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.