NOTES for Иез 34:12
The people of God are rather often compared in the prophetic sermons with the herd remained without shepherd. And Jesus also uses the same comparison, meaning first of all, the representatives of the Pharisee brotherhood, claiming the spiritual leadership and the teaching. The prophets, as Ezekiel, usually meant the priests not executing or not executing in due form the duties which were entrusted to them by God. Of course, in that case it was not about the pastoral care in the sense, in which the Pharisees-rabbis made it. The task of the priests was different: except the sacrifices and everything relating to the cult, they also had to look after the ritual purity of the people.
At first sight, it is only about the external, formal side of religion. But indeed everything was not so simple: because from the fact that man is pure or not, depended the possibility of his participation in the sacrifice, in the sacrificial meal, and hence in communion with God. And the negligence of ritual purity in such a situation could mean only one thing: the people simply did not go to the Temple, remaining religiously indifferent and without thinking about the religion, or the spiritual life. The priests reconciled with such a state of things, encouraged practically on it, becoming false shepherds, spiritually disorientating those whom they had to teach.
Well then, God by the lips of His prophet says that in such case, He will Himself take care of His herd. As seen, it is about the plan of salvation, which supposes the appearance of the Messiah. It is Him who will take the task, which the priests did not want to solve. Here is, only the priests themselves in such an arrangement are in availability, God doesn’t need them anymore, at least, as His servants.
But then the question arises about their spiritual fate in general: for, having refused to participate in the realization of God's plan, they lost not only the ministry, but also the sense of personal existence. They lost what, without which one cannot enter the Kingdom: because in order to enter there, it is necessary to be a personality and personalities without sense do not exist. And, having refused the ministry, by their refusal, they deprived themselves of salvation.