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Open your doors, O Lebanon,

so that fire may devour your cedars!

Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,

for the glorious trees are ruined!

Wail, oaks of Bashan,

for the thick forest has been felled!

Listen, the wail of the shepherds,

for their glory is despoiled!

Listen, the roar of the lions,

for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!

Two Kinds of Shepherds

⁴ Thus said the L ord my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. ⁵Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, “Blessed be the L ord, for I have become rich”; and their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the L ord. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor, and each into the hand of the king; and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand.

⁷ So, on behalf of the sheep merchants, I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. I took two staffs; one I named Favor, the other I named Unity, and I tended the sheep. ⁸In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me. ⁹So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another!” ¹⁰I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the L ord. ¹²I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. ¹³Then the L ord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury”—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the L ord. ¹⁴Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the L ord said to me: Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd. ¹⁶For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

Oh, my worthless shepherd,

who deserts the flock!

May the sword strike his arm

and his right eye!

Let his arm be completely withered,

his right eye utterly blinded!

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

He then adds, The voice of the howling of shepherds; for their excellency, or their courage, is laid waste. Here he has אדר, ader, and before אדירים, adirim, in the masculine gender. We see then that the Prophet confirms the same thing in other words, “Howl now,” he says, “shall the shepherds.” He intimates that the beginning of this dreadful judgment would be with the chief men, as they were especially the cause of the public ruin. He then says, that the dignity of the great was now approaching its fall, and hence he bids them to howl. He does not in these words exhort them to repentance, but follows the same strain of doctrine. By God’s command he here declares, that the shepherds who took pride in their power, could not escape the judgment which they had deserved: and as this is a mode of speaking usually adopted by the Prophets, I shall no longer dwell on the subject.

He afterwards adds, The voice of the roaring of lions. He no doubt gives here the name of lions, by way of metaphor, to those who cruelly exercised their power over the people. But he also alludes to the banks of Jordan, where there were lions, as it is well known. Since then lions were found along the whole course of Jordan, as it is evident from many passages, he compares shepherds to lions, even the governors who had abused their authority by exercising tyranny over the people: Fallen then has the pride or the excellency of Jordan. In short, it is now sufficiently evident, that the Prophet threatens final destruction both to the kingdom of Judah and to the kingdom of Israel. Both kingdoms were indeed then abolished; but I speak of the countries themselves. The meaning is — that neither Judea nor the land of the ten tribes would be free from God’s vengeance. ¹³¹¹³¹     The whole passage, including the three first verses, is remarkably concise, striking, and poetical,—

   1. Open, Lebanon, thy doors, That consume may the fire thy cedars:
   2. Howl thou the fir-tree; For fallen is the cedar, Because the magnificent are wasted. Howl, ye oaks of Bashan; For come down is the forest, the fenced one.
   3. The voice of the howling of shepherds! Because wasted is their magnificence; The voice of the roaring of lions! For wasted is the pride of Jordan.
   There is a correspondence between “consume” and “wasted.” The Jewish rulers were called “shepherds” with regard to their office, and “lions” on account of their rapidity. Their “magnificence” was wasted, like that of the cedars when consumed by fire. The “pride of Jordan” were the trees growing on its borders, which afforded shelter for lions. These became wasted or destroyed, so that the lions could find there no receptacle. All these things intimate the entire destruction of the Jewish state. — Ed. He afterwards adds —

¹³¹ The whole passage, including the three first verses, is remarkably concise, striking, and poetical,— 1. Open, Lebanon, thy doors, That consume may the fire thy cedars: 2. Howl thou the fir-tree; For fallen is the cedar, Because the magnificent are wasted. Howl, ye oaks of Bashan; For come down is the forest, the fenced one. 3. The voice of the howling of shepherds! Because wasted is their magnificence; The voice of the roaring of lions! For wasted is the pride of Jordan. There is a correspondence between “consume” and “wasted.” The Jewish rulers were called “shepherds” with regard to their office, and “lions” on account of their rapidity. Their “magnificence” was wasted, like that of the cedars when consumed by fire. The “pride of Jordan” were the trees growing on its borders, which afforded shelter for lions. These became wasted or destroyed, so that the lions could find there no receptacle. All these things intimate the entire destruction of the Jewish state. — Ed.