THE SMITTEN SHEPHERD 481
The prophetic message, then, in the whole of the yth verse is briefly this : The Shepherd would be smitten on account of the sin of the people, who would in consequence be scattered, but Jehovah would remember in mercy a little remnant of the flock, namely, the poor in spirit, the humble ones who are little in their own eyes, and who give heed to the word of the Lord. 1
The prophecy finds its fulfilment in Christ : " The Shepherd was slain " ; as another writer truly observes : " When Jesus of Nazareth was crucified an act ascribed in the New Testament no less to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, on the one hand, than to the malice of men on the other." And there, in the same inspired narrative which tells of the smiting of the Shepherd, we read also of another fulfilment of the scattering of the flock, which is, so to say, additional to the primary mean ing of the prophecy, but is not altogether unconnected with the scattering of Israel and the saving of the remnant.
On the night of His betrayal, after He had partaken for the last time of the Paschal Supper, and transformed it to be henceforth the memorial supper of His death " till He come," our Lord Jesus said to His disciples : "All ye shall be offended in Me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But, after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee." 2
The reference is to this passage in Zechariah, though the quotation is a free one, and does not in every detail correspond with the words in the Hebrew. The meaning of the passage is, however, preserved intact. Where the words are slightly modified, it is (as is usually the case with free quotations from the Old Testament in the pages of the New) designedly so, with a view to throw a new, or additional, meaning on Old Testament prophecy in the light of the fuller unfolding of God s purpose brought about by the actual advent of the Messiah. Thus, the address to the sword to awake and smite, resolves itself in the quota-
1 Chap. xi. ii. 2 Matt. xxvi. 31, 32 ; Mark xiv. 27 (R.V.).
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