V. 1. Open your door, Lebanon, so that the fire may consume your cedars.
(1) Hitherto he had proclaimed the kingdom of Christ, and the power and fruit of the gospel, that is, faith among the Gentiles; but here he proclaims the destruction of the temple of (1) Jerusalem and of the Jewish people. Because they wanted to keep the old kingdom and not accept the new one, they were destroyed and lost both. He calls here the newly built temple "Lebanon", because it was built of the cedars Libani, as the Grammatici teach that a piece is also called with the name of the whole per synecdochen, as when I say: The Wittenbergers drink the Faulbach and Frischbach, that is, Wittenberg beer: The Thuringian forest gives much warm rooms, that is, wood from the Thuringian forest etc. The Rhine flows through the whole of Germany, that is, the Rhenish wine etc. The prophet needs to speak this way a lot in this place, no doubt not only to obscure the prophecies, but also to spare the Jews who were building the temple at that time, so that they would not be deterred when they heard that the temple was to be destroyed.
2) So this is the opinion: "Open your door, Lebanon", that is, O holy temple of Jerusalem, you will be open to the Romans, so that no one can defend them, nor protect you, but will go in freely, as if you were standing open by yourself, deserted, without all protectors, and burn your 2) building of cedars, because of the people, that they would not recognize the time of their visitation, Luc. 19, 44, which is said in the next chapter.
V. 2. Hay, ye firs, for the cedars are fallen, and the glorious building is destroyed.
1) This is how all editions have understood the words: "of the temple Jerusalem". But would like (after tz 4) very well so to be read: of the temple, Jerusalem and etc.
2) Erlanger: "den" instead of: dein.
The temple will be disturbed, both fir trees and cedars and all the magnificent buildings will fall, be disturbed and burned, as Daniel Cap. 9:26 proclaims.
Hay, you oaks of Bashan, for the solid forest is hewn down.
4 Here, I think, he means the whole city of Jerusalem, which had built its houses out of the oak forest of Bashan, so that it is also called a forest of Bashan, because of the amount of oak wood from Bashan, just as the temple above [ยง 1] is called "Lebanon". For Bashan is famous in the Scriptures for oak trees, just as Lebanon is famous for cedar and fir. But he calls Jerusalem a solid forest, because it was also a solid city, as the Romans themselves confessed.
V. 3. Hear the shepherds howling, for their glorious building is desolate.
005 These are the chief priests and scribes, which shall feed the people as shepherds. This one is also not spared, but their splendid palace and splendid buildings also had to go, which they had prepared as if they wanted to live in it forever.
One hears the young lions roar, for the splendor of the Jordan is destroyed.
(6) These are the rulers and the rich men of Jerusalem; all must howl. For there is not one stone left upon another.
7 "The splendor of Jordan" is also a twisted word. I think he also means the splendid adornment of the city and the building, as with bricks and marble, palm trees, brass, silver, gold and similar jewels, which were brought from Jordan to Jerusalem and made around Jordan. For Solomon had all the vessels of brass cast at Jordan, 1 Kings 7:46.
V. 4. 5. Thus says the Lord my God: Beware of the sheep of the slaughter, for their masters slaughter-
They sell them, and considering no sin, they sell, and say: Praise be to the Lord, I am now rich.
(8) Here he begins to proclaim and tell of sin and guilt, so that they may deserve such destruction. These are three: the first, that they teach falsely; the second, that they are covetous, and teach falsely for covetousness' sake; the third, that they sell Christ, and deny, and reject. The first fault he shows by saying, "Beware of sheep for slaughter." This is what the prophet says to Christ in the person of God, that he should feed, and he will find as it is among the people, namely, that he will find sheep of choke. For Christ found vain wolves, thieves and murderers, that is, false teachers among the people, as he himself says Joh. 10, 1. 12. Therefore he cheaply calls them slaughter sheep. For the Pharisees and scribes, as thieves and wolves, slaughtered and strangled them with their false doctrine, and even did so safely, so that they had no conscience about it, but thought they were doing well and rightly. As is the manner of all murderous and wolfish teachers, that they want to be praised as doing better than all other wholesome teachers. Therefore they sin against the Holy Spirit, so that their sin cannot be forgiven, but must fall into punishment, because they not only sin, but also justly defend such sin with all iniquity. For sin must be recognized and repented of if it is to be forgiven.
