What Does Zechariah 11:5 Mean in the King James?
Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
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
The verse places slaughter, sale, and neglect beside a blessing spoken over personal wealth, exposing how sacred language can shelter exploitation.
THE MEANING
This verse names a pattern present now: vulnerable lives are treated as property, harmed or sold, and abandoned by those called their shepherds. The seller blesses the LORD while claiming the wealth gained, and the shepherds do not spare the flock. The collision remains visible: religious praise and profit do not make the harm disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the claim that calling wealth a blessing proves the vulnerable have been treated well; the flock’s unspared suffering stands beside the seller’s praise.
THE ROOT
יַחְמֹל
yachmol
GROWS FROM
חמל
ḥ-m-l
To spare; to show compassion.
The verb translated “pity” also means “spare.” The shepherds’ failure is more than absent tenderness: they do not hold back harm from the flock they are charged to tend.
ALSO GROWS
yachmol: He spares; he has pity.
יַחְמֹל
This is the verb used in the verse, linking pity with the concrete act of sparing.
chemlah: Compassion; pity.
חֶמְלָה
The related noun names the compassion withheld from the flock.
רֹעֵיהֶן
ro'eihem
GROWS FROM
רעה
r-ʿ-h
To tend, pasture, or feed.
The word for shepherd grows from the work of tending and feeding. The verse keeps that work in view as it shows shepherds who do not spare the flock.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: Shepherd; one who tends.
רֹעֶה
The title comes from the act of tending, sharpening the gap between role and conduct.
mir'eh: Pasture; grazing place.
מִרְעֶה
The same root connects shepherding with the place where a flock is fed.
וָאֶעְשָׁר
va'esher
GROWS FROM
עשר
ʿ-sh-r
To be rich; to grow wealthy.
“rich” in this verse is va'esher. The seller links blessing the LORD with his own wealth. The verse exposes that connection as the seller’s claim, placing religious praise beside profit from a harmed flock.
ALSO GROWS
ashir: Rich; wealthy.
עָשִׁיר
This adjective describes the wealth claimed by the seller.
osher: Wealth; riches.
עֹשֶׁר
The noun makes the accumulation named in the verse visible as a condition, not a measure of the flock’s well-being.
THE PATTERN
Religious standing and accumulated wealth cannot conceal the harm done to vulnerable people.
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?Both verses use the same Hebrew root for shepherding, a word tied to tending and feeding. Zechariah shows shepherds refusing to spare the flock; Ezekiel names the inversion directly: they feed themselves instead. The connection makes the missing care visible through the role’s own work.
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