For, lo,—which shall not visit, &c.— For lo,—who will not look after those that are perishing, nor seek the wandering one, nor heal the broken, nor carry the restive or the weary; but will eat the flesh of the fat one, and pluck off their hoofs. The unwise and wicked shepherd, instead of being tender and gentle with his flock, is supposed to drag them about with his iron crook, or to overdrive them in rough and stony ground, so as to break their hoofs.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The destruction of the Jewish temple and nation is here foretold.
1. They are devoted to ruin. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars; which may be understood of the temple; in building which, much cedar of Lebanon was employed; or of the gates of Jerusalem, both of them being forced open, and burnt by the Roman soldiers. The fir-tree and the cedar, the mighty men of war, the princes and rulers, are doomed to fall, and given up to the spoil; and this, being determined of God, is spoken of as already done. The oaks of Bashan, the mightiest, are now hewn down; and the forest of the vintage, or the fortified forest, Jerusalem, strong and filled with inhabitants, is destroyed; their glory is spoiled, their treasures plundered; the pride of Jordan is spoiled, the whole land of Judaea wasted; at which the lions, who infested the banks of this river, roar; the emblems of the princes and judges who oppressed and harassed the poor people.
2. This will make a howling among the shepherds, the great men of the nation, who will with bitterest grief behold these desolations, and be themselves terribly involved in them. They who roared over their prey, and were the terrors of others, have now in just judgment these terrors turned upon themselves. Note; In a day of recompence, wicked and careless shepherds, whether ministers or civil rulers, will meet the heaviest doom.
2nd, The people of the Jews are called the flock of the slaughter, as being so severely treated by their shepherds, or as devoted to the sword. The prophet, as the type or representative of Christ, is commanded to feed them, ministering his Gospel to them, that the penitent poor among them might be fed with the word of God, whilst others ripened for destruction. We have,
1. An account of their miserable condition. Their possessors, who, as good shepherds, civil or religious, should have taken all care of them, slay them; their priests, scribes, and Pharisees, by false doctrines destroyed their souls; and hold themselves not guilty, blinded by pride in their errors; and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich, making long prayers, though laden with the spoils of widows' houses, and valuing themselves on their external piety and goodness, when their burnt-offerings were robbery, and their hearts abominable; shewing no pity towards the souls of the people. And sad is that church's case, where such careless, selfish covetous pastors rule.
2. For this, God gives them up to destruction. I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, who were involved in the general guilt, and doomed to sink in one promiscuous ruin: their own intestine divisions will pave the way, and the Roman emperor, the king whom they chose, John 19:15 shall complete their desolations.
3. Before their judgment comes, Christ undertakes to feed the flock of slaughter, the poor of the flock, the faithful among them, chiefly poor people, who were made partakers of the Saviour's grace, and all the blessings of his Gospel; while the rulers and great men in general rejected the counsel of the Lord against their own souls, and thereby filled up the measure of their iniquities. To execute his pastoral office, the great Shepherd takes two slaves, the one he calls Beauty, the other Bands; concerning the meaning of which there is great diversity of opinions. But see the critical notes. Three shepherds also he cut off in one month; which may refer to the punishment of the wicked shepherds in general; or to the princes, priests, and prophets; or the three sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians; or perhaps it may relate to some singular judgment on three notorious offenders, of whom we have no record remaining.
4. For their obstinacy and impenitence the Jews in general are rejected. My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me; they could not bear his high pretensions as the Messiah, nor endure his sharp rebukes: and while the sinner persists in his enmity against God, he must be an abomination in his sight. Then said I, I will not feed you; will take no more care of them, nor continue his Gospel any longer among them: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is cut off, let it be cut off: he devotes them to the ruin which they have provoked, and consigns them over to the pestilence and the sword: and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another, through the severity of famine, or the ran-cour of their mutual animosities. And in token of this utter rejection of them, I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, to signify the ceasing of his pastoral office, and his abandoning them to destruction, the peculiar national covenant being henceforth broken and abolished; and it was broken in that day, when Christ rejected them, (see Matthew 21:43.) or when he died; and this was evident when shortly after Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed: and the poor of the flock that waited upon me, the disciples of Christ, who attended his ministry, and were generally of the poorer sort, the kingdom of God being chiefly composed of such, knew that it was the word of the Lord, it being mixed with faith in their hearts, and they fully satisfied that every tittle would come to pass as Jesus had spoken.
5. We have a particular instance of their contempt of Christ. I said unto them, Give me my price; and if not, forbear; discharge me, if you like not my service; or if you think me worth nothing, pay me nothing. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver, the price of a servant, Exodus 21:32 a goodly price, saith he ironically, that I was prized at of them: with disdain, therefore, he calls it to the potter, in the house of the Lord. To what this refers we cannot be at a loss to discover; (see Matthew 27:9-10.) this being the price for which Judas sold his master; and with this sum, which in remorse the traitor had cast down in the temple, the chief priests bought the potter's field, a waste ground where clay had been dug, to bury strangers in.
6. Their whole civil state and polity are hereupon dissolved. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel, a spirit of dissension being sowed among them, which hastened their destruction; and when destroyed by the Romans, they were separated and dispersed as captives into all lands. Thus, when ungodliness abounds, the bonds of civil society are loosed, and such a wicked people hasten their own dissolution.
3rdly, Having rejected the good Shepherd Christ Jesus, the Jewish people are given up to wicked and foolish shepherds, whom the prophet is here commanded to personate, such as were the scribes and Pharisees, who deceived and deluded the people with false expositions and vain hopes, preying upon them instead of feeding them; and, far from seeking to save that which was lost, or healing the wounded, they neglected their charge, or made their proselytes sevenfold more the children of hell than they were before; for which, heavy curses are denounced upon them: and the character and woes belong to others besides them, who in the Christian church, pretending to feed the flock of the Lord, in reality betray and destroy them. We may read,
1. The character of every foolish idol shepherd. (1.) He leaveth the flock: he neglects the duty of his ministry, resides not among the people committed to his care, and for some poor pittance, gets a hireling to supply his place. (2.) He doth not visit those that be cut off, takes no pains to recover lost souls, nor ever goes round his parish or district to admonish and exhort the people. (3.) He doth not seek the young ones, by catechising and early instruction desiring to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (4.) He doth not heal that that is broken, but, if a poor sinner applies to him under conviction of sin, with a bleeding heart, he is a physician of no value; he knows not what advice to give, and wickedly and ignorantly heals the hurt slightly, crying peace, peace, where there is no peace; thus making the evil worse. (5.) He doth not feed that that standeth still, and through weakness and hunger is ready to faint; the famished flock look up and are not fed; the husks of dry morality, or the hemlock of false doctrines, such as man's natural dignity, justification by works, and self-sufficient endeavours, are laid before them to their ruin. (6.) He eats the flesh of the fat, and tears their claws in pieces: though he hates the work of the ministry, yet he is rapacious in exacting the wages of it; and in luxury and ease devours the flesh as well as the fleece of the poor flock.
2. The curse is sure and heavy upon him. His arm shall be dried up, and his right eye darkened; judicial blindness shall seal him up under wrath; his power to oppress the flock shall be destroyed, and the sword of wrath overtake him. Woe therefore to the idol shepherd!