First Oracle: The King Who Comes

The second part of the book opens on a change of tone. The dates disappear, the building of the Temple is no longer the subject, and the gaze turns far ahead, toward what God is preparing for the times to come. The first of the two great oracles, chapters 9 to 11, draws a figure that runs through it all: the shepherd-king. He comes first as a humble king acclaimed by his city, then the oracle turns to the bad shepherds who have lost the flock, and it ends on the disconcerting gesture of a shepherd rejected and sold. This contrast between the awaited king and the despised shepherd already carries the mystery that the rest of the book will deepen.

The oracle against the nations

The oracle begins by passing through the lands that surround Israel, from north to south: “Word of the Lord against the land of Hadrach; and in Damascus will be its resting place, for the Lord has his eye on men, and on all the tribes of Israel.” Zechariah 9:1. Hadrach and Damascus in the north, then Tyre and Sidon on the coast, then the cities of the Philistines in the south: the judgment of God comes down along the land as if to clear its approaches. These powers that had long dominated Israel pass under the gaze and the hand of God. And at the end of this course, God sets himself as the guardian of his own house: “I will encamp around my house to defend it, against every army, against all who come and go; and no oppressor will pass among them anymore.” Zechariah 9:8. The Temple and the city are now under the guard of God himself, who encamps around them like an army. It is against this background of restored peace that the king will appear.

The humble king on the donkey

Then comes one of the summits of the whole book, the announcement of the king who enters his city: “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you; he is just, and protected by God; he is humble, mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a she-donkey.” Zechariah 9:9. This king gathers in himself traits that men commonly hold to be opposed. He is just and he is saved by God, yet he is humble, and his mount says so: he comes on a donkey, not on the war-horse. The horse was the mount of the conqueror who enters in victory; the donkey is the beast of peace, the one of the ancient times when the kings of Israel had no stables of war as yet. By mounting the donkey, the king announces a reign that does without arms. What follows confirms it: “I will cut off from Ephraim the chariots of war, and from Jerusalem the horses, and the bow of battle will be destroyed. He will speak peace to the nations; his dominion will extend from one sea to the other, from the River to the ends of the earth.” Zechariah 9:10. God himself disarms his people, for this king has no need of an army. His empire spreads not by conquest but by the word of peace, and it has no borders: from one sea to the other, to the end of the earth. A humble king whose reign is universal, such is the awaiting that this oracle opens.

The return of the captives

To this king answers the liberation of his people. God addresses Zion and promises to deliver her captives, and the ground he gives for it is the covenant sealed in blood: “For you too, because of the blood of your covenant, I will draw your captives out of the waterless pit.” Zechariah 9:11. The covenant between God and his people had been made by the blood of the sacrifices; that blood remains as a bond that God honours, and in the name of that bond he draws his own out of the pit, the image of the dungeon and of death. Then he calls them to return, and he gives them a name of hope: “Return to the stronghold, captives of hope! Today again I declare it: I will restore to you double.” Zechariah 9:12. They are now named “captives of hope”: still prisoners, yet already stretched toward the promised deliverance. And God announces the salvation of his flock: “The Lord their God will be their salvation on that day, the salvation of the flock that is his people; they will be like the stones of a diadem, shining in his land.” Zechariah 9:16. The saved people becomes the ornament of God, precious stones set in his crown. Here appears for the first time the image that will carry the rest of the oracle: the people is a flock, and God is its shepherd.

Against the bad shepherds

The image of the flock turns at once into reproach. If the people has suffered, it is because it was badly guarded, deceived by false guides and false oracles: “The teraphim have spoken emptiness, and the diviners have had visions of falsehood; they utter vain dreams and give false consolations. Therefore they went off like a flock; they were oppressed, for lack of a shepherd.” Zechariah 10:2. The teraphim were household idols that one consulted to know the future; together with the diviners, they gave the people false consolations that led them astray. Deprived of a true shepherd, the flock scattered and was oppressed. The anger of God then turns against these unworthy leaders: “My anger has blazed against the shepherds, and I will punish the he-goats. For the Lord of hosts visits his flock, the house of Judah, and makes of it his horse of honour in the battle.” Zechariah 10:3. The shepherds and the he-goats are the leaders who walked at the head without leading; God removes them in order to visit his flock himself and raise it up. Where the bad shepherds had left the people defenceless, God makes of it a mount of glory, strong and set upright.

The shepherd and the thirty pieces

The last movement of the oracle is the strangest, and the most laden with meaning. God charges the prophet to play himself the role of the shepherd sent to the flock, a flock destined for slaughter: “Thus says the Lord, my God: Be shepherd of the flock of slaughter.” Zechariah 11:4. The prophet then takes two shepherd’s staffs, naming each one: “I took two staffs; I named one Grace, and I named the other Bond, and I pastured the flock.” Zechariah 11:7. The staff Grace figures the favour of God toward his people; the staff Bond figures the unity between the two parts of the people, Judah in the south and Israel in the north, long divided. But the flock rejects its shepherd, and the shepherd then breaks the first staff: “I took my staff Grace and broke it, to undo my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.” Zechariah 11:10. Rejected by the flock, the prophet-shepherd asks for his wages, and what is weighed out to him tells all the contempt in which he is held: “They weighed out my wages, thirty shekels of silver.” Zechariah 11:12. Thirty shekels of silver (about three hundred grams) were, according to the Law, the price paid for a slave accidentally killed: to value the shepherd of God at that price is to reckon him as one reckons a dead slave. God then commands a gesture of disdain toward this sum: “Throw it to the potter, this magnificent price at which I was valued by them! And I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.” Zechariah 11:13. The potter is the craftsman who shapes the vessels of clay, a humble trade; to throw the money “to the potter” is a gesture of refuse, as one rids oneself of a worthless sum by sending it where it counts for nothing. Finally the shepherd breaks the second staff: “I then broke my second staff Bond, to undo the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.” Zechariah 11:14. The rejection of the shepherd brings about the rupture of the bond between the brothers: a people that despises the shepherd God gives it comes undone from within. This oracle of the shepherd sold for thirty pieces, cast into the Temple to the potter, remains suspended like a riddle that the second part of the book will carry further, and that the Christian reading will later recognize as fulfilled.

The fulfilment in Christ

Two figures of this oracle find their fulfilment in the Passion of Jesus. The humble king entering on the donkey is fulfilled on the day of Palms, when Jesus enters Jerusalem mounted on a colt; the gospel cites Zechariah to say it: “Tell the daughter of Zion: Behold, your king comes to you full of gentleness, seated on a she-donkey and on a colt.” Matthew 21:5. The king who comes without arms, announced by Zechariah, is this Jesus who enters his city to be handed over there. And the shepherd sold for thirty pieces of silver thrown to the potter is fulfilled in the betrayal of Judas: he hands Jesus over for that price, then the blood money serves to buy the potter’s field, which the gospel reports as the fulfilment of the prophecy: “They received thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose value the children of Israel had set.” Matthew 27:9.