Ezekiel 34

1-10 Israel’s False Shepherds

1-2 God to Ezekiel: Prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: Shouldn’t shepherds feed the flock?

3-6 But you have not. Instead, you

• eat fat and wear wool, slaughtering the fatlings
• do not feed the sheep
• have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strays, nor sought the lost
• have ruled them with force and harshness
• have caused them to scatter over the face of the earth because they had no shepherd.

7-10 Because my sheep have become prey for wild animals, I will stop the shepherds from feeding my sheep; I will rescue my sheep from their mouths.

11-31 God, the True Shepherd

11-15 I will seek my sheep and rescue them from the places where they’ve scattered, bring them back to their own land, feed them with good pasture, make them lie down. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but will destroy the fat and the strong.

16 “I will feed them with justice.”

17-19 As for the flock I will judge between sheep and sheep, rams and goats: those who feed on good pasture and tread down the rest of the pasture; those who drink clear water and foul the rest with their feet.

20-22 I will judge between the fat and the weak – those who have butted the weak animals – and will save my flock from being ravaged.

23-24 I will give them one shepherd, David, who will feed them. I will be their God and David will be my prince. This has to refer to the promised descendant of David, the Messiah, for David had died generations before. John 10:1-18 confirms it. Verse 14 and 15 read:

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

25-29 I will

• make a covenant of peace with them and banish wild animals so they can live securely
• make them showers of blessings
• make the earth fruitful for them
• break their yokes of slavery
• rescue them from those who would devour and insult them.
• provide for them so they’ll never be hungry

30-31 They will know they are my people, the sheep of my pasture, and that I am their God.