Zechariahchapter 13
9 verses · Zechariah · 520 to 518 BC · The Twelve
Key verse
In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.
It stands in A fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, verses 1 to 6.
The chapter
Chapter summary
'In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness': the cleansing that answers chapter 12's mourning. Idols' names are cut off and the unclean spirit removed; false prophets are so discredited they hide the hairy mantle and claim to be farmers. Then the sword falls on the true one: 'Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow… smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered': quoted by Jesus on the way to Gethsemane. Two parts of the land perish; the third is refined as silver: 'It is my people; and they shall say, Jehovah is my God' (13:9).
Context
Prophecy · Zechariah · Zechariah overview
The world behind this chapter
Zechariah 13The history
The chapter opens with a fountain opened to the house of David for sin and uncleanness. Israel's purification rituals used running water, "living water", rather than a still basin, so an open spring is the picture of cleansing that keeps flowing rather than a washing that must be repeated.
Then two things are cut off together: idols, and prophets. Lying prophecy had been one of the causes of the exile, Jeremiah fought it his whole ministry, and here the false prophet is dealt with so severely that his own father and mother would act against him.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The result is a culture where nobody wants to be mistaken for a prophet. A man will refuse the hairy mantle that was the prophet's recognizable dress, from Elijah onward, and will say, "I am no prophet, I am an husbandman", I work the land.
Then a strange line: what are these wounds in thine hands? Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Read in context it is the false prophet deflecting, but the wording has struck Christian readers for two thousand years.
The chapter's center is a command: "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." Jesus quoted that sentence to His disciples on the night He was arrested, and told them it was about to happen to them.
The end is a refining image, two parts cut off, a third brought through the fire, refined as silver is refined and tried as gold is tried. Refining silver meant heating it until the impurities rose to be skimmed off, and the refiner watched the whole time.
What it meant to them
For post-exilic Judah, the promise of a land purged of idols and false prophets was the removal of the two things that had destroyed their grandparents' world.
And the refining said the survivors would be a remnant, not a majority, but they would be a remnant that says "the LORD is my God" and is answered, "it is my people." That exchange is the whole covenant in six words.
Sources cited
- John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets
- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David (public domain)
Where the chapter sits
Zechariah 13 falls in Two burdens (chapters 9–14). ‘Thy King cometh … riding upon an ass’ (9:9); the thirty pieces of silver (11); ‘they shall look upon me whom they have pierced’ (12:10); ‘one LORD, and his name one’ (14:9).
Before it: Fasts and future, chapters 7–8.
The whole shape of Zechariah→The structure of this chapter
People1
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. A fountain opened for sin and uncleanness
1. (v. 1)
Zechariah 13:1
“A fountain - The blood of Christ. Opened - The spouse is to Christ a fountain sealed, but Christ is to sinners a fountain opened. Inhabitants of Jerusalem - The inhabitants of Jerusalem are all to whom the gospel is preached.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Zechariah 13:1
“WE DO NOT GRUDGE to the seed of Israel after the flesh the first application of this very precious promise. There will be a day when those who have so long refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias shall discern the marks of his mission, and shall mourn that they have pierced him. When the tribes of Israel shall lament their sin with holy earnestness, there shall be no mourning to exceed it, they shall weep even as in the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo, when the wellbeloved Josiah was slain.”
Zechariah 13:1
“It is certain that water was of no value to cleanse the heart; but the sins of men, we know, are expiated by the death of Christ, so that true ablution is by the blood which he shed for us. Hence the types of the law ought no doubt to be referred to this blood.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Zechariah 13:1
“Thus justification and sanctification are implied in this verse as both flowing from the blood of Christ, not from ceremonial sacrifices (1Co 1:30; 1Jo 1:7; compare Eze 36:25). Sin in Hebrew is literally a missing the mark or way.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
a fountain opened to the house of David: In that day a fountain is opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness, immediately following the mourning of chapter 12's close, so that grief over the pierced one issues directly into cleansing. Clarke and Keil read the fountain as sacrificial and typical language, the washing the Levitical system pictured now finally supplied, with the older bench applying it to the blood of Christ at full strength and the note carrying that reading as theirs. The single verse joins the two chapters into one movement, piercing, mourning, and cleansing in that order.
2. (vv. 2-3)
Zechariah 13:2
“I will cut off the names of the idols - There shall not only be no idolatry, but the very names of the idols shall be forgotten, or be held in such abhorrence that no person shall mention them. This prophecy seems to be ancient, and to have been delivered while idolatry had prevalence in Israel and Judah. I will cause the prophets - All false teachers. And the unclean spirit - That which leads to impurity, the spirit of divination; the lust of the flesh, and of the eye, and the pride of life.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Zechariah 13:3
“His father and mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live - The prophet describes the zeal against false prophecy, with reference to the law against those who seduced to apostasy from God. Deu 13:6-10: “the nearest relations were themselves to denounce any who had secretly tried to seduce them, and themselves, as the accusers, to cast the first stone at them.”
