NOTES for Eze 34:1-31

Today's reading offers us one of Ezekiel's messianic prophecies. The "David" mentioned here, who is to become the shepherd of God's flock (vv. 23-24), was unambiguously associated by the prophet's contemporaries with the coming Messiah. The prophecy clearly sounded in Babylon, where the prophet ended up with the first group of Jerusalem residents deported from Judea, although Jerusalem itself had not yet been finally destroyed. The most terrible thing, the complete destruction of the city and the Temple, still lay ahead of the people. And Ezekiel, as we can see, explains to his fellow tribesmen the spiritual meaning of the events of which they had become witnesses and participants.

It appeared to many at that time that everything happening was only a misunderstanding, the intrigues of the enemies of the people of God, to which God would soon put an end, and then everything would again be as before. The prophet, however, points to the spiritual problems that led to the catastrophe: the absence of true shepherds (vv. 2-6) and the abnormal relationships within the people, who, according to God's design, were to become a people-community, but in practice were very far from this ideal (vv. 17-19).

For Ezekiel, the Babylonian devastation turns out to be only a stage on the way to the triumph of that messianic Kingdom to which Isaiah of Jerusalem had already borne witness. And Ezekiel sees in precisely this triumph the only possible way out of the situation that had developed. It is pointless to replace some shepherds with others; only God Himself can be the true Shepherd for His people (vv. 7-16). And only God Himself, through the Messiah He sends, can renew relationships within the people-community (vv. 17-24).

At first glance, such an assessment of the situation appears excessively harsh. Of course, if matters had reached a national catastrophe, the spiritual situation truly had to be extremely serious; but was there really not a single true shepherd left among the people of God who had kept faith with God and with his calling? In that case, clearly, this people would have had no future at all. The point is rather something else: in order for the Kingdom to become reality, the relationships between God and His people had to change in quality. Now each person had to learn to build his own relationships with God and with his neighbors, and to bear responsibility for them himself, without shifting it to a neighbor, a mentor, or a temple priest. For the Kingdom is above all relationships, relationships with God and with one's neighbor. And each person must build them himself, entrusting this building to no one else, whoever that other person may be and whatever he may say about himself.

The stern denunciation of the people's leaders who had failed in their duty flows naturally into a prophecy about the good shepherd from the house of David who will become a true leader. Ezekiel's contemporaries must have imagined such a shepherd as a just king who would ascend the throne after the people returned to the Promised Land. Yet as the Lord reveals the times to come in this prophecy, He Himself appears as a shepherd who guards the flocks and searches for lost sheep.

And so we see the Old and New Testaments joined in prophetic revelation, while the Gospel image of the Good Shepherd is the image of the very same God who had already revealed Himself to people in Old Testament times. We may put it another way: through this prophecy we can touch the mystery of the consubstantiality of God the Father and God the Son.

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.

The prophet Ezekiel, himself from a priestly family called to spiritual leadership in Israel, sees how far this calling is not being fulfilled. He describes this figuratively, comparing Israel to sheep and the priests to negligent shepherds. Continuing the comparison, he speaks already on God's behalf, saying that He Himself will become the true shepherd for His people. Then Israel will acquire genuine leadership; then it will become the Kingdom of God, and God will guard it, heal it, and judge it justly. All is well, but it is not clear how God intends to become this shepherd. A few verses later it is stated that "My servant David" will become shepherd and king, that is, God's promise of the Messiah-Christ is recalled. More than five hundred years will pass, Jesus will say of Himself, "I am the good shepherd," and the promise will be fulfilled. And we live in the age of prophecy fulfilled and being fulfilled.