Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool; ye kill them that are fattened [but] ye feed not the flock.
God speaks through Ezekiel against the men who should have cared for His people. Verse 3 names what they took from the flock — the fat, the wool, the best animals — while the sheep went unfed. The charge raises a question that outlives Israel: what is a shepherd for?
Ezekiel is not talking about farmers. He is talking about the men who held power over God's people.
The shepherds of Israel were the kings and princes and all who had authority over them. The prophet Jeremiah had received a similar message (Jeremiah 23:1-2). These shepherds of Israel were responsible for the terrible state of the flock. They were completely selfish. They did not care for the sheep of His pasture, they did not fear God, and they had no heart for God's people. The flock was scattered and ruined.
The three things listed in the verse add up to a single accusation.
They are charged with using their position to lift themselves up at the expense of the flock. They fed themselves. They indulged themselves. They clothed themselves. But they let the flock die for lack of food.
Everything ran in the wrong direction.
The first complaint is that the shepherds fed themselves and not the sheep. They took from the sheep, instead of giving to the sheep.
One writer follows the wool into three other Bible stories.
The fleece is the wool taken from the sheep. It seems to picture taking away from the owner what rightly belonged to him. It is striking that Scripture mentions sheep-shearing three times, and each time there was evil. Judah sinned with Tamar at his sheep-shearing. Nabal insulted David at the same kind of time. Absalom killed his brother on a similar occasion.
Behind the eating and the clothing lies a forgotten fact of ownership.
They had no fear of God and no love for His people. So they forgot what they themselves were to the Lord, and what Israel was to Him. Everything went wrong, as it was bound to do once His rights counted for nothing in their eyes. Like the kings of the nations around them, they treated the people they governed as their own, not as the flock of God. The result was confusion and every evil work. … The shepherds had fed themselves, not the flock. They did not feed the sheep, no matter what benefits they had drawn from them. None of the sheep's sorrows drew out their sympathies.
What they had made their table, God took away.
Because of this selfish conduct the Lord said, "Behold, I am against the shepherds." He would hold them to account for the flock. As a punishment they would no longer be allowed to feed the flock, nor to feed themselves — that last part a fitting punishment indeed.
The warning did not stop with Israel's rulers.
Ezekiel 34 applies first of all to the shepherds of Israel. Yet it carries a serious and needed lesson for everyone who takes up the work of a pastor among God's people.
The test is simple, and it starts with who fills our thoughts.
May it be a warning to us all! When we think more of ourselves than of the great Shepherd, then we shall think more of ourselves than of the sheep. Christianity consists of self-giving, not in self-getting.
This dark picture has a bright opposite.
This may carry our thoughts back to Ezekiel 34, where we find a tremendous indictment of the former shepherds of Israel. These religious leaders fed themselves and not the sheep. They set such a bad example that the stronger sheep bullied the weaker. The strong ate up the good pasture and trampled down the rest of it (verse 18). So for the poor of the flock there was no pasture at all. Jesus, the true Shepherd of Israel, leads His own sheep into an abundance of spiritual food.
Kelly sets these men beside the King who is coming.
What a contrast with Him who stoops to be Son of David and King of Israel! He will rule over them justly, reigning in righteousness, like a hiding place from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like rivers of water in a dry land, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
- Trust. The shepherds were Israel's kings, princes and rulers. God gave them authority over a flock that was never theirs.
- Theft. Fat, wool and the best of the flock all went one way: they took from the sheep instead of giving to the sheep.
- Root. They treated the people as their own property. God's rights counted for nothing, so everything else went wrong.
- Judgment. They fed only themselves. So God declared Himself against them. He stopped them feeding the flock — and stopped them feeding themselves.
- Contrast. The true Shepherd does the opposite. He leads His own sheep into plenty of food. Christianity is self-giving, not self-getting.
The weak have ye not strengthened, nor have ye healed the sick, and ye have not bound up [what was] broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought for that which was lost; but with harshness and with rigour have ye ruled over them.
