Charles Ellicott Commentary Zechariah 11:8

"And I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me." — Zechariah 11:8 (ASV)

The effect of the prophet’s (that is, God’s) feeding the flock is that He cut off three shepherds in one month. As in Ezekiel and Daniel (Ezekiel 4:4–6; Daniel 9:24–27, and so on), the period mentioned here seems to be symbolic.

Taking a day for a year, one month would mean about thirty years. Some interpret “one month” to mean “a short time,” an interpretation that also aligns with our view of the case.

Others, again, take each day to represent seven years, so that thirty days would be two hundred and ten years. They explain the three shepherds as the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Macedonian Empires, which lasted two hundred and fifteen years, from the captivity in Babylon until the death of Alexander the Great. However, no instance can be cited where a prophetic day is equivalent to seven years.

“The three shepherds” may then be (according to the view we have adopted regarding the expression “one month”) the Syro-Grecian kings (172-141 B.C.)—Antiochus Epiphanes (who died miserably in Persia), Antiochus Eupator (put to death by Demetrius I), and Demetrius I (overthrown by Alexander Balas).

As examples of attempts to find an historical reference for the passage by taking the expression “one month” literally, the following may be cited: Cyril considers that kings, priests, and prophets are meant; and Pusey suggests “priests, judges, and lawyers,” who, having “delivered to the cross the Savior, were all taken away in one month, Nisan, A.D. 33.”

However, the prophet speaks of the rejection of the good shepherd as occurring after the cutting off of the shepherds.

Maurer would interpret the three shepherds as Zechariah (son of Jeroboam II), his murderer Shallum (who reigned only a month), and a third unknown usurper whose downfall quickly followed. But Shallum was certainly murdered by Menahem (2 Kings 15:10–14), leaving no room for a third unknown usurper.

Hitzig would avoid the difficulty by rendering the phrase as “I removed the three shepherds which were in one month” (supporting this construction, correctly, by referring to passages like Exodus 34:31; Isaiah 23:17; Ezekiel 26:20). He takes them to be the kings Zechariah, Shallum, and Menahem, who sat upon the throne of Israel in about the period of one month.

But this does not really resolve the difficulty. Shallum actually reigned a month of days (2 Kings 15:13), and the events referred to occupied a much longer time.

Them. — The sheep, not the shepherds. In spite of what He did for them, they abhorred Him. Although, at first sight, it would seem more natural to refer the pronoun to “the shepherds,” we are prevented from doing so by the consideration that the fact that God loathed the shepherds and they abhorred Him—shepherds whom He had cut off for the good of His flock—would be no reason for His refusing any longer to feed the flock (Zechariah 11:9); whereas the flock’s disregard of all His loving-kindness toward them would provide good reason for Him to do so.