3“My anger is kindled against the shepherds,
         And I will punish the male goats;
         For the LORD of hosts has visited His flock, the house of Judah,
         And will make them like His majestic horse in battle.

4“From them will come the cornerstone,
         From them the tent peg,
         From them the bow of battle,
         From them every ruler, all of them together.

5“They will be as mighty men,
         Treading down the enemy in the mire of the streets in battle;
         And they will fight, for the LORD will be with them;
         And the riders on horses will be put to shame.

6“I will strengthen the house of Judah,
         And I will save the house of Joseph,
         And I will bring them back,
         Because I have had compassion on them;
         And they will be as though I had not rejected them,
         For I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.

7“Ephraim will be like a mighty man,
         And their heart will be glad as if from wine;
         Indeed, their children will see it and be glad,
         Their heart will rejoice in the LORD.

8“I will whistle for them to gather them together,
         For I have redeemed them;
         And they will be as numerous as they were before.

9“When I scatter them among the peoples,
         They will remember Me in far countries,
         And they with their children will live and come back.

10“I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
         And gather them from Assyria;
         And I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon
         Until no room can be found for them.

11“And they will pass through the sea of distress
         And He will strike the waves in the sea,
         So that all the depths of the Nile will dry up;
         And the pride of Assyria will be brought down
         And the scepter of Egypt will depart.

12“And I will strengthen them in the LORD,
         And in His name they will walk,” declares the LORD.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
For the teraphim speak iniquity, And the diviners see lying visions And tell false dreams; They comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep, They are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
The idols speak lies. The fortunetellers see false visions. They speak about false dreams. They give useless comfort. That is why people wander around like sheep. They are troubled because there is no shepherd.

King James Bible
For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For the idols have spoken what was unprofitable, and the diviners have seen a lie, and the dreamers have spoken vanity: they comforted in vain: therefore they were led away as a dock: they shall be afflicted, because they have no shepherd.

Darby Bible Translation
For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams: they comfort in vain. Therefore they have gone away as a flock, they are in distress, because there is no shepherd.

English Revised Version
For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams, they comfort in vain: therefore they go their way like sheep, they are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.

Webster's Bible Translation
For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled because there was no shepherd.

World English Bible
For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

Young's Literal Translation
Because the teraphim did speak iniquity, And the diviners have seen a falsehood, And dreams of the vanity they speak, With vanity they give comfort, Therefore they have journeyed as a flock, They are afflicted, for there is no shepherd.

Cross References

Matthew 9:36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

Mark 6:34 When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.

Jeremiah 23:32 "Behold, I am against those who have prophesied false dreams," declares the LORD, "and related them and led My people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting; yet I did not send them or command them, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit," declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 27:9 "But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers or your sorcerers who speak to you, saying, 'You will not serve the king of Babylon.'

Ezekiel 21:21 "For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the household idols, he looks at the liver.

Ezekiel 34:5 "They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered.

Ezekiel 34:8 "As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "surely because My flock has become a prey, My flock has even become food for all the beasts of the field for lack of a shepherd, and My shepherds did not search for My flock, but rather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock;

Hosea 3:4 For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols.

Habakkuk 2:18 "What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, Or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork When he fashions speechless idols.

Zechariah 11:17 "Woe to the worthless shepherd Who leaves the flock! A sword will be on his arm And on his right eye! His arm will be totally withered And his right eye will be blind."

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Chapter 10

The scope of this chapter is much the same with that of the foregoing chapter-to encourage the Jews that had returned with hopes that though they had been under divine rebukes for their negligence in rebuilding the temple, and were now surrounded with enemies and dangers, yet God would do them good, and make them prosperous at home and victorious abroad. Now, I. They are here directed to eye the great God in all events that concerned them, and, both in the evils they suffered and in the comforts they desired, to acknowledge his hand (v. 1-4). II. They are encouraged to expect strength and success from him in all their struggles with the enemies of their church and state, and to hope that the issue would be glorious at last (v. 5-12).

Verses 1-4

Gracious things and glorious ones, very glorious and very gracious, were promised to this poor afflicted people in the foregoing chapter; now here God intimates to them that he will for these things be enquired of by them, and that he expects they should acknowledge him in all their ways and in all his ways towards them-and not idols that were rivals with him for their respects.

I. The prophet directs them to apply to God by prayer for rain in the season thereof. He had promised, in the close of the foregoing chapter, that there should be great plenty of corn and wine, whereas for several years, by reason of unseasonable weather, there had been great scarcity of both; but the earth will not yield its fruits unless the heavens water it, and therefore they must look up to God for the dew of heaven, in order to the fatness and fruitfulness of the earth (v. 1): "Ask you of the Lord rain. Do not pray to the clouds, nor to the stars, for rain, but to the Lord; for he it is that hears the heavens, when they hear the earth," Hos. 2:21. Seasonable rain is a great mercy, which we must ask of God, rain in the time of the latter rain, when there is most need of it. The former rain fell at the seed-time, in autumn, the latter fell in the spring, between March and May, which brought the corn to an ear and filled it. If either of these rains failed, it was very bad with that land; for from the end of May to September they never had any rain at all. Jerome, who lived in Judea, says that he never saw any rain there in June or July. They are directed to ask for it in the time when it used to come. Note, We must, in our prayers, dutifully attend the course of Providence; we must ask for mercies in their proper time, and not expect that God should go out of his usual way and method for us. But, since sometimes God denied rain in the usual time as a token of his displeasure, they must pray for it then as a token of his favour, and they shall not pray in vain. Ask and it shall be given you. So the Lord shall make bright clouds (which, though they are without rain themselves, are yet presages of rain)-lightnings (so the margin reads it), for he maketh lightnings for the rain. He will give them showers of rain in great abundance, and so give to every one grass in the field; for God is universally good, and makes his rain to fall upon the just and the unjust.

