Be well acquainted with the appearance of thy flocks; look well to thy herds
The verse tells a farmer two things: know your animals one by one, and keep your eye on them. Commentators read the picture as a charge about caring for people — knowing them, watching over them, and doing it while there is still time.
Human effort by itself comes to nothing. That is no reason to go slack in what God has given us to do.
The fact that mere human work is empty is no reason to be lazy in the Lord's work. Faith in the Living God and diligence go together, for in this there is no emptiness: "in the Lord your labor is not in vain." Our verse implies shepherd care. However weak the day we live in, the need of souls should draw out tireless work and concern from our own hearts.
Knowing the condition of a flock is not a head count. It means being able to tell what is wrong with one person.
The public teacher cannot do this. Certainly, if he has something of the pastor in him, his public preaching can reach a great deal of the soul's private struggles, sorrows, and difficulties. But he cannot fully meet the soul's individual need. This is the pastor's holy work. As we see it, a pastor is to the soul what a doctor is to the body. He must understand disease and medicine. He must be able to tell what is wrong. He must be able to discern the spiritual condition, so as to apply the true remedy.
That kind of knowledge costs the one who carries it.
What I mean by a pastor is a person who can carry the whole sorrow, care, misery, and sin of another on his own soul. He takes it to God, and brings back from God what will meet it, before he goes to the other person.
The second half of the verse asks for the shepherd's eye — and an eye catches small changes early.
He needs a skilled eye to watch faces, to notice movements, and to catch the first change in behaviour. Someone hurries off at the end of a meeting to avoid speaking or being spoken to. Why is this? He was not like that a while ago. Ask, and you find that he took offence at what he thought was neglect, or that the leader himself seemed to show favouritism and hurt him.
Looking well also means going out after what has drifted off.
Shepherding the sheep is more than feeding them. It is going after the sheep when they have slipped away under the hedge and may be torn by the thorns. It is comforting them, caring for them as well as feeding them, and nursing and tending them in every way.
The verse says "your flocks." Yet the flock of God was bought, and its price sets how tenderly it must be handled.
The sheep had been "purchased with the blood of His own," that is, God's own Shepherd (Cf. Zech. 13:7), and therefore of priceless value to Him. This fact should move our hearts in diligent, tenderest care for all the flock of God.
The window for this work has an end.
Time for work in natural things is limited, and natural wisdom makes use of the present. How true this is in the things of God! We have only the present to work for the Lord, to gain for Him what will please Him in the day of rewards. "Engage in business until I come," He says. When He comes, the account cannot be put off.
The flock also feeds and clothes the one who tends it. The care comes back to the carer, and the animals point past the farm.
Care for souls, young and tender as they may be, works for our own benefit too. The wool of the lambs clothes the shepherd, and the price of the goats is enough to buy land. There is also a reminder of sacrifice here. The lamb pictures the Lord Jesus in His quiet submission in death for us, and that is what really clothes us in the eyes of God.
- Diligence — the emptiness of human effort is no excuse for laziness. Faith and hard work belong together, because work for the Lord is never wasted.
- Know — real care works like a doctor with a body. It tells what is wrong with one person and brings the right remedy.
- Look — watching means catching the first small change. Then it means going after the one who slipped away, instead of waiting for them to come back.
- Whose — the flock was bought with the blood of God's own Shepherd. Its value, not our energy, sets how tender the care must be.
- Now — we only have the present to work for the Lord. That work feeds and clothes the shepherd himself, and it points back to the Lamb who clothes us before God.
for wealth is not for ever; and doth the crown [endure] from generation to generation?
The verse just before this one tells the owner to know his flocks and herds well. Here Solomon gives the reason for that care: wealth runs out, and no crown lasts through every generation.
If nothing we build lasts, why work hard at all? One writer turns that thought around.
The emptiness of man's own work is no reason to be lazy in the Lord's work. Faith in the Living God and diligence go together. In the Lord's work there is no emptiness: "your labour is not in vain in the Lord." Our verse implies shepherd care, of course. However weak the day we live in, the need of souls should draw out tireless labour and concern from our own hearts.
The same writer draws out the deadline inside that reason.
Time for work in natural things runs out, and natural wisdom makes the most of the present. How true, too, in the things of God! We have only the present to labour for the Lord, to acquire for Him what will please Him in the day of rewards. "Engage in business until I come," He says, for then there will be no delaying of the account.
One writer sets out the two warnings the apostle gives to people with money.
So the apostle warns first against pride, and then against resting your hopes on wealth. Money soon grows wings and flies away. Its owner is often called away himself, in the middle of his plans to make himself great. "Uncertainty of riches" indeed: how true and expressive!
The same writer names the one thing riches cannot outlast.
Confidence in riches is unsafe. Riches certainly make wings for themselves and fly away like an eagle toward heaven. No wonder that the man who trusts in them will fall. On the other hand, righteousness endures, whatever comes from outside.
The verse's second line moves from private wealth to public power. One writer answers from history, then names the one exception.
The fact is that there never has been a king in this world who has not, sooner or later, lost his crown. There never has been a kingdom that has not been overthrown, or is going to be. But God is about to bring in a King who will never lose His crown, and a kingdom that will never pass away.
If nothing here stays with us, ownership itself needs rethinking. One writer puts the danger in our hearts, not in the things themselves.
Our danger lies in the tendency of our hearts to seek a portion here, to hold present things as though they belonged to us. In truth, nothing here belongs to us. Our portion is in the eternal things. We hold what we have only as stewards, on trust. We must give account for all.
The verse asks whether a crown endures. One writer points to the one crown that does.
"When the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory" (1 Peter 5:4). Here the Apostle Peter is speaking to the pastors of the flock of God. He tells them of the unfading crown of glory that the Chief Shepherd will award to faithful under-shepherds. It is an unfading crown, unlike the laurel crown of the Corinthian games, which began to fade as soon as the winner put it on his head.
- Nothing here endures — riches grow wings and fly away, and no king in this world has kept his crown.
- So work now — our time runs out; the present is all we have to gain what will please the Lord "in the day of rewards."
- Hold, don't own — nothing here belongs to us; we hold it as stewards, and we must give account.
- Tend the flock — the care our verse calls for is shepherd care, and the need of souls should draw out tireless concern.
- One thing endures — righteousness outlives riches, and the Chief Shepherd's crown never fades.