Fire and cedar trees do not go together. I know this on a personal level. A number of years ago our neighbor decided to burn their pasture off. It was full of cedar trees and it was by our house. They lit the match and left for the day.
When we saw flames 20 feet above the tree tops, we raced to the house and started hosing it down. Another person started wildly mowing near the house to prevent fast burn. And still another called the fire department which had no one had yet called, even though the whole area was a black cloud. Cedars do not burn slowly.
So Zechariah says to Lebanon, the people known for their cedars, to open the gates that the fire could come. ??
Not a comforting word.
Next we see a description of shepherds that cared nothing for the people. They slaughtered them for the sake of greed without a tinge of conscious.
Zechariah is told to shepherd the people and he does, getting rid of 3 shepherds that were bad. But the people hated Zechariah for it.
So Zechariah figuratively has two sticks called favor and union, and were representative of the favor upon Israel and Judah. He broke the two sticks. He longer was their shepherd
Then he said if they felt like they wanted to pay him his due, they could. So they gave him 30 shekels of silver. This is the amount of what you would pay for a slave. By it they were indicating that the Word and work that Zechariah bought amounted to nothing more than what a slave could bring.
So Zechariah in essence, as a symbolic act in the Lord, washes his hands of them. They can fend for themselves.
Then the LORD tells Zechariah to dress up as a stupid shepherd, one that cares nothing for the people. Because that is what they were going to get by rejecting the shepherding of the Lord.
What is all this about?
The first part is basically about an invading army coming through Lebanon. We do know that the Romans did this in AD 70.
Then there’s the talk of the shepherds being bad shepherds, a good shepherd comes and is rejected, so God gives them what they want–bad shepherds who care not at all for the people.
And when Jesus comes, that’s what he remarks on. They were “sheep without a shepherd” as the shepherds of the people only cared for themselves.
A hard reality is that when we reject God, we get the leaders we “want.” Leaders that care only for themselves.
