Other interpreters among the Jews declare that this prophecy speaks of the destruction of the temple.
The correct interpretation is that it includes all the devastation of the land, the burning of the temple, the slaughter of the flock, the spoiling of the shepherds, the Jewish leaders and the complete overthrow of the land and of the people. How awful the fulfillment of the prophecy has been! The Lord’s voice full of tears cried, long after Zechariah’s mournful vision, “If thou hadst known, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side. And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another.” The measure was full. After terrible wars amongst themselves, the fire advanced in the direction from Lebanon, in the form of the Roman army full of vengeance, spreading ruin and misery wherever they went, till after a long and dreadful siege Jerusalem fell, the temple was burnt, and over a million human beings were slain. Not one stone was left upon another. Up to now this judgment has been the most appalling, the tribulation then, the greatest; but there is another tribulation coming of which the former destruction of Jerusalem is but a faint type, and that tribulation which is even now so close at hand will find a climax in the day of wrath, the day of vengeance of our God. The next three verses speak of the flock of slaughter and the last attempt divine love made to save the doomed nation. Zechariah is commanded to feed them.
Thus saith Jehovah my God;
Feed the flock of slaughter;
Their possessors slay them and are not guilty:
And they that sell them say,
Blessed be Jehovah, for I am getting rich;
Their own shepherds pity them not.
I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah;
I will deliver the men every one into his neighbor’s hands,