9 He shows the other guilt by the fact that they sold the poor sausage sheep, that is, as St. Peter 2. ep. 2, 3. speaks: "By avarice they handle the people with invented words." Such fiddling is here called Zechariah "selling." For the Pharisees had made a real fair with their sacrifice [Joh. 2, 13. ff.], just as also our clergy have sold nns by the mass, indulgences and other services, and have tampered with us, for they take money and goods from us, and give us to the devil to buy; who gives us the holy merit of indulgences and other good works in return, on which we build, and so go to hell. And as they have no conscience about the false doctrine (as it is said), so they have no conscience.
They think they are doing well, thanking and praising God that they are becoming so rich. "Praise be to God that we are becoming rich," now we are at ease. For because we become rich, it is a sign that [it] pleases God so much, even though the contradiction is proclaimed here.
(10) There is much to be said here about how masterfully the prophet depicts the belly servants and false teachers with their ways, that they are so blind, sure, stingy, and how they praise God not for grace and mercy, but for the sake that they have become rich, that is, for the sake of belly and temporal goods and air; otherwise they leave God and God's things well satisfied.
And her shepherds did not spare her.
(11) That is, they choked them after the soul with false doctrine, and robbed them of their goods by hypocrisy; and there was no measure, nor cessation, nor sparing, but the longer they did it, the more and greater they made such murder and robbery, all things alike, as also happened to us under the papacy. The shepherds should be of the kind and goodness that they spare the herd, and lead neatly with them. But now they are wolves, of a kind that they do not spare. For the wolf has a disgraceful way about him, where he comes into a stable, even though he may eat his fill with good calm, he does not eat a sheep, because he has strangled them all beforehand, so that not one lives, he is so insatiable and stingy. So also, false teachers do not have enough to deceive some people, but want to have them all at once completely, and do not rest because they hear a pious man bleating against them. Therefore he also says above that their lords strangle them, as if to say, They have brought the people under themselves, and rule over them as lords do over hereditary estates, so that no one is allowed to protest against them. St. Peter teaches 1 Ep. 5, 3 that the shepherds should not rule over the Christians as over hereditary property; and Paul 2 Cor. 1, 24. 1) does not want to rule over the Corinthian faith.
In the original: "2 Cor. 3." Walch has put instead: I Cor. 4, 8. which the Erlanger recorded.
V. 6: I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord.
(12) How much such guilt displeases God is indicated by the fact that he says here that he also wants to remove the hand and tame it, as the 81st Psalm, v. 13, also says: "I will let them go into their heart's thoughts. But what could be greater anger, since God lets us go according to our conceit, takes away His word, and lets men, yes, the devil himself be our master? What else can there be but vain divisions and disunity of doctrine; after that, from disunity of doctrine also follows outward disunity in strife and rebellion, as we read in Joseph, how abominable divisions and rebellion were among the Jewish people, hard before Christ's birth, when they had to fulfill this prophecy with it, as follows:
And, behold, I will leave the people every man in the hand of another, and in the hand of his king, to smite the land, and will not deliver them out of their hand.
013 It was the same among the Jews, especially in the days of the Sadducees and Pharisees, before the birth of Christ: there were all manner of sects, and divers kings, as the book of the Maccabees saith. From all these they were not saved, but left to have other and other kings, until Herod came upon them with his descendants, appointed by the Romans. He first fulfilled this prophecy and acted abominably among the Jewish people with the sword, but the mobs of Pharisees acted even more abominably with their tongues and doctrine, and went about as if they no longer had a God who respected them.
14 But I think we should also see something under the papacy, how we are divided there into so many factions of the clergy, and have been against each other in the most violent way, and so much war has arisen from it between pope, emperor, kings and princes, that it is horrible to read and hear, as if there were no Christ left in the church. He has also let us make among ourselves so far that nothing but murder of souls and bodies has taken place, and indeed a vain diabolical regiment, both with seducing and murdering, has gone on mightily. The
The devil is a murderer and liar, or a deceiver [Joh. 8, 44], he has proven this honestly in the papacy on us, as he is now starting again through the new spirits and groups. Where God is not at home, there it goes.
