Zechariah 11:1 Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
2 Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are spoiled: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down.
3 There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
4 Thus saith the LORD my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
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.
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 land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.
As we have mentioned before, Zechariah was a prophet who lived at the same time as Ezra. He was called by God to encourage the Jews who had come out of captivity to get back to building the Temple.
However, as we have seen, that was only part of his ministry. Keep in mind that he was a prophet. God used Old Testament prophets to speak of things happening in their time, but also of things that were going to happen in the future.
We know that the prophets did not always know what they were speaking of. They needed to walk by faith just as true saints need to today. As we have mentioned before there are things in the Bible that we still do not fully understand today. Peter warned of that in II Peter 3:
II Peter 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
When we look at Bible prophecy, we need to be careful to try to understand what God gives us to understand, and we need to leave the rest for His time to reveal further details. We know that God never told any of the writers of the Bible to waste time on idle words. We know that the apocryphal writings are mythology. We know that the Catholics used some of that to develop their false doctrines.
God chose the sixty-six books of the Bible and there is no mythology in them. We need to ask God to help us to understand what He has for us.
When we look at this chapter, Zechariah was told to write about the Lord Jesus Christ’s first coming and also of the time of the antichrist in the time of the tribulation.
God directed Zechariah to use an allegory in these opening verses to describe what would happen during Jesus’ first coming. Lebanon was known for it magnificent cedars. King David made a deal with the king of Lebanon to harvest a large number of cedar trees and have them shipped by sea to Israel. David did what he could to amass the supplies that his son Solomon would need to build the Temple.
In our text, God was talking of judgment upon Jerusalem that would come at the hands of Titus in A.D. 70. Obviously the dates are not given in our text, but we have the rest of the scriptures and we also have the history of that time to examine what God was speaking of here.
History tells us that Titus took his troops and they came down from Lebanon to Jerusalem in A.D.68.
We know that the Jews of Jesus’ day cried out:
Matthew 27:25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
The Jews hated Jesus so much that they were thinking completely irrationally. However, God would hold them to their words. He sent the Lord Jesus Christ to the Jews. John 1:
John 1:11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies regarding His first coming, but the Jews were so blinded by their ideology that they refused to see His fulfilment of those many prophecies. It was not that they did not have the Scriptures. Jesus even challenged them to search the Scriptures. He stated:
John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
The Jews were guilty of wilful ignorance. Thus when they cried out in Matthew 27, God would hold them to that plea.
Zechariah was directed by God to speak of this via an allegory. He likely did not understand what he was writing but he trusted in God. It is quite possible that God directed him to write of the cedars of Lebanon because that is where the wood came from for the Temple. We know that Titus and his armies attacked Jerusalem in 68 A.D. and by 70 A.D. the Temple was destroyed.
The sad reality of the time of Jesus’ first coming was the Jews worshipped the Temple, not the God of the Temple. Even the disciples were overly impressed in that building. We read of that in Matthew 24. Jesus cautioned them in their false admiration.
Zechariah was told to write of the howling shepherds. We know that to this day, the Jews are longing to build a Temple. They have everything in place, but they do not have permission to build the building. Often since 1948, Jews have gone up to the Temple mount and tried to prove that their Temple needed to be built there.
Those who are truly saved, know that there will not be a true Temple until Jesus Christ comes back. The antichrist will build a Temple and the Jews will be so excited about that. However, that Temple will not be for God’s glory.
The sad reality is that the “shepherds” currently in Israel are false shepherds. They are not serving the Lord. The “shepherds” of Jesus’ day were the same. The chief priests of that time led the people against the Lord. The Pharisees were willing to help the chief priests to keep the people united against the Lord.
This rebellion against the Lord has been going on for a long time. False teachers do not care about the souls of the people. We know that even today in the Gentile world. The many, many false teachers do not care about the souls of the people. If they did, they would not teach false doctrine.
In verse 5 we read that they would have no pity for the people. The Jews are like lambs to the slaughter. None of them is innocent. Any person can search out the truth. God’s Word is available for anyone who wants to know it. The Holy Spirit is working in the heart of every person to show them the need to know the truth.
In verse 6 the LORD says He would not pity them either. God withdrew His protection from Israel and allowed Titus to come in and kill people and plunder the land and destroy the Temple. It was His judgment upon the hardheartedness of the people.
The Jews of Zechariah’s day should have understood this. God had brought the Babylonians into Judah and they too plundered Jerusalem, killed some of the people and took others captive, and they too destroyed the Temple.
God knew those Jews needed to be warned of the danger of rejecting the LORD. The Jews of every generation since then have needed that warning. Sadly, most of them are not paying attention. Several times God described Israel as stiff-necked and stiffhearted. That is not a welcomed description.
It is equally bad when Gentiles choose to be that way.
We can look at these prophetic passages and we can know that they either have been fulfilled or they will be fulfilled just as God declares. It is important to pay attention to what God says and not to ignore it. We can know His peace and blessings today if we will submit to Him and serve Him with humility and in truth.
Pastor Bartel