Ezekiel 34:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Prophesy against the shepherds of Israel The word shepherd, in the prophetical writings, comprehends both civil and ecclesiastical governors. See notes on Isaiah 56:11; Jeremiah 2:8. Other writers also use the same expression; princes being called shepherds of their people, as well as those who have the immediate care of their souls: see Psalms 78:71-72. Thus Homer calls Agamemnon, Ποιμεναλαων, the shepherd of the people. And as the threatenings here denounced extend to all sorts of governors, so the several sins of the princes, priests, and prophets are reproved, Ezekiel 22:25, &c. Wo to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves That regard their own profit and advantage, not the good of the people committed to their charge. The beauty of the original, רעי אשׂר היו רעים אותם, may be expressed in Latin or Greek, though not in English: pastoribus qui pascunt semet ipsos: τοις ποιμεσιν οι ποιμαινουσιν σαυτους. Plato, in the first book of his Commonwealth, describing the office of a magistrate, saith, “He should look upon himself as sustaining the office of a shepherd, that makes it his chief business to take care of his flock; not as if he were going to a feast to fill himself and satiate his appetite, or to a market to make what gain he can to himself.” Eusebius, in his twelfth book De Preparatione Evangelica, chap. 44., hath transcribed the whole passage, as an exact parallel to this place of Ezekiel. See Lowth.