1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and say to them, to the shepherds, Thus said the Master, the LORD: Woe, shepherds of Israel who were shepherding them. Will not the shepherds shepherd the flock? 3You eat the suet and wear the wool, slaughter the fat one. The flock you do not shepherd. 4You did not strengthen the weak ones, and the sick ones you did not heal nor bind up the one with a broken limb nor bring back the one that had wandered nor did seek out the one that was lost. And by force you held sway over them with crushing labor. 5And they scattered without a shepherd and became food for all the beasts of the field [and they were scattered]. 6My flock has strayed through all the mountains and on every high hill, and over the face of the earth has my flock scattered, and none searches and none seeks for them. 7Therefore, listen, O shepherds to the word of the LORD. 8As I live, said the Master, the LORD: My flock has surely become plunder, and My flock has become food for all the beasts of the field without a shepherd, and My shepherds have not sought out My flock, and the shepherds herded themselves, but My flock they did not herd. 9Therefore, O shepherds, listen to the word of the LORD. 10Thus said the Master, the LORD: Here I am against the shepherds, and I will demand My flock from their hand and stop them from herding the flock, and the shepherds shall not herd themselves anymore, and I will save My flock from their mouths, and they shall not be food for them. 11For thus said the Master, the LORD: Here I am, and I will seek out My flock and sort them. 12As a shepherd sorts his herd when there are ones that are separated within his flock, so will I sort My flock and save them from all the places where they were scattered on the day of cloud and gloom. 13And I will bring them out from the peoples and will gather them from the lands and bring them to their soil and herd them on the mountains of Israel by watercourses and in all the places of settlement of the land. 14On good pastures will I herd them, and on the mountains of the height of Israel their fold shall be. There shall they lie down in a good fold and feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I Myself will herd My flock, and I Myself will bed them down, said the Master, the LORD. 16The lost one will I seek out, and the strayed one will I bring back, and the one with the broken limb will I bind up, and the weak one will I strengthen, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will herd it in justice. 17And you are My flock. Thus said the Master, the LORD: I am about to judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and he-goats. 18Is it not enough for you that you graze in the good pasture, and what is left of your pasture you trample with your feet, and you drink pools of water, and what is left you muddy with your feet? 19And My flock feeds on what your feet have trampled, and what your feet have muddied they drink. 20Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD, to them: Here I am, and I will judge between the fat sheep and the lean, 21inasmuch as you have shoved against flank and shoulder and gored with your horns all the weak ones till you scattered them abroad. 22And I will rescue My flock, and they shall no longer be plundered, and I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23And I will set up over you a single shepherd, and he shall herd them. My servant David, he shall herd them, and he shall be their shepherd. 24And I the LORD will be their God and My servant David a prince in their midst. I the LORD have spoken. 25And I will seal a covenant of peace with them and put an end to vicious beasts in the land, and they will dwell secure in the wilderness and sleep in the forests. 26And I will make them a blessing round My hill, and I will bring down the rain in its season, rains of blessing they shall be. 27And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the land shall yield its produce, and they shall be secure upon their soil, and they shall know that I am the LORD when I break the shafts of their yoke and save them from the hand of their enslavers. 28And they shall no longer be plunder for the nations, and the beasts of the field shall not devour them, and they shall dwell secure with none to make them tremble. 29And I will set up for them an esteemed planting, and they shall no longer be swept away by famine in the land, and they shall no longer suffer the disgrace of the nations. 30And they shall know that I am the LORD your God with them, and they are My people, the house of Israel, said the Master, the LORD. 31And you My flock, the flock of My pasture, you are human beings. I am your God, said the Master, the LORD.”
CHAPTER 34 NOTES
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
2. the shepherds of Israel. Since the equation between shepherds and leaders is a fixed trope, the prophet’s audience would immediately know about whom he was talking.
3. You eat the suet. The shepherds prey on their flocks, picking off the best sheep to feed their appetite, instead of looking after them.
4. And by force you held sway over them with crushing labor. As elsewhere, Ezekiel has some difficulty in keeping apart his metaphor and its referent. “Hold sway” and “crushing labor” direct us to the actual exploitation of the people by their leaders and are not phrases appropriate to shepherds and flocks.
5. [and they were scattered]. These words—only one word in the Hebrew—are bracketed because they seem to be an inadvertent scribal repetition of the beginning of the verse. The flock has just been said to be eaten by predators, so they could not now be scattered.
10. I will save My flock from their mouths. Though this expression looks back to the consumption by the shepherds of the choicest sheep mentioned in verse 3, the formulation also suggests that the shepherds themselves have been like the ravening beasts of the field preying on the flocks.
11. sort them. The Hebrew verb refers to the shepherd’s activity of surveying and counting his flock, seeing which sheep may be missing, which injured or ailing and hence needing special attention. This meaning is spelled out in the next verse.
12. the day of cloud and gloom. This is the day Jerusalem was conquered. The scattered flock, then, are the Judahites who either fled the city or were driven into exile. Exile is clearly the more salient sense.
13. watercourses. A reliable source of water is always necessary for the population to prosper.
16. but the fat and the strong I will destroy. This is another instance in which Ezekiel does not quite manage his metaphorical vehicle. These two terms are feminine and so must be part of the flock, tsʾ on, which is a feminine noun. But the reference is clearly to the predatory leaders, so at this point the shepherds have become part of the flock. Their metaphorical identity as belonging to the flock is spelled out in the next verse: “I am about to judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and he-goats.” A partial justification for this confusion is that God is now the shepherd and hence all Israel is the flock, but the switch is nevertheless awkward.
18. pools of water. The literal sense is “sinking of water.”
19. My flock feeds on what your feet have trampled. Previously, the leaders were predatory shepherds devouring the sheep. Now they are greedy sheep, taking all the good grass and water for themselves and leaving scarcely anything fit to eat or drink for the rest of the flock.
21. gored with your horns all the weak ones. Now it emerges that the leaders are not pacific sheep but rather rams and he-goats (see verse 17) that attack the sheep.
23. a single shepherd. Throughout this prophecy, God has been addressing a plurality of leaders—shepherds. In the restored Israel, there will be a single shepherd, a righteous king.
My servant David. This is surely a reference to a legitimate monarch from the line of David. While the actual narrative of David’s rise and reign in the Book of Samuel presents a decidedly mixed record, in the Book of Kings the retrospective references to David represent him as an ideal king, God’s “servant,” and Ezekiel is clearly drawing on that background.
he shall herd them. There is a nice convergence here of metaphor and literal reference because David began as an actual shepherd and then became the leader of his people.
25. they will dwell secure in the wilderness and sleep in the forests. The “peace” of the covenant implies security and tranquillity, so that the people of Israel feel safe even in dangerous places.
26. round My hill. The Masoretic Text has “and round My hill,” but the Septuagint plausibly deletes the “and.” The hill is Mount Zion.
31. And you My flock, the flock of My pasture, you are human beings. Once again, this looks awkward: Ezekiel, as if he were not altogether sure that his audience would understand that the flock all along has been the people of Israel, feels obliged to say at the end of the prophecy that what he is talking about is not sheep but human beings.