Ezekiel 34 speaks to the shepherds of Israel, the men God trusted with His people. Verse 4 lists, one by one, the things they never did. The charge is not vague corruption. It is neglect you can count: five needs left unmet, and then a way of ruling that made everything worse.
The verse works through the flock case by case. Each case names a real sheep the shepherds walked past.
The charge against the shepherds is that they completely neglected the flock. There were weak sheep, but they had not strengthened them. There were sick sheep, but they had not healed them. There were wounded sheep, but they had not bound up their wounds. There were sheep driven away from the flock, but they made no effort to get them back. There were wandering sheep, but they had not gone after the lost. They were taken up with themselves, and they completely neglected the good of the sheep.
The second half of the verse adds a separate charge. Neglect was not the whole of it. The ESV says "with force and harshness"; the older wording quoted here is "with force and with cruelty."
The charge against these shepherds is that they ruled God's flock "with force and with cruelty." They had not only neglected the sheep. They had crushed and oppressed them for their own selfish ends.
Behind the cruelty lay a false idea of ownership.
Like the kings of the nations around them, they treated the people they governed as their own, not as the flock of God. So came confusion and every evil work… They ruled harshly and severely. They scattered the sheep and left them as prey to wild animals, with no shepherd's care.
Where does neglect like this start? One writer traces it back to self.
May it be a warning to us all! When we think more of ourselves than of the great Shepherd, then we shall think more of ourselves than of the sheep. Christianity consists of self-giving, not in self-getting.
When Jesus began His public ministry, He took up the very list these shepherds ignored.
Then light sprang up for those who sat in the region and shadow of death. Then the Shepherd of Israel began to feed the flock. Unlike those who had come before Him, He began to strengthen the diseased, to heal the sick, to bind up the broken, and to seek the lost.
God Himself takes up the shepherd's work, and where He does it matters.
He does not do it from far off, from some high position, sending down directions for the care of the sheep. He does it as a shepherd "among his sheep that are scattered." … If we have driven them away, will He desert them? Never. If we have scattered them, will He forsake them? Never.
Commentators apply the verse well past ancient Israel.
Times and places differ. Even so, has the Church not repeated similar practices through its history, at times even inside local churches? Harshness and severity have scattered people. Sheep end up sick, wounded, and wandering when no one gives them proper care, and when only "the fat and the strong" get attention.
This kind of cruelty seldom looks like cruelty. It often comes dressed as faithfulness.
Is there not a tendency to treat with coldness and severity those we would class as "diseased" — to keep our distance from those we might class as weak and feeble? … What cruelty and injustice people have done in the name of Christ, perhaps not willingly or on purpose, but often through mistaken ideas of faithfulness!
Harsh rule drives the sheep away. That gives a simple test for anyone who cares for others.
Do we seek after the lost sheep today? Do we bring back those who have been driven away? Do we bind up the broken and strengthen the sick? How much of the scattering there has been, and how little of gathering. The flesh scatters. It is the Spirit who gathers. Anyone can scatter, but it takes divine power to do the gathering.
- Self. The shepherds were taken up with themselves. Every failure in verse 4 grows from that one root: self-getting instead of self-giving.
- Neglect. Five kinds of sheep went untouched: weak, sick, wounded, driven away, lost. The sin shows in the list of who got no help.
- Force. A second charge follows the first. The rulers treated God's people as their own property, so they crushed the flock as well as ignored it.
- Contrast. Christ took up the same list and did it all: strengthening, healing, binding up, seeking. He tends His sheep from among the scattered, and never deserts those others drove away.
- Test. Scattering is the fruit of self. Gathering takes the Spirit. Anyone can scatter, so ask a hard question: are we calling coldness toward the weak faithfulness?
And they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, and were scattered.