V. 7. And I tended the strangled sheep for the sake of the wretched sheep.
(15) Now here comes the right shepherd, Christ, and says: He accepts the shepherd's office, as the Father had commanded him above [v. 4]. For the prophet therefore leads Christ in this speech. So he had to be a shepherd of the strangled sheep, that is, he preached among the mobs of Sadducees and Pharisees, who strangled the people with false doctrine. But he did not do it for the sake of the strangled sheep, because they despised him, but for the sake of the miserable sheep, that is, as he himself says Matth. 11, 5: "The poor have the gospel preached to them."
And I took unto me two staves, the one I called Gentle, and the other I called Woe; and I tended the sheep.
(16) And here we see the third fault of the Jews, how they deny and sell Christ. A shepherd shall have one staff. So Christ also presents himself here as a shepherd, and takes two staffs to himself, and begins to teach and to shepherd the sheep. What these two staffs are, however, is interpreted in many ways. But we observe, because Christ is here a shepherd, tending the sheep, the staves must be nothing else than the teaching which he led. For it is also indicated in the text that the one staff, when it is broken, signifies a covenant, and with the same breaking he confesses that he will no longer feed them. So now we must look at what Christ led for preaching and teaching, and we will find the two staves. For even otherwise in Scripture God's word is called a rod, as Ps. 23:4: "Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me." And certainly Mosi's staff, when he smote the sea and rock with [Ex. 14, 21. 17, 6.] signifies God's word; and the gospel is called Christ's scepter, Ps. 110, 2. and Ps. 45, 7.: "The scepter of thy kingdom is a straight scepter."
17 So now the one staff is the holy one.
Gospel, which is a lovely, funny sermon of grace. That is why it is called Noam here, that is, funny and fine. We have rendered it "gentle" so that it rhymes with the other word. For "gentle" and "woe" are probably contrary to each other. The other rod is the law, which is a hard, sour and heavy sermon to the old man; but Christ masterfully lays down the law in Matt. 5:20, and thereby shows that all the righteousness of the Pharisees is nothing; item, Matt. 23:3 ff. and everywhere he punishes them for leaving God's law and keeping their own essays. He always shows them what the law requires, and punishes them for not keeping it, and thus always makes them sinners and disgraces them with their holiness. Which they could not endure, and it grieved them.
(18) And indeed it grieveth every man when he is made a sinner by the law: there is anguish and distress, as St. Paul saith Romans 4:15, "The law worketh wrath," and 1 Corinthians 15:56, "The law is the power of sins:" that the law is a rod that is called woe, distress, and anguish, as the word Choblim is in the Hebrew, and is called much or various anguish, as a woman is in childish trouble. It is indeed a strong, thick staff, even the shillelagh or kenle, with which the shepherd throws among the dogs and wolves.
019 Now Christ was so that they would not suffer him in any doctrine. If he preached the gospel, he had to be a sinner who did not keep the Sabbath or the laws of the fathers, a sinner and a tax collector's assistant, a glutton and a drunkard. etc. [Matth. 11, 19. 12, 2.],who did not give to their fasting, praying or almsgiving. If he preached the law, he must be a fool, and mocked; yea, became an enemy to him, that he chastised them for covetousness and hypocrisy. He sunge sweet or sour, it did not help. If he led them gently with the rod, they did not follow; if he threw the shillelagh woe under them, they were angry, and as he himself says Matth. 11, 17: "If we whistle, they do not dance; if we mourn, they do not weep." If he promises all good things through the gospel, they do not want them; if he preaches all evil through the law, they despise it. What should he do with such
The Lord will not do this to the vipers, because he will break both staves in the end and let them go, both without the gospel and the law, in their arrogance after all.
V. 8. And I destroyed three shepherds in one month.
These three shepherds are three kinds of teachers and governors among the people, which Jeremiah Cap. 18, 18. counts according to the glory of the wicked: "The priests will not lack the law, nor the wise the counsel, nor the prophets the word. But in Christ's day, instead of the prophets, there were the scribes, who handled the Scriptures and made laws according to their own conceit, not, like the prophets, according to the Spirit of God. Above these three kinds of shepherds were the Pharisees and Sadducees; but these were sects and sects, not ordered by God, like the three shepherds mentioned above, but invented and invented by men. Now these three shepherds were of God's order among the people; nevertheless they had to perish when Christ came. For when he says that he destroyed them in a month, he means that by his preaching ministry, which he began, he abolished all the teachers of the Old Testament as briefly as in a month. For when Christ began to teach, Moses was finished with his teaching, as Christ himself says Matth. 11, 13: "The law and the prophets go until John"; from which time on the kingdom of God is preached etc.
