13:7
This verse was quoted by Jesus in Mark 14:27 when Jesus tells His disciples they they will all fall away. In this verse the shepherd is described as the man who is close to the Lord Almighty. This is obviously Jesus. So there is a foretelling of Jesus being handed over to death. There is also a foretelling of the disciples being scattered, deserting Jesus. “against the little ones”. It would not just be Jesus who was persecuted, but His followers as well, and this is part of God’s plan.
13:8,9
Revelation contains echoes of 13:8 with the large swathes of humanity suffering. This could be seen as a cleansing of the people, with only true believers left. This remaining third will be further refined. Peter may well have been thinking of 13:9 when in 1 Pet 5:7 he speaks of our faith being tested like gold. The outcome will be that they will call on the name of the Lord and He will answer them. Then we get the oft repeated refrain of the Old Testament, “God will say ‘they are my people’, and they will say, ‘the Lord is our God’”. We need to remember that part of the outcome of God’s work in our lives is that we will call upon Him and He will answer, and this will happen during a time of testing. Part of the message of Zechariah is that when testing comes we will be strengthened (Zech 12:7-9) and that God will respond to our prayers.
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