Ezekiel 34 opens with God's charge against the shepherds of Israel. Verse 5 gives the result: a flock with no one to lead it, broken up and left to the wild beasts. How could a nation full of leaders have no shepherd? And what does God do when the men responsible for His people abandon them?
The word covers everyone who held authority over the people. God lays the state of the flock at their door.
The shepherds of Israel were the kings and princes and all who had authority over them. The prophet Jeremiah had received a similar message (Jer. 23:1-2). These shepherds of Israel were responsible for the terrible condition of the flock. They were completely selfish. They did not care for the sheep of His pasture. They did not fear God, and they had no heart for God's people. The flock was scattered and ruined.
So "no shepherd" does not mean the office stood empty. Men filled it without the heart that belongs to it.
This false claim to the shepherd's place, without the shepherd's heart, must come to an end. Such a claim is deeply offensive to Him. His heart is with the sheep. He is afflicted in all the afflictions of His people. And when He rises up to help them, He will do a thorough work.
The root problem was ownership. These men treated the people as their own property, not as God's flock.
Like the Gentile kings, they saw the people they governed as their own, not as the flock of God. From this came confusion and every evil work... The shepherds had fed themselves, not the flock... They ruled with harshness and severity, and scattered them, a prey to all the wild beasts, with no shepherd's care.
The verse sets out a chain: no shepherd, then scattering, then the beasts. The scattering is what leaves each sheep an easy meal.
The sheep are scattered because there is no shepherd to lead them. Once scattered, they become a prey to the beasts of the field... Instead of one flock — one beautiful flock — we have scattered, harassed, wandering sheep, with no one to search or seek after them... United, they could have resisted the attacks of the enemy. Scattered, they fall an easy prey to every evil.
Centuries later the Lord looked at Israel and saw the same thing. He saw it in a time full of religious activity.
"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." And yet there was much religion then — though this was how the Great Shepherd judged them. There were many sects. They kept the feast-days. There was a great stir in everything that might mark a day of public religious decency and devotion... There were plenty of teachers, and plenty of zeal. And yet, in the eyes of Him who saw them as God saw them, Israel was without a shepherd, an unkept, unfed flock.
Commentators hold this verse up as a mirror for anyone who cares for God's people now. The test is how they treat the hurt and the wandering.
A hard and legal spirit will never restore such a person. It will only drive him further away. I have watched in deep distress as one of these soul doctors set out to put a fallen brother right. I saw him drive that brother far away. Instead of picking him up, he knocked him further down. More than one fallen person has cried to me with tears: "They drove me away!" I knew it was true and I thought of Ezekiel 34, and the shepherds there... How we need some true shepherds today.
The chapter does not end with the damage. The judgment on the shepherds is the rescue of the sheep.
But if God is against the shepherds, He is for the sheep. He says, "I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them." And in the verses that follow we have a magnificent description of how God shepherds His flock.
God's remedy is one Shepherd of His own choosing.
In the book of Ezekiel, God had a dispute with both the shepherds and the sheep. He exposes their sins and threatens them with judgment. Then, in the most moving way possible, He pours out His compassion for the weak remnant of the flock: "because there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep... therefore I will rescue my flock... And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them and be their shepherd." (Ezek. 34:8, 22, 23.)
- No heart, no shepherd. Israel had kings, princes and teachers. God still calls it a flock without a shepherd. Men filled the place; the shepherd's heart was missing.
- No shepherd, no flock. With no one to lead, the sheep break apart. They scattered because the leaders fed themselves, not because the sheep were weak.
- No flock, no safety. Together they could have held off the enemy. Alone, each one is easy food.
- No shepherd then either. When Christ came, religion was busy and teachers were many. He still saw an unfed, unkept flock — and had compassion on it.
- One Shepherd, and the flock is safe. God turns against the false shepherds because He is for the sheep. He rescues them from the mouths that fed on them, and sets one Shepherd over them: His servant David.
My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill, and my sheep have been scattered upon all the face of the earth, and there was none that searched, or that sought for them.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.