Because I did not like her, so they did not want mine.
That is soon divorced: I could not stand their false doctrine, therefore I condemned them all three, that they should count for nothing. But they were annoyed by this and did not want to suffer it. So we parted, and I let them go.
V. 9. and said: I will not be careful of you. That which dies, die; that which languishes, languish; and the rest eat one another's flesh.
(22) That is, if they will not hear me, I must let them go, die, pine away, eat one another. As it must be
where God's word is despised and humanity reigns. For there dwells the devil with all his angels, and the spirits of the wicked want it so. For they will not let them know that Christ must say to them, "I will not watch over you." This is what we raw Germans say: "Because you do not want to hear me, let the devil and his mother take care of you.
V.10. And I took the one staff, Gentle, and brake it, that I might establish my covenant which I had made with all nations. And it was taken up that day.
023 That is, because they would not hear me and my gospel, I went and took it also from them, and turned to the Gentiles. For this is what he means by saying that he has abrogated the covenant (that is, taken the gospel from the Jews and shortened it so that it no longer reaches them), which he had made to come among all the Gentiles, and yet it is broken off and shortened only for the Jews. As St. Paul also teaches from Isaiah Cap. 10, 24. 25. of the abbreviated word, that it does not reach to the Jews, nor does it affect them. And Apost. 13, 46. Paul confesses that they must turn to the Gentiles, because the Jews did not want the word; and thus it came to pass that such a covenant was abrogated by the Jews, and the rod or staff cut short. And here it may be noted that this rod is the gospel, which is the covenant of God among all the Gentiles, but taken from the Jews and broken off.
V.11. And the wretched sheep who were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord.
024 The great multitude fell away, but the wretched and lowly kept me, and perceived by the Holy Ghost that the rod was the word of God. And indeed, a great glory of the wretched is that they saw that the great crowd was angry with me, and would not hear me, that they nevertheless remained with me, and believed that it [the staff] was the word of God, as Peter said to Christ John 6:68: "Where shall we go?
of eternal life." Yes, this is what the poor and miserable do: "For the gospel is preached to the poor", Matth. 11, 5. Is. 61, 1) 1.
V. 12 And I said unto them: If it pleases you, bring how much I am worth. If not, let it stand.
(25) This is the prophecy of Christ being sold by Judah the betrayer, as Matthew tells us (Matt. 26:15 ff.), all of which the prophet sees and hears in his face, and these are words that are spoken with great earnestness. As if he should say: Not only do you not want to hear me nor suffer me, but you are so exceedingly hostile to me that you will be glad to be rid of me, even though you sell me for a good price, just as your fathers did with the pious Joseph [Gen. 37:28]. Go on, fill up your fathers' measure [Matt. 23:32]. Dear one, let me see how much you value me and sell me.
And they offered what I was worth, thirty pieces of silver.
26. Christ, who was so highly promised, and so expensively commanded to be received, is finally valued at thirty pieces of silver, and therefore sold. All of this is brought about by the miserable avarice and honor of this world. All of this is abundantly fulfilled in the Gospel, especially Matth. 27, 9.
V. 13. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter, the excellent sum of which I am esteemed of them.
27 The prophet saw this in the vision that Christ did, and it was fulfilled afterward. For St. Matthew writes how the Jews bought a potter's field for thirty pieces of silver [Matth. 27, 7]. This is this potter, to whom these thirty pieces of silver were thrown by Christ, that was meant in the face, how they were to be given for the field. A delicious money (he says) and excellent summa, for which I am sold. Aren't they cheap damned people?
1) In the original: Isa. 60.
And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them into the house of the Lord to the potter.
028 Not that the potter is in the house of the Lord, but that he casteth them into the temple, that they should come to the potter afterward. This prophesies that Judas first threw the pieces of silver into the temple, and then they came to the potter, as Matthew writes. But if anyone here wants to understand that the prophet threw thirty pieces of silver into the temple as a sign, I will let it happen. But methinks he speaketh of a vision, wherein he saw Christ sold, and the pieces of silver cast into the temple, and kept for sale in the potter's field.
V.14. And I broke my other staff: woe is me, that I should break up the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
29 Not only the gospel, but also the law is taken away. For the Jews now have no more priesthood, nor sacrifice, nor right understanding of the law, and so the brotherhood that was between Judah and Israel is abolished. For by the law the Jews were united to each other as brothers, and all Gentiles were excluded, as David says Ps. 147, 20: "He has not done this to any nation", and Paul Eph. 2, 12. also indicates how the Gentiles were without God and strangers in the testaments etc. So this is now also gone and abbreviated, by which the Jews were bound to each other in the hardest possible way.
