ZECHARIAH 11

7 And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty , and the other I called Bands [Judah]; and I fed the flock.

Beauty and Bands

-The two shepherds' staffs of Zechariah 11., called "Beauty" and "Bands" are, we think, to be interpreted in this way: "Bands" agrees with Israel under the law, alias

"Jerusalem in bondage with her children,"

while the Beauty-staff answers to "the king in his beauty," referred to by Isaiah (33:17).

The breaking of these staffs is explained to be significant of two divine acts, one the breaking of the brotherhood between Israel and Judah, which may be said to have occurred when Israel was carried away to Assyria; and the other, the breaking of the Mosaic covenant, which may be said to have been accomplished when the Beauty-shepherd of Israel was given "for a covenant of the people" (Isa. 42:6), with the result of

"taking away the first" covenant, "that he might establish the second" (Heb. 10:9).

That it has some connection with this event is evident from the proximity in which it stands to the "thirty pieces of silver," quoted by Matthew, and applied to Christ. The Jews, however, said in effect when he came,

"there is no Beauty that we should desire him,"

just as Isaiah had predicted. The prophets were men of sign, who in many things were the personal illustrations of much that concerned Christ in their own experience.

Bro. F. R. Shuttleworth

The Christadelphian, June 1888

13 And Yahweh said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of Yahweh.

Redemption is release for a ransom. All who become God's servants are therefore released from a former lord by purchase. The purchaser is Yahweh; and the price, or ransom, paid, the precious blood of the flesh through which the Anointing Spirit was manifested. It is therefore styled, "the precious blood of Christ": as it is written in the words of Peter to his brethren, saying,

"Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conduct paternally delivered; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and without blemish" (1 Pet. 1:18.)

If this Christ-Lamb had not been slain, the "New Song" of Apoc. 5:9,10, could never have been sung; the 144,000 could never have been sealed, the robes of the saints, the palm-bearers of vii. 9-14, could never have been washed white in blood; there would have been no Altar, no worshippers thereat, nor souls underneath it in death (ch. 11:1; 6:9); and there would have been no "fine linen, clean and white," to clothe the bodyguards of "the King of kings" (19:8,14). All these parts of the Apocalypse are based on the slaying of the Christ-Lamb as the redemption price of the servants of God.

SATAN took the price of release. In the day of his power he valued the blood at thirty pieces of silver.

The life being purchased for this amount of blood-money, Satan nailed the Christ-Lamb to the tree; and poured out his life with a spear. Jesus entered no protest against the arrangement. On the contrary, he lovingly laid down his life for the sake of those who had died under the law of Moses, walking in the steps of Abraham's faith; and for them also, who should afterwards become Abraham's children by adoption through himself.

With the first class, as a man, he had no personal acquaintance; with the last, comprehending multitudes of his contemporaries, his acquaintance cost him his life. Unknown by the one, and condemned and persecuted by the other, he nevertheless laid down his life to purchase their release from the bondage of Sin and Death.

Eureka 1.1.2.