Zechariah 11
Take Care of People!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Saturday, October 19.
People matter to God! The leaders of Israel had failed in their responsibilities to shepherd the people, so God commanded the prophet to symbolically portray their failure in Zechariah 11:9-13:
Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples. … I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
The potter’s field was a place of debris where a potter would discard broken pottery, so the prophet was being commanded to throw his pastoral wages into the trash. This image was invoked at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion when Judas sought to repent of his sin for betraying innocent blood, but the religious leaders of Israel refused him, “What is that to us? See to that yourself” (Matthew 27:4). They betrayed their sacred responsibilities by denying Judas an opportunity for repentance, and, in doing so, they fulfilled Zechariah 11 not only as failed shepherds, but also literally, in Matthew 27:7-8, when they threw the ransom price to the potter (Exodus 21:32).
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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