V.15. And the Lord said unto me, Take unto thee the testimony of a foolish shepherd.
(30) By the next vision he prophesied how the gospel and the law would be taken away from the Jews because of their guilt. Now follows another vision, what they will teach instead of the gospel and the law, namely no good for the poor souls, but vain doctrine for the avarice, Lind says: Zechariah or Christ in the vision should take a great shepherd's stuff, as there are the staves, horns, bags. For, as is often said, God uses to put signs or visions next to his word, to strengthen the faith with it. So there must also be two visions here as signs: one, from a shepherd with
The other, of a foolish shepherd and his witness, indicate foolish, nonsensical teachers of the Jews, who would teach their dreams instead of the gospel. That is why they are called foolish shepherds here, because they have the name of shepherds and do no shepherding.
V. 16 For behold, I will raise up shepherds in the land, who will not look upon that which is wasted, nor seek that which is bruised, nor heal that which is broken, nor care for that which is whole; but the flesh of the fat they will devour, and their claws will rend.
31 This saying has been interpreted to the Antichrist. I let that go. I think he is talking about the plague of the Jews, which the Pharisees and their like oppressors had, as Christ says about them in Matth. 23, 4. ff. and Zechariah also proclaims here. For he says of the land, that is, of the Jewish land, even though the same thing has happened to us through the pope, also for the sake of it, that we have not accepted God's word beforehand, and now there are also spirits of the rotten, who will also play with us in this way. God protect us! Amen. What do such teachers do?
(32) First, "they do not look upon the brokenhearted," that is, they leave the souls stuck in an evil conscience, bringing no food of the gospel to them. Secondly, they do not know how to comfort the afflicted and fainthearted, that is, they do not seek the brokenhearted. Third, they do not heal the broken, that is, where a man falls or is infirm, they do not help him, do not bear or tolerate it, but with severity and sharpness they always drive the poor consciences to works. Fourth, they do not care for the healthy either, so that it becomes stronger and increases. You can read more about this in Ezek. 34, 16 and in the Sermon Dominicae 2. post Pascha. But what is fat they devour, and tear their claws, that is, their preaching is that they suppress everything that is something, especially where it is against them, and do not do what they want.
V. 17. O idolaters who leave the herd!
(33) Here you see that he speaks not of one shepherd but of many, and calls them
Idolatrous shepherds, that is, who are not living shepherds, who would do their office, but sit as idols, and let them be served. He has indeed called them idols quite well and fine. For they are idols and idols, and nothing else. For they let the herds go as they go; only that they eat and tear, so nearly that they leave not a claw that they tear not. Look at our bishops, with priests and monks, so you have this text glosses, examples and fulfillment abundant, if there were no Jewish Pharisees, from which it would be understood.
Let the sword come down on her right arm and on her right eye, so that her right arm will wither and her right eye will become dark.
The sword is God's punishment and judgment, so that they are so afflicted that they are not capable of any good work, Titus 1:16, nor do they teach or understand anything salvific. This is their right arm and eye. This is also what the 109th Psalm, v. 6, says of them: "Let Satan stand at his right hand. But their left arm and left eye is strong and healthy. For they do much and
are almost clever in their carnal sense and own conceit to deceive themselves and others; as all false teachers are of a kind and happiness etc.
35 From this chapter comes the question: why does Matthew [Cap. 27, 9] ascribe the text of the thirty pieces of silver to the prophet Jeremiah when it is written here in Zechariah? Such questions and the like do not trouble me much, because they serve little purpose. And Matthew does enough that he uses certain scriptures, although he does not hit the name exactly, since he also uses "sayings in other places", and yet does not use the words exactly as they are written. If one can now suffer the same, and happens without all danger of the sense that he does not lead the words so evenly, what should it then hinder, whether he does not set the name so evenly? Since more lies in the words than in the name. And it is also the way of all apostles that they do so, and introduce the opinion of the Scriptures, without such quarrelsome, exact diligence and fullness of the text; therefore they would be much harder to question, than Matthew here about the name of Jeremiah. But he who loves idle bickering, let him at least ask; he will find more that he asks than that he answers.