He saith unto him the third time. — Again the question is asked, but this time the Lord uses Peter’s own word, and His question seems to say, “Dost thou, in personal affection and devotion, really love Me?” The third time, to him who had three times denied! and this time the love which Peter knows has ever filled his soul seems to be doubted. The question cuts to the very quick, and in the agony of the heart smarting beneath the wound, he appeals in more emphatic words than before to the all-seeing eye that could read the very inmost secrets of his life, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”
Feed my sheep. — The better reading is, probably, little sheep. The difference is of one letter only (πρόβατα and προβατία), and a mistake would therefore be easily made by a copyist. The diminutive word occurs nowhere else in Biblical Greek, and is almost certainly, therefore, part of the original text; but whether it was first written here or in John 21:16, or in both, must with our present knowledge be left undetermined. The order of the Received text is “lambs” (John 21:15), “sheep” (John 21:16), “sheep” (John 21:17). The Peshito Syriac must have read “lambs,” “little sheep,” “sheep”; and this is in part supported by the Vulgate, which has “agnos,” “agnos,” “oves,” and more exactly by the Latin of St. Ambrose, who has “agnos,” “oviculas,” “oves.” This would point to a three-fold gradation answering to the three-fold question, and committing to the Apostle’s care the lambs, the little sheep, the sheep of the flock of Christ. Still, it must be admitted that the more probable reading is lambs, little sheep, little sheep, and that the difference of thought is in the difference of the verbs. “Feed My lambs; be a shepherd to the weak ones of the flock; feed these weak ones.” He who loved Christ is to be like Christ, a good shepherd, giving his life for the sheep who are Christ’s. He who had been loved and forgiven, held up that he might not fall, restored after he had fallen, is to be to others what Christ had been to him — feeding men with spiritual truths as they can bear them, gently guiding and caring for those who are as the weak ones of the flock through ignorance, prejudice, waywardness. The chief work of the chief Apostle, and of every true apostle of Christ, is to win back the erring, helpless, sinful sons of men; and the power which fits them for this work is the burning love which quickens all other gifts and graces, and can appeal to the Great Shepherd Himself, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” As a remarkable instance of how the Great Shepherd’s words impressed themselves upon the Apostle’s mind, comp. 1 Peter 2:25.