The prophet shows people that the coming of the Messiah is a miracle of Divine mercy. The sinners did not deserve it, the shepherds of the people were unworthy (11:1-11). The Lord Himself wants to be the Good Shepherd for His sheep. But people's ingratitude is great. God asks through the prophet how they will repay him for his care and receives thirty pieces of silver, the value of a slave (cf. Ex 21:32). This is how the work of the heavenly Shepherd is evaluated. The symbolic action of the prophet throwing the pieces of silver in the Temple to buy the potter's land with them indicates the sin of the people. Potter's land was the name given to barren clay lands that were very cheap (11:12-13). This is a type of the crime of Judas, who received the price of a slave for his betrayal (Matthew 27:5, 9-10).

The book concludes with a description of the repentance of sinners:

And upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem I will pour out the spirit of grace and tenderness, and they shall look upon Me,43 whom they have pierced, and they shall weep as one mourns for the only-begotten son, and mourn as one mourns for the firstborn. On that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Gadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo (12:10-11).

The prophecy points not only to the repentance of the people weeping that they pierced the Lord with their sins, but also to the suffering Messiah, pierced on the cross.

Note. Gadadrimmon (Hadad-Rimmon) was a Canaanite nature god whose death was mourned in an annual ritual. The prophet compares this ritual to a nationwide repentance, which will take over not only Israel, but also all the tribes (12:14).

The apocalyptic era ends with the complete enthronement of God over the world: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that living waters shall flow out of Jerusalem... And the Lord will be King over all the earth; on that Day the Lord will be one, and His name will be one" (14:8-9).

This prophecy will be fulfilled both in Christ's preaching about the Kingdom of God and in His last appearance at the end of history.

5. Resurrection from the dead. Early revelation. In the Old Testament Church, for a long time, there was no teaching about posthumous retribution. She borrowed her view of the afterlife from the Canaanites and the peoples of Mesopotamia. The biblical Sheol (Hell) was a dark abyss where the light of the Lord does not reach, where the shadows of people are semi-conscious (Psalm 6:6; 87:11-12; Job 7:9).

The Egyptians, on the contrary, taught that after death the soul would suffer a fate corresponding to its earthly affairs. Israel was not given to accept this view of immortality and retribution on the other side of the grave. The Old Testament Church was prepared for the knowledge of another, more complete truth – the truth about the resurrection from the dead.

The first covert indications of it appear even before the Captivity. In the prayer of Hannah, the mother of St. Samuel, it is said that the Lord "brings down to hell and raises up" (1 Samuel 2:6). And Psalm 138:8 expresses the belief that the power of the Eternal extends to the Underworld.

The grim certainty that man in Sheol is forever cut off from life and God is contrasted with the hope that God is able to snatch mortals from the abyss:

You will not leave my soul in hell, and thou shalt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption. (Psalm 15:10)

It is important to note that we are not talking about the natural immortality of the spirit, but about the complete and complete liberation of man from the Underworld. But the Psalmist speaks of this as an exceptional miracle of God's mercy to the chosen righteous (as was the case with Enoch and Elijah):

But I am always with You; You're holding my right hand. Thou guidest me by thy counsel; AND THEN YOU WILL RECEIVE ME INTO GLORY. (Psalm 72:23-24) But God will deliver my soul from the power of the Underworld, when he accepts me. (Psalm 48:16)