398 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
the Jewish Sanhedrim answer to the three shepherds mentioned here, namely, the leading priests, the scribes, the elders, apxiepets, ypa(j,/j,aTel<;, 7rpeo-/3vTepoi (Matt. xxvi. 3)."
It is interesting to note that among Christian inter preters this is the oldest view. Thus, Theodoret 1 says : " He speaks of the kings of the Jews, and prophets, and priests ; for by the three orders they were shepherded " ; and Jerome, 2 who, himself following the Talmud, interprets the three shepherds of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, says : " I have read in some one s commentary that the shepherds cut off in the indignation of the Lord are to be understood of priests, and false prophets, and kings of the Jews, who, after the Passion of Christ, were all cut off in one time."
So also Cyril, 3 who says : " The three shepherds were, I deem, those who exercised the legal priesthood, and those appointed judges of the people, and the interpreters of Scripture, z>., lawyers " ; who, as shown above in the quotation from Hengstenberg, really took, at the time of Christ, the place of the prophets.
As will have been already inferred, I do not under stand the expression " in one month " in a literal sense, but as a period of time long, when compared with that which might be figuratively expressed by " one day," as in chap, iii. 9 ; but brief, as contrasted with other periods of time.
In short, it might be said to embrace the period during which our Lord Jesus " sought by repeated efforts, but without avail, to deliver the lost sheep of the house of Israel from the spiritual tyranny of its blind and corrupt guides."
Anyhow, this is an historic fact, that it was consequent on the rejection of the Messiah, the Good Shepherd, that the Jewish polity was broken up, and that since then, and now for " many days," the children of Israel have been not only without a king and without a prince, but also without a prophet and without a priest. On the other hand, these three offices were, on the testimony of the prophets, to be
1 Died in 420 A. D. 2 423-457 A. D. 3 Died 444 A. D.
