What a picture of leading, guarding, comforting, is painted by the word "shepherd"! Throughout Holy Writ, and doubtless in all the religious lore of the East, the symbolism of shepherd and sheep occurs and recurs to show the heavenly Father's tender care and protection of His children. Just a glance at the references under the words "shepherd" and "sheep" in a Bible concordance will show how frequently, in both the Old and the New Testament, this figure was used to teach God's nearness to and love for His creation.
But the prophet Ezekiel, in another vein, has quite a little to say about those human shepherds, the materially -minded teachers and leaders of men, who "feed themselves" and not their flocks. His arraignment of this type of thought is scathing. We read (Ezek. 34:4), "The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken,... but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them." Then he prophesies the coming of a spiritual sense of shepherding which will "seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day."
The carnal mind, with its fears, limitations, and suggestions of discord and lawlessness, has ever been a cruel taskmaster, a shepherd unworthy of the name. The sheep, which are victimized, ignorant mortal men and women, apparently at the mercy of matter and its vagaries, have indeed been "scattered in the cloudy and dark day." Evidently, to the great Teacher of Nazareth, the human family appeared thus. In Mark's Gospel (6:34) the writer states that Jesus had great compassion for the multitude "because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things."
