NRSV

[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 to the sheep. [8] In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me. [9] So 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!” [10] I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. [11]So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. [12] I 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.  [13] Then the LORD 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 LORD. [14] Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel. 

LXX

[7] And I shall shepherd the sheep of slaughter unto Chanaanitis.  And I shall take to myself two rods–the first I shall call Beauty and the other I shall call Cord–and I shall shepherd the sheep. [8] And I shall remove the three shepherds in one month, and my psyche shall be heavy upon them, for their psyches also howl upon me. [9] And I shall say “I shall not shepherd for you; let the dead die, and the forsaken be forsaken, and the remainder shall each devour the flesh of his neighbor. [10] And I shall take my beautiful rod and I shall cast it away for the scattering of my covenant, which I arrange for all the peoples. [11] And I shall scatter it on this day, and the Chanaanites shall know the sheep are being guarded, because the Lord says it. [12] And I shall say to them, “If it is fine before you, give my standing wage or forbid it.” And my standing wage was thirty pieces of silver. [13] And the Lord said to me “Place them into the smelting furnace, and I shall examine if they are genuine, in the manner I have been proven on their behalf.” And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them into the house of the Lord into the smelting furnace. [14] And I cast away the second rod, Cord, for the dissolution of the tie from the middle of Judah and the middle of Israel. 

Notes on Text

Here we see that the Hebrew text and LXX text diverge slightly.  For the New Testament, we can be confident that the Hebrew text form was the one available to the author of Matthew, because Matthew 17:9-10 reads:

[9] Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying “And I took the thirty pieces of silver, the price for the one having been priced, who they prized from the sons of Israel, [10]  and they gave these unto a field of potters, just as the Lord commanded to me. 

The NRSV text notes that word translated as “treasury” in Zechariah 11:13 is found in a Syriac manuscript, and that surviving Hebrew manuscript tradition contains the word “potter” here, indicating that it was in fact the Hebrew version of Zechariah used (although Matthew erroneously identifies the prophet here as Jeremiah). 

The LXX text differs from the NRSV in the following ways:

• The rods/staffs (the Greek word I have translated as “rods” could mean either) are named Beauty and Cord in the LXX (vs. Favor and Unity in the NRSV).  This difference is perhaps smaller than it appears in translation.  In both texts, Beauty/Favor functions similarly.  For Cord/Unity, the Greek word here is Σχοίνισμα schoinisma, which refers to anything made out of rushes, particularly cordage.  Rope of cord was often used as a measuring tool and so it has a corollary meaning as a unit of measure (including as a standardized measure for land). The abandonment of Cord leads to the dissolution of τἡν κατάσχεσιν tēn kataschesin, which is derived from the verb, κατέχω katechō, which is a composite of the verb ¨εχω echō, which means to have or to hold, and the prepositions κατά kata, which can mean down or downward, can have a distributional sense and mean each or throughout, and when combined with verbs often serves simply to intensify their meaning.  Most literally, κατέχω katechō means to hold very strongly or to hold down, but is commonly understood to mean to hold back, hold fast, restrain, possess, occupy, keep, dwell in, or encompass. The noun τἡν κατάσχεσιν tēn kataschesin refers to the result of κατέχω katechō, to possess results in possession, to hold back results in holding back, etc. This all translates somewhat clunkily into English but the general impression in the Greek is that when Cord is thrown away, what is being dissolved is the thing that intensively holds together Judah and Israel into a single unit, both the ties that bind (Σχοίνισμα schoinisma as cordage) and in the sense of the allotment of land measured out (Σχοίνισμα schoinisma as a unit of measure).  Notably, I don’t read Hebrew yet and so I cannot speak intelligently about the Hebrew translated as Unity, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a similar thing is happening in the Hebrew and was translated as “Unity” because the translators felt that it mostly aptly described the underlying dynamics of the Hebrew text. 
• The LXX refers to the Canaanites rather than sheep merchants. The reason for this substitution is obscure, but where in the NRSV the flock doomed to slaughter is seemingly being preyed on by its own people, in the LXX it is victim to external forces. 
• In vv. 13, the LXX describes the thirty pieces of silver being put into a smelting furnace to be tested for purity, whereas the NRSV describes them as being placed in the treasury.  This revision lines up with a body of scripture in the “purified as though by fire” vein, and in particular seems better aligned with some portions of text later in Zechariah than the NRSV version.  We should keep this language in mind, particularly when we read some of the passages in the New Testament that are often understood by Christians today to be describing hell in sort of Dante’s Inferno sense, which I think is a misreading of the text. 

Here we see a turn to what The New Interpreter’s Bible refers to as “the proto-apocalyptic,” which means that it has the same sort of vibes as parts of Daniel or Revelation, to name a couple examples of the definitely apocalyptic. Here, the narrator seems to occupy something like God’s place in relation to the sheep of the slaughter.  He rules them with his rods Favor and Unity, becomes fed up with the “three shepherds,” whose identity is quite obscure, and so he abandons his favor towards the flock, allowing them to die, be destroyed, and descend into cannibalism.  He then requests his wage, “thirty pieces of silver.” This latter is a reference to Exodus 21:32:

If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the slaveowner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. 

In the NRSV, this wage is sarcastically described as “lordly” and then thrown into the treasury, with the implication being that God is displeased by the low value which he has been assigned.  In the LXX, the wage is an established wage, and is smelted to examine for genuineness, to see if God’s fidelity has been reciprocated.  In both instances, the result is that Judah and Israel become unbound from each other.  It is notably the case that in Zechariah 9-10 there is no mention of Israel, only Judah.   

How should we interpret this passage? There is some argument to be made that the LXX text in particular is describing exile or diaspora as divine punishment, and that both the substitution of sheep merchants for Canaanites and the description of the thirty pieces of silver being tested in a smelting fire are intended to facilitate this argument.  This argument is harder to make from the NRSV text, which seems to assign blame to the aristocracy of God’s people rather than external parties.  For the LXX as well, I think the text of Zechariah 11:4-6 makes it difficult to escape the conclusion that part of the problem is the foibles of an internal aristocracy, and that conclusion is furthered by the abandonment of the three shepherds, the test of the smelter, etc.  

Broadly speaking what is promised by this passage is: God’s disfavor upon his formerly favored people as well as the disunity of Israel and Judah, with the overall vibe being that God’s wrath is imminent.  I will turn to this question in more detail after we have reviewed the text of the remainder of this chapter, but we should ask ourselves, why is this passage viewed as particularly emblematic of Judas’ betrayal by the author of Matthew?