NRSV

[15] The LORD said to me: Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd.  [16] For 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.

[17] 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 blinded!

LXX

[15] And the Lord said to me, Again take for yourself shepherdly implements of an untested shepherd. [16] Because see I am raising a shepherd upon the earth; and he shall surely not have care for the ones who have been left behind, and he shall surely not seek the scattered and he shall surely not heal the shattered and he shall surely not lead the whole, and the flesh of the elect he shall devour, and he shall twist their vertebrae.

[17]O the ones shepherding foolish things and the ones abandoning the sheep

A sword upon his arm and upon his right eye;

His arm withering, it shall be withered.

And his right being blinded, it shall be blinded.

Notes on Text

Let’s start with a few notes on how I translated the LXX text.  In vv. 16 in particular you will notice the repetition of the phrase “surely not.” In Greek this is οὐ μὴ ou mē, which if translated literally would just be “not not,” because in ancient Greek the convention is to use double negative to emphasize that something will not happen.  I am mentioning this mostly in the interest of pulling back the curtain on the sort of mundane decisions that are necessary when translating a text, but which nevertheless can shape people’s understanding of what the text actually means.  

As a few more notes, in vv. 15 the word I have translated as “untested,” ᾶπειρος apeiros, means without trial or experience, ignorant or inexperienced.  In particular, it shares a verb root with πειρασμός peirasmos, which is a word for trial or temptation that is used, for example, to describe Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness.  Here I have translated ᾶπειρος apeiros as “untested” in the interest of continuity with the previous section about silver being tested in the smelting fire, but you could just as easily make the argument that “inexperienced” is the stronger choice within the context of this passage itself. 

There is also a larger question of this passage’s meaning. Verse 15, “Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd,” could be interpreted as a demand to take up once more the two rods cast away in the preceding passage (which is to say God’s favor for his chosen people and the unity of Israel and Judah), but if this is the case then God seems to be taking a grim view of the possibility of those implements being used effectively for the wellbeing of the flock.  

As we have discussed previously, there is some sense in which the narrator-as-shepherd in vv. 4-14 seems to be a stand-in for God’s wrath against the aristocracy (the sheep merchants, the buyers and sellers of sheep) or foreigners (the Canaanites) or possibly both (in the sense that a conquered Israel/Judah would be governed by a foreign aristocracy, or non-foreign aristocrats would have become collaborators to foreign oppressors). This passage possibly continues that trend and it is possible to read the shepherd in vv 15 and the shepherd in vv 16-17 as different people, with the former the narrator-as-shepherd-as-God and the latter aristocracy-foreigners. This interpretation perhaps makes the most sense in the context of subsequent chapters, because following this passage Zechariah begins to turn back in the direction of God’s favor and Judah’s ascendancy. Let us turn our attention to those chapters now!