’s equipment, as the lord will raise up a Shepherd over the land who will not case for the lost, or seek the young or heal the injured, or feed the healthy but will eat the meat of the choice sheep tearing off their hooves. Woe to the worthless shepherd who deserts the FLOCK. John 10: 11 – 13.
