One Shepherd, My Servant David
17 “As for you, O my flock, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, the rams and the male goats. 18 Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture? And to have drunk of the clear waters, but must you foul the residue with your feet? 19 As for my sheep, they eat that which you have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which you have fouled with your feet.’ 20 “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says to them: ‘Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad, 22 therefore I will save my flock, and they will no more be a prey. I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23 I will set up one shepherd over them, and he will feed them, even my servant David. He will feed them, and he will be their shepherd. 24 I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them. I, Yahweh, have spoken it. 25 “‘I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land. They will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. 26 I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. I will cause the shower to come down in its season. There will be showers of blessing. 27 The tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them. 28 They will no more be a prey to the nations, neither will the animals of the earth devour them; but they will dwell securely, and no one will make them afraid. 29 I will raise up to them a plantation for renown, and they will no more be consumed with famine in the land, and not bear the shame of the nations any more. 30 They will know that I, Yahweh, their God am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord Yahweh. 31 You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are men, and I am your God,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”
The judgment moves from the shepherds to the sheep, and the fat sheep are charged with what they did to the pasture after they had eaten.
The chapter turns without warning from the leaders to the flock. Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, the rams and the male goats. Removing corrupt shepherds does not by itself produce a healthy flock, and the second half of the chapter says why. The strong animals were doing their own damage.
The charge against them is remarkable for its precision. Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture? And to have drunk of the clear waters, but must you foul the residue with your feet? The offense is not eating. It is what happens after eating — the grass trampled and the water muddied, so that what is left is unusable by whoever comes next. That is a description of a kind of wrong nobody has to intend, and the passage treats it as fully culpable.
The second charge is more active: thrusting with side and shoulder and pushing the diseased with the horns until they are scattered. Both together produce the picture of a flock in which the strong crowd the weak away from what they need, and the response is judicial in exactly those terms — I will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.
Then the shepherd is named, and the naming is careful. I will set up one shepherd over them, and he will feed them, even my servant David. David had been dead four centuries. What is promised is not that king returning but one shepherd of his line and his character, and the emphasis falls on the number. After a chapter about many shepherds who scattered the sheep, there is one. The following verse holds two figures together without explanation — I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them — and the arrangement is left as it stands.
What follows is a covenant of peace described almost entirely in terms of not being afraid. Wild animals gone, so that people can sleep in the woods and camp in the wilderness. Rain in its season. The tree yielding fruit and the ground its increase. Yokes broken. No one will make him afraid. And the last verse strips the metaphor away in a single line, in case the pastoral imagery has made anyone forget who is being discussed: You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are men, and I am your God.
held with reason What this mark means