What Does Zechariah 11:16 Mean in the King James?
For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
A shepherd’s title cannot hide the reversal: he refuses to feed the flock and feeds on it.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a shepherd who abandons the cut off and the young, leaves the broken unhealed and the standing unfed, then consumes the fat. The image speaks now wherever someone claims to tend others while using them to satisfy his own appetite.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a person who holds a shepherd’s role must be caring; the role is exposed by the care he withholds and the people he consumes.
THE ROOT
רֹעֶה
ro‘eh
GROWS FROM
רעה
r-ʿ-h
Pasture, tend, or shepherd.
The word for shepherd grows from the verb for tending and pasturing. That makes the reversal stark: this shepherd withholds care from the flock and turns its life into his own food.
ALSO GROWS
ra‘ah: To pasture or feed.
רָעָה
The shepherd’s root also names the act of feeding the flock he neglects.
mir‘eh: Pasture or grazing ground.
מִרְעֶה
The same root reaches from the shepherd to the place that sustains the flock.
יְרַפֵּא
yerappe
GROWS FROM
רפא
r-p-ʾ
Heal or restore health.
“heal” in this verse is yerappe. The shepherd does not merely overlook the broken; he withholds restoration. The sound recalls רָפָה (raphah, ‘release’ or ‘let your hands drop’), a distinct root; that resonance can suggest healing as loosening what holds a broken condition, while the word here comes from רפא.
ALSO GROWS
rophe: A healer or physician.
רֹפֵא
The same root names the one who performs the restoration this shepherd refuses.
refu’ah: Healing or recovery.
רְפוּאָה
This branch names the restored condition absent from the shepherd’s care.
הַנִּשְׁבֶּרֶת
hannishberet
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
Break or shatter.
The verse names a real fracture and then makes the shepherd’s refusal explicit: he will not repair it. “Broken” is not an abstract flaw here; it describes someone whose damage is left unattended.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
The verb shows the force held inside the description of the broken one.
shever: A break, fracture, or breach.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun makes the rupture concrete: it is precisely what the shepherd leaves unrepaired.
THE PATTERN
A shepherd’s character is exposed by whether the vulnerable are restored or treated as material for his own appetite.
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.THE THREAD
The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.Both passages repeat three action-roots: בקש (baqash, seek), רפא (rapha, heal), and שבר (shavar, break). Ezekiel spells out the care this shepherd withholds, making Zechariah’s list a portrait of failed tending.
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