All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
All that ever came before me - the false prophets; not as claiming the prerogatives of Messiah, But as perverters of the people from the way of life leading to Him. So Olshausen.
Are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them - the instinct of their divinely taught hearts preserving them from seducers, and attaching them to the heaven-sent prophets of whom it is said that "the Spirit of Christ was in them" (1 Peter 1:11).