GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ZECHARIAH 11:15-16
15 Then the LORD said to me, “Take up the tools of a foolish shepherd once again. 16 For behold, I am raising up a shepherd in the land who does not care for the lost or seek the young or heal the injured or feed the healthy, but eats the meat of the healthy ones, even tearing off their hooves.
Ancient shepherds needed the same tools as modern ones, at least those who will spend the night with the sheep in the fields: a stick or staff, a water bottle, a warm coat or cloak, at least a small backpack with food, dry socks, etc., flint or flashlight, and something to pass the time. David took a shepherd’s pipe (“flute,” Psalm 150:4; Genesis 4:21); this writer took a book, a notebook, and a crossword in my days herding goats and a sheep near Poynette, although I never slept in the fields overnight. These are the tools of any shepherd, wise or foolish, but the foolish shepherd only takes them up for show, the outer appearance of a shepherd, when truly he has something else in mind for the sheep. He may as well tie a napkin under his chin, get out a knife and fork, and lick his chops like a cartoon coyote or wolf.
This is an outward sign of the prophecy we just read, when Jesus said to the Jews of Judea who rejected him, “I will not be your shepherd” (verse 9). Many commentators are led to think that this is a prophecy about the Antichrist, but in the context of the chapter it fits that the prophet (Christ) would be given a sign to illustrate his point to the people as he walked among them. Jeremiah was given a yoke (Jeremiah 29:2). Ezekiel had his little map and model of the city (Ezekiel 4:1-4) and his pantomime escape through the city wall (Ezekiel 12:4-6). Isaiah was told to walk around stripped and barefoot (Isaiah 20:2-3), Daniel stood among the lions unharmed (Daniel 6:27), and so on. So also Zechariah shows the shepherd’s tools but was not a shepherd, looking out of place, but showing that the Lord would stop shepherding the Jews after Christ’s crucifixion.
This shepherd, raised up in the land by God, came in the name of the Father. “I have come in my Father’s name,” Jesus said, “and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him” (John 5:43). Having broken the two staffs of Favor and Union, God’s watchfulness over the flock of Jacob’s family was ended, leaving them to worthless shepherds who cared nothing for their souls. “The worthless shepherds” (permit me to turn once again to Luther), “will do none of these things (keeping watch, being zealous for the word, comforting the sad, strengthening the afflicted, etc.), because they no longer have the Word. That has been taken away from them. Both staffs have been broken. But when the Word is absent, all preaching is in vain. In fact, such preaching is most harmful and like a terrible poison, destructive to souls” (LW 20:127).
What does it mean, to “tear off the hooves”? There are two possibilities. The first, which I think is less likely, is that the false shepherds will try to leave no evidence behind that they themselves devoured the sheep. The ancient proof of innocence when a shepherd lost a sheep was to bring the mangled remains to show that a wild animal had done it and not the shepherd’s knife, such as when Jacob mentions “animals torn by wild beasts” (Genesis 31:39) or Amos’ prophecy: “As a shepherd saves from the lion’s mouth two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites be saved” (Amos 3:12, Exodus 22:13), showing that only a small remnant of Israel would survive.
A second possibility is that Zechariah is thinking of Micah 4:13: “I will turn your horns into iron, and I will make your hooves bronze.” In passages like this, the hooves or feet are a symbol of the gospel going out into the world. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of a herald who proclaims peace and preaches good news” (Isaiah 52:7). By saying that the false shepherds will tear the hooves from the sheep, the Lord is saying that they would hinder the preaching of the gospel. False shepherds love the trappings of the ministry and the pride and pomp of their pulpit, but the true gospel of forgiveness through Christ is torn away from the people, and they are left with nothing but extra rules and a false sense of security. False teachers are worse than useless because they lead people away from Jesus. They are wicked in the most serious and precise sense.
To know Christ is to be shepherded in the best of fields, in the only pasture with nourishing grass. Even its thistles are better than the rotten and reeking poisonous blooms of false doctrine. “He brought his people out like a flock. He led them like sheep through the desert. He guided them to safety, so that they were unafraid” Psalm 78:52-53). Where his hand does not shelter and protect, there is only savage violence and ruin. But his hand is always over you. Your soul is safe in Jesus (Psalm 57:1). His mercy endures forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Zechariah 11:15-16 tearing off their hooves