NOTES for Eze 34:1-31

From our earliest years, we learn from someone, obey someone, and have someone who takes responsibility for us, feeds us, and cares for us—in short, shepherds us. When we come to faith, we often simply pass from one set of teachers to another, from one set of rules to another, and from one system of values to another.

But the essence of faith about which the prophet Ezekiel speaks to us today is much deeper and more serious. God promises His people that He Himself will shepherd them, judge, care for, seek and find, correct and punish them. In one prophecy, the prophet joins the promises of God’s direct guidance with that of the mediation of “David” (that is, the King from his line), which allows us to see in it a reference to the divine nature of the Mediator. Thus, when we become part of God’s people, we become the object of the care and responsibility not only of the leaders of Christian communities (some pastors still remember this), but above all of God Himself.