Ezekiel 34:3

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.

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.

The first complaint is that the shepherds fed themselves and not the sheep. They took from the sheep, instead of giving to the sheep.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.