Zechariah 11:3

3 The sound of screaming appears among the shepherds because their majesty has been devastated. The sound of roaring can be heard among the young lions because the pride of the Jordan has been devastated.

Zechariah 11:3 Meaning and Commentary

Zechariah 11:3

[There is] a voice of the howling of the shepherds
Which may be understood either of the civil rulers among the Jews, who now lose their honour and their riches; and so the Targum, Jarchi, and Aben Ezra, interpret it of kings; or of the ecclesiastical rulers, the elders of the people, the Scribes and Pharisees: for their glory is spoiled;
their power and authority; their riches and wealth; their places of honour and profit; their offices, posts, and employments, whether in civil or religious matters, are taken from them, and they are deprived of them: a voice of the roaring of young lions;
of princes, comparable to them for their power, tyranny, and cruelty: the Targum is,

``their roaring is as the roaring of young lions:''

for the pride of Jordan is spoiled;
a place where lions and their young ones resorted, as Jarchi observes; (See Gill on Jeremiah 49:19). Jordan is here put for the whole land of Judea now wasted, and so its pride and glory gone; as if the waters of Jordan were dried up, the pride and glory of that, and which it showed when its waters swelled and overflowed; hence called by Pliny ^F24 "ambitiosus amnis", a haughty and ambitious swelling river.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 15.

Zechariah 11:3 In-Context

1 Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire will devour your cedars.

2 Scream, cypress, for the cedar has fallen; those majestic ones have been devastated. Scream, oaks of Bashan, for the deep forest has fallen.

3 The sound of screaming appears among the shepherds because their majesty has been devastated. The sound of roaring can be heard among the young lions because the pride of the Jordan has been devastated.

4 This is what the LORD my God says: Shepherd the flock intended for slaughter.

5 Those who buy them will kill them, but they will go unpunished. Those who sell them will say, "Blessed is the LORD, for I have become rich." And their own shepherds won't spare them.