Scripture Daily

Context No. 1707 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 34:7-16: in context

7“‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the LORD’s word: 8“As I live,” says the Lord GOD, “surely because my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the animals of the field, because there was no shepherd, and my shepherds didn’t search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and didn’t feed my sheep, 9therefore, you shepherds, hear the LORD’s word!” 10The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I am against the shepherds. I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep. The shepherds won’t feed themselves any more. I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.” 11“‘For the Lord GOD says: “Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. 13I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14I will feed them with good pasture, and their fold will be on the mountains of the height of Israel. There they will lie down in a good fold. They will feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down,” says the Lord GOD. 16“I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them in justice.”’

God pronounces judgment on the shepherds of Israel, the leaders who fed themselves and neglected the flock, so that the sheep were scattered and became prey with no one to seek them. I am against the shepherds, God says. And then he makes a promise in the first person: Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. I will gather them from where they were scattered, feed them in good pasture, seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.

Against the failure of the human shepherds, God steps forward himself: I myself, even I, will search for my sheep. Where the leaders had fed themselves and let the flock scatter and starve, God promises to do personally what they failed to do, to seek, gather, feed, heal, and strengthen his sheep with his own hand. And notice the tenderness of what he pledges, the specific care for the ones in worst shape: I will seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak. He does not promise merely to tend the strong and healthy; his particular attention goes to the lost, the wandering, the wounded, the feeble, exactly those a self-serving shepherd would neglect. This is a portrait of the heart of God for his people, and it points forward to the Good Shepherd who would come, who said he would leave the ninety-nine to seek the one that was lost, and who laid down his life for the sheep. There is deep comfort here for anyone who feels lost, strayed, injured, or weak, anyone who has been failed by those who should have cared for them. God himself comes for such. He does not wait for the lost to find their own way back, nor leave the injured to fend for themselves; he seeks them out, brings them back, binds up their wounds, strengthens their weakness. The very condition that might make us think God would pass us by, that we are lost, or hurt, or weak, is precisely what draws his shepherd's heart. I myself will search for my sheep, he says; and the lost and the injured are the first he seeks.

When I feel lost, strayed, injured, or weak, perhaps failed by those who should have cared for me, can I hold to God's own promise, I myself will search for my sheep, and trust that the very condition I fear would make him pass me by, my lostness, my wounds, my weakness, is what draws the shepherd's heart that seeks the lost and binds up the injured?

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