Good Shepherds and Bad Shepherds: Jeremiah and John 10

In the Old Testament, one of the most common imageries for a leader or king is that of a shepherd. Kings and their people are viewed like shepherds and their flock; defenseless nations are like sheep without a shepherd. Jeremiah uses this imagery frequently, more so than any other of the prophets. Jeremiah’s use of the shepherd king is an easy way to come to understand the Old Testament concept of the shepherd king.

For example, in Jeremiah, we see God’s judgment on Israel and Judah both because of and through their bad shepherds. The shepherds of Israel are accused of abusing and misleading the flock of God–that is, the people of Israel and Judah (Jer 12:10; 50:6). Jeremiah describes the bad leaders of his day as bad or even stupid shepherds (Jer 2:8; 10:21). Indeed, the bad character of these shepherds serves both as a cause of God’s judgment, but in the face of coming Babylonian invasion, also a means of God’s judgment. Israel’s bad leader frequently misled the people during the Babylonian invasion and aftermath, culminating in the murder of Gedaliah and flight to Egypt (Jeremiah 41–44), a sequence of events reminiscent of the worst abuses in Israel under the times of the Judges.

Perhaps the single passage that most encapsulates Israel’s bad shepherds is Jeremiah 23:1–4:

“Woe, o shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture,” says Yahweh. Therefore, thus says Yahweh the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who shepherds my people, “You have scattered my flock and driven them out, and you did not appoint [guardianship over] them. Behold, I am appointing [punishment] over you and your evil deeds,” says Yahweh.

“But I will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands where I have driven them out there, and I will return them to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. Then I will raise up over them shepherds, and they will shepherd them, and they will not fear again, nor will they be dismayed, nor will they be appointed [for punishment],” says Yahweh.¹

Jeremiah 23:1–4

In Jeremiah 23:1–4, Yahweh recounts the failure and malpractice of Israel’s bad leaders, but he also points to a future in which Yahweh will give his people good shepherds who will take good care of them. God will execute judgment on the bad shepherds (Jer 22:22; 25:34–36; 51:23), but Yahweh, who is the good shepherd (Jer 17:6; 31:10) will appoint good shepherds after his own heart for his people (Jer 3:15; 23:4).

Christians should find this all familiar. Psalm 23 famously declares Yahweh as our good shepherd. But Jesus himself also explains this same concept in John 10. In John 10, Jesus describes those shepherds who came before him as thieves and liars (John 10:8). Jesus talks of shepherds who were faithless hirelings, neither caring for nor appointing guard over the sheep (John 10:12–13). Purported shepherds of God’s flock proved themselves false by failing in their responsibility to lay down their lives for the sheep. When Jesus identifies himself as the ultimate good shepherd, he points to himself as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel in Jeremiah, and the leaders of the church and of future Israel under him as New Covenant fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies.

With that said, Jeremiah uses his theology of good and bad shepherds to unfold a real drama in the history of Israel culminating in the murder of Gedaliah and flight to Egypt. The driving question of the plot of this drama is, “Would the last kings of Judah prove to be faithful shepherds or faithless hirelings?” Jeremiah 38–39 lays out this drama in the life of the last king of Judah before the fall of the temple in 586 BC: Zedekiah. How would he respond to Jeremiah’s prophecy? How would this shepherd of Israel turn out? (Well this is Jeremiah, so we can guess the answer is “very badly.”) We’ll leave the answer for the next blog post.

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¹ Translation mine. Brackets indicate “added” text for clarity. Linguists frequently debate the exact meanings of the Hebrew word I have translated here as “appoint.” We can know for sure is that it is polysemous (has multiple meanings), with some of these meanings being “appoint,” “visit,” and “punish.” I translated each of them “appoint” here to emphasize that Jeremiah repeats this three times in the verses, making it a leitwört that serves for clever wordplay. (“You did not appoint my flock, so I will appoint you, and they will never again be appointed.”)