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 13:3
“The substantial truth expressed is that false prophecy shall be utterly abolished. If it were possible for it again to start up, the very parents of the false prophet would not let parental affection interfere, but would be the first to thrust him through. Love to Christ must be paramount to the tenderest of natural ties (Mt 10:37).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
cut off the names of the idols: The Lord promises to cut off the names of the idols from the land so they are no longer remembered, and to remove the prophets and the unclean spirit along with them, purging false worship and false prophecy in the same stroke. The purge reaches into the family itself, if a son should still prophesy, his own father and mother will tell him he speaks lies in the name of the Lord and will thrust him through for it. Gill and Wesley read the extremity of the household's own hand turned against a false prophet as measuring how seriously the restored community will guard the Lord's name, without the notes claiming the law was ever carried out to that letter.
3. (vv. 4-6)
Zechariah 13:4
“Neither shall they wear a rough garment - A rough garment made of goats’ hair, coarse wool, or the course pile of the camel, was the ordinary garb of God’s prophets. And the false prophets wore the same; for they pretended to the same gifts, and the same spirit, and therefore they wore the same kind of garments. John Baptist had a garment of this kind.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Zechariah 13:5
However, husbandry and keeping cattle might be regarded as jointly the occupation of the person questioned: then Am 7:14, "herdman," will accord with English Version. A Hebrew kindred word means "cattle." Both occupations, the respondent replies, are inconsistent with my being a "prophet."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Zechariah 13:6
“What are these wounds in thine hands? - Marks which he had received in honor of his idols. But he shall excuse himself by stating that he had received these marks in his own family; when, most probably, they had been dedicated to some of those idols. See the note on Isa 44:5. I do not think that these words are spoken at all concerning Jesus Christ. I have heard them quoted in this way; but I cannot hear such an application of them without horror.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
ashamed every one of his vision: The false prophets of that day are ashamed of their own visions and no longer wear the rough hairy garment that once marked their office, choosing instead to deny the title outright, calling themselves husbandmen taught to keep cattle from their youth. Asked about wounds in his hands, the denying prophet answers that he was wounded in the house of his friends, a line most of the bench reads as the self-inflicted marks pagan prophets cut into their own flesh in ecstatic worship, now embarrassing evidence he must explain away. Henry and Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown also note the verse's language has long been read typologically of Christ wounded by those nearest him, a secondary application named beside the primary sense and not substituted for it.
B. Strike the shepherd; a third brought through the fire
1. (v. 7)
Zechariah 13:7
WE are sure that we understand this passage, for we have our Lord Jesus Christ's application of it to Himself—"All you," He said to His disciples, "shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3088: “The Storm and the Shower” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
2 more voices on this verse
Zechariah 13:7
“O sword - Afflictions, persecutions, and the cross. My shepherd - Who is my faithful shepherd, and will lay down his life for my sheep. My fellow - This speaks Christ; man with us, and God with his father, God-man in one person.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Zechariah 13:7
“For God calls Messiah "My shepherd," that is, provided (Re 13:8) for sinners by My love to them, and ever the object of My love, though judicially smitten (Isa 53:4) for their sins (Isa 42:1; 59:16). man that is my fellow--literally, "the man of my union." The Hebrew for "man" is "a mighty man," one peculiarly man in his noblest ideal.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Zechariah 13:7
- Quoted inMark 14:27“Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’”
'I will smite the shepherd' ('it is written')
- Quoted inMatthew 26:31“Then Jesus said to them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of Me. For it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’”
'I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered' ('it is written')
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd: The sword is called awake against the Lord's own shepherd, the man that is his fellow, an equality of standing with the Lord himself the older commentators read as reaching toward the shepherd's own deity. Smiting the shepherd scatters the sheep, and the Lord turns his hand even upon the little ones, sparing none from the shock of the shepherd's fall. Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27 record the Lord quoting this very verse of himself on the night of his arrest, so the chapter's shepherd is identified by his own citation rather than left to inference.
2. (vv. 8-9)
Zechariah 13:8
“Two parts therein shall be cut off - In the war with the Romans. But the third shall be left - Those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be preserved alive; and not one of these perished in the siege, or afterwards, by those wars.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 13:8
“Some understand by the cutting off, and dying, or two parts in all the earth, the abolishing of heathenism and Judaism, that Christianity, the third part, might be left to reign alone. The Jewish worship was quite taken away by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. And, some time after, Pagan idolatry was in a manner extirpated, when the empire became Christian.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Zechariah 13:9
“When Jerusalem and Judea were destroyed, all the Christians in that country, having among them the warning Christ gave them to flee to the mountains, shifted for their own safety, and were sheltered in a city called Pella, on the other side Jordan. We have here first the trials and then the triumphs of the Christian church, and of all the faithful members of it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
two parts therein shall be cut off and die: Two parts of the land are cut off and die while a third is left, the remnant then brought through the fire and refined as silver, tried as gold, a process the commentators read as purification rather than mere reduction. The refined third calls on the Lord's name and is answered, and the covenant formula closes the book's central movement, I will say, It is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God. Pusey and Barnes read the formula as the mutual claim of Exodus renewed on the far side of judgment, the remnant's smallness answered by the completeness of the bond it now holds.
This page carries no textual note on Zechariah 13. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.