Zechariah 11:14

Then I cut asunder mine other staff, [even] Bands,.... By which is meant, either the removal of the form of civil government from the Jews; or the abrogation of the Mosaic law, and the carnal

Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

Then; so soon as I saw what value they put upon me, or presently after the casting them off from the covenant, and unchurching them. I; Christ did it really, the prophet did it in the type. Cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands; took no further care to keep them in civil peace among themselves, but left them to their seditious humours and inhuman animosities. Religion, which is true, is the best bond of peace, friendship, and love; when the Jews cast off religion, and murdered their Lord, next they fall to murdering one another. That I might break; declare it broken, leave them to show it was broken. The brotherhood; that friendship which had been among them. Between Judah, the two tribes, and Israel, the remnant of the ten tribes, which fell into most unnatural seditions after the death of Christ, till the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Zechariah 11:14 Then I cut asunder mine other staff, [even] Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.Ver. 14. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands] Or, binders; the bond of unity, say some; by sending a spirit of perversities among them, such as that was which made way for the ruin of Egypt, Isaiah 19:14; Isaiah 19:16-17. But see for the sense hereof what is noted. God seems to say that he will now no more govern this people in mildness and clemency; nor yet exercise his shepherdly severity in saving corrections and visitations, as formerly he had done; but utterly reject and disject them. That I might break the brotherhood] Germanitatem, saith the Vulgate. Mala quaedam olitores Germanitatis vocant, semper cohaerentia, semper gemella, nunquam singula in foetu. Such were Judah and Israel till the ten tribes revolted from the house of David. After which, many of the better affected Israelites went over to Rehoboam; besides those of the ten tribes that returned with them out of Babylon, twelve thousand at least, as may be gathered out of Ezr 2:64 1 Chronicles 9:3. And in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah, and of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh; and between them there grew a brotherly conjunction and consociation, a league of love, as the Septuagint render it, or a national covenant (διαθηκην). This God threateneth here to dissolve and disannul; so that Ephraim shall be against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim, and both against Judah, Isaiah 9:21. Not many years before Christ’ s coming in the flesh those two brethren, Hircanus and Aristobulus, disagreed about the government and high priesthood; and called in Pompey, who subdued the country, and reduced it into a province. And not many years after Christ’ s passion Titus, the Roman emperor, utterly broke the brotherhood between Judah and Israel; and so scattered them, that like those priests in Ezra, they have utterly lost their pedigree, know not one another by their tribe or family, nor yet agree within themselves, Ezra 2:62. Those of them that were in Spain, and are now banished into the East (A.D. 1492), they hold to be of the tribe of Judah; and the other, in Germany and Italy, to be of the tribe of Benjamin; who in honour of the more noble tribe, and to correspond with them the better, do learn the Spanish tongue, which those still retain.

(14) That I might break the brotherhood.—This was the result of their rejection of the Good Shepherd, and of their consequent rejection by Him. It began with the civil discords which followed the victorious days of the Maccabees, and reached its worst in the horrible scenes which took place during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Verse 14. That I might break the brotherhood] I cannot, says Newcome, explain this passage, without supposing that the kingdom of Israel subsisted when the prophet wrote it; and that either the wars between Judah and Israel are referred to, (see 2Kg 16:5,) or the captivity of the ten tribes, when the brotherly connection between these kingdoms ceased.

14. I cut asunder mine other staff] to signify both the completion of the rupture between the shepherd and the flock, with which he had now nothing more whatever to do, and also the second evil consequence of that rupture, which would befall the flock. Its beauty was gone already: its unity would now be gone also.

And I cut asunder mine other staff, Bands, to dissolve the brotherhood between Judah and Israel - Hitherto prophecy had spoken of the healing of the great breach between Israel and Judah, in Christ.

Withdrawal of the good shepherd, 9-14.9, 10. As a result of the flock’s ingratitude, the shepherd decided to discontinue the shepherding care.