Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Zechariah 11:4 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 4. 4Thus saith the LORD my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse opens the sign-act with the LORD's command to shepherd a flock marked for slaughter.
Read It With
- Zechariah 11:4-14
Read Zechariah 11:4 with 11:4-14. This verse opens the sign-act with the LORD's command to shepherd a flock marked for slaughter. The complete unit establishes this movement: The prophet enacts faithful shepherding for an exploited flock, but mutual rejection ends the work: Favor and Union are broken, and the insulting thirty-silver valuation is thrown in the temple, exposing leaders and people without providing a simple historical cast list.
Why This Verse Appears Here
This central sign-act makes leadership failure and rejected prophetic care the pivot of Zechariah 9-14's conflict-filled restoration. Within that movement, this verse opens the sign-act with the LORD's command to shepherd a flock marked for slaughter.
What Remains True
Faithful care is commissioned in the very place where people are being consumed.
How It Can Shape Life
- Move toward vulnerable people rather than away from costly care.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Zechariah 11:4-14 — The Rejected Shepherd and the Broken StavesSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Zechariah 11:4-14, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Zechariah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, speaker changes, repeated formulas, names, and the base text behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Zech.xml, 11:4-14
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Zechariah with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, literary, historical, and canonical-reception notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Zechariah PDF, printed pp. 1797-1798, translation and notes on 11:4-14
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Zechariah
Rex Mason
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book movement, Persian and later horizons, literary boundaries, composition, and material alternatives.
Exact location: Mason, 'Zechariah,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 614, discussion of 11:4-14
Open source ↗