My Shepherd, My Partner

My Shepherd, My Partner

Zechariah 13 depicts a scene in which the people of Israel have rejected their Good Shepherd, the Messiah. Yet it is not the people that God sets his sword against:

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,

the man who is my partner,”

says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

“Strike down the shepherd,

and the sheep will be scattered,

and I will turn against the lambs.” (13:7)

Who is this shepherd? Obviously he is no ordinary herder of sheep and goats, because the Lord calls him “my shepherd.” He is human—“the man”—yet divine—“my partner.” Surely this is a revelation of Christ in both his divine and human nature. The man, the smitten Shepherd, is spoken of by God as his partner, sharing an equality with him and yet distinct from him.

Zechariah included something shocking here—that Yahweh himself will use the sword against his Shepherd. It is an echo of Isaiah’s words about the Messiah, that “it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him” (53:10).

Jesus drew on this prophecy of Zechariah, identifying himself as this Shepherd who will be struck by the sword of God. The night before his death, he said to his disciples: “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’” (Matthew 26:31).

When the soldiers arrested Jesus, the disciples fled in all directions. Just as Zechariah prophesied, his sheep were scattered. After his death, they barricaded themselves behind locked doors in fear of the Jewish religious leaders. A few years later the flock of Israel was dispersed as refugees when Roman soldiers tore down the walls of Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in AD 70. By rejecting the Shepherd, the nation brought judgment upon itself. Even so, a remnant will be saved. “They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God’” (Zechariah 13:9).

Shepherd, stricken by God for me so that I might live, how grateful I am to have been brought into your fold, to be a part of the remnant that you have saved and brought to yourself.