II. He shows them the folly of making their addresses to idols as their fathers had done (v. 2): The idols have spoken vanity; the teraphim, which they courted and consulted in their distress, were so far from being able to command rain for them that they could not so much as tell them when they should have rain. They pretended to promise them rain at such a time, but it did not come. The diviners, who were the prophets of those idols, have seen a lie (their visions were all a cheat and a sham); and they have told false dreams, such as the event did not answer, which proved that they were not from God. Thus they comforted in vain those that consulted the lying oracles; all the vanities of the heathen put together could not give rain, Jer. 14:22. Yet this was not the worst of it; they not only got nothing by the false gods, but they lost the favour of the true God, for therefore they went their way into captivity as a flock driven into the fold, and they were troubled with one vexation after another, as scattered sheep are, because there was no shepherd, no prince to rule them, no priest to intercede for them, none to take care of them and keep them together. Those that wandered after strange gods were made to wander, into strange nations.

III. He shows them the hand of God in all the events that concerned them, both those that made against them and those that made for them, v. 3. Let them consider, 1. When every thing went cross it was God that walked contrary to them (v. 3): "My anger was kindled against the shepherds that should have fed the flock, but neglected it, and starved it. I was displeased at the wicked magistrates and ministers, the idol-shepherds." The captivity in Babylon was a token of God's anger against them; in it likewise he punished the goats, those of the flock that were filthy and mischievous; they were set on the left hand, to go away into punishment. Though the body of the nation suffered in the captivity, yet it was only the goats and the shepherds that God was angry with, and that he punished; the same affliction to others came from the love of God, and was but a fatherly chastisement, which to them came from his wrath, and was a judicial punishment. 2. When things began to change for the better it was God that gave them the happy turn. "He has now visited his flock with favour, to enquire after them, and provides what he finds proper for them, and he has made them as his goodly horse in the battle, has beautified them, taken care of them, managed and made use of them, as a man does the horse he rides on, has made them valuable in themselves and formidable to those about them, as his goodly horse." It is God that makes us what we are, and it is with us as he appoints.

IV. He shows them that every creature is to them what God makes it to be (v. 4): Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nails. 1. All the power that was engaged against them was from God. Out of him came all the combined force of their enemies; every oppressor together (and the oppressors of Israel were not a few) did but what his hand and his counsel determined before to be done; nor could they have had such power against them unless it had been given them from above. 2. All the power likewise that was engaged for them was derived from him and depended on him. Out of him came forth the corner-stone of the building, the power of magistrates, which keeps the several parts of the state together. Princes are often called the corners of the people, as 1 Sa. 14:38, marg. Out of him came forth the nail that fixed the state, the nail in the sure place (Isa. 22:23), the nail in his holy place, Ezra 9:8. Out of him came forth the battle-bow, the military power, and out of him every oppressor, or exactor, that had the civil power in his hand; and therefore to God, the fountain of power, we must always have an eye, and see every man's judgment proceeding from him.

Calvin's Commentary

2. For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.

2. Certe simulacra loquuta sunt vanitatem, et divini viderunt mendacium, et somnia vanitatis loquuti sunt, frustra consolati sunt; ideo transierunt (vel, migrarunt) sicut oves (aut, grex,) humiliati sunt, quia nullus fuit pastor.

Here the Prophet, as I have said, confirms the truth, that the blame justly belonged to the Jews that God did not deal more liberally with them; for he shows that they had fallen into superstitions, and had thus turned away the favor of God, which was already certain and nigh to them. Zechariah does not here condemn foreign nations given to superstitions; but, on the contrary, he reproves the Jews themselves for leaving the true God, and for retaking themselves to idols, to soothsayers, and diviners, and for having thus preferred to feed on their own delusions, rather than to open the door to the favor of God, who had freely promised that he would suffer them to want nothing. As then God had kindly invited the Jews to himself, as he had showed himself ready to do them good, was it not the basest ingratitude in them to turn away to idols and to attend to magical delusions? for they might have safely acquiesced in God's word. They would not have been deprived of their hope, had they been firmly persuaded that God had spoken the truth to them. As then they had done so grievous a wrong to God, as to run after idols, and after the crafts and impostures of Satan, the Prophet here deservedly condemns them for this wickedness.

Images, [117] he says, have spoken vanity, and diviners have seen falsehood, and have told dreams of vanity. He means, in short, that whatever means unbelieving men may try, they can attain nothing, and they will at length find that they have been miserably deceived by Satan. They have recourse to various expedients, for unbelief is full of bustle and fervor: "O! this will not succeed, I will try something else." Thus the unbelieving wander, and resort to many and various expedients. But the Prophet teaches this general truth -- that when men turn away from God, they have recourse to vain things; for there is no truth without God.

He afterwards adds, that on account of idols, as well as of diviners and magicians, consolation was given in vain; and this he confirms by the event, and says, that they had wandered as sheep, that they had been distressed, because there was no shepherd. The Prophet no doubt refers here to the time of exile, that the Jews might learn to be wise, at least by the teaching of experience; for they had known to their great loss, that without God there is no real and solid comfort: nor does he without reason upbraid them with the punishment which their fathers had suffered, for he saw that they were walking in their steps. Since then the Jews were imitating the depraved inquisitiveness of their fathers, the Prophet justly charges them, that they did not acknowledge what, by the event itself, was well known to all; for the common proverb is, that experience is the teacher of fools. Since they did not become wise even when smitten, their stupidity was more than proved. We now then perceive what the Prophet means.

But we must first notice, that when he bids them to ask rain of the Lord, he speaks of the kingdom of Christ, as all the Prophets are wont to do; for since the Redeemer, promised to the Jews, was to be the author of all blessings, whenever the Prophets speak of his coming, they also promise abundance of corn, and plentiful provisions, and peace, and everything necessary for the well-being of the present life. And Zechariah now follows the same course, when he declares that it was not owing to anything in God that he did not kindly supply the Jews with whatever they might have wished, but that the fault was with themselves; for they had by their unbelief, as it has been said, closed the door against his favor. We must yet ever remember what we stated yesterday -- that whatever the Prophets have said concerning a blessed life, ought to be judged of according to the nature of the kingdom of Christ. It is a strained interpretation to say that rain is heavenly doctrine; and I do not say that Zechariah spoke allegorically, but he describes under this common figure the kingdom of Christ -- even that God will fill his elect with all good things, so that they shall not thirst, nor labor under any want.

But at the same time we must bear in mind the exhortation of Christ --

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God; other things," he says, "shall afterwards be added." (Matthew 6:33.)

He then is strangely wrong who thinks that abundance of food was alone promised to the Jews; for God intended to lead them by degrees to things higher. The Prophet then no doubt includes here, under one kind, all things necessary for a happy life; for it is not the will of God to fill his faithful people in this world as though they were swine; but his design is to give them, by means of earthly things, a taste of the spiritual life. Hence the happiness of which Zechariah now speaks is really spiritual; for as godliness has the promises of the present as well as of the future life, (1 Timothy 4:8,) so the purpose of God was to consult the weakness of his ancient people, and to set forth the felicity of the spiritual life by means of earthly blessings.

It ought further to be carefully noticed, that the Jews are here exposed to derision, because they wandered after their own devices, when God was yet not far from them, and ready to aid them. Since God then showed himself inclined to kindness, it was a double wickedness in them that they chose to run after idols, magical arts, and the illusions of Satan, rather than to acquiesce in God's word. And similar is the upbraiding we meet with in Jeremiah, when God complains that he was forsaken, while yet he was the fountain of living water, and that the people dug out for themselves cisterns, dry and full of holes. (Jeremiah 2:13.) But as this evil is very common, let us know that we are here warned to plant our foot firm on God's word, where he promises that he will take care of us, provided we be satisfied with his favor; nor let us thoughtlessly run after our own imaginations; for however our own counsels may delight us, and though some success may sometimes appear, yet the end will ever show us that most true is what Zechariah teaches us here -- that whatever we may attempt will be useless and injurious too, for God will take vengeance on our ingratitude.

We must now also observe, that since Zechariah adduces an example of God's vengeance, by which the Jews had found that they had foolishly sought vain consolations, we ought to take heed, lest we forget those punishments with which God may have visited us in order to restore us to himself: let us remember what we ourselves have experienced, and what has happened to our fathers, even before we were born. Thus then ought the faithful to apply their minds so as to recount the judgments of God, that they may derive profit from his scourges. He afterwards adds --

Footnotes:

[117] Literally, "the teraphims." See Hosea 3:4, [2]vol. 1 page 130. They were household gods, called Penates by the heathens. "Images" is the rendering of the Targum of Onkelos, and "worshippers of images" of Jonathan in this place. Jerome has "simulacra -- images." Parkhurst derives the word from [rphh], an appaller, they being the objects of dread of fear. Gesenius, from an Arabic word, which means to "live in comfort," they being viewed as the givers of happiness. Lee, from an Ethiopic word, signifying a "remnant, a survivor," and thinks that they mean "relics." Whatever may be the meaning of the word, they were no doubt a sort of household gods, made, as Aben Ezra says, in a human form, and consulted, says Kimchi, as to future events. There are three kinds of idolatrous and superstitious practices mentioned here -- the images which were consulted as oracles, the pretenders to visions, and the dreamers of dreams; but all that was spoken, and seen, and dreamt, was vain, and false, and useless. -